Broker or load boards

I like your thinking Alfred.

10 to 15% max. Rest should go to the truck and driver. They are the ones doing all the work

I've seen a wide range of percentages that brokers keep. Some upto 22%.

On your $1000 load, that would be $220. and $780 to the truck. How many miles was the load? Did the truck make 2.50 a mile or 1.65?

I can do the math thank you for that respons, its just like the question ask how far will a driver travel deadhead mile befor he or she charges the broke. As a broker i need to know what a driver commely ask for when he or she has to travel, lets say for argument seek 50,100,150 miles

Who cares the load pays $1000.00 and lets say the broker is at 20%. Take the $1000.00 multiply it by 1.2 = $1200.00 from the shipper to the broker. Why would I care if the broker made $200.00 off of that load. Let's say the load was for 350 miles, everybody gets what they want in this situation. Shipper got the load moved, broker found the shipper and the truck, trucker got the load. Win, Win, Win. Why would anybody complain about that? It is when it goes like this that we have a problem, load pays $1200.00 and the truck gets $650.00. Hmmm, just saying.

Here it is Bobbie, do a spreadsheet figure out what it would cost the shipper to do it themselves. That is the price point to work from, most of these drivers don't know what there cost to run is. That is why they get short changed on a regular basis. Once the market starts a tumbling then it continues until it gets to the bottom. If yesterday a driver said they would do the load for $1.50 per mile, and the rate should be $2.00 per mile. $1.50 per mile is the new base line rate, regardless of what a shipper may or may not be paying the broker. When the broker does likewise and continues to go after cheaper trucks than he or she is continuing the process of degrading the market. Maybe the shipper should take a look out the window and look at the equipment and the driver that is pulling their freight, one would wonder if half of these trucks can even make it to the destination.

No problem, just trying to do my part and improve our industry not degrade it. Too much bickering leads to no solutions, getting all sides to see that we need to be resonable and think of one another and not just ourselves keeps peace. You have a good day as well.

Great advice and right on track.

these are the answer i need because i want a relationship with carrier and shipper, and i truely understand the nature of the beast, and its my responsibitiy as a broker to ask these question and get best answer for the carrire to find out want he or she needs before the rate conformation is sign, i,e a backhaul, and pay the true amount and not this so call backhaul rate,( there is know such thing as a backhaul rate) a rate is a rate and thats it bottom line. My job is to take care of the carrier and the carrier will take care of my company and my shippers.

If the broker is only supplying the load and I'm supplying 100% of everything else no more than 8% or we don't talk and if I find out that you're making more than that which I will were done immediately no excuses no ands ifs or buts about it. There's too many good people out there that like to keep guys around and keep it honest no need for the shit people to be with it

Simply because they're not worth more than that and since I'm an independent I very rarely need them and when I do they either come to my terms or I go fishing that simple

I am a bulk hauler and in order to be a successful bulk hauler you need to learn to play in your own backyard that's where the most profit is being made learn all your shippers and receivers and tend to them those bulk haulers that go over the road don't make as much as the guys playing in their own backyard I'm saying within 300 miles of your base that way you can be home every night and I don't mean hauling grain. As to put a dollar amount on it I will not do that on a public forum simply because I do not want to teach the brokers what they should already know

5%,because your only expenses are a phone&a desk..Just calling it the way it is...

Okay a broker only has the these expense, phone,desk, fax, rent, paid load borads,phone bill, negotiating to get the load and the list goes on, bottom line is broker has bills just like.

Please what is a rare occasion?

2015 I did 1542 loads only 71 were brokered

I agree with Mr.Weast. 8 maybe 10%. Anything past 15% is robbery. But honestly Bobby your attitude is so pleasant I doubt I would work for you for free. I'm sure you will explain to me how you feel the same. But why would I look to you to you as a business partner with the way you respond to those of us with the equipment?

If anybody goes into business and plans to build that business on a 3%-10% margin they are a fool. Standard business practices are 20%-25% margins, and you hope to be left with 5%-10% profit after your overheads.

When a broker wants to know the truckers cost to run loads that is none of their business. They should be focusing on what the shippers cost to do it themselves would be. When a trucker worries more about what a broker is making instead of making sure their margins are working then we end up blaming each other for the problem instead of working with each other and fixing the problem.

