Sammy Lloyd is the owner of Lloyd Trucking, which is based out of Ringgold, Georgia. He’s been trucking for 20 years and has been an owner-operator for nearly seven years. He also manages the the popular trucking YouTube channel, MakeCents, where he helps other owner-operators succeed in the trucking industry.
In this guest post, he shares how he relies on DAT TruckersEdge Pro as his go-to load board when negotiating rates with brokers.
Follow advice from the pros and start finding loads with DAT TruckersEdge, the most trusted load board in the industry.
When I formed my authority back in 2017 it was a huge learning curve coming from a truck driver of 17 years, to an owner-operator, and then three years later to form my authority. The biggest challenge I ran into was not knowing the lanes. I didn’t know what to charge. I didn’t know how to go to the negotiating table with all these brokers.
Discovering TruckersEdge Pro and the 15-day average
Shortly after I formed authority I started looking at load boards, and I ran across TruckersEdge pro. As soon as I started using it, I realized it gave me the 15-day average for any lane anywhere in the nation.
Something I run into a lot is I call a broker after I see a load on the load board, and they say they’re trying to push this load for $800. And they say, “What do you need on it?” I can check the 15-day average and see that this particular load might be $1200.
The drivers that don’t have this tool take the face value of what the broker says, not knowing that they’re leaving $400 on the table. Whether you’re familiar with the area or not, TruckersEdge Pro gives you the competitive edge when negotiating with the brokers for any load you’re looking at.
That’s why I tell people all the time that it’ll cost them more money not to have these tools.
DAT’s partnership with OTR Capital
Everybody knows that I love the 15-day average. But there’s another tool that I love with DAT, and that’s the little blue check marks that we all see. A lot of people may ask, “What is that?”
It shows you that OTR Capital will factor that load. There’s no need to go to another site and eating up a lot of time checking credit to see if your factoring company will use them. I’m set up with OTR Capital for that main reason.
By looking at this load, I know I can factor that load. So that’s got to be my second favorite tool. When you become a carrier, and you’re an owner operator, the number one reason you’re doing this is to make money. You wanna be profitable. You have to get from point A to point B, drop that load, grab another load and keep going. If you can reduce the time between loads, then you can turn four or five loads versus one or two by the week’s end. And this is going to make you a lot more money.
With DAT, you can always look at the other markets you’re going to. This way, you can always keep your truck rolling from hot market to hot market to hot market. Sometimes you have to be a mechanic before you’re a truck driver. Sometimes you have to be a financial planner before you’re a truck driver. Sometimes you have do a lot of things before you’re a truck driver, but you’re a truck driver at the end of the day.
DAT helps me dispatch my truck. It helps me know the information on all these loads from point A to point B, and keeps my truck moving and rolling in a profitable area. With DAT there’s very little time for my truck to be sitting.
Learn more about TruckersEdge Pro.
