With decades of experience as an owner-operator and a long time contributing to Overdrive’s Partners in Business owner-operator resource, Gary Buchs shares in the video above hard-won insight on what it really takes to build a lasting freight business, especially for those new to operating under their own authority.
In conversation with Red Eye Radio’s Eric Harley (pictured), Overdrive Editor Todd Dills and ATBS VP Mike Hosted at the 2025 Mid-America Trucking Show, Buchs broke down the importance of developing customer relationships away from the boards. "The best freight never sees the broker board," Buchs said. Owner-operators should play the long game of earning trust. Simply building a routine of phone calls to customers or potential customers, trusted brokers included, can eventually open the door to premium freight opportunities.
Other tactics -- keeping a pro business card at the ready for any interaction with shipper/receiver personnel, writing down your phone number on that card when you give it to anyone, among many others -- help with prospecting and cementing those relationships both over time, too.
Too many new to trucking with authority rely on big broker boards as a primary source for freight. Yet that almost wholly reactive approach leaves owners at the mercy of fast spot market fluctuations and can to lead to short-term thinking and inconsistent revenue.
The better route? Proactively setting time aside to work the relationships you have, likewise new ones you want to create. Stay in contact with both existing and potential customers, and keep those contacts always top of mind, even if it takes months or years to bear fruit.
[Related: Keep an open mind -- eyes and ears, too -- for new customer opportunities]
The MATS discussion hinged on the Overdrive/ATBS coproduction of the Partners in Business playbook, for 2025 in a new format for the comprehensive trucking guide, a resource for owner-operators for now more than 20 years. The new guide offers insights into starting, growing, and (ultimately) finishing a trucking business. Now available in a mobile-friendly format, it covers everything from business planning to retirement strategies. Access a playlist featuring three years' worth of short excepts from PIB roundtable topics below.
