In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast, drop into the second and final part of this series re-engaging with Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year competitive field of owner-operators, with check-ins on how the year shaped up for each individual owner. Likewise, you'll hear plenty considered advice from each business owner for peers, particularly those with only short history in the trucking business or looking to get their start. Part 1, ICYMI: 

Words of encouragement, too, drawing on lessons learned from challenges overcome, and the plentiful nature of naysayers who will undoubtedly tell an aspiring truck owner just to "stay away." Play your cards right, and do the hard work early and often, noted owner-operator Greg Labosky, and you will be poised for profit. Use that "negative energy," as he put it, to "be willing to prove them worng to the best of your ability to show them that you can, indeed, succeed." 

Labosky's made strides in backstopping profit with cost reductions amid sluggish rates in Amazon's direct-contracting system, where he specializes. He's done that in part by maximizing reliability of his 2017 Cascadia with careful preventive maintenance, always learning more to do smaller repairs himself, and using close record-keeping to drive his efforts. 

"Keep extermely good, tight bookkeeping to keep track of your expenses that you can control," he advised other owners, to help spot when something is out of line.

There's growth on the horizon within the goals for Labosky's GDL Enterprise business, something Alpha Drivers Transportation owner Alec Costerus is already acheiving, having started the year with just one truck. With fellow owner Joel Morrow in their Alpha Drivers Testing & Consulting side business, Costerus is building a dry van-pulling operation with growth this year and more to come, backed by tremendous efficiency gains to reduce costs.

"Holding the steering wheel is the easy part," he advised any prospective owner to realize. "There is a great deal more to the trucking business," urging careful study of all of those aspects. 

Owner-operator Mike Nichols reported steady revenues through the year for his Wayne Transports-leased one-truck operation, with at once some unexpected downtime chipping a smidge away from that top line (including the results of a run-in with an unfortunate deer).

Nichols offered considered advice for prospective owners about up-front saving as prep, building for a down payment but also reserves for unforeseen expenses that are inevitable. With respect to "start-up capital and down payment," he said, "you need to treat that like you would firewood. Save what you think you might need and triple it, if not quadruple it."   

As for Dayl and Nelson Zimmerman, owners of Minnesota-based Zimmerman Ag, the brothers are very close to making good on goals set out at the beginning of the year to erect a new shop at headquarters, which will deliver opportunity for outside maintenance work during slow winter periods. More importantly, it stands enhance their own in-house maintenance prowess to continue to get the job done for direct customers, the center of their ag-support two-truck business.

Read more about all of these Trucker of the Year contenders, and others, via https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year 

Enter your own or another deserving business in the 2025 Trucker of the Year program now at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

'You can succeed': Truckers of the Month beat 2024's sluggish conditions with more than just will

The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio