Christian Martinez says managing 65 owner-operators is not the same as managing 65 trucks.

As director of operations at Voyager Nation in Mulberry, Florida, Martinez oversees a fleet made up entirely of owner-operators. In practice, he said, that means working with 65 independent business owners who can leave at any time and who each run their business differently.

“That’s 65 worlds, 65 minds,” Martinez said. “They all want to run their businesses a little bit different. Whether certain guys are willing to go to certain regions, home time, all of that looks different. However, the outcome has to be the same. They have to be making enough money or have enough cash flow to their business to be successful.”

That distinction matters because an owner-operator is not simply a driver assigned to a company truck. The operator is running a business with fixed costs, variable costs and exposure to freight-market swings, even when operating under a carrier’s authority.

Martinez, whose background includes loading docks, warehouses, ports, last-mile recruiting and fleet acquisitions, discussed owner-operator recruiting and retention on a recent episode of The Long Haul. His view is that many small carriers approach the problem backward, particularly when they rely on sign-on bonuses, headline pay percentages and marketing spend instead of transparency and operating discipline.

Why Martinez Opposes Sign-On Bonuses

Asked to identify the least effective tactic carriers use to attract owner-operators, Martinez pointed first to sign-on bonuses.

“I’m going to say a sign-on bonus,” he said. “It ain’t that bad that I got to pay somebody to come here.”

Martinez said his concern is less about the direct cost than about the type of behavior the incentive attracts and the message it sends. Based on years of recruiting, he said sign-on bonuses have done “more damage than good” because they can appeal to operators who move from carrier to carrier to collect payouts rather than those trying to build stable businesses.

He said the economics often do not work for disciplined owner-operators. A driver who has established a consistent weekly pattern may not benefit from a $6,000 bonus if earning it requires disrupting the freight pattern that already produces revenue.

“Just to get a $6,000 sign-on bonus, because he’s consistent, now he has to go do customer freight or whatever,” Martinez said. “He’s going to be losing money for chasing $6,000.”

The practice became especially common during the pandemic, when freight demand outpaced available capacity and carriers tried to put drivers in seats quickly. Martinez said the result was often predictable: operators stayed long enough to receive the bonus and then moved on.

The Limits of Advertising a Percentage

Martinez also questioned another common recruiting tool: advertising a high percentage payout without showing what the percentage is based on.

Voyager offers two packages. One pays 85% to an operator pulling his own trailer. The other, which Martinez described as the company’s “bread and butter,” pays 75% and includes the trailer, cargo and liability coverage, and access to fuel programs. He said he knows competitors advertise higher percentages.

“You’re going to have competitors that will pay 90%,” he said. “But 90% of what? Are they giving you the original rate con? Do you know how many guys actually didn’t even know they can get that original rate con?”

Martinez said a 90% offer is not automatically a bad offer, but it is incomplete unless the operator can verify the underlying rate and deductions. A percentage of a number the operator cannot see is not enough, he said. In trucking, the rate confirmation is one of the documents that shows the agreed freight rate, so access to it can help an owner-operator compare the advertised split with the actual money on the load.

His advice to owner-operators is to ask for real settlements.

“May I see a sample settlement of this week, last week, the last three weeks?” he said. “Not what some guy did six months ago one time. If you can get your hands on that settlement, that thing right there is going to tell you a world of information of how they run their business. Are you paying rental fee? Are you paying usage? Regardless of what that recruiter is telling you, you got facts on the table.”

Voyager’s approach, Martinez said, is to bring prospects into the office before they sign. Operators are asked to meet the operations team, meet the mechanic and inspect the equipment.

“Transparency is king,” Martinez said.

A Fuel Card Decision That Shaped Voyager’s Approach

Martinez said one experience during the pandemic influenced how he thinks about supporting owner-operators. Voyager’s fuel card provider had a security incident, and the company’s cards were frozen for a day or two.

“I was like, I could never be in this position again for my owner-operators,” he said.

Voyager added a second fuel card provider. When the second provider later asked Martinez to drop the original provider, he refused and kept both.

“Let the best man win,” Martinez said. “If you offer better savings, my guys are going to naturally gravitate to your fuel card and not use the other one.”

