How much would you charge an Owner?

[Bruno]

I want ask everyone that is in Expediting, How much is a fair amount you would charge an owner to manage their truck each week. Here is the list of some of the things you would have to do.

Find drivers for the truck. After taking and making many phone calls to get them to class.

Picking them up at the airport or bus station on Sunday before Class on Monday morning.

Getthing the truck ready for the drivers and making sure they have all the right paperwork in the truck.

Getting the drivers to sit down and go over the lease they need to sign before the truck goes out.

Taking many phone calls each day from the drivers on loads and where they should layover at.

Finding loads or backhaul loads to keep the drivers moving.

Dealing with breakdown in the middle of the night and finding a repair shop to get the truck in and out so they can be back in service.

Making sure all paperwork is turned in to the company your leased on with on time, like Loads, fuel tickets, inspection reports so the trucks are not place out of service, and so on.

Getting woke up in the middle of the night because the co-driver wants to fight with the lead driver about how much driving he is doing.

Doing settlement sheets for each drivers settlement every week.

Get the truck in the shop on the weekends to have repairs or a PM done when the drivers are taking there time off.

Doing small repairs on the trucks when the drivers at home and the truck is parked at the yard. Changing headlights, wipers, greasing the truck between pm's.

These are just some of the things you would do. What would you charge per truck? Now rememeber you will need an office so you can do this without everyone coming to your home and turning your home into a truck stop.

You spend 15 to 30 hours a week doing these things per truck

 

[arkjarhead]

You spend 15 to 30 hours a week doing these things per truck

How many trucks?

 

[Bruno]

This is based on per truck. lets say two or three to start, then the amount you would charge for each truck added on.

 

[arkjarhead]

I'm just trying to get the amount of hours straight right now. I mean we're talking 30-90 hours a week here. That's a full time job. I don't what it costs to live in Seville and I would think that would play a large role in the quote. Just my 2 cents. Unless I'm confused on something.

 

[eggd1ver]

Burno who is the owner of the truck you or the driver on a lease? As far as getting to class thats the person who is wanting to drive for the carriers responabilty. For paper work that goes with loads and service me and my wife do that and we drive for a fleet owner. For what I think your question is I would pay 15% if I lease a truck.


Rick % Ida
Panther Drivers

 

[TeamCaffee]

I think a lot would depend on the owners knowledge of trucking and the true hours spent keeping trucks on the road. I have not managed a truck but 15 to 30 hours a week seems a little excessive and a pretty broad range to base the numbers on. If there is many trucks then I think a set salary would have to be the way to go.

 

[Tennesseahawk]

15% seems a little high. You figure the team gets 40, fuel-35 (depending on FSC). That's 75 right there. 7-10% sounds about right. During an average month, the "caretaker" would pull in around 700-1000 per truck.

 

[Bruno]

I think a lot would depend on the owners knowledge of trucking and the true hours spent keeping trucks on the road. I have not managed a truck but 15 to 30 hours a week seems a little excessive and a pretty broad range to base the numbers on. If there is many trucks then I think a set salary would have to be the way to go.

Trust me Linda, I work about 70 to 80 hours a week on avg doing this with 5 trucks of an owners trucks. I had to hire a Fleet manager for our trucks because I was only getting 5 hours of sleep each day. Right now we deal with over 10 drivers in these trucks. I left the office at 10 pm last night and I started my day at 8 am. I need to go on the road for a vacation and more sleep.

 

[nightcreacher]

As an owner,I don't see where there is enough money in this business to split it one more way.
If I'm going to have a fleet of trucks,my job as the owner would also be to manage the business.If I'm a doctor ,lawyer,or indian chief,and I'm use my trucking company as a tax shelter,then I might consider useing a manager,but like any job,it can be over done.
If you micro manage these drivers,they no longer are contract labor but employees,now as there manager,you may be cought in the middle,and have to pay their taxes,instead of the owner.To scary for me
When I had my small fleet of 3 trucks,I gave them the truck,that was their tool for doing the work,they did all that was necessary to complete the work,and the only time I wanted to here from my people was if they had a problem with the truck,I never had anyone that needed managed.
When I had my 3 trucks,I was driving 1 of them,there were no cell phones,if the people needed me,they would.contact me thru Roberts via qual com,although this didn't happen much,it was more like Roberts wanting to see if I cold get them to take a load they didn't want to take.
These other two trucks netted me five figures after expenses,so something must have worked.
I just remembered one thing,I don't pay someone to manage my business,but I do pay my sister to pay my bills,and enter into the computer the business part of what I do,for this she gets $200 per week,this is for 1 truck but was the same when I had 3.

