Archive for July, 2009
Regional Truck Driving Jobs – What To Expect
Regional Truck Driving Jobs
Ok now regional truck driving jobs are a great option for many people. With regional jobs you are usually out 5 days a week and home on weekends. Now understand something: the freight you will be hauling is usually not predictable. Yes there will be some customers that your company will have that will provide steady freight from one place to another on a rather predictable schedule.
But the vast majority of it will not be. They will do their best to keep you moving during the week and get you home on time for the weekend but this is not always going to happen. Generally you can expect to get home sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. You will then be home around 3648 hours. Often times you will bring a load home with you that will deliver on Monday morning hopefully somewhere fairly close to your home.
Here’s an example:
Say you live in Indianapolis IN. After driving and making several deliveries all week you may find yourself delivering a load on Friday morning in Nashville TN. You then pick up a load Friday afternoon in Nashville that will deliver Monday morning in Chicago IL. You pick up the load and head for home. You get home 7 a.m. Saturday morning. You live about 3 hours from Chicago and the load is scheduled for 8 a.m. Monday.
You KNOW morning rush hour in Chicago is a nightmare so you want to arrive before 5 a.m. Your best bet is to leave late on Sunday evening maybe 10 p.m. drive two hours sleep at a truck stop outside of Chicago and get up at 4 a.m. to arrive at the customer by 5 a.m. You can get a nap in for a couple of hours at the customer before they begin unloading you. Job well done. You were home from 7 a.m. Saturday until 10 p.m. Sunday. That is very very typical of your home time schedule on a regional fleet.
As far as pay goes there isn’t too much difference between over the road trucking and regional anymore. Over the past 10 years or so a lot of warehousing and production companies have divided up the country into regions in order to supply their customers with product faster and to save money on shipping charges. So instead of hauling auto parts say from Texas to Michigan the factory may relocate part of its production to Indiana. Now the haul is much shorter.
This has opened up many more opportunities for regional driving jobs. The demand for regional jobs has increased significantly and trucking companies have found a way to attract more drivers with the promise of very good pay and better home time.
The equipment for most regional jobs is about the same as most over the road jobs. You can expect fairly new vehicles that are very well maintained. The level of equipment will vary a bit more in this category though. Some companies will try to push older less reliable equipment on drivers with the excuse that you will make great money and be home more often.
This is something you must decide for yourself as a truck driver. Test the market. There will be a number of companies in your area that offer the chance to be home each weekend. Sometimes you will have to make a tradeoff between higher pay with an older truck or a little less pay with top notch equipment. You should not have to compromise on safety or reliability though.
Ask thoroughly about their maintenance program. Look at the trucks they have parked in the yard. If you see things like loose mirrors cracked windshields missing mud flaps etc then obviously they aren’t spending the time and money on maintenance that they should. I’ll talk more about this later.
As far as job duties goes there are a few more options when it comes to regional. In some cases you’ll be asked to drive the truck and nothing else. You will simply get paid by the mile like over the road drivers do. Keep in mind that sometimes the miles you get each week can vary tremendously from week to week or from one company to another. Ask about their average weekly mileage per driver. Other jobs will involve a significant amount of unloading. In fact you may make the bulk of your money unloading as opposed to just driving. If you are asked to unload trucks you should be able to make quite a bit more money per week than if you were just driving. This seems obvious but with some companies it certainly is not the case. Do your homework.
I drove regional for several years. I actually made just as much money as I used to as an over the road driver and when I took a regional job that involved a significant amount of unloading I made 15000 per year more than with any over the road job I had ever had.
Regional is also an interesting mix of traveling and home time. You get the fun of living on the road and seeing the sites all week long but then you get to enjoy your home time each weekend. You will be able to maintain a relationship a home a vehicle and a social life while still making very good money. You wont be traveling as far from home as you would be while driving over the road.
Generally you’ll cover an area within a radius of about 1000 miles from your home. Over the road you may have the opportunity to drive coast to coast. But even an area that large provides an interesting variety of places to go to which keeps it fun. I personally loved over the road when I was younger but once I decided I wanted a home life regional was the perfect solution. Again it just depends on what suits you the best.
About the writer: Brett R. Aquila is a 15year veteran of America’s highways logging over 1.5 million safe miles. He is trying to help Newbie truck drivers to be successful in their trade through a dose of reality. Please visit www.truckingtruth.com for more information
Why Plan A Simple Straight-line Home Business?
