the comment that the cm write up is the kiss of death made me chuckle, a few years back my lombard rep was pushing a repo m.a.n 460 xxl, red and white, fancy red leather interior, the real dogs do daa,s ( as much as an m.a.n can be).
then i was reading the comical motor or truck n driver, and there was this fella with a write up, just started out, gonna take over the world, full of advice for all and sundry, living the dream was mentioned, im sure he was from suffolk…
his truck was. . . . . the bloody m.a.n mr lombard was trying too offload… finished before the magazine hit the shops…
Rikki-UK:
Some one who has a successful business once told me. start it in the bad times, becuase if your good enough to make through the rough times then when the good times come around your onto a winner.
If you cant make through the bad times then your going no where…
Your basic business model should be on the worst, and you should be able to make a profit on that any thing else is a bonus and when the good times roll around put some aside for when it all goes wrong
If you do your business plan right in the first place then you’d already know this without needing to start in the “bad times” to find out.
As for the article, well I guess now we know why they’re known as Comical Motor, as that basically sums up the BS posted by Laurie.
article:
And, arguably, there may never be a better time. A survey from the RSA Group (that’s the rebranded title taken from its original name, Royal and Sun Alliance) said an economic recovery requires an influx of 300,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to underpin it.
“An economic recovery”? And when is this happening then? I don’t see one now or any time in the near future either. Ah but wait, it’s a survey done by Royal Sun Alliance - an insurance group no less - so no VI there then…
Moose:
it now seems that mr repton has decided to call it a day “due to various reasons”,
If Paul has, then he hasn’t made a statement to the effect on here.
Tis true, and it has been mentioned on here, albeit only in passing in a post where I was asking about ADR courses in the Safety/Law forum.
There were two main reasons. Firstly the fact that the only work I could find through the winter involved being away all week which I hated and it didn’t work at all with my home life given we have a lot of animals and it was too much to ask LT to look after them without me. Secondly I have another business selling electronic bits and bobs mail order that even with me spending very little time on it has been getting really busy of late (it turned over more than £2k last month and there is a very healthy profit margin on that) and I want to try and develop that more which I simply couldn’t do while I was working full time as an O/D.
Money wise I was making a drivers wage plus a very small amount on top, although I believe in time there would be more to be made as my business was still very young (I did 2.5 years at it) and I was gradually getting more and better work as time went by.
I did consider putting a driver in the truck but I didn’t feel the likely return would be worth the hassle of employing someone.
On the whole I’m glad I did it but it turns out it wasn’t for me.
Paul
Just viewing your posts in this forum from 2.5 years ago and they now make for rather entertaining reading, especially after your comments above.
Just shows you how hard it is. Repton started out the way you always here advised. An older motor bought and paid for and even when he renewed it it was still an older truck.
kr79:
Just shows you how hard it is. Repton started out the way you always here advised. An older motor bought and paid for and even when he renewed it it was still an older truck.
To be honest with you, hindsight being what it is, I should have spent more in the first place even if it meant borrowing a little bit on finance to pay for it. I worked out after I had been going 12 months that I had spent (from memory) something like £14k on repairs and maintenance for the unit and trailer and that didn’t include anything to account for loss of earnings.
Take the trailer for example. One of my customers buys new bulk trailers keeps them for 3 years and then chops them in for another new one. He reckons it costs him around £3k/year in depreciation and other than tyres and brake pads they cost nothing to run. Well my 8 year old one cost me about £4.5k in the first year in repairs, probably about £2k in depreciation and no doubt another k or two in lost earnings whilst it was being repaired. Now maybe I got unlucky but on those numbers running old paid for kit simply doesn’t make sense. When the depreciation is only £1k less than a new one you only need a couple of minor problems and it has worked out dearer than a new trailer, even when finance charges are considered. Plus when you’re talking tipping trailers running kit under 3 years old you will never need a new sheet or to worry about the ram leaking either.
