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Suggestions To Help Small Freight Carriers Manage Freight Quotes

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– Brad Hollister, Freight Access

Although all carriers operate differently, the negotiation of freight rates has many similarities and differences between large commercial freight carriers and smaller indepdent trucking companies. Many small carriers operate under the assumption that a large carrier has more negotiating leverage than a small carrier, and to a degree that’s true if you consider the following:

Typically, large freight carriers have a good number of resources available to make informed decisions. Most significant carriers have a pricing department, long standing shipper and freight broker relationships, market data, capability to turn down freight along with can provide volume pricing discounts. These big freight carriers (over ten trucks) have tremendous advantages when negotiating freight yet only make up 75% of the marketplace . Utilizing the tips below small freight carriers will be able to compete with larger freight carriers during the next request for pricing proposal made by your shippers and supply chain managers.

– Better understand your operation expenditures. There are many operating costs to be considered when establishing your price. Trucker pay, Fuel Costs, Taxes, Insurance Costs, Maintenance allowances, office expenses, default or factoring fees and also significantly much more. In order to obtain a healthy profit, these operation costs are to be kept in mind. Fuel is the great fluctuator, so ensure that you understand in impact that freight diesel has on your company. Know your operating cost per mile (annual expenses divided by annual miles driven) and your fuel costs per mile so that you are to have clear idea of your expenditures.

– Establish relationship with clients. Make sure that you search for accounts which will aid to deliver profitable freight. An account which constantly tries to take advantage of you or pays late is not worth having. It is important that a healthy relationship is built which benefits both parties. If an logistics broker, manufacturer, or supply chain manager is challenging to work with or pays freight bills slowly, do not be afraid to quit conducting business with that shipper. Cutting accounts lose when they are not performing will make sure that you are spending your time working for only profitable customers. This starts by letting shippers know exactly just what you expect from them along with understanding your pricing policies as well as minimum profit expectations.

– Build a rock solid reputation. In everything that you do make sure that you are attaining 100% customer satisfaction. By making positive that you can easily exceed expectations, you can soon develop a solid recognition which should help to grow your business and provide a service that shippers are comfident in. Frequently customers determine to hire smaller carriers because of the freight shippers or third party logistics firms may have customized shipping objectives. As a tiny freight provider you are able to provide customized services which may aid you to win business which is not able to be attained by larger carriers. If a small carrier provides features or services which go beyond typical carrier responsiblities, make sure that the driver and trucking company is being paid for these services.

– Turn down freight shipments which cause you to lose money. It starts with understanding your costs, but make sure that you are able to refuse freight shipments which cause you to lose money. All successful freight carriers know when to pass on freight shipments which would cause them to lose money.

– Identify top lanes and freight lanes which pay more money. Making use of numerous tools inside the marketplace such as the Lane Pricing Tools of Freight Access.com, may make certain that you might be not under-charging clients in specific lanes as well as are protecting your minimum profit margins. Freight Access has utilized tens of thousands of freight bills to develop its market rate base for accurate pricing in almost any lane.

The North American Trucking Marketplace has encountered a number of hardships throughout the last year. The future suggests that more difficulties are a head for freight carriers. It is important to adhere to these types of fundamental enterprise principles of prosperous trucking companies to ensure that your freight operations are effective as well as able to produce an income, instead of lose money.

Brad Hollister is an Seasoned Logistics Executive with Freight Access (Brad Hollister). along with Director of Enterprise Development for Freight Access, Inc. Hollister has a interest for Enterprise Development by way of innovation, process improvement, as well as implementation of the most current technology. Feel totally free to contact him with virtually any inquiries, opportunities, or suggestions or (312) 450-3020.

Freight Access

BP Oil Spill – Crowd Sourcing to Find the Solution – Weeding Through the Suggestions

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Interestingly enough, there is something BP can do with all these suggestions, and it would be good to get out ahead of the negativity in the media and their trashing of BP’s Brand Name. Let’s face it there are nearly 50,000 wells in the Gulf of Mexico and it supplies almost 30% of our US oil – we can’t just turn it off.

Here is my suggestion to the challenge British Petroleum has when it comes to what to do with 1,000s and 1,000s of suggestion tips which have been coming in non-stop to its tip hotline. What BP needs to do is to borrow some help from the online community and use “Crowd Sourcing” techniques, those like DARPA recently used when it “Challenged” everyone to find the “Red Balloons” 10-of them which were scattered around the country. MIT found all ten, in an extremely short time.

This strategy makes sense for DARPA as it could someday be used for military purposes, such as it could be used to look at satellite photos of Iran to find anomalies, nuclear facilities. It also has potential space applications with NASA – finding locations on Mars that might have ice or water, potential landing sites, maybe even surveying galaxies to find similar exo-planets to Earth, which might contain life, etc.

What I am saying is that British Petroleum should post ALL of the suggestions online, put it out there, as it shows transparency and it is a good PR move too. Something Congress is afraid to do with the bills it passes. This will allow independent teams to work through those lists of suggestions and citizens to “rate” the ideas. Then teams can whittle all the ideas down, find duplicates, and see if the “wisdom of the crowd” prevails and finds consensus on various types of solutions.

Let’s help BP find the best ideas and when this is completed give out prizes to the winners.

The ideas that win, go ahead and give 5-scholarships to MIT, or a top engineering school. Perhaps, give $ 100,000 seed money for any innovative project that the team with the best idea, might like to do. Why not turn an unfortunate situation into a positive one. Rather than playing all the doom and gloom in the media with screaming environmentalists, or any mean-spirited person the media can drum up for a sound bite, we can make some progress on potential future solutions in case the present solutions don’t work out.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes oil is very important in America. http://www.oilchangeguys.com.