no more FSC...oh my gawd

[dabluzman1]

Okay, lets say a new player comes on board, call him "feed da kitty expediting".
He only wants C or D units ( sorry B and E's, I promise to include you next time).

His customer loaded milage rates are between 2.00 and 4.00 /mile, depending on type of
truck ( dry or Reefer ), frt, wt., Haz ( including military ), with a schedule showing the increases, pays the truck 61% on the loaded miles + .40 /m DH, no FSC. And he has got the frt and customers to keep
you busy.

All the above written in stone or your contract if you prefer.

Would you be interested? or tell em to go pound salt?

 

[davekc]

Don't see a carrier that would "guarantee" that. Or they would say they do only to change it later. Sound familiar?
Then I would investigate what that customer really pays. Then, I would be either "happy as a pig in poop", or quickly become one of their competitors.

 

[Bruno]

It all would depend on if I could see what they was charging the customer. But then again they could be like FedEx and run threw another one of it's companys like FedEx does now 1st and take money off the top and then send it to FedEx CC.

 

[davekc]

I won't volunteer anything on that other than whether the carrier supplies a phone number to the customer without going through the carrier to place the call.
If you can't talk to the customer directly, then I would wonder why? Just another issue of transparency.

 

[LDB]

I don't care what my carrier makes as long as I make what I need to make. That applies whether they are making 10 cents or 10 dollars more than I am as long as at least my minimum is being paid. There's not enough money at the bottom end of your imagined scale so no I wouldn't do it as presented.

 

[jaminjim]

I don't care how the money is broken down, it's the amount that goes to the truck that matters. I agree with Leo 61% of $2.00 is not enough.

But I disagree with Leo about what the company makes, if the contract calls for me to get 61%, I want what the end customer paid. I don't like it going thru two peoples hands(from in essence the same company, who's only real purpose is to cut my percentage) before they figure in my cut. Thats why I prefer mileage pay to be a set amount. then I will agree with Leo.

 

[moose]

Okay, lets say a new player comes on board, call him "feed da kitty expediting".
He only wants C or D units ( sorry B and E's, I promise to include you next time).

His customer loaded milage rates are between 2.00 and 4.00 /mile, depending on type of
truck ( dry or Reefer ), frt, wt., Haz ( including military ), with a schedule showing the increases, pays the truck 61% on the loaded miles + .40 /m DH, no FSC. And he has got the frt and customers to keep
you busy.

All the above written in stone or your contract if you prefer.

Would you be interested? or tell em to go pound salt?

@ .40/dh , most contractors will have to buy some fuel to get back to the freight .
@ 61% of 2$/ loaded mil. for most contractors it will berlly pay the bills.
defiantly not enough to pay a co. driver 50K/Y, not even @ the same household .
@ 61% of 4$ /loaded mil. most contractors will stop for a stake dinner enrout . assuming the scale mention above pay more then just reefer fuel .
getting pay % is just that ! , i will demand to have axes to each & every freight bills pot on the truck , the original as pay by the shipper ,not as the carrier gets !,i can care less how many Kitty's are feeding along the way.

thats all nice @ 4$/Gal. & 9M/the same Gal.
i will have a per load contract in place , & a plan B , for 5$/Gal.
FSC is just that , you do not need it at a per load contract ,it is implement on a long term contract to protect the party that pays for the fuel .
i will expect the carrier to have the negotiations skills to raze its rate as the costs of doing business are raising.
now if the carrier have "the frt and costumers to keep you busy", in general ,the first (let say)2K loaded a week need to pay the bills and then some. yet if the carrier can provide twice as mach , the next 2K loaded ,need only to pay for fuel and weare&tere , for a good pay , in this case we can make a good income . so bring it on .
a good contractor can show profits at a lower rates as business volume raise.
(but then again why are we doing expedite to begin with .)
at any case,i cannot see this "new player " stay in business for too long , as his "costumers" will always have a choice .

very interesting post.




Moose.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

If the price of diesel keeps dropping I want to see what these newer guys think when the FSC is down under a .10 a dime....right now the adjusted FSC is .20 cents for C/V's...a life without the FSC again...hard to believe with deisel average under 4 bucks that .60 fsc's are still out there...

 

[TeamCaffee]

It does not matter to us either what the carrier makes the bottom line is what we look at. If the load pays enough we take it. We would jump on the loads you are talking about.

When I figure our expenses I figure our fuel as expenses so I know what we need per mile to run and make a profit.

When we got into a restaurant to purchase a meal if I like the price I buy the meal if I do not I go on down the road. I do not ask how much are you making on this hamburger and if it is too much I offer them less as the business should not be making as much profit as they are. That does not strike me as a free market society.

