"but that's all I have in this one!"

this thread is so sad but so true

 

Shippers are in tune with markets. When CHR or TQL fails to get it done they give it to another broker who pays the trucks more. A broker that doesn't have you programmed and intimidated into thinking cheap does it - they know capacity is tight and they need loads covered no BS... Then when the market is back in their favor CHR or TQL gets the freight again. They know the market much better than your small operators and they take advantage. It's business The only power you have is over your own financial situation. Do you now see why some of us say park when it's cheap. Cause if you can't you WILL be rolling whatever the current market. Some think they are smarter than that but when the reality of payments are staring them down they roll for fuel money. It ain't rocket science and brokers/shippers know that 90% or better of spot market operators are shoe string operations one flat tire from bankruptcy...

 

That's very accurate and brokers are more often than not making profit on a load (otherwise how would they stay in business?). But it can often times mean that the bidding with the customer is done and that is what the broker won the load for. There are so many brokers out there and rates get so competitive for some lanes, it's not uncommon for brokers to be making only a couple bucks on a load. But obviously the opposite is true as well when the broker makes good money.

 

The thing that frosts me with brokers is with so many hands in the pie, DETAILS about the actual job keep getting lost.

Like contact phone numbers for the shipper being another trucking company (that got underbid), Pick up #'s being wrong, no idea what kind of load I'm getting (will I need a forklift? Or a rigging crew?) Just last week I pulled into a steel recycler with a HHG moving van. They wanted an open top they could max out. I was 4000#'s overweight just scaling in.

The topper has to be the time some broker gave me the consignee's address, turned out to be the nice, fancy, suburban, Lexus filled parking lot MAIN CORPORATE OFFICE. I pulled right up to the front door, and asked the receptionist where they wanted me to unload. Really the face of pure terror was in fact priceless. And within like a minute 5 panicked Brooks Brothers suited VP's came running out to ask why the (explitive deleted) I wasn't at their factory 30 miles away.

The kicker is that company must have lost more money than the shipment cost having a half dozen six-figure VIP's spend 20 minutes trying to back me out of their drive way. (by which I mean they stood around waving their arms franticly having not the slightest idea how a backing trailer even moves, hint: it doesn't go sideways spontainously just because you're pointing left) Not that I needed them. I was trying too hard not to bust a gut laughing.

 

hahahahahahahahahaha funniest post I've read today!

 

Sad, but true..... and the hardest position to negotiate from is from one of this kind of weakness.... no money in the ol' account.... how hard can someone negotiate if they are up against financial failure if they don't generate some income.... I know brokers can smell desperation, and they're sniffing for it from the moment you say "hi".... believe me, they're listening for desperation...Imagine someone hanging a steak in front of a pack of starving dogs....lol.... they know those dogs will jump at a three day old McDonald hamburger... it absolutely sucks to sit, sometimes for days... but that's the reality of broker freight.... it's a fluid and dynamic situation.... and you have to wait it out....I sat four days in Laredo once.... four days.... but the load I popped out of San Antone was a good one.... San Antone to Seattle, 15,000 lbs, reload out of the same dock I was delivering to going to Springfield OH....a really nice one considering the time, place, and situation, $8,675....too bad it took four days of sitting before I nailed it..... I noticed the other trucks who were sitting there in Laredo with me, they had been there as long or longer.... the TA lot was packed and no one was leaving, Texas was dead....

That load outta Laredo was probably the toughest negotiation situation I've ever had.....

But that one was the one that really developed my poker voice.

and Rollin, you are absolutely right when you say that no one searches harder, negotiates tougher, or has more interest in making money than the o/o.... a smart o/o is going to outwork, out learn, out earn, and out fox any dispatcher/driver manager

 

Just to clarify, was the $8675 for both runs, or just the run from San Antonio-to-Seattle?

 

That was for both

 

I figured that was the case.

 

I'm not sure what getting hot under the collar does anyone? Brokers have their reasons of being as well as O/O's I don't know much about either end of it I would like to see less going to the guy sitting behind the desk with a screen in front of him he has to replace every 3-5 years for $150.00 then the guy who runs his own rig to the tune of $150,000.00 every 5-8 years and has to maintain it where the Broker has to wipe the screen off from his spittle every now and again with a wipe that he buys for $3.00 for 100 of them as opposed to the O/O who fuels his rig every other day for $1500.00 a pop!! Plus maintenance. Shall I go on with these comparisons? I think not.