Securing dedicated work for an Owner Operator?

A simple agreement would have sufficed. That’s all you need unless you got a large investment that is required by the customer. Such as many drop trailers or specialty equipment. It sounds like you pushed the customer away by being to needy. My main customer, we have an understanding. That’s all. I deliver their product to their customers for 6 months and they pay me. Im super happy. Note- I said, “understanding.”They can tell me no thanks at any time, so can I. Why would a customer be locked in to a service that is abundant as another o/o calling them every day trying to haul their product? Also it keeps me honest, I have to earn their business, every haul.

 

What’s your dot number? I’ll be sure and add it to my extra special list.

 

Large companies like brokers, small (and I mean TINY) companies like small trucking companies.

As a small shipper, you typically have odd loads. Multiple drops, odd locations, special handling instructions, COD deliveries, you name it. I used to ship fresh seafood, and we’d put six to ten orders on a truck, with several of them dropped in a trailer in the company yard after hours. Back the truck to the dock, move the freight to the parked trailer and start the reefer….. can you imagine a broker getting that right? Every time?

A broker is going to take that load and screw it up EVERY SINGLE TIME, and TWICE on Tuesdays. Believe me, I’ve been there. If they want to deal with it at all.

Knock on doors, network, talk to shippers at the docks about products they have a hard time getting in (I.e. problems getting freight delivered to them). Get to know these people. They’ll direct you to the problem loads. They’ve got the Oreo loads to Walmart covered.

 

Even with a 'specialized' gig that sets you apart from others; you probably are not the ONLY one with skin in that speciality.

Not only do you need to 'SELL' your services; you also need to overcome the efforts of others to retain and/or re-gain work they considered to be 'theirs'.

I watched our salesman bust his butt to win what the thought was a lane we sorely needed as the US subsiderary of a Canadian carrier.

He attempted to gain a foothold in traffic for a major oil/chemical company from the east to the mid west as we sent Chicago area guys home via Toronto and that lane would allow us to get them home quicker.

He won the lanes he bid much to the dislike of the carrier doing this lane among many others for this shipper AND who happened to be tight with the shipper's personnel.

We 'won' all single pot loads to the mid west.

The other carrier's head of sales flew down to Houston, dusted off the Astro box seats and started entertaining the middle level personnel who really liked his company.

Being focused on Canada; the multi-compartment trailers were booked weeks in advance for Canadian customers.

Our only tendered shipments were multi-pot loads to everywhere BUT the mid west.

Despite our sales crying 'foul'; we lost that 'bid' due to poor performance.

OP needs a 'nitche' that he can service better than the big guys and sell it.

Every single successful small carrier I worked for did not have a 'sales' department; the owner WAS the sales department and kept in very close contact with their customers.

 

We have trucks, but also own a warehouse and ship quite a few shipments with other carriers. We deal with several 1 truck outfits, and cost isn’t our main objective, customer service and ease of dealing is.
In your scenario above, as soon as you said lawyer we would be done. Not that I’m trying to hide something that I don’t want a lawyer looking at, it’s just too much paperwork trouble to deal with a lawyer. I had a salesman from a major trucking company that everybody would know contact me trying to get some of our freight. It all sounded good until they sent over a 4 page agreement for me to fill out, asking some very personal info (SS numbers of officers, bank account numbers, account balances, etc). I told him if he needed all that we wouldn’t be doing business. Not only do we not just throw that personal info out there, it’s just more paperwork to add to the mountain.
You make it easy to do business with and do what you say you will, we pay rates above market. But don’t you folks be sending me messages wanting loads, I’m not hiring trucks of some random outfit on the internet.

 

At the end of the day it's you and your company's prerogative on how you want your shipments to be pickup and delivered regarding what carriers you use. But because of past experiences I've only go through Lawyers in order of proper business conduct on things not getting screwed on my end. The hand shake phase of the 60's, 70's and 80's in my beliefs started to end and become shady in the late 90's. There are tons of sharks in Trucking and those who argue that are either ignorant towards what really occurs or simply want to ignore factors that exist in business. Trucking for me isn't my 1st business venture I ever did for revenue and in any business the hand shake phase is skewed. It's a cut throat business and you can simply review multiple examples from Report A BAD Trucking Company Here Point being this. Talk is cheap in Trucking. I've spoken to plenty Carrier Owners who have fleets of 2 trucks to hundreds. Funny thing is the ones with 30 to 50 trucks have always used terms like 'I don't screw drivers & O/o's over', 'I've Never ripped anyone off in my life' etc..etc. Yet they've been the biggest ripoff artists in the business. A sucker is born ever day and upfront documented contractual agreement is the essence to good business practices that work. Even some dinosaurs in this business believe that whiles the belligerent ones keep on following their trends of gyping a O/o over. No one can guarantee anything off of a whim.

 

That’s your prerogative too. You wonder why you can’t get direct shipments, and I was just offering a valid reason.
Bottom line is, you’ll go broke trying to beat their current trucking company on price. All you can offer is better customer service, and that includes not being a pain in the butt to even get setup with.
If you can’t make business deals without your lawyer holding your hand, you are probably better off sticking with broker loads. Nothing wrong with seeming advice from a lawyer about general business practices, but to get one involved on each business deal is a little excessive. At least if you are going to run it by your lawyer don’t tell the customer that, and you deal with the customer, don’t have your lawyer be a go-between. Businesses hate that. It may be a huge deal for you, but it’s probably like pennies to the customer, all you are adding is another headache that they don’t want to deal with.

This is coming from somebody that works on both sides, as a trucking outfit and also a shipper. I don’t deal with people whose handshake isn’t good. When you’ve been in this as long as I have you can usually spot the crooks. Don’t get me wrong, I still get the shaft every now and then, but it’s very rare. All you really need is good email communication so everything is documented if issues arise, then you can get the lawyers involved if things go south. At that point it’s usually a wise financial decision to just write it off and move on. You probably don’t have the financial means to fight a big company anyway, they know that and will just starve you out before it ever makes it to trial.

 

Very accurate synopsis imo


People hire outside vendors to solve problems, not create them.

 

Reputation is everything!

The last company I worked for had a good chunk of the business around their warehouse location.

When another 'fullment center' business opened they were having difficulty with the carrier they originally chose and asked their neighbros who to try and we got the business, served it to the 9's at a higher rate than the carrier we replaced.

We delivered and they paid, gladly...