June was strong. Jobs were stacking. His two trucks were maxing out. He was turning away calls, and that number sat with him. He ran the monthly payment in his head: manageable, maybe $900. He had a guy ready to put in it. By July the truck was wrapped and rolling.
By October he was looking at the numbers differently.
The truck wasn't the problem. The problem was that the monthly payment was never the number. Insurance. Registration. Fuel at average utilization. Maintenance reserve. Lettering and outfitting already sunk. The loaded monthly cost on that truck was nearly double the payment. And the tech in it needed to generate enough gross margin, not revenue, to cover that full number before the truck contributed a dollar of profit.
He hadn't run that number before he signed.
