ASK ME ANYTHING

What is your sales pitch to shippers?
"We have capacity....."

What do the shippers say to you about loads that you can't move?

 

Ok, I'll take two cards please.

First is I had one on the west coast pester me on the cell while we rolled south on 5, everytime that call came in several times a hour everything stops to answer. Consider that broker is with a major company I was with and we have satellite tracking out the wazoo etc and these calls were actually putting the load appt time into jeopardy. I finally pulled the battery and rolled. It got there on time, but we did not haul anymore of that broker's loads. Maybe you can explain that behavior... I don't know.

Second.

Appointment times. If it is one thing in this entire industry top to bottom, other people never ask me about when and where I will be at a given date and hour. Im told that people I never see or hear of make promises my load of widgets will be in timbuktu over the mountain at 1 PM tomorrow. (Which aint gonna happen...)

Saying no and reschedule hours later when I finally learn the details of the trip causes a whole another round of yelling, calls and more delay. How DARE I say no it's not going to make it. How DARE I question the appt time. WHO Am I to say that truck will be there at a different non compliant date and time and so on etc. It's simple. No one asked me. I am the one who drives the #### thing, If you (Not you personally, you is generalization....)want it there when? YOU drive it then. Follow me?

 

OP works for Coyote. I'm like 60% sure. Or a Coyote clone.

Did you sign a noncompete OP? Is it too late to work somewhere you get to sell the customers?

I ask because your current job has a pretty unpleasant ceiling. There's not really a way to get from where you are now to where I am now, and the possibility of making very good money in sweat pants and an undershirt from the comfort of your own home is the only valid reason to put up with the misery of big brokerage life IMO.

 

I was guessing Coyote too. Maybe XPO

 

I'm thinking Landstar

 

XPO and Landstar are most of the other 40%. I'm guessing it's not Landstar because they generally have all kinds of tells like accentuating the fact that they are asset based lol.

 

Delivery times are promised by the shippers salespeople. Like most salespeople they know exactly nothing about how that product gets there. They figure out what the delivery time should be by what the customer asks for and saying yes.

Then you come along and tell them that it just ain't so. Unsurprisingly they are unhappy about this. Nevermind that they are still using the same shipping times as they used in the early 2000's lol.

The reality is that some customers have to take what trucks will give them and some customers have money. The customers that have money expect to get what they want every time. This is because they pay people really well to give them what they want every time. They fully expect you to find another team in 15 minutes that is less than 15 miles from your disabled truck and is a power only so that the load will still be on time despite the breakdown. And because they are paying 18k round trip on like 2k miles to pull their own trailer with it's own satellite tracking attached to a room full of college educated people with computers who will call the broker and complain if the truck stops in an unscheduled way because it means the truck is falling behind schedule.

We can't know whether all of that is really necessary... but the fact that you're changing all the plans of the shipper and receiver is why they are super pissy about it. There are a LOT of people involved in every load whether you see them or not.... And some of them have a bonus based on the shipment delivering on time.

 

Prooooobably Coyote. He seems smarter than the run of the mill TQL scrub, and he's not throwing around the usual landstar shenanigans.

 

He is DEFINITELY not TQL. They split their roles up really differently.