One Year Down.. Now What?

First, let me say that I really am thankful for Brett's book and I could not stop reading it. I read the entire thing in one sitting this morning. Even though things have changed since he wrote it the principles are the same. Thank you Brett! I recently made it past my first year with no accidents or damage to equipment or property. I am fully endorsed but I have found out that no tanker that I talked with will give me a chance. I am seriously considering going otr with Marten. I am local right now and I have not found many high paying jobs with no otr experience that will give me a shot. In the past year I have hauled 53' vans, flatbeds, and reefer trailers all through Dallas Fortworth and surrounding cities. I am a great driver and I enjoy my job but my wife stays at home with our 4 sons taking care of the house and their education; they are getting older and I need to make more money. Does anyone know of a great company with great pay for a driver with a squeaky clean record (personal and professionally) that is fully endorsed with a twic hiring in my area? Should I relocate? My family and I would greatly appreciate any answers, advice, tips, suggestions

Greetings, Trotter.

I don’t know what your pay is now, but the company I drive for has decent pay and is located near you. JS Helwig out of Terrell. I’ve been with them OTR reefer for almost two and one half years. Excellent people to work with and I average close to 3500 miles per week. Very consistent schedule and very good equipment.

My email is brucekelly780@gmail.com. You can shoot me a message and we can exchange phone numbers if you want to talk and get more info on Helwig.

Thanks Bruce, I sent you an email this morning.

Congrats on the first year!

What’s your target annual income? How long are you willing to stay out? What’s your preferred home time schedule? What type of driving are you wanting to do? You mentioned tanker so I assume that’s your first choice. What’s your second choice?

I think we can definitely help steer you in the right direction

Thanks pianoman! Target annual income is at least 90,000. I can stay out 8-10 weeks as long as I can get home on the days I request for home time. Would like to drive tanker but willing to drive dry van , flat bed, reefer , car hauling, hazmat , port. Not much I am not willing to drive. Talked with BK yesterday about Helwig and Talking with Marten, Ashley, and Ryder. Ryder is local, doesn't pay much, about $1200 a week. I need to make $2000 a week which is why I am looking OTR. Is that realistic? Whatever I need to do to make that happen is where I would like to go and what I would like to next. Thanks for the reply. Any help I would greatly appreciate.

Definitely some doors will open for you with even 1 year experience with safe driving, adding 6 months or more of OTR experience will open more. To get to your target, on just CPM alone is going to take 60 to 65 cpm total including bonuses, with 3000 to 3500 miles per week. That's doable at some OTR carriers.

Some will want more experience, others are fine with 1 year. I would say get at least 6 months OTR experience with a carrier to add to your foundation. If you have experience with flatbed and enjoy it, that's certainly an option and may offer a bit more money.

This is predicated on you having strong fundamentals: Safe, on time, productive and easy to work with. I'm sure you figured out by now that you control your paycheck. Performance dictates pay, especially with most OTR as its unit pay, or piecework.

As BK said, Helwig is down there, Martin, KB, etc. I'm with Hummer, but I don't know that we're hiring and it's two years experience preferred. Might not hurt to check.

There may be tanker companies that provide training and will take you on, I don't have any experience on that, but I know some on the forums do, hopefully they'll be on and can help answer.

Have you looked into LTL? Most companies are slow right now but, still hire once and awhile based on needs.

To get to your target, on just CPM alone is going to take 60 to 65 cpm total including bonuses, with 3000 to 3500 miles per week.

Thanks Davy for the detailed advice on the target goal. Much appreciated. I am with Estes still but I am looking. I do not get paid by the mile, it is a flat rate and for the work that I do and risk that's involved it is just not worth it. I just applied to a combo driver position within the company. I'm going to see how that goes. If I get the job I could add OTR to my resume because most of the time I would be local/regional but their will be times when I will need to take loads OTR.

Have you looked into LTL?

Hi bobcat, yesr I have looked at LTL , are you with Old Dominion? I have been trying to get on with them for a while but it seems like you might have to know somebody to get on over there. Positions fill up faster than I can apply. They have a terminal very close to my house and I here they pay well with good benefits.

Thanks pianoman! Target annual income is at least 90,000. I can stay out 8-10 weeks as long as I can get home on the days I request for home time. Would like to drive tanker but willing to drive dry van , flat bed, reefer , car hauling, hazmat , port. Not much I am not willing to drive. Talked with BK yesterday about Helwig and Talking with Marten, Ashley, and Ryder. Ryder is local, doesn't pay much, about $1200 a week. I need to make $2000 a week which is why I am looking OTR. Is that realistic? Whatever I need to do to make that happen is where I would like to go and what I would like to next. Thanks for the reply. Any help I would greatly appreciate.

I apologize in advance as I didn't look up hiring criteria and hiring area for most of the jobs I'm about to list.

Well I was going to suggest SPD and EW Wiley but I looked up the requirements for SPD and they require OTR experience and I'm pretty sure Wiley requires it too. So nevermind there.

Did you apply for Prime and Schneider? They have tanker jobs. I don't know if they hire in your area for tanker but considering they take newbies I'm wondering if they'd take you for tanker even though you have no OTR experience.

Does American Furniture hire near you? I worked for them in Colorado years ago and did OTR with them and they were fantastic back then. I know they built stores in TX.

I'd also try pneumatic tanker jobs if there are any near you that do regional/otr. I'm sure you already know this but it doesn't count as tanker technically since it's dry bulk but it's a fun job and pays all right.

I don't know where all you've tried but I'd probably start my search with all the companies that train new drivers. I would imagine at least some of them wouldn't require otr experience. TMC comes to mind for flatbed but again Idk if they require otr experience. Penske Logistics usually pays well and depending on the location is either flatbed or dry van (they might even have some reefer but idk).

Honestly if you're really wanting to hit that $90k+ mark I'd probably look into reefer more than anything else. Everywhere seems to be getting hit hard with the freight recession. My company was doing so well and now this last month we've been feeling it too. At least with reefer you know people always need to eat so you should be able to keep the wheels turning consistently.

Sorry that wasn't as helpful as I was hoping but hopefully at least something in there helps. I had a bunch of great ideas but didn't realize how many companies require otr experience, hence your post lol. Good luck