The business of LTL
Every shipment has a price.
Understanding its economics
changes everything.
Practical guidance for LTL carriers on pricing, profitability, and the decisions that connect the two. Grounded in Todd Polen’s decades of experience inside the industry.
Start a conversationPrice with discipline. Understand the freight. Build for the long term.
01 / Areas of expertise
Look beyond the discount. Bring structure to rate decisions, customer negotiations, and the balance between winning freight and earning a sustainable return.
Rate structures · Yield · Negotiation
Understand what the freight asks of your network. Connect shipment characteristics, density, handling, and service requirements to the price you put on the business.
Cost to serve · Density · Network fit
Get the details right at the start. Examine the information behind the quote, reduce avoidable billing surprises, and make complex pricing easier to understand.
Quote accuracy · Tariffs · Transparency
02 / Meet Todd Polen
Deep experience.
Plainspoken perspective.
LTL pricing is its own discipline. Todd Polen has spent his career working through its complexities.
His background includes pricing leadership at Old Dominion Freight Line, where he has been publicly identified as Vice President of Pricing Services. Old Dominion’s Cargo Shorts biography credits him with more than 35 years in LTL and executive service at the company since 2008.
His published work explores a consistent set of questions: How can a quote more closely reflect the freight? What makes a customer relationship work over time? And how can better information make pricing simpler for everyone involved?
Ellie Mae Consulting brings that carrier-side perspective to conversations about pricing strategy, freight economics, and commercial decision-making.
Connect with Todd on LinkedIn1. Background: Old Dominion’s Cargo Shorts, episode 3. Experience figures are those reported in the published biography.
03 / Selected perspectives
Todd’s published insights on the business of LTL.
Why the conversation before the quote matters as much as the number on it.
Read at Old DominionHow trust, consistency, and a shared outlook shape pricing conversations.
Read at Old DominionThe role of classification knowledge and carrier collaboration in more predictable shipping.
Read at Old DominionLet’s get down to business
A fresh perspective starts with a conversation. Get in touch with Todd to discuss what’s on your desk.
Todd@elliemaeconsulting.com LTL pricing. Practical perspective. Ellie Mae Consulting.