Finally got my own truck

Yeah I went into NE for good rate from SD. I just dilly dallied around and lost out.

Getting a load booked now going back north. Always try to look forward.

 

Yeah every load I take, I keep a database with all the info, the route, broker, miles, shipper/receiver, and rates.

 

Just a journal update / recap for this past week.

Unloaded in Indy Monday morning. Boss kinda had a hard time finding anything. Had to go through Chicago to get permanent plate on the new trailer I picked up, so kinda limited us, but not in a bad way. Ended up picking up Monday afternoon for a food grade load. Went somewhere by Sioux Falls, SD. Stopped in Minooka, IL to meet my boss for the first time, so that was cool. And got the plates put on the trailer.

Unloaded in Sioux Falls Tuesday afternoon, lucky to get a quick reload 30mi north going to Grand Island, NE. Unloaded there Wed. morning then things went to ####. I passed on a couple of early loads hoping to get something good. Nothing, so after 3 or 4 hours I decided to deadhead to Lincoln, and my new dispatcher/load finder couldn't get me out. So I sat Wednesday without a load to haul.

Thursday, there was interest of a load going to Rapid City, SD. Turns out load wasn't ready. Sat for another couple of hours. Starting to get nervous. Then I saw that load pop back up on the board again, so I msg my guy to call back on it, turns out it was ready. Went to go pick it up at some mud pit in Norfolk, NE. 120 empty miles north, 2 stops, both of them at Menards in SD, one of them 2.5 hours away, the other one further west in Rapid City. Was lucky to get empty late that night, and I wasn't sure what would happen Friday morning in Rapid City. Hot maps showed high load/truck ratio, but not many loads. Was hoping to get anything, really. Then things got interesting.

Saw a load on the board the night before, going somewhere 1650 load miles away, posted for a certain amount, nothing special. I liked the miles and delivery location but rate was ehhh. So it sat there on the board, then an hour later, the price went up $100. Then half an hour later, it went up another $100. So I tell me guy to call on that and offer another $300 more than what it was currently priced at. My guy comes back and says they do it for $200 less than my offer, but load doesn't deliver til Monday night. Maybe you should call them? So he gives me the number to the broker, from USXpress. I call the guy and ask about it. He talks about the load, and the delivery time, I tell him Monday would be a wasted day, if I had to deliver at night, and he says well some of our guys do get out of there early, but not all the time, it's hit or miss. So I says I'll tell you what, I'll split my daily layover charge with you and take the chance. And then I ask the weight, 43,000 lbs. I let out a long sigh. "Ah...man...hummmm" then he says "Well what would you need to make this work for you today, Brandon?" So I say well I suppose I would need $x. And x was $200 more than what I told my guy to offer. He says he'll go ask his manager, then he comes back and says OK, we'll do it.

I got the load for $800 more than it was originally posted for the night before and early that morning. It was about $2/mi.

So yeah that was my first time negotiating a load with a broker. I think it went pretty well it went my way, for sure. Boss later tells me that western SD is often $1/mi or so coming out on some days and that I got a very very good rate.

"What would you need to make that work for you today?" was something I was hoping to hear.
I also think I did well by recognizing that load on the board, and how the price kept going up every so often, and I was thinking to myself that hey, they need this load moved today, and they don't have a driver in that area. So I felt I had the advantage, and really I felt I probably could have asked for a couple hundred more and gotten it, but didn't want to push the issue.

Load took me through my buddy's town and got to spend time with him and his wife today, had a good time. Getting my 34 and yes I will get down to delivery area Monday afternoon and attempt to deliver, but planning on finding another load Tuesday morning. Got to get back to MI by next Monday for the week to have my Webasto heater installed, so this week will probably be crap, and I think freight is really slowing down. Seems to be drying up quite a bit, so I'm going to have to accept the fact that I'm not going to average $2/mi on 3,200 miles for the next few weeks. But it is what it is. I had a pretty darn good first two weeks as an O/O. I'm just going to have to struggle to keep things going decently until things pick up, and I really hope they do. I think we're all counting on Trump to make good on some of his campaign promises about repatriating a lot of corporate money from overseas to invest here, and a moratorium on new regulations, and hopefully lower the corporate tax rates. We need some serious economic activity, and a lot of us out here on the road could use it.