Is load planning a big problem to you?

I've made more than that, quite a few times. One week, $8500 NET, drove 794 miles all in, IFTA miles. Expedite, normally do not leave Michigan. It is out there...

 

i think i've had maybe 6 loads in 3 years cancel. one of them went to a lower bidder im fairly certain. the others were just the way the mop flopped.

most are from costco stores that cancel loads after they ship even.

 

Justrucking2 I wasn't really addressing you. Op made another thread about pre planning like a week ahead. And was running long haul cross country runs. I had just read that and accidentally commented on this thread. For long haul 6500 a week is good. In fact better than most. For you're operation you're making good money. But the people in the other thread were the typical I won't get out of bed unless somebody pays me type of crap. And some of these rates they quote are bs pure and simple. For op's run I think he got a good rate for long haul. Wasn't trying to cause drama just tired of people putting people down. Good luck to you and hopefully continued success.

 

What is the point in grossing $6,500 a week if expenses eat it all up? I get sick of people like you who wrongly tell people they're doing fine when they really running it into the ground. Did you comprehend what was booked and where to? You think those loads were ok? No-one was beating their chest about making $20,000 where did you read that nonsense? What people were trying to do was open his eyes to try and make better choices on where and what he runs to improve on his revenue. I love it when guys that couldn't book a decent rate if their life depended on it slam people who can for trying to help and inform others.

 

Hell man, I'm not even a driver, and on the opposite side of the table when it comes to negotiations, but even I was trying to tell him how to do it better.

 

Rollin Coal wasn't referring to you about the other post like you stated you were trying to help. And yes doing long haul takes a chunk out of the life of the truck and most is probably spent on expenses. I was trying to say 6500 was good for 1 week of long haul because most brokers want someone to do it for 4k maybe 4500. I don't do long haul because it's to cheap but some on the other thread were saying are you crazy or stupid and I find that offensive because jaba is trying to find a profitable way to run his business. I meant no disrespect to you. In fact you're the one that encouraged me to get my authority from you're posts. I know you have knowledge just don't like people putting others down when they are trying their best. Sorry for the long winded post. And I wasn't saying you put Jaba down you,ppdct, and bored social gave good advice. I do wonder from that thread though how far rates will go up once eld is mandatory????

 

We're all sitting here wondering. Anybody who tells you they know is overconfident and or full of it. The really smart ones are breaking down possible future rates into categories (EG 2.10-2.20, 2.20-2.30) and trying to have a basic plan for each possibility. You can't predict the future, but you can make a plan that encompasses 90% of possible outcomes and be very well prepared 90% of the time.

EDIT: For instance I am looking into being able to setup a pop-up call center to call out and cover my freight. I've also looked at buying trucks. I have a variety of options for expansion next year if the outlook stays good and I'm more than happy to just stay a 2 person operation if it doesn't.

 

Frankly, there's this. We were all guesstimating prior to the hurricane stuff here in our office, and then we saw the capacity hit the storms put in place. I can only imagine what it'll look like when those folks who refuse to go ELD compliant exit the market, and then the folks who can no longer run illegal and fudge their logs are forced to run the way the rest of the industry does. I think things are going to go up, and I haven't the foggiest of where it's going to end up.

One thing that will *have* to happen is that shippers and consignees are going to have to tighten up their operations, because now hours of service are going to be even more precious, and there's no way to fudge around that. I think you'll start seeing load/unloads getting faster, because paying detention on every load is going to *sting* the folks paying the freight.

 

Yeah the pressure is pretty real this time. Transportation rate pressure will probably cause a few of the more borderline shippers to actually go out of business. The ones that are sloppy because they can get away with it and not because they have no choice are already fixing everything.

I mean for produce it's really just as simple as waiting till the loads are ready and warehoused to order trucks. As wait time gets more and more expensive rational business people are going to make the expedient decisions. And this isn't me making some prediction, my main produce customer was averaging 2-3 hour loading times this year. My first year in the business the same commodity was an easy 12 hour average wait time. This has already happened at the smarter places and the dumber ones will come along or go out of business. The margins in most raw materials businesses are nowhere near high enough to pay 25% more for transportation than their competitors.

All kidding aside a load of potatoes is worth ~5-8k. The customer is routinely paying 1500-2000 for transportation. If his competitors cost stays the same and his goes to 2500-3000 he's working for free or worse a good % of the time. 500-1000 a load is like 50%+ of what their gross profit was supposed to be. They'll drown under their fixed costs and debt payments.