How to broker a dumpster job to another hauler

Brokering a job means you sell it and bill the customer, and another hauler does the work for a price you agree on. Done carelessly, it hands your customer to a competitor and leaves you guessing at your margin. Done well, it lets you say yes to work you would otherwise lose.

When brokering makes sense

Broker a job when saying no would send the customer to someone else:

• The site is too far. Outside your area, the drive eats the haul price.
• You don’t have the can. Every 40-yard is out, or you don’t own that size.
• A truck is down or the day is already full.
• It’s a service you don’t run. A contractor wants portable toilets and fence for the same site, or a can at a job two states away.

It doesn’t make sense when the only available hauler costs so much that you’d sell at a loss, or when you can’t count on them to show up. A missed delivery on a brokered job is still your missed delivery.

Choosing the hauler

Before the first job with a new hauler:

• Get their rate sheet in writing: price by size, tons and days included, per-ton and per-day rates, trip fee, swap price, and which facility they dump at.
• Collect a W-9 and a certificate of insurance. You may owe them a 1099 at year end; ask your accountant.
• Ask about their equipment: the sizes they run, the condition of the cans, and whether their name is painted on them.
• Start with one job and watch it. Did they confirm? Show up in the window? Send the ticket? Bill what they quoted?

Compare their included days and tons with yours before you quote. If they include fewer, the difference comes out of your margin. The pricing guide has a worked example of exactly that.

Keeping the customer yours

The customer called you. Brokering shouldn’t change that.

• You stay the contact. The customer calls you with questions and you call the hauler.
• Share what the job needs, nothing more. The hauler needs the address, the instructions and the date. They don’t need the customer’s phone number or your price.
• Bill under your name. The customer pays you, and you pay the hauler.
• Be straight about it. The truck and the can will probably have the hauler’s name on them. Tell the customer you work with a partner hauler in that area. People mind surprises far more than subcontracting.
• Put it in writing. A simple agreement that the hauler won’t solicit your customers sets the expectation, and you’ll learn quickly who respects it.

What the hauler needs from you

Send everything in one written message, so nothing depends on someone remembering a phone call:

• The service address, with a note if a map pin would land in the wrong place (new construction, rural roads).
• The can size and the service: delivery, swap, pickup or live load.
• The date and time window, and any restrictions such as HOA rules or an early start.
• Placement: exactly where the can goes, which way the doors face, boards under the rails to protect a driveway, overhead wires.
• Access: the gate code or lockbox, and who to ask for on site.
• What’s going in: household junk, construction debris, concrete, roofing. It decides the facility and warns them about weight.
• Your job number, so their invoice can be matched to the job later.

Confirming the job

A job isn’t booked until the hauler confirms it in writing, and the confirmation should repeat the date, size, address and price. If you haven’t heard back the day before, call.

On the day, ask for a status once the can is down, ideally with a placement photo. That photo answers the “they put it on my lawn” call before it comes in.

Getting the scale ticket

On a swap or pickup, the hauler takes the full can to a facility and gets a scale ticket. You need it for two reasons:

• If the customer pays by the ton, the ticket’s net weight is what you bill them.
• If the hauler bills you for tonnage, the ticket is how you check their number.

Ask for a photo of the ticket with every swap and pickup, not at month end with the invoice. And remember that on a brokered job the hauler paid the dump fee and it’s in their bill. Their ticket is evidence, not a second cost. Record it as a dump fee too and you’ll count the same cost twice. The scale tickets guide covers this in more detail.

Checking the hauler’s invoice

Before you pay, check each line against the job:

• Is it the right job, address and date? Was this service already billed on an earlier invoice?
• Does one invoice cover two jobs? Split it so each job carries its own cost.
• Do the tons match the scale ticket?
• Do the rental days match your delivery and pickup dates, counted the way their rate sheet says?
• Is the total what they quoted? If not, what’s the difference: tonnage, extra days, a trip fee, a surcharge?

Then decide who pays the difference. If the customer’s terms cover it, for example their load went over the tons included, bill it to the customer with the ticket attached. If it comes from a gap between the hauler’s terms and yours, it’s yours, and it’s a sign your rate sheet needs fixing.

Margin: a worked example

Job #0412 is a brokered sample job used across the Excern site.

The hauler billed $14 more than quoted. Before you pay it, find out what the $14 is. If it’s tonnage above what the customer’s price includes, it may belong on the customer’s invoice. If nobody can show what it’s for, ask for the ticket or a credit.

Keep track of quoted against actual margin for each hauler. One $14 difference is noise. A hauler who is $14 over on every job is quoting you low.