I know that if a person were successful in obtaining contracts to haul goods out of a certain area on a regular basis, they need to get back there. I would assume in a perfect world you would look and be able to find contracts boucing you back to point A. Is this common, or do many o/o's or small fleets rely on brokered loads to get back? If having to rely on brokered loads to get back, how effective is this if you guarantee to the first company that you will be available with a truck x amount of times per month? It seems like it could get sticky trying to get back to point A.
I worked for two small companies in Kingman (5 trucks and 9 trucks). They each had contracts with outbound freight, but each company had to find broker loads to get back, not necessarily to Kingman, maybe Flagstaff/Phoenix/Vegas whatever. One company was able to backhaul the raw paper needed to manufacturer the product right back to the original shipper 6 times out of ten. Can you say sweet ?
If you're good, you can negotiate empty bounceback into the contract, but it won't be as much as it would be loaded.. However, it's something. However the only way to really justify this is if those trucks are ONLY used for that account, and nothing else. If you start hauling other stuff they aren't going to want to pay you. You'll need to be an entity, or extension of their company. "Dedicated" The company i drove for did something like this, and paid us .49CPM for all miles driven. We'd run out, drop, run back empty, all paid. It was a good gig.
