It's a Team's Life
Selecting A Carrier
As an owner/operator selecting a carrier to lease on to is a personal decision. You can not let anyone but yourself make that decision.
Here is a list of tips to help you.
1. Ask a lot of questions of the carrier(s) you are thinking to leasing onto. Build your list of questions before contacting the carriers. You might have to send those questions electronically to the recruiter so they can get the answers for you. We came up with a list of over 30 questions to ask a carrier.
Here are a just a few examples of questions.
a. What are your truck and driver requirements?
i. Age of truck, amount of time driver has to have in equipment to qualify.
b. What is your CSA score?
c. Do you have an ELD requirement? What do you charge per week for ELD? Any installation fees?
d. What do you charge per week for Occ Acc Ins? Can we use outside Insurance for this?
e. Do you provide Truck Insurance? Can we use outside Insurance for this?
2. Getting paid per mile or percentage.
3. While out of the road ask other drivers what they think of the carrier they are running for.
4. Attend trade shows like the Expedite Expo. A lot of the carriers have booths at the Expo and you can talk directly to them and not over the phone/email.
5. Know what the cost per every mile driven it takes to operate your truck.
6. Look at ExpeditersOnline forum section. It has a section “Carrier Forums”. You just might find answers to some of your questions there because someone else had already asked it.
At this years Expedite Expo you could have talked directly with the following carriers: Davnic, Expeditus Transport, FedEx Custom Critical, FedEx Ground, Landstar, Load 1, Panther. Royal Expediting, Summit Express, Tenpoint Expediting Services, Tri-State, Walmart, and Xpo Logistics. This list is not all inclusive of all of the carriers but give you a chance to speak to each of them in person. We find it more productive to speak to carriers in person. That way you get to know those you may have to deal with and have a face with a voice. CLICK HERE to sign up for info regarding Expedite Expo 2023
So, you have to weight what works best for your business plan and will fit for the type of equipment you have (dry box, reefer, liftgate, etc). Once you have compiled all of your information you need from each carrier than you can better make a decision of which will be the best one to lease onto.
As you can see a lot of those carriers listed above can be seen in the below picture from this year's Expedite Expo.
Sandy & Stephen
Pinch Hitting for TeamCaffee