Mercer transportation

How much do average per mile with mercer?

 

Not sure, we get paid on % & I haven't done the math

 

I know you just started here, and your experience owning a truck is rather limited. But you got to know this. At the mimimum you need to do the math once a month. But is suggest doing it once a week, or even once a load right now until you get more experience. If you do the math on every load now, six months from now you will be able to look at a load and the profit number will jump into your head faster. Basically the repetive math is just practice so that later you will be able to make better decisions on loads much faster later.

 

Last year, all miles using my odometer. 1.93 to the truck.
If i didn't live in the black hole of Florida i believe i could of gotten that up a full 20 cpm. I have a lot higher dead head than most would.

 

Makes sense, I'll find out 2day

 

That's a good rate considering the price of freight these days. Do you get to see the actual rate sheet from the broker for each load?

 

We can. Mercer keeps it on the up and up. Heck sometimes we collect the checks for the freight charges.

 

I stopped checking freight bills along time ago. I did for the first year, and they was always 100 percent correct on the money.

As for brokers, less than 25 percent of the loads i pull have a broker involved. The majority is direct customers.

This might help explain why when someone says I'm giving up 25 percent to mercer instead of getting 100 percent add an independent using brokers, i basically scoff at them. I had my own authority for many years before leading to mercer, looking back i wish i had come here a lot sooner.

It boils down to 75 percent of direct good paying freight is greater than 100 percent of brokered cheap paying freight. I'm not saying that every brokered load a guy can get on his own his cheap, but enough of them are that if you look at it as a yearly average, it's better to be leased to a good carrier.

Obviously that's just my opinion based off of my personal experience of being independent vs leased. Others will have their own opinion.

Edit to clarify: by law any carrier that pays it's contractors by percentage must make the original freight bill available to the contractor. If any carrier tried to keep you from viewing them, not only is it a sure sign they are skimming off the top, but you got a nice lawsuit if you wanted.

 

I'd like to add, anyone considering leading to mercer should go read the mercer subforums here on ttr. Almost any question you may have had already been asked and answered a few times. Lots of good info in those threads. And even if they don't give the answer to everything you might ask, you will absolutely get a good feel for mercer, and the guys here leased to them.

 

I'll do that. As you know there's a lot to investigate when considering to find a new company to work with.