Questions to ask when signing onto a carrier

hey how you guys doing today it is me again your favorite takes us trucker and now and we've been running around this whole week trying to get everything ready to roll back out this time with elite and there's been a lot going on a lot of stuff really I mean getting everything set up with elite getting getting my truck ready to go get my tarps patched rolled back out inventory and all my equipment so the dispatchers know what I have what I don't have established in our LLC getting our bank account taken care of taking care of personal business taking care of some personal appointments and then sitting down and coordinating what our record keeping here at LLC is gonna look like at the FE LLC it that sa nail transport my kitten is down here want some attention there she is there she is anyway and it's just been a time-consuming process I spent most of today trying to gather up materials that I need forms that I need so that we can you know keep our record-keeping process streamline the way that we want to do it and you know in that way I can get everything to my wife so that she can process everything once we get home and it's taking up a lot of time and you know we've done a few videos we've talked to you all a little bit you know and it's just it's been a process but it's almost over with you know we've we've pretty much got everything done that we needed to do I've got my first load you know with elite the first load it picks up in in Decatur it delivers to Little Rock Little Rock Arkansas and then it pays 250 mile so you know I'm pretty happy with that it's not really a long run it's kind of I guess a medium run about 550 miles something like that give or take I can I can pretty much do it in one day and but you know it's a good start and I'm happy with it well today somebody sent me a message and and he told me that uh you know he suggested because he was watching one of my videos and he suggested in one of my videos I had talked about when I signed on with elite that you know I knew the questions to ask and that you really kind of need to know the questions and all you wanted to know what those questions were you know he said you know it's people like him that that have never signed onto a company before you know they're interested in in what those questions are and what it is that we we need to ask and it was a good topic so I'm gonna cover some of those before I begin let me say that everybody's different and what they want out of a trucking company is different my overhead is relatively low it's not real high and with that I've been able to stay above water so you know the amount of money I absolutely have to have to break even is a lot lower than what some people have to have I mean I I've got friends of mine that have trucks with payments twice over twice a week what I pay you know so a home time you know some people want different requirements for home time some people want to be home every week some people won't be home every other week some people won't be home every three or four weeks you know and so a lot of the questions that you want to ask a lot of the things that you need to know when you sign on to a company is dependent upon what it is that you want out of a company okay but there are some general guidelines and some things what I say is that there are deal-breakers and then there are non deal-breakers okay nan bill breakers or bonuses they're things I'd really like to have but I don't really necessarily have to have you know and then the deal breakers those are things that I just absolutely have to have you know so you know there's important topics and then there are you know they're just bonuses so let's start with some of the more important things and to me leaving triple C triple C was a great company and and I enjoyed working there with that being said as time has passed things have gotten less and less workable alright and there were some things that I learned while I was there as a beginning owner operator some things that I knew that we needed to have in order to continue moving forward the way I wanted to continue in in in that I want to say I just kind of want to kind of lump it together in one category it's in owner/operator control how much control do you have over your company now the less control you have the more of a glorified company driver you are okay the more control you have the more of the don't true owner and operator you are all right obviously the most control you're ever going to have in your company is to get your own authority okay and so once you have your own authority not only do you have all the control but you also have all the responsibility when you're signing on to a company you want to have as much control as possible while letting them deal with as much of the responsibility as they can deal with so first is control in in in that's in control over where I take my truck okay is it forced dispatch if it's forced dispatch you have no control you have no control at all you know you're in a sense you're just a glorified company driver you go where they tell you to go you do what they tell you to do and you don't about it when you have some control which is what we had at Triple C we had some control then you're you know if you don't want to take your truck somewhere you can refuse to take it somewhere if you don't want to carry a particular load you can you can refuse to carry a particular load you don't work with a particular broker you can refuse to work for that broker but that's where your control ends your control ends with what you don't want to do it doesn't extend to what you want to do okay and in the problem with that when you have the ah-1 the only control you have is is in not going where you want to go or where you don't want to go is that you limit your possibility so your inner you get stuck in this in this position where well either you go or you just don't get a load period and that's just it's it's not cut and dried like that out here around because there's a lot of other possibilities there's a lot of other alternatives let's say I decided I didn't want to pull tarps at all well if I don't want to pull tarps and I have no control or if I have little control over what I do where I go then when my truck is there I'm relying on a dispatcher to find me a no tarp load that that dispatcher likes you know if the dispatcher doesn't like the loader if that dispatcher just it's pissed off at me because I don't wanna pull tarps yeah I might sit for thirty four hours I might not get a load whereas if I was dispatching myself if I had full control or almost full control and I was dispatching myself I