 

[pjjjjj]

Sounds like there are several things going on here.. marketing/recruitment/HR person, fleet manager, administrative assistance, dispatch, call centre, accounting, etc.

If it were a fulltime job, something like that might pay something like $60-80K or more. If you're doing it part-time, and you're still driving yourself, my guess is the fleet-owner won't want to pay that much. I agree there wouldn't be enough revenue to even have a person like that, and especially for just a few trucks. But if someone wants to be a fleet owner without doing the work required, there isn't much choice. Can't expect someone to do all that stuff for free, can you?

You might want to bill it on a 'per-driver' basis, for all the work involved up to the orientation, training, and lease-signing. You get so much for each driver who gets to that point, win some, lose some.

After that, I'd want to make sure the drivers were trained well enough to be responsible for all the things they need to do on their own, like ensuring correct paperwork is handed in on time. If it's not, it should be their responsibility and their consequences.

Being on call to field any calls and deal with problems I'd bill on a time-as-needed-basis.

Same for finding loads, perhaps billed on a percentage of the load?

Then maybe a set hourly rate per week for keeping the trucks maintained.

After all is said and done, the fleet-owner may find it would be less expensive to just hire a full-time fleet manager to look after everything afterall.

Oh and of course, the fleet-owner should also be paying for office/yard/garage space.

 

[Bruno]

Okay it's ten trucks we are talking about and yes it's a full time job for two people. That's 20 drivers in all. My phone never stops ringing it seems like from 8 am till midnight sometimes.

 

[x06col]

Okay it's ten trucks we are talking about and yes it's a full time job for two people. That's 20 drivers in all. My phone never stops ringing it seems like from 8 am till midnight sometimes.

Ten trucks? If you were getting twenty phone calls a day, i'd think would be a stretch. Any more than that, i'd have to speak with them about phone discipline. I'd say you can't charge for the "wait'in for the call" that is just part of what you signed up for. Maintaining ten trucks as they slide thru home base seems to be about ten times a month (max). I anticipate you won't be wrenching, so scheduleing takes ten minutes or so. Yada, yada.

Seems you are trying to complicate the simple. If it'll be too large a task for you, i'd just charge too much, so's it won't be a problem.

BTW, i'd help that fleet out for five percent of gross.

 

[Dynamite 1]

not to be negative, but it seems that more responsibility needs to be demanded of your drivers. sending in paperwork for loads, keeping track of what is going to expire and servicing the truck are all things they should be doing on their own. they should notify you when the trk. is due a pm. breakdowns are what they are and you need to be involved. driving hours, i could see a problem arising if the team did not see eye to eye but i would make it clear as to how it is to be done. i think the 5 to 7% per truck is a good figure. cause just doing the few things mentioned would free up some time. as far as orientation goes i would not offer a shuttle service but as a last resort of losing a potential driver i would pick them up, after i was sure they had exhausted all other forms of getting there. as for contracts, they would have a copy right after the first phone call if they were truly interested and i had a good feeling they were compitant. then i would stress every time we spoke to read it. as far as small truck issues they should be able to change a headlight or a fuse or wiperblades. this is essentially their truck for the purpose of making a living and they have to be responsible for some things that need to be done. none of these are asking to much. when you dont require your drivers to be responsible and proactive then you become a babysitter, hensforth requiring more time managing them. dont get me wrong, there is management needed, cause in the end, they have your truck. its like any business, if your employees cannot manage to get their work done while the boss is gone doing his, then they are not good employees. but that does not mean they cant become one. just some ideas or helpfull criticisim. just a few things i learned from managing people in a small business where i needed to be away but things still needed to get done.

