Rob K what is your problem with owner drivers?

[wheel_nut]

Big Brummie Macca:

use a name:
you could always prove him wrong big brummie macca.
make an excellent read,you seem to have the get up and go to meet the challenge

It is something that I would like to do but it is a long long way off, I have only just got my class C so there is alot to learn, plus there is all the cpc stuff and financial issues of starting up so I am happy with working for someone walk before you can run I think is the saying. In the future I would love to might even call the book Rob K was wrong

You mentioned you had read Robs posts on this subject, somehow I doubt that as there are many, some I agree with many I think he is on the right lines but agree with Dreva, that possibly he says it like it is, like a propa bloke who lives in Yoksharr.

There are dozens of threads that start, Hi. I have just passed my class one and cant get a job, where can I find my own work? I have got 3k saved up in my Grannys knitting cupboard to buy a v8 Scania with velvet seats.

A recent one was a bloke who was about 22 I think ordered a new Hino on the strength of a phone call to a weighbridge operator and was then disappointed to find out it hardly ever turned a wheel in anger.

I would suggest buying a lorry without any experience is like putting your life savings into a pub, either as the owner or a customer. You and the other bloke have begun to ask some of the right questions but you may be better off, reading a lot more of the old posts, finding out who has done the job, who has become very successful and those who would be quite willing to sell you their business tomorrow. In general you are never going to get rich with one lorry pulling containers or subcontracting for the multinationals on supermarket work, for instance, the delays are too long, no one is willing to ask for demurrage anymore, one RDC can screw not just that days work up, but the rest of the week if they wish. One blow out in the month will just about put you on the same earnings as a big issue seller.

The best bit of advice I ever received was from a small operator in Hull who did treat me very fairly. He said you are never going to get rich working for me, you need to get some fat on your back.

That means, get some experience in lots of different types of haulage, read up on it, even Rob K’s posts, he has experience from fridges, curtainsiders, agency, low loaders and automotive Just in Time work.

One pound a mile and a Mars bar has become a standing joke, but it doesn’t stop anyone slagging Rob or anyone else off for urging caution. Like I said several times there is a lot of good advice on here. I doubt you are going to get a genuine offer of traction work just because they like your user name. No one is going to tell you any actual rates in a public forum or post an average rate confirmation, like the bloke who happens to have his wage slip in his pocket is the same bloke who has just had a tax rebate, 2 months disputed bonus paid and 6 nights out that they missed last month.

You need to learn about the business, gain some miles and experience, bend the bosses truck rather than your own while you are learning, relax as you are sat on the M25 with the second blowout this month because the container company gave you another pick up in a scrap recycling yard and you picked another bolt up in a good tyre.

Take some proper advice, whether it is what you want to hear or not. One of Robs most recent posts was along the lines of; "Go out and buy a truck, there is loads of good paying work and companies are screaming for hardworking subcontractors. Of course they are because there own trucks are often running at a loss and there accountants do not want them to buy any more.

what is my experience? I was the bloke who thought I could make loads of easy money as a sub contractor. Very good experience but I’m still waiting for the easy money!

[big_brummie_macca]

Hi wheel nut

On this subject most his posts

If I ever do start up on my own which as I say is a long way off and a big if then I would make sure I have done all my homework and make sure it is achievable, I know you cant plan for the unexpected but I would try to put money away to pay for the costs of it if you know what I mean.

My thoughts on Rob K are good to be honest, I think his posts are quite often funny and when serious he makes very good points and I like straight talking people you always know where you stand with them and get no bull.

This wasn’t a thread meant as a dig at him I was just wondering why he thinks being an owner driver is so stupid, hearing bad experiences are as good as hearing good experiences as you can learn from others mistakes I thought Rob had a bad time as an OD but he put me right on that so it got me wondering. You say that no one is going to shout about the rates they are getting and I agree it isn’t going to happen so how could Rob know what the rates are if he isn’t doing it so his rate argument is pretty much meaning less.

I am only 24, long way to go for me yet and a lot to learn on the way but it is good to have a dream but if I think that dream will never work out then it will never happen, I know you don’t get rich out of one truck but if I was to do it, I would have a vision to build a company not a one man band (no disrespect meant to anyone) but like I said also to me it is not all about the money I think anyone running their own business and doing okay has something to be proud off

[steve_24v]

Big Brummie Macca:
You say that no one is going to shout about the rates they are getting and I agree it isn’t going to happen so how could Rob know what the rates are if he isn’t doing it so his rate argument is pretty much meaning less.

I’m on for an OD and know what my truck earns on locals as a dedicated subby…

Ok, it’s only half a job, rarely more than 8 hrs, but more profitable than being on the road all week.

I’d say Rob’s not far off the mark

btw: excellent post Wheel Nut

[semtex]

I know me and RobK have fallen out over the o/d thing in the past, but I must admit the original question is a fair one.

