Fleet Owner Blues

[ericmoss37]

I've been a fleet owner at Fedex Ground for two years now and I make enough to pay my bills and have a little fun. I was disapointed with my earnings so I turned to Expediting. I signed on with Panther a few weeks back. I own a class 7 and class 8 straight truck with 70' sleeper that is loaded. The boxs is 22ft long with lift gate.

My question is do most fleet owners lose sleep at night? I don't know what to tell my new driver. He only grossed $475 this week and he was out all seven days. He did four loads and two of three of them were under 200 miles. He had one big run of 589 miles. He finished the week with 1,100 miles and very unhappy. I am not having him refuse any loads because I want to build up a reputation of reliability and great service. What do other fleet owners do to retain drivers in slow times? I try to tell him that some weeks are going to be better then others and when it's good it's good. When it's bad it's bad, but neither one lasts forever. The driver is frustrated and he does not want to leave me in a bad position because I have been good to him. For those are wondering I pay .45 cents a mile for straight truck and take out the taxes and file for the drivers. They have employee rights and I try to provide them with a benifit plan like I do at my Ground business. I have a friend that understands the business better and he's going to start driving for me in April, so I hope this driver lasts at least that long. I have another guy in orientation because I had a person flake out after going to class at Panther. They had a huge blizzard and he went home and returned to the truck two days later. He said he would not drive it because the powersteering was gone. I had the local TA come down and they told me nothing was wrong with the truck. I never heard from the kid again, so I hope this new guy works out and I can get both of my units on the road.

 

[ericmoss37]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I kept my ground business, so this is a secondary form of income right now.

 

[Kyreax]

Weird, you've had people just up and disappear into thin air?

Anyways, that sure isn't MY work Ethic.

I lose sleep at night being a business owner of a different sort, and I think its pretty par for the course for any business.

Oh, and what was your gross for the week for those 1100 miles? Is there any such thing as a minimum week's pay for driver's working for fleet owners?

 

[ericmoss37]

Yeah it was weird because he was at Orientation on time every day and even returned to the truck. This guy has been out of work a while and he drove 100 miles each way for four days. After he reported the problem to me I said I would get it fixed and he never returned my phone calls after that.

 

[kwexpress]

went to work for someone else at panther most likely

 

[ericmoss37]

LOL.. never thought of that. I wasted $100 dollars getting that powersteering hose looked at. The mechanic called me up and said the truck had nothing wrong with it and the splash guard was rubbing a bit, but he could turn the wheel with two fingers.

 

[pjjjjj]

He only grossed $475 this week and he was out all seven days. He did four loads and two of three of them were under 200 miles. He had one big run of 589 miles. He finished the week with 1,100 miles and very unhappy. The driver is frustrated and he does not want to leave me in a bad position because I have been good to him. For those are wondering I pay .45 cents a mile for straight truck and take out the taxes and file for the drivers.

How was he out 7 days if only 4 loads (2-3 under 200mi)? When you say he grossed $475, does he have any expenses or is that just straight income? He also gets benefits?

 

[kwexpress]

hayou may think its funny but most likely true I spent a few years there aand it happend to me more than once.I remember one guy was from south bend ,IN I paid his way there he went to class went home the truck sat in soth bend for a week before I found out he went to work for someone else nobody from panther called and said a word.had a team in nashville met another owner he offered them more money and a new truck they took off with him left my truck in nashville.had a driver sat in rockford,IL and somehow he managed to get 1,500 in advances over the week and didnt run 1 load. now in all fairness that was back in the late 90's and I am sure alot of things have changed since then but being a fleet owner gave me the blues more than once being with them and not just them either.

 

[jaminjim]

I own a class 7 and class 8 straight truck with 70' sleeper that is loaded. The boxs is 22ft long with lift gate.

Did you already own these trucks? If not why go with a smaller sleeper, it limits the pool of drivers to solo's. Team drivers for expedite is the most profitable choice.

My question is do most fleet owners lose sleep at night? I don't know what to tell my new driver.

He only grossed $475 this week and he was out all seven days.
His average gross will only be $200.00 more per week, hope that he won't be unhappy with that.

He did four loads and two of three of them were under 200 miles. He had one big run of 589 miles. He finished the week with 1,100 miles and very unhappy. I am not having him refuse any loads because I want to build up a reputation of reliability and great service. What do other fleet owners do to retain drivers in slow times? I try to tell him that some weeks are going to be better then others and when it's good it's good. When it's bad it's bad, but neither one lasts forever.