 

[davekc]

This really does look like complicating the simple. A lot of the items are just when you first hire someone and shouldn't be a on going thing. New drivers should be able to get to a hotel room and orientation without much assistance. Basic truck maintenance (like changing a light bulb) should be the drivers responsibility rather than waiting until they get home. Might cost a few extra dollars but the price would be cheaper than a external office.
Use synthetic grease and that should eliminate grease jobs between PM's.
As for drivers, don't hire people that aren't in a relationship. Two families out of one truck is a recipe for misery. That eliminates calls about "who is driving too much"
Speaking for me, I enjoy talking to the drivers so that doesn't bother me, but I don't want calls at 3am unless it is a breakdown/accident that type of thing.
The rest of it would be a long the lines of what Linder said. It would depend on how effective you are in keeping them moving. So.......charge a small fee for settlements and fielding phone calls. The longer they are there, the less they will likely call you.
Layover calls shouldn't be too bad or long because the driver/fleet owner has all the information.
If you are finding the loads, a percentage of each load. As a fleet owner, I benefit as well as the driver. Pretty much the same reason we have very little turnover.

 

[Moot]

You spend 15 to 30 hours a week doing these things per truck

I work about 70 to 80 hours a week on avg doing this with 5 trucks of an owners trucks. I had to hire a Fleet manager for our trucks because I was only getting 5 hours of sleep each day. Right now we deal with over 10 drivers in these trucks.

Okay it's ten trucks we are talking about and yes it's a full time job for two people. That's 20 drivers in all.

It appears your fleet is growing at an astronomical rate resulting in too much time being spent on driver orientation activities. Or is it high driver turnover?

My phone never stops ringing it seems like from 8 am till midnight sometimes.

I know of one large expedite carrier that uses an automated phone answering system. Each incoming call is directed to an electronic queuing purgatory where the caller can spend up to 38 minutes listening to a recording drone on about really important stuff, over and over and over and over.

You should invest in a system like this. I'm thinking an Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton) type voice. This should discourage drivers from constantly calling in, except in an emergency. 30 minutes on hold should get their minds right.

Good luck!

 

[jaminjim]

Bruno;

I want ask everyone that is in Expediting,

Everyone, not sure how some people would know the financial answer to that.

How much is a fair amount you would charge an owner to manage their truck each week.

The amount you charge for one truck compared to several trucks is not the way to look at it. It takes as long to manage one truck as it does three.

Find drivers for the truck. After taking and making many phone calls to get them to class.

Picking them up at the airport or bus station on Sunday before Class on Monday morning.

Getthing the truck ready for the drivers and making sure they have all the right paperwork in the truck.

Hopefully you are not having to this more than once every six months per truck on average.

Getting the drivers to sit down and go over the lease they need to sign before the truck goes out.

This should be done via fax or e-mail for several reasons. It gives the driver an unhurried chance to review the contract and write down any concerns that he has, and if he wants to take it to an Attorney for review, he can do that prior to showing up for orientation. Panther recruiting will handle the actual signing of the lease for you and fax you a copy of the signed lease.

Taking many phone calls each day from the drivers on loads and where they should layover at.

Hopefully you are mentoring them so that the calls decline over a period of time.

Finding loads or backhaul loads to keep the drivers moving.

Also covered in the mentoring portion of your job. Although there is usually enough time to handle this during the day.

Dealing with breakdown in the middle of the night and finding a repair shop to get the truck in and out so they can be back in service.

This problem can drive you nuts, and there is not a good way to avoid it, but at the same time the newer the fleet the less problems you encounter, unless the trucks are Hino's. So the older the fleet the more you should charge.

Making sure all paperwork is turned in to the company your leased on with on time, like Loads, fuel tickets, inspection reports so the trucks are not place out of service, and so on.

If you keep up with the paper work, that part of the job is not that time consuming. Kinda like doing a Logbook, "Do it as they do it"

Getting woke up in the middle of the night because the co-driver wants to fight with the lead driver about how much driving he is doing.

Sounds like you need to review your hiring practices.

Doing settlement sheets for each drivers settlement every week.

This only takes about ten minutes per truck per week, or settlement period. Do you use Excel and down load the Fleets settlement from the website? If you do its just a matter of copy and paste.

Get the truck in the shop on the weekends to have repairs or a PM done when the drivers are taking there time off.

Have them drop the truck off.

Doing small repairs on the trucks when the drivers at home and the truck is parked at the yard. Changing headlights, wipers, greasing the truck between pm's.

