Freight 360

This is How "Real" Freight Brokers Do Business | Episode 261

September 13, 2024 • Freight 360

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Ready to revolutionize your freight brokerage business? In episode 261 of Freight 360, we cover how to boost efficiency, build trust, and leverage tools to maximize profits. Learn key strategies for quoting loads and discover the psychology behind urgency in decision-making. This is all about how the real brokers get the job done compared to the novices that struggle to succeed.

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Speaker 1:

All right, today we're going to talk about what real freight brokers do, so stay tuned. And this is episode 261 of the Freight 360 podcast. Man, every time we say the episode number, it blows my mind, ben, how far we've come with this, but it really does, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back everybody.

Speaker 1:

If you're brand new, we've got a whole back catalog on our website, freight360.net. You can check out all the other content, including the Freight Broker Basics course. If you're looking for a full-length educational option, continue to share us with your friends. Do the old like, subscribe, comment etc. Ask us questions. We'll answer them on our final mile Q&A session, which releases on Tuesdays.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, we're going to start off here with a quick little sports recap. We've got our intern, steven. He's going to participate in the sports section today because the NFL season kicked off last week and for all you haters that hate the sports section fast forward, that's fine. But for those of you who enjoy it, we're going to give you a quick little rundown. So a lot of good games. I mean it opened up the reigning champs, the Chiefs, who are looking for a three-peat. They had a really good close game Thursday night to open it. Last week against the Ravens Squeaked out a win by seven points. Packers-eagles Friday. That was an entertaining one to watch. Eagles took the win. Then you had some good matchups by Buffalo Bills, who were down 17-3 at one point, scored 21 unanswered points, josh Allen doing his thing, jumping over guys, risking breaking his hand in the process, but they got a nice win over the Cardinals. Kyler Murray was looking good. Ben your Steelers eight-point win over the Falcons A lot of field goals.

Speaker 1:

What's that? A lot of field goals, yeah, a lot of field goals. Good for fantasy if you have the kicker, steven. The one that surprised me Was the Patriots-Bengals game. So New England is Notably the bottom of the barrel For the AFC East, and I apologize to New England is like notably like the bottom of the barrel for the AFC East and I apologize to any New England fans. You guys had like 20 years of Tom Brady, so don't apologize.

Speaker 3:

I mean, there's no need to apologize. Yeah, they have a new head coach, rookie head coach. Yep, a terrible should be terrible team. Yep, a terrible should be terrible team. But they got lucky and they drew Bengals week one of the season, which, notoriously, we are terrible in the first couple weeks, which the running joke I've said is would I rather have a quarterback that loses in the first round of playoffs every year or lose the first three weeks of the regular season? I mean, I'll take the regular season losses, but I'd rather figure it out. Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if that was a hint at Josh Allen, but he usually makes it to at least a divisional round. If that's true, no, our previous quarterback Andy Dalton.

Speaker 3:

Oh Dalton, yes, it was like four or five years in a row. We got to the first round of playoffs and we lost.

Speaker 1:

You know what? I think we're onto something here. Cincinnati quarterbacks have a thing about their hair. Like Dalton was like, remember, with his red hair and the way he just started to like it was almost like he puts a football helmet on and it doesn't matter, His hair just looks amazing. And now we've got Joe Burrow, who looks like Slim Shady in the late 90s, early 2000s. I don't know. I don't know what to think, but yeah, that was an interesting upset. By the time this episode drops, the Thursday night game will have been played. It's actually the Bills and Dolphins that will be a really good one to watch. Either team win-loss isn't going to really make or break their season. They both won in week one and it's always a good matchup. They played twice throughout the year as divisional opponents, obviously. But Stephen, you got any thoughts on the Dallas-Cleveland game? That was a little good one too.

