How to Start a Box Truck Business in 2024 | Ep 23

Caroline: Welcome to this week in trucking, the podcast that tells you what you need to know about the trucking market for the week. My name is Caroline . And when I got started here at Bobtail, it was my first time in the trucking industry.

And most of the carriers that we work with at Bobtail have semi trucks and trailers. Running over-the-road OTR routes and a lot of those businesses that sign up to factor with Bobtail are brand new carriers. They’ve just gotten their authority and they need fast funding on their invoices to keep up with expenses like fuel, driver pay, all of those expenses that go into running a trucking operation. And something that a colleague told me, who had been in the industry for some time and who became a bit of a mentor to me, he said when the rates get lower the trucks get smaller, And this was at the end of 2022 when the freight market really started to crumble Rates were falling like [00:01:00] crazy.

And we started seeing more and more requests for factoring from box truck businesses. So although hopefully we’re on our way out of that freight recession, I’m still hearing from a lot of box truck business owners. And the number one concern that they have is where the heck can I get. loads. So that’s why I invited my friend, Victor Newton at Bigg Vic TV, a seasoned box truck business owner to come on This Week in Trucking, to give us some advice on the best ways to get started and stay strong in a business with all its ups and downs. Thanks for being here, Victor. 

Victor: Thank you, Miss Caroline. Glad to be here. 

Caroline: All right. Can you just give us a little bit of background on how you got started in trucking and why you chose box trucks of all things?

Victor: I chose box trucks and I started about 3. 5 years ago. Purchased a 26 ft box truck. I was watching YouTube, where I normally go. It’s like my television. [00:02:00] So I just happened to be searching. A video popped up in the algorithm. There was a guy with a non CDL box truck and I saw that he made about 20 grand in a month just from Amazon Relay.

He was home every day. And at the time I was barbering, so I was like, okay, maybe this is something I can get into, do it on the side, see if I like it. And I also had a client that I was cutting. He also was running the same freight, right? This is what he started doing full-time. He quit his job and every week he was showing me about what he was making with Amazon for the week.

And I was like, Oh, really? You made that? Yeah. Take a look at this. I said, when did they pay? We get paid every Thursday. I said, really? So I just happened to do a little more digging, did some research, found me a truck out there in Orlando, Florida, got me a loan from my credit union, personal loan, paid 10 grand for that truck.

And that’s pretty much in a nutshell how I got started. And I also was looking at hot shots [00:03:00] and I looked at hot shots versus box trucks. I said, okay, I’m seeing a lot of guys driving hot shots, but every few miles or so, or every X amount of miles, I’m seeing them having to get out, check the freight, check the straps, make sure everything is still strapped down really good.

And I was like, I don’t want to do that. But if it was raining and I had to get out, that’s not gonna work for me. So I’ve gravitated towards the box trucks. I was like, okay, you can secure your freight in the back. Most times you’re at a dock. You may not have to get wet. I don’t mind getting wet, but while I’m driving, I have to get out, check freight, keep checking, make sure things are not swaying or anything’s falling off the back.

So that’s what made me gravitate towards the box truck business. 

Caroline: And when you first got started, were you just doing Amazon Relay Loads? 

Victor: Absolutely. First six months, all I did was Amazon relay. 

Caroline: Wow. And, but the game has changed a little bit around Amazon relay, right? I don’t, they’re not accepting brand new authorities [00:04:00] anymore, right?

Victor: Not at all. 180 days now. So yeah, that was another reason that made me get started back then. And that was like the hook for a lot of new people that was starting because Okay, you have a new authority, but you can run Amazon for at least your first six months, right? To get some age on that authority, you still can make money and you can go get that authority.

Sign up for Amazon immediately. But when they change that messed it up for a lot of people. 

Caroline: I imagine that’s the reason behind that. Is that fraud or is it just that they can be pickier with the types of carriers that they have? Cause the freight market is lower now. 

Victor: Are you speaking as far as Amazon or in general, like just brokers in general?

Caroline: Yeah, I would say in Amazon particularly. Do you know why they changed that? 

