hammer:
AS1:
Also to the others who have got annoyed at me posting this question, that wasnt my intention however I wasnt asking from a owner driver perspective more of a how to start up a company etc.
But you have to start as an o/driver first, unless you have a lot of money to fund lots of trucks and their associated costs. The biggest mistake people seem to slip into is this idea, peddled by many of the trade magazines, that you can start a proper company with hard work and dedication only. You can’t. You need a lot of luck and you’re own work and it doesn’t happen overnight and is close to impossible in todays climate. There isn’t enough profit in it to fund more vehicles…
Agreed hammer. You have to start small. You make a go of it with one lorry. Then if that works you get two lorries. Then three then four. I expect you will need at least four before you can start to think about the possibility of affording yourself or somebody else to sit in the office all day to answer the phones, do the invoicing, sort out the wages. Until that time you will have to do all that yourself in the evening or at weekends. (Apart from the phone, which will stay silent all the way from Birmingham to Leeds, and then three people will ring you with details which need writing down just when you start to undo the straps and the forklift driver comes out tapping his watch. )
OK. In order to get your customers to give you a try, you will likely have to agree to 30 or more likely 60 days end of month payment terms. You have no credit for buying ANYTHING because your company is so new. Your drivers need paying weekly.
Do you have the money in your pocket right now to buy three or four trucks (say three months HP at £1k per truck), employ three or four people, and pay them all two or three months worth of wages each, plus 25% on top of that to the tax man (PAYE & NIC), plus three months worth of diesel, three months worth of maintenance / servicing / inspections, the fees for an O licence, rental of vehicle parking, plus fund all the VAT which you can’t reclaim until the end of the first quarter?
And don’t forget there’s also your own mortgage to pay. Your own wife and kids to feed and clothe. Because you’ve got no wages coming in now.
And all this expense before the first of your money from your customers starts trickling in (slowly and reluctantly with many phonecalls to help it along).
I am sorry if this sounds nasty and puts you off. I’m not telling you this to put you off. I’m trying to be realistic. You don’t turn around one day and say, “I’m going to get myself four or five trucks and set up a big company”. You buy (or better, rent) one, and start from there. See how it goes. Grow if you get some (decent) work offered. Keep it small enough to handle at first and grow slowly. There is nothing to kill a company more surely than running out of money. It’s called ‘over-trading’. Where a company goes bust because it grows too quickly and doesn’t have the cashflow to support it. All out on huge costs and the money not coming in quickly enough.
OK. Rant over. Sorry if I have upset you. There is nothing wrong with having a dream, and nothing wrong with working towards being the next steady eddie. But you do need to start at the beginnning, not jump in half way through.
Of course, if you’ve just won the lottery, I apologise for boring you, and good luck with it, I hope it works out for you. And if you’ve any spare work left over, let us know and we’ll help you out (at a decent rate!) 