Speaker 3:

I think Big Cat from Barstool summed it up the best that dashawn is actively trying to make himself to look to be a better human than he is a quarterback. It's an interesting way to put it. Yeah, uh, and the other guy on his show had mentioned that he may have the worst contract in history not just sports, but in history. It may be a worse contract than the builders that were tasked to build the Titanic. So it's some good takes, although there were some rumors dropping that Deshaun Watson might be at risk of voiding his contract for another lawsuit coming up, but we'll see how that pans out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't know. The other one too, the Monday night game, jets. So everyone was curious like how's Aaron Rodgers going to do? And I don't know. I mean, you got to give a lot of respect to a guy like Rodgers. He's had a great career. But if it wasn't for like all the third downs that they were able to convert like third and longs they were able to convert like third and longs they were able to convert to stay in that game they would have just gotten steamrolled by the 49ers. But 49ers ran away with that game eventually, so 32-19. Anyway, that's our sports recap. We kept it brief. We didn't go on for 10 minutes. We're trying to, you know, listen to what you guys want and like and want to hear and we'll keep the sports part condensed. Let's move Forest Park condensed. Let's move. Ben. You got anything else on sports? I do not. Oh, did you hear? I heard, and I don't have any notes in front of me on it.

Speaker 2:

I heard this yesterday that Tiger Woods and other PGA executives are supposed to have a meeting with like well, like the crowds or the viewership or however they determine it.

Speaker 2:

For, like the recent like large live matches have just kind of fallen off a cliff and I don't know, at the very least in full swing and some of the other stuff I've read was there's very likely going to be a merger at the end of the day At least that seems like the sentiment and they're going to somehow bring it back together, however that looks.

Speaker 2:

But clearly a lot of the players that didn't get the big money at the beginning are saying, like Rory specifically said this, even in full swing. He's like I want money or stock or some type of compensation for backing the PGA and at the end of the day you're going to bring everything together and I'm the one that's left basically empty handed because of the situation. And I heard Dustin Johnson's take on it and it was pretty fair. He goes yeah, but guess what? The risk wasn't the same and I took a risk when no one knew it was going to happen and I got a big payday and I was the one that risked all of my career to get that. So if you waited to see how it, played out.

Speaker 1:

What's that? Was he one of the first ones to go over?

Speaker 2:

He was earlier and I know he got one of the larger deals at least I think of everyone that did.

Speaker 3:

I mean again like he's, like this is what was best for my family.

Speaker 2:

And you know like I still want to be competitive in golf and like that's what I'm going to look out for.

Speaker 1:

I mean sports like money talks, exactly. I mean it's like money talks, clearly. Yeah, all right, we'll move on to some new stuff here. Steven, thanks for throwing some news clips in here. If you guys aren't subscribed to the newsletter, please do so. It goes out every Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday is typically a recap of our latest content, as well as a bunch of news articles or recaps on those from various sources, and then Thursday we spice it up with a little training video as well as some market updates from DAT and some other news that had popped up since the Tuesday one.

Speaker 1:

So make sure to subscribe at our website it's right on the homepage, I believe but I'll just read through a couple of headlines here. First one from Freightwaves AI fleet 204 truck operation that utilizes AI to manage their operations has raised 16 million from investors like Volvo Group and the Series B round and has raised $50 million since 2021. I mean, clearly, like we've talked with Tilo from Levity and we've seen a lot of other tools that are coming out, ai it's kind of like when the internet came out and we changed how we do business. Like ai is like the next evolution of that. So, um, got iphone 16 coming out.

Speaker 1:

Right, they just released how they're using I haven't got a chance to see it yeah, yep, um, rxo working on finalizing its acquisition of Coyote Deal, expected to close September 20th. What is that 500? Yeah, $500 million acquisition. Let's see Kevin Hill's LinkedIn post showing the decline in brokerages next to the decline of carriers from Tanner DeHart Did I read that right From this week? Or DeHart, sorry, sorry, so I From this week? Or DeHart, sorry, so I see a lot of green and then a lot of red on that graph. If you guys don't follow Kevin Hill, please do Brush Pass. Research is his company and some of the best, like I guess you'd call them, like analytics around the industry, like a lot of the metrics that he tracks, is pretty fascinating, so very cool talk with him yesterday about some of this stuff.

