I would love to know what to do next to figure out the new rule seems as though I am so entrenched at the old ways that I can not figure out top from bottom. I believe what was written by Ateam but just do not look to be rewarded for those efforts as it is only your pride or selfpride cause in my opinion companies just do not care about a good job only the bottom line.
Notice that I did not say do our work well so that we will be rewarded. I said do our work well so others may succeed.
While there are certain business benefits that come with keeping your truck clean and yourself well-groomed, they are tangential at best. If two drivers (or teams) show up at the same dock at the same time, with one being clean and the other a dirt bag, with the clean one in a shiny new truck and the dirt bag in a beat up junker, there is nothing to say the dirt bag won't get the next load from the same shipper.
You are right. Shippers tend to put price ahead of most other considerations when putting a load on a truck. Exceptions to that occur in high-value, exclusive-use cases where a shipper may care deeply that his or her freight goes on a clean truck and is handled by a driver(s) that presents a professional image.
I made no mention in my post about being rewarded for doing your job well or driving a clean truck or presenting a professional image. I said only that it is important to do our jobs well so others succeed. The logic is simple. If they fail, we fail too. We are part of a larger supply chain. For everyone involved in a shipment to succeed, we must hold up our end, just as they must hold up each of theirs.
That does not mean that our financial success should take a back seat (for those of us who are in this business for the money). Indeed, there are a bunch of expediters that make more money than many of the customers and people in the supply chain that we serve.
Looking good and conducting yourself professionally may get you a load every now and then that you otherwise would not have. If a broker, agent or dispatcher who has discretion to assign trucks to loads (like in LEA) comes to trust you because of the good relationship you have built with him or her, you will get more loads too, but only if you do not price yourself out of the market.
When growing up, most people are taught that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." You quickly learn, from people who are four times your size and have total power over you, that you are a good boy or girl if you are clean and a bad boy or girl if you are not. That value becomes deeply ingrained. When people reach the stage of life where they are the adults towering over toddlers, the same value is not only instinctively taught but also enforced.
That is all well and good. However, financial success does not come to expediters because they are good boys or good girls and they are acting in ways that will please their parents and other authority figures. It comes because they are good business people with good work ethics.
While keeping yourself clean and presenting a professional image won't hurt, doing so is not sufficient to produce financial rewards. For financial rewards, business skills are needed. The good news is, if business skills are lacking, they can be developed.
While I have not been wrong in my expectation, I have been wrong in the time frame. I expected that the recession would force weaker players out of the business, thereby improving the business environment for those who have the strength to survive. While that is exactly what is happening, it is happening at a rate slower than I anticipated.
There are two reasons. One is the supply of available freight has not leveled off. It continues to decline faster than the supply of available trucks. A truck surplus continues, which puts downward pressure on rates.
The other reason is the owner-operators who live hand-to-mouth are clinging to their trucks instead of cutting their losses and moving on. In a weak job market and recessionary business environment, they see no place else to go. They will take money-losing loads to keep desperately-needed cash coming in until other people (repo man) or events (major breakdown, accident, health) force them out of the business.
Even if some of the money-losing expediters cut their losses and get out on their own, those remain who use expediting as the next step up from living on the street. As long as they make enough money to keep them out of the rain when they sleep in a junker truck and can finance their next carton of smokes and trip to the buffet, they are happy. They are achieving everything they want to achieve.
By
my definition, that makes them successful expediters. The same applies to the hobby expediters who use expediting as a paid-vacation to see the country, and the tide-me-over expediters who enter the industry, planning to stay only as long as they must until a "better" job at home is found.
In good times and bad, paid vacationers, tide-me-over expediters and glorified street people are a constant presence in expediting. Bad economic times add a fourth competitive element; namely, the expediters who are in the process of failing and -- desperate for cash -- will run most any load at any price. All of these put downward pressure on professional standards and rates.
Instead of judging these people as wrong or getting caught in the mental and emotional "it's not fair" trap, it may be more profitable to simply accept these people as part of the game. From there, you can set your goals and chart your course.
