Keep Your Eye On Your Own Pocket

I like to see the fancy custom trucks on the road with the paint jobs that match the trailer frame and the truck frame along with custom stainless steel and chrome.  I like to hear stories about the people in the business that are doing well and there are plenty of those stories out there if you know where to look.  What I don’t like is to try to look into other people’s pockets.

You will never really know what another person has unless you are an accountant or a banker and then you only know what you are being told to a certain degree.  Just because the truck is fancy and brand new, doesn't mean that they are doing well.  It means that they somehow or another acquired it with special financing, or a special deal with a bank, or maybe, just maybe, they are fortunate enough to own it outright because of their situation, but it doesn't mean that they are doing great in trucking.

On the other hand, if the truck is a piece of junk it doesn't mean that they are doing poorly either.  This is true everywhere, not just trucking.  However, when you are deciding on which path to take with your business, you have to look at your environment and decide which route to take for a better future.  In doing so, you have to talk to other drivers and look at where the country or business is headed.  For instance, when Burlington Northern Railroad was taken over by Berkshire Hathaway, they turned a failing business model around with their multi-million dollar war chest.  Berkshire Hathaway raised overpasses nationally that trains went under and were able to double the amount of freight capacity for the rail so that the ports could start putting everything on the rail instead of trucks.

At the same time, the Green Port initiative was started in California to reduce air pollutants.  Combine these two factors and you have a scenario which put many truckers out of business because they were dependent on the port for their livelihoods.

It is all relative.  So when you look around at the environment and see who and what is doing well or not doing so well, you can get a better picture of where to take your business.  And you need to know what business is going to work for you.  Just because someone is making money moving one type of freight, doesn't mean that they will do well moving something else and just because they have a nice truck doesn't mean that if you were in their shoes, with your financial situation, that you would be able to do the same thing that they are doing.

All you can do is make your business work for you and keep your eyes away from other people’s pocketbooks.  Craft a business model that makes you profitable based on what you have access to and go from there.  If you don’t have access to the best freight around, then get access to what you can and see if you can make money doing it.  Then build from there.