We all have our right to your opinion on o/d’s however Rob does tend to go a bit ott with it at times.

I can’t recall anything specific from his posts other than has been said before…rates are crap, £1 a mile and a mars bar etc.

Whilst I don’t wish to deny Robk his opinions, merely water them down a bit, I would just like to see Rob qualify his statements with responses more substantial than the vague answeres he’s given or MMTM.

If you can qualify your responses then I for one will back off.

Hmmmmm, Rob K…R K transport…any connection

[denis_f]

Wheelnut has made some good points, a one man operation is never going to be able to compete with a big haulier (economies of scale) and I always wondered if there is so much money pulling boxes for one of the big companies why don’t they use one of their own trucks instead of a subby ?

Having said that there is money to be made in haulage, but maybe it’s in niche areas that the big companies don’t go

[weewulliewinkie]

i am reading these posts with interest and it,s surprising the perceptions of being an “OWNER DRIVER”.get it right from the start you are not an owner driver you are someone who hopes to start, manage and grow a business from scratch and make it profitable so it can grow to be as big as you want it to be. so the same rules apply no matter what field of work you choose. firstly business is simple it,s the way you go about conducting your day to day affairs that will eventully see if you succed or not, if you buy somthing for £1.00 and then sell it for £3.00 that is bottom line business in its simplest form. applied to transport means your costs obviously must be low and your revenue high. as has been said many times if you cant do the simple business things i.e sales, keeping your costs to a minimum and here,s a magic business word FORESIGHT,planning ongoing stuff, building relationships with customers etc, etc then you will fail very quickly.

irrespective of what rob k and others might think there is plenty of good paying work out there, again like any tpe of business you have to get of your arse and find and compete for it. that dose,nt mean cutting the rate it means providing a service at an agreed rate that both you and the customer are happy with.the name of the game is PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT everything you do must be aimed towards that goal. subbying to big companies is not the answer as they then control your business to an extent, it,s okay for a short time or filling in but find your own work direct thats the only way.
i would say subby work is about 20% of my business if even that its, not what i prefer but every little helps as they say. ask yourself a question do you
think you could honestly negoitiate a good rate for say 3 loads a week from a to b consider your costs and make a profit so that customer x would be happy and would then say that was what i was looking for how about doing that every week, thats what its all about.

like any business after the magic profit its about growing and the neverending process of finding even more work, that process should never stop
you should eat sleep and breathe it, bear in mind you can never ever have enough customers. so it dose,nt matter whether you want 1 truck or 20 trucks the principal remains the same. only hard work and plenty of it will see you succeed, so to all the merchants of doom on here dont be so quick to dismiss every body with hopes of starting thier own busines. because it can work if you go about it the proper professional way

[hammer]

Denis F:
Having said that there is money to be made in haulage, but maybe it’s in niche areas that the big companies don’t go

I’ve rang Stobarts and told em theres loads of money in Livestock haulage in the South West. They’ve got 20 new Scania’s going into that area start of next month…

[denis_f]

hammer:

Denis F:
Having said that there is money to be made in haulage, but maybe it’s in niche areas that the big companies don’t go

I’ve rang Stobarts and told em theres loads of money in Livestock haulage in the South West. They’ve got 20 new Scania’s going into that area start of next month…

without the contacts they won’t last long

[goaty]

weewulliewinkie:
i am reading these posts with interest and it,s surprising the perceptions of being an “OWNER DRIVER”.get it right from the start you are not an owner driver you are someone who hopes to start, manage and grow a business from scratch and make it profitable so it can grow to be as big as you want it to be. so the same rules apply no matter what field of work you choose. firstly business is simple it,s the way you go about conducting your day to day affairs that will eventully see if you succed or not, if you buy somthing for £1.00 and then sell it for £3.00 that is bottom line business in its simplest form. applied to transport means your costs obviously must be low and your revenue high. as has been said many times if you cant do the simple business things i.e sales, keeping your costs to a minimum and here,s a magic business word FORESIGHT,planning ongoing stuff, building relationships with customers etc, etc then you will fail very quickly.

irrespective of what rob k and others might think there is plenty of good paying work out there, again like any tpe of business you have to get of your arse and find and compete for it. that dose,nt mean cutting the rate it means providing a service at an agreed rate that both you and the customer are happy with.the name of the game is PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT everything you do must be aimed towards that goal. subbying to big companies is not the answer as they then control your business to an extent, it,s okay for a short time or filling in but find your own work direct thats the only way.
i would say subby work is about 20% of my business if even that its, not what i prefer but every little helps as they say. ask yourself a question do you
think you could honestly negoitiate a good rate for say 3 loads a week from a to b consider your costs and make a profit so that customer x would be happy and would then say that was what i was looking for how about doing that every week, thats what its all about.

like any business after the magic profit its about growing and the neverending process of finding even more work, that process should never stop
you should eat sleep and breathe it, bear in mind you can never ever have enough customers. so it dose,nt matter whether you want 1 truck or 20 trucks the principal remains the same. only hard work and plenty of it will see you succeed, so to all the merchants of doom on here dont be so quick to dismiss every body with hopes of starting thier own busines. because it can work if you go about it the proper professional way

A F ■■■■■■■ G MEN !!!