We must also note, of course, that it is easier to make good money as an expediter when general economic conditions are favorable. We are in the midst of the most severe recession of our lifetimes and no clear bottom has yet been established. That too is part of the environment in which we work. It too should be considered when we set our goals and chart our course.
Like you, Broompilot, Diane and I keep ourselves and our truck clean and present a professional appearance when interacting with the people we serve. But we do not expect to be rewarded with good money because of that alone.
We expect to be rewarded with good money because we have positioned ourselves in the industry as we have, we do the work required to succeed, our goals guide the decisions we make, and we make an ongoing effort to identify and further develop the business skills needed to achieve our goals.
Seventeen months into the recession and further than that into the freight recession that transportation industry leaders talk about, this approach is serving us as well as it did in the
five fantastic years we had after entering the business. The recession has slowed
the rate at which we are achieving our goals but we remain stong in the business and the rewards continue to come.
Our prosperity as expediters did not come because we have clean bodies and a clean truck. It did not come because we can haul freight as safely, promptly and reilably as almost all other expediters do. It did not come because we grew up to be a good boy and good girl. It came because developed and used certain business skills to not only haul freight but to manage our assets and liabilities to build wealth.
One of those skills includes letting go of the things that keep you from moving forward. That may include obvious things like selling some of your toys to get out from under a killer debt burden. It may include improving your cash flow by giving up expensive habits or tastes that you really can live without.
More subbtle and powerful is letting go of opinions that may keep you from seeing YOUR way to financial success.
If you look upon a dirt-bag truck driver and think to yourself that you are better than him or her, are you really? He or she can haul the same freight you can and may be eager to do so at a lower price. In the eyes of many shippers and brokers, the two of you are no different.
Holding a morally-based, better-than opinion stops you from looking beyond. If you instead accept the fact that in terms of freight-hauling basics, you have nothing more to offer the world than the driver you look down on, you become free to judge yourself instead of others. You see the competitive environment more clearly and thereby become better able chart your course.
Consider the world. There is the way you think the world should be and the way it is. The more clearly you see the world as it is, the less encumbered you will be by the "shoulds" you place upon it.
Of course, people should treat people better than they do. Of course everyone should be treated fairly. Of course injustices should be addressed. Of course your children should have the opportunity and freedom to grow up to be good people. Of course, you should have a safe and secure retirement. But none of that has anything to do with financial success in business. It's not about how the world should be. It's about the kind of business person you want to be and what ou are willing to do to achieve it.
Broompilot, you posted something a few months ago that impressed me and I have often thought about since. You wondered out loud about the true value of the things you have accumulated over time. You named some of them. If I remember right, they included a motorcycle, another vehicle of some kind and maybe your house; things like that, material posessions. That kind of thinking is impressive because it shows you letting go of opinions previously held and a willingness to see things and act differently.
In your post above, you spoke of figuring out the new rule and being entrenched in the old ways. There again you are showing a willingness to change your mind and see things differently.
It is not easy to do what you are doing. I once saw a T-shirt for sale at an art fair that put it well. "Everything I have ever let go of has claw marks all over it."
While economic conditions, new technology, customer needs and a host of other factors affect our businesses every day, there are principles of business success that have stood the test of time. Those are often written about and are easily found. But before turning to those, look first into your head and heart.
Ask:
1. Who am I really?
2. What do I really want?
3. Why do I want it?
4. Am I willing to become the kind of person I need to be and do the things that need to be done to achieve it?
Most business people do not take the inner journey that is required to answer these questions. Those that do have an edge. With clarity of purpose achieved and counter-productive opinions purged, they can approach their chosen field of endeavor with energy, dedication and focus that many others do not have.
To sum up:
1. We are part of the supply chain and it is important to hold up our end.
2. We do not get financially rewarded as truck drivers for being clean or being good boys or girls. Dirt-bags can haul the same freight we haul. (Exceptions apply in certain exclusive-use, high-value freight situations.)
3. People who need and want less money out of the business than we do have always been around and always will be.
4. Knowing what you want and why gives you an edge that many others do not have, which enhances your ability to succeed in whatever it is you set out to do.
