What Is Your Money Maker?

It's hard to pick just one thing, but in doing so I'll say clock management (which is really at least two things, but hopefully I can be allowed that stretch).

Managing time wisely is a paramount skill in all of life. We all only get 24 hours per day...and as truckers, we only get 70 hours per 8 days of line 3 & 4 time.

My answer to Errol's question is finished now, but I'll give an example just of my last couple of days if you want to read all this rot - it might be helpful for someone getting started post-training:

I had a 6 am live unload Monday morning, followed by a 9am or after d&h 90 minutes away. On Friday, I got within about 8 hours of the unload spot. I saw that there is a Love's and a Blue Beacon less than a mile from the unload. My eldest kid and her family live along the path, about 2/3 of the way. So, Saturday I got up early and busted it to a truck stop near my daughter's place. I logged myself into sleeper berth , got my daughter to pick me up and we went for brunch, then back to her place where I took a nap and played with the grandkids, etc. Eight hours later, hos clock paused, I was back in the truck and drove up to that truck stop near the unload...set my alarm for 05:00 and hit the sack. Slipped over to the DC, got unloaded, slipped back to the truck wash and got a washout. While waiting in line there I started the 14 hour clock with pre trip, check in, unload, break. After a little while I logged back on fueling...after the washout I returned to the truck stop and fueled (didn't do it prior night because I was tired, and also wanted the free coffee that usually comes with fueling, etc.) Anyway, it also let me get in a 30 minute break to restart my 8 hour clock in case I wasn't at the d&h location long enough for that.

Then I drove about 90 minutes to the shipper , logged check in/out 5 minutes, d&h 10 minutes, got the trailer swap done, and got the heck out of there. I was headed west toward the blizzard that is going on now, so I wanted to get as far as I could yesterday (Sunday). I drove nearly 600 miles on top of doing an unload, washout, fueling, and got that all into about 9.5 hours total on-duty time. Then I went to sleep, hoping that the storm would pass over me during the night. It didn't...dang think just isn't moving east fast enough and my path is nearly impassible now.

I reviewed all sorts of traffic and weather information and decided that driving today wouldn't be worth risking life and property, north worth starting my drive clock given the little progress I'd likely be able to make.

I'm due in Brea, CA at Albertson's for a 5am live unload on Friday. I'm thinking that if the weather clears I can make it there Thursday evening without much trouble.

Now if drivers were sitting around choosing their favorite places to unload, there isn't much chance that the name Albertson's would come up. They won't let us in much ahead of the appointment time, we can't be late, there is no parking, and the total time there is usually pretty long. Last thing I want is my clock to start on Friday before I'm out of there...but with no nearby parking, what can be done?

Looking at the sat view of the join provided very kindly to us for free by Google, I can see a lot of places where I can hide if it is late evening and I'm going to be out early am. Heck, I just noticed a nice shopping plaza nearby that I didn't see when I looked a couple of months ago.

So...I'm going to remain here enjoying the Avoca, Iowa Flying J today. I did my laundry, ate in their gourmet ;-) restaurant, and caught up on Trucking Truth. Soon I'm going to watch a movie or two and then sleep.

I've set my alarm for 06:30...soon after that, I'll have been here 34 hours and will have a reset in. I didn't really *need* a reset...at least I didn't if weather conditions were disregarded...but we disregard weather conditions at our peril. I run on recap all the time....I don't take time off often, so I try to keep my line 3&4 time at around 8:45 per day. If I had hit the road today, waited behind crashes, made it through all the slow going, and stopped for chain up who knows how many times, I could easily have burned up 8..9..10..11 hours and only gotten a short way. Instead, I'm taking a 34 and catching up on things, I've got clean clothing...and with the reset I can take as much as 33 on-duty hours to get to Brea, although I hope it is much less. Forecasts make it look like I'll have largely clear sailing with my start tomorrow morning.

When I get to Brea, I'll time things so that I get there around 10pm or so. I'll sneak into a shopping center or office complex parking spot less than 2 miles of Albertson's, and I'll go get in their line at 04:00. I'm sure I'll be on detention there past 8am, so I'll start my clock and log 5 min pre, 5 chk in, 5 unload and then sleeper berth....thus I'll have plenty of hours to roll wherever they send me next.

