Brokers, Please explain the plummeting rates these days.

At least now you’re being halfway honest. You don’t understand. You continue to cling to the idea that the market sets the rate for any one truck, load, broker, shipper et al. What you don’t understand is it is the other way around. The one truck, one load, one broker, one shipper et al acting independently set the market. I can find a $6 per mile freight where everyone struggles to break even. I can find sub $1 per mile freight where everyone thrives. I work a lot harder for the first whereas I can throw a rock and hit 20 of the second. The first one moves, the second sit. Load to truck ratios make me zero difference. It costs to run the truck as much going one way as it does the other. In econ, we call this inelasticity of supply. Pay me what I want or go without my services. Ezpz.

If you want to let a market set your price when it is marginally more effort to maintain a much healthier price, that’s on you. I don’t operate that way. One thing I’ve learned is that a little time investment in staying with much better paying freight pays dividends in lower equipment operational costs. Again, why run as hard for less money than you’ve run before? Because you were told that’s “what the market is”? Go on believing your fate is at the whims of the mystical market. The freight either needs to move or it doesn’t. The shipper/broker can either afford to move the load at my rate or they can’t. Either I’m making money on the load or it’s not getting on my fifth wheel. Unsure what is so hard to grasp about that. I set my rate. Not the broker. Not the shipper. Not the customer. Not “the market”. Don’t like it? Fine. Click. Onto the next caller.

In the meantime, check your calendar. Been in this full time since 2005. Family has been in it in one form or fashion since the B model Mack was the latest and greatest. We’ve seen #### a lot tougher than this and come out just as unfazed.

So, again, I set my rate. I stay plenty busy. Tell me professor, how is that so? Use your infallible understanding of market forces to explain how I’m still here.

 

Brokers and whichever party is paying freight. Receivers might not be though.

 

Are you booking spot from brokers like that?

 

Very well said. The broker I work the most with knows how I am. I am willing to take a little less when things are bad and I am willing to take the most when times are good. He knows how I run and we both need to win and lose sometimes. Been working with him since my first load and he is fair.

Being fair and honest is all I want. He needs his money just like I do. It really is the true circle of how freight works since I have been in it. Just hope the good last longer than the bad times for both sides. I honestly enjoy talking to my main broker. Before he was promoted I would talk to him most days for 20-60 minutes about anything.

 

Friendship with a broker is like a fart in the wind. You're gonna get thrown under the bus. They're not your friend.

 

Most are not and would agree with you for the most part. But some know who they have and want to make sure they always have you for the tuff customers they have. They do not want to take a chance using cheaper guys when it is a contract they could lose real fast over a dumb mess up.

 

I like to think that's so but 11 years of working with brokers I haven't seen otherwise. Fact is you are replaceable by someone who can provide the same service for cheaper and I dont care how specialized you think you are.

 

The answer can be only one. You are too special to be bothered by market forces. Perhaps a devine being...?
The rest of us are weak mortals and market forces apply to us just as real as gravity. We would love to get $6 per mile too but...but we are unable to in times like these despite honest efforts.

 

Then what you're saying is that you are letting the market run, ...you. That's what KrumpledTed is trying to get you to understand. As long as you're willing to supply cheap labor, you will only get cheap rates. It's up to you to decide what you're worth. If that bankrupts you, that's your choice. That's why the emphasis on not overextending yourself, knowing the cost to run your truck, etc. If you were in the business of charity, God Bless you...give the money to worthwhile charities, not manipulative market forces. That's why it's called negotiations. Walking away is as powerful a market tactic as is offering lowest rate. You have to decide, via your costs what that is, and maybe that's the point. You can't afford to run for those rates and it's time to get out. Better than running yourself down the hole into wholesale bankruptcy where your lot will be worse than if you just folded your tent and sold your equipment on the way out. Some people made bad business decisions and that's why they call it a "shakeout". Darwinism at it's best.

 

Talking to an Uber driver yesterday and we got to talking about driving, I told him I was a “professional” driver like him and drive a semi. He asked me if I was an owner operator I told him yes.

do you know what he said to me once he found out I was an owner operator?

he said “money is good huh? I want to buy a truck as well and hit the road” I told him, to hold his horses and wait a year. He didn’t want to listen.


Oh well. Thank god I got 10 months left in this game. Paid off equipment that will be held together by duct tape by June 2023 because I ain’t spending anymore on it.

and to the topic about who’s the John/pimp/prostitute. In this industry the Truckers the pimp the brokers the lot lizards and the shippers are the Johns because the money flows one way. Now if the broker isn’t paying the pimp all the money then the pimp is really the fool.

on a side note. On my postings on DAT I have now added a line that says “rates start at $3.00 per mile” stops the low ballers from calling.