He said the decision also reduced the risk of suspicion. If Voyager relied on one provider and that provider later reduced the discount, operators might suspect the carrier was keeping the difference. Maintaining two providers removed a single point of failure and reduced that concern. Martinez said Voyager passes through 100% of fuel savings.

Recruiting Through Information Rather Than Ad Spend

Martinez said many small carriers treat recruiting as a marketing budget problem: buy more ads, offer a larger bonus or adjust the pay package. He said that is difficult for smaller fleets because large carriers have much larger budgets.

“You’re competing with these big boys that have very, very deep pockets, a lot deeper than mine,” he said. “When they’re using Indeed or Craigslist, that goes a long way for them.”

Voyager instead tries to compete by providing information. The company produces content for people who want to become owner-operators, including discussions of mistakes and failures rather than only success stories.

“We’re talking about places that we have failed, because in that failure is where we probably did the most learning,” Martinez said. “The learning actually comes through that friction or suffering.”

The company also asks its 65 operators where they bought their trucks and what those experiences were like, then shares that information with callers, including people who never join the fleet.

“Even if they don’t onboard with me, it’s just really putting it out there,” Martinez said. “Because if you put good people in front of good people, good things are going to happen.”

Some of the guidance is basic by design. Martinez said many Voyager recruits are first-time owner-operators who need to understand how to open an LLC, how to get a plate and the difference between operating under a carrier’s authority and operating under their own authority.

“There’s so much misguided information out there that a lot of people get confused and forget what they actually came for, which is to make money and put it on their truck,” he said.

A Retention Lesson From Losing a Driver

When asked about a retention failure, Martinez said he once believed keeping an owner-operator meant doing what the operator asked. He said that approach cost him a driver.

“I used to think that just listening to the individual and doing what he says, or what he needs for his business, was the right thing to do,” he said. “In the end, it cost me a driver because I couldn’t increase his gross revenue, which means I couldn’t increase the net on that truck. I was very busy just conforming to what he wanted as opposed to what his business needed.”

Martinez described that behavior as pandering and said it is common in the industry.

“There’s a lot of organizations, we get caught up in pandering. We just want to be yes sir, just because as long as he doesn’t quit, it’s going to be okay,” Martinez said. “But at the end of the day, if it’s not good for business and it’s not going to work, I’m prolonging the damage to his company. Ultimately he’s getting to the same destination. Grand opening, grand closing type thing.”

The better approach, he said, is to have difficult conversations early and professionally. That may mean telling an operator that a preferred regional lane will not produce the revenue target the operator says he wants, or that more home time has a real business cost.

“There’s a value out of you getting home on time, doing the same thing over and over again,” Martinez said. “But that will come at a price to your business.”

He also gives operators a direct warning: “You should not buy a truck to work less. That’s a bad idea.”

Starting Recruiting Calls With Financial Goals

Martinez said he does not begin recruiting conversations by asking about preferred lanes. He starts with the operator’s financial target.

“Once we start recruiting, it’s not so much what do you like to do. I like to ask what is your financial goal,” he said. “Because that sets the tone for our conversation.”

The next step is understanding fixed costs. If an operator does not know those costs, Martinez treats that as the start of a business discussion, not as an automatic disqualification. Those costs can include recurring obligations that do not disappear when a truck sits, which is why Martinez frames preferences such as home time and lane choice against weekly revenue requirements.

“I think that’s a great opening liner to spark a little business discussion about why you’re getting into this, what is your perception of what’s supposed to happen next.”

After that, he said, the work becomes arithmetic. An operator trying to gross $10,000 needs to book about $1,000 to $1,500 a day. An operator aiming for $8,500 needs to leave on Monday, because waiting until Tuesday for a better rate can cost a day and a half of transit that must be recovered later in the week.

“It’s just math,” Martinez said. “Two plus two is four.”

He applies the same logic to Voyager’s Florida market. “Rates out of Florida haven’t changed in 24 years. They’re not going to change in 24 hours.”

