What you get for five percent.

Load Sourcing & Booking

I work the big boards (DAT and the usual suspects), broker portals, and a list of direct shippers and produce houses I've built up over the years — cold-chain outfits in the Salinas Valley, lumber brokers out of Roseburg, hay runs off the Klamath Basin, reloads out of Sparks and Commerce City. Loads get booked against the lanes you actually want to run, the home-time you asked for, and the rate floor we agreed on up front. Nothing booked without confirmation from you, nothing double-booked, nothing stacked with a layover you didn't sign off on.

• Dry van, reefer (frozen and protect-from-freeze), step deck, flatbed with tarps
• 53' and 48' trailers, sleeper or day cab, team or solo
• Drop-and-hook when the lane supports it, live load/unload when it doesn't
• Partial and LTL combo runs for step decks willing to strap multiple customers

Rate Negotiation

Brokers will take whatever number they can get. My job is to make sure that number isn't yours. I push for real money — fuel surcharge, deadhead miles compensated, detention after two hours written into the rate con, layover paid at the Monday rate, TONU if it comes to that, lumper reimbursed on the BOL. I know which brokers quote "all in" and still try to shave the FSC later, and I know which ones will come up sixty cents a mile if you hold the line past ten in the morning.

• Target RPM set per-truck based on your fixed costs, not a blanket number
• Counter-offer in writing — we don't take verbal rate bumps
• Walk-away discipline: the wrong load at the right rate is still the wrong load

Broker Setup & Carrier Packets

First time working with a broker? I handle the carrier packet, W-9, certificate of insurance request, authority PDF, SCAC if they want one, and the occasional voided check. Rate con and signed BOL get forwarded to your factoring the same business day the load delivers, so you don't wait on money that's already yours. If your factor has a no-buy list, I keep a copy and route around it.

Broker Vetting

Not every MC number on the board pays on time — or at all. Before I book, I check the credit score, days-to-pay history, bond status, and the quiet list that gets passed between small dispatchers. If a broker has burned a carrier I know in the last six months, they don't get your truck, full stop. If they're on watch but not blacklisted, I'll tell you and you make the call.

Paperwork Wrangling

Rate cons filed and dated, BOLs tracked from pickup, PODs chased down when a receiver "forgets" to sign, accessorial invoices built for detention and lumpers, invoice/settlement matching weekly. You shouldn't be driving eleven hours and then doing admin on the cab bunk for another two. That's what you're paying me for.

Weekly Settlement Review

Every Monday by noon Mountain, you get a one-page PDF: loads run, total miles, loaded vs. empty, gross, rate per mile loaded and all-in, deadhead percentage, accessorial total, and what's outstanding past 30 days. No spreadsheets to decode, no dashboard login. Numbers you can use to decide whether the truck is earning.