An egregious rate? Nahh...

So, today tested my patience after receiving a request from a Mega Carrier brokerage (J.B. Hunt to be specific) to see if our truck is available after looking at one of their posts on the load board.

Nicole doesn't let me talk to brokers all that much, and for good reason. That is, mostly, because I have no problem giving people a piece of my mind when it comes to what they think I do, and how much I am worth.

We are one of the only industries where an intermediary tells you what you will get paid for doing a job even though I'm the service provider with all the expense ($16,980 per month before the fuel expense to be exact... otherwise it is, estimated $24,760 per month).

Who here goes anywhere and tells them what you will pay (car dealerships and real estate aside) for a product or service (plumber? Walmart? Auto mechanic? Meijer, for my Great lakes region friends?)? I sure can't get away with that anywhere I go.

I love my industry.. it's all I've ever wanted to do, and I'm damn good at what I do. But, when a broker replies back with something other than "no thanks" and gives me what she did today (below) after I gave her my rate... you're gonna get a piece of my mind.

How'd I do? All things considering, I think I kept it together. I never did get a response.

For the record, the first image is their post I found for the Dallas, TX to Knoxville, TN lane, an 891 mile run including 45 miles of deadhead to go pick up. You're seeing that right... $1,300. That's $1.459 per mile. Fuel burn alone is over $800 for that run... Over 60% of the amount they were trying to offer us.

The second image is the calculator I created in Google Sheets so that Nicole can accurately quote a broker and know what our cost needs to be so we're not hauling cheap and we can make somewhat of a profit in this market. We needed about $2,900 for that lane. The rest are the email exchanges between her and me, and their little "market average" program to tell them how much to rip us off based on their skewed historical data. And, yeah, as you can tell I don't care if her contact info is out there. J.B. Hunt netted, NETTED, $187.4 million in Q3 of 2023 because they sell off their cheap freight to desperate carriers, and reap the benefits.

Anyways, Enjoy the read....