could specifically look for loads that didn't need a tarp and I could go wherever it is that I wanted to go all right so if I had a tarp load that was going into Oklahoma I could go into Oklahoma there was a tarp load that was going into Montana I could go into Montana if I decided I didn't want it art and there was an on tarp load going to Colorado I could go to Colorado you know I go where I want to go and in the process if I get stuck there and I can't get out I don't have anybody to blame but me okay and so one of the things that I really wanted to know is just exactly how much control do I really have as an operator here at this company it was it was pretty important it was probably in my top five questions because I had a real huge problem at Triple C with letting somebody else have total control over my income and without allowing me to assist or without allowing me to to go places that I did want to go for instance I was stuck over in a on a 34-hour reset that I didn't want in Georgia and there was a load that was going down to Florida the load was going just just barely south of the Georgia border it wasn't very far in the Florida all and it paid good it paid like you know to 42 no tarp it was the light load and and and I screenshot the load because I had access to a load board so I screenshot the Lotus and to dispatch dispatch refused to even call on the load wouldn't even entertain the idea of the load because it was going into Florida I explained that you know the load was just going south of the Georgia border and you know it's only 30 or 40 30 26 miles south of the Georgia border and you know if I needed to I could deliver the load and then Deadhead up in Georgia to get the next load but that wasn't good enough you see I had to plead and play and and beg and and try to get her to take a load and she just absolutely refused to take it she had an excuse for every load that I would bring her and give her and I don't know if the excuse was true I don't know if the excuse was right because I never had the option to call so number the number one on my list was how much control did I have over my own dispatch and and last night the dan dan Galvin sent me the login information for two of their load boards so that I could dispatch myself as well as the email address to dispatch and and the phone number for dispatch so that once I had called the load negotiated the rate gotten everything squared away and they wanted the address to send rate come to I send the rate con to the dispatchers the dispatchers run the credit make sure everything is good and then sign the paperwork send it over to me so in other words I have about eighty percent control over every aspect of my dispatch that's not a hundred percent control because I don't do billing they do the billing so the billing end of it goes to them and and that was a huge huge improvement over what I was going through at Triple C as a matter of fact it was such a huge improvement over what I was going through at Triple C that I said it was the primary reason that I decided to come here okay second second thing that you want to know is about writer policies is anybody allowed to write in the vehicle with you every year I take my son out with me ok well this company does not have policy so I'm not sure how I'm gonna deal with that yet nevertheless I went ahead and signed on with the company this company also does not allow pets and that's a deal-breaker for some people it's not a deal-breaker for me I've always wanted to bring my dog out with me but I never have excuse me sorry I got about this sore throat okay and so you've got the writer policy you've got you've got the freedom freedom of Dispatch or freedom of control over your company next is what is the percentage that you're gonna get paid well at Triple C you got paid a flat percentage it was 80 percent when I signed on they lowered it down to 75 percent for everybody else coming on this company here everybody's at 75 percent for the truck and then they add 10 percent more if you have your own trailer so you know you'd go from 75 percent 85 percent if you buy your own trailer it's a huge deal not only that but later on you can sign on more trailers so if I decided that I wanted to purchase my own trailer then I would get up to 85 percent of my revenue and then if I decided I wanted to say purchase three more trailers I each one of those trailers would generate 10% of the revenue for the driver that was pulling the trailer so it gives me more options to sign on and make residual income by signing on trailers without having to deal with the problems that we deal with with an owner operator so it completely revamped or changed the business plan that my wife and I had set up because instead of putting power units on the road right away we're gonna put trailers on the road until we can bring in enough residual income that we can afford to put power units on the road the driver zone it's a huge a huge difference between what was allowed at Triple C if you bring your own trailer on over a triple C's and you don't get anything more than what you signed on with so there's no benefit to bringing your own trailer on and you know you just kind of have to deal with whatever they give you next thing you want to know is what type of loads do they haul do they haul flatbed they haul reefer do they haul tanker do they haul Sandu they haul drop deck do they haul orangy do they do oversize do you know so on and so on and so on because you want options okay so let's say for instance that I get on there and I'm pulling on a flatbed and it's not working for me for whatever reason and I decide well you know flatbed flatbed is always work for him but it's not really working here maybe I want to try step deck I don't wanna do step deck instead and then maybe step decks not really working for me so I want to I want to try RNG you know or I want to you know pull Sandra I'm gonna haul rock or anything like that so you want to know what your options are you want to know whether how difficult it is for you to switch from one division to another division inside the company if the need arises okay so you want to know what you're gonna be hauling next you want to know what you're gonna be responsible for when you haul that stuff for instance with flatbed do I have to have all my own equipment do I need to have my own tarps do I need to have my own binders chain straps you know so on and so on and so on and if I don't have them is there assistance with the company and purchasing those things and then how is that money gonna be taken out of my settlements this is gonna be taken out on my settlements all in one bunch this is gonna be