Challenge To ALL Brokers

Amen!!!

I have been in trucking as a driver, an owner operator and a broker for over 30 years. The last 9 I have spent as the owner of this particular company. We run around 50 trucks nationwide and it has been tough the past 6 months. I have heard a ton of reasons why freight rates have dropped from merchants telling me that due to the strength of the dollar they can't sell anything or that it is such a competative business that they have to sell cheap or they don't get the sale or even a 3pl telling me that since they are new to this business, they have to bid rates extra cheap so they can get a foothold in the business. What we do is tell our drivers what we get paid on each and every load they haul for us. Right now I have several of my guys sitting at home because I refuse to haul some of this low ball freight. We have several customers that we work with everyday that have asked for cheaper rates because of fuel price. My answer is to come back with the theory: " I would consider dropping my rate if you would cut the price of your product to the same level that you are talking freight on and also reduce your wages to that same level. My drivers have the same expenses as you, that being health insurance, groceries, house payment, college tuition, etc. How many of these expenses have taken a downturn in price since the oil bust?" It ticks off a lot of people but eventually they get the point. I have yet to have anyone tell me they will cut their wages back to a 1985 level or a 1998 level to compensate for lower fuel. If they aren't willing to reduce their income, why should my drivers? As far as giving you shipper numbers so you can check on rates, i doubt that many would answer your request anyway. The first thing they would as is what rate you would do the load at? I had a regular customer ask me what it would cost for me to haul loads from Denver to the Texas panhandle country. I gave them my rate and was told that Brand X was doing them at about half what I quoted. I asked them if they were doing them that way, why were they asking me for a rate. Answer: To see if we can get it done cheaper!! It is the age old difference in philosophy between shippers and truckers. Shippers want the load delivered as cheaply as possible to keep money in their pocket and truckers want to make a haul pay enough to put money in their pocket. As Alfred Jordan has said many times, "We need to willingly work together or we will be forced to work together" Sorry Alfred, I am not sure if i am accurately quoting you but I think I am close.

Landon ,also there should be no co brokering allowed on this site some call it double brokering if that was true there would only be 3 or 4 brokers on the site listing loads. Perfect example fertilizer starting to move out of Oklahoma into Missouri the biggest mover fertilizer in Missouri had a few loads he offered to me for $20 a ton I was too busy I could not take them and I'll be damned if yesterday I looked on the missouri load board just for giggles and there was a broker that took those loads and now he's trying to sell them for $15 a ton that is ridiculous. Yes there is no law on how much a man can make but when you have men that have their own authorities and know how to get them stuff themselves I'm sorry to say they're still too many stupid people out there that don't realize how to play the game the brokers are playing rates has not went down as they say actually in my world Freight has gone up and it is going to continue to go up. Half of these brokers on this board wouldnt know how to get a contract if it bit him in the ass majority of them do nothing but co broker which as we know is also called double brokering it's a s***** way to make a living. Something else they do is keep the demurrage for themselves and say that nobody makes it or they keep the fuel surcharge for themselves and say there isn't one there's lots of ways that they lie and steal from us and if you're not smart enough to figure it out well you know

I will haul for free, kinda of. I have offered this to shippers, I will haul three loads of your product from point A - B for free or in exchange for a full load of your product for free. (This depends on the value of the product). I have not had any takers on this offer yet. The way I got it figured I would take their product and sell it to the very same receiver for less than they could sell it for and still make a profit. We truckers are one of the few that are expected to work for free or just a smidge above it. Nobody goes into business expecting to be asked to lose money so that others can make money. The dollar excuse is BS, the fuel excuse is BS. The price to run a truck down the road did not decrease it increased. The shippers cost to run a truck themselves did not decrease but increased, as a matter of fact fewer loads and fewer miles make the price to run the truck go up. When an industry has been degraded to the point that lying becomes second nature and there is little to no integrity left, then that industry becomes what we currently have. A cess pool of complainer's that all believe that each party should give more and more to the other. I want nothing more than what is honorable for me and my men as well as out industry as a whole. We can continue to buy into the BS or we can all start working with one another with integrity. Any that know me, know that this is more than just words that I say, you know that I live by my expression: Freedom with Integrity.

