Small carrier: How to get a direct customer & skip the broker.

Amazing thread. Every advice has weight to it.

A couple things I wanted to ask:
1. What if you are just starting out with 1 truck and van? How would that change anything?
2. What if you want to do all the other stuff but drive the truck yourself. How would you approach a driver and get him to trust you and work with you?

Thank you

 

As far as I temneber shippers are banging on your door

 

Lol a good one

 

Thanks for the thread.

 

But I was thinking of opening a service. Charge 10k per contract. Go find shippers for guys and charge them a one time "broker fee" of 10k .

 

1. It doesn't change anything. You just have to pay attention to which customers you approach.
2. That's fine as well. Brokers don't drive . Lol. Getting a driver is easy, offering a slightly better pay than the rest of the industry. However making a good choice on a driver is hard. If you are a small guy like a 1-3 truck operation I would go for a week with the driver, no matter how much experience he has, just observe. Even tho the 3rd week he might be a POS at least I tried to avoid as much as I could having a bad driver.

 

Can I use the $400k Ritchie Bros. keeps wanting me to spend to buy a fleet of trucks & trailers to "lease/purchase" to said guys? Since I already do work for an "asset recovery" company, seems like a win/win.

 

I only suggest this if they would sign a contract that incase they drop you, they got a pay a fee. This way of you do purchase equipment etc and they drop you're not stuck with a dead spot market rates. If they can do that go for it.

 

A bit tongue-in-cheek on my part, I think I'll stay away from leasing trucks.

 

Yeah leasing/company drivers and so is a new headache. It can cost you money lol