Learning how to do this stuff is essential to maximizing income as an OTR driver, as well as having some decent quality of life along the way.

Of all the things you do as a truck driver, what do you consider the thing you do, that you have, the action that you pay attention to, that is most responsible for really making your money?

This is an awesome conversation and it's definitely going to be the theme for an upcoming podcast and article. We've heard some great stuff already and I would love to hear more from the experienced drivers. I'll be quoting you guys and gals in the article.

I'm going to give a quick answer now and I'll come back with a link to my podcast when I do it. I'll also be doing an article probably next week on this, so give me some thoughts now and I'll use them.

In thinking about this briefly I came up with a 5 tier system for making great money in this industry. You should develop these important traits chronologically in the following order:

1) Safety

Of course safety is the foundation of every driver's career. No need to expand on this, it's obvious.

2) Always Be On Time

You have to be on time all the time. You really must take the approach that being even one minute late to an appointment is completely unacceptable. If dispatch can count on you to be on time they can plan your upcoming loads ahead of time (called pre-planning) which will give you a lot more miles overall. You'll never turn 3,000+ miles per week consistently on an OTR or regional fleet if you're not being pre-planned at least some of the time.

3) Develop Great Relationships Within Your Own Company

You don't have to be buddies with anyone, but you must have a strong professional relationship with your dispatcher. It's also important to get to know some of the people above your dispatcher like the Operations Manager and the Terminal Manager. Dispatchers can do a lot for you but they don't have very much authority. Sometimes you need someone with authority to pull a few strings for you and make things happen.

4) Highly Efficient Time Management

Once you've established the first three it's time to really step up your game and master time management. You have to learn to use all of the logbook rules to your advantage and squeeze the maximum amount of efficiency out of your time. Not only do you have to manage your logbook, but beyond that into scheduling maintenance at the right time, getting loaded and unloaded efficiently, preventing breakdowns whenever possible, scheduling yourself to manage traffic and weather conditions efficiently, and even running your personal life like eating, doing laundry, and having a little fun.

5) Learning The Little Tricks Most Drivers Can't Seem To Master

There are a lot of things you can do to maximize your time management and your miles, and most drivers aren't good at this stuff. It's a long list, but a few would be:

• Talk the dock workers into loading or unloading you early
• Call customers to move your appointment times ahead
• Keep track of customers where your company has empty trailers in case you find yourself needing one after dropping a load
• Take the lousy loads without complaining and then strongly encourage dispatch to pre-plan you on something great in return
• Get way ahead of the game when you have time to spare. Don't sit around relaxing near the shipper just because you have an extra day to make a run. Get as close to the receiver (consignee) as possible as quickly as you can in case the truck breaks down or you get an opportunity to unload early

I want to hear more of what is working for you experienced drivers. It doesn't have to be Earth-shattering things or even anything we haven't talked about already. I'd just like to hear how you've managed to squeeze more miles out of every week and maybe share a story about how you made it happen.

I've already stated my opinion that my "main" money maker is being a 'go-to" driver for my DM. That means really being flexible in your work.* This will keep you in your DM's mind for emergency orders and the good stuff (miles, you know).

Another tip: try to manage your time so that you deliver early in your shift - lots of time left in your day. That way you won't be restricted so much in how far you can go for your next load.



* One time I was already hooked to my pick-up trailer but hadn't sent in a Loaded Call. My DM phoned me and asked me to drop that because the driver for a "hot"/important load had not shown up. I put my original trailer back (newbies: dropping and hooking a traielr takes some time & effort) and took the hot dispatch.

All of the above replies are great, and I want to mention one more thing that may not be as obvious to a new driver as it sounds: learn the ins and outs of your company’s pay scales/system and policies. Even if you are in a fixed-annual increase system, there may be other special pays and bonuses available that you will want to know about.

My company uses a merit-based pay increase system where we can see pay increases after a productive calendar quarter. It’s a fairly complicated system, and there is a transition period from a student’s initial training pay onto the merit system that many of our first-year drivers didn’t take the time (or just didn’t know) to learn. Performance during and after this period can mean the difference between an industry average annual income and a reasonably comfortable one at the end of the first year, and it makes a world of difference in the second year.

Understanding my company’s system informs how I run and helps me set myself up for long term success. The biggest benefit is that I don’t have to kill myself to make a good paycheck.