Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread

The different broker nearly every load is a problem.

You are kinda relying on your rep getting spread through one broker talking to another broker, slim probability unless they are in the same office.

 

I like to tell potential customers I have a service record of over 99% on time, trouble free deliveries in the 3 years I have had my own authority, and no service failures to date this year.

Similar goal to what you are doing with the endorsements. The other thing saying that does for me is it allows me to guage their response. If they ignore that statement with no response it indicates to me that this person has a pretty low give a darn factor, and it is likely not really their customer anyways. If they respond with something meaningful, or some knowledge of industry standards I can guage if they are a legit industry person or just a call center weasel.

plus I like to brag !

 

What about this? How much of the fluff a broker tells you, or includes in their setup package, will influence your decision to accept an offer? Or maybe negotiate a little lower? I thought so.

I think the testimonials won't hurt, but I don't have plans to seek them out or use them. I don't believe new brokers even call the four references I have included in my broker template, which also includes my authority letter, W9, and so on. I believe it comes down to how you sound over the phone more than anything.

With respect to dealing with so many new customers: eventually you won't. After about two years in business, my a/r list dwindled down to about a half dozen customers that I would load routinely. So most times I might see a new carrier setup every 2-3 months.

That said, this year has been different for us. The shipper of our main outbound load last year supposedly shifted production to another plant 250 mi away. So it has resulted in taking loads out to places we haven't been in over a year, as well as sourcing different outbound loads. Even with that happening, most of the carrier setups I've sent are do-overs for brokers we've already hauled for, but long enough ago that they want a new package. Sometimes just policy, others may have revised their boilerplate.

 

I have experienced the same issue's this year as everyone else has. My freight has shifted big time and not for the good. I have 6 direct local customers and working on two that are up north that I am trying to work with too avoid brokers. You should definitely keep those for brokers who care about more than just move the load, and for future direct customers. It does matter I find too most all of my directs who I am and how I run my small trucking company, and those positive feed backs are all happy customers. But I feel they would be most valuable to a direct customer.

 

Do you have a spreadsheet that you can copy and paste your info into to make these graphs? If you don't it looks like that could take some time.

 

Thanks for putting graphs to the perception of rates creeping up as office folks want to head home.

Is there an easy way to look at the data for just the west coast? Thinking about staying western states for the next trip out.

 

Just spotted a Christmas tree order for OR to UT deliver Late November.

I know You have to place orders by June for retail goods to be delivered before December.
Booking freight 6 Months in advance?????

Then again maybe I should call to get my name on the carriers list?