Speaker 2:

Um, the thing I wanted to point out too, like rxo acquiring coyote, the thing this article doesn't say which really stuck out to me was ups bought this for 1.8 billion oh yeah, huge, long 15 and they're selling it for like a 70 loss or whatever, like looks like they lost like two of the value. But I remembered and again like from my memory, was it like UPS, you know, had this plan they were going to bring in, you know, traditional brokers, like what we talk about on the show all the time, and they had these grand plans that they're just going to go and integrate their technology and they're going to get all this efficiency and they're going to be able to make more with less people. And I think, like, like, to me it's always just a great reminder of people that aren't in our business day to day, don't have a real understanding, I think, for how it operates and just assume that, like, they can just integrate technology to just make it all efficient and streamline things. And it was an epic failure because I think they thought like, oh, it's shipping, like, we'll just be able to integrate it with all the other things we do for efficiency and it'll just work better. But like that's not how any of this works. Like we access the market. The market determines the risk. It is not predictable because it follows the economy. It follows the things that we don't know are going to happen next week, tomorrow and into the future. So just because you have technology in a closed system like UPS, where you know where your packages are coming from, going to, the biggest risk in those businesses are, like how many people are going to ship small parcels, right, and the rest of those things.

Speaker 2:

In our industry, like things change drastically quickly and wildly all the time. So like, yeah, you can get efficient, but at the end of the day, like I just don't think our industry has the ability to have that happen to it in the same way that others, which is why ours kind of seems still traditional in some ways. Like we talk about you know new technology and, for sure, ai, different tools like levity that are absolutely being leveraged to be able to do more with less. But at the end of the day, like things just change really quickly. Trucks are in different places, they break down, lots of things happen. It is a very unpredictable and wildly swinging market, no matter what you apply to it. And to me, like you're not really mitigating that risk by adding all of these other types of procedures that work in other areas of shipping, like LTL, for instance, or small parcel or final mile, for that matter.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good point. And just to add to our previous news mentions thanks for the notes here, steven 400 carriers per week on average was in their authority. 188 brokerages lost their authority and it's the 19th consecutive month Carrier growth has been negative since November 22,. Outside a few exceptions, this is what we expected. This is what the market honestly needs. This is natural market correction, without outside regulation or influence. So good stuff, all right. This is a great today's topic we're going to talk about like hey, this is what real freight brokers do versus the. You know some random.

Speaker 1:

People think we do I mean we go back to, you know, mentioning November 22, right, when things changed. You know we had that whiplash effect from the COVID. You know everything, covid, I'll just loop it all into that. It was government money going to people, consumer spending, it was low interest rates, all of that. And then the market flipped around and we've been feeling that A lot of people got into the industry early on and you could literally that whole imposter syndrome. You could get away with that. You didn't have to be good. There was just such a demand for people to do our job that they got away with it without being actually, you know, high quality, uh, you know high, uh, effort, really high household high knowledge, right?

Speaker 1:

efficiency and things like that yep um, exactly what I thought about is I saw him like reddit. I think it was yesterday. Some kid just started at tql and he's like hey, I'm in my first week of trading at tql and everyone's saying that the market is, uh, is soft, like you know. What do you guys think? And I think to myself, I'm like man, like someone getting into it right now has no clue what they're like, what they're up against it is like you have to be.

Speaker 1:

You can't just be a mediocre uh, logistician or freight broker and and succeed right now. You've got to. You've got to go, like, to the next level. You've got to. You've got to be above that like 50th percentile, um to have a chance at success. I think there's a lot of failure right now. And it's not to say that you can't do well in brokerage right now, because you can, but you have to do things on a higher level than any old person coming in that lacks the knowledge or education, lacks having that expert in their corner, whether it's a coach or just a mentor or anything like that. So we'll talk through a lot of that. I will try to make it a point today, ben, to let you talk more. I saw a YouTube comment. Someone said no offense, nate, give Ben more time to educate us, or something like that. So my apologies, I missed that one. I'm going on rants, but it was your idea to kind of go down this avenue today on the episode. What made you decide? Hey, this is what I want to talk about today.

