Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread

I was always told that there are 3 criteria for good freight
1) Time sensitive
2) Specialized eqipment not readily available in market
3) Very high value product

 

That's why I'm in time definite and high value

 

I specialize in dry van general merch freight

 

What others can't or won't do. The good money rarely comes easy. Other than that you're really just a commodity. There's even an oversupply for time critical needs so that's a segment trucks are just as much a commodity as loads of toilet paper anymore.

 

Come on dy, you know that isn't the only other option.

One of these days we are gonna have to sit down over a steak dinner and compare notes.

 

Excellent discussion and thanks for continuing to highlight the not so good along with the wins.

I think it really boils down to what your definition of a success is.

Think along the lines of the guy with no expenses that puts a cheap, paid for truck on the road. He runs buck three eighty freight all day and thinks he's ballin. Then there's the guy with a big mortgage, two new cars, and four kids in college, and he can't make it running $3/mi everywhere.

The hardest angle is finding a compromise. Work that is profitable enough, and meets your personal needs and expectations. Some can find it, some don't. I'm struggling with that right now. I'm close to a parity of sorts, but still a lot more hands on and schedule committed to the business than I want to be. I've been doing it long enough, that I know in a day or two this will pass and I'll be back closer to mental health LOL.

I used to think this way. Usually when sitting in a truck stop for too long staring at the load boards. Where everything was coming from some armpit of the country, or going to one, or both. I'm not sure when, but one day I saw it another way.

Higher rates happen when truck supply is short. Lots of loads available isn't the only reason that happens. Sometimes it's a lane that sucks. Sometimes it's a nasty product nobody wants to deal with. Sometimes it's a shipper or consignee that nobody wants to deal with.

What it does is create kind of a two sided opportunity if you can make it work by fitting it into your route and getting enough money on it to put up with the downsides.

It's an undesirable load (that you can overcome apparently) so fewer carriers will even look at it. So on one hand, the availability for you on the regular, will be more likely. Coincidentally, probably not much competitive threat that someone else will get in there and take it, since it's ugly.

Another possible side benefit, it may let you get a foot in the door on an account that's otherwise locked up. You have gone in there and turned their load that's always been a headache to cover, and made it the low maintenance one. You're now a problem solver, that apparently the carriers they like more, were unable or unwilling to be that.

Not saying it happens every time, but that's the sort of thing that leads to more favorable offers. The next lane their contract carrier fails on may not be so crappy and you're right there to pick it up and make it happen.

All that being said, that logic in the last part probably works more for me at the moment than it would for @double yellow since he's basically running irregular lanes nationwide, putting together runs that meet his personal wants at the best possible rates. On the other hand, my operation has been constrained a little more to the region since we don't like being out more than 4-5 days at a time and have really focused on two primary lanes since we started, coincidentally and not by plan for what it's worth. Since we're usually in or passing through the same places on a regular basis, those kinds of load opportunities are somewhat easier to make happen.

 

I see the bottle of boozes is half gone, I can imagine with all that paperwork!!!

 

I can't make the label out in the picture, but from the color of the contents, sure does look like a cheap bourbon.