Victor: I think they changed it in the beginning because there were a lot of carriers coming in. And when you get a mass amount of carriers [00:05:00] signing up, you might probably end up missing a few things off of people’s trucks. And yeah, so I’m figuring that may have had something to do with it to probably merchandise was probably came up missing, right?

Carriers weren’t being vetted long enough before they actually came on board with Amazon. And A lot of people were getting rental trucks. They really didn’t own those trucks. Yeah, that was the first thing they did. They stopped certain rental, accepting certain rental companies.So you couldn’t get a box truck with Penske or wherever.

So it was only certain ones that they would let come in and actually run with a rental truck. And they stopped that, so that was the first sign I saw. 

Carolien: And I think you’ve mentioned before that one of the reasons that you decided on box trucks was because it didn’t require a CDL, right?

Now, I want to ask you potentially a controversial question because you got into this business without a CDL. [00:06:00] I do think that it might be overkill to have box truck drivers have to go through all the training that somebody with an A-level CDL has. But I think you would know where I’m going with this.

Do you think that people should have some kind of training to drive these trucks? And what do you recommend to people who want to get in this business and want to be safe? 

Victor: So I would definitely recommend that most people think, okay, I’ve driven a U Haul before. I can drive a 26 foot box truck, right? 

Yes. And a no. So most times when you’re driving a U Haul, U Hauls are a certain height, even though it may be longer, you get in these box trucks that are super tall. And if you’re not conscious of how tall your box is, you may peel that thing back like a sardine if you go in the wrong location. So I highly recommend having some getting some form of training because number one, it’s still a heavy piece of equipment that you’re operating out there [00:07:00] and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can really, especially I’ve seen people do it.

They turn corners and hit cars while they’re turning corners because it’s not a car. It’s a truck. You need a little wider. It’s a little wider turn. Listen, I was petrified in the beginning. I was like, Oh my God, I’ve never driven a truck this size before. I don’t have a commercial driver’s license.

But I did understand that I have to pay very close attention to those side mirrors and pay attention to my clearance. So I would really turn slow if I see cars or I would, if I look at it, and it doesn’t look like I can clear it. I’m not trying it. I’m not trying. I’m going all the way around.

So that’s the purpose of having a truckers navigation. That was one of the biggest mistakes I made. I heard everybody in the beginning. Oh, go download this app. Download that app for truckers. Those apps still ran me into a low-clearance bridge. I had to back up, stop [00:08:00] traffic.

I was like, oh no, this is bad. So that same day that happened, I went to the Loves. I invested $300 in the trucker’s navigation. I said, I will never do that again. It’s embarrassing. 

Caroline: Wow. Yeah, I can. I wouldn’t have even thought that I would have thought that an app would have figured that out by now.

Victor: No, I had the Hammer app to be specific. That was the app for truckers. You could put your box truck height in there. I’ll get all of that stuff. And I was this far from the shipper and it said 12 feet, one inch. That bridge clearance and my box was 12 7. I said, Oh, time to back up. I can’t do it. And there was a church that said no, U-turn.

I made a U-turn in that church. I’m sorry. I had to. 

Caroline: I think God will forgive you. 

Victor: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I didn’t hurt anybody. That’s the main thing. 

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Super important. I wonder if there’s a training program or I can imagine that one recommendation might be try to get maybe a [00:09:00] job as a company driver for box trucks first, and then you get your feet wet.

You understand how it goes. You’re not paying for your own insurance at that point. And you can understand and hopefully learn from somebody else. So you don’t make those mistakes, but the, yeah, that’s a good point. And the trucker navigation is a good point too. That’s a good, that’s a great tip. So we’ve been hearing a lot from.

Trucking business owners over the last couple of months, people have been talking to us. We’ve been reaching out, see if people are interested in factoring services and they come back with, Factoring? I can’t even get a load. And a lot of these people are box truck to have newer box truck businesses.

They’ve maybe just bought a box truck because trucks are pretty cheap right now. But they’re having a really hard time getting loads. Now you started off with Amazon Relay in the good old days when you could do that as a brand new authority. 

