Wanting back in the flatbed game

Ask any salesman, if your just trying to play the price game, you'll always lose. With o/o, mileage price is only part of the equation. You need to recruit on the things your company does that sets it apart from the rest. The black and chrome guys love the 48 out of 52 weekends at home spiel. There's a specialized company that recruits by giving there driver bonuses for referrals and has a yearly contest where you have to recruit at least one o/o to be eligible for the prize. Your current drivers, if they're happy, will always be your best recruiter and will bring the best candidates.

 

I use numbers that I would be interested in knowing if I were going to lease my trucks somewhere. MPM demonstrates profitability and gross revenue demonstrates utilization. To be honest our MPM has been on a steady increase since 2009, with the only fluctuations due to changes in FSC.

This is a difficult distinction to make, but I don't feel I am selling something. I feel we have a good program to offer drivers. I have to have some way of getting contractors interested in talking to me. We do get referrals, but this is a slow process and we have a fairly limited foot print (most of our drivers live within 100 mi of our home terminal). I also feel that most good contractors are mostly happy at their current companies.

MMM--you do bring up a good point about selling our intangibles, but this is a little more challenging. Ask 10 contractors why they choose a company and you would get 10 different answers. What sets us apart? Our drivers are home for 2 days every weekend unless they choose not to be. Restarts are always done at home. Our operations department is very good at what we do. Any driver can talk to myself or my dad (the owners) at any time. Good or bad...we limit our lanes and tend to run out and back along the same routes. Would any of these be things that would interest contractors? How do you convey these things without having a conversation with someone?

 

If I could get something like this where I live and make the same money, I would MOST definitely be interested.

It is very challenging to convey but to me these would be key selling points on why I would want to leave my current company. Obviously this isnt going to be important to most but I do think there are some good operators out there that would like consistent hometime, running the same routes, and making the same money, maybe more.

I used to have a dedicated gravy run that made excellent money and I was home pretty much every night and i was home every weekend. Thats difficult to find as an O/O.

If I knew anyone in your area, I would definitely recommend that they talk to you. Matter of fact, have any freight that runs steady to Washington, LOL

 

we take our resets at home every weekend. It's kind of nice and I am still getting 2600 miles or better each week. This week was 3400 miles.

What ticks me off is being paid mileage and the perceived loss of income from excessive detention times. I loose about 6-9 hours each week sitting on docks I could be driving.

If I got a weekly salary, I'd be a lot happier.

 

Our trucks usually run 2000-2500 miles per week. The guys that work very hard (only home for 1.5 days) will run 2300-3000 on a consistent basis. Once in a while the cards like up for a big week, and a driver will be between 3000-3500 miles. This only happens once in a while, or if a driver take a very long outbound like Northern ME or Miami, FL. When they have a 3000+ mile week, it is usually followed by 2000-2200 so it kind of works out in the end any way.

 

You send your little brother out OTR for a while. I think I can sell the intangibles.

 

If a driver wanted to run more miles than the average amount, would operations allow it??

KH

 

Good idea, LOL I think its a good idea to utilize your inside recruiters (your drivers) I think I would offer bonuses to your drivers for good referrals. Something like 25 bucks for a referral that gets hired and then paying something bigger if that driver or contractor stays for 6 months.

 

I agree MMM Cpape. I think if you were to pursue this avenue, custom designed business cards with lots of color would good for the drivers. I do not know about the rest, but I love keeping colorful business cards for my shopping needs. Just my .02.

KH

 

We don't run to the West Coast often enough to have decent loads from there back to Iowa, and there is nothing better in between. For example, I can send a truck to the Northeast and just have to get him back to Western PA or OH for a decent load. If you go to Seattle, where are you going to load the truck to?...ND. So our rate ends up higher to go out to make up for the poor rate coming back. Most people won't pay the premium I expect to go to the Western 11.

I am all for drivers running more miles than the average, as long as they do it legally. Realistically, in our operation, it is difficult to average much more than 500 miles per day. Most guys work 5 days so they get around 2500 miles. I do have some drivers that are at home just long enough to get their restart and their average is a little higher. Most of our drivers more for us because of the hometime.

JDP--I am expecting you to become part of the intangibles. You can enjoy your brief stint OTR, then you have to help improve the business.

We do offer a recruiting bonus of $300. It doesn't get a lot of results. More could be done with this to make it more successful, but the old guy doesn't see the value.