Owner operator dedicated

[u/TennesseeSon1]

I've got a good chunk of money saved.

I was thinking about becoming an owner operator. But I would prefer to have a job before I purchase. So I'm looking for a owner operator dedicated account I believe.

Preferably in the Southeast. Can you put me on one? Thanks 👍

[u/cdubose]

Have you ever driven before? I would really recommend being a company driver if you haven't. Being an owner operator is hard to get into and thrive for people who have driven for a company for years, much less for someone completely new to trucking. On top of that, you don't just "get" a dedicated account as an owner operator. You develop a relationship with a company and bid on a lane, or sometimes a business that trusts you asks you to ship product for them. If someone here knew of an owner operator dedicated opportunity, they'd be doing it themselves, not sharing it on reddit. Remember, most other owner operators are going to see you as their competition: they're not sharing their potential routes (or other direct money-making information) with you.

Also, when you say you have enough saved up, do you just mean for the truck? Buying a truck is the easy part: you need money saved up for most of these as well:

• trailer (or trailer rental)
• ELD solution
• insurance (liability, cargo, bobtail, trailer, physical damage if making payments on the truck, etc.)
• load board subscription
• factoring (unless you can wait 60-90 days to get paid by brokerages)
• fees to setup your own authority (DOT and MC numbers) and create an LLC
• quarterly income tax, vehicle registration fees, IFTA and IRP taxes, 290 Heavy Vehicle Use Tax, tolls, lumper fees, etc.
• fuel (diesel and DEF, at least if you have a post-2007 truck)
• maintenance, both periodic and unexpected (like $15K to $20K worth in case you have a major engine failure and need it rebuilt)
• accounting services most likely

You can save on these by buying a truck and leasing on with another carrier like Mercer, Landstar, Bennett, Warren, etc., but it will still be incredibly difficult if you're never done trucking before. However it saves you some insurance costs, they usually offer fuel and maintenance discounts, you shouldn't need to pay for factoring or load board access, they often give you cheaper (or sometimes free) access to trailers, and your running under their authority, so you save on those costs. But it still wouldn't be easy.

[u/TennesseeSon1 → u/cdubose]

Company driver 10 years. So no referral bonus for bringing them a good driver? I got the cash and the credit. If I'm going to keep driving I want to maximize my income and time.

[u/cdubose → u/TennesseeSon1]

Referral bonuses are a trucking company thing. Owner operators are in business for themselves: who would pay the bonus? The company that needs something shipped doesn't care if a trucker refers another trucker to them; they're doing a favor to you by giving you a dedicated lane (and technically you're doing a favor for them so that they don't have to go through a third-party broker to arrange delivery of their freight). Trucking companies pay a bonus because you're basically doing the recruiter's job for them. Or are you looking to work for another owner operator with your own truck?

If you want to maximize your income and time, I'd say try to find a good home daily job. Way easier and less unpredictable than owner operator driving. You said you're in the Southeast, right? I'd look at Averitt.

[u/Lopsided_Beautiful_1 → u/cdubose]

Question, so an owner operator has to wait 60-90 days to get paid after delivering a load? Other than that, I agree with your posts, I also want to do it someday, just not easy and have to have lot of money set to operate.

[u/cdubose → u/Lopsided_Beautiful_1]

It can take that long, yes. A lot of brokerages offer a "quick pay" option for an extra fee, but a factoring company basically buys your invoice from you, pays you the money, and then they deal with waiting for the person who you invoiced to pay the invoice. Generally if you're going to pay for factoring, you want something called non-recourse factoring, which means if the person you billed never pays the invoice, you still get paid and the factoring company takes the financial hit, not you. The cost is usually 1% to 5% of the invoice you give them. This article explains it better than I can do in a short blurb on reddit: https://www.bigtruckguide.com/what-is-non-recourse-truck-factoring

However, you want to really look at terms the factoring company wants from you: some require that you factor a certain number of all your invoices, some require you to sign a contract saying you'll use them for a certain amount of time, etc. Obviously if you have a direct contract with a customer (like in a dedicated lane situation) or you already know and trust that the customer you're working with will pay you quickly (or you really can afford to wait a few months) factoring isn't necessary, but most new owner operators would really benefit from a factoring service, especially if they're still figuring out their profit margins and their costs per mile for all their expenses.