Victor: For sure. The good old days. 

Caroline: And so what would you recommend to somebody who’s just starting out now who can’t do Amazon Relay until 180 days have [00:10:00] gone by?

Victor: So what’s been popular now? So there’s a few things I recommend. It depends on how a person wants to get started. And what their market looks like currently, like in their backyard first, right? I would say start in your backyard. And so many people skip this step. I even skipped it because I started with Amazon Relay.

So now when I go back and I really dig deeper into how does a new carrier or new company start or solicit their business? I’ll give you an example. I have a new guy out in Seattle that came into business. He leased onto my authority, which is also an option for newer carriers to find someone that will allow you to lease onto the authority, right?

Because they have an age authority. That’s a thing. But I also told him to get some business cards, right? Get you some business cards. Get your company hat and shirts [00:11:00] look very professional, right? And once you do that, take a look at those shippers that are around you with docks. You can always go and present your company, right?

I met a guy at the MATS trucking event that created an $8-million business from doing just that in his backyard. And is number one question was, Hey, what is the freight that you have the most problems moving? What is your problem freight? And he took on their problem freight, turned into a lucrative contract for him, right?

You have to be willing to do what other people are not willing to do. Everyone wants to just go to the load board. If you go to the low boards as a new authority and you use certain brokers, they already know that your authority is new, which is going to give you a further lower rate on that freight, because they already sensed the desperation.

You need your first load. Here’s the price. And if you don’t take it, this is the price, right? So to go around that, my new guy that came in, he leased onto my authority, we ran [00:12:00] a load and every shipper that he went to or receiver. He’s handing out his business card. One of those receivers called him back. He has a refrigerator truck and he was able to move freight directly.

He just set up as a vendor for that shipper. And now he has a direct shipper relationship based on handing the old-school business card. Everyone just goes to the internet, but listen, old-school tactics still work for a lot of these older businesses that have been around for years. 

I love the internet. It’s great. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an amazing place, but people still hand out business cards and they still work old-school. 

Caroline: I made the mistake at MATS of not bringing business cards, not printing out business cards for myself, and I regretted it every step of the way, because especially in this industry, and I think it’s because it’s such an in-person industry where the experience at the dock is the highest [00:13:00] stress, you have to have a lot of emotional intelligence to do this job, which I think a lot of people underestimate. You’re going to hear things at a loading dock that you’ve never heard in your life. And so not being a stranger helps. And to know that, know someone in person, it helps. And I think sometimes, companies or new business owners, especially young folks think that it’s all digital.

Everything’s about digital. And I’m a digital marketer, right? That’s my bread and butter. Of course, I’m going to forget business cards because I’m a millennial digital marketing manager, but it’s so incredibly helpful and useful and effective to go to someone and say, Hey, and I love what this person said.

You said about this guy that created an 8 million business this way in trucking. What is your problem freights, [00:14:00] because that is a principle in marketing. What is marketing? People think marketing is just advertising. Marketing is not advertising. Marketing is: How do you position your business in the market?

And the way that you do that is finding the pain points and solving them. And so that’s brilliant, right? And I was like, wow, I never thought about asking that question. And when you ask that question, if you ask anyone, Hey, what are the problems that you’re facing? And if they give you that answer and you can solve, there’s going to be a sold sign on whatever you’re selling.

Another question that I think could be interesting to try is what do you look for? In a carrier that you do contract freight with. So what do you think about asking shippers or brokers about that? 

Victor: So I definitely wouldn’t ask a broker for sure. I definitely would ask, I would talk, I would be talking [00:15:00] to a shipper.

So I run into a lot of different shippers, especially OTR, I will always get the shippers that are looking for someone local to them. Always looking for someone local to them. I don’t know if they’re trying to just get around the broker and don’t have to deal with the brokers or not, but they always say, Hey, we run this load X amount of days a week. Are you available? I’m like, I don’t live out here. I live in the Carolinas and I’ve had that happen several times. I’ve even had guys that were delivering freight and the manager out there, the logistics coordinator or whoever the manager person was responsible for the freight is always seeking something.

