Best Load Board for Flatbed/RGN/Step deck etc

Ron, you are the one man pony show that has his act together. But you know as well as i do that for every guy like you, there is 99 that don't.

 

Maybe so but I get my work through load boards...
I have moved loads for Mercer that they do not have the capacity for or in my case the proper proper equipment leased on.

I will never argue that there aren’t tons of bad carriers -there are - but also there are enough guys running under the flag of non-asset based carriers that have issues.

Just pointing out that there are options.

That being said, it is hard when the broker doesn’t have any real idea of the cost, time and complexity involved in os/ow work. This leads to using carriers that are not qualified because they also do not now the cost, time and complexity involved.

Had a broker call me on a 18w 18t 90k load - hey I had a guy fall off this .... the trailer he was going through use “broke”. When I heard the all in number, I laughed and told him my trailer would “broken” for that number as well. I gave him a run down of the time involved and the number of sign offs involved and gave him a price more than double what he “had in it”. Sorry if you bid freight you don’t understand but I can’t lose money and time my equipment up for 3 weeks

 

Ya i would never use a broker to move anything but toilet paper and plywood. Too many don't have a clue. Many do habe a clue, but as a person looking to ship something specialised its nearly impossible to know if abc logistics knows enough to get me a truck capable of moving my shipment.

 

We do a lot of OS/OW movements at my brokerage. To say that there's a steep learning curve would be an understatement. That said, I'm not here to solicit business. But for what OP is asking, a brokerage with knowledge of OS/OW wouldn't be a bad fit, either.

 

Short answer is, no, boards do not provide any measure of accountability on who you find out there to haul for you. That's solely on you to do the research and verify your carriers are worth the money you're offering. We have policies and procedures to vet carriers before they can be set up with us to do any business at my brokerage. Sometimes someone that looks good on paper doesn't look good in reality. That's the nature of this business, though. Best we can do is deactivate them in our system, put a note in their file, and refuse to work with them going forward, short of docking pay for serious infractions.

It's all a matter of how you want to do business. I get the need to sell service - that's how I maintain repeat business as a broker working for a small shop. I don't charge bottom of the barrel prices because I know that I don't want to send in someone to make me look bad by proxy.

 

Ouch. Yeah, that's one of the myriad reasons why we refuse to double broker. I'm not trying to gank my customers, and I want to make sure the rate that I'm offering the carrier is getting to them specifically. I don't want a second broker trying to take a piece out of that pie.

 

Post what it is and weight and dimensions- especially as it the loads get bigger. Most guys know ir be able to work it will fit for their equipment. Have your guys listen when they talk to carriers about why their quotes are what they are.

Oh and 8 axle set ups generally don’t work for heavy freight (85k-95k) into it out of CA/AZ