What Is My Punishment?

I did it for 7 months very successfully and made great NET profit and would have continued if I didn't land an hourly gas tanker local job, that may or may not be more relevant experience to some people than Old School who owned box trucks 75 years ago when the wheel was first invented (sorry OS) or Brett who has never been an L/O from my understanding. No disrespect to my friends mentioned above

Oh trust me, Old School and I aren't offended in the least. In fact, we think your youth and naivete is adorable. You kids, I'm tellin ya. If only others weren't going to misled into believing your baloney it would all be harmless fun, in fact. But you had to go making grandiose declarations of your great accomplishments while mocking real and successful business owners at the same time, so now I have to talk some truth publicly about it. You should have stopped while you were ahead. But that's one of the tough parts of being young.....you don't know what you don't know.

If you think renting a truck in some sort of a hand-holding agreement while using students as cheap labor to pad your salary for a few months makes you a real businessman in this industry you're sadly mistaken friend. That was nothing. That was a joke compared to running a real trucking business. That's like walking out into the ocean for ten seconds up to your knees and declaring yourself an experienced and successful ocean swimmer, and then giving the finger to people who have spent many years of their life swimming many miles in the oceans as if you've proven you're at their level and that all of their warnings about the ocean being risky and dangerous were just old fools mumbling delusions to themselves.

Sorry to burst your bubble. I know it was pretty exciting thinking you had actually accomplished or had proven something. It was probably even more exciting to think that guys twice your age with ten times your experience level were proven wrong by you. But that's cuz you're naive and inexperienced. When you haven't done anything, even something little seems big. This was the closest thing to running a real business you had attempted thus far so you weren't aware of the fact that you weren't actually even running a business. You just agreed to do some paperwork that the company used to have to do and you agreed to pay for some things the rest of us don't have to pay for. Here are some of the things you've probably heard others talking about which you haven't had to tackle:

• You didn't get any financing. (No, making payments for them on a truck they get to keep wasn't actual financing)
• You didn't own any assets.
• You didn't book any freight
• You didn't have to do any marketing
• You didn't hire any drivers
• You don't have your own authority
• You haven't paid any salaries
• You didn't have to deal with worker's comp or social security or the complexities of the tax structure that real businesses have to deal with

And like almost everyone who declares themselves successful business owners after renting a truck needlessly for a few months you're no longer doing it. That's how great it was.

If you want to be a real business owner in the trucking world then take off the training wheels and step up to the adult version of it and let's see what you've got. Buy yourself a truck, get your own authority, book your own loads, hire drivers, grow the company, and let's review your profit and loss statements in about five years. Then you'll see what being a real business owner is all about.

Unfortunately your youth and inexperience has once again taken control of your mouth and now you've started thinking you're all that with the "No offense, but I'm awesome and you guys were wrong" baloney, not knowing apparently that you haven't accomplished a damn thing in the business world. Not a damn thing.

But Prime sure did! They talked you into taking on the responsibilities normally handled by the business owner, without giving you any actual control of the business, and you were excited about doing it! They went out and bought a truck and then talked you into making the payments for them. Then after making the payments you walked away from it, letting them keep it, and somehow they even made you believe it was your privilege to do so!!!

They also have you training their future drivers for them. You even paid for the damage out of your own pocket that one of their students did to their own truck, the one you're actually buying for them.

You agreed to an arrangement which relieved Prime of many of the risks and responsibilities that a business owner takes on, while giving you no return on the extra risk and stress you endured, nor any actual control of the business.

Now that is how a savvy business person operates. If there are lessons to be learned here about the business world they're going to come from how Prime managed to make you believe you were in control of your own destiny when all you were doing was buying their truck for them, taking on most of their risks and responsibilities, paying for the mistakes their students made, and then left feeling successful and encouraging others to do the same.

Congratulations to Prime and the other companies who have managed to offload the risks and responsibilities to others while convincing them at the same time that they're actually successful business owners in control of their own destiny.

Maybe you'd like to make my house and truck payments for me, and do all the repairs, but let me keep control over them and use them? It might sound like a lousy proposition, but hey, I'll make sure you feel great about it!

No disrespect to my friends mentioned above but me being where I am definitely strengthens the core group we have at TT which will help us a lot more with helping people going forward - and thats what its all about.

