There are plenty of people with nice custom trucks and enjoy the business. I can't imagine why you would think your the only one?
The difference is they are not putting out controversial or inaccurate posts out. You'll also notice they don't have those same responses that some of yours generate.
You have had this issue since you have been here at EO, and at numerous other sites with other members.
Consider the issues might be something in your message or how it is delivered.
Controversial, perhaps. Inaccurate, never. I can subsantiate every word I write, including every word I have written about ROI. But trying to do so is fruitless with some readers who frame their responses long before they attempt to understand what I am saying in the first place.
Please...let's not go into this. It is not worth the trouble. But as I read responses about ROI, it seems we are saying mostly the same thing but coming at it in different ways.
Is is important to be profitable as an expediter? Of course it is. Even for those who are in it for the camping trip, if they are not also in it for the money, they will not be in it for long.
The problem is ROI is an abstract concept. There are precise differences between return on investoment, return on equity, return on capital, etc. The forum differs from a classroom where a professor can moderate and guide student discussions about such concepts. Online, people tend to write casually, not critcially, and to talk past each other instead with each other. That's OK. Such is the way of the internet. But in the case of this ROI discussion, train wreck is an apt metaphore.
I don't believe ROI is worth spending a lot of time on. In in our one-truck expediting business, I give ROI essentially zero thought. That is not to say I do not believe in profits. Indeed i do. And I manifest that belief in my day-to-day actions as an expediter.
Now, there are others who disagree, strongly in some cases. If they really believed ROI is something readers should know more about and understand, the thing to do would be to start a new thread about the topic and explain ROI as they wish it explained ... and not in abstract terms.
Make it real. Put it in concrete terms that are easy for most people to grasp. Provide an example; something like a hypothetical team that buys a $150,000 truck. Given your understanding of ROI, what exactly is it this team should know? Provide an ROI figure that you believe is acceptable and then provide the numbers that show what these peple need to do to achieve your stated ROI goal.
In other words, for a team about to buy a $150,000 truck, what common expenses must they know about and what kind of revenue must they generate, over what period of time, to achieve the ROI you say is so important?
Or, if you wish, go at it another way. Say a team has produced gross revenue of $200,000 a year in a fleet owner's truck and say they are now about to buy a truck of their own. Including your notion of ROI in the mix, how should they calculate the dollar amount of truck they can afford?
These are not questions for me to answer because I continue to maintain ROI is not a significant indicator in a one-truck expedite business. But for people arguing that ROI is of vital importance, readers would benefit if you explained it in real-world terms, would they not?
Do we own it? Nope. We drive for the owner. Do we operate it like we own it? Yep.
