With 2025 almost in the books, the smartest thing a small carrier can do right now isn’t chase one more load — it’s slow down just enough to decide what 2026 actually needs to look like. If you’re reading this with less than two weeks left in the year, you’re right on time.
Not late. Not behind. Right on time.
This window — the quiet stretch between Christmas and New Year’s — is one of the few moments in trucking where you can look backward without the load board screaming at you and look forward without panic. Most carriers skip this part. They tell themselves they’ll “set goals later.” Later never comes. January shows up fast, and they’re right back to reacting instead of running a business.
This article isn’t motivational. It’s an exercise. Something you can actually sit down and work through to build real, measurable goals for 2026 — quarter by quarter — using numbers you already have access to.
Grab a notebook. Open your spreadsheet. Let’s do this properly.
Before you talk about growth, new equipment, or “doing better next year,” you need to answer one uncomfortable question:
What actually happened in 2025?
Not what you felt. Not what social media said. What the numbers say.
Pull these five things from your records — settlement reports, fuel receipts, ELD data, or accounting software:
Let’s use a realistic small-carrier example:
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Total revenue: $265,000
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Total miles: 105,000
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Fuel spend: $54,900
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Deadhead: 18%
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Net profit: $28,000
No judgment here. This is just the baseline. You can’t set intelligent goals without knowing where you’re starting.
Now calculate two key numbers:
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Revenue per mile: $265,000 ÷ 105,000 = $2.52/mile
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Net margin: $28,000 ÷ $265,000 ≈ 10.6%
These two numbers will drive almost every goal you set for 2026.
Most carriers think in weeks. Some think in months. Very few think in quarters — and that’s a mistake.
Quarters give you enough time to make changes and enough checkpoints to correct course.
Instead of saying “I want to make more money in 2026,” you’re going to ask:
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What needs to improve in Q1?
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What gets refined in Q2?
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What gets optimized in Q3?
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What gets protected in Q4?
Here’s how that looks in practice.
Revenue goals feel good. Margin goals keep you alive.
Using our example carrier with a 10.6% margin, a realistic 2026 goal might be:
Increase net margin from 10.6% to 13%.
