I've had a few days around the house and got to do things I don't get a chance to so much on the road such as looking through the newspaper and flyers that come to the house.. It seems out of all the great sales and discounts that businesses are giving today to try to get a small edge in, I have yet to find one offering a 70% discount for anything.. Especially anyone in the service industry. I've read ads for maybe 10% discount or a senior citizen's discount of 10-15%, but no 70% discounts? Why would you suppose only moving companies are giving 70% discounts and ABOVE?? Even with material products that are sold everyday by conglomorate corporations like Walmart aren't marked down 70%.. At best you may catch a Buy One, Get One at 50% off or if you're lucky Buy One, Get One Free. But even with these deals the first one you purchase is at no discount with the second "free" one at equal or lessor value.
I don't feel out service should be discounted at all, unless occasionally you wanted to give a senior citizen a little.. But these huge discounts of today are ridiculous and need to be stopped!! As a driver or an agent, even the 'Buy One, Get One' would be better than where the discounts are today! With the same conditions - you move with me once, the next time YOU personally move again, I'd do it for free considering it was of equal or lessor value. This sounds absurd but in actuality it's far better than what we are hauling now. The first move would be at FULL price, therefore you'ld be able to profit enough on that move to take the chance that the same customer would have to move the same miles, with the same amount of household items again. At worst it would be two moves at a 50% discount... Hmm, that's a huge increase over a 70% discount isn't it??
A question to the carriers and "salesmen" of today - What are the benefits of giving a 70% discount on a service where you, no my mistake, I am 100% responsible for replacement value? There is NONE! Not to me anyhow. You, yes, me no. You both make a commision off of the service that I provide. This makes no sense. First off let's see what commision means, or what it means to be 'on commision'.. According to Dictionary.com, the idiom of on commision is - paid entirely or partially with commisions from SALES or for WORK one has done. Now, with that, let's look into this a little bit. For the carrier - you hire what you call salesmen to 'sell' your product (which is me by the way, not your logo!) and you do no actual work when it comes to getting the job that got booked done. You do have the authorities and insurances and what not to deserve some of the pie, but not the huge chunks you take. Now to the 'salesmen' that you hire to 'sell' my service. First of all, a salesmen, you would think would SELL the product or service to the public. You need to change their titles to 'Charity givers' or maybe 'Givers of others money' because this is what they do. They do not sell ANYTHING!! A salesman that has one ounce of self respect for his title would not be proud of selling a 70% discount! How can you be rewarded for landing an account that you're willing to give a huge discount like that?!? The problem of today is that when Mary Lou calls the first moving company, that salesmen will give her a 65% discount, mover two 70%, mover three 72%.... Why in the world do the discounts keep getting bigger and bigger? So your 'Charity giver' can get his percentage for just bidding lower than the previous guy? That's not SELLING that is AUCTIONING! Backwards auctioning at that. Why should he get a percentage of ANYTHING?!? He should get a pinkslip for being a moron! The owner of my company, who is also the salsman, booked a 45% discount on 13000 pounds going from NY to Florida. That's SELLING a job on quality service not giving it away just to work. Any high school kid can say 'We can do it cheaper than that!', and he'll be happy with minimum wage. Instead, you think you're going to sell MY service for minimum wage. Well my friend, the time is over for that - whether you realize that or not but if not you soon will because you will be out of business! And your dispatchers who force these huge discounts onto their drivers are disgraceful. They put the SUPER ridiculous discounted shipments in with shipments where there driver might make a few pennies so he still just breaks even.. Why?!? To get it moved? There is a real simple solution to the problem of getting it moved - DONT BOOK IT!! I've recently heard of an 80% discount on a North American driver! And a 78% DP3 on a Mayflower driver. Big shipments with big discounts gets you a little money and your driver none. It's has been getting out of hand for a long time now and it's to the point where drivers needto say enough is enough! It's disgusting that this is how you and your people treat the ones who provide their services..
And finally, the reason that I figure you will be out of business soon is because when I DO see signs for any discounts as ridiculous as 70% or more is when a company hangs a sign on the front of the building that says "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS - EVERYTHING MUST GO" Even those going out of business don't start with a 70% discount, they start around 50% and as the days linger down to the last it finally reaches 70 or 75%.. When there is nothing left to save. Why would our industry be any different?? Look around, open your eyes. Drivers are getting tired of being broke to make you and your charity giving salsmen money... With out drivers - guess what..
YOU ARE OUT OF BUSINESS!
You can take that to the bank...
Drivers it's time!! Let's get together and FORCE changes! STOP HAULING JUNK TONNAGE!!
