better to be under a carrier authority or independent?

What engine do u have?

 

You are all right, I thought you got Mxxforce

 

Again, I am skipping well ahead as there have be so many responses.

When you have your own authority, you negotiate the rate for the trip. You do not negotiate the rate by mile. Say the run is from Kansas City to Chicago. The DAT board gives that as 535 miles. It shows a spot rate of $1.25 with a fuel surcharge of .23. So if you were bidding a one load rate you would expect to get $1.48 X 535 or $791.80. Remembering that is from a load board so it is not the correct rate. If you are dealing with a customer you set your price as X and the multiply by 535. So my rate for Chicago is $2.50 plus FSC. That means if I am dealing with a customer on 1 load. I would tell him the charge is $1460.55. He has 2 hours to get me unloaded or I charge $150 per hour or any part of an hour. Comparing the numbers you can see that working with brokers is to be avoided. The fact that my rate is negotiable gives me room to move off that number if I have a need to. I don't.

You will find that working with a broker, leasing on to a company, or being a company driver basically pays the same thing after all expenses are paid. The only way to make money is to give up all your "safety lines" and take the plunge yourself. The fewer people who take a slice of your pie, the better.

 

Bro, I'm going to try and make this as easy as possible when I say this. Try and comprehend this because, I thought I was wet behind the ears... but man

• Lease the truck on to a good company, I wouldn't go independent from what I've gathered from reading your post you are not read.
• Go percentage, don't run a flat rate of 1.12 or anywhere near that. Because the goal is to make more money for less work. AIM for 2.00 a mile for EVERY mile, though you won't get it. It's something to SHOOT for. So, every load you haul should have an average higher than 1.12. That's why you go percentage, so you have a chance and a choice to make more.
• Every load should come with a RATE CON(tract), which is a binding agreement between you and all parties stating how much the load is paying, the miles, etc. (this is what you've been asking about).
• Get a good load off the load board that pays you more than your cost to run (overhead). OR let dispatch find you a good load....
• Run it and repeat...
• (learn to type better, I know it's just a forum. But, since you are asking people for help you should type in a way we can understand, so we can provide the help.)

I know this is a washed down version, but you get the idea. I'm not trying to be rude, I just hate the fact of how clueless you are, which is why the trucking industry is the way it is today. So many guys running cheap freight because, they think it is no other way to make money. You just gotta get out of the mindset of a company driver, thinking I gotta run miles, miles, miles. You shouldn't move unless it's paying your cost to run plus profit, or setting you up for something that will pay your cost plus profit. I'll help anyway I can, feel free to PM me. I'm fairly new myself but, I'm pretty sure I can help.

 

I totally agree.

 

Flat rate is a trap. I run under my authority, and what I enjoy the most, is the fact I have options to do whatever it is, or make how ever much I want. When you're leased, you're tied down to someone else's rules, rates and freight.

 

Lol. I don't know why would a "direct customer" would offer to pay an independent more than a broker would, when others would do it for less. You're not going to get more than the market rate.

 

Let me take a stab at this. Let's say you are the shipper and Broker Billy has been handling your truckloads from A to B for $2,000 but only offering $1,200 to truckers and pocketing $800 pure profit because you thought Billy was a good guy and you didn't shop around.

One day Supertrucker Simon shows up in a NICE truck, says he's stopping by because he lives nearby and saw your business and By Golly he has a step deck with all the right dunnage and securement and Simon offers to take your freight every Monday morning for $1,800 on his own authority. Simon not only gets the load to your best customer on time, Simon's the only one that seems to manage to do it without damaging your freight.

No, the customer may or may not want to pay more for freight, depends on how many times they have been screwed by freight claims or late shipments. BUT shippers HATE to have shipments damaged or late to critical customers. A broker relationship can become vulnerable in a heartbeat if your best customer is unhappy.

I know. I was the shipper and booking truckloads for a few decades. I fired a couple brokers that put customer relationships in jeopardy.

 

You might be right on that. The majority of shippers want the lowest bid and could care less about loyalty and premium service. Brokers even bid it cheap, just so they could land on a customer, and end up screwing the carrier. Very rare to land a good gig, it's out there, just not that common. We could wipe out excess brokers and carriers though.