Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/818577
May 2017 | Overdrive | 31 erator. Some fleets, Buchs says, would offer owner-op- erators a limited number of loads at a time, but Landstar had no such restrictions. Landstar's system also works well with Buchs' per- sonality, Marcia says, because it requires building relation- ships with agents. "He's a very extroverted person," she says. "He loves to engage people. We laugh because I'm more of an introvert." Like many owner-opera- tors, Gary Buchs' introduc- tion to trucking started on a family farm. In the late 1980s, he'd outgrown a pickup and small trailer for his farm on the east metro side of St. Louis, in Illinois, but had little money to put toward a bigger truck. He found a small White cabover that had been sitting outside for years. "We had to cut a tree out from between the frame and the axle," he recalls. He con- verted a flatbed to a livestock trailer, using it to haul thou- sands of pigs for farms he was managing. The truck also handled shipping to five states for his homegrown business. Buchs came up with a patented method of cooking cotton- seed to produce livestock feed and started a company to sell it. The American Farm Bureau Federation named it the Farm Invention of the Year in 1993. The cabover served well until the Mississippi River flood of 1993. "Literally, we never saw it again. We have no idea where it went." Not only did the Buchses struggle to resurrect their farm from the flood, but the region's farm economy also was floundering. That was the year Gary jumped at an opportunity to drive pickup and delivery in the St. Louis area for Roadway. It was union work, paying $30 an hour. "I'd never seen money like that," he says. Starting around 2000, he drove for Nuway Transpor- tation, mostly regionally, and moved near Bloomington, Illinois. After three years at Nuway, Buchs and Marcia thought about making the transition to owner-operator. "Having been business HOW THE RIGHT WEEKLY SCHEDULE CAN BOOST YOUR INCOME – AND OTHER TIPS FOR SUCCESS Here are some of the business principles that have been important to Gary Buchs as a leased operator: START WITH AN ACCOUNTANT. "That's the first person you need to hire," Buchs says. "You can make so many wrong moves so quickly and not realize it." He's met new owner-operators who have no idea who's going to do their taxes and don't understand depreciation or even the per diem deduction. CAPITALIZE ON TRUCKING'S WEEKLY FLOW. "Being able to deliver a load Monday morning will probably increase your income 20 percent over the year," Buchs says. "If you start empty on Monday morning, you're going to lose a whole day each week" because many shippers will not load after Friday. An owner-operator's ideal week starts with loading Sunday afternoon or night and ends Friday afternoon, he says. LIMIT DISCRETIONARY SPENDING. Because of appearances, most drivers consider his Freightliner Century "not an owner-operator truck," Buchs says. "They overspend on their initial capital purchases. They buy the chrome." NEVER STOP TRAINING. "Continuing educa- tion in our business is very lacking," he says. For example, most drivers don't bother to read the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations com- pilation, as important as it is, he says. Writing a business plan is critical, too, even if you're not applying for Owner-Operator of the Year. "You're encouraged to write a business plan now when you come into an orientation session at Landstar." PRIORITIZE CASHFLOW. As he considered becoming an owner-operator, Buchs says, "I saw too many people struggling to get accounts paid. Being a former business owner and trying to collect bills from customers once they had a product, I knew sometimes it's very difficult." Not wanting to waste time on collections was a key reason he felt leasing instead of operat- ing under his own authority would fit his "risk management" goal. DON'T BUY EXPENSIVE TRUCKS FOR TAX WRITEOFFS. The value of depreciating a new truck every three or four years is outweighed by the savings of maintaining a used truck for many years, he says. "Tax writeoffs don't create wealth. Tax writeoffs don't create long-term stability." FIND A TRUSTED MAINTENANCE PARTNER. When he bought his truck, Buchs found an estab- lished family-run repair shop and uses it for all maintenance, even though he had learned years ago how to maintain his own farm equipment. He computes his own time as being worth $100 an hour and feels many owner-operators are kidding themselves by thinking "they can work on their own equipment and it doesn't cost anything for their own time." He praises Landstar's requirement that con- tractors go through its own rigorous inspection every 120 days. "They'll find little things before they become big things," he says. "In the long run, sound maintenance and repairs will save money." Buchs' 17-year-old truck has been towed only once, and that was due to a stolen battery. Buchs and law enforcement officers routinely teach hundreds of high-school students how to share the road with trucks through Celebrate Your Drive events sponsored by State Farm Insurance. Being home at least part of most weekends, he also uses downtime to work with food pantries, sharing vegetables and fruit he and Marcia grow on their property. He also goes on mission trips with his church's youth group.