Are Freight Brokers Necessary?

Freight broker: An unpaid employee of the shipper who gets his or her expenses and salary paid by the trucker who hauls the freight at a deep discount.

 

Yeah and I cant tell you how many times I've called a broker and there office is in there living room at home. I'll take the days of trip leasing loads over broker loads any time.
The day when as a driver you had to foot it down the halls of truck stops or old motels next to truck stops and you could see eye to eye with who you were dealing with.
We have a customer that uses brokers and the vary same loads that I get they post them any where from 25% to 40% less then what I get. And why is it when you ask a broker, any broker what the rate is they quote you what the truck is going to get not what there getting, sometimes I like to know just how bad I'm getting ######.
I know of only one shipper that uses only one broker and they require that broker to post the full rate on every load and they tell the broker how much there gonna make.
If brokers have nothing to hide post the full rate then minus your cut.
I've told more than one shipper what I was getting for a brokered load and most are shocked that they keep that much money. And most of the time, not all ways it works out that the broker is keeping the fuel surcharge plus a percentage of the load.

 

Not to be mean-spirited, and I'm not "hating," but what you just said is not true.

I know for a fact that at least some of the loads Landstar gets on their board are the loads we turn down as being not worth putting on our truck.

And they're put there by, guess who, a broker who really does deal directly with a specific shipper. He posts them when nobody dealing directly with him will take them. I guess Landstar does get loads that aren't directly from shippers, now, don't they.

IMHO load boards are just collections of junk loads that nobody with any real business relationships with shippers or a good broker will take. I think this is easily supported by the ridiculously low paying status of the majority of load board loads.

As to brokerages in general, IMO, they're an unnecessary and cumbersome obstacle in the cogs of the trucking business. If O/Os want to make decent money it's always more profitable to go direct with shippers. The only earthly reason for any O/O to deal with any broker is to get a specific load at a specific price if it can't be had directly.

And if brokers weren't clogging up the system between shippers and O/Os, we wouldn't have to deal with that inconvenience or deal with brokers at all.

As a broker, when the O/O is doing all of the actual work and paying all of the expenses involved in actually moving the freight, and the broker's expenses are basically a phone, fax, and coffee maker, how much of a percentage do you think you should get from an O/O?

Call me crazy, but I don't think that qualifies a broker for anything near 10%, and in most cases quite a bit more. I don't like paying anyone for doing something I can do just as well, if not better, myself.

If you put yourself in an O/Os shoes, I don't think you'd honestly want to pay a broker either.

Bragging about your profits is nice, but the fact is that money comes straight out of the pockets of the people who actually do the work. That is probably a poor thing to brag about to the O/Os whose pockets are being picked.

And no matter what "other brokerages" have as turnover, any business with 30% turnover is an indication that 1/3 of the people who deal with them are not happy. If 1/3 of my customers were unhappy with the services I provide, I'd be out of business. And rightfully so.

If brokers would just get out of the way, O/Os would be far better off, IMHO.

 

You have to realise that 30% number of driver churn @ Landstar represents a lot of o/o who just can't cut it in a system like Landstar's and are much better off leased on at a company which holds their hand and pays them peanuts to be an o/o.

 

The ignorance of some O/O's in this industry is absolutely astounding to me at times. To think that a broker that does the job that they are hired for does not provide value is plain uninformed.

Booking loads with carriers takes resources. A company can choose to have those resources internal (at a cost) or external (use a broker). Regardless, it is going to cost money to book that load.

Now there are good and bad brokers. The bad broker does not understand or care that there role is as an agent of the shipper. They look to book load as cheap as possible with no regard to quality of insurance, safety rating, reliability of carrier, etc.

While I have dozens of examples of shippers that I have talked to the best example is one in my home town. They ship 15-20 loads a week. They had a full-time person booking loads and looked to add another part-timer to help with the work load. And with that they still had to work with brokers because they could not get all the loads covered. Before hiring a part-timer they determined that the one person was costing the company over $70k per year. Or as the manager put it to me, $130/load we booked.

Over a year ago they started working with a bad broker. It was amazing to me when I drove by the shape of the trucks that where loading. In a span of 6-months that they worked with this broker they had less than 70% of the loads load on the day it was scheduled for, less than 85% on-time delivery, 2 loads stolen and 4 accidents that resulted in a total loss of freight.

Before they brought it back in house they went to current broker. They load over 95% of loads on time, have a better than 98% on-time delivery, one loss because of accident and nothing stolen. This was after a year of service.

The broker has contracted to not charge more than 10% or $100 per load (whichever is greater) and if they need to get more money to cover a load then the fee they charge is only $100. After first audit of brokers books they determined they are paying about $110/load.

And you don't even have to educate yourself by talking to shippers to understand the basic concept that resources cost money. Someone has to talk to the carrier to book the load, set appointments, track loads, deal with issues during transport, check insurance & safety ratings, complete contracts and on and on. But for some reason these fool truckers seem to think that anything that happens outside of the truck moving down the highway is free. Time to stop being a truck driver that bought a job and become a business person that understands the business you are in.

 

Rollin - you at shipper getting loaded from that POS broker paying you $3/mile

 

Well my cut is actually $2.50 all miles after plotting out the trip and checking over things but I got well over what makes me happy and could care less what the agent is making off of it. Which I'm sure is a profit and good for her

 

Well, based on what some think I guess I'm just a bottom feeder taking money out of your pocket for doing nothing.

But hey, got a turbo to pay for, demanding wife and a 100lb dog that likes to eat. If I wasn't taking advantage of you I would have to get rid of the wife or the dog.

Be safe tonight.

 

. That'd be a really tough decision lol, I wouldn't want you having to do that. Guess I'll keep slaving away so you and all the other brokers, trucking companies can pay for your mansions, yachts, and beamers lol.