F2F Transport / Farm2Fleet: My story with no happy end...

I see these guys on Facebook all the time offering contracts and advertising how great they are

 

Avtualy they keep more, mercer is 75/25, Landstar 73/27,that is what makes it work

 

That's a bit misleading. Both of those also have freight agents that need paid. I don't think F2F has that type of network setup.

 

Not misleading at all, that's what the splits are. Point is that's a proven model that works. With that agent model, and other back office support such as credit and collections that model, it what works and works for a reason.

 

Agents, dispatchers, office personnel. It's all over head costs. And that was the point he was making.

 

Skateboardman that was the point of my post that the model has been working for a long time.

After paying the agent 7-8% and the owner operator 73-75% you're in the same ballpark as the F2F model of paying 80% for playing the dual role of agent and owner operator. Or if you prefer, eliminating the agent and paying the owner operator 80%.

 

And the 80% model may have very well worked provided they had started there in the first place AND managed growth/money properly. It appears the 90% model wasn't working so they tried switching to 80% and growing "at all costs" to try and bolster the cash flow to catch up. Problem is as everyone knows when you get in the hole it takes serious and focused control to dig your way back out. Unfortunately their focus seems to be on pumping themselves up telling everyone how great they are and ignoring or rather "oops I forgot" the money problems.

I don't care what model your using, 90%, 80%, 60% it costs money to add trucks period. Yes eventually there will be a return on the investment of adding trucks but initially there is more money leaving than arriving with any truck you add. When your having memory problems and "forgetting" to pay weekly settlements as defined in the contract with the current trucks you have that's the wrong time to try and add more. If you don't step back and fix the memory problems first they will only grow larger and every week that you rob Peter to pay the new Paul's it only digs that hole deeper and makes it a lot further to dig out of. At some point the walls collapse and you get buried alive.

F2F never got any of this, they were/are so focused on their own awesomeness and greatness offing up those webinars about how to become successful that they cannot look back and admit their own failures out of fear of loosing the stage that they use to feed their narcissistic ego. How can a normal person/businessman set there and advertise himself as the person who can teach you how to be successful when right outside his door stands a line of people he has "forgot" to pay?

Over the years I have stood on stages with people far more prominent and famous than Kanye yet I have nothing to offer nor do I have pictures to post on social media to feed my narcissism. Others may need to take a reality check and realize the end came a while back.

 

The problem with F2F, and this goes way back to disagreements I've had with Bill from the very beginning, is that basing your business model on the spot market is a time bomb. When capacity finally swings past demand, it blows up in your face. I stressed to him and others to get some direct contract freight and build off that. I was always told I was wrong, never mind that I was doing it way before Bill was driving his CR England lease purchase truck. The old posts are there for anyone to read. I hope he learned his lesson, and I sincerely hope he pays everyone he owes soon.

 

%80, %75, %60........really makes no difference. Alot of times someones lower percentage is better than others %100........

 

You should never base a business model on spot-market broker freight. Building relationships with customers is the best business model and broker freight from load boards should be used to fill in those legs where your moving between direct customer loads.

Now with that being said you can build relationships with "brokers" that can be very profitable but those are the relationships where the broker calls you with the good loads before posting them to the load board but that's not the way to build a large company.