I should probably also point out that money wise I think I was doing OK. I’ve taken a healthy wage out of it all the time I had the truck and even though I got quite a bit less than I wanted when I sold the unit and trailer I still came out with more money in the bank than I started with. If I didn’t mind being away all week and didn’t have another more lucrative business that wanted my time I would have kept going.
fly sheet:
Whats the old saying better to have loved & lost than never loved at all
Yep, I won’t be spending the rest of my life thinking “what if?”. I’m glad I did it, even if it didn’t turn out how I had originally hoped. You never know unless you try though.
repton:
I should probably also point out that money wise I think I was doing OK. I’ve taken a healthy wage out of it all the time I had the truck and even though I got quite a bit less than I wanted when I sold the unit and trailer I still came out with more money in the bank than I started with.
Yet earlier you wrote :
repton: Money wise I was making a drivers wage plus a very small amount on top
So in summary you’ve had 2.5 years of hassle and aggro running, maintaining and repairing your own truck + flogging your guts out and working all hours God sends to turn a profit for “a drivers wage and a very small amount on top”. Nothing more needs to be said here…
This post should be sticky’d in a prominent position at the top of the O/D forum and directed to when any other dreamers come along announcing they’re going to become an O/D.
Naturally I await arguments from the usual O/D suspects that “it isn’t about the money, it’s a way of life”.
Rob K:
Naturally I await arguments from the usual O/D suspects that “it isn’t about the money, it’s a way of life”.
What I await is for you to pop up in the ex-pats forum to let everybody know that you wouldn’t live in Canada/ USA/ Australia etc
Earned a reasonable wage for two-and-a-half years, came out ahead when he sold up, and packed it in to concentrate on another business. Don’t see where the disaster is in that combination tbh.
Piston broke:
I admire the man for having a go. I admire him more for being so honest about his decision to quit, especially on here.
Strangely enough, along comes RobK to poke repton with a pointy stick just to try and cause trouble with more antagonistic posts…
Good for you, Repton. At least you can stand tall and hold your head up. Good luck to you
People seem to have very short memories on here, me thinks. Repton, like many ODs on this site that have been and gone, basically told me I was wrong when I told him what I thought and claimed to have done his sums and had it all worked out, had all the contacts, would make good money etc etc. Now 2 years down the line he’s jacked it in already because of the hassle and no decent paying work locally. Yes, he did make “some” money from the venture but at what cost? No-one in their right mind goes into business and buys £50k+ of equipment to make the same money as they’d get working for them directly as a PAYE employee without any of the hassle of dealing with VOSA red tape, rules & regs, maintenance, breakdowns, invoicing, accountancy, chasing late/non-payers etc etc. At the very minimum you’d want double whatever you could make as an employed driver just to be able to justify the business and that’s where most go wrong - they become ODs wearing their rose-tinted specs under the illusion of being their “own boss” and are quite happy to make the same £450 per week that a PAYE driver would earn because hey!, they have their own truck with their name on the door and “it’s a way of life, innit!”.
On the plus side at least he came out the other end with some money still in his pocket, which is more than can be said for many ODs, but it will be interesting to see what his advice will be on future prospective OD threads.
Rob K:
So in summary you’ve had 2.5 years of hassle and aggro running, maintaining and repairing your own truck + flogging your guts out and working all hours God sends to turn a profit for “a drivers wage and a very small amount on top”. Nothing more needs to be said here…
This post should be sticky’d in a prominent position at the top of the O/D forum and directed to when any other dreamers come along announcing they’re going to become an O/D.
Naturally I await arguments from the usual O/D suspects that “it isn’t about the money, it’s a way of life”.
I spent 3.5 years doing what you mention in the first paragraph, there were bad times and then there were very good, but like it has been said, I am not going to spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been. And most importantely - I don’t think quitting while you’re ahead is really quitting. I sold the truck and thanks to the revenue still coming in after I’d sold up, the deposit and VAT coming back on fuel, I ended up with more than I began with.
Piston broke:
I admire the man for having a go. I admire him more for being so honest about his decision to quit, especially on here.
I expect Carryfast and Orys will be along in a minute and blame Maggie Thatcher, the Cold War and Gardner engines for everything…
I actually agree with your first two sentences.
