What should i ask for these loads

When I as with Landstar is when I mainly saw this too. Guys would grab a load to Miami for $2.50 a mile then scramble to get ANY load back out. I would run down there for $3-4 a mile an sit 3 days waiting for a $2 mile load back out. Same with the Dakota's, $5 mile in and wait a few days for and usually could find a $3 mile load back out. And the majority of the time it was the same loads that were posted 2 days earlier for $2 mile and they needed it moved. U can almost watch the rates go up as the days pass.

 

SHC, I'm not calling you a liar, but I've been out here a long time. I'd have to see proof of you getting the rates you say you are getting. This just isn't believable.

 

Ive been looking for the rates that they say they get and I cant get anything more then $2.10 going to a good area.

 

I am not sure if I still have my Landstar bills since this was in 2008, but I would easily $3-$4 a mile loaded to Miami and head back up to vero beach and sit and wait. A landstar agent would usually call my phone and offer me loads at $1.15-$1.75 out of FL and I would tell them I would not touch them for less than $2.50. I would also tell them that it was January and I didn't mind hanging out in FL waiting for the right load and rate. I would usually get a call back in 2 days from the same agents, with the same loads saying the shipper agreed to the $2.50 rate but I had to get it there no later than XXX time in 2 days or whatever, which I always did.

As for ND, ID, SD and MT I could always find loads up paying $3-$4 a mile, but loads out were few and far between. I would usually head to NE or IA and get a load, or sometimes I would sit around Boise and wait for stuff to pop up, and it usually would.

The problem you guys have here are you are booking off load boards, which is where mostly everyone else is seeing the loads too, and companies are also calling about the same things you are seeing. I made a lot of cold calls to landstar agents who did not have anyhitng posted and a lot of times, i could find somehting. Almost every agent I spoke with refused to post ANY loads over $2.25 a mile because the second they posted a $4 mile load, their phone would ring off the hook for hours, even after it was booked.

Mainly, you have to do a lot of ground work to get good rates. But most guys will HAVE to have something booked before they get to an area just because they need the revenue gross, not NET!!!! I ran about 2,500 miles a week and avg $4,000 bring home with a van trailer. I know with a SD I could have easily made $5,500, you just have to know what you are doing.

Now rememebr these are all LANDSTAR loads, thru LANDSTAR agents, not the truckstop boards you and every other person looking for freight is shopping.

 

This is also the problem, you are looking at only GOOD areas. I am talking about the BAD areas, where you will hardly find a load back out, but rememeber, at $4 a mile to the middle of nowhere, you can get back to your starting point and you just made $2 mile for every mile on the round trip and did 1/2 the trip empty, so you just made better MPG as well.

I can get a load to ND and be back to Chicago and make the same thing you did running for $2 a mile to Texas, and getting another load back. With the ND load, you only had to load once and deliver once, so not only do you save on the fuel, but you also just saved maybe up to a day of waiting times..... just saying.

I got out of the dry van business 2 years ago and have been runing tankers since. Every load I touch now is $3-$4.50 per mile, tho this is one way, but for $1.50 mile round trip on a bad day, i'll still take it over van crap.

 

i agree on that one, SHC

 

Where do you guys post the trucks?

 

To get the above mentioned rates, you will have to take the loads nobody (or mega carrier) will not do. Such as hand unloads, pad wraps or ramp loads. Most ALL the loads I got ut of Flordia were exercise machines and required pads and ramps. The stuff to ND was usually machinery or hazmat stuff........ the run of the mill, "open your doors and back inot dock XX" crap is all cheaply bid by the mega carriers at well below $2 a mile so good luck with that, hence why i quit van's and went to specialized freight.

 

Thank you for saying that. You can tell a lot of these guys think they have struck gold when they are offered $2.00 a mile hauling axle bending 44K loads!!!

 

I will be his proof as I see a lot of the same rates and dont even know this guy.