“People aren’t going to give up their lifestyle to make ends meet,” Stoll said. Another issue was that some of the owners didn’t want to make lifestyle changes to account for inflation across the board. There was a problem, however, with owners' willingness and/or ability to improve efficiency to reduce fuel costs - not cutting back on speed to increase mileage when prices skyrocketed.
We didn’t have that problem,” particularly, due to some strong relationships with brokers and a couple shippers. Then: “Rates dropped, the amount of freight dropped, and everybody’s struggling to keep their trucks running. “We kept them rolling, kept them really busy, and they were making good money,” Stoll said. He’s since shed every single one of them but for a former owner who now works for Stoll as a company driver.
Back to spot biz basicsĪ two-time semi-finalist in Overdrive's Small Fleet Championship, Suprise Trucking owner Bryon Stoll had 12 owner-operators leased on at the height of the pandemic freight boom in late 2020 and into 2021. Part 2 of this look at spot freight strategies, nonetheless, reveals some dynamics at play with automation and turmoil amid some brokerages that could present difficult long-term headwinds for owner-operators who would bet their business on freight relationships with middlemen. As with all things spot market-related, though it's never quite as touchy-feely as it sounds, maintenance of relationships with brokers and/or direct shippers is now more important than ever. If you're not, seasoned carriers point to the value of close partners in a time like the present.
If you're making it now running spot freight, you're in a strong position to really make hay on the other side. For more reasons to use a freight broker, check out Logan’s post on services that the best freight brokers perform, and why we’re changing the way people think about the word broker.Vise's forecast for spot rates expects very slow growth as the market tightens in truckers' favor through the rest of the year for vans - a similar, though somewhat more positive, outlook was expected for reefer, he said.
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