Caroline: Those are probably gonna be the best ways to build those relationships when it comes to being local. 

Victor: Absolutely. Absolutely. I have a few. I have a few other guys out there. A few other hacks out there that can probably [00:16:00] possibly get you some freight.

LinkedIn, a lot of people sleep on LinkedIn. People forget all about LinkedIn. That’s where all the companies are at. That’s where all their employees are listed at. That’s where every department is listed right on LinkedIn. If I go pull up your company, most of those employees, your emails, all that stuff is probably going to pop right up on LinkedIn.

I could send the same email, I could say the same thing in that email that I would say to the shipper, what is your problem freight? This is my business. And you’ll definitely have to have a professional looking email. Do not have a Gmail account. Trying to reach out to these big companies. Please don’t. You definitely have to have a professional email address website would also help, right? Because…there’s so much fraud out here. These companies want to know that they’re talking to and dealing with the real company 

Caroline: I was just talking about this with Dale Prax, who’s a big broker, mostly does box truck and sprinter van freight, a lot in the music [00:17:00] industry. And he says the same thing. You know what? It’s not that most of the folks running their businesses on a Gmail account are fraudulent. They’re not. Most of them are totally legitimate, but 99 percent of the people committing fraud are using a Gmail address. 

Victor: Absolutely. Absolutely. So 100 percent accurate.

Don’t be one of those guys. Don’t be one of those gals. Create yourself a nice email domain. Six bucks. 

Caroline: Yeah. It’s super cheap. It’s super cheap. I know. I always say that to people too. If you don’t have a one-page website for your brand, I am a digital marketer. This is how I make my living. I promise you. It is not hard.

It’s not It is not difficult to do my job. You can do it, too. And doing a really simple one-page website. Not difficult. All your information on there. Put pictures on there. Put pictures of you, your drivers, your trucks up there so that they know. And when you are [00:18:00] talking to them. They can recognize that your voice probably matches the person in the picture.

All of those signs are good signs for your customers. 

So I watched your latest video about starting a box truck in 2024. Lots of good stuff in there about knowing your credit score, what kind of equipment loan you can afford, having a mechanic check your truck before you buy it, talk about those things.

Of everything that you said in that video, what do you think is the most important thing that you wanted people to take away? 

Victor: So probably the most important thing to take away is especially starting off things to look for. If you can source a diesel mechanic in that area, especially if you’re going to buy a truck, you can source a diesel mechanic to at least take a look at that truck, look at them, look at the motor, do a walk around, check in tires.

Find out if you got recap tires on that truck or their new tires. Those are very important things because those are the things that DOT officers are [00:19:00] going to check for if they pull you over on the interstate, right? Those are the things that you can get put out of service for with a load on the truck.

And then you’ll be, you may have to come out of your pocket to get something fixed before they will let that truck move so that it can pass a DOT inspection. The first thing I got done to my truck when I purchased it was to get a PM done, a preventive maintenance check. So that’s them doing a full check of everything with that truck to make sure that it can at least pass a DOT inspection. So have to have a yearly DOT Inspection done on that vehicle. So those are probably the main things that I would have done. I would do it again if I were buying another truck or if I was new. 

CarolinE: So when you took your truck in for preventative maintenance that first time, did you have anything that popped up in that check that you go?

Oh, I should have probably checked on this before. I’m maybe could have gotten a better price, better deal on my truck. [00:20:00] Or did you, do you think you got a pretty good deal? 

Victor: I think I got a pretty good deal because nothing really popped up that was like the ordinary. I think there’s a couple things greased that probably wasn’t greased in a while on the truck.

Some things had to be lubed. I got the oil changed. 

CarolinE: So we’ve been hearing from a lot of box truck and Sprinter van business owners that they’re facing really difficult time getting loads. We’ve already talked about how to go local and how to prove yourself and make sure you present yourself really professionally, get some business cards.

Start going to local events too. I would even say if you can get into Chamber of Commerce in your local area or make some connections there, it can be really useful. What are some of the top load boards though that you have found really good freight on for your box truck? 

Victor: My main load board is DAT. I use DAT pretty effectively.

