Truckers Opinions on Brokers (keep it friendly)
Ok so I had one of those conversations with an O/O today that I go over and over again afterwards and still makes no sense. So I'm posting a scenario that I hope may help me understand it better
If I possessed a map to a gold mine (let's say it's worth 2M) that had gotten lost over time and approached you with it. Then I said "I do not have the equipment or the expertise so I will give you this map if you bring me back 10%.
Would you:
A) kill me take the map and grab the gold
B) Take the map find the gold and never return
or C) Bring me back 200k.
What prompted this was a guy called me today on one of my ads. We'll call him Chris that was currently pulling frac sand for around $480 under 50 miles with his own trailer. He explained his situation and I felt the best match for him with the companies I am working with would be company B paying around $650, to the driver, under 50 miles, plus fuel surcharges and fuel discounts. I explained to him that I did have other companies paying more but this one met his insurance and support needs. He asked what I was doing for the 10% I was getting(above the $650) and I said getting you an extra $200 per run (add in surcharge and discounts), I also assist in factoring pay and all around general support person as either I or someone that works for me will be in the area he'll be operating in (there are more benefits but this is already getting to long). He kept asking me which companies I was working with throwing out names. Essentially trying to figure out how to cut me out. It seems that probably a third of my calls go this way. The other thing I noticed is that it's usually the guys (I mean no disrespect by this) that are running one or two trucks. The guys running 10 or 20 trucks have no issue with it. Numbers are good, paper work is good, everything checks out lets get it rolling.
Most people don't try and cut out a real estate broker or insurance broker. So why is there such a large portion of drivers that would answer B?
Is it really just a matter of a $.05 costing them a $1.00 and they just don't realize it?
Please lets try and refrain from the horror stories of brokers not paying or drivers disappearing with huge fuel/repair bills. We know they're out there.