It is hard to do the honorable thing when all you care about is greed.
It is hard to do the honorable thing when society tells you that dishonor is honorable.
It is hard to have Freedom with Integrity when you will whore yourself out for a buck.
It is hard to be free when your rights are being taken away from those that just desire to control you.

There are more trucks on the auction block today than there have been in a long time. Many a trucker have went down during this cycle, while others sit back and laugh. I guess that is just our industry minding it's own business, we no longer have an honor code that we adhere to. Loyalty is a thing of the past, I lost shipper customers this year to others that undercut us by as much as $1 per mile. I don't care we just went back to Mercenary Trucking and still manage to keep it working. Loyalty begats Loyalty, Pay is a reflection of a person's desire for quality. If the shipper's and brokers only desire price and want to continue to put the extra coin in their pocket that should go to the end user. Maybe you guys should go buy the trucks, trailers, and get the drivers and manage them yourselves. We can sell you ours and then you can take care of all of the headaches, and have all the risk associated with hauling your own freight.

Backhauls are BS, there is no such thing, brokers quit asking us if we need a backhaul. The answer is no. We will deadhead the truck home before we haul your crap as backhaul.

Supply and demand only kick in as to how many loads are available for the trucks to move. It did not lower the price to move the trucks, the only ones that believe that are the DA truckers. If you can show me how supply and demand all of the sudden made my trucks cost cheaper, then I will bend over and kiss your ass.

When the dishonorable brokers and truckers along with the dishonorable shippers keep on pushing the prices downword to the sewer pit that we are now residing in. It makes it harder for those of us with honor do exist. Imagine shippers, that when truckers get desperate that all kinds of things start happening at you facilities. They start looking for other ways to make ends meet, dishonor attracts dishonor, you have nobody to blame but yourselves when your loads start having problems. I try very hard to instill in our men the dicipline of honor and integrity, I have let them know that any time they are ready we will park the trucks. It is getting to the point that they would make more money at McDonald's vs driving a truck down the road. They are stubborn and believe that honor will prevail.

I guess that is why I started the Independent Carrier Group. I believed that maybe that there were still others like me that had honor and integrity and maybe just maybe we could bring that to the rest of our industry. To all out there that still have honor and integrity don't sell it out for a buck. There are still shipper, brokers, and truckers that have honor and integrity, we all just need to find each other and work with one another willingly.

Enough of my long winded rant.

one customer had such a low rate he suggested i get the truck a decent back haul, after informing him there was no such thing as a backhaul, i admitted that if there were a backhaul, his load would be it........crickets

Wrecker companies sure don't give a crap about a down turn in the price of fuel or anything else in the world of trucking. If everyone would think the same way they do we could actually make a living. $125 per hour to take a trailer 15 miles to get it unloaded.i told them walmart could wait till my truck is done and they said ok. It didn't matter to them. There was no bargaining, there was no desperation to get some work because when they do work it pays for them to sit and wait till more comes around. The 6 injectors I bought and put in 800 miles ago weren't any cheaper. They also don't give a damn about the tow bill i had to pay or the labor to yank one of those new injectors back out and replace after 800 miles. Why? Because they don't have to care. We as truckers are the only ones that are "supposed" to care. Its our problem that since fuel went down we should be expected to work for poverty wages. We are supposed to do this while the reason tire prices went up were because of oil, has anyone seen the price of tires crash like our rates have? Are brokers and shippers to blame? Some yes some no. Or are we to blame for allowing them to have this much power over us. The stupid among us far out number the rest of us, thats how we get shippers and brokers asking us to work for what they are. Its also how we get the President elected. We need to hope for as many of these bottom feeders as possible to go out of business and hope we can survive long enough to be put back in a position of power

Im an agent and I work off a 15% margin. Sometimes I go above that to get the rate up to/or close to $2.00 per mile. I do this for the drivers because with out you guys we all would go hungry. I thank you guys for all that you do.

15% is too much also if the best you can do is only $2 a mile you're not looking in the right places I would be more than happy to share my knowledge for a fee

Loaded and if you are getting more than that good for you. I do my best to take care of drivers the best i can but there are some people that you cannot please no matter what you do.

