F2F Transport / Farm2Fleet: My story with no happy end...

I never keep up with F2F.

 

I was never interested in his company. Read my post again. I read plenty of posts about f2f and I read a lot of what Bill had to say. His personality was like a blinking red light to me. Luckily for me I've always been able to be a good judge of people's personalities. I can tell right away if I want to do business with that person or not.

 

Lol, then you asked a strange question. So you don't have any idea about any of this?

 

If you have any customers you want to keep, you better re-think that idea. Lots of co-op members would be glad to go behind your back and cut your rates

 

When I can't cover loads for customers that I am obligated to cover, I'll have one of my friends cover it and I pay them directly upon receipt of paperwork. They get paid faster, don't have to do billing nor deal directly with my customer. Goes the same way if I cover a load for them.

Co- op sounds like a good idea for a customer that needs a large amount of loads covered.

Say you have 10 guys in the co-op: throughout the year you may have 3/4 customers that run seasonal products in volume quantity. That would be an ideal setup for a co-op in my opinion. Have one guy that handles each of those customers and organized carriers to cover..
Except that favoritism, nepotism and greed will always be human traits.

The way I do it isn't the only way to do it.

The way I do it won't work for everyone.

The way I do it works for me, my customers, and my friends.

If I have a high volume customer, I take what works for me, and talk up the guys that are good and put them in touch. No sense putting my "toes in the water" if I'm not gonna jump in and straight up broker the stuff.

 

That is one way we were thinking about and leaning towards. We were also thinking about the co-op buying and owning any specialty trailers that we would use.

The key that I have found up here that allows you to stay more localized is to have a variety of trailer types.

 

Yup, locally here you need 3-4 different types of trailers to try to stay busy year round......

 

Nope

 

I've been doing that lately with a friend, taking his smaller loads that he would normally not do. His customers are happy & I'm happy. If you need another regional carrier for your co-op.......

The biggest problem I've had doing this is with the customers. Example/metaphor: if I need 8 drive tires I want to go to one place and write one check, not 8 vendors and 8 checks for 8 tires.

 

I think it could work well, cowhaulers have been doing an informal deal like that for a long time. One guy deals with the customer, collects all the money, and pays all the trucks for a nominal fee. Better be with people you know and trust in the informal arrangement.