Owner-operators learn the basics of business at a seminar held by Partners in Business (www.partners-in-business.com), an educational program offered by Overdrive and ATBS. PIB, which is made possible by Freightliner and Castrol, consists primarily of an in-depth business management manual for owner-operators and seminars at major truck shows.
In the first six months of 2007, Sam Mobley of Lake Wylie, S.C., an owner-operator leased to Schneider National, grossed $1.27 per mile for all miles, loaded and deadhead, which he figures is a raise of 12 cents a mile – all while running fewer miles. He credits a great relationship with a savvy new dispatcher: himself.
Mobley, a 10-year Schneider veteran, was one of the first owner-operators to test the company’s new percentage-pay contract and online load board – hand-in-hand enhancements that became official in June 2007. Schneider contractors who choose percentage pay pick their own freight according to their own criteria, such as location, destination or rate per loaded mile. For example, Mobley delivered to Dayton, Texas, northwest of Beaumont, on a Tuesday, having already lined up a load out of Port Arthur on Wednesday.
“This is another tool that Schneider has to offer the owner-operator who wants to be more involved in what he’s doing out here, like me,” Mobley says. “It’s not for everybody, because you can’t just wait for someone to call you with a load. You have to keep yourself two steps ahead, so to speak.”
“It’s the closest thing to being an independent,” says Mike Bethea, director of operations for truckload contractors for Green Bay, Wis.-based Schneider. “They can dispatch themselves, pre-assign themselves, pick and choose their loads, and it’s all running in the middle of an asset-based network.”
On one level, Schneider’s new owner-operator plan – which all concerned admit is based partially on the Landstar model – is an example of a big company acting “small” by offering individuals a buffet of options, as described by Thomas Friedman in his best seller The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century. But it’s also an example of the trucking industry realizing that pay is not the only tool for attracting, retaining and nurturing owner-operators. Choice in their loads and routes, business assistance and advice, healthcare options – all these are of increasing importance to owner-operators and therefore to the fleets that partner with them.
“You have to start out with the viewpoint that your independent contractors are business owners,” says Steve Gundale, senior corporate communications manager at Dart Transit, based in Eagan, Minn. “They have business needs, and you have to provide a favorable business environment for them, or they won’t stay. On the other hand, give them every tool they need to succeed in business, and you’ll succeed, too.”
