How to bid and value freight

Hmmmm .... I believe if you are already an O/O, whether leased or own authority, and you do not have every one of your expenses figured out then you have already put the cart before the horse. You should have your expenses split into two categories ... Fixed and Variable. Fixed costs are costs that occur whether you are driving or sitting (ie. truck/trailer payments, rentals, insurance liability-BT/Unladen/General/Primary/Life/OAC-WorkmansComp/PhysicalDamage/GAP, licensing-CDL/Hazmat/TWIC, Permits, Plates, 2290, Accountant, Lawyer, BOC3 Agent ... and yes, even your salary.

 

What I dont get is why some folks think that a broker who takes 50% of the rate is a crook...if yer operating costs were say $2/mile n you got a load from a broker who pays $4/mile, would it be acceptable for someone to think you were a crook? Nobody is forcing anybody to haul any load from a broker. If you do and you find out that he made a killin on it, then locic tells me that the one in question then would be you who didnt deal enough to get a better rate. All in all it comes down to if you make what you need for a profit then good, otherwise STOP WHINING!

 

HMMMMMM.

Does that sound like a broker?

I hear ya, but if I were making a decent living as a broker, I would want to pay a fair price to those doing the actual work.

I had one call me a couple days later offering almost double the price as it did not get covered, I was left with the feeling it was a doable price from the get go.

 

Deadhead makes an o/o nada. A broker load is better than post holes.

 

Hello everyone, I am a broker with 20 years experience and to answer your question about how we determine the rate, the simple answer is that in 2013, we don't. 90% of our customers tell us what THEY want to pay and we work from there. 10 or 15 years ago there were a handful of brokers and we were able to be competitive and get the best rates for our truckers, but now there are a million fly-by-night shady brokers out there who lowball shippers to get the business, and rates drop and everyone suffers. There's a misconception out there that brokers are "rolling in the dough", but just as its tougher than ever right now to make a living trucking, its tougher than ever to be a broker as well. Every broker I know is making an average of only 3 to 5 percent on a load right now. Shippers give us a rate, and if it isn't something we can work with, they go elsewhere. Some of you may find this hard to believe but its the truth. Stay safe.

 

I don't find that hard to believe at all. One of, what used to be a better source of freight for me, recently started taking on a lot more business. It used to be that they'd offer up fair rates and even be open to paying more, many times substantially more than what the first offer was. Now that they've got all this extra business - well they never call offering the freight but at posted rates I understand why. So I call on some of it and that's the new phrase I hear "well, the customer likes to pay X amount" whereas in the past it used to always be "let me check with the customer and see if we can do that"... ...customers expect something for nothing and trucks happily do it.

 

I think that when these big company's that have a 100-10000 trucks that can pay the driver $0.44 cents per mile to haul brokered freight paying $2.00 or better, then the OO is left without any loads, or good paying frieight. Need more OO's out here in the world.

 

1997freightliner oil light an warning buzzer on aslo check engine light on

 

yes some shippers give a rate to the broker but the broker knows they can push more. in todays market a guy with no payments needs 1.35 on avg to break even now that does not mean at 1.36 he is making profits now you have to take away futrue planing ie maintance work like an inframe and so on. a bad good llad to me is 1.85 a good load 2.00 and so on....

 

Usually it is the load to truck that makes the number one ratio. take a look at the CO and IL load to truck ratio as well.