For those are wondering I pay .45 cents a mile for straight truck and take out the taxes and file for the drivers. They have employee rights and I try to provide them with a benifit plan like I do at my Ground business.

Just asking, but why do you want employees? It seems that it is the most costly way to operate, with few if any advantages. Note I did NOT say wrong way to do it, just curious as to what you feel the advantages are.

 

[jaminjim]

Boy I will have to work on that quoting thingy.

 

[x06col]

I have found it best by far, to never own more trucks than you can drive by yourself at the same time. There will be a never ending amount of heartburn with a clown or clownette running around the country in your truck. And, that is after you get them to show up, and get started. Seems after you actually get a driver slowed down and settled in, is when the sleepless nights start.

 

[ericmoss37]

You asked why I make my drivers employees. I do it because under R.I the independent contractor has to work for more than one person and bring his own assets to the job. Plus drivers appreciate that they don't have to worry about spending their tax money. I am pretty sure the laws above are the same in all states because Fedex Ground is getting killed by the IRS and state government for their use of independent contractors.

 

[ericmoss37]

He gross $479.25 and netted $376.48. I pay for everything. Thats straight income at .45 cents a loaded mile. He recieved another load at the end of the pay period, but the delivery is not until Monday at eight A.M. I could not include that in this pay period. That would have given him another 372 miles this week.

 

[ericmoss37]

We are retooling our plan. The driver is in town today to pay his rent and we are meeting for lunch. I think the key is to refuse loads under 300 miles because between loading docks you lose to much hours of service. He's averaging about 50 minutes at each dock and he gets there to early most of the time. Chysler in Dearborn made him sit and wait two hours past delivery to get into the loading dock. On top of that he was there three hours early so he sat in a parking lot wasting five hours of hours of service. It also did not help that the truck had to be returned to the dealer for half a day because the truck was not delivered as promissed. I think he needs to manage his time better he is new to this and so am I.

 

[x06col]

There will ALWAYS be a hunnerd reasons why they need to go home. In your case, "he has to pay the rent", how pathetic. There seems to be no time management used by most. DH a few hunnerd miles to pay rent, aunts birthday, get the watch cleaned, go to the bank, whatever happened to using a service that is available when you are. It never ends.

 

[iceroadtrucker]

Hello Eric, COL & ONT
This is the Major
Let me get this straight U pay by the mile.
Give the guy a raise and pay him percentage of the load and dont be a cheap scape pay him 20% off the top for a team and 40% off the Top for a single. Ull keep him and he will be happy. Dont be a cheap Like my mine and pay off the Bottom. Needless to say Monie talks and There is some one who will pay me the above in the Company so I wont switch companies just Fire the one that I am doing business with now.
So pay the Price and remember monie talks and BS Walks.
by the way if What U hire is Cry babies that wont stay out. Thats UR Fault. Ive been out here since JAN. now U go figure.
There are ones that will stay out but is your equipment Junk or the right stuff.
As before U get what U pay for so pay .
Think about it.
Other wise Ull gona loose in the long run.

ICEROADTRUCKER
RIdge Runner
TImber Ridge IOWA

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Oh Col..your so right...I used to manage a fleet of about 10 trucks and I gotta tell ya I've never seen more candya##es in my life.....it's too cold, it's too hot, i don't hand bomb, the trucks dirty....on and on. I need Friday off, I need, I need, I need.....Drivers...I wouldn't want to have one ever again. Pretty well anyone can drive a truck....but have a brain too????

 

[x06col]

Well Iceroad, some WANT paid by the mile, some WANT paid by percentage. I paid my drivers 40% of CARRIER gross, and still don't work.

Only way it'd work is to pay them to stay home, prolly work for a while till they screwed themselves out of a spot at the dinner table, then they'd need a raise for their larger family.

Jes ain't no end to it. Trust me.

 

[greg334]

Here is a bit of advice, maybe it is not good advice but I would just stick to the FedEx Ground for now and if I would have to, branch out to maybe UPS. These things you know, you already are making money in them, why kill yourself over this business and enter at the worst possible time?

 

[ericmoss37]

Greg might have the best advice so far, but I already bought the trucks. Ice, I did the math with the 40%-60% and I made about $300 dollars this week with that calculation. That is before any truck repairs. I made about $580 dollars using the milage method of .45 cents. Both dollar amounts are unacceptable. I understand that there are good weeks and bad weeks in this business. Like I posted above we need to be more careful of what loads we accept and how much the fuel surcharge is paying. He has to stop getting to the delivery three hours early becase most of the time the docks are not occuppied and he loses time.