Well, we finally got back on the road soon after the last post. And we got to keep the original truck, meaning that we cleaned her out for nothing. Oh, and our dedicated STL never changed us to the system board. His boss ended up having to do that for us.
Anyway, we've been on the road and things improved greatly. It wasn't a great run because it was loaded with short runs between high value expedited runs. But decent money came in and the working conditions are much better.
Well, last week I had a message come up on the Qualcomm asking me to call our STL. I did, and he asked if we wanted a new truck. As in, brand new. 2007. Of course we did. We picked up her up last Wednesday in West Memphis.
The fun part of all this is that I'm giving three weeks' notice of my intent to resign to Schneider on Thursday, when we go back out. You see, I accepted a position with Prime, Inc and start orientation in Denver on Monday, April 30th. I'm going to try my hand at leasing a truck and working for myself.
I went into this after much thought, soul searching, and quizzing of Prime drivers and Schneider independent contractors about how they run their businesses and how to succeed. There is a LOT of bad sentiment on the internet where leasing is concerned, but the vast majority of it is rants by people who can't compose a sentence. Makes me question their business sense. The rest appears to be the opinions of those who have never even tried it. All the Prime drivers that I talked to said that there is a lot of money to be made, but you HAVE to control costs and treat it like a business.
I'll give it a shot. If you disagree with my decision and wish to tell me so, I'll thank you in advance for keeping your comments polite if you absolutely can't keep them to yourselves. I'm doing this and will update the blog accordingly - both good and bad.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
New developments... and there are many!
Posted by Dr. Zebra at 11:29 PM
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3 comments:
Rodger, good luck with the lease with Prime. I know there are a lot of lease bashers out there, but it can be done successfully if the company gives you the loads/miles and you run smart and hard.
Rodger,
Glad to see you changed from Crete to Prime. I believe Prime is a better company. I've been following your blog and comments on PD.com.
I tried to go with SNI as an IC but could not get past their requirement of being a company driver for a year at $.28 CPM. I drove my own rig back in the 80's, before the CDL laws were passed.
The deal with SNI prompted me to look around further and I've been an IC with an expediting company since November. Check out my blog at: http://wolfeman68.blogspot.com/
It's been working great, and the second truck just went on line. The funny thing is that I have one of SNI's VP's of training e-mailing me asking how I am doing and what suggestions I would have for IC training. Go figure.
If I can be of any help in your venture, please don't hesitate to let me know.
See you on PD.com
Steve Wolfe
Rodger,
I am not a trucker but am doing alot of research on PD... and am rapidly moving t'wards it after 25 years in electronic repair. I think it's great that you're going with Prime! I'd like to start w/ them, as well, as opposed to SNI. Wallcrawler who freq posts on PD thinks Prime is great and avg'd 1.46/mi last year < approx .83 in costs equalling $.60 plus per mile - pretty good as opposed to SNI and most other ICs from what I can tell. Hopefully you've communicated w/ him some about your decision. I read this morn that he's moving over to Landstar though has nothing against Prime.
Best of luck to you,
Dan
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