Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread

In another thread, RedForeman wrote a good rebuttal to post 33 (my thoughts on factoring):

 

Buzz Gunderson: You ever been in a chickie-run?
Jim Stark: Yeah, that's all I ever do.
[Buzz leaves]
Jim Stark: Plato, what's a chickie-run?


-- Rebel Without a Cause


My first $4+ /mile load

When planning to become an owner operator, I anticipated sitting at least a couple days a month, unable to book a load at a reasonable rate. Yet after 6 months, that hadn't happened once. This was partly due to ample freight from a strong market, and partly due to the lingering shackles of a company driver mentality (my thoughts upon completion of a load were not altogether different from that of a sighthound when presented with a ball: 'Let's go! Let's go! Let's GO! Throw the ball already!!!'). I'd happily take a mediocre load just to keep moving, preferring that to sitting at some truck stop...

But only a poor bridge player never overbids, so for the past month I've been trying to go set in the spot market. If a lane supposedly paid $1.80/mile, I'd ask for $1.98 (+10%). But I'd get it. So then I'd ask for $2.07 (+15%) -- and get it. Then $2.16 (20%) and, again, I'd get it. The problem was I just had no idea how much was possible. (Note that this may be skewed due to Holiday demand)

So when I found myself in a red-hot market (15+ loads/truck) on the day before Thanksgiving, I decided to ask for a crazy number: $4/mile with at least $1,000/day. I posted my truck on Landstarbroker, DAT, & ITS at 0600, putting my rate requirement in the comments, and by 0730 I was receiving so many calls that people were having to leave messages as I was talking to someone else.

Unfortunately, it seemed none had read those comments and I was being offered garbage like $500 for 100 miles delivering after the weekend -- in 5 days. After quoting $5,000 for that particular run, I was rewarded with a flurry of swear words and a click -- a first! Strangely, that encounter lifted my spirits & I resolved to stand absolutely firm until 1500, at which point I would lower my price to $3.50/mile & $1,000/day. I would go no lower, sitting through Thanksgiving if need be.

I heard "no" quite a bit that day. My phone log shows 45 calls that morning & I had at least 20 email rejections too (meaning a 1.5% "yes" rate). When quoted my rate, I'd estimate 1 in 5 brokers were rude, 3 in 5 politely declined, and 1 in 5 seemed unusually somber in their rejections. This later group gave me hope, and I would come to find their numbers calling again and again with incrementally better offers. Better, but still not where I wanted it to be.

That was until 1300, when one of those somber callers (with a 1300 pickup appointment) agreed to my $2,000 quote on 442 miles delivering in 2 days. I vividly remember their first call because, despite my rate being posted, they offered $650 "because it would get my driver out of the bad weather." They sounded so confident and chipper when making that pitch at 0730, yet when I explained I would need $2,000 to tie up my truck for 2 days, they suddenly became so very serious. They didn't immediately say no and I could all but hear them thinking "Oh ####, this load is going to be tough to move."

Later, when relaying my experience to RollinCoal, he offered this insight:

I wish I could say I adjusted my rate based on their inflections, but the reality is $2,000 was just a nice round number to which I'd decided to stubbornly cling. Perhaps I could have gotten $2250 or $2500. After all, I still haven't gone set...

I got out for $1.89/mile on 950 miles, going to an area with $3/mile rates currently posted (again, I'm just pulling a plain ol' dry van).