How much do you pay for your dispatching services???

I agree it is hard and there is little you can do about it. It is all dependent on current market dynamics and I would not know how to negotiate into higher rates to overcome it unless you see there's a desperate broker calling you in afternoon asking you to cover his load and you don't mind taking advantage of it. I have only one truck to cover so I don't have to hurry and be impatient. I go pretty much with what pays best at the moment. I try to keep withing 1000 mile radius but but If Salt Lake City pays 4K I will go there too. Lately, I ended up going to Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Upper State NY because I was able to find stable decent money there. I am new at this too. I hope with time the experience will be the biggest asset. I would never get it, if I were to delegate freight finding to a dispatch service.

 

I know what you mean @TallJoe. Because like you, I try to grab the best paying load I can find for the trucks I move, trying to respect certain things (bad markets, weather, drivers request, etc.). But reading this makes me wonder if that's the best way to do it.

Can we have some kind of strategy in this industry when searching for Loads in Boards? I mean, deciding what to grab and where to position for your next load makes a difference in the numbers?

Try to find the best load for that moment or try to set a long/mid-term strategy for each truck?

 

There are hot zone maps. According to them, in theory, I should be better off going to Houston, TX for 2 dol a mile then from there get a load going East and go back home at that point. The average rate per mile would not be any special but the revenue would still earn better money than going 700 miles to VA and come back to Illinois, that is 4 days cycle that utilizes 35-40 hours, the rate per mile is not bad but the revenue not good enough to render desired take home amount. Yet, somehow, I don't have much faith in those maps. If you observe some freight posted in a given area, you can spot some repetitions. For instance, for the full month of March, paper mill in Convington, VA was loading lots of paper rolls, so they paid good at that point (through various brokerages JB Hunt, Swift, CHR) because the trailer rejection ratio there was high and my trailer was still new, so that was a good negotiation point ("You know that they have 40% trailer rejection rate, mine is new, they loaded me last week and the week before, they will sure load me this time...") so their initial offer of 1100 to Chicago area often was turned into 1400 - 1500, week after week... Things like these are discovered with time, so the strategy is to observe some freight market behaviors and hope that with time certain freight is going to be repetitive. Maybe there is going to be another shipping cycle out of there and at that point I would know that 1500 is perfectly all right to ask for. Many said here, that it is better to focus on one area and stubbornly go there...learning the freight behaviors there. I am stubbornly going to MD again.

 

Great, advise... Thanks!

 

I bet you still have that one truck too. A true entrepreneur isn’t going to want to tie up their time dispatching. I own two trucks that I have a dispatcher for, and I don’t mind paying her that 10-12%. She keeps them loaded and I make money. I put my time else where to make money instead of being concerned about 10-12% that a dispatcher charge when she really is the one that’s doing everything from booking the load and keeping me organized with DOT.

 

He straight lying

 

There is zero chance your business model survives a downturn. 10-12% is basically double the going rate for non-hotshots. Making an investment in hotshots is lolwtfbad. (If you operate a hotshot this isn't a knock on you, I'm saying that if you had enough money to buy and equip two hotshots you'd have been better off with one full size truck only needing to find one driver) If what you wanted was a passive investment trucking was the wrong place to put your money.

Also is it me or is entrepreneur the most misused word in business right now? Not asking you, you think you're a 'true entrepreneur' because you own a couple of trucks while doing as little work as possible. I'm asking all the other people who think you, and people like you, are completely ridiculous.

 

Two measly trucks and you can't cover them yourself? The biggest impact on your bottom line is the rates you book. Being clueless about rates and lanes and allowing someone else to cover your trucks is costing you a lot more than that 10% dispatching fee.

 

I thought I was the only one that owned and operated a "BS Meter..." LOL

 

$1,000/wk flat rate I will dispatch them both.