Finally Dit It!

[kblickster]

My husband finally took the plunge and is running his first load under his own authority today.

A little background:
Married with 3 kids - the oldest a trucker himself, 2 in college.
Experienced in sales and business management. Big box stores and poor management twice put his former employers out of business. Said the heck with it - bought a truck and decided to work for himself.

O/O leased for several years. Almost made it till truck was paid for. Couldn't take the illegal, dangerous, no forced dispatch (hah) a day longer.
Clean driving record.
Take pride in on time deliveries.
2001 Freightliner Century - 53' Dry Van / almost paid for.
No restrictions but would love to stay reasonably close to home. (Gotta play a round of golf every once in a while.)
Several local contacts with decent freight.
Hooked up with a couple of brokers. (Trusting other truckers on this one.)

We have been reading the CAD message boards for some time now and have learned many things that have helped us get to this point. I anticipate that we will need your collective years of knowlege more than a few times in the coming months. Thanks in advance!

[Orange Andy]

Good for you, and wish you both success! Keep us posted how the first few months go.

[GMAN]

Good for you. Congratulations. It sounds like you are on the right track. We will be interested in hearing how you are progressing.

[RostyC]

Best of luck to ya, let us know how the dry van goes, it'll be interesting to follow your progress.

[kblickster]

OK - Need your help already. 2nd haul - sent to wrong adress. BOL had the address of the owner of the business it was to be delivered to instead of the actual delivery address. Needless to say DH was not happy as his truck was rolling through a residential neighborhood - truck scraping tree limbs, etc.
Called dispatcher and they gave him the correct address. Made out like it was no big deal.
Dh asked about compensation for time and miles and was told they would ask management about it.

Do you ask for a number to call and verify address before you pull the load? Any other tips for handling this type of problem?

[kblickster]

finally made it to the correct delivery site. Now the receiver has unloaded half of load and refusing to take the rest! Says it's a bunch of junk. This is not turning out so well.

[Joymax_Trans2]

After receiving the rate confirmation sheet, I always get the phone # of the shipper and consignee and call them to verify pickup and delivery information. If the information is different than what's on the rate confirmation, I get it cleared up before I move. I also rerun the miles from point-to-point if there are any differences so if there are any discrepancies, they are worked out immediately.

Contact the Broker or Shipper and tell them the Consignee has refused the load and ask them what do they want you to do with it. There might be a claim filed against you. Was anything damaged? Were the items loaded not the correct items to be delivered?

[GMAN]

It is a good policy to call the shipper and receiver to confirm address and delivery information. If it doesn't match the rate confirmation, then the matter should be addressed at that time. When you deliver and a receiver refuses part of all of the shipment, then the first thing to do is call the shipper or broker who gave you the load. If there is a possibility of a damage claim, then you should be prepared to take plenty of pictures to document the claim. If the receiver or shipper caused the damage, then that should be noted on the bills at the time it occurred.

[mike3fan]

finally made it to the correct delivery site. Now the receiver has unloaded half of load and refusing to take the rest! Says it's a bunch of junk. This is not turning out so well.

could we get a update?

[kblickster]

DH called the shipper and explained that the receiver was refusing part of the load. Took about 3 hours to resolve - so he was paid some detention time and they finally took the rest of the load. The delivery was some sort of plastic containers and the receiver said they were dented, etc. A dock worker told DH that the guy who refused the load was just hard to please and that he often has issues. (not exactly his words but don't want to get kicked off this forum.)

We will call to confirm delivery address in the future. Thanks for your help.

[pigrider]

I would always call the consignee if it is my first time delivering to them. Somestime they require appointment times, might have a different delivery warehouse, no overnight parking, 24 hour loading/unloading & etc.

Tell your husband to buy a cheap digital camera. Make a habit of taking picture of his load and he can delete once the load is signed for.

Good Luck

Don't feel bad. I ended up in front of City Hall once with radar equipment. It was City Hall who paid for it but was going to the airport which I didn't know.

[kblickster]

Question? Have any of you been asked if you would drop and hook your own trailer? The shipper has 2 loads next week going to the same location and I can pick up my trailer on the second load. Makes me a little nervous leaving my trailer.

[coastie]

Carriers do it all the time, as an O/O in reality your just a small carrier. Only thing to worry is if someone would steal tires off your trailer while your off with theirs, but they have the same worry.

One advange Save time getting loaded when he back for the second load.

[kblickster]

Week One

Had a few glitches but made it. Rates OK - Miles OK

Week Two - Offers - but rates so low can't see where I would be making anything if I run them.

For those of you who just started out:

Do you run freight at low rates just to establish yourself with a Broker?
CH Robinson and other companies have freight - but do I need to run it cheap just to get my foot in the door?

When you guys say you knock on doors - How do you sell yourself? Not a stranger to cold calls or sales in general but who do you contact?