Why Plan a Simple StraightLine Business
Thinking outside the box is good for the brain the home business entrepreneur and divergent channels for new discoveries.
Associative thinking or lateral thinking brings in diverse elements from different concepts and philosophies. Your creative brain then rationalizes how all these parts fit together. And the result is a multifaceted diverse bigger amalgamation of what works.
Compare creative thinking to a painting where you start with a blank canvas add shapes. lines textures colors objects impressions and what you get is possibly a masterpiece. a sum greater than its individual parts. Reverse deductive thinking is worthwhile also when you take a complex big picture and reduce it to primary elements for purposes of better understanding.
Recently I read a book called Simpleology by Mark Joyner the Simple Science of Getting What You Want. The intriguing ideas related how we perceive the world and how we build barriers sometimes invisibly to block getting what we really want. But more importantly it started the thought processes about how to apply these principles to the big picture of a home business.
The main premise is that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
In other words the shortest route to go from where you are to where you want to be is a straight line. No fuzzificationno detoursno excuses or constraints.
Picture this in your minds eye or you could actually draw it. Start with a blank page. Draw a straight line use a ruler if you wish starting in the bottom left hand corner and traveling diagonally to the top right hand corner. At the bottom corner write the words HERE I AM and note a couple details of what you dont like about where you are now. At the top corner write THERE IS WHERE I WANT TO BE and add a couple of details of what you do want to make your life happiermore money more time to spend with family holidays credit card paid off and so on.
The point is this straight line is the shortest distance between HERE I AM and THERE IS WHERE I WANT TO BE. It symbolizes that purposeful direction clarity of vision and positive selfdetermination will get you to your destination. No objections no procrastinationsno regrets.
The quickest way to reach your goals is to follow a straight line. If this indeed is possible you will achieve two things:
1. focus on simple actions that get you to your goals rather than actions that lead you offcourse
2. bridge the gap between your reality and dreams.
Lets look at building a profitable home business. There are four main functions of any business:
production need a product or service
research market trends
sales and marketing
financial tracking
Of the four functions experts believe that sales and marketing is the fundamental function without which the others wouldnt be relevant. You can develop the best mousetrap in the world but without marketing no one will beat a path to your door.
So the marketing plan is a real tangible inmyhands person to person part of any home business or any other business for that matter.
Logically it follows that a more successful marketing plan equates to more contacts more sales more customers and more profits.
Extending on Joyners principles then a simple direct straightline marketing plan will function as a more successful home business.
So lets visualize this scenario.
Draw another straight diagonal line from bottom to top. This time label it the MARKET PLAN. Add the word Start Poor at the bottom and Finish Rich at the top.
Two issues become apparent:
1 a simple marketing tool communicates clearly and time effectively to customers. Why overload with extraneous detailswith extensions addendums more calls statistics references crosslinks and what my neighbor may think? If you basically understand the benefits and reaching greater financial security why would anyone deliberately put themselves into the quicksand known as analysis paralysis?
b a simple marketing tool duplicates more efficiently with your marketing team as wellless training less distractions or objections less procrastination and more portability across the street or country without loss of critical elements with more money in your pocket.
Certainly key adaptations were made in my home business to increase profits following this concept of a simple straight line. My marketing plan was streamlined to three No Excuses Allowed elements:
1. a phone call with expert sales presentation 5 minutesinterested or not
2. company website with detailed information for self reference
3. a simple 1 2 3 step marketing plan that provides an overview of changes choices and steps and actions to close or rationalize the final decision.
If people make excuses they block their way along this straight line. What is your priorityhow your Aunt Millicent may be feeling or reaching financial independence? People whose personalities just need more information then of course they are pointed to other plentiful resources. But they have now detouredthey have cast in a few curves added some potholesperhaps a road sign that reads Ill spend the rest of my life working for someone else.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;AnneMarie Berukoff is an entrepreneur and teacher who enjoys early retirement following a 24 year career. She is a professional network marketer for the past 5 years who has worked with some of the top income earners building and training her own successful downlines. She has published the MiniProgram for MaxiProfitsa comprehensive overview of network marketing as a slide presentation and ebook.
www.howtoincreasehomebusinessprofits.com
Is E-publishing A Good Idea?
