Brokers and their usefulness
 

Brokers provide a needed service in this industry. They are there to get your truck back to your headhaul ( therefore broker=backhaul). Headhaul??? What is that Loadit? That is the customer you should have in your pocket before you go out and spend $100,000 on a rig. Mostly all carriers call on and use brokers. I am a broker and I get calls from large carriers, I dont usually book them loads because their drivers and dispatchers tend to lose loads at their drop yards, big headache.

My point is you need brokers, but not to make a living, only to move the truck to headhaul freight. I give O/O's customer leads frequently and they do nothing with them (Pepe) but come here griping about brokers. Go figure, a broker giving you direct shippers in your area and you do nothing with the leads. Depending on brokers is a surefire way to go bellyup. The Broker is not your friend, he is a salesman. He is trying to make as much profit as possible off of a few phone calls, a couple of faxes, an envelope, check and stamp. He isnt concerned too much with your fuel cost, insurance cost, your deadhead, etc unless you are going to continuously help him to make a profit.

Now blast me!!!

I think this is a great post,and needed to be said.

Some of these "new" guys running their own authority are only looking to cut out the middle man,they want to cut out the carrier that they could be leased to,but they want to use brokers to find their loads isn't this sorta just like being leased to a company only your perentage is taken out before you know it.

No one want's to do the leg work required to find shippers and the hundreds of cold calls needed to get 2-3 regular customers,no one wants to do the intial paperwork,they over pay OOIDA and other companies to get their authority and then they want someone to do their IFTA for them and pay someone to dispatch them.I imagine the real independents of yesterday would laugh at these guys who are basically glorified O/O's.

Why do I lease to a company?,because I don't want to do what is necessary to be independent,more power to you if you want to,but don't come on here and complain about rates when you really have the power to do something about it.

I have a close friend who used to be a broker,he could care less if you made any money or not,it was buisness to him and nothing more,all you were to him was a tool to use to make money,and if you expect some broker to take you in and lead you by the hand to all the "great" rates from city to city you are sadly mistaking.

Ditto!!!

That's a pretty damn honest message!

Hey load it, do you have any loads to and from winnipeg, manitoba?

Yes very true post and I am certainly guilty of a lot of it. As mentioned I bought the truck to work with this guy who has been in the industry all his life; my luck that we are in a bad time now. His revenue has dropped quite a bit since last year. But yes customers are the key I see. Once I get things drafted up then it will be pretty easy to drop them in the mail and continously seek new shippers..

I do take exception (not personal of course) to Mike3's comment about paying people to do things as I have done all he mentioned except I got my own authority. For the IFTA actually I am glad I found this service. We are all going to make mistakes when we start out and there are some mistakes I rather not make. For instance, the company called me on some of the IFTA stuff and advised me that I was doing things wrong and would be screwed at an audit. I call those people like once a week to ask something.

I actually didn't mind paying that guy either (not a true dispatch service) as he did get me going and hell I can buy brand new Michelin tires for $150 off him whenever I want.

Other than that great posts and as always glad I found this board.

i`ll take 32 24.5`s, 4 steer 24.5`s and 16 low pro 22.5`s at 150$ a piece please

Actually they are trailer tires. I almost flipped, he opened up this trailer and had about, well I don't know how many but plenty. He calls them pull offs. He pulls of the new ones that come with the trailer and puts on his own. So he just has them there. He could sell them for more obviously but he doesn't have the time so they are just there.

Thinks like that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

Broker = yellow bellied slime sucker :wink:

Actually Broker = bottom feeder, pond scum, lazy, shiftless, uses hard working truckers to make a living, Armani suit wearers,.....I could go on, I've been called all of those things.

I started brokering because a buddy had a get rich idea. He got hillbilly-rich. He took off with all revenue from 3 offices for about 45 days worth of work and disappeared. We had offices in Philadelphia, Columbus IN, and San Diego, ran produce out of Florida, Texas and California to Chicago and East Coast, ran whatever back to the produce, Double brokered, triple brokered, whatever to move the truck back to the fields. I dont know how much he made off with but it hurt a lot of people financially, self included.

I grew up in a truck and my Dad said he never wanted me driving a truck. I went to college, got a BS in Math and found a job. Started a few businesses but never found that moneymaker until I started truckbrokering. That example above could get you killed and is a deadend street. I believe in paying a fair rate, dont ask for favors and pay timely. Dont like advancing money but I will, dont like brokering to people who want to rely on me for every load, they can lease on for a better deal. Too many brokers want to grab hold of your truck and keep putting their cheap loads on it while you go to the poor house. If I can broker a load to someone unknown and make $250 why would I broker it to someone I know and only make $50? The guy that knows me will swear I'm making $500 a load off of him and I'm only making pennies.