[dreva]

mcfarlanes
pawsons
wilsons bfd
devaney bfd
kp iddon
browns carlisle
gibbs
just a few that give up or went bust from lack of money or earnings so not doom and gloom fact and theres many more gone under just lately and blamed the recession when really the lack of money and lomg paynent terms seen them off

[goaty]

Best we all hide under our beds and not come out till the nasty recession thingy ■■■■■ off then.

It’s a valid point Dreva but tbh an o/d will be better equipped to ride it out than hauliers of the size on your list.
A bit of nous and a good accountant make the difference.
Imo, of course.

[mrreliable]

Having been an owner operator in 2004/2005 I have to agree with Rob here. Unless you are in a niche market or in a part of the country where you haven’t much competition I cannot see how starting from scratch you can grow and grow.

I ran a truck on a 24hr basis double shifted so our costs were spread over two working weeks but in a week. I was riddiculed by other subbies for having a Scania which was rented, but after clocking up 290k in a year they could see the logic as I could walk away with no worries about selling a high mileage truck on. I won’t bore you with the costings and in’s and out’s of running trucks, but if you really believe you can make proper money owner operating as a new starter now I have to question your sanity. Most companies are cutting costs by the easiest way, agency staff and hired transport as they have no costs when the work goes quiet as they don’t have to pay for them.

There are many people on here that are successful owner drivers and I take my hat off to them, I could find other well paying work on an adhoc basis when we were operating but could not progress as these companies wanted a fleet of trucks normally more than three as they were worried that just having one truck would be a problem if it broke down and made their delivery late upsetting their customer.I was lucky as my customers paid on 30 day terms with no problem.Another gripe of the owner operator is getting paid many will pay you early but want a discount for doing so !.

I don’t pop on here often now as I get fed up of reading on here that the wages are rubbish here, and then smile at people thinking of starting as an owner operator on rates that are just over a quid a mile. It is about time that people on these trucking forums realised the reason that wages and rates are so rubbish is because of over supply.

This is why companies go bust as there is not enough GOOD paying work out there, to earn money you first have to know your costs and then look at what you can earn. If your happy earning £500 a week dealing with all the paperwork and worries of keeping the truck moving as a new starter whilst keeping your head above water for the ninety days while waiting for your money then you really haven’t an idea what your getting into.

[weewulliewinkie]

mr reliable i understand your basic reasons for not supporting starting a business right now. however some of your post has got me confused, i hope you dont mind me saying a year 04/05 is hardly any length of time to progress a business, i was in my third year before i started taking a decent wage from my business. how can your costs only apply on a fortnightly basis ? if you mean because you had double shifted it then your revenue should also have doubled. i have to agree that a rented truck is a big decision for a new start, but only if you have solid direct work to cover the cost it would incur.
companies cutting costs will happen at any time recession or not the point is could you persuade a company to use your services at an mutual agreed rate ?. as for agencies that has the opposite effect try phoning driver hire for a price for a driver for a couple of days and see what price you are quoted. i did it a couple of years ago and was quoted £17.50 per hour plus vat, tell me thats cheaper than a casual driver looking for a few days work.

as i stated previously there is plenty of work, unfortunately if you dont go looking/chasing it then somebody else will. so i do agree with your original point nobody says it,s easy but the only way to make a go of it is lots of hard work day after day and then some.

[mrreliable]

WeeWullie,
Back then 04/05 we were drawing £600 a week and then taking a bigger sum when our vat rebate came as we were invoicing a European based company for the work we did.If you invoice abroad you can claim your vat back, or you could then this loophole may now have been closed.The Adhoc work paid more money but as stated earlier we could not expand on that because they wanted a commitment of three trucks minimum all late registered was good but the profit margin was ok but not great.

When I had had enough of talking to people wanting us to do work for nothing, (the decision was made to close the business) I’ll set you an example here :
Collect a trailer from Dartline at Dartford travel to Land Rover in the midlands, tip half the load then up to Jag at Halewood tip the other half and then call into Land Rover on the way home to collect the empties from earlier. Back to Dartline drop trailer collect another then down into Maidstone deliver then drop trailer back into Dartline collect another and then do the same the next day all for £600 ?

We moaned about the cost of diesel then and that has gone up approx 30p a litre since then. We used to run loaded both ways at 44t and had a Scania which averaged 8.5 to the gallon but even then half the earnings went in the tank. Doing between 5 and 700k a shift was certainly not being workshy.