Is epublishing really a good idea? Absolutely!
It’s interesting rewarding and indescribable the feeling of seeing your ebook published on the web. Writing a book is such an enormous accomplishment and you should receive the reward of having it displayed for many to view. Just getting your book out there puts you ahead of all of those writers that are out there trying and hoping to someday get published.
Most people only dream about publishing a book. Just think of how many writers have some special manuscript tucked away somewhere at home or at the bottom of the heap of several other manuscripts on some publisher’s desk because they cannot find someone to market them. Several writers send their manuscripts the traditional way and mail them to 30 or more publishers and end up with nothing more to show than numerous rejection letters. There are so many excellent manuscripts out there that deserve to be published and get overlooked only because of the way that the customary publishing market works. They very seldom ever make it to print.
Now the Internet has given us the benefit of an amazing method of publishing. This is of course ebook publishing!
There are no age limits to create an ebook.
You can write an ebook if you are employed parttime or fulltime if you are a casual worker or not working at all.
It’s okay to go ahead and create your ebook if you are a stayathome mom or dad or if you are a retiree.
The degree of involvement that you will take in the process of marketing your ebook will greatly depend on your reasons for creating and publishing it. Is it your intention to distribute a copy of your ebook to only a few family members and friends or do you have the intent to publish many copies to achieve a financial reward or publicity?
For whatever the reason to publish the ebooks will basically be presented and formatted in the same way but the approach that you will take may be different depending on your reasons and the level of accomplishments that you wish to achieve.
Below I will explain the many different forms of writing along with details of how the Internet plays a role.
Nonfiction true stories not madeup for adult or children is by far the best possibility for success and money in ebook publishing. For example ebooks about cooking math cars dolphins cats dogs decorating hobbies and so many more.
Nonfiction sells great for the following reasons:
People are constantly looking for helpful information on how to be happier and healthier. They want to learn how to do things on their own how to succeed … They want a lot of useful information at their fingertips.
Many publishers sell to massmarkets but fail to satisfy the needs of various diverse groups. There are many people out there with different needs and interests. Many of the big publishers do not service the needs of these types of people and instead massproduce only certain types of books.
Marketing is easier when you have a target market.
You can reach these target groups more quickly with the web and your financial risks are few to none.
It is easy and inexpensive to test the market with the Internet.
Many genres such as mysteries horror romance and sciencefiction … can reach many target markets successfully because most people have a favorite genre.
You can write about niche markets such as crosscountry skiing stamp collecting … and numerous other subjects! If you target the right niche you will almost surely make sales!
General fiction is a little more difficult because the quality of the writing must be exceptional to make it. Many authors still do well financially with this sort of genre. It is often recommended to have fiction ebooks reviewed beforehand by specialty review sites on the web such as Booklocker.
An ISBN number will also help to get your ebook into Amazon and other bookstore websites. You can get an ISBN number from certain electronic book stores who automatically supply these or you have the option to get one yourself.
Lastly there is “erotica” or “porn” as what many men call it. This is not something that you may want to write about but let me tell you this is where you can make a lot of money. Almost anything that has to do with sex will pay well as it is the Internet’s best seller.
Poetry is the toughest to sell! Although there are a lot of poetry websites on the Internet most people can write poetry themselves and few will return time and time again to read it and pay for it. However because the web reaches many people all over the world you will still be able to find a market for it.
Children’s storybooks are also a very tough market. There are so many children’s books as it is. These books are also expensive to produce because of the necessity for color illustrations. But of course with the web even these graphics can now be done in a jiffy and inexpensively.
Children are a great market for good informational ebooks. Kids are on computers at a much earlier age now and really enjoy reading! Kids also enjoy series of ebooks so there is the potential to publish several.
As you probably have noticed there are no limits at all with the Internet! Fabulous isn’t it?
Write whatever you want there will always be someone on the web interested in your ebook and wanting to read it. Isn’t this a great motivation to create your ebook? What a fantastic marketing idea to be able to reach millions of people across the entire world with your very own ebook!
So go ahead and have fun writing your ebook and get published!
About the writer: Find fabulous ebook creating software at http://www.YesFreeDownloads.com. Unlimited free downloads for software ebooks and audio books. No membership fees.