Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveBooth
I wouldn't worry about getting paid, it's not like he's dealing with thousands of dollars here. At 5%, the most he would lose would be $100 bucks on a $2,000 load so then you don't deal with that person again. My guess is that it wouldn't take long before he had the max amount of people he could handle and if it worked out, he wouldn't have a high turnover rate with his carriers.
I'm not sure how many people one dispatcher could handle. I would imagine 3 carriers all needing a load in the same day would be one hell of a task trying to line something up for all 3 that same morning. Your talking to both the broker/shipper and the carrier at the same time for 3 people within lets say a 3 hour window from 9 to 12 in the morning. You could try to setup the loads in advance but from my experience the action takes place the day of the load.
Not sure if you have any hair on your head Mike but if you do, it won't last long.
Actually..that is the good thing about having the cpacity to commit to steady shippers. There are shippers out there, whom will pay for trucks to deadhead back to a plant, when their product is running hot and heavy. The thing about getting those shippers, is having the capacity, which is why JB, Knight, USX, Yellow, FEDEX, and so many others, have bought out, merged with, or flat out priced competition out of existance.
I don't know how many trucks G is running right now..I'm thinking 5. He knows what he can do for shippers with those trucks, and I bet he knows other shippers he could sign on with, if he had three times that many trucks. The beauty of something like this is, is the versatility that can be afforded. Say you got a group of flatbedders all working together, then G runs into a shipper that needs dry vans. Find out what the $$$$$ would look like, then rent a group of dry vans to work that particular account, with some of the flatbedders parking their skates for the necessary amount of time. If the $$$$ proved worht while, you buy dry vans, or sign on a group of dry van operators. Same theory would apply to reefers. LOL...get enough solo operators working in unison, and then you have a heck of a CO-OP.
Of course..this whole line of thought is predicated on a lot of single unit operations, like yours Steve, being willing to work together with G !!
Not so easy on the face of it.
Just my opinion there.