Speaker 2:

Well, one. I've just been talking about this more in day-to-day, so more with clients, more with my own team. Right, I've had to bring on some new people, train some newer people, like a few newer clients that are really just getting into it but are really, I believe, have like the absolute ability to do this right, like the hustle, the energy they're putting up the phone calls, they're putting up the numbers, like the table stakes, things, right. So when you've got somebody and you're working with somebody that is doing the things that are necessary, right, we talk about this all the time Like if you're going to make 10 calls a day, you're not going to win. Like that's just too competitive If you're putting up 80 to 110 calls a day and you're still not seeing some success after like a month or so. Like you've got the practice, you're starting to hear the objections, you're getting some things to quote, you're sending some rates, but you're just not really getting loads right. So that's the scenario I want to kind of set. So for the folks out there that have been making calls for a month or two and put up some significant numbers, right, like you should have made at least a thousand calls within your first month. Hopefully you're closer to 1600 or 2000. But if you're within that range, you're probably running into some of these things like, okay, I'm sending rates, but then they don't send me the load, or they give me the load and I'm not able to cover it and the rate seems to be completely different than where I'm at Like.

Speaker 2:

And the question I kept getting and it was from audience members, from clients and people on my team is like well, hey, ben, can you review the quote I'm sending again and this is specifically from someone on my team, and it's a good question, right, because that's where your brain goes hey, they're asking me for a number. I'm giving them a number it seems like the right number, but then they don't use me. So what do I do? Do I send an email and go like, well, hey, how was my rate? Like, do I just quote again lower? Like, what do I do with a number?

Speaker 2:

And then there's all this focus on the rates and it kind of like hit me all at once, because I just was getting asked this over and over and I went wait a minute, guys. Like it's not about the rate, like you're not playing the game the way others are playing it Right. And I always kind of say like, hey, if you're looking at a large brokerage and there's 5,000 people, that top 5% are all doing this, they're doing this all day, right. Like this is freight brokering like the day-to-day job getting in the weeds and fighting for loads, fighting to get that extra load, get that extra whatever 50 bucks, a hundred dollars, getting the shipper to be able to play the game with you, right. And then the last thing I want to add is like there really are rules to this game and there really are patterns, right.

Speaker 2:

And that's where it kind of hit me was one client said he brought someone into his team that was like a dispatcher and they just started doing these things. And this is a guy that you and I had known for a long time Tanner, right, he's been in the industry 10, 15 years. And he says to me like holy shit, ben. I was like I got another freight broker here, right. And when he kind of said it it was like a light bulb moment and it was like all coming together, because the same day I was just talking to somebody about the same thing and I'm like you're not really brokering freight, because a manager I had at TQL told me this machine Shippers are sending out lanes and you're excited because you work really hard to get there and you feel like that's a win. But that's really just the starting line, right, like once you're there, you got to now play the game, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I want to. I want to piggyback on what you just said there. Something stuck out and I wanted to lead off with it, but I want to give you a chance to go through that, and you mentioned like the top 5% of people are doing this. If you work at a large company, right, look at the top producers, look at the things that they are doing. Look at the people who have been in business for a long time and have succeeded through every market cycle. Look at the things that they're doing.

Speaker 1:

And so I've been in freight since I think it's been like 14 years now, but there's always someone who's got more experience, right? So my boss is the owner of our company. He's been in the business 43 years, I think now, and I look at what has. How does he operate, how does he treat customers? How does he approach conversations? How does he? It's not even like what you say, it's how you say it, how you ask a question, because those types of things they're proven and, you know, tried and true for decades. So I definitely you know. So, if you're at a larger company, look at your top producers spend time with them for a couple of hours.

