The last of three separate seminars at the Mid-America Trucking Show conducted by Sirius XM radio host and owner-op coach/consultant Kevin Rutherford was billed to focus on surviving the first year under your own authority as an owner-op. Rutherford in recent years has pushed the idea that owner-operators with authority pursuing relationships with brokers to move freight could make for the most efficient models in trucking, as long as all parties are honest with each other. As any regular reader will know, that's not always the case when we're talking about brokerages -- and the same can be said about some trucking companies large and small, for that matter, as plenty decent brokers emphasize in conversation. Too many, Rutherford emphasizes, shoot themselves in the foot with a view of a freight broker they're working with as at best a necessary evil, as something less than their central customer. For an owner-operator in business as a motor carrier with authority and working primarily with brokers, those brokers are the customer because they're the people paying you for your business' service, Rutherford emphasizes.