Owner-operator Kelvin Schmidt, Trucker of the Month for January in Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year program, didn't come to a formula for enduring success without a tour through the proverbial school of hard knocks, as it were. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, hear his own account of his start as a flatbed-pulling hotshotter in a one-ton dually, his learning-experience stumbles through other trucks and growing "as bad as an accountant" with a focus on costs, revenue and profit per-trip to keep a guiding hand on the business.
"You've got to know what your costs are, and I do that for absolutely every trip I do," he said. "Every trip." Diligence in tracking costs enabled some of the big early shifts in his approach to equipment. After bad experiences with a variety of used trucks -- then with a newer yet no-less-problematic glider -- he changed tack and began purchasing new with factory-extended warranties, realizing full well the costs not just of repairs, but also of accompanying downtime. And cost diligence doesn't of course have to occur via any particularly sophisticated-looking or even very complicated system.
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Trucking's not rocket science, but close tracking of costs does require diligence, that's sure, something Schmidt feels has been crucial to his success.
So far so good with the new iron, he noted.
His end-of-year profit-and-loss statement for 2022 showed the above-average results of all of it, even with massive cost inflation and an ungodly-looking fuel bill for year.