Speaker 2:

If you can just sit next to them and just listen, Just watch right, you will pick up so many things just being around them that you will start to notice.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so let's talk through. I mean, I want to go back to your quote example. There Customer sends a quote because this is a common thing for someone that's new. They just think, oh, customer, you know, oh, I have a new customer, but they're not. You know, they're not actually moving freight, they're not making money.

Speaker 2:

but they have a customer.

Speaker 1:

they say, Right, yeah. So yeah, you're a quote machine and you email a quote back and then you think, well, what happened? I didn't get a load. Well, I've always. This is like a, a, I guess, a practice that I have have used in many different industries, but I'm always like man. You can get so much more done by picking up the phone than waiting for someone to email you back or to text you back or whatever that you know that digital communication is Correct.

Speaker 1:

Talk me through. You know someone who's newer and they're trying to figure out. Why am I not getting anywhere? Why am I just a quote machine and not getting?

Speaker 2:

to that next level. So I'm going to set a little bit of the context too, right. So the first thing is think about when you're trying to prospect, because everyone always asks this question of, like what do I say when there's a follow-up? Like what do I call them about? Like, what do I ask? Like I kind of already know what they're doing and I'm just calling and saying, just checking in, how's your freight this week? And like they hate that call you. Hate that, everyone hates that call. Right? So the first thing to keep in mind is you are absolutely looking for opportunities to speak to this person, because the more times you speak to them, the more they get to know you, the more they'll trust you, the more they're going to share information. Right Is the first thing. So, knowing you need to do that, right, you want to get on the phone when there's an opportunity, right?

Speaker 2:

The second thing I want to set is think about this, right? Like we always talk about quoting as in, like the standards, where's it coming from? Where's it going? What are you moving? Special requirements, what's the average rate? Okay, but the thing that is the biggest variable that we always say is time, right, if I've got three days to cover this load, it is very likely I can pay close to the average because I can talk to a lot of carriers and find the right one that needs that lane on that day at that time that aligns with their schedule, that aligns with my customer. You've got a better chance. There's just more people to talk to over three days.

Speaker 2:

If you get that same load and it's got to pick up in three hours. If that is in a rural area of the country, there literally might be 10 trucks there that day. And guess what, if none of those 10 trucks want to go where your load's going, you have to literally pay them to make them go, which means you're not paying anywhere close to that average, right? So time is the biggest variable. I think that changes what you're going to pay based on what you quote right Now. Here's the thing that's interesting Every time these shippers send these emails over for quotes at this stage, right?

Speaker 2:

Guess what is always missing the time. When is it going to go? Right. And then you quote this and everyone just assumes I'll get a couple of days or a week to move it. And then they get the loaded Friday afternoon at two in the afternoon and go this has to go and they've quoted at two grand and they go right to the load board, or they should, which is your first tip. Go look at the board before you accept the load and see what other people are posting, because my guess is you'll probably see that same load posted by four other brokers and it's going to be posted for like $500 to $1,000 more than you quoted it on Tuesday, or Wednesday.

Speaker 1:

Let me add something in there, right, because I want to like I think facts are your friends in this situation, right, so you identified, like the time, and then secondary fact as like what is my competition doing? Take it a step further, and I did this. I was doing this yesterday with somebody as, like, if you want to get a sense of what the market's doing, like if you have DAT, for example, right, the market conditions map, or whether you have whatever it is, if you have sonar, if you have that, whatever tool you're using, look at the market outbound, from where you're trying to get a truck to pick something up. Is it tight? Yeah. Is it loose? Is it neutral? Because that's going to tell you a whole lot. If it's very, very tight, yeah, you might have to send somebody deadhead in there. What?

Speaker 2:

does that mean?

Speaker 1:

right.

