How many negotiate?

Typically they’re looking for an all inclusive price to present the customer.

What the customers often don’t understand is the costs will vary depending on routes given by the states.

I don’t mind researching it for them, but you have to pay at some point for permits to enable a pinpoint cost estimate - very few are willing.

 

CH’s flatbed department is horrible. I booked a load with them out of a port in VA going to ND. An electric motor that weighed 24,000, and legal dimensions for a flatbed. Get there and the thing is crated and 13’ on the ground.

 

the best paying loads are when brokers call you end of day.
All day they tried to move it cheap or other trucks didn't show up and now they are desperate.

Everyday never fails I watch rates go higher and higher as the day goes on.

 

Yep but there's a catch. Most of the time those loads suck and that's why they aren't covered. Sometimes you get lucky and they are re-powers or fall offs or whatever, but my experience is that if offered a load by cold call at the end of the day it's a 45k load of baled recycled aluminum going to to a town in WV with a population of 6.

 

When I get caught at the end of the day, it's 95% likely it's a fall off. Can't speak for the rest of the brokered crowd (Lord knows I've seen enough horror stories about the scenario you outlined above, or similar), but that's when I get punched in the head. In my most recent situation, I had a truck lined up... And the dude (who I've worked with a few times before) tells me after I've sold it to both the customer and the shipper that his co-dispatcher booked the truck. Even though I've been working on selling his random outta the way truck to go to the exact destination he wants.

So now it's Friday afternoon and I'm trying to find a truck out of the Dakotas going to Florida. Woo.