Farm2Fleet

I concur.

When you start out under your own numbers there are two things that you do not have:

1. Experience (Even though you may have this, they know the numbers are new) There are brokers who will not work with a new authority until the numbers are 3 mos, 6 mos, 12 mos, or more.

2. Reputation. Building relationships and getting the reputation as a reputable carrier who provides timely service and communicates well.

Becoming (or leasing to) a carrier that has experience and a good reputation is key in getting consistently good freight. I'm sure there are many who get by without building relationships and booking one load at a time off the loadboards through a different broker each time. That is a helluva lot harder and stressful to run an operation and most of the time, less profitable.

I've been there and tried both. I'm currently happy at F2F.

 

Kind of creepy. I'm at my desk and just finished reviewing the contract for our latest technology package that will give us our first private load board. We have been playing with it and have been very impressed. Meet with developers again this weeks and looks like we are going to be moving forward. I am a little cautious about giving roll-out dates since I thought we would have our new TMW with load board tested in December and launched in January.

 

Bill, dont take this wrong, I am not against your operation at all I just cant sit back and let really bad information go.

1. I had one (1) broker that would not use me with my new MC.

2. Call up, accept a great rate, pick up, deliver. No prob. Done and constant calls for more loads.

I have zero experience in the real OTR trucking world. I didnt even have IRP plates until February. I have run my own business since the first time I sold a cord of wood. I have never worked for someone as an employee. I have no trouble making good profit for the week.

Last load Albany NY to Philly then back. $1865- fuel $300 - tolls @$200, no tarp 4 chains and binders on the way down, 8 straps on the way back. Two days, 8 hours of driving. I booked all of this on Tuesday when it was snowing and sitting at home. In this current market it is easy to get great pay for little work.

The leased on thing is not bad when you are with the right company. You just have to decide if you can run a business yourself. I would say for real, the insurance is going to be the biggest factor for OO or LO.

 

I am not Bill but am leased on with him. I also had my own authority previously for 18 months. I was successful and the reason I gave it up was not financially related. I still fail to see how my information is bad. It is based on my experience. I never said one way is better than the other, I said what works best for me after trying both.

1. You can do a search here on TTR and find threads about brokers refusing to work with new operations. There are also tons of brokers whose loads never touch a loadboard and that only come with experience.

2. When you do just as you described, it is called building a relationship. You are not going to have your "go to" guys until this happens. Eventually you wont even need to waste time looking on load boards, calling up, and negotiating. I get daily e-mails and phone calls with their best rate to begin with. I prefer to be relaxing, not working.

 

Welcome back Bill..

 

I think the bigger thing is less the age of authority (and there are those that won't load a new carrier or one without enough inspections) but the experience with a customer. There are a lot of customers that have freight that could careless how long you have been doing this and look at what you have done with them. That is the prime freight that you get with relationships.

I agree and have said that the rates have been great this last year. You could fall out of your truck and get a good rate. Sadly, I have worked with some carriers that because of the are focused on the transactional business and not the relationship. They are going to make it hurt with absolutely no focus or concern of getting another load from the customer.

And you are correct, insurance is getting out of control. Good markets with clean MVRs are seeing $10k quotes for new carriers.