Lesson #1
We Never Settle for Average
Making Life Changing Money With Trucking
That Time I Saved $105,000 CASH in 16 Short Weeks!
By Joe Creek
When I go trucking, my purpose is to make a lot of money. And as a Trucker, making good money is something I’ve been able to accomplish, 95% of the time, over many years of my Owner Operator career. Sure, there are bad weeks, or periods when the freight drops off and it becomes difficult to keep the numbers up, after all, it is trucking.
But over many years, I have survived those tough times, and I ALWAYS came out well above average. This wasn’t only because of good fortune or luck, but because from the very beginning, I built my trucking business on solid principles that were well thought out and designed to keep my revenue per mile WELL ABOVE AVERAGE! But I also worked hard and hustled to get things done with a “no fail” attitude and I insisted on making good money for it. Otherwise, I wasn’t going to turn the wheels or burn the fuel.
In the lessons of the course, “How to Make the Big Money in Trucking”, I’ll outline for you the principles and plans for my business from the very beginning so you can see how to increase your profits. I’ll also tell you what I came up with as times changed over the years to continue to do very well, even through the toughest of times, to find higher and higher profits as the years went on.
Make no mistake, this opening lesson is the beginning of a POWERFUL business course on trucking. It is meant to open your eyes so you see, even in a difficult economy, there is ALWAYS potential for big money in Trucking. I am writing it to inform you, there is a lot of money to be made, IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT RIGHT!
I’m hoping from this, drivers like you will learn there is a lot more money to be made than they’re used to making, AND THEN TAKE ACTION TO GO MAKE IT! I will do my best to show you what I’ve done to keep my numbers up over the years, even when freight rates were dropping.
The Plan to save $105,000 CASH in 14 weeks (it took 16)
I had been working hard in the truck for a couple years to achieve some financial and life goals. One goal was to become entirely debt free.
Back in the good old days of 2021, the money was very good. When I say very good, what I mean is, I’d call a broker on a $5 a mile load going 400 miles, I’d bid another $500 bucks, and most of the time get it. And sometimes, I got a lot more than that! The market was on fire!
I paid off my truck in March that year, 21 months early. Come late summer I was a bit worn out and took 7 straight weeks off visiting family. But by October’s end, I had paid off a total debt of $205,000 for the year! I don’t care who you are or what you do for a living, THAT’S A LOT OF MONEY!
But becoming debt free wasn’t the entirety of my goal. I also needed a great deal of cash set aside so that I could sell the old KW and take some time off to enjoy life. In fact, I’m writing this for you now, 8000 miles from home on another continent, enjoying my life a little.
As good as 2021 was, 22 began as a very good year too. But by summer I found myself needing to change jobs. The rates in trucking began dropping like ship anchors! As you know, this was the beginning of a very difficult time for many truckers and trucking companies alike. It began a time of drivers selling their trucks and various Carriers closing their doors. But I knew if I looked for some big money, I would find it somewhere, because I always do. And so I did…
In August of ’22 I began looking in various places that I would normally look for work, online, etc., when I remembered a Carrier I’d heard of some years earlier. Their primary operation is in the oilfields of Texas and Louisiana. I Googled their number, called and spoke to a recruiter a thousand miles away in Louisiana.
I am very direct when calling a Carrier and asking what they offer their Owner Operators. There is zero reason to speak to that, “nice lady” on the phone for 20 minutes, only to find out their pay scale is “average”. Lesson #1, we NEVER settle for average! So one of the very first things I ask about is the money. Normal questions are, “What kind of rates do you charge your customers?” and “What is the weekly gross, and for how many miles?”. This keeps most of the calls very short as I am specific about the kind of money I’ll go trucking for. And it’s NEVER cheap! But this recruiter left me with some interest for sure.
Lesson note: I asked a recruiter one time, “What kind of “rate per mile” do your Owner Operator’s average?” He told me he didn’t know. He said, “No one ever asked me that before.”
It is a “FAILURE” on the part of an Owner Operator to not ask what kind of “rate per mile” he can expect to earn with a Carrier. The O/O needs to be thorough in getting a proper answer to this question before leasing on. I mean, the reason we work is to make money, right? And if a trucker doesn’t have any idea of the rate per mile he’ll be working for, how could he know if he has the potential to be a great success with the Carrier or not?
Would you look for a non-trucking job and not ask what the hourly rate is? No! That’d be ridiculous! This is likely one reason O/O’s do poorly or remain “average”. They don’t really know if they have the “OPPORTUNITY” to make Big Money with a Carrier before they lease on. They lack the initial planning it takes to become a highly successful O/O.
It is the “average rate per mile” that needs to be taken into account when you are looking for the Big Money in Trucking.
So I have this recruiter in Louisiana on the phone, and I tell him what I am specifically looking for (the sun, the moon and the stars!), and he gave me the number to one of his agents that might have the work and rates I was in search of. I spoke to the agent and I had some interest, but I felt we weren’t quite where I wanted to be money-wise. But I didn’t give up there. I knew the Carrier had numerous, independent agents in its system and I was hopeful that another might fit the bill.
