ASK ME ANYTHING

Well maybe not a partial load that I can get more on. I’m still new to O/O and do dumb things occasionally.

Tried to call the broker on two different numbers, and sent an email with no response. I thought they always had people by a phone.

 

Depends on the broker, their office breakdown, and how they staff things. If it had been me you'd booked with, for instance, we're out of the office at 1700CST, and off Saturday and Sunday. However, every carrier I work with gets my personal cell phone number, as it's included in my email signature. A call to that after hours either gets me directly, or a call back within half an hour, depending on what I'm in the middle of, at home.

Some brokerages delineate who made the sale and who books the load. In such a circumstance, it can be trickier to get to someone who can make a decision on a load you're under. I don't like the extra layer in the middle - I'd rather be dealing with the carrier booked on my load, and my customer directly. That way I can let both parties know what's going on with the other in as efficient a manner as possible.

 

Should a solo O/O get a newer truck to start operating under his own Authority? I heard someone say that if you have an older truck, say 2009, it would be more difficult to get loads, since your Authority is new, and brokers don’t know you yet. Is that true ?

 

Correct me, if I am wrong, but my idea of how you - Brokers - determine your target rates are coming down to 2 scenarios:

Let's just say there is a paper mill in a rural Virginia area and you establish some contact there.

They call you and tell you (or vice versa) that they have 25 shipments going out to Kansas City, KS and 10 to Carol Stream, IL for a given week...so you you can have them all for 60K...and it is entirely up to you how to manage that. Meaning, the Mill does not care a bit for what rates the carriers are pulling their product. It is up to you to manage the 60K.

Another scenario:
You just are given the 35 loads with a preset rate (by the mill) say target rates of 1800 to KC and 1300 to Chicago and your effort is to push it for that much while being on commission for a given% but then you have to bother them for authorization, if the carriers (market) demands more than the target rates.
Which one is occurring more?

 

Honestly, it all depends. I don't have any customers like that. Most of the work that I get goes to different areas from my customers' locations. I very rarely have duplicate lanes, and when I do, it's usually two months of seperation. In my case, my customers tend to be a bit more sensitive to market forces, and recognize how that works.

I've looked at some commodity load lists, it looks more like scenario #2 you've offered- what they tend to do is send out a list of available loads going to wherever, with their posted rate. They tend to be low to begin with, though I suppose that's going to depend on the customer in question. Our new guy found a lumber company that actually pays decently to get their freight moved. That in and of itself is a trip.

I'm sure scenario #1 exists. I however, have not seen it, personally.

 

Thank you. That would explain why they always have to call back their customers and see what they say about a higher rate. However, the phrase "I don't have that much in it" is a very common response, which is understandable with double brokered loads, but I hear it also from JB Hunt, XPO, Coyote...big guys, which probably don't double broker...so I guess, that's why, I came up with scenario 1 assuming they have no recourse of reaching to their customers and ask for more.

 

Well, with some customers once they issue a PO, that's what you're doing the load for. They may not actually have that much into it. They may also be using it as a filler line, much like dispatchers will tell me, "Okay, I'll talk to my driver, and get back to you." 80-90% of the time, I know I'm not getting a call back on it.

The other thing to consider is that some of those big guys also seperate their truckside operations from their sales side. The truckside mook you're dealing with may be operating on a budget set by a sales guy who promised to move a load for X dollars, and they've gotta try and stay under that X, too.

 

The first scenario is pretty rare. I've never seen a deal like that, although I have heard of them existing on a large scale at some big 3PL's. This is true Supply Chain Management that usually includes warehousing and distribution.

The second scenario is much more common.

My favorite scenario is where the customer tells me what they have and I go out and find trucks... and when I find them come back to the customer and tell them what I have and what they cost and get a yes or no answer. Why is this my favorite? Because I literally never get into a bad situation. Very hard to lose money selling something you already know the cost of.

 

That really is the truth. They get to make the decision on whether or not it's too much, so you're not getting hemmed up for it if they don't like the rate.

 

So what happens when the cheap shipper has rates so low the broker has a hard time covering them?