Profile For Kevin J.

If you are going to own your own truck then you need to specialize. To me a true owner op is someone with their own authority. Anyone can pull a box around. The 3% margin thrown around on here may be correct for the large fleets but I can tell you that a small owner operator that knows what is going on can make well above that. People say that you barely make above a company driver with all the headache. Not true at all unless you lease to someone. If you run truly independent you can make much more and if you specialize there is even more to be made.

Now even with all that, if you suck at sales then stay a company driver. It takes more skill than just driving a truck to make it in the world of trucking as an owner operator. If you are the kind of person that could not sell water to someone stranded in a desert then owner op will not be for you. If you can sell ice to an Eskimo but can not keep the paperwork straight enough to wipe with then owning your own truck is not for you. To have any chance of succeeding in a greater than survival mode (making the company driver money or less) then you have to have a little of both skills, being able to sell and being organized.

Take my old boss for an example... Very good at sales but sucked at paperwork. I never even took a drug test for him. Well he is now out of business but still has the note on the trucks to pay. Only took him 3 years to run it into the ground. He also had the thought that the drivers needed him. Well he found out quickly that did not matter. He helped me get my license and thought I owed him. I said really? After driving 5 times and you having to fix stuff on the truck so they would allow me to take the driving test? LOL The rest I did on my own.

I’m new on this forum so I don’t know if I’m doing this right or not, but I came here for some advice and tips about trucking of course lol so I’m a local driver, I haul fuel I make decent money, but I’ve always wanted to try as a owner operator to make more and also be in charge of myself...input anyone ?