As I stated before if you run a truck and make some sensible money then fairdoo’s I’m not here to shoot anybody down.Different people have different values on work and money, you may be in a better part of the country than me for work.

I have ran a couple of other businesses since then and pound for pound made more money for the outlay than I ever did with a truck and found them easy to sell on again making more money than a truck ever did. I used to hire Chocolate fountains out with staff at big events and could clear £400 at some three hour events and not have to work, I have since sold them on as the market became saturated with people cutting prices to the bone !!!

[dreva]

Goaty:
Best we all hide under our beds and not come out till the nasty recession thingy [zb] off then.

It’s a valid point Dreva but tbh an o/d will be better equipped to ride it out than hauliers of the size on your list.
A bit of nous and a good accountant make the difference.
Imo, of course.

devaney 3 wagons
wilsons about 10
at least 7 ods i know that have just vanished in the last 5 years

[goaty]

dreva:

Goaty:
Best we all hide under our beds and not come out till the nasty recession thingy [zb] off then.

It’s a valid point Dreva but tbh an o/d will be better equipped to ride it out than hauliers of the size on your list.
A bit of nous and a good accountant make the difference.
Imo, of course.

devaney 3 wagons
wilsons about 10
at least 7 ods i know that have just vanished in the last 5 years

OK… and I know at least double that that are still trading!

[blissy]

MrReliable:
Having been an owner operator in 2004/2005 I have to agree with Rob here. Unless you are in a niche market or in a part of the country where you haven’t much competition I cannot see how starting from scratch you can grow and grow.

I ran a truck on a 24hr basis double shifted so our costs were spread over two working weeks but in a week. I was riddiculed by other subbies for having a Scania which was rented, but after clocking up 290k in a year they could see the logic as I could walk away with no worries about selling a high mileage truck on. I won’t bore you with the costings and in’s and out’s of running trucks, but if you really believe you can make proper money owner operating as a new starter now I have to question your sanity. Most companies are cutting costs by the easiest way, agency staff and hired transport as they have no costs when the work goes quiet as they don’t have to pay for them.

There are many people on here that are successful owner drivers and I take my hat off to them, I could find other well paying work on an adhoc basis when we were operating but could not progress as these companies wanted a fleet of trucks normally more than three as they were worried that just having one truck would be a problem if it broke down and made their delivery late upsetting their customer.I was lucky as my customers paid on 30 day terms with no problem.Another gripe of the owner operator is getting paid many will pay you early but want a discount for doing so !.

I don’t pop on here often now as I get fed up of reading on here that the wages are rubbish here, and then smile at people thinking of starting as an owner operator on rates that are just over a quid a mile. It is about time that people on these trucking forums realised the reason that wages and rates are so rubbish is because of over supply.

This is why companies go bust as there is not enough GOOD paying work out there, to earn money you first have to know your costs and then look at what you can earn. If your happy earning £500 a week dealing with all the paperwork and worries of keeping the truck moving as a new starter whilst keeping your head above water for the ninety days while waiting for your money then you really haven’t an idea what your getting into.

Not every one wants to grow and grow though Mr Reliable …ive always been quite happy poodling along with one truck and without any ambition to have any more than that , im happy with what I earn and with what I drive and have been for the past 26 years of being self employed …there is work out there but you have to dictate the rate not let customers tell you what they will pay and as for 90 days payment terms I cant see how any small business would operate under those terms , 30 days max for me or I wouldnt work for them .
As for Rob K , hes got his opinions and its his right to voice them , but personally I dont really care what he thinks of the O/D issue , he knows nothing about me or any of the guys who post on here that run there own trucks he just guesses that they are all on the quid a mile etc etc and thats his mantra…at the end of the day if somebody was running for AQAMAAMB and was happy with what they earnt WTF has it got to do with Rob K ■■?

[coffeeholic]

I was an OD for 18 years, not in general haulage but in more of a niche market, and it was good but anyone who suggests starting up in general haulage as an OD these days needs their head examined. I stopped as the effort required was no longer worth the return. If the work stays as it is until April I am on course to earn around £38K this year with no worries or outlay as an employed driver so while I enjoyed being an OD I am not likely to return to it any time soon. Anyone still doing it, who is happy and earning enough to live as they want is in a good position and I wish them well. Anyone thinking of starting up is nuts.

[dreva]

off topic blissy have you sorted out some work after the mrct stuff

[blissy]

dreva:
off topic blissy have you sorted out some work after the mrct stuff

yes im doing a bit of tautliner work at the moment for a local company , its not to bad and im enjoying being on days , mind you me arms feel like they are hanging out of thier sockets pulling those curtains back and forth after just having to shut back doors for the last 9 years
Thanks for asking .