I also feel you think you have to know the profit margin of someone else then you by gosh better be prepared to tell them your profit margin. I personally am not willing to do that. I am also not willing when we get an outrageous offer that pays way to much a mile and we are going to make a HUGE profit on the load to call FCC and say hey you are offing me too much money take some of it back.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Great point Linda....what does it matter how much the carrier makes as long as you get what you need??? our business is our business and thiers is thiers....they have profit margins as we have ours....and somewhere we both try to achieve them

 

[ATeam]

As several others have suggested, I would do the same analysis we have always done. Total up the pay that is going to the truck (labor, deahdead, loaded, accessorials, etc.) and compare that number to the pay per mile you need to run your truck. If the pay per mile exceeds your minimum number, take the load.

Whatever the compensation deal may be from whatever carrier, broker or customer, it all boils down to the same thing. How much money goes to the truck, and how much do you need to profitably haul the freight?

 

[Tennesseahawk]

Linda... the idea is that you're supposed to be in business WITH said carrier. If you're not concerned what the carrier makes, then you don't care if he skims the top a bit. You're happy with those $3/mi loads, which you make 61%. But what happens when the partner figures out your minimum rate, by trial and error, and starts offering that, or a few cents less, every time? Maybe far fetched? This is business, ppl. If you're getting 61%, I advise you to check up every once in awhile to keep the partner clean, or you may find yourself buried in the litterbox.

One carrier, which I won't name, pays x.xx per mile, EXCEPT for privileged customers in which the truck gets .xx less. One truck starts out with 75% regular freight, and accepts everything. Then, the regular freight 'dries up', and 95% of the loads for said truck are now from privileged customers. If it were me, I would be asking, every time, who the privileged customer is.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

And yet Hawk makes a very good valid point!!

It's supposed to be a partnership...not a dictatorship...

 

[BigRed32771]

On the topic of "trust but verify..."

I recently selected several recent pro numbers which we had run and called our co-ordinator at FDCC to see if I could get copies of the bills to the customer so that I could verify what we were being paid (and who was actually paying the bill). The answer was that they don't send such things out, but that any time I was in the office I could request to see the pro bills and they would gladly show them to me.

I figure my chances of ever catching another load anywhere Green OH has just gone to near 0%.

Doug

 

[TeamCaffee]

OVM you make my point:
It's supposed to be a partnership...not a dictatorship...

The partnership goes both ways I am not a dictatorship nor is our company.

I am not sharing my profit margin with FCC and I do not expect them to share with me. I take the loads that make us money and refuse the ones that do not. If we cannot make money here we move on same as if we quit making FCC money they are going to cut our lease.

I do not turn down loads that make us a lot of money and I take the loads that are right at our bottom line to make money. I have no need to know anyone’s profit margin but my own. Why should a trucking company share this will all of us? What other business do we ask this of? Does our carrier ask us what our profit margin is? I just do not see this partnership as a share all information.

 

[davekc]

Linda

They are suppose to legally make available what the customer was charged for a specific trip. Overall company profit is a different issue.
Someone else mentioned this can be legally skirted by having a inhouse brokerage to cut the percentage to the driver.
That is true, and there are several carriers that do that.

 

[TeamCaffee]

Dave,

That is kind of a duh post. We work for a company where we get a percentage of what the load pays. There is no doubt we are getting that, there is also no doubt that FCC is charging the customer enough for them to make a profit and for us to make a profit. We see on our settlement sheet what the customer is charged for the load and I believe that is accurate. FedEx did not get to where they are by cheating customers or contractors.

All I am saying is we do not go into a restaurant and ask their profit margin we look at what we are asked to pay for a meal and if we do not like it we move on. Same as in a company or broker that offers you an amount to haul a load you either like that amount or you say sorry we cannot do business. You do not tell the broker hey I need to this much to make a profit so up what you are going to pay me to this amount. Your profit margin is not their business and their profit margin is not of my business.

One of our favorite things about FCC is the load offers and what they pay sometimes the offer is great and others you go wow there is no way we can run that load for that amount of money. We love not having a flat rate.

 

[davekc]

With regards to flat rate or percentage, we do both and there are pros and cons to both. If a carrier provides that transparency and will let you review the actual billing or let you have direct contact with the customer, then you are in good hands.

 

[LDB]

I picked up a load in PA and swapped it off in OH to a team that could make the Laredo delivery on time. My settlement showed what the customer was charged for the load and a few calculations showed I was paid the correct amount for the portion I drove. If the shipper contracted with Fedex Good Ole Boys who sent it to Fedex Down Home Bunch who sent it to Fedex Gitr Done Gang who sent it to FXCC and the shipper paid 17.381 times as much to ship it as my settlement shows that makes no difference to me. My contract with FXCC was honored correctly and I made equal to or more than the amount needed to run the load based on all the criteria pertinent at that specific date/time. Would I rather skip the middle men and get 100% of whatever the shipper paid? Sure. Who wouldn't? I'm not going to lose sleep over it though because I made what I needed to make.

 

[BillChaffey]

I think Team Caffee has the right attitude, if they are satisified with what their Truck is being paid. It's no different then a Union Carpenter or Plummer they are happy with their wage and it's really none of their business what the General Contractor ends up making or Losing on the job.