When operators ask for better outbound Florida rates, Martinez said his response is that customers do not overpay for outbound Florida freight. He tells operators they are “looking for money where it doesn’t exist. You have to look for money where it does exist.”

He said the same applies to operators with six years of experience still trying to find a lane that pays above market from a weak origin.

“Don’t you think you would have found it by now? And if you did, there’d be a line from there to Miami.”

The Texas Example

Martinez described a common scenario involving an operator who likes running Texas. Dispatch gives him Texas loads, the operator is happy, and he accepts everything offered.

“My dispatcher is like, hey, I love this guy, give me ten more of these guys,” Martinez said. “He takes every load I give him.”

“But the problem is nobody’s counting money. And when that settlement check comes in, it’s this big. Who’s the bad guy?”

Martinez said the problem is not the driver’s preference or the dispatcher’s enthusiasm. It is the failure to connect the operator’s stated financial goal to the actual freight pattern. By the time the settlements show the gap, the relationship may already be damaged.

“Three weeks of this, not meeting your goals, it’s over,” Martinez said. “You have fixed costs. At the end of the day, that’s what it is.”

Dedicated Freight and the Spot Market

Martinez also challenged the assumption that dedicated freight is always safer than the spot market.

“A lot of guys get stuck in I want to do dedicated customer freight,” he said, “just because it’s comfortable. It doesn’t mean it’s money. I didn’t buy a truck to limit my ROI.”

He said dedicated freight comes with obligations. If the shipper is the customer, the carrier must meet service requirements even when another lane might pay more.

“Let’s say it’s Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is now my customer because I have to provide a service level for them,” he said. “But if the market is on the up and up and I can make more money going the other way, my dispatchers are now forcing this guy to a less desirable area just to satisfy a service level.”

Martinez said contract rates are set by the lowest bidder. When a contract carrier lacks capacity, the freight may move to the spot market at a premium because the carrier would rather lose margin on a load than take a service failure.

The spot market, he said, requires a stronger dispatcher and stricter discipline about which freight to accept.

“I could dispatch 50 trucks on customer freight,” Martinez said. “He’s not doing 50 trucks on the spot market.”

He warned against chasing a high rate without considering where the truck will end up.

“Not everything that shines is gold. You don’t chase the rate. You keep your head down chasing $4 a mile and end up in Colorado on a Friday night, good luck getting out.”

At the same time, he said deadhead miles can be justified when the rate supports them: “who cares about a 200 mile deadhead if the rate is strong enough to offset that?”

Martinez summarized the approach this way: “You may want a certain rate, but if the market is not yielding that, you still want to be at the top of whatever the market is. And that’s the secret to it.”

He said the same logic applies during winter, when many operators avoid the Northeast because of weather. If everyone moves south, southern capacity increases and rates fall. Martinez said operators can treat the Northeast as a short-term opportunity rather than a place to stay.

“They do really good up in Jersey and plow the roads. Once it’s gone, then we get up there real quick, get it and come back down. You don’t have to live there.”

The Biggest Risk for Small Carriers

Asked to identify the most dangerous gap in a small carrier’s business, Martinez did not cite rates, freight or equipment.

“The most dangerous gap is not being connected with your owner-operators and even your staff,” he said.

He said growth can weaken that connection. “If somebody went from 60 trucks to 300 trucks overnight, does that person even really know what’s going on in that dispatch room?”

Martinez said he still personally hand-picks and trains every dispatcher because the quality of the internal team affects the success of the operators running under the company’s authority.

“Keeping that pure is the toughest part, because does it get diluted as you start to grow?”

That philosophy also affects compliance conversations. When an operator does something wrong, Martinez said the useful response is not simply to cite a rule, but to explain the shared exposure.

“This is my exposure, not just because DOT said I shouldn’t. We got kids too. We got bills. As an owner-operator, you can go get a job in about an hour. What about my people that have been with me for over 15 years?”

“We want good people,” he said, “but not at any cost.”

The conversation returned to a central point: owner-operator retention is not only a market issue, but also a management issue. Carriers do not control broker rates, fuel costs or competitors’ offers. They do control how they communicate with the people hauling their freight, how quickly they settle, and whether an owner-operator feels treated as a number or as a partner.