Hello, I am trying to get my own customers/shippers. I am in contact with a company and they want me to send them my company profile and proposal??? What should be in this packet to win the customer and allow us to take their loads. Authority, insurance, w9 but what else? How should a proposal from a trucking company be structured?
Yea they have a lot of loads posted by brokers from northern Ca to Seattle. BUT I don't want to haul for the brokers and want to get the middle man out of the picture. What should carriers include in their proposals to customers?
Call them and ask them what do they specifically need/require in your carrier pack. Just be honest and tell them this is your first time. And kinda hint to them that you wanna set it up and do it their way. But be firm on your numbers. Don't let them dictate that.
1), Some Companies will only work thru a Broker. 2), Other Companies will have their own published rates for the lane, (brokers will be feeding off these same rates). 3), Carriers bid their rate, A few Companies will accept the Carriers rate and enter you into their pool of Carriers whom are all submitting their rates, for lanes each specific day. When your specific bid lane is being shipped, your bid will be weighed against the pool of other eligible Carriers, cheapest wins the day. 4), Shipper identifies that all eligible pool Carriers do not have capacity the lane will go to a spot market. The info in your proposal will be bland...just the facts. (no pronouns, no adjectives & no adverbs.) Just Point A to Point B, with your rate. Sample: Taylor, Mi. to Toledo, Oh. 44 miles, $500.00. Did you ask whom sets the FSC, what about detention, layover will the shipper set limits in some areas.
Jerry has laid it out pretty well. For larger companies, we usually have brief cover. Short history, company mission statement, # of units, trailers (type and counts), # of units we can/will use to service or number of loads per week we can cover. For smaller companies you can pair it down. If you're smaller or newer, just make a nice paragraph ~Mr Smith, per our conversation, we would like to submit this proposal for review. I like to try and get the lanes they need help in that fit our lanes (unless we're branching). If they are just shipping out of 1 location it's easy, just list zips (Not cities, you don't want one rate to go to LA or Chicago, or heaven for bid NYC) and rate's per mile and a minimum. More than 1 ship, make a matrix or section it out. I don't like giving out rates in lanes I don't want or lanes they don't use. I think that's a useless exercise that only benefits the shipper (sometimes they will insist, not very often though). I follow that up with accessorial's including a fsc table, detention, layovers, tonu, stop offs, tarping, etc. Rate's will be calculated using PC Miler ver. 26, practical miles, closed borders, or what ever. Make sure you suggest a time to review the proposal. I would like to get together next Tue for 30 minutes between noon and 4 or Wed b/w 8 and noon. Does one of these days work for you? If you don't have to negotiate anything, you're giving it away. Sometimes they'll come back and say this is good, but I need to be here on this lane or we have a fsc table. Then you find out who needs who. Sometimes its you, sometimes it's them.