I’m familiar with [00:21:00] Selectus. For sprinter vans, cargo vans, and box trucks, they use the Selectus load board. I personally don’t use them. I started off with Amazon, Truckstop, and DAT. Like when I started my business, I had those subscription plans, even though I really didn’t use them because I ran a majority of Amazon freight for the first six months, but I messed up my performance score with them [because] I booked the wrong freight. 

Caroline: So we talked a little bit about loads and how to get loads, and that’s only part of the business. The other part is everything that you need to do to go and pick up those loads and take them to where they need to go, which includes a lot of costs.

And a lot of things that you have to pay for. Not long ago, I talked to a box truck owner-operator, and he’d bought the truck and started a business with his son in law in 2020. Now, guess what he paid for his truck? 

Victor: About 45, 000? 50, 000? 

Caroline: He paid 75, [00:22:00] 000 for his box truck. 

Victor: What? Yeah, it was a new or used box truck.

Caroline: This is probably–and he would agree–this was the absolute worst time to buy a truck. It was when prices were crazy in 2022. And so I talked to him about that. He says, I don’t regret anything because I like running my business and I can afford my truck payment and everything, but you can buy my same truck for $25,000 today.

So he’s done all right. He’s paid off a lot of the truck already and because he did a balloon note at the beginning and did some other financing things to help him out. So I wanted to take a look a little bit about his numbers to show you what he’s spending, what he’s making and see if you have in your wisdom and what he’s doing.

Any advice for [00:23:00] him in how he might improve either what he’s spending or what he’s making. 

So truck payment, this is for a week. So it’s truck payment is about $350 a week. He’s also got truck insurance, which is about the same $350. a week. So 1,400 a month. He also has a dispatch service that he pays for. I believe it’s just a load board. He put it under dispatch, but it’s a load board for $45. And that’s per week, right? So that’d be $180 a month. He pays for factoring pays 3 percent for factoring and he pays himself or whoever is driving. He has this business with his son-in-law, so his son-in-law drives for him sometimes as well, and whoever is driving, they make 55 cents a mile.

In that week, he bought 250 gallons of diesel for 1, 700 dollars. He pays 90, that’s actually a month for his ELD. He split that in his cost. [00:24:00] So in total, he’s paying about $1.37 per mile to run his box truck. Now, remember that includes a driver’s salary of 55 cents. So he’s included that in there.

And so his rate per mile that he got during that week was 1.68. Now, when I first saw this, I thought, Whoa, he’s getting 10 miles to the gallon and he’s only getting 168 per mile. And then I realized, oh, it’s a box truck. So these numbers are going to be a little bit different. I’m used to seeing the semi-truck numbers.

So I’m wondering if, When you look at these numbers, what are you thinking? This was in June of this year. So compared to what you were looking at in June or what other folks in box truck businesses were getting in June. How does this compare? Is this pretty good rate per mile? Pretty even cost per mile.

Is it under? Is it over?

Victor: So each one is going to be a case [00:25:00] by case scenario or everybody. If he’s moving freight at above his cost, he’s at 1. 30 and he’s averaging 1. 60 ish. For the loads that he’s moving and he’s covering all his expenses, still in profit mode, he’s still profiting. 

Caroline: Is there anything else that you would tell new box truck owner operators that we didn’t cover today?

Victor: Probably the main thing is make sure that you get the right box size. My first box truck [wasn’t the right] height. I struggled for six months loading that truck up with Amazon freight because some pallets are tall. So I used to literally have to take this off of the pallets to get it inside and then put the box back on, which slowed me down from loading my truck.

The taller that box is, the more freight you will be able to move in it. And most times when partial freight, you can already find a U box to go on your truck to have with other freight. But if you don’t have at least 90 clearance at that door, forget about the boxes.

Caroline: That’s good. That’s yeah, that’s very important. Awesome. Thank you so much, [00:27:00] Victor, for providing so much wisdom and expertise on box truck businesses. Really appreciate your time.

Victor: Thank you so much for having me. All right. Talk soon. I’ll talk soon. All right.