Rate per Mile for Owner Operator

Yes indeed!

I don't know about you guys but, when fuel hit $4-5 a gallon I was doing great, Ever since it dropped, I've been pretty much parked waiting for two things. 1-all these new guys that popped up to disappear(or learn to focus on their profit margin rather than their bottom line) and, 2- the fuel to spike up again.

 

True enough.

 

Well, actually, no. The job of a company is to maximize profit, and the lowest cost provider rarely wins. If that were true, Apple would not have a tenth of the sales of phones Samsung does, yet generate many times more profit.
The most valuable company in the world is definitely NOT the low cost supplier.

Cheap is cheap. A cheap carrier means the OP still has to babysit them, make sure the trucks actually show up, that the freight gets loaded and protected, that the customer is happy, etc, etc, etc. A quality carrier takes all that management time off the shipper's shoulders. A cheap carrier and a quality carrier offer different products. Like Apple and Samsung. One is worth more.

Around here, in podunk America, my neighbor charges $150 an hour for a side dumper gravel truck, and he stays pretty busy.

 

This has to be one of the most entertaining threads I've read in a long time. What do you do when someone tries to insult you and call you greedy when they don't like your prices?

Speaking of commodities,....

Moral of the story: Yeah, you can run for cheap, but you will end up foul smelling, used and abused, and disgusting.

So what do you do when someone stops you in the lobby of a 5 star hotel and complains about your rate? Leave the hotel and follow him to his car? He is hanging out in the lobby. Odds are he can't afford a room in the hotel. Yet this guy is trying to insult you to get you to agree to go to his car. Profit? If you can't make your profit margin, you're giving to charity.

What is a profit margin? No, it's not the wage you pay yourself.

 

Any guesses as to who this pimp "KR" is? Lol.

 

Yep. Even tho our rates are 30 percent higher (or more) there is a reason when i go to load an engine at ge or boeing there is not a single cheap carrier coming in or going out the whole time I'm there.

 

I enjoy that analysis more everytime I read it @TripleSix

 

Think about it...homie is doing his best to degrade the profession. "Oh, I can get this at this price, you greedy truckers." And for the most part, he was given the proper response, "Go and get it, then." Refreshing to see drivers on the same page...there IS hope.

Every time youre in a truck, and you see a nasty girl working the lot, do you find yourself curious as to whose truck she gets in? If you were a fleet owner and saw her get into one of your trucks, what would you do?

See, cheap service is simply bad business. It attracts that undesirable element. Remember "Pretty Woman"? Julia Roberts struts up to the exotic car leans down and talks. First thing you notice is how pretty her teeth were. Think she would have wound up in the car if she had black stumps for teeth and sores down her legs?


I dont care what deals you can make on the low end. I dont haul low end freight.

 

I can see the OP's point, as well. I am in the trucking business because I was not able to find a consistent carrier to provide the level of service we needed. But, we have a very, very unique product to ship.

As a carrier, you have to price things like uncertainty, inconsistency and unknowns and unforeseens. The carrier doesn't know the shipper's business, how easy or difficult he is to work with, his ability to pay, his customer's operations, wait times, etc, etc, etc.

As a shipper, you don't have to price those uncertainties into the rate. Often, insurance is hugely cheaper if you are the producer / carrier delivering your own stuff. If you need to park the truck, you can re-assign the driver to production for a few days, and not worry, especially if your equipment is paid for. A carrier can't just bench a driver and a truck, the driver would be gone, and the truck payment is still due.

 

Do you know @Ruthless ?

He owns a trucking company. Young man. He's a problem solver. He provides a service to his clients and has the ability to haul just about any load his clients may need. Van, reefer, tanker, flat, hotshot, OSOW.

Thing is, he's not cheap. You cant be cheap and offer the service that he does. There's absolutely no way that he could maintain all the equipment that he has to offer and run cheap freight. Something would have to give, and the first place it shows is in maintenance expenses.