what happens when you brokers fail at getting loads covered?

To answer the OP's question it varies by customer. Some customers have supply chains with tight time limits and care a LOT about when a load gets moved. And get very irate when things don't go perfectly. These customers should and do pay more.

Then there are customers who are a lot more relaxed about it. They typically have supply chains that can run super slow without any problems because there is plenty of inventory in every location. These guys want the load moved as cheap as humanly possible and they generally get that done. The trucking option is competing directly with rail for this business and usually loses.

And then there's every point in between on the spectrum. High urgency is a major factor in high rates though. This is why when you do get a great paying load you should try very hard to do a good job. Taking a premium rate and then doing a crappy job is a horrible thing to do to someone and morally is stealing IMO. Happens all the time as well. Try to remember that every time this happens the incentive for brokers to pay well on ANY LOADS AT ALL gets weaker. People who do this are a large part of the problem and avoiding them is a good size part of why some customers prefer to use freight brokers over trucking companies.

Take pride in your business and be excellent. Or politely I hope you go under sooner rather than later so that you stop screwing people.

 

Well said.

That broker that I was about to pop my cherry with lost out.

All he had to do was be polite, and I was gonna do 2 runs, back to back (with 4oo miles bobtail in between). Oh well.

I looked at his credit rating and he was at 82% (not good) to I wanted to make sure my RC was tight, and have it reviewed by the factoring guy. It was a simple power-only trailer relocation paying $2.20/mile. When the money is too good to be true...

 

Yeah, gotta love ####ty people being ####ty. All said, though, glad you stuck to your guns on it. No sense in it. Those guys are bad for business. The less people work for them, the happier I am.

 

Never run anything for anyone who isn't in the high 90's on credit. You can tell how many invoices they are making trouble with by their credit rating. Show me a guy in the low 90's and I'll show you a guy who is fining 5% of his trucks. 82% means they are probably going out of business though. Just saying.

 

Good to know.

TAFS shows aging of $50K @ 0-30dpd, $1,800 @ 31-60dpd and nothing over 60+dpd for this guy. with dtp at 32 for last year, last 90 & last 60days. I guess I was not considering him to be an extremely slow payer, but ya just never know...lol

 

That's not too bad. I'm talking about people who have average days to pay up around 40. By comparison my brokerage pays everyone we have no issues with in 21 days and we average 27-29 days to pay (I can't actually remember and I'm not 100% sure how accurate DAT is).

There are absolutely carriers out there who invoiced us incorrectly, tried to add extra charges, had some kind of claim, and all kinds of etc out there... But we're still under 30 days because we have very few of these and we pay quickly normally. Just a sign of a tightly run operation in general.

You can obviously run loads for people who are less reputable. Just make sure you're charging them a little more than you are the better brokerages. The better brokerages need that discount (and I'm talking like 1-2% better at most... or just letting them win ties) to justify staying better. Not everyone is going to do it, but looking at one of my loads and seeing 1800 and looking at some dude with an 82 credit score on DAT and 48 days to pay with the same load posted at 2000... If you work with him over me you deserve what you get.

 

@boredsocial I think you hit the nail on the head.

This dude is offering 20% premium over trending 90 day rates, and I got him to pony up an extra $80 on the first call. This tell me that carriers are balking when they sniff him out, and pressure is building. He says he's got "plenty of trailers to relocate"

 

That's not too good to be true. For the last couple of months I have been averaging about $2.50 per mile on 2200-2300 miles. Last week was $3.60 on 2300 miles and this week will be $2.70 on 3400 miles.
This month will be crazy. Get it while it's hot.
Yeah and don't bother with brokers who have below 90 score

 

North Korea launches a missile...

 

Same here, rates are going up... $$$$$ having a great week and haven't gone anywhere, 800 miles since Sunday.