I wonder how many of us became owner operators because we were tired of all the crap we had to put up with when we were company drivers? I used to think that being an owner operator would be a piece of cake. With my background and after spending almost nine years as a company driver I was sick and tired of always having to do what the company told me, to go where they told me, to take only the amount of time off that they allowed me, etc. I thought that I would become an owner operator and I could go wherever I wanted to go, do whatever I wanted to do and take as much time off as I pleased. What I dreamer I was.

So, I did my homework that last year that I was a company driver. I tracked everything from where we went to how much fuel we used. I talked to hundreds of other owner operators and picked their brains. I created various spreadsheets that would help us track everything from what our actual revenue was to how many gallons per mile we used. I found all kinds of informative websites on running your own trucking business. I could tell you what our costs were on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. Finally, in March of 2006 we felt we were ready and we took the plunge; we purchased our first truck.

That first year was very difficult. The first company we leased to had both owner operators and company drivers. They offered us a package where we could get a percentage of the load and we would basically dispatch ourselves. We would be offered several loads and we could choose which one we preferred. The only problem with this set up was that we had never dealt with freight lanes and so we really didn’t know how to pick and choose. After about a month of really bad choices on our part, we decided to make a change.

The second company was a little better. There, we didn’t have to know about freight lanes. We were basically dispatched from point A to point B. The income was okay, although we did do a lot of sitting. The fuel surcharge could have been paid on a timelier basis, but all in all, it was okay. Then in December of 2006, the bottom began fell out of the market in trucking. We spent the entire month basically sitting. While we were sitting we would see all the company trucks moving. That’s when we learned a valuable lesson (for us at least) never lease on with a carrier that has both owner operators and company drivers; when push comes to shove the company driver will get the worm no matter how early you get there.

We finally moved to our current company and it was one of the best moves we ever made. This company is 100% owner operator and is non-forced dispatch. For the first year I carried my old point of view over into my business practices as an owner operator. We would refuse loads going to places we didn’t want to go to and we would take as much time off as we wanted. It didn’t matter to us that our time off fell on high volume freight days. We felt that it was our truck that we were paying for so we had that freedom. In truth, we did. It was our truck and we were paying all the bills. In short, we were developing a bad attitude.

At around this time, I started listening to a guy named Kevin Rutherford. He would be a guest once a week on a show called The Loading Dock on Sirius Satellite Radio. He would talk about taxes, specking your truck, your sweet spot and all kinds of other things. Both hubby and would really look forward to hearing him during his time on The Loading Dock. Kevin was all about personal responsibility in your business (and I might add in your personal life as well). While I don’t always agree with Kevin, I really liked what he had to say about running your business. Listening to Kevin made me really proud to be a truck driver. It reaffirmed my belief that not just anybody could do what we do; that it actually took some skill.

At first, my only interest was in learning new and improved ways to manage my business. I had been in the legal field and I had dabbed a little in taxes and so that was my main interest. My husband listened to Kevin for all the mechanical information he offered. But, over time, I started to really listen to him. I did learn all those wonderful and, at least to me, really interesting things he had to say about managing my business. But, in the process I also learned that being an owner operator was more than just being able to do whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it!

Now, let me be clear, I never took any type of class offered by Kevin which specifically told me all the steps that I needed to take to be an owner operator. At the time I didn’t even know that he had DVDs spelling out a lot of this stuff. Honestly, we have never really contributed very much to Kevin’s bottom line. As a matter of fact, in the last year I have only purchased one DVD for $9.99. Most of what we learned from Kevin he shared with us for free. I sure hope he doesn’t catch on! I’m a big believer of holding on to our money!

Truly, what it came down to for us was Kevin’s professional attitude about our profession. That made me start thinking about my own attitude. How could I expect to be truly successful when I had an employee’s attitude? In order for us to succeed, we had to, number one: figure out who was our customer. Well, that was easy; our customer was the carrier to whom we were leased. Then, number two: we had to figure out how we could keep our customer. Again, that was easy; we could keep our customer by making sure that we were meeting the needs of our customer.

So then came the great attitude adjustment. This was around February or March of 2008. We still didn’t like going to some places, but we quickly figured out that a lot of other owner operators also didn’t (and wouldn’t) go to some places. We needed something that would allow us to stand out from the crowd. So, we stopped turning down loads. This was a great move because our customer really appreciated our willingness to meet their needs. They started showing their appreciation by quickly getting us out of those places we didn’t want to go to (think JFK) by either emptying us out of there (boy did we save a bundle on fuel) or giving us loads that went from one coast to another.

Well, talk about Pavlov’s dog; we started looking forward to those “undesirable” loads. We knew that by taking those loads we were serving the needs of our customer and that in turn our customer would reward us. That began the process of our transition from company driver to owner operator. Now, we look for new ways to meet the needs of our number one customer.

Truth be told, we work longer hours now. We don’t take time off whenever we want to either. You will probably find us in places that make you cringe. We’re magnets to major snowstorms; we spend a lot of time in cities like Los Angeles, CA, Queens, New York, Chicago, ILL and Atlanta, GA. We do a lot of “city work.” Hey it pays really well! If you see a big shiny blue 780 stuck in traffic in any of those cities; it’s probably us! You see, that’s what our customer needed and we’re in the business of customer service.

We finally got it right in time for 2009 which, by all accounts, was not a good year for the trucking industry. There was not enough freight and too many trucks. Trucking companies were failing left and right! The small solo operations were hit even harder. Thanks to our view of our business and our relationship with our carrier, for us it was a good year.