As for the commercial motor idea it sounds like a bs generalisation.Where are all these so called ‘opportunities’ going to come from in an environment in which government policy is to shift as much domestic long distance container traffic and international traffic from road to rail using punitive road transport taxation policies to do it.While any road traffic left is subject to ridiculous levels of east european third party haulage capacity mostly doing west european freight journeys or even domestic cabotage operations.Which,for the average Brit Owner Driver,most likely means,something like local deliveries using a Hiab wagon or running a few miles up the road on intermodal work or in other words whatever work is left over that the east european competition doesn’t want.
You’re right Thatcher has got a lot to answer for.While I don’t remember Gardner powered trucks being at the top of any owner driver’s shopping list in the days when there were actually some real opportunities out there to actually do the job.Probably because many of those jobs were decent international work and the words productivety,Gardners and hills,let alone mountains,didn’t mix.
The fact is it’s government fuel taxation policy,which is part of it’s anti road transport pro rail transport policies,and trade policies which leave UK-West European and long distance domestic container road transport journeys open to east european and unfair rail transport competition that are the two main issues which would stop me from bothering with having a go assuming that I decided to.
As for using new kit v older kit I wouldn’t like to base the future of a new start operation on the idea that depreciation would be less than maintenance and that it’s not better to keep the extra capital costs required in reserve.At least in the case of using the best but oldest cheapest unit as possible on traction only work together with the most important ingredient of luck.Which is how I’d see it in a different world in which it would be worth trying.
But the fact remains hiab work and or local work is a better economic proposition as a business.
It may not have the glamour of long distance euro work in a big motor but I’d bet the bank balance is a lot healthier.
Even with an artic you could charge a couple of hundred quid to load a trailer and tip it 30 miles away and burn hardly any fuel or drag the thing 100 mile for not much more and burn a stack of fuel.
kr79:
But the fact remains hiab work and or local work is a better economic proposition as a business.
It may not have the glamour of long distance euro work in a big motor but I’d bet the bank balance is a lot healthier.
Even with an artic you could charge a couple of hundred quid to load a trailer and tip it 30 miles away and burn hardly any fuel or drag the thing 100 mile for not much more and burn a stack of fuel.
That issue would all probably depend on the reasons as to why an owner driver would want to be an owner driver.I think what you’re describing probably is an accurate reflection of what most of those potential ‘opportunities’ being described by Commercial Motor in the future could possibly consist of.At least until the customers realise the actual rate that they are paying on a mileage basis In which case they’re just subsidising the fact that they’re actually paying,one way or another,for the mileage that the truck should be running but isn’t and therefore it’s lost productivety.Which is a situation which won’t be sustainable in the long term especially in a higher capacity more competitive environment.In which case there’s probably not likely to be as many takers as if it was mostly about long distance/international subbing work paid by the mile at a decent rate compared to fuel costs for example.It’s a bit like the issue of the so called ‘driver shortage’ which was more about the fact that many drivers had got disillusioned with the boring distribution or local building materials delivery etc based British haulage industry and often either left it or emigrated to places like Canada with those remaining often moaning about spending their time in loads of traffic on British motorways and at RDC’s or getting aggravation running around the houses with a HIAB wagon .
As for me if it’s all about 30 mile intermodal runs or local building materials deliveries etc then why bother with all the aggravation of driving,let alone owning and running,a truck,when it would probably be possible to find less boring work with less aggravation driving a van or a cab either as an owner driver or employed.
Rob K:
So in summary you’ve had 2.5 years of hassle and aggro running, maintaining and repairing your own truck + flogging your guts out and working all hours God sends to turn a profit for “a drivers wage and a very small amount on top”. Nothing more needs to be said here…
Personally with a very young business I was pleased with that. Very few businesses start off making big money right from the start and especially in the land of the O/D where you have to start at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to the truck and trailer and so for the first few years any money you do make goes back into the business.
As I also said earlier I believe that had I spent more than I did at the start (I bought my unit and trailer for 20k between them) I feel I would have made more money as the interest on the finance involved would have been far less than the likely repair costs and loss of earnings I had with the stuff I did buy. I started off determined never to have any finance but I realise now that was a mistake. Of course there are no guarantees and new kit does still break but I would think it would have been better financially.