Scott, she is just an agent, be nice, it's not her fault she doesn't know how to get good loads

Remember the day when brokerage as a cast in stone 10% and they paid half at pick up and the other half at delivery.. You didnt wait 30 days or longer for your money.. And you made money also..

15% of no loads moved=$0 She needs us more than we need her! Tell your customers that!!

Crystal, thanks for the opportunity to show you that I and others are trying to do something to improve our industry. www.independentcarriergroup.com

Crystal, I don't just pop off my mouth and point blame, I tell the truth. Can you handle the truth?

Can you not answer the questions?

How do you know how much an Independent should be making?

Do you like many others just take what corporate America tells you and then cut it by 15%?

You don't really know what it would cost the shipper to do it themselves do you?

We all know there are DA truckers out there that are desperate to keep their wheels turning, heck I have a couple of guys leased onto me that were addicted to the drug(miles) when they came to join me. Instead of looking at their profit margin for the fewer miles, they just seem to believe that more miles = more profit. Just because the gross is bigger does not make the profit bigger. I talk with shipper, brokers, and truckers alike, all of the honorable ones are saying the same things. We are being squeezed by the Mega's to:

Shippers: Make the widgets cheaper so the Mega's can get the price they want, then we go to the retail market and see the Mega's are not lowering prices but raising them.

Brokers: Get the trucks to move the freight cheaper, tell them the price of fuel is the reason, tell them that somebody else if moving it cheaper.

Truckers: You need to run more miles at .95 per mile and you will make up the difference in miles, you know it gets cheaper to run that truck when you run it more miles.

When you are in the sewer pot that we now are in and have been in for many years, you are in a race to the bottom. I commend you Crystal for trying to do your best and trying to have integrity by doing so. When you are in a dishonorable industry having the integrity to stand up for what is right is a very hard thing to do indeed.

WE MUST START WORKING TOGETHER WILLINGLY, OR WE WILL WORK TOGETHER BY FORCE!!!! Corporate America shows no loyalty to those of us that comprise over 90% of the business in this country. They just keep taking and forget to give back. Ask any individual that owns an equipment dealership, ask the franchise owner of a restaurant, ask the independent carrier, ask the independent broker, the list goes on and on. It seems that Corporate America believes that they are the only ones that are allowed to make a profit. The Independent Carrier Group is a much bigger thing than just the truckers, it is us fighting for our rights as Americans to let the dishonorable greed monsters know that without us you have nothing. You see if the big corporations just disappeared tomorrow, we small individuals could still make the widgets needed to keep our country going. If we small guys disappera tomorrow then who is going to keep this country going. When was the last time you saw a small business pack his company up and move to another country just to get cheaper labor?

As long as we glorifiy those that push us around and tell us what we are worth, our nation will continue to be bound in the debt slavery game that is played. It is when we as Americans decide to take back what is ours that we will finally begin to be free again.

Freedom with Integrity

NSDQ, you know what that means.

Chris is one of the good guys, he and his wife understand and are indeed trying to do the right thing by us truckers. I have worked with his parent firm in the past and they are good people.

I don't blame the brokers for doing this. A wise man once said you cannot teach stupid but you can breed it

Here is the reality of everything. If a broker was taking the truckers price and marking it up by lets say 20%-25%. They were taking care of the factoring cost, paying me withing 2-4 days of receipt of paperwork. I don't care what their percentage is.

It is when the brokers and truckers alike bid their freight not based upon a shippers cost but their own that we get into the drug dealing trade that we are currently in. Throw in one, two, three brokers stepping on the drug before it gets to the carrier. Then the carrier and the brokers aare really starting to look more and more like drug dealing on the streets.

Take shippers that tell carriers that they don't want to go direct with them unless they have ten trucks or more. I have told the shippers that I am more than happy to but the ten trucks they need providing they sign a contract paying us enough to cover our margin for such trucks. I have not had any takers yet. It seems the shippers want us to take all the risk for them and still want us to haul freight for 1980 rates. The bigger the shipper the cheaper the rate most generally, and don't fool yourself into believing that a Mega-Shipper gives a darn about quality, they only care about price. This is why many a Mega-Shipper has set up their own 3PL and run their freight through that first before they give it to a broker or carrier. The system is quite rigged if you ask me.

