AMA about the logistics industry or working at a freight brokerage

I figured I might as well come in and drop an update. I'm still very much doing the same thing. When I last posted we were in what turned out to be the biggest up market since deregulation. It ran from roughly the beginning of Q2 2020 through roughly the end of Q2 2022. During that two years I saw rates paid out to trucking companies that were honestly straight up eye popping. If you owned a semi truck during that time period and you generated less than 5 grand in free cash flow *per week* fleet wide for any reason other than a breakdown you could not source parts for I have absolutely no sympathy.

Since more or less as soon as interest rates started going up the freight market has been in some degree of decline. We're at a point now where we passed the longest (not the deepest this is important) down market since deregulation six months ago. The summer children of the boom are long gone and all that's left are real trucking people and still there isn't enough work to go around. It's a cyclical business and half the reason I made this post was a superstitious hope that posting 'there's no end in sight' on 2p2 summons some wind.

If you're worried about me at this point in the post don't be lol. I've been doing this so long now that some of my established accounts I've been their freight guy for a decade. So while the market being down is boring and turns my job into what feels like 99% fraud prevention most days I'm still doing well enough that younger me would literally kill for how things are now. I would just like to make even more money please 😀

Bored,

Hang on to your established accounts any way you can, even the tiniest ones. On my end of things we closed out consideration of ANY new brokers some time ago, and prior to that would only consider asset-based, and just for a couple difficult areas (Florida). Volume is good for us but it's just too easy to cover everything.

And next hot market--and I mean normal-hot not the insanity of a couple years back--make sure you leave room cover your bread and butter accounts. Many of the ones who did that for us are still with us, while the ones who cut back or otherwise burned us are basically reduced to email spamming me to get a meeting or some volume, which they'll never get.

In general what I'm seeing is pretty full inventory built up in prep for a prolonged port strike that didn't happen, with (our) import volume across several major clients looking on the low side the next 45 days or so. I'm not projecting anything long-term or nationally, but I imagine other large companies did the same. If so, it might get worse before it gets better. Hang in there.

Yeah my main anchor account I've had for ten years and I just went back to being the only person they bother quoting. It's fairly touchy work and at this point I have so much general experience, institutional knowledge, and honestly control over the local carrier base that competing with me is basically impossible.

The reality is that freight brokerage is a bipolar business. Even in warm years I'm generally absolutely slammed. So slammed that adding a new customer is often happening because I'm trying to replace an old one... but then you get multi year periods like 2015-2016, 2019-2020, and 2022-202? where honestly I view being open to dealing with new people as kind of a red flag. You're getting the best service you've ever gotten at the best inflation adjusted cost you've ever gotten and you've had this vendor for years and now, when the market for his business has clearly bottomed out you shop around?

Seems pretty scummy to me. I'm telling my regular trucks what I'll pay them and it's generally 50-100 bucks higher than spot. I'm not trying to see if I can get it cheaper than (I can) and putting them out of business I know I'm going to need them when the shoe is inevitably on the other foot.