Hhhhmmmm....never looked at that. You know now I'm feeling all good.

 

Sorry, Cam. It was a legal load, no escorts and only took about 2 hours to load. They were just in a bind and I was there to help. We did a little negotiating at the time. With the deadhead I had to do I wouldn't have taken it for less. Sometimes, you are in the right place at the right time. The product had to be at it's destination by the next morning. He knew that I had a good delivery record. I had booked another load that cancelled and then this guy calls. I have spoken to the agent since and he thanked me for helping them out of a tight situation. I could have done another load for them had I been close. I usually don't like to talk about the specifics of rates that I get. I mention this because of two reasons. One, you are leased to Landstar. Second, I want you to understand that you can get much better rates. I understand that you are in a little different area than I am, but you can do better.

I think you may need to change the way you look at the relationship you have with Landstar. This can be true with any carrier. It is essentially like a partnership. Each of you performs a service which is necessary to insure the success of the other. The agent is the sales force. He finds and books the load. Landstar is the bank and clearing house. They handle all the paperwork. You make sure that the product gets from point A to point B in a safe and timely manner. You are the reason sales (agent) and bank (Landstar) exist. For each to function properly each must hold up their end of the partnership and everyone must make a fair profit.

 

Haven't missed yet so if I'm going to change the way I look at things there's going to have to be more to the story. It is good to know 'what's out there.' But it's also difficult because guys do sling bull stories and half truths- 'oh yeah, he made all that money, now here's what he's not telling you....' I'm not saying it's all bull because I know it's not. I think it's a matter of having some contentment all the while positioning yourself and also waiting for your opportunities. I'm nimble, I'm light on my feet, I'll make the move, just have to do it in the right way at the right time and not be constantly jumping from one pasture to another because every one that I'm not in looks greener. But I hear you on the more money and I believe it can be had.

 

I agree Gman. We all need to share this stuff IMO (good and bad). It ain't bragging or complaining if it helps someone.

On that note, check this out. We'v been doing a few NJ - ON lately and we've been doing them in 9 hours so the broker called wanting to move an ASAP load from north of Detroit to Hamilton. 127" tall so it needed a double drop but it was legal width. I had to DH 250 miles to PU so I threw out a ridiculous number....$1600...almost $10/mile. No I didn't get the load, but I was shocked what did.....$1170. I thought maybe half that. $1170 for 175 miles. Yep, it's good to be on their call list.

 

This may seem a bit of a stupid question, but reading this makes me wonder one thing:

That is, when I get going I'm sure before I truly understand things I'm sure I'm going to get screwed by some broker by my lack of understanding of things. But that's going to happen one time and when I figure out what they did, and I will do that in time, I will never do business with them again.

With that said, if you blatantly take advantage of a broker in a bad situation, isn't that a bad practice and won't that broker remember that just as I will remember being screwed by him? Or is that just the nature of this business?

 

You can bet the broker didn't pay that out of his own pocket merrick4. A friend of mine asked me to haul some loads for him and I was a little concerned about offending him with too high a rate. He than says " I don't reallly care what the rate is because I'm forwarding it to the customer anyways" He rebuilds cranes so the end product is pretty expensive so the difference between 1600 and 1175 would be peanuts in the big picture.

 

I think it's all in how you present the rate. The broker cannot be upset at me when I say that I am 250 miles away and I can help him out but it's not going to be cheap. When they persist in asking for a rate....well it is what it is.
I spent two hours rearranging trucks and drivers trying to get a truck there for them. Besides, when you add the 175 loaded to the 250 DH it's only $3.75/mile....and 4 hours waiting at the border. I did my best. They were OK with it.....and I wasn't that far off anyway.

You're right though. It may not have been smart to wring my hands and say I gotcha this time.

 

Nah, van expedited into Ontario is $4+/mi linehaul. Sounds like you hit it right.

 

I got lucky yesterday morning and booked a load with DTX.on a 720 straight line mile run it pays 2.08cpm gross ($1.38to the truck).The hub miles is 840 miles and I had to deadhead 166 miles to pick up 25kibs of game room equipment.This is from Grand Rapids, MI to Duluth, GA.I think the gross is $1500.I am never booking a one way load again.Before leaving the house I will book a 2 way trip to get me back into the hen coop within a week.This is the farthest I have gone in a big truck.

 

Dream!