Jones Motor Group, 125 Years Strong

---

Few companies have stood the test of time quite like Jones Motor Group, which is currently celebrating its 125th year in business. Jones Motor got its start way back in 1894 in Spring City, Pennsylvania, when John Jones ran a hauling business using one horse and cart. The company went on to by its first truck in 1912, and from that point forward the company continued to grow and expand. However, it was in the early 1980s that Jones really started building the foundation that still exists today when the company went into private ownership and moved to an owner-operator business model. Today, the company is based in Limerick, Pennsylvania, works with over 500 trucks, and posts annual revenue of $100 million.

The Jones Motor Difference

Jones Motor is unique in the industry not only because it employs the owner-operator model, but also because it supports its drivers with an extensive agent and freight network. Rather than telling owner-operators what to do or having them follow a corporate template, Jones Motor instead lets them be their own bosses and provides them with the resources they need to be successful.

“We have a good niche with what we’re doing,” says Kyle Faber, recruiting manager and claims analyst at Jones Motor Group, Inc. “We’re not a massive corporation with thousands and thousands of trucks where an owner-operator gets lost in the shuffle and just becomes a number. We have the ability to give the owner-operator more one on one attention. But at the same time, having about 500 trucks on with us, we’re able to still provide a good freight base for them to stay moving and rolling down the road.”

Customers & Drivers Served

Jones Motor doesn’t focus on industry when determining what types of customers it serves, but rather uses its agent system around the country to find the best freight options for its drivers. Faber says that Jones Motor can haul “anything that goes on a flatbed, step deck, or van,” which includes everything from household goods to vehicles. And as far as drivers are concerned, Jones Motor likes to get its owner-operators paid within 48 hours of delivery.

A Focused Approach To Reaching Owner-Operators

Jones Motor has been working together with Sandhills Publishing and Truck Paper for over 20 years, and in that time, the company has used Truck Paper magazine and TruckPaper.com to get its message across to owner-operators. The ultimate goal is to help owner-operators decide whether Jones Motor Group is the right carrier for them, and Truck Paper helps them deliver that message effectively.

“A lot of times the message in advertisements that people put out nowadays is just that mass marketing kind of thing where you send it out and have 40 different carriers that do similar things,” says Faber. “I think that Truck Paper allows us to be specific with our ad as an over the road carrier. It’s an avenue for any truck driver that’s out there looking for an honest company that’s been in business for 125 years. We can locate that driver as opposed to taking the mass marketing approach and getting a message out to everyone. It centralizes it to the right people.”