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

The problem with dealing with brokers, is they have other pressures. Back in the day, my company used to haul a load for TMC on at least a weekly basis. When freight started drying up in 2007, they informed me they were hauling them all until further notice. At the same time, I was getting loads of CAT stuff and Thyssen from SPD almost every time I had a truck out west, and that was no longer available. That's the danger of spot. You want to be the direct carrier that can dictate that, not the one getting dictated.

 

Every time you post I'm more impressed.

Most businesses work on the law of averages. Hence why larger outfits use brokers and haul cheap freight sometimes. It affects the average just enough.

As a small business owner myself: I have established regular customers that I can work for every day and be profitable. Spot market work can be for into the schedule; but I have to be compensated quite well to do it.

Trying to make a consistent living on the spot market has to be tough: because by its very nature it is inconsistent.

@catalinaflyer I HOPE the people you were on stage with were way more impressive than Kanye- I would be more impressed to stand on stage with literally almost anyone else ever, personally

 

Well I would brag about being on TV once (or twice) as well but episodes of Cops may not be shining moments

 

Priceless!

 

I remember that episode, you were wearing a leopard print, right?

 

Busted me, I knew I should have kept my mouth shut but like the guy from the Taser Foundation asked me at a benefit when I admitted to having been tased (twice), "were both times voluntary" and I said isn't every time voluntary, if I'd kept my mouth shut I might not have got tased.

 

Of course they're all overhead costs. But it doesn't take the large cuts to make it work. Yes, the Landstar and Mercer models require the bigger cuts, but it's misleading to imply those bigger cuts are necessary, as there are companies who have made money on the 90% model, because they have models that have less overhead. Unless they totally screwed up (i.e. underestimated costs,) when they penciled out the structure of F2F, the percentage of cut being 90% isn't necessarily what caused their issues.

 

That's exactly right Hammer. And the failure wasn't depending on brokers and 3PL's. They had and still do have solid relationships there. It was gross mismanagement of money and being over-extended. You can make a nice living working with brokers and off load boards. It's not easy to be sure. Yep, brokers have a tendency to throw truckers under the bus. But you learn how to deal with those things or you hang it up.

It's not an impossible way to earn a living, even in difficult times. Maybe not for everyone and certainly, I guess there are easier ways (is anything trucking ever really so simple and easy at it appears?). Most of my struggles were related to the shaky situation of not being paid. I didn't even work most of the 2nd quarter which has always been my most productive time of the year. That hurt. Yeah freight was and still is down. I just wasn't enthused at all about working when I was constantly wondering about pay, so, I didn't.

 

A company can be run at 10% but it would have to be exceptionally lean and managed right down to the use of every single staple and paperclip. 10 trucks at 90% would only generate about $21500.00 a month in total revenue to operate a company. Sounds like a lot of money but out of that whomever is floating the almost 1/4 million a month to pay the trucks will want their cut off the top then there's all the expenses associated with running an office, DOT compliance, billing, collecting etc. not to mention the salaries of the people running it and working there then all of the sudden that big number shrinks considerably.

It can be done but out of 100 that try to start a company like that, 98 will fail. I'd fail!!

 

If I'm not mistaken F2F had 100 trucks leased on...

With a hundred trucks, and all or most the O/O's getting their own revenue, I'm having trouble understanding how it all went south...