Getting my own authority....sick of this crap.

[Johnboy]

Start checking now on the insurance.I personally looked into the hole thing in November and had two diffrent quotes, one from ooida and one from a broker. Both told me too wait it out a few more months the rate for new ventures are way too high. The rates may have come down now. If you are in the ohio river valley I can recommend a company that can do it all for you, they come highly recommend from a local b.o.t. officer

[in2trux]

My advice is for someone that wants to get the wheels turning. What they do with it down the road is their business. If the price of insurance is going to make or break your profit margin, WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE $20-25k in resereve and can make the move comfortably. It won't take long to burn through that, MURPHY'S law.

I don't know everything. I'm as full of S__t as Rawze.

[snailexpress]

DOT audit isn't a problem anymore.
Now it is online you don't have to meet officer in office.
Just call the officer phone from DOT e-mail ask which period he or she wants to see.
Login in FMCSA and submit all paperwork required.

[in2trux]

Rodger 4. I've seen many think they're going to reinvent the wheel and out think the big boys.
There is margin in their waste but not enough to recover from stupid mistakes.

We're in a high density, highly competitive environment these days.
Think, research before you act.

Thanks for sharing, maybe someone benefits from our banter.

[Texasdude74]

Please excuse my ignorance in regards to freight revenue, I can't make sense of some numbers. $140k and losing 25% of that puts you at $105k to the truck. What are we talking about here? Is this a lease purchase situation where you pull their trailer and your truck payment, all your insurance and fuel come out of your settlement first leaving $105k for you? Or is that a gross number where you still have to deduct a truck payment , fuel and physical damage?

[axe]

I ran under my fathers and my father in laws authority for years. Have never been leased to anyone. In june of 2016 me and my best friend started our own authority. Insurance on 3 trucks is 2800.00 a month. 1,000,000 liability, 100,000 cargo. Most bigger brokers will not take you until you have 6 months, and a lot a year. CH amd TQL will take you right out of the box. JB 6 months, Landstar 1 year. Lot of smaller ones don't care. I dispatch myself and 3 other trucks, usually run around 3000 miles a week myself. I have been doing this for a long time, so its just another day for me. Don't let some of these guys make it sound so damn hard because its not. I cant comment on leasing on with companies, have never done it, but finding your own freight is not hard. Knowing where to be and when to be there, where to go and not to go is what makes or breaks you. Big money to go to some areas, but there is a catch. Usually little money to come out. Some areas are hot certain times of yhe year and dead the others. PM or call me if you still have my number, I will help you all I can. 90 percent of brokers will pay within 24 hours with clean bills for 1.5 percent. Factoring companys will pay same day for 5. Now every one will say your throwing money away with factoring but with a good one you can make up around 3 percent with fuel savings. That puts you at around 2 percent and getting your cash the same day. On your own you will pay cash price at pump, with top tier on Comdata on average .30 pf cash price at major truck stops. What works for someone else may not work for you. You have to find your own groove. You have to have a logistical mind, not everyone does. You have to be a good business man, not everyone is. Do not pay someone big money to get your authority, there is a lot of rip offs. It is not hard and does not cost very much at all to get DOT an MC numbers. I personally know of a lady that can get you everything you need if you don't want to do it yourself. She will also do IFTA, cab cards, registration everything if you want. Most of it is really simple stuff. It is not rocket science to truck under your own authority and make a good living. I know some dumb bastards who do pretty damn good. Loading a truck and keeping it going is an art like anything else. Hell you wanna run the UP to Cincy area give me a call. Got more damn hay than we can haul. Once you take the plunge you will ask yourself why in the hell didn't I do this a long time ago. Does not take anymore money to run for yourself than it does to run under some one else. If you don't make it, what have you lost? Go sign back up with someone and truck it up. I don't mean to sound cocky but some people are making this out to be so damn hard, and you got to have all this damn money, you don't. You are done in the trucking business, you are not starting out from scratch. I don't understand why more people don't run for themselves. Different strokes for different folks. I will help you or anyone else all I can and share my experience with you. Good luck.

[axe]

(01-18-2017 )ashdan2010 Wrote:  What do you plan to haul when you get your own authority.van.reefer.flatbed? They all pay different and if you don't have a good relationship with a broker already. You will be hauling cheap freight and you can't make it out here hauling cheap freight. I've been doing this a long time and I have good months and bad months. You will go broke using load boards. You need to research and find small brokers they will pay more and also help you find back hauls. There is alot to having your own authority it's not as easy as some people may lead you to believe.

This is not true. You can make it off of load boards, I have done it and am doing it. The trick is knowing what to haul, when to haul it. You don't go to South TX with a dry van in August, but from March till July I can get as much per mile with my dry van as the reefer guy. It is not hard people, it is easy. If you done have your own equipment what do you have to loose? If you see your not sharp enough to make put the damn truck back on with someone!!!!! What have you lost? Another thing what is a backhaul? Do you just want to go out and back to the same place? Running off load board you go were the money is, you research what is available in the area a load you are interested in is. If there is no freight or it is cheap then you better get damn good money to go there or don't go. For most parts of the year I will not take a dry van into FL for less than 3.00 a mile, but when melons are running I will go for 1.50. Lack of freight or lack of brokers not loading you because you are new is not the problem. Knowing were to go and when is. Research that damn load board like you do Rawze.com when your cel is on.