No, it actually doesn't help at all. You didn't discover anything about leasing that we didn't already know and our policy is still the same - we're not talking about it. It's not even an idea that's worth pursuing in my opinion, at any experience level, and it's out of the question for the new drivers we're trying to help.

So no offense to you either Daniel, but you haven't opened any eyes or brought any new insights to the discussion whatsoever. In fact, you've done exactly the opposite. You're now the one enticing new drivers to take a shot at it because they believe your baloney about your "accomplishments in the business world" cuz "you've been there" like Patrick who is naturally curious now:

Daniel, You opened Pandora's Box. What else do you think you've done? You uttered the magical phrase "made great NET profit". Now, every rookie is gonna be seeing dollar signs and blinded to anything else.

So how has any of this helped anyone? It hasn't.

So we're done with the discussion about leasing again. I was sitting back waiting for this thread to unravel, and it did. I was waiting to hear the grandiose declarations of success, and then to see new guys open their eyes wide and begin to consider leasing. It took a day longer than I thought it would, but predictably it happened.

I just did a podcast about the vicious cycle of malcontents and underperformers that screw up their own careers and then return to screw up the careers of others with their "great advice". The same thing happens with leasing. Someone briefly dips the tip of their toe in the ocean, it doesn't get bitten off by a shark, so they go bragging to the entire world about how they've conquered the ocean and it wasn't hard so a whole bunch of people go running in and drown.

No offense, Daniel.

Love it Brett.

As it has been mentioned many times, I don't talk about leasing at Prime because as you have just pointed out it only confuses the new drivers.

Yes, I have been leasing for the better part of the last 5 years. But as I pointed out earlier in this thread, not doing much better than a company driver after it's all said and done. But because I have 10+ years of business experience before I started driving, I believe I have done better than most would because of that experience.

So, would I advise someone leasing a truck is a good thing, NO. For someone that is new to this industry that doesn't have the background it would be very foolhardy on their part because of their lack of knowledge about the industry.

Now, I will admit I have some very good friends here at Prime that have been a very big help because of their knowledge of this industry.

Ernie

Thanks Ernie. I'm totally cool with your situation because you do have excellent business experience and trucking experience, you have indeed leased for quite a long time now, you know exactly what you've signed up for, you're realistic about your expectations, and you're honest about the results you've been getting. And in fact you say you're making about what a company driver would make even with some strong advantages:

I have 10+ years of business experience before I started driving

I will admit I have some very good friends here at Prime that have been a very big help because of their knowledge of this industry

So even with fantastic business experience outside of trucking, several years of experience driving and leasing a truck, and a lot of help from friends on the inside you're still only making roughly what a company driver would make, and I would guess you're probably driving that truck as efficiently as you know how to most of the time and putting forth a tremendous effort.

So where would that leave candidates with little driving experience, no business experience, and no friends on the inside helping them out? Possibly in a world of hurt financially, or at best they're completely wasting their time and efforts dealing with the additional stress and work that comes with it.

I do want to be clear about something for those who don't know me that well. The title of this thread, "What is my punishment?", is meant to be comical of course and I most certainly do not get upset if someone decides to lease a truck. I don't take some sort of a personal stand against doing so where I would be offended by it. I just don't want any new drivers coming into the industry thinking they're going to sign on the dotted line and start raking in the dough.

I have no issues with Daniel for leasing, or anyone else for that matter. Just don't put the lease in my name!

I just don't want to see new drivers get caught up in all this mess. It's all a new driver can do to survive their first year as it is. To go beyond that and attempt to go into business, as a "partner" (if you can call it that) of a large and quite savvy organization is just going to end badly for most.

Brett, we are talking about L/O, not O/O. Never once did I proclaim to be a great business person who successfully ran his own business. L/O is not a true business owner in my opinion for various reasons. My wife is a dispatcher and books freight for her drivers who are all O/O so I see that side of trucking. I never did that, again, I was an L/O not O/O.

I wouldn't want to be an O/O, at one point it crossed my mind but then I realized life is more about spending time with family rather than inflating your wallet and as an O/O I know it would have absolutely further destroyed my social life. Local is a better deal which is why thats what I'm doing.

I claimed I made a profit I was happy with during my tenure as L/O and thats it.

