This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Small Fleet & Owner-Operator Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Starting a trucking company.
DETAILS: Jamie Hagen of Hell Bent Xpress sits down with James “The Rooster” Bowen from Back the Truck Up to talk about starting a trucking business. From knowing how to begin the process to calculating cost of operations to becoming “fully legal,” they cover the bases for someone wanting to become an owner-operator.
SPEAKER: Hagen is the owner of Aberdeen, South Dakota-based Hell Bent Xpress.
BIO: Hagen’s extensive transportation industry experience includes trucking and rail. He is skilled in negotiations, customer service, sales and strategic planning.
KEY QUOTES FROM HAGEN:
“It’s not just about extra money. There are times where you make less money as the owner of the truck than you would have as a company driver — it’s just how things shuffle out. You are gambling — one day you’re up, the next you’re down — whereas a company driver, you know what you’re going to make every day.”
“The worst you can do is not track your fuel economy. If you don’t track that you’ll never improve it. We’re still eking out a little bit of a profit even with the rates as low as they are, but that’s because we’re extremely fuel efficient.”
“If you’re a single truck owner-operator, one of the reasons you did it was because you wanted to run the equipment the way you wanted. Now you’re handing the keys over to someone and saying, ‘Please don’t wreck it.’ You have to get used to letting go of the truck. They’re now the captain of that ship, and you have to let them operate it the way they want to operate it.”