I have found that smaller shippers don't have a problem paying for our services, this would include the farmers. I have found that they are much better to work with down through the years. There are indeed bigger shippers that still do admire and will pay for the quality trucks, so just because a company is larger does not mean that they suck (but most of the Mega's do). Bob Seiger has a song that I love "More than a number", you are treated by the Mom and Pop shippers as more than a number. " Dammit I'm a man, I am more than a number"

I believe we truckers sometimes expect our brokers to work for free, and visa-versa. This is not working together willingly this is screwing each other willingly. I personally don't want any part of that. It is the Mega's that rule the roost but yet they are only 10% of our country, if we little guys shippers, brokers, and truckers quit producing tomorrow, the Mega's would be hurting for sure. The Mega shippers are the ones who pushed for deregulation, why do you all keep runniing around and sucking it up for them? The Mega shippers are the ones telling the brokers and carriers to get cheaper trucks, once againg why are you all running around and sucking it up for them? The Mega shippers, have not really even given their own employee's raises in almost 20 years. It looks to me as if they have it all figured out, tell their employees that they can't afford raises, tell brokers and truckers that they can't afford raises. Expect their small venders that really make the product for them in the first place that they need to sell it to them at 1980 prices. Yet when you go to the stock market these Mega's were posting all time profits off of the backs of the working man, not only in this country but around the world. So who really is the problem here?

It sure as heck is not Chris and his wife. Chris servied this country just like I did, we were both Airborne, and we both have seen combat. We were both confused when we came home and saw the plight of our nation. He and his firm run flat beds and in the current market believe it our not the rates that they are offering are actually quite good. When I am seeing hopppers, dry vans, and flats moving at .96 per mile or less, $2 per mile for a 1000 mile run out of the south is quite good.

I realize there are many here in the bulk community that would puke on that but those are the real numbers in the real world right now. If you are doing better, like we are then you need to stick with your contacts whether they are with a shipper direct or through a broker.

I only dislike dishonorable shippers, brokers, and truckers alike. I do not believe that it is acceptable to rape, pillage, plunder, or underbid at any cost. I had booked a load for one of my trucks Friday with that company that likes to howl at the moon. This is how it went down, my driver wanted to get home. Booked the load from Atlanta to St Louis. While we were locking in on the rate the agent states that we are $50.00 to high, ok no big deal right? Wrong, and this is why I typicall don't budge on my rate, 10 minutes later he calls and states the other carrier offered to do the load now for $200.00 cheaper. I tolld him to go F himself, that this is BS, and I would let everybody know what kind of hinky operation they run over there. Now I want all of you to know that every since brown bought out the moon howlers they have gotten even worse with their rates. But brown can make $150,000 or more for moving their dry vans down the road (that is each load, run the numbers and you will find out). I am not jealous of brown and actually think it is a good business model, but just exactly how much money does brown need to make? I could go down the laundry list of Corporate America that believes it is ok to rook us, they laugh at us each and every single day. I am sure that Chris and I thought about this many times down through the years, send young naieve soldiers off to other countries. Tell them the other people are bad, kill the other people, watch Corporate America make Billions off the deal, while we got paid a pittence. Come back home and Corporate America don't want you to work for them because you were in combat and now you are a wackjob (more so if you were in an elite military unit as I and Chris were). Go to the VA and they put you on a waiting list for months to be seen, and then when you are seen they tell you sorry we can't help you. I could go down a whole list of crap that those of us that fought for this country and came back home to find out that we are basically not woth anything in anybody elses eyes. Instead of railing on Chris, after he announced that he served this country, we should all be thanking him for fighting for our freedom, so I the fellow Vet will do it publically as I have already expressed to him verbally one on one, that is why I asked him to call me to check him out. I would never endorse an individual that I did not believe to be honorable. Thanks Chris for being honorable and serving our country, thanks for you and your wife for doing the best you can by the flat-bedders, thanks for being an honest man, I would work with you anytime that we can connect if you have the freight and I have the truck. I have no problem with your commission as you have no problem with my price.

We sure don't need to be laughing at each other whether is be an Independent Shipper, Independent Broker, or and Independent Carrier. We need to start working with each other and stary away form the shiesters in our industry.

Freedom always comes with a price, paying the cost today will result in dividends in the future.