Falligator
Expert Expediter
Just too much underbidding going on and most shippers are now going to the Internet boards.
Slow cargo van freight?
- Thread starter bfields115
- Start date
That is why you have to take matters into your own hands and get your own direct customers and continue to make an income for yourself. If it didn't take me 5 minutes to force myself out of a couch because of my bummed up leg I'd be out there right now getting more customers for myself and making money. I have a friend who is 1 guy in a van with access to a lot of different freight sources and he manages to keeep hiself pretty busy all of the time. He just got a load out of Laredo for 1.10 per mile. You have to get out of the employee mentality of "I need someone else to build me a company so that I can lease on with them and make a living" and go out there and make things happen!
I know it's so easy to just lease on with one company and have them do all of the work for you but that is what separates the men from the boys. You have a pretty warped view of where the expedited industry is headed possilbly because you are going to be retiring soon. But there are a lot of people who are going to make this undustry work no matter how many yellow penske trucks are running around out there. Sometimes you just have to think out of the box if you want to be the big kid on the block. This is not just directed at you OVM, it is also addressed to all of the nay sayers who say it can't be done. I was "and I wil be on that road once again" after I get this medical stuff taken care of!
zorry
Veteran Expediter
I'm offended by being told getting one's own customer's seperates "the men from the boys."
I got out out of high school and my father had 3 or 4 trucks leased to a mail hauler and a straight truck operating about 20 hours per week for a drug store chain. My father was a full time ATM for Roadway.
With me helping him, within a year we did all the outbound freight,covering 34 states for the drugstore chain, and we had about a dozen trucks running our own mail contracts. Also, had trucks leased to five major carriers.
This was prior to deregulation. There was money to be made.
Today I am leased to one carrier that secures loads that I could never touch. They have insurance limits that if I could get I probably couldn't afford.
There is shared liability.
I am not less of a man because I'm leased to a carrier.
Maybe just a little older, a little wiser.
Dave KC, The Caffee's , and ATeam have not run out and gotten thier authority. How'd the miss the obvious ?
I got out out of high school and my father had 3 or 4 trucks leased to a mail hauler and a straight truck operating about 20 hours per week for a drug store chain. My father was a full time ATM for Roadway.
With me helping him, within a year we did all the outbound freight,covering 34 states for the drugstore chain, and we had about a dozen trucks running our own mail contracts. Also, had trucks leased to five major carriers.
This was prior to deregulation. There was money to be made.
Today I am leased to one carrier that secures loads that I could never touch. They have insurance limits that if I could get I probably couldn't afford.
There is shared liability.
I am not less of a man because I'm leased to a carrier.
Maybe just a little older, a little wiser.
Dave KC, The Caffee's , and ATeam have not run out and gotten thier authority. How'd the miss the obvious ?
I have no doubt a real go-getter can drum up enough business I was mostly referring to those who just like to drop in stop and allow the company look for their loads
It just means you guys are comfortable working for other people. If Panther, Load One, Bolt, etc did not go out there and pay the higher insurances and do all of the leg work in obtaining customers and freight, most of the drivers on the road would not be making money. You do own a small business that is leased to another business to find you loads and it isn't a bad thing. But there are those of us who want to run our own companies our way and get our own customers. The higher insurance levels aren't really that expensive. But to those who lack the drive and ambition to go out there and start a company there will always be some excuse as to why it is too hard to do. What would this industry be like without the John Elliott's and the Panther owners and all of the small mom and pop operations that spent their last dime trying to build something for the drivers to become a part of. I just take the employee mentality to be anyone that has to go to work for someome elses company to make money! To be truly free is to have all of the risks and the rewards! That is all i'm saying here. Nothing more nothing less.
zorry
Veteran Expediter
I'd argue about being truly free. I had three phone lines in my bedroom ! I had to do service calls on New years Day as mail ran 365 days per year.
Leased to a carrier, I don't have to answer the phone next week if I don't want.
I am more free than I have ever been in my life.
That's why I have one truck.
If you're happy answering the phone at 2am have at it.
I guess the real freedom is doing what you want to do.
Leased to a carrier, I don't have to answer the phone next week if I don't want.
I am more free than I have ever been in my life.
That's why I have one truck.
If you're happy answering the phone at 2am have at it.
I guess the real freedom is doing what you want to do.
You are correct about some people but incorrect about others. There are many people who got into expediting and leased their truck to a carrier, not because they lack drive and ambition, but because they have it by the ton and are looking for the paid vacation that expediting is. I know several expediters who worked much harder in previous careers than they ever worked in expediting, and that was their reason to become expediters.
We have operated with our own authority and have leased to several different carriers over the years. It really is a matter of what your expectations are and what one wants to put in to it.
Basically for every reason or advantage to do one, the same can be said for the other.
Since doing both, I can't say I felt elevated any more with one than the other. Same thing with the "freedom" aspect. Gain one place and lose it somewhere else.
Basically for every reason or advantage to do one, the same can be said for the other.
Since doing both, I can't say I felt elevated any more with one than the other. Same thing with the "freedom" aspect. Gain one place and lose it somewhere else.
21cExp
Veteran Expediter
You may well be right, but I'm not completely convinced.
There is a growing trend among American corporations to "insourcing" now and getting away from the decade long fad of outsourcing. There's an excellent article titled "The Insourcing Boom" in this month's Atlantic:
"After years of offshore production, General Electric is moving much of its far-flung appliance-manufacturing operations back home. It is not alone. An exploration of the startling, sustainable, just-getting-started return of industry to the United States."
The rest of the article is well worth the read. I heard the author, Charles Fishman, in a radio interview this afternoon and found it very interesting and encouraging. One of the things he said is that a lot of large manufacturers are watching what GE is doing with great interest and will likely follow suit as they realize that outsourcing, while good for the bottom line for awhile, had negative aspects that outweighed the positive.
I believe that servicing the expanding U.S. manufacturing plants could well be a boon to the expedite world in the next several years, and that our current and past trends and busy times will change. I know I have been hauling a wider variety of non-automotive loads as I experiment around the country, and would bet that will continue.
Here's hoping. . .
wvcourier
Expert Expediter
I would sit there atleast till Monday. ...on Mondays there is over 150 loads go out of there ....
Sent from my SGH-T959 using EO Forums