Brokering your own loads.

It's called a load board. Broker 1 posts a load on the internet. Broker 2 call and gets the details the figures out who the shipper is. Broker 2 calls the shipper and undercuts Broker 1.

 

so lets say i call chrobinson and get information for a load. once i figure out who the shipper is, i call the shipper and let them know that i will do that load for them?

 

Well yes that that happens alot. But I was being sarcastic. That's exactly how you're NOT supposed to do it LOL. Sometimes if you undercut broker 1 that may result in lower rates to the truck and possibly poorer service. Trucks will fall off loads and you might lose the account as a result. You have to be careful about undercutting. It's generally frowned upon.

The ugly truth however is, there is no new freight. Whether you steal from the load board or find them in the yellow pages, you are likely taking freight away from another broker. The key is NOT to just undercut. Hopefully you can bid a good rate and get the account because the other broker wasn't providing good service.

 

Ohhh haha alright I see. Well in that case I guess I'll just have to start calling a bunch of shippers & see if they have any available loads even tho we only have 2 trucks and trailers I'll see if I get lucky somewhere haha.

 

The thing is it takes lots of work to get your foot in the door some customers takes me over a year to move the first load....the problem is all it takes is one driver to screw that load up and all that hard work is gone. Customers never remember all the good things you've done they only remember the ball you just dropped..

Just like the steel mill here in Beaumont we use to move all the loads we could
Beaumont to Beaumont paid $275 a load
Beaumont to sulphur, La paid $$450
Beaumont to Houston paid $550
Beaumont to Conroe paid $650
Beaumont to Dallas paid $1,050
Now the rates are in the dumps they send out a e-mail every morning with loads and are covered in less than five min I bid them sometimes but never get them even the local run rate is now $200
houston is $350 Conroe is $400 and Dallas at $700 these loads are posted by brokers everday Houston $300 and Dallas at $600 almost half of what I ran them for in the past. Yes they move 100 loads a day but brokers need to stop cutting the rates it's crazy, had a broker one day tell me if I move all 100 loads and make $50 a load at the end of the day I made $5,000 and on a six day week I made $30,k all he needed was that one customer and would do what it takes to keep them......

 

Yeaaa I knoowww with us too last year we got a load with chrobinson from LA to New York & they paid like $8500 & now all they wanna pay is $5500. Its crazy but ive also been looking for that one broker I could move loads for Because some guy told me that the loads they put on the load board are trash & they keeo the good ones to themselves. Thats why I want to become a licensed broker because I see how much money they make off of us so hey I want a piece of the pie also haha.

 

If you think your going to change things your wrong you'll just end up being in the way for others to undercut you....

 

People "know" a lot and will tell you the "facts' on rates all the time.

If really isn't that simple. It is hard work and getting harder. Not because of more competition but because of less. Shippers are getting stuck not getting freight covered and are looking to carriers with brokerages to cover freight. It is all about securing capacity now.

In this day and age with two units I would be more inclined to focus on developing a relationship with a couple good brokers that have freight and make you their go to truck.