I AM A BROKER!!!!!!!
If you go past the title and still opened this thread you are either A. Curious who would title their thread in such a way, B. someone who knows me and want to see if I'm going to "Poke the Bear" again, or C. A fellow "EVIL" broker. Regardless of your reasoning I want to take a minute to clear the air. yes, I'm a nasty broker, I haven't been doing it as long as some of you have, I've only been on THIS side of the steering wheel for about 10 years, 20+ on the business side of the wheel. That all being said I do have a decent perspective on business from BOTH sides of the Broker / No broker argument. I understand well the argument against brokers, why should I do it for a broker when i can do it directly? I get it, but , let me run this by you. Broker A has been working with a shipper/receiver for 10 years and has a very good working relationship with. They know that he WILL get the job done if he says he will. Now, lets say hard working truck driver B calls this shipper/receiver and says I'll do that work for you myself. OK, now that customer who may or may not know that truck driver says ok well "How many can you get this week"? well, maybe 1-5 loads BEST case scenario. Well, the broker can say how many you got?, yep we can do it, now lets negotiate a rate. While the trucker may have a good rate, the customer is MUCH more likely to negotiate even better with Broker A because he can negotiate once and be done with it. Because I have personal insight on the shipper/receiver aspect of this argument from many friends & relatives operating in that capacity I can confidently say "The vast majority of the shipper/receivers I worl directly with would prefer to make 1 phone call to move their block of laods rather then take time from their day to field dozens & dozens of emails & call from hungry drivers. This thread is in NO WAY a slam against those who prefer to cold call and reach out to customers themselves because I can promise you, most well established companies in this as well as numerous other lines of work started out much the same way. I'm simply asking you to look at the whole pie rather just the slice you want. I can not speak for anyone but myself here, but, often times customers will call with a block of loads and ask simply what it would cost to move these loads from A to B. Having relationships with many of you hard working drivers we can converse with you and establish a rate that works for ALL parties involved. I understand like in ALL businesses there are good & bad brokers as well as good & bad truckers. In closing, I'm simply hoping at some point we can all work together to make this business better and profitable for EVERYONE.