Speaker 2:

And define that for them it's the load to truck ratio.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so tight market, meaning there's less trucks in that region than the amount of freight that's trying to get out of that region. So you're going to suck up the capacity really fast and then you're going to have to pay people more money to drive. The lane I looked at yesterday was Buffalo to Albany, so it's within New York State but it's a single-day delivery. But it was like, yeah, buffalo's neutral, albany's very, very loose, yeah, buffalo's neutral, albany's very, very loose. So if I'm going to send somebody from a neutral market to a loose market where they're going to struggle to find freight out of there, it was like literally three times as much money to send them from Buffalo to Albany as the backhaul sending them from somewhere loose to where it's neutral or tight for them.

Speaker 2:

And here's what you'll hear. You'll hear when you go to cover that load. The carriers will tell you that man, I can't run that for 1500. There's no freight in Albany. I need two grand because I know I got a deadhead out of Albany to the next market to get a load. And that's literally what we're talking about. There's not enough freight for the guys going to Albany. They can see that they don't want to go there because they're looking at the load board. They know they got to drive from Albany to the next closest city empty to get a load to actually start making money again, Right, so you pay for that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, and so there's like a baseline level of knowledge. I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, but you've got to have a baseline level of knowledge before you engage in some of these conversations with customers Like I. I talked to a guy yesterday and this was more like a partial LTL shipment. I talked to a guy yesterday and this was more like a partial LTL shipment. But I'm talking, talking through it, and he's like, yeah, he's like, um, you know, I I'm pretty sure I can get this customer, I'm going to be able to save them money and get them better rates. And I'm like why do you think? So he's like well, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna work harder and try to find. You know, uh, I'm gonna.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, all right, I'm like, let's look at your, your specific shipment here. I'm like so I go through, like the weight, the size and all this, and we're figuring out. You know, you can do it partial. You could do it as a as, like an expert, you could do it as LTL. And I'm talking through, I'm like well, what's the size of it? And he's like well, I'm not sure. And I'm like, okay, I don't really know. And I'm like what's the freight class if we're going to go LTL, he's like, I'll be honest, I have no idea and I'm like OK, so you're already, you've committed. He's already told this customer like I can get you a cheaper rate.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like you don't even know how you're going to get this rated in the first place, let alone the bigger picture, macro level, of the market, of where it's picking up and where it's going to. But these are things that you need to have some baseline knowledge of. You know, like I said, facts of your friends. You need to know what these facts are before you can make any assumptions and move on to the next step. I don't want to go on a tangent there, but that's just another example as to. These are the kinds of folks that used to be able to operate three years ago in our market and make money because literally there wasn't enough of us around there and there wasn't enough trucks out there. So we can get a truck or taking care of a customer or making money. It's not the same way anymore.

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to go back to the scenario. Right, so you're getting a quote. The customer sent it to you like hey, can you rate this Right? The thing you almost I almost never see is when is this supposed to pick up? I have freight forwarders that will ask me this still, that I've been working with for years and it's not moving for 45 days because it's not even in the United States Very different scenario than if you're quoting something a week from now or a day from now.

Speaker 2:

So they just exclude this. Now there's a reason why they exclude it because they are playing this game against their other brokers, right? So they're trying to convince you that it's a standard situation by not putting it in there to get you to give them a low rate, because you think that's going to get you in the door. And then what they're going to do is only go to you for help if no one else can help them. And why can no one else help them? Because the market has moved. So now you've shot yourself in the foot. Even when you do get the opportunity to move it. There's no chance you're getting a move for that rate, almost, unless you've got a carrier that you just happen to know that just happens to be there, like, which is super unlikely, right? So to tie this back in, what other people are doing is like oh Gus, the rate just isn't good and they just don't email back, or they email, right, what you see, better brokers do.