Again, I have said multiple times over and over and over again because I expected an aggressive reaction from you that leasing is stupid to do as a rookie and a financial suicide. Here I am repeating it again.

And I did it the smart way. Never was my plan to be long term. Leased a good truck, trained a few students and ran the wheels off of the truck and made the money. Then right before the wheels were about to actually fall off and things would start breaking down I turned it in and let them deal with it.

No high of an illusion of success here. My greatest achievement in life is convincing my wife to marry me. My greatest success is getting my gas tankers local job because it took 3 years of OTR to land it, whereas leasing only took 15 minutes and no years of experience.

And I did it the smart way. Never was my plan to be long term. Leased a good truck, trained a few students and ran the wheels off of the truck and made the money. Then right before the wheels were about to actually fall off and things would start breaking down I turned it in and let them deal with it.

So then you're under the impression that you outsmarted one of the largest, most successful carriers in the nation who has been thriving for decades in one of the most ruthless and cutthroat businesses you'll find anywhere? You think they just left you this huge, gaping hole to run through where you were able to get in and grab a big chunk of additional free money for doing what you were already doing anyhow while providing no additional benefit to the company? And then you just walked away unscathed?

So now Prime is just sitting there going:

Gosh darn. We underestimated that Daniel guy. I know we've dealt with thousands of ruthless and savvy business people over the last five decades, all of whom would love to put us out of business, but we just didn't see his elaborate scheme coming. Totally blindsided us. We've gotta hand it to that guy. He really stuck it to us. We should have just said the heck with this leasing idea and let him remain a company driver where we would have paid him less for doing the same job. We really lost out on this one.

Somehow I think they planned this whole thing out better than you realize. If I brought in an outside auditor to dig deep into every last penny, every detail of the entire experience, I can assure you that Prime didn't just lose a pile of extra money needlessly to some Johnny-Come-Lately kid with a couple years of driving and no business experience. But a savvy corporation with savvy marketing and complex number schemes can easily make it appear that way.

For instance, the telecom carriers have most people believing they're getting a free phone every two years when they're "eligible for an upgrade". They make it sound as if you've earned the privilege of buying another new phone from them after buying the last one and making payments for their service for two years. Everyone walks away thinking they're being rewarded, when in fact they're simply being led by corporate marking into buying one phone after another and renewing one contract after another.

You're their "loyal customer" so they "reward you" by letting you buy phones and services from them continuously forever. Darn nice people I'll tell ya.

I mean, you said it yourself:

leasing only took 15 minutes and no years of experience

So it was just that easy for you to roll in there and stick it to Prime, grab a chunk of extra change the easy way, and get out like it was nothing?

Come on, man. Prime is one of the top carriers in the nation. No one has more savvy when it comes to turning a profit. They certainly did not just let you roll in there and grab an extra chunk of their profits with nothing to show for it. I promise you if you were to really dig through it hard you'd find that they got their money's worth and then some. You almost certainly ran the truck more efficiently, you trained their drivers, turned more miles before going on home time, took on a lot of their paperwork for them, gave them a contractor that was now a complete write-off for them, and relieved them of the cost and responsibility of having you as an employee instead of as a contractor.

So I would take issue with the idea that there's some sort of hole in the company's lease agreements that can be exploited by the drivers. There's just no way they're letting that happen.

Brett, You have zero worries from me going L/O. As far as ever being an O/O, LoL. You know my stance on that. Unless you can own a truck outright it isn't worth it.

I keep praying to win the lottery and make my dreams of being a business owner come true. However I guess I would have to actually buy a lottery ticket first.

After reading everything Brett has said on this post, when they ask me if I want to be L/O, I'm going to ask them to go over the program with me one more time. Then when they've covered all the advantages of being a L/O, I'm going to ask them to go over it again, and again, and again, until they finally leave me alone and put me on a company truck.

Yes Brett you're right, always right. I'll just shut up now and let you rule because you're always right.

I'm going to go back in my corner and mold my opinions to match yours. I mean, its appaling that someone here for once have a different opinion than your own without you criticizing them. By default, you're always right 8 years running.

My sincere apologies to everyone for trying out something new in my life and having a good time with it. For making it work for me and doing well at it. I'll just go back in my spot amongst the flock and never speak my opinion again unless it directly agrees with yours.