Uber Freight?! What is this madness?!?!
Discussion in 'Ask An Owner Operator' started by Flatbed_reefer_madness, May 22, 2017.
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I do not have any negotiating skills. I ask how much. They tell me. I say I need this much. They say no and that is the end of it.
Rinse and repeat until something comes up.
If they post a price on Truckstop and I call they again won't budge.
I want a minimum of $2 a mile. The CHR guy knows this. He won't offer me anything for less. Sometimes he sees something and as he puts it asks for mad money. This is from his colleagues at CHR, they also either ignore him or say no but he has a much higher success rate than me.
Now to be fair I am probably not the easiest guy to book for. I don't run overnight or deliver / pu in the midddle of the night and I run a dry van. Quite a few negative strikes there and yet I am quite happy with what I am earning.Last edited: Jan 1, 2018
exracer941 Thanks this. -
Now the more interesting negotiations are those that involve a lot more variables. Business deals with all sorts of contingencies. That kind of thing. I find those to be quite interesting. But those probably get dull after you've done a hundred of them as well. -
Lots of normal great folks to interact with here yourself being a great example. I love reading your posts I have learned a lot from your comments.
As for this mythical process I find it to be just that - mythical.
Sometimes a situation exists that is an emergency of some kind and you are in the right place at the right time. Whoopee !
Whenever I am told some story about these $3, 4 and even 5 a mile loads and look into them there is ALWAYS a catch. Without fail.
So have I taken loads for those rates? Yes I have but it is unusal.
On my dash right now I have a note from an aquaintence running a small trucking business out of Booneville, MS. He gave me some information about loads coming from a train yard going to another train yard in the MS area. About 200 miles a pop at $800 a load. That is power only.
I haven't looked into it yet because I am really an OTR guy and shuffling back and forth isn't really my thing. I will though just for fun and It will have a catch.
I have found that negotiating doesn't really exist in trucking except in a small way i.e. fishing for tolls etc. I have heard this phrase over and over - "I can move them all day for this price" or "That is what we pay on these loads we do them all the time for this shipper" or, more rudely, "do you want it or not take it or leave it" (heard that a couple of times and just hang up).
So unless you have some known edge negotiating pretty much doesn't exist. I do not have an edge only choice and to be in a position where I will sit if I need to.
Currently in Tuscon AZ. Been here 5 days completely unproductive. I took time over the 2nd half of the holidays to do paperwork.while my CHR guy is playing with his kids. Everybody wins.
I just try to be pleasant, patient and considerate but demonstrating a low key hard edge. So far so good. My reinstated authority has made me happier than I have been for 3 years. .exracer941 Thanks this. -
Rollin Coal is a scalper. Scalpers are trucks who willingly hang out until the end of the day looking to book loads with people in distress. They get crazy rates way more often than you do, but they also get nothing for days a time sometimes. I call them scalpers because they remind me of the futures market traders who get in and out around expiration with 5 second intervals trying to steal a tick or three.
It's just a way to do business. A lot of brokers hate them because they feel like they are getting screwed. I'd argue that the loads nobody wants need these guys to move. They are providing an important service to the freight market and get paid accordingly.
They will have really different numbers to you. They need a lower daily cost of capital and usually own the equipment outright. They make excellent profit margins on much lower sales numbers generally.SL3406 Thanks this. -
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I actually find the natural world and the markets (all sorts not just freight) have a lot in common. There are definitely a bunch of different niches in each industry that behave really differently.
Rollin Coal is a bad guy to block. So is Ruthless to be honest. I would actively do an awful lot to avoid dealing with them at work, but it doesn't mean I don't want to study their thought process. You in particular would probably benefit a lot from being good at spotting good scalping markets. Doing 10-15 more great loads a year would work wonders for your bottom line. Seriously it's 5-20k of extra money you could get for knowing when to wait till 4-5pm and be flexible. -
@boredsocial - I book loads every day when I'm looking to move. While my outboundss are always good, they have to be, they're not always $5 a mile or better "scalping". This member is one of those guys that couldn't figure out how to do it in a lifetime and hard headed too. Got offended and blocked me.
You pegged him pretty well. Overcomplicating the simple and is obviously intimidated by routine ordinary load negotiations. Doesn't know how to talk with brokers or listen to them. When a guy like that calls you well, it's obvious to you isn't it? Tell them the miles, book em with $2 a mile and you got your truck no problems.
It's the same on my end. There's a lot of warm bodies out there at brokerages attempting to cover loads. I know when I'm talking to somebody that's knows wtf they are doing and someone that has a lot to learn. And that doesn't have anything to do with money offered or quotes given low or high.Last edited: Jan 1, 2018
spyder7723 and ChicagoJohn Thank this. -
EDIT: But this is what I meant earlier. You're a trader. It's just part of your personality. That's cool, I'm not any different. -
Just my $.02kemosabi49 and spyder7723 Thank this.
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