The problem is when you get down to it, the majority of truckers would rather work for the shipper direct cheaper than work through a broker. I have never understood this logic. I don't care which side is paying the best rate, our trucks just roll for the best rate. There are many shippers that have asked us to go direct with them but we had to kindly say no. They were offering cheaper rates than we were getting it from our brokers. They wanted to pay us in 45-60 days, the broker paid within 5-15 days.

I for one have not opened a business in a long time without having at least a 20% margin built in. I tried the whole 5% thing years ago and found out within 6 months that it would not work. If all of you are talking that the broker should only make 5-10% profit after everything is taken care of then I agree. This is where a lot of brokers make their mistakes they are trying to make 20-25% profit after their overheads and are taking between 30-40% to do so. Well those that do this know what I think about them, they are the ones that give you the wrong information on loads, they are the ones that tell the lies that the rates are down because of fuel, or the quantity of loads, they are the ones so far up the shippers hiney, they are basicall like a street drug dealer stepping on the drug time and time again.

Glen the price of fuel is going back up. Time for all of us to start raising our prices as well. Everytime the price of fuel goes up by a nickel I raise my rates by .03 per mile. The FSC is BS it does not work, here is another rookster program that the Mega's and the Government put together to work for their benefit. A few years back the Government made an adjustment to the FSC chart and now it is totally rigged against us. If you are still using the numbers on the various FSC websites you are being mislead, you will go in the hole. I have never worried about the FSC since I started my own trucking company, I have my own formula and that seems to work much better than the Governments.

Wonder what BS excuse we are going to get now for freight being low. I wish everybody would just be honest, as long as there are DA truckers that will be in a race to the bottom the shippers and brokers will just keep on giving them their drugs. As long as there are greedy individuals on all sides the drug trade will continue.

Even the drug trade has more honor and integrity than our industry. A producer of cocaine would never think about stepping on the drug before shipping it stateside. The drug only gets stepped on by the brokers, and street dealers.

Shippers forming their own brokerages, and 3PL's Hmmm they are worse than the cartel. Then the broker gets it steps on it again, then a street dealer (another broker, or trucker) gets it and steps on it again. Well the quality of the freight is so bad that the end user (junky) can no longer make an honorable living off of it. We wonder why we look at our trucks going down the road and see people driving them that look like they just came off the street. There is your answer.

I realize that my statement is bold but it is indeed the truth.

Funny, as a trucker I have the exact same bills. You say rent? Set up an office in your house. A lot of brokers can work from home. You put desk on your expenses. My wife and I built our desk in my office. Cost less than $500 easily. Do you rent a desk? A desk is a one time expense. Phone? Everybody can get a cell phone now with unlimited talk and text for the same price I pay for a set of windshield wipers. Fax machines are really cheap nowadays. I spent less than $75 for the one I have. Don't even use it anymore because my less than $100 printer has a scanner on it and I just scan and email. It is faster and I can send them the information they want right to their desk so they don't even have to leave their chair to go hunt it down. You did forget to include paper and ink expense which still isn't that much but it is the office expense that I hate worse. Negotiating with customers? I like others only get loads from brokers a few times a year. 99% of the stuff I haul I negotiate with customer myself. Usually takes less than five minutes. One tire on my truck is +$350 and I have 18-22 of them on a rig at any given time. Here is some math. A load pays $1000. You want $100 (10%) for a five minute phone call and five minutes of paperwork? While I go spend 12hrs burning fuel and tires wearing out my +$100,000 rig for $800? Especially while you don't have to leave your house and I spend most of the week if not all of the week away from mine and my wife and kids. The more you take from the load the less my family gets to eat or go without. If you have a family I'm sure you know the feeling but you can be there for your family while I have to leave mine at home. We all have expenses and we all want to make money. Problem is nobody can find a common ground and too much undercutting each other.

Morning carriers & Brokers

I get up this morning and i'm still reading the same old rhetoric on the same old topic, lets change it up, all you carriers & broker chose the profession that you in Right! if you could or would you change as a broker it to become a carrier and if you were a carrier would you change become a broker and if so Why?

Clint, I do basicaly the same thing i have a couple of partner trucks and we get our on loads but if one of use has more loads than we can handle we get together and hammer them out and our costumers do not have a problem with this and we are all proffesional and curtious to them and we even will go the extra mile and help them clean out a bin if need be, as we all have a farm backround we are no strangers to it and they really appreciate it!