[Waterloo]

Go for it! I think if you are going to do it, now is the time. More and more jobs announced by the day... I had my own authority up until 2009, the economy got me, and the bank when they shut down my line of credit, along with everyone else I knew, we all got the ax. Out of five of us, me and my buddy were the only two not to file bankruptcy. But, I believe those days are behind us now, or at least will be at noon on Friday.

Setting up your authority is easy, you don't have to pay anyone. And stay away from the safety outfits like Foley. They will bug you to no end.

You may need to look into factoring, when I closed the doors, my average time to pay was running 60+ days. That line of credit was very important... If you do not factor, you will need a way to figure out if you are dealing with a legit broker/shipper, still allot of fraud going on out here, I still get emails on that stuff.

IFTA is easy, I had to go in person to sign up and get my stickers and permit. I think that can all be done on-line now depending on your state.

The BCO3 I think I had someone do, a one time fee, like $20, but I believe that filing can now be done on-line now too...

Insurance, shop around. Last time I checked, it was very very expensive, triple what I was paying in the past, I about fell over! So really call around. And make sure you get the proper coverage, some freight like I haul requires 3 million in liability.

Brokers are fun, CH Robinson has quick pay, along with LandStar and others, I forget the percentage. I would forge a relationship with CHR, I did and it paid off, not all of their freight is $1.10 a mile... ;-)

Stay away from that one outfit, TQL or whatever it is called. Bunch of crooks that should not be in business, and dumber than a bag of rocks. I had dealings with them once, I never looked back. All of the stories are TRUE.

Fuel card, if you are factoring, shop around, many have fuel cards with pretty good discounts. Give APEX a call, I had good luck with them when things went tits up.

Oh, if things have not changed, you will need to have your cargo insurance in hand when you register for your DOT/MC number.

I would also make up some Pro sheets with your company name, shipper, consignee, etc., sheets in duplicate for your records, triplicate if you factor.

Oh, I would carry a printer in the truck, and a solid sheet feed scanner, unless you don't mind taking a hundred photos with your phone when you set up a new account on the road. A good laptop too, make sure all of the bugs are off of it. The reason I like my Macs, damn PCs always failed on me. The Macbook Pro I am typing on right now is seven years old and still going strong, multiple dents and all. It does Windows and Unix. I Run my Insite software on it too, hooks right up to the ISX...

Here is a good scanner, Fujitsu ScanSnap Portable. I have an older model, probably ten+ years old, it still works and produces fantastic scans. https://amzn.to/2PSIBJn

Good Luck and Happy Motoring!

[axe]

You don't have to have insurance to obtain dot MC numbers.You just have to post insurance before they become active. Takes about 3 weeks to post with the feds. One day for the state. You could get numbers and insurance and run in the state you are based in on the same day, just can't leave the state until insurance is active with the feds. Have helped guys become active in state of Tx in 2 days. TQL are not crooks. 2nd or 3rd largest broker in US. Have done business with them for years and never beat out of a dime. You will need them and CH just starting out. Huge freight base. I load 2 vans, 1 flat, and 1 reefer on a daily basis. Negotiation on ppm is not what it used to be. They got a price and won't budge until crunch time and then they'll pay what it takes to move it. To many trucks that will haul it cheap. The more you haul for said broker, the more they will pay you. CH has 3 tiers, depending on how much you haul for them. Being brand new you don't have much bargaining power. That's were knowing were to go and not pays off. How you want to run? Will you go to CA? Run NYC? Stay out for 14 to 21 days? Do you want to be home every night, these are very important to think of. Find someone successful and follow what they do. I stay out 3 weeks at a time but when I go home I stay for a week. Don't like the drive bys, come home Fri and leave Sun night. Like to come home and stay a while. Everyone is different. That's what's great about running for yourself, you can do and go were you want. Another option is find someone to run under there authority. Not lease to them, but just somewhat borrow it. We have had guys do this. They pay there own insurance book there own loads. Do what they want, and pay a percentage of flat rate on loads. If you are going to factor, as Waterloo said, check out the contract closely. Some have steep fees for closing account. Some you have to factor everything you haul. The one we use is for fuel card discounts mainly. You only factor what you want to. If you haul a load for a broker and don't want it factored they will bill the broker and when paid will pay you. This cost 5.00. Once you factor a broker, you have to factor every load from said broker. For instance if you haul 10 loads a month for CH you have to turn in all to factoring company but do not have to factor them all. You can haul for other brokers and be paid directly but once you turn load in, you have to turn all of them in. Spot factoring. Not everyone offers it. I have done business with our company for around 12 years. Factor Loads. Not the biggest, but a great one. Some factoring companies won't factor a lot of small brokers, or only certain ones. This limits who you can haul for. Some are recourse and some are non recourse. If you factor be CAREFUL. They are some that are very crooked. Kinda like having your truck worked on at Haggs or going to big name stealership. I love to see guys go out on there own, and have helped quite a few do it. Hope this helps. Don't mean to be long winded just sharing my experience. Let me know of anyway I can help