I want to run - need to run - have funds put back - but can't sit still forever. I have a few contacts - but obviously need way more. I read these boards for a long time before starting this venture and understood that it is hard starting out - but geez - this is crazy.

Who is running all this cheap freight and why? How the heck is anyone staying in business?

Brokers could care less if they know you are not. There is no foot in the door. Either you have a truck available or not. Have a truck? Have insurance? Great, your good to go.

[Heavy Duty]

Do you run freight at low rates just to establish yourself with a Broker

No, The rates aren't lower, the broker is just taking a bigger cut at your expense.

It may surprise you but CH Robinson give the biggest percentage of their freight to major carriers, the left overs go on their call board.

[rank]

Do you run freight at low rates just to establish yourself with a Broker?
CH Robinson and other companies have freight - but do I need to run it cheap just to get my foot in the door?

No. If you pull cheap they will rememeber you and they are not likely to offer you anthing good in the future. In all of my repeat business with brokers, the rates have been established by usiing the previous load as a starting point i.e. they will say "Well, let's see here...last time you did this for $2/mile......"

In times like this, for a new carrier such as yourself without any contacts, there are only two ways to get good rates that I know of:

1. Get lucky. Maybe another truck has dropped the load ad you are in the right place at the right time.
2. Go places and do things that other guys won't.

We move tall and wide stuff into Ontario and that was working good but the bottom has fallen out of that too. It's going to be an ugly winter I think.

[kblickster]

Week 2 was pretty scary. Spent 2 days looking for decent loads. Have to agree with Pepe that this is hard work. Takes a lot of time to locate decent paying freight and get set up with each broker/shipper.

Ended up pretty good and ran several short mile loads for good money. Had to stay on top of it though. Lot's of hours on the computer and the phone. Had time on my hands though. I sat a lot of hours between loads because I don't know any of these companies I'm pulling for and how long they take to load and unload. Wouldn't want to book something and then not be able to make it on time. Guess this will get better with time.

For those of you considering staying local under you own authority this may be something to consider.

Shorter loads = more work finding the loads and more paperwork.

It's amazing how little some of these loads pay. I feel sorry for the truckers who are so strapped they have to haul for no profit.

[GMAN]

Do you run freight at low rates just to establish yourself with a Broker?
CH Robinson and other companies have freight - but do I need to run it cheap just to get my foot in the door?

When you guys say you knock on doors - How do you sell yourself? Not a stranger to cold calls or sales in general but who do you contact?

I want to run - need to run - have funds put back - but can't sit still forever. I have a few contacts - but obviously need way more. I read these boards for a long time before starting this venture and understood that it is hard starting out - but geez - this is crazy.

Who is running all this cheap freight and why? How the heck is anyone staying in business?

You do not need to take cheap freight to get in with these brokers. Unless you keep your rates high enough, you won't be in business very long. Every business MUST make a profit to continue to exist.

If you want to find your own shippers you will need to get out and make some sales calls. You must find the one who can make a decision. The shipping manager is a good place to start. Some shippers have logistics companies to handle their shipping needs. You can use the telephone, direct mail or personal sales calls. Any or all of them can result in gaining new business.

This is a time of year when rates tend to soften. The key is to remain flexible. During winter months some won't run in the cold and snow. That usually results in rates being higher in those areas and lower in the warmer climate. I see no need to haul freight unless I can make a fair profit. It doesn't make any sense to haul freight just to keep the truck moving. Unless someone is willing to pay me enough to make a fair profit then I won't waste my time with them. Apparently, there are plenty of owner operators and carriers who are willing to run for $1/mile on some loads. I would prefer sitting or deadhead out than take one of those cheap loads. A friend of mine is in the Northwest. He wound up deadheading over to his brother in Idaho rather than hauling a heavy load of lumber for $1/or so. He feels like me about hauling for fuel money. Fuel costs are approaching $0.70/mile in the far Northwest. Rates should be going up rather than down. The problem is that there are too many people who get into this business, buy a truck and don't have enough money to run their business. They run scared. They are so afraid of losing everything that they take this cheap freight to try and out run the bill collectors. Of course, in the end, they wind up losing everything anyway. You can't run for FREE forever. If we had more business people in this business rates would be higher. What these people don't realize is that if enough people let this freight sit then rates come up. Rates will come up until someone takes it.

Rates are somewhat artificially low right now. The building and automobile industries are slow. Those are two areas where trucking rely heavily on freight. Those who usually haul this type of freight must look for other avenues until these industries begin to recover. That throws an excess capacity into the mix during a slow time of year. The result is more trucks for the available freight. Last year during this time there wasn't as much freight. This year there seems to be plenty of freight but rates are lower, in part due to the excess capacity. One thing we seem to forget. Shippers MUST move their goods. They can only wait so long before shipping them. Unless they ship to their customers they cannot survive. It is a waiting game. I think some shippers are better at it than many in the trucking business.