Rob K:
Repton, like many ODs on this site that have been and gone, basically told me I was wrong when I told him what I thought and claimed to have done his sums and had it all worked out, had all the contacts, would make good money etc etc.
I don’t recall ever having said it in such black and white terms, at the start I only had good paying work through the summer months, the winter I took a gamble on and as it turns out I lost as I couldn’t find anything that both suited my life and turned a profit.
Rob K:
Now 2 years down the line he’s jacked it in already because of the hassle and no decent paying work locally.
Lack of local work through the winter is only part of the reason but of course you’ve just picked out the bits of my reasons that suit your argument.
Rob K:
they become ODs wearing their rose-tinted specs under the illusion of being their “own boss” and are quite happy to make the same £450 per week that a PAYE driver would earn because hey!, they have their own truck with their name on the door and “it’s a way of life, innit!”.
I don’t think I quite fit that stereotype. I was taking considerably more than £450/week out for a start, and I never had any of my kit signwritten (and never had any plans to either). It’s definitely not a way of life for me, it was a business venture pure and simple.
Rob K:
it will be interesting to see what his advice will be on future prospective OD threads.
I’ll still be saying the same as before. I don’t believe it is a bad idea in general, it just turns out it wasn’t for me, and as something better has come along I’ve changed tack.
I can’t really get the argument that it is something you have to commit to for x number of years, otherwise you have in some way failed. If my personal circumstances changed, or if I was offered some employed job doing something more interesting and/or paying considerably better money, then I wouldn’t hesitate to sell the truck and go and do it. Like Repton I would come out ahead, and like him I take considerably more than the sum mentioned as a wage.
I also don’t “flog my guts out working all the hours God sends”. I started on Monday at 0930, haven’t had one reduced rest this week, have about a six or seven hour day ahead of me tomorrow and then a tip on Saturday morning that will mean working about two hours, then I’ll be off home. My invoicing will take about 20 minutes and the only other administration I’ve had to do this week is a five minute call to my workshop to book the truck in for an oil and filter change. There will be some junk mail to open then throw away, and I might have to write one or two letters etc but it all takes up a couple of hours at most.
I wouldn’t recommend doing it, nor not recommend doing it, it’s entirely up to the individual and their personal circumstances. But I have more respect for Paul for doing it than I have for Rob for sneering at him for doing it.
Rob K:
So in summary you’ve had 2.5 years of hassle and aggro running, maintaining and repairing your own truck + flogging your guts out and working all hours God sends to turn a profit for “a drivers wage and a very small amount on top”. Nothing more needs to be said here…
Personally with a very young business I was pleased with that. Very few businesses start off making big money right from the start and especially in the land of the O/D where you have to start at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to the truck and trailer and so for the first few years any money you do make goes back into the business.
As I also said earlier I believe that had I spent more than I did at the start (I bought my unit and trailer for 20k between them) I feel I would have made more money as the interest on the finance involved would have been far less than the likely repair costs and loss of earnings I had with the stuff I did buy. I started off determined never to have any finance but I realise now that was a mistake. Of course there are no guarantees and new kit does still break but I would think it would have been better financially.
Paul
Fair comments, but I don’t agree with you that financing the kit would be the answer to your prayers and suddenly turn you into some money making monster. In fact I would go so far to say that it would make negligible difference to your bottom line other than enable you to buy yourself a few extra Mars bars at the end of the year. You state that the reason you weren’t making big money was because you were a very young business, but 2.5 years of trading is not my definition of “very young” I’m afraid, and if you hadn’t managed to secure better paying work within that time then the chances of that happening any time in the near future are slim to zero, especially in the road haulage sector which is currently on its arse and shows no sign of improving for the foreseeable future.
If your electronics venture hadn’t taken off and taking into account your comments about winter in your later reply to me, what would you be doing right now? Also you keep stating that “it wasn’t for me” - can you elaborate on what exactly “wasn’t for you” and why that’s only only come to light now?
