An independent truck driver is one of the most American professions that there is. Where else can an individual buy the equipment needed to compete on the very same stage (we call it the road) with all the big fleets? As I write this, my one truck company is competing with all the 10,000 truck big fleets and at the same level. The only difference is the volume of shipments that they handle. That’s the American Dream!
Naturally, every year many company drivers want to take a shot at the American Dream and make the leap to becoming an owner-operator (o/o). Sadly, many 
of them fail for one simple reason: they’re good truck drivers, but poor businesspeople. To be successful, you must first focus on what’s imperative. Notice, I didn’t use the word "important". There are many important things to do as an o/o, but there are only a few that are imperative; or tasks that you MUST DO. To borrow an old adage; “If it doesn’t make dollars, then it doesn’t make sense.”
Instead of focusing on the imperative, I see o/o’s spending too much time on these 6 things:
- Trying to do all the maintenance - Your time at home could be better spent by letting professionals handle the maintenance. You do what only you can do: spend time with your family and track your numbers from the trip you just got back from. Your attention to this will increase your profit and offset any expenses paid to a shop.
- Choosing a classic styled truck – We have a lot of things to fight in this industry. But we don't have to fight the wind. People buy the classic trucks with the
brick wall shaped hoods and then they find out that they're getting 5 mpg and are losing thousands of dollars each year in fuel costs! Let the aerodynamic styled trucks work for you. Do you really want to spend $10,000 more in fuel each year to drive a classic styled truck?
- Driving Too Fast – I'm not talking about speeding. I used to drive fast when I was a company driver, but I learned to watch my speed when I became an o/o and saw how many thousands of dollars I could save each year by just slowing down. This savings doesn’t require any investment like adding aerodynamic aftermarket parts. This is better than a ROI (return on investment); you get a return with no investment!
- Going overboard with chrome and polish – Don’t get me wrong, I love attention to detail as much as anyone and admire those who own and operate the show trucks. Have you heard the saying, “Chrome doesn’t get you home”? Well it’s true. There is a place for that in the industry, but until you’ve lowered your cost to operate and have mastered other imperative things, you shouldn’t be worried about chrome and polish.
- Concerned about amount of miles – Instead of o/o’s worrying about getting 3000 miles a week, they need to be concerned about increasing their revenue per mile and lowering their cost per mile. If you do this, you’ll earn more money by working less. That’s the goal!
- Calculating their loads in whole dollars- You can’t track every penny unless you convert your unit of measurement to CPM or cost per mile. When an o/o brags that the load paid $2000 and he paid $400 on fuel and pocketed the rest, you know that he doesn’t have a clue on what he’s making. The correct answer is: the load paid $2.25 a mile, my total cost to operate is $1.50 (which includes everything) and therefore I made .75 a mile profit.
There are plenty of free resources on improving your business skills. These days you don’t have to enroll in college to obtain all the information that you need to get started. Start with Youtube and you’ll find hundreds of videos where helpful business skills are taught. Remember, most o/o’s have the driving skills, it’s the business skills they lack that are contributing to their failure.