#133. Load Analysis

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It’s no secret that trucking is really tough right now. That fact has caused me to do a lot of thinking lately about what can I do to help get Haulin Assets in a healthier place. One of the things I decided to do was look at the loads we have been hauling to see if I could find any positive or negative trends that we could improve on. In this episode, Craig and I are going to take a look at what I have found.

What To Expect From Episode 133

Anytime you hear the word analysis you have to get excited because you know there is going to be a spreadsheet involved. First thing I did was went into our accounting system and pulled a report of all the loads we did in April, May and June of this year and exported the data to a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet included:

• Broker's name
• Date the load was delivered/invoiced
• Invoice amount
• Then I added the following items for each load:
  • Loaded miles
  • Deadhead miles
  • Total miles
  • Direction of travel (Outbound, east to west, or other)
  • Direct Shipper or Broker

Once I did that, I singled out all the shippers and the brokers we hauled at least 4 loads for. They are who I wanted to focus on. Then I did some spreadsheet wizardry with some formulas to calculate the following for each company I had singled out to determine:

• Percentage of loads hauled
• Percentage of revenue
• Percentage of miles
• Loaded rate per mile
• Total rate per mile

I lumped all the remaining loads into one category and calculated the same items for that category. I'm going to call that category "Everything Else" and use it as our average. You can download the spreadsheet I used here. I changed all the brokers and shippers names to something generic.

Taking a look at our loads and our relationships at such a detailed level was very insightful. There were a lot of lessons learned that are going to result in some changes we are making. Craig and I talk a lot about what those lessons and some of the changes we are going to make during the episode, so be sure to listen. I think an exercise like this can benefit any business. Some self-reflection is always a good thing.