What we tell carriers
before they sign.

Company driver vs lease purchase: the real math.

Lease purchase pays a percentage of the load. Company driving pays cents per mile. On a recruiter's pitch, the percentage always looks bigger. What matters is what lands in your account on Friday after the truck is paid for.

A typical week, side by side

Same miles, almost the same money. The difference is who carries the risk. A slow freight week costs the company driver nothing. It costs the lease driver the truck payment either way.

When lease purchase wins

• You have two or more years of experience and a clean record, so carriers give you the better freight.
• The truck is three years old or newer and the contract has a real buyout, not a balloon.
• You can sit out a slow week without missing the payment.

Questions to ask before you sign

• What is the weekly payment, for how many weeks, and what is the final purchase price?
• Who pays for a breakdown in week three?
• Can I see the last three months of settlements from a driver on the same program?

Why drivers leave in the first 90 days.

Most turnover we see is decided in the first two weeks. The driver has already made up their mind by the time they hand in the keys. When we call them afterwards, it is rarely about the cents per mile.

The four reasons we hear

• The offer was not the job. The recruiter said home weekly and dedicated. The first month was OTR out of a different terminal. Nothing kills trust faster.
• Orientation was chaos. Three days in a hotel, no truck assigned, a trainer who did not show. The driver reads that as how the whole company runs.
• Dispatch did not know their name. First load, wrong trailer, no answer on the phone at 2 a.m. Drivers forgive a bad load. They do not forgive silence.
• The first settlement was short. An unexplained deduction on check one and the driver is already texting the next recruiter.

What fixes each one

• Write the offer down. Pay, lanes, home time, equipment, deductions. Recruiter and driver both sign it.
• Assign the truck before orientation day. Send the driver a photo of it.
• Give every new driver one dispatcher for the first 30 days, with a direct number.
• Walk through the first settlement on a call, line by line.

We build the recruiting offer with you before we make a single call, because a driver we place and lose in 60 days costs both of us.

How to read an owner operator settlement.

A settlement is a receipt for your week. If you cannot explain every line, you cannot tell whether the program is good. Here is the order the lines usually come in and what each one should look like.

Revenue side

• Linehaul. What the load paid. On percentage programs, check the gross before the carrier's cut, not after.
• Fuel surcharge. Should be passed through to you at 100 % on percentage pay. If it is not, ask why.
• Accessorials. Detention, layover, stop pay, tarping. Missing accessorials are the most common short-pay we see.

Deduction side

• Fuel. Card purchases at the carrier's negotiated discount. Compare the price per gallon to the pump price on the receipt.
• Insurance. Occupational accident, physical damage, bobtail. Weekly amounts should be flat and known in advance.
• Plates, permits, ELD, trailer rent. Fixed weekly. Should match your lease-on agreement exactly.
• Escrow. Held for maintenance or damage. Ask when it is refunded and whether it earns interest.

The one number to track

Net revenue per mile after everything. Divide the bottom line by loaded plus empty miles. Track it for four weeks. If the program is honest, the number is stable and the carrier can tell you what it should be before you sign.

Why job boards stopped filling seats.

Applications went up. Hires went down. If that sounds like your last quarter, the job board did not break. The driver's phone changed.

A CDL-A driver with a clean record gets between five and fifteen recruiter calls a week without applying anywhere. The good ones do not fill in forms. They answer the recruiter who calls back fastest and talks straight. A job-board lead is a driver who clicked once, on a phone, in a truck stop, and is already talking to three other companies by the time your recruiter opens the email.

What outbound changes

• Speed. Our recruiters are on the phone with a lead in minutes, not days.
• Follow-up. Most drivers do not sign after one conversation. We call, text and call again until there is an answer.
• Sourcing. We are not waiting for the driver to apply. We call drivers in our network who match your lanes and are quietly open to a move.
• Qualification. You get a driver who has already been screened twice, not a list of names.

What "home weekly" actually means.

Every recruiter says home weekly. It can mean a 34-hour reset in your driveway, or it can mean you pass your exit on Thursday and get home Saturday night for a day. Same words, very different life.

The words and what to ask

• Home daily. Local or short regional. Ask about start times and whether the shift is fixed.
• Home weekly. Ask how many hours at home, whether it is a 34-hour reset, and how often the carrier hits it. Ask for the number, not the promise.
• Home every other week. Regional OTR. Ask if home time can be extended if you stay out longer.
• Home every 2–3 weeks. OTR. Ask whether you can route home mid-run for a day.

A good carrier will have the number. A great one will show it to you. If the recruiter changes the subject, that is your answer.

Building a driver offer recruiters can sell.

A recruiter cannot sell what they cannot say in one breath. Before we make the first call for a carrier, we build the offer into eight numbers. If any one is missing, the driver hears it as a dodge.

The eight numbers

• Pay rate, and how it is paid: CPM, percentage or flat.
• Average weekly miles, real, from the last quarter.
• Home time, as hours at home per week.
• Equipment: year, make, sleeper, APU, inverter.
• Freight: dry van, reefer, flatbed, touch or no-touch.
• Lanes and terminal.
• Deductions, every one, weekly.
• Sign-on bonus, and when it actually pays out.

We put the offer in writing and the recruiter reads from it. The driver gets the same story from us that they get from your safety manager on day one. That consistency is worth more than an extra two cents a mile.