Speaker 2:

Pick up that phone. As soon as some customer emails me a quote, the first thing I'm doing is picking up the phone and I'm going hey, just had a couple of questions I wanted to clarify. I try to build some rapport How's your week coming along, how's your day right, trying to have a little bit of a conversation, right. And then I am asking this question. The first thing is I'm never giving them a rate. Why? Because I don't have a date. We used to talk about this a lot, right, you don't give me a date, I don't give you a rate, I'm giving you a range. Why? Because that's the truth. If I don't know when this is moving, today or three days from now, I'm going to give you the range. Okay, if it's moving Friday, like, I can probably get you close to two grand.

Speaker 2:

If it's got to go today or in the next four hours, I'm probably going to be closer to 25 or 26 on this one, and then what they're going to say is okay, yeah, like that's about where I'm at, and here's the thing they don't want to tell you. They're not going to tell you when they want to use you, because they're using you in this scenario as a fallback option and they don't want to commit to you. This is the thing that I think people are uncomfortable doing. This is the difficult conversation.

Speaker 2:

When I said an episode or two ago, the people that are successful as freight brokers get comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. This is that conversation, and it's going to be like hey, jimmy, look, when are you looking to move this? Well, I'm not really sure right now. Well, let me ask you, jimmy. I mean, do you tend to move these on Wednesdays? Is this a normal load every week? Is this a load you expect to? Maybe need some help on last minute? What have your issues? Maybe been around this?

Speaker 2:

Because, guess what?

Speaker 2:

You asked me to quote it for some reason.

Speaker 2:

Right, like, I know this in the back of my head. I'm not going to say that out loud, but I'm trying to ask questions to get him to tell me some piece of information, right? Well, maybe he lies, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he says look, you know what, like the past few weeks, the guy I had booked on this kind of leaves me high and dry every Friday morning, so I wanted a fallback option. Okay, great, well, like I can line something up for maybe I could work on that for you, but just let me know. So I know what to do, cause if I got a little bit of lead time I can get you a better rate. The second important part I didn't ask for something without giving them something. I told him why I wanted the information, because I can help you more, help me, help you right. Like if you can tell me a little bit more about the situation, I can be better prepared to get you a better price, to help your service with your customer right. And I got a chance to talk to him.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a phrase we used to say, and I'll just bring it back up is our job as a freight broker is not always to solve every single problem that our customers have. We give them access to the market. It doesn't mean that our access to the market is always the cheapest or the quickest, the most readily available or X, y and Z, but we give them access to the market and when you give them that range, it's like okay, your access to the market is going to fall within this range most likely, and it all depends on a bunch of other variables and factors, such as how urgent is it? Do I have to bring somebody in from a hundred miles away, cause the market is? You know, this region is very tight right now. So, yeah, keep that in mind. And if you can't get a truck at the rate your customer needs, you're not doing a bad job by letting them know like, hey, here's what, here's the, here's what I've been able to find for you. If this option doesn't work, you know, so be it, basically, but you're at least doing your job by informing them.

Speaker 1:

Here's what you're seeing in the market. Here's the. Here's the pulse. Read on everything. Here's the you're seeing in the market. Here's the pulse read on everything. Here's the temperature out there.

Speaker 2:

So yeah. So now here's your next step, right? So the next step is so, say it's Wednesday, which it is, and say he tells me exactly what I just said. Like, hey, I've been getting left high and dry on Fridays, right? The other thing I know from watching load boards is if he waits till late in the afternoon to try to recover the load, he is paying significantly more, right? He has maybe experienced that, but maybe he doesn't understand, as a shipper, why that's happening because no one's told him, right?

Speaker 2:

So now here's my chance to add value and get some more information, and I might go hey, jimmy, let me ask you, I mean, the past couple of weeks, when you were trying to move this and the guy you know fell out on you at 930 in the morning, by around what time of the day were you ended up like, trying to actually recover? Were you reaching out to your other brokers and carriers around lunchtime, like 10 in the morning, late in the afternoon? Maybe he tells me oh, you know, I kind of didn't know about it until 11. So by the time I reached out to everybody, it was one, and now I'm paying twice as much money. Ok