Rate negotiation as an Owner Operator. When to ask for more?

To the degree that you can...
Can you look at a delivery location and say to yourself, well, I'm going to be fully loaded and I'm looking at a lot of mountains so my fuel mileage will be down. I'll need to factor an additional "X" amount? Another way of asking whether or not topography plays into the determination of rates.

 

You can literally throw out ANY number YOU want for ANY reason at all.

Nobodies business but yours! Your business.

I am currently experimenting with higher rates.

 

You should factor that in your rate, yes. Not necessarily break out the associated costs to the broker ( they don't care ), but you need to know what the load will cost you to run and fold that into the rate you ask for.

 

Include that in the rate up front. We run a lot of high toll areas and that's included in the rate i ask for. Pretty much every broker knows the northeast is a high toll area

 

Absolutely! You can ask for any number that you want, whether you get it is another thing.. A smart O/O will factor EVERYTHING in to the rate. Such as: tolls, mountains, if there are loads coming out of the area, and they pay decent.

 

So many times, Loads offered by Brokers are the most difficult ones. Carriers especially will Broker out Loads that are problematic. Often there’s a reason why it’s always available and paying a decent rate. In other words, the Load boards are often the bottom of the barrel. Have to be careful, get the details. Weight, hills, tolls, weather, and overall aggravation all are factors. Beware of wet hides out of Texas, and blown in cottonseed. Lol.

 

Why would you even look at your mileage in the mountains?

here is how we do it here.

even of the truck gets 7.5 (avg), I plan on each truck to get 6.

why?

because it is simple, when you do your budgeting for estimates for work, you want to plan worst case for costs.

If you plan on the lowest mpg all the time, you have a better chance to make good money.

it costs you how much to figure out costs at 6?

nothing but if you use 7 and you use more fuel say at 5, your cheating yourself.

Make sense?

 

Absolutely.
But my situation is different because I'm leased on to a carrier. My rate is set. I have no ability to negotiate rate. So, if I run on I-10 (for arguments sake, let's forget about traffic) and I'm on flat ground all day long, I can do pretty good in the mileage department. Now if I have to take a load where I know I'll be in the mountains, all bets are off. I don't have the luxury of picking and choosing good loads all the time.

I'm trying to figure out whether I should be more aggressive with my traffic supervisor regarding what loads I take. If I get a larger percentage of those more challenging loads, in the end I'm getting screwed.

 

Very rare that I’m quoting prices anywhere near my bottom number. Usually just trying to squeeze out every penny I THINK I can get away with. Tarps and number of stops has more of an influence than anything else.

Unless they called me then all bets are off..... the rate just doubled.

 

Good post. I do the same for fuel price as well. Even when fuel was under 2.50 per gallon, I was basing off 3.25

Little profit centers like that make a difference.