taking out my settlements in in multiple bunches you know you want to know how pay goes you know you got a percentage of pay but what are your deductions a lot of times there's a lot of hidden deductions in there what is it that you're responsible for what part of the insurance how much is the insurance cost do you have any benefits you know so if so are you able to get those benefits as a 1099 employee instead of getting those benefits as they as a you know a standard employee are you able to get them as contract worker all right so there's all these all those questions and those are important and and every time every one of those questions that I asked for the most part you know there was a couple things I didn't care much for for instance like I know I have the option of buying my own plates or letting the company buy my plates well I can't afford to buy my own plates right now I'm gonna get my own plates but I can't afford to get them right now so I the company's going to purchase the plates well the company purchases the plates at fifteen and fifteen hundred dollars at Triple C they took that fifteen hundred dollars out at one hundred twenty-five dollars a pop until it was paid for over here they take it out $1,500 period in the story but they let you get paycheck first so you know I'll get a paycheck then my second paycheck will pretty much be wiped out by paying for my plates okay but then my plates are taken care of for a year I don't have to worry about them anymore and I know next year I'll get my own damn plates and then we won't have to worry about it so so there's that but that's what you want to know if I get repairs on the road and and they assist with the money for the repairs are they gonna take that money out in one lump sum or are they going to break it down into payments over a period of time so what are the payments how long is the period of time do they maintain an escrow or are you responsible for maintaining your own escrow if they maintain an escrow how do you gain access to it what are you allowed to use it for and if if you maintain the escrow and they don't maintain it well then you don't need to answer those questions because you've got the money problem is you need to be responsible enough to take care of it discounts what discounts do they have on maintenance what discounts do they have on tires so it discounts they have on parts where are those discounts at where can I go if I'm on the road and I'm in st. Louis where can I go to get discounts on tires parts labor do they have any of that in place do I need to sign up for it you know those are questions that you need to ask are there places since I can buy my own trailer or do they have a contract set up with a trailer rental or lease purchase or purchase place where I can get on even though I've got you know maybe less than perfect credit where I can get on there because I work for the company am I gonna be able to get on there and get get a trailer these are questions that you definitely want to ask and you know those that's the sort of you know it's stuff like that that you want the answer to before you sign on to a company because not all companies are the same icon Trastevere ight here because almost everything they do is completely opposite or different from each other and and it just it's a it's a way to show and highlight the fact that not all companies are the same that they're they're different okay so I hope this helps sellout I hope you all understand that there is important question so what you need to do is you need to sit down just with yourself and with your family and you need to brainstorm you need to find out what is important and what's not important but you still want the answer to you need to find out about procedures you need to find out about getting paid you need to find out about turnin loads in you need to find out whether or not you need access to a printer in your truck whether you need a scanner in your truck you know so on and so on and so on and so you just sit down with your with your wife or your husband and or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or whatever the case may be and and just ask those questions sit down and brainstorm and say okay well what's important what is it that we need to know before we step into this and and then itemize those things you know and go through every possible scenario that you can think of and then ask those questions if the company is evasive and they don't really want to ask the answer the questions or if they don't know and they keep telling you well I don't know the answer to that those are those are issues that should draw a red flag those are issues that should kind of put your guard up a little bit so you know and then don't stop your investigation just by asking the recruiter by asking the operations manager go go and find drivers find drivers and talk to them and that's probably one of the most important things because the office staff will tell you what you want to hear it's the drivers that are gonna tell you how they really feel if the drivers are happy you've got a pretty good chance you're gonna be happy if the drivers are unhappy a pretty good chance you're gonna be unhappy too so what you need to do is you need to go through and don't just ask one driver because you may have one driver that just you never happy with nothing you know ask four or five six seven drivers see if they can tell you what they're bringing in see if they can talk about that's another thing see if they can talk about you know what it is that they average take home every week which brings me to another question is do they have direct Freight or do they run 100 percent off the load board Triple C runs a hundred percent off the load board which makes it almost possible to have a consistent paycheck coming in you know it's it's like a roller coaster running through there this company elite has a large direct customer base and so their their rate per mile average is a lot higher and and that's what you want to know because the object out here is to make more money by running less miles okay less wear and tear on your truck more income in your pocket that's what you want makes it easier for you to run no you don't have to run like a maniac and and that's what you want so anyway I hope this helps you out if you have any other questions put them in the comment so I'll get to them and if I need to do another video explaining a few more things I'll be happy to do so y'all take care and peace out you

Channel: Steven Neill

Views: 11,898

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Id: d4fIO5GGuqM

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 28 2016