okay how much money you brokers make moving loads

Yeah I definitely get that. When I managed accounts directly I enjoyed the spot market freight because it felt like I had more of an impact on whether or not the customer decided to shop with us, and when things got crazy the opportunities would come from all sides and I didn't have to struggle with under priced contracted freight.

 

Any of you big boys that are taking it in the ### right now, deserve it. Maybe don’t drive the rates into the toilet expecting things to stay bad?

I don’t even waste time bidding on big contracts anymore. It’s sortof the epitome or general widget freight.

I fully agree with @PPDCT method and is what I do as well. I recall when I first started out I had a customer who did 35 million gross per year. I did around 400k per year at the time. Turns out I did more profit and they went tits up about 3 yrs later. Here I am 9 yrs after still in business.

I normally don’t hate on brokers at all but this low margin, high volume business model is trash.

Y’all raped carriers for months now are getting raped. What goes around comes around. But, all you carriers out there, not every company operates like this.

 

Most people I know with the “work harder for less, least I’m working” attitude go belly up.

 

I wish it would happen faster though. Seems to me like they are they are just long enough to #### things up, and right about the time they’re done, the next guy comes in with the same plan; Because the first guy made up some reason why he failed instead of being honest with himself and others.

 

Shame I can't PM. Would love to talk shop with ya.

 

This article was from last year. The guy who wrote it has some good insights on the dynamics of how the freight market works. Shippers can be just as brutal.

Sorry sir, it's just business.

Commentary: Where's "my" freight? - FreightWaves

 

I'm a driver, but I've been many things and have been on both sides of a coin many times.. It's easy to say things like a broker made that money "just by answering a phone" it's also easy to say "all you have to do is drive"... We all know theirs more too it than that in both cases. In general, times are cut throat. Everyone wants everything for nothing. We all get f###### along the way

 

It's always easy to throw the blame at whoever you think is against you or making your life hell.

Our modern political climate is a perfect example of this. This is absolutely not a statement about one party or the other, it's quite the opposite.

 

There's a lot going on in this post, let me try and dissect it.

"Any of you big boys that are taking it in the ### right now, deserve it. Maybe don’t drive the rates into the toilet expecting things to stay bad?"

Deserve makes it seem like larger 3PLs are participating in some nefarious scheme to drive down rates. Spoiler alert, if you want to win volume on a Kellogg's RFP, your pricing has to be really aggressive, and in turn your cost to the truck has to be low. I will say that I agree with you in that if you are going to utilize that business model you should fully expect to get burned when the market has a rapid spike upward. Good players in this space are going to account for that and either have the relationships to get rate adjustments from the customer, have wiggle room in the budget to account for the tough months when the market is in transition, or both.


"
I fully agree with @PPDCT method and is what I do as well. I recall when I first started out I had a customer who did 35 million gross per year. I did around 400k per year at the time. Turns out I did more profit and they went tits up about 3 yrs later. Here I am 9 yrs after still in business.

I normally don’t hate on brokers at all but this low margin, high volume business model is trash."

As I mentioned before, it has it's pro's and con's. This is a fantastic time to be living on the spot market, there is a ton of opportunity out there, and you don't have to try and honor contracted rates that are much lower than cost in the market. But I'm sure you would both agree that it's a lot harder when the market cycles down and you have to try and win the race to zero just to capture spot loads. It's also harder to scale your business just on the spot market, which may or may not be important depending on where you want to go with your brokerage.

"Y’all raped carriers for months now are getting raped. What goes around comes around. But, all you carriers out there, not every company operates like this"

I'm not sure why there is so much talk of big boys taking it the ### and rape in your post, but to each his own. I will say that I do agree that if you are comfortable driving down rates when the market is soft you better be comfortable dishing out the dollars when the market gets tough. Hopefully you have the right relationships (and history of quality service) that you are able to secure rate adjustments with your customers that allow your brokerage to stay afloat when times are tough.

 

This is a great article, I read it last year and was thinking about it a few weeks ago. I scoured the internet trying to find it again and had no luck, thank you for linking this here.