It's a Team's Life
Why Expediting?
The first rule of expediting is “It is not about the miles it is about the income per mile”. Very seldom can you ask an expediter how many miles they run a week and get an answer but they almost always know their income per mile.
Expediting should equal the unexpected and that can be mentally challenging. What looks like a horrible week with one phone call can turn into an awesome week. The opposite is also true what can start out as a great week can end on a slow note. It is a roller coaster and if you do not enjoy the ride expediting might not be for you.
The excitement for us is to run for a percentage as this fluctuates with the markets and this can happens fast. Flat rate is the same; day in day out. When leased to a percentage carrier we need to know the income we need to stay profitable instead of a flat rate carrier when we would need to know the miles to stay profitable. For us, it is about making the most income we can with the least amount of miles.
This means we have downtime and during that time we cannot go stir crazy. Since we do not have a TV in the truck what do we do? We have Ipads and can watch a movie if we want which does not happen often, we can clean on the truck, take our dog for a walk, read, or work on hobbies. We stay busy and do not have a problem with sitting.
Expediting in a straight truck means not starting each day wondering where we will park at the end of our day. Often we look for parking when others are starting their day or we can park in areas that are too short for a tractor-trailer. When we were in a big truck this seemed to be daily stress.
Expediting means not waiting for a dock door as most everything shipped expedite is time-sensitive and if needed a big truck will be taken out of a dock so they can unload us. With the liftgate, we can make our own dock and almost always get unloaded very fast. We are usually in and out of a shipper or receiver quickly.
Do we get home weekly? No Do we get home monthly? Some do but others prefer to stay out longer to be able to stay home longer.
One question we get asked a lot is “Can you make any money in that little truck?” Seems like a silly question when we look at their truck and our truck.
Bob & Linda Caffee
TeamCaffee
Saint Louis MO
Expediters since January 2005
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle;
Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;
Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;
Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.