I called the recruiter back and it was then he remembered a newer but busy agency that was on fire! He said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner!” He gave me the number to the 2 partners/agents.
After speaking extensively with these 2 guys over the next few days, to THOROUGHLY check them out, I realized I’d found a VERY GOOD “OPPORTUNITY”. It turns out these agents were “hungry go–getters”. One partner had numerous customers hauling specialty tools in the oilfield that always paid top rate. The other had a very good paying customer who needed power only trucks for their specialized, natural gas transport and storage trailers
Both sides of their business, the oilfield service & the natural gas customer, paid VERY WELL. I began hitting big numbers with them right away. It seems that even in what was a very difficult economy for many, I was able to connect–up to a quality Carrier and start getting very big checks again.
After a few months there, once I’d met some of my other financial goals, I wanted to make a final push to quickly save some cash, lots of CASH, $105,000 CASH to be exact! So I made saving money a little game. “The Game”, based on what I was making after fuel and Carrier deductions at the time, was to save $7500 a week, for 14 straight weeks. Not such a little game, eh?
This wasn’t the end of my work with this Carrier. This was an attempt to quickly save a ton of cash in my newly acquired brokerage account, then wind my operation down from there so I could go off and live life a little, off the road. I began this journey with some rather big expectations, saving $7500 a week. I mean, who saves $7500 a week? See the 2 charts below.
Below are 2 iPhone scans of the chart I drew up to record the progress of my goal. The first one is mostly empty to show the beginning of my saving. The second chart is of the completed goal detailing my week-to-week progress. To come up with the goal, I considered what I had been making in the prior months and my thought was I could save $7500 a week, times 14 weeks = $105,000. Yes, I tend to have high expectations. I told you I don’t work cheap! I started with the extra $5000 I had but I wanted to add as much as possible every week. Otherwise, this shows my weekly progress to quickly achieve my goal of $105,000 CASH saved. Note: Where it says, “Add $7500 Mo” (month) was a mistake. I meant, Add $7500 “WK” (week).
Below is the chart at the end of my Goal. I missed my target date by only 2 weeks.
Notice there were a few weeks or so I was pretty short of achieving my weekly goal, business got slow. But also notice the final few weeks where the deposits increased markedly when my truck grossed over $59,000 in 5 weeks! I don’t care who you are, that is a lot of money made on 5 axles (on under 3000 mile per week)!
Screenshot of my newly acquired Fidelity account.
Notice it starts at zero and quickly climbs up on the graph.
The above results are what YOU have the potential to make as a trucker. But it takes knowledge either from your own experience or from other drivers who have been doing it for years to find this kind of money. This course is written for truckers like you who have the future potential to make a lot more money, but aren’t entirely sure how or where to find it.
Trucking’s potential can provide you Life Changing Money
I do not have a passion for trucking. I have a passion for MAKING MONEY in trucking! A lot of money! And I’ve gotten good at it!
If trucking is in my blood, and it is, it’s because the big money continues to drive me. Chasing the big money has always kept me working toward better and better, bigger and bigger money over the years. And I always find it! I’m here to tell you, you can find it too!
There’s a freedom in knowing that next paycheck is more than enough to pay your bills for the entire month. Or knowing you can take a week or 2 off whenever you want because you can afford it. Theres nothing like having $36,000 left on your truck payment, then 6 weeks later having the extra cash to pay it off, 21 months early. Or writing a $27,000 check to pay off your 2 year old car, 2 years early. I’ve done these things and more with trucking. I know other successful Owner Operators who have done similar things for many years too. And you can too when you know what to look for and how to go about doing it.
I know that trucking and the economy doesn’t always stay strong. Economies seem to bounce up and down like a rubber ball.
Cheap Carriers come in and the high paying contracts go away. Shippers halt production and the good money is no longer there. Freight slows down leaving cheap freight, to the ordinary driver, as the ONLY freight available. I get it! But this is trucking for some truckers, not all truckers.
When you get a taste of the big money, when you learn how to find it, time after time, year after year, the big money in trucking will change your life, and you can build financial stability from there.
And that’s why I stick with trucking, to hit those big paychecks, time after time, year after year, regardless of what other truckers or economies do.
I’m here to share what I’ve learned from many years of trucking and business, so you are able to make more money for spending your weeks on the road. Or maybe you’ll look for something closer to home, that still pays you well above average. How you use this course will be up to you.
But it’ll cost you a few of those hard earned dollars of yours for the information that took me years to learn and develop, and I refuse to give it away “cheap”. It’s a lot of work for an old trucker like me, to write this all down so that it’s understandable, thorough and useful to a driver like you. I think it’s worth $10,000 BUCKS if it can help a guy (or lady) make tens of thousands of dollars more over the months and years. AND IT CAN!
It will take work and persistence on your part to find the Big Money. But I will lay it out as simply and thoroughly as I can to help you learn to find it. And once you find it, once you get used to making those big dollar checks, I GUARANTEE it’ll change the way you look at trucking, and you’ll never want to settle for less again.
Like I said, I’m putting this course together for drivers like you. And I have no doubt, it will be the best thing you’ll ever learn about making money in trucking. I guarantee it…
Joe Creek