Flatbed for hire

I do similar work to what you are looking for I will assume. We are in different areas so I don't have any contacts to either give you/hope you don't take away. I will have to say, though, that Coca-Cola of KFC won't give you the secret recipe and folks in this business won't be any different - you do understand why, right?

Most work that will be looking for forklift off-loading will be local or short-haul in nature, most w/in 150 miles (hope that is what you want), possibly up to 350 is my experience. Ready to load and unload 2 or 3 times a day? Most deliveries will be to job-sites, so you will always be looking for someplace you've not been before and may be affected by the weather. One good thing, I don't tarp since most of what I haul will end-up outside at the delivery point.

Your ability to back-haul will be limited by the weight of the lift and mounting also, so I recommend to be sure to try to cover your expense and profit in the outbound haul and not count on back-haul revenue to make a round trip worthwhile. Remember, if you can't utilize your lift for a load then it is actually a penalty for you to have it on-board!

That said, most anything which can be handled with a 5k capacity forklift is a potential customer. Building/construction materials will be the most prominent cargo sources. Most of these customers will have their own fleet and will use you for workload overages and usually keep their own trucks closer to home and give outside haulers longer (relatively speaking)hauls, but not always.

Products such as bagged soil/bark/fertilizer products might go to a small yard/store that doesn't have a lift of their own or even a farm, golf course, etc. I have a customer that provides lift truck service at Home Depots so they don't have to use their equipment or personnel! Some loads may need your service to load (instead of or in addition to unloading); on occasion I have provided loading at a site with return mat'l or sometimes reclaimed materials (brick for example) at a demolition site.

As was mentioned, make lots of cold-calls and be prepared to hear that "no" answer. You might make one good contact that might be able to give you work every day, but I have tended to deal with several customers in my weeks work; if one customer's work is slow hopefully another needs some help! It might be an idea to present yourself to several brokers and let them know the extra service you can provide, they may sometimes have loads needing the service but the shipper not knowing anyone able to provide the service, but that carries the same down-side as any other load made through a broker.