I’ve been an owner-operator for over eight years, and I’ve learned a few tricks that help me to make more money and keep my truck moving. Here are four proven ways to find loads:
1. Post your truck. Many loads never get posted, so the only way to get access to these loads is by receiving a call from a broker that has selected your company to work with. To get those calls, you need to post your truck. I like to post my truck on the load board in the late afternoon, when everyone else has cleared out of the truckstop.
2. Destination hack. Loads are never posted with the destination blank, and you should not post your truck this way because it is less likely to be seen. There are ten zones for the United States (Z0 to Z9) if you include all of these zones in the destination your posting is now seen as a truck wanting to go to the same location as the load that is posted.
3. Searching ANY — not ONLY — type of trailer. When you are searching for a load, be aware if you select ONLY one trailer type, you will be eliminating trailer loads that have been posted that can go on several different kinds of trailers. For example, if you search ONLY VAN you will not see van loads posted that can also be loaded on reefer trailers.
4. Reverse search. It’s always better to be in a market that has more loads leaving than coming. This is an easy way to see what the market looks like where you are or where you are going to. Leave the origin blank and include the city name that you are searching for in the destination. Run the search and compare the inbound loads vs. outbound loads.
Since 2011, Chad Boblett is the owner and driver of Boblett Brothers Trucking of Lexington, KY. Chad also founded the Rate Per Mile Masters group on Facebook, as a communications hub for over 20,000 members, including owner-operators, truck drivers, and other transportation and logistics pros.
