Yes, I would do it again. If I can find the money.
My problem was I committed to heavily to one smaller customer so when he became a problem it crippled us.
I would either go whole hog with a big one, ala Post Kogeko or someone like that, or spread the load a lot more so that if one fails, it doesn’t take me with it.
The problem is, once you lose £20k, you can limp on, but the repayments on supporting someone else’s debt knocked cash flow. We carried on for 7 months after this bloke stopped paying but a combination of the interest on supporting his debt and the legal fees chasing it meant that when the next thing went wrong I was screwed.
I’d still go new on lease, but I’d probably try to double shift rather than have trampers. It was much better for us when we switched the wagons to four on four off but getting 14 working short working days a week out of a truck seems much more profitable than getting 7 long days, even with the extra fuel costs and staffing.
Now I’m helping my new employer with getting a FORS accreditation service set up and we are trying to develop a software package for operators to handle maintenance, training, etc with employment law advice built in. So I’m using what I’ve learned.
The final thing I would change, if I go again, I’ll start off with more than one, and I’ll have someone else driving so I can earn my own wage separately. The biggest problem for me towards the end was that I could pay my guys but couldn’t pay myself. Personal finances are a mess right now!