Please Explain This To Me

Just a note on the thinking that broker have little/no cost. Not all of us wait to be paid by the shipper before paying the carrier. The money for advances,quick pay,ect doesn't appear out of thin air. Not all of us factor/finance so all that comes from our pockets. The carriers that walk away from un-insurable claims we eat(because the customer keeps whatever they owe us for the claim)

I have trucks also so i know the costs for that. Just a little tiring to listen to the no costs for brokering.

 

if we are talking a few thousand pounds that still leaves me well under legal gross, I'm not expecting more money. if it goddess from 15k lbs to 45k I'm expecting an increase in the rate. but the reverse is also true. while I'll never offer to lower the rate, if it's approached by you, I'll be willing to negotiate some of the fuel savings.
it's not quite that black and white, for example, the difference between 40k lbs and 45k lbs is much more to me than 30 to 35. flat running or mountains, etc. and as always, our relationship comes into play.

 

I disagree with you here. Why would you ever give money back if the shipper loaded less weight than you expected? Why should that be the broker's money? Where does it end? If the broker calls you up and says, "I just looked on google and found a place where you can buy fuel for 0.30 less than anywhere else, can I keep half the of your fuel savings?" The shipper has ordered, and will pay for, a truck to go there to load up to maximum legal gross weight, and if they fall below that, it is on them. I don't know how a shipper could ever get away with telling the driver, oh well we are going to cut your rate now because we don't have enough product here. That would become one of my shippers who I will ONLY haul for if they have cash money, not even a cheque, ready at the time of loading, or it does not get moved. (I only have one of those).

 

To me it looks like this.

Broker being paid say $1000. Plan is to payout carrier $900. Initial plan is to load to max gross weight. Carrier picks up load, finds it is half the weight, and how estimates the truck expense to be only $800 because of some fuel savings. The carrier now accepts to haul it for $800 so he takes the same after expenses? So the broker then takes 20% instead of 10%?? Who has the larger variable expenses??

 

Doing these tit-for-tat rebuttals isn't my usual style, but this thread got my interest.

I didn't say I wasn't making money. Just making a point about how cash flow intensive and how easy moving loads is versus selling them. There's a lot of things I could be doing to get paid that are less stressful in some ways, more so in others. Right now I could drop an email to my old I/T colleagues and be on a six figure project management job in under a month. Crazy, right? Don't think I haven't been tempted a time or three. The catch is that, in exchange for that apparently easy money, I go back to doing a job that I truly dislike day to day. For reasons I dislike even more than the crap I put up with running a trucking business.

Driver is just part of the job, typically the easiest. The point wasn't just having to take care of personal business in a sub-human manner. More about having to suffer that daily while running a business. It's very easy for you to draw a comparison to camping. Try actually doing it for days on end, then get back to us.

Never said you didn't. In this regard, we are about even.

There it is. Thanks for answering my question. On this I'm kind of on the fence. I would expect claims to documented well enough to go to the party that is responsible. That's why I take pictures and supply my customer with the details they need to push a claim back on a shipper or consignee, and not onto my invoice as a discount. On the other hand, if I cause a claim, I own it and pay for it.

So why are you paying for all that? Are you just generous? Or are you having trouble doing the follow up? I can imagine some of that is taking the lower cost option. For example just paying for a $50 case of product versus spending the time making a dozen phone calls and filing reports that would consume a lot more than $50 of your time.

On the other hand, if you're paying detention and layovers that you don't get from your customers, is that a cost you endure to buy the business? In other words, is this something you recoup via a higher rate or volume (embedded cost) versus having it out there as a line item that is collected and passed through?

I guess what I'm trying to get at is: are these costs avoidable or planned? I would never expect someone to be stupid enough to just pay it out, no more than I would expect myself to just run a load for free.

You're mistaken. We have those costs too. And then some.

Yes, keeping the wheels turning is another of my jobs. What you will never grasp is that it is so unlike your example of commuting to work or taking a road trip. I'll concede that on good days it can come close to that. When it happens I try not to dwell on the good time and jinx it.

The paragraph about chair breakdowns was only making the point that there are some not-so-easy and very cashflow intensive things about operating a truck that someone who's never experienced them first hand would ever have a clue about. If all you've done is register and insure your private auto and drive it to and from an office, that's all you have to go on. I get that.

Before getting into trucking, I had some experience around commercial equipment as well as a mechanical background. I only thought I had a clue. It's on a whole 'nuther level than a personal car, or even construction equipment. Until you have to go through the daily setbacks involved, law enforcement hassles, and stand at the cashier window paying a bill that turned out thousands more than you imagined it could be, you have no idea.

I never said your job was easy. One of the reasons I disliked project management is something you get to do daily: be responsible for work done by other people that have little or no stake in your success. I also dislike the sales side of things. I can tolerate the little bit I do, but wouldn't have good mental health having to step it up to 50 or 100 times my current level. Some people thrive on that. It gives me chest pains even thinking about it.

My points were that the job of brokering is less cash intensive on a day-to-day basis (not overall, as I already stated) and required less sacrifice of personal amenities or dignity. When I have a problem, I try not to put you (my customer) in a bind and respect the job you do. I only ask that you do the same when you come to me with changes.

All that said, the best brokers I deal with were either in trucking at one time, or are currently also carriers running their own trucks. With them, there is no doubt they understand what it takes to deliver the load and always meet me halfway.

What I'd challenge you to do would be to take a week on the road with your best owner operator carrier, if you can stand each other for that long. Get a taste for running your business over a cell phone and limited mobile wifi, in an office that is a little bigger than a refrigerator box and is moving at random times. I think you may learn a few things that would empower your own business by a large margin. Or maybe end up chopped into pieces and stuffed into random garbage cans in five states LOL.

 

PS: Kudos for staying active on the forum and following up on your thread as you have. Whether we admit it or not, the insight is valuable. Don't take it too personal and vanish as many others before you have.