Most of this is the drivers job. Why are you greasing a truck other than the one you own/drive? Your the manager not the mechanic, unless your being paid to work on the trucks also. How many trucks are there? Why do you maintain a "yard"? If the number of trucks is less than 10 you shouldn't need a yard in my opinion.

What would you charge per truck?

You have to decide if you are making a living as a Fleet Manager or as an O/O, if your going to do both you will need very well maintained newer equipment so that you can attract and retain good teams. I also think that you would need to be a solo so that you can take loads that don't interfere with your fleet managers responsibilities.

Now rememeber you will need an office so you can do this without everyone coming to your home and turning your home into a truck stop.

I don't see any reason that you need to have drivers stop at the house. If you are running thirty or forty trucks yes an office might be good. If you are running 5 or 10 trucks meet them at the coffee shop or at Panther or the truckstop.

You spend 15 to 30 hours a week doing these things per truck

Try looking at your practices, and see if you are doing things as efficiently as you can, my limited experience doing that job is that it takes about the same amount of time to properly manage one as two, three as five.

 

[usafk9]

As a former rental property owner, I am all too aware of hiring people to manage something that is supposed to generate revenue. Doing that put me in the poor house.

That being said, I know of two teams that drive for a "manager" that frequents this site. I also know who owns the trucks. The manager charges $1k per month, per truck, and he manages several. He gives his drivers free reign, and it is killing these two trucks' owner. Reason is that he allows them to accept very cheap freight, with no consideration for where the pending layover is, and whether that layover is conducive to freight calls for that specific type of equipment. $.20 plus FSC is great to offset fuels costs, but sucks when you consider that fee is split with the drivers, and nothing goes to an equipment replacement account, nor to everyday wear and tear.

I am aware of this specific owner having to pull money from his regular "job" to make ends meet every month, as he has a payment on these vehicles. In this scenario, the manager benefits, the drivers benefit, and the owner takes it in the posterior. Not even the tax benefits make this worthwhile, IMHO.

I don't know you, Bruno, and this isn't an attack on you. I just believe that $1k per month per truck is excessive, especially since there's no profit after debt service. Your mileage may vary.

I think either an owner gets and stays involved in his or her business, or gets out. In other words, take care of your business, or it will take care of you.

 

[Wingnut]

BRUNO: I have a fleet of 10 trucks that I own with 20 drivers. I also get paid to write contracts for other owners plus have several other irons in the fire. I do just fine on my own without having a fleet manager.. Oh yeah, I also drive on occasion. I'm NOT slamming you or anyone else but from what I've read, it seems to me that it's a case of mismanagement of time & duties that's your problem. This is only my humble opinion & observation..I am NOT in any way pointing fingers nor slamming you in any way. Feel free to PM anytime & maybe I can help you.

 

[jaminjim]

As a former rental property owner, I am all too aware of hiring people to manage something that is supposed to generate revenue. Doing that put me in the poor house.

That being said, I know of two teams that drive for a "manager" that frequents this site. I also know who owns the trucks. The manager charges $1k per month, per truck, and he manages several. He gives his drivers free reign, and it is killing these two trucks' owner. Reason is that he allows them to accept very cheap freight, with no consideration for where the pending layover is, and whether that layover is conducive to freight calls for that specific type of equipment. $.20 plus FSC is great to offset fuels costs, but sucks when you consider that fee is split with the drivers, and nothing goes to an equipment replacement account, nor to everyday wear and tear.

I am aware of this specific owner having to pull money from his regular "job" to make ends meet every month, as he has a payment on these vehicles. In this scenario, the manager benefits, the drivers benefit, and the owner takes it in the posterior. Not even the tax benefits make this worthwhile, IMHO.

I don't know you, Bruno, and this isn't an attack on you. I just believe that $1k per month per truck is excessive, especially since there's no profit after debt service. Your mileage may vary.

I think either an owner gets and stays involved in his or her business, or gets out. In other words, take care of your business, or it will take care of you.

If the "manager is giving them free reign and the fleet is profitable then its not that big of a deal, if the owner is taking money out of his pocket each month then he's not running his business properly. He should remove the guy and put the trucks with another manager.

When an owner only has a couple of trucks its hard to have a manager for just your fleet. He should try to find a manager who handles several small fleets.

 

[usafk9]

Should have clarified, Jim.

He does manage several fleets.