BROKERLESS LOAD BOARD

If it's next morning I can't afford to go lower. Appointments are in place. Loads must go

 

That's 400 a load in brokerage. I thought it was going to be a lot worse, but it's not that bad. He's going to get scalded when the rates go up though. And they are definitely going up. I'm trying my best to not commit to any rates in advance this year.

 

Well, you are in a bit different situation, you did say you try to specialize in long hauls, those are highly desirable runs, 10% of them are already a good amount of profit money and there is no much room to play with.
I do short runs, up to 600 miles usually and brokerage percentage jumps quite a bit there. Some people would try to get $400 out of a $1200 load, because technically a $5000 load and $1500 are no different for a broker, because they spend the same amount of time to book it.

 

Good for him just don't understand how drivers survive.

I'm actually anticipating leaving brokering over next 12 months and start a reefer trucking company. Always wanted to and I am seriously considering it.


Been doing nonstop research about it. Getting truck costs and daily expenses.

Right now I'm calculating about 1.42 a mile including driver pay.

 

I occasionally work with two brokers. One sells at $1000 and buys me at $700. I've seen the paperwork. The other makes 50% of what I do: that gentleman only has one customer at this point. He's not the first call, he's the guy they call when nobody else can do it. Aside from me, he has another avenue of an outfit that on the rare occasion I can't cover they always can.
If he moves $9k a week, he pays out $6k. If it's the loads I do: that's 6 total loads.

Hilarious markups aside: big money comes to those who do what others can't won't or don't. When no one else can cover a load, he's the guy that knows the guy (me) that always makes it happen. If you have to move lots of volume at a lower rate that's fine: if you can find a way to move a small amount of volume at high rates, all the better. Different strokes.

 

I do know this much. If a broker makes 20 percent on a load he will eventually lose that customer. More and more companies are hiring a lot of recent brokers in logistics roles.

Dexter axle one of my customers recently re did all of thier pricing due to high rates. The new logistics manager used to be a broker for 12 years.

 

I do similar gross sales to you but move more loads and it's all produce basically. I've found assistants to be a mixed bag. The only system I've been able to make work is assigning them certain tasks (check calls, rate confirmations if not an idiot, other basic stuff) and then just having them answer the phone when it rings. It's super easy to spend more time supervising them than they help.

 

So lets say your daily goal is to make $1000 profit per day to make good living. You can be fair with 10% profit, because at $400 per load you will meet your quota, but its much harder for a broker with short loads. He either gotta have a big volume, or keep a larger cut . Since its not easy to score a shipper with a large amount of loads, its easier to try to keep 20-40% and pay less to the truck

 

What is so laughable about a 20% markup and why is that overcharging a customer? On typical freight that everyone is scrambling over yeah that's probably high. For most box, reefer, and even flatbed freight that is likely the case.

What about in special circumstances? Not everything fits into a perfect little black and white world. What if you had a customer that called you at 16:00 and he needed 10 trucks every hour on the hour stating at 9 pm and thru to the next morning?

That's just what I see pulling a box. Some of these guys on here are way more specialized anything that goes in a box is a joke. What I do is the easy stuff. But no-one doing on these extremely short time frames with very little notice is making pennies on a dollar when they do. Depending on the time maybe, but not always.

 

Out of curiosity, that 1.42 per mile is on how many miles per week and whats the driver pay?