Triumph spoke to Chad Boblett, trucking expert and speaker, about creative ways for owners to differentiate their business and approach. In this interview, Chad shares his top tips for staying busy. The interview has been edited for length.
Note: This interview is for education only.
Triumph: How long have you been doing power only loads?
Chad Boblett: I’ve been doing power only from the beginning, but 2015 is when half of my freight became power only. There’s some good money in power only. Another reason I like power only is that it lets me stay within 300 miles of where I live, which means there’s a good chance I can sleep at home in my own bed every night.
Triumph: When is the best time to start picking up power only loads?
CB: Right now is a really good time for power only because we’re in a down cycle. When we’re in a down season, a whole lot of these trucking companies park their trucks and let them sit until freight picks up. Once it picks back up, they hire drivers to put back in those driver seats.
In a down cycle, the mega fleets will have more trailers than they have trucks. Some might be as high as five trailers for every truck. If you’ve got all of these trailers loaded but you don’t have enough drivers to put in those trucks to pull those trailers, where do they go? They go to power only.
Triumph: How do you find power only loads?
CB: I run 100 percent off the spot market. I’m pretty sure at least 99 percent of my freight has come from a load board. A lot of truckers don’t want to touch somebody else’s trailer. They want to stick to their own trailer because they know it and know it’s in good shape.
Whenever you’re one of the few who’ll go and do power only, it doesn’t take long for a lot of brokers to realize, “Hey, call this Chad Boblett guy because he does power only.” There’s not a whole lot of us out here that do power only trucking. Once you start networking and learning what agents and brokers are good at having power only, start focusing on just talking to those people individually. That’s how you go about doing it.
Triumph: How do you find the highest-paying power only loads?
CB: There’s the category of the really low rate power only and then the really good rates, which is the reason why I’ve gotten into it. The loads that I’m looking for are the loads that have to go. If they’re calling you up at 8 o’clock at night and telling you they have a load that has to go, there’s good money in that, which is why I like power only.
There’s huge fines if you sign a contract with Mercedes that you’re going to do their freight and you miss a load. It can be catastrophic if they have to shut down the plant. Think of how much money that would cost Mercedes if they had to shut it down. That’s why the big companies will pay whatever it takes to make it happen.
Triumph: Can you negotiate how much you make?
CB: Now with a big mega fleet, they’re not going to negotiate with you too much when it comes to the price. If you’re available and you have the right insurance, there’s a good chance that you get to name the price. (This depends on the strength of the freight market. It’s hard to negotiate your price upward in a down market.)
When it comes to power only, I charge round trip rates. The reason why I’m doing this is because wherever your load might take me, I don’t have another trailer there. There’s no guarantee I might get another power only there. I might have to bobtail all the way back home to get to where my trailer is.
Triumph: Is there anything to be cautious of?
CB: The biggest warning I can give is about reefer power only. I did a reefer load from a tow yard in London, Kentucky, and had to take it just one or two miles down the road. I got paid all that good money just to go a mile down the road. Now, I was taking a huge, huge risk by doing this, and that’s the reason I charged so much.
The risk is the reefer itself. It could have gone to that tow yard because the motor blew up and cracked a water hose or something. If something happened to that reefer, the light might still be green and showing it’s working. When (a large shipper) goes to pull out that load, the first thing that they’re pulling out of each box is the temperature gauge. They’re matching these temperature gauges to see if they all stayed the same, or if the temperature ever went up or down. If it went up, then they could refuse to load it. That’s the scary part about doing reefer because now your insurance is going to have to pay for it.
The second biggest danger when it comes to power only and what scares me the most is not knowing what shape the trailer is in. I’m very cautious about my equipment being in really good shape. So many of these fleets that run power only run the heck out of their trailers and don’t keep up with repairing them.
I tell the broker from the very beginning that I charge $60/hour for every hour that it takes me to go get the trailer fixed. That means if the trailer doesn’t pass a DOT inspection, I’ll get it to a place where it can. I charge them $60/hour to watch a mechanic fix their trailer. If a broker is fuzzy about that, then there’s usually a reason why.
Triumph: What’s a little known tip you can share?
CB: If you get power only during non-business hours, almost 100 percent of the time you can get a higher rate. Shoot a little bit higher with the rate. The thing that people struggle with is pricing power only loads. People think if they’re repowering a van load they should price it as a van but power only isn’t priced that way.
Power only is such a different animal. Power only is priced on what it does for your company as an inconvenience. A lot of brokers are shocked by this because they’re unfamiliar with power only. Usually, it’s their first time having to deal with power only. ‘
Triumph: Any final things to remember about running power only?
CB: Like any strategy, it’s important to give yourself creative ways to boost your regular income. Running power only is something that has been a good supplement to the other freight I haul.
Truckers running power only open their opportunities to more freight, at potentially worthwhile prices. Each business owner will have to see what mix works best for them and make sure that the numbers make sense for their business and weigh the pros and cons for running power only.
About Chad Boblett
Chad Boblett is based out of Lexington, Kentucky. Chad spent 10 years working as a driver in the U.S. Marine Corps. After the Marine Corps, Chad was a company driver for four years and for the last 13 years has been working as an owner-operator. He is a sought-after speaker and trusted educator on all things freight, running a well-respected Facebook group, Rate Per Mile Masters.