Issue #19: What Drives a Driver

In seventeen years in brokerage, half of my time was spent focused on cross-border freight. The other half was mostly carrier sales-related work. Let's talk about what I learned during that time.

The first time I started developing my own book of carriers, I was in Coyote’s San Diego office and my job, at the time, was covering automotive battery freight. I had developed three distinct groups of carriers. This time in San Diego, plus the next year I spent in Chicago focused on private fleets, formed how I approach carriers and how I think about the different types of carriers. Not all carriers are the same, and not even most owner-operators operate the same.

What I’ve found is that there’s usually one guiding point that drives most carriers, which is a combination of revenue and getting drivers home, with the exception of the first group I mentioned below, who generally focuses entirely on revenue. Drivers have families with children who play sports and they want to be home to see their kid play every weekend. Others have families living overseas and they came to the United States to create more wealth for their families.

Outbound Carriers

Manchester, IA was a major shipping point for one of our customers and, 49 miles away from there, was Waterloo, IA, home to a whole collection of Bosnian carriers who would run anywhere as long as it had enough miles and enough money. They had a revenue target they were trying to hit for each week, regardless of the miles. Interestingly, some weeks generated $6k, some $8k, but they would target $6k per truck on average (this was in 2010-2013). If it was getting towards the end of the week and they were in a bad market where rates were low but they were falling short of their target for the week, they would stand their ground and ask for absurdly high rates rather than trying to move their truck to a better location.

I had similar outbound carriers in Tennessee, Indiana, and Kansas, mirroring our customer’s footprint. I had essentially built up a dedicated fleet around their freight and knew more about moving batteries and their hazmat exemption than I could ever forget. These loads took my carriers all over the country as they were manufacturing different products at each plant. The longer the miles, the better for most of these carriers. They knew they could charge more to the northeast or into Florida, and that they could get an arm and a leg around holidays. It was 50/50 if I was going to make money with those outbound carriers but, having guaranteed capacity nearby allowed me to nail service for our customer.

Owner-Operators

I had owner-operators throughout the country, whether they had a single truck and truly dispatched for themselves or if they had a handful of trucks that they managed. They would typical run around regional markets, bouncing between cities in the southwest like Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. Other drivers drove around the midwest. They ran truckloads of new batteries from Iowa to Ohio, unloading a new load of batteries and picking up a junk load that was headed to a smelter in Indiana, where they would again unload and then reload with recently-smelted-batteries that had been turned into lead. They would move that lead from Indiana to Iowa again, where the battery manufacturer would turn the lead into new batteries, thus starting the cycle over again.

These owner-operators had a cost per mile to operate their truck and needed to average more than that on a weekly basis, or at least on a set of loads that took them from home and back home again. Some wanted to be home to see their kid play baseball on the weekends while others drove around the country simply to see the country. They saw it as a way to explore the United States and make a living while doing so. Some loved the consistency of running the same lanes every week, developing a personal relationship with the people on the shipping and receiving docks.

Regional Fleets

The third set of carriers I developed were regional fleets. I had carriers who had their own direct customers who would send them on freight from the Los Angeles area to the Pacific Northwest, where they would deliver goods in the Seattle and Portland areas. Those carriers needed backhauls, loads that would get them back home again, in order to reload their customer freight. The easiest freight to haul back to Southern California was batteries going into yet another smelter.

These regional carriers had the most competitive rates. Because they had their own direct customer freight taking them outbound, they just needed those trucks home as soon as possible and they would take a load from IA to KS for cheaper than most other carriers. Those became my primary carriers that I developed on each dedicated lane and I made a decent commission booking those carriers.

What drives a driver?

At first glance, it seems like money is what motivates drivers. Let’s be real – most people work to generate an income to support their own lives and/or their family. Drivers are no different. However, one thing I’ve picked up on in my career is that there are different motivators for different drivers.

What else do drivers think about? Like I said, some want to just see the country. WIth all the load boards in the industry today, drivers in the U.S. can login and pick a load going basically anywhere. They can see every corner of the continental U.S. if they really want. They also care deeply about delivering a great service. If you’ve ever talked to a driver, most are friendly and care a ton about their reputation. They want to make every pickup and delivery on time, and the last thing they want is to be stuck with a load shift where they have to restack product and re-palletize it.

Drivers also want to work with customers or partners that they actually enjoy working with. I used to keep owner-operators running in loops for weeks on end; they literally only worked with me. They didn’t take freight from other brokers, they would just keep booking with me until I couldn’t keep them loaded and had to tell them to call someone else to keep them moving. With some drivers, I would end up on calls for thirty minutes at a time, just shooting the shit with them.

Carrier sales was one of my favorite jobs from working at a brokerage. I had a knack for understanding a carrier’s network, whether it was owner-operators, regional fleets, or even my year spent in Private Fleet (loading our customer’s own trucks on freight), carriers have a footprint and you just have to understand how that footprint overlaps with your own footprint. Here’s what I think carriers care about the most:

• Making money and covering their monthly costs (truck note, fuel, insurance, maintenance costs) and having enough money to generate an income and support their family

• Minimizing empty miles (when you drive empty, you typically get paid less or don’t get paid unless it’s a hot market)

• Not wasting time sitting (whether it’s waiting for an appointment or if they’re being paid detention, they would rather be driving)

• Having a great reputation with their customers (shamelessly plugging CarrierSource again given how easy it is for carriers to manage their reputation this way)

• Trusting their customers to pay on time, or at all (most carriers rely primarily on brokers to keep their trucks loaded and fraud is rampant these days, so this is a hot topic for most carriers)

One call-out that I touched on a couple weeks ago is that carriers typically don’t spend much on marketing, especially smaller carriers. It’s all about those key areas of focus and they don’t have time to worry about their public brand. It’s unfortunate that carriers need to spend so much time worrying about finding the right loads for the right rates and making sure they’ll actually get paid. Tools exist to solve a lot of these issues for carriers but there’s opportunity for better products. Carriers have a specific need and it’s great to see some startups focusing on solving those problems, but the market still seems to be dominated by a few big players.

Some Additional Thoughts

• Q1 seemed calm but I started to hear from some large players that the last week of Q1 felt tighter than normal and that could lead to a stronger Q2.

• My brother’s last two episodes of The Freight Pod, featuring Kary Jablonski (TruckerTools) and Kendra Tucker (Truckstop), were outstanding. Both of these CEOs focus a lot more on all things marketing. Not saying this because he’s my brother, I would highly recommend listening to his podcast. It’s a deep dive on the history of the industry and great conversations with leaders across the industry.

• Holy shit, this week is the week! I talked about our upcoming launch last week but our first few pilot customers get up and running this week and it’s getting real. This first product is built for brokers, specifically anyone who moves cross-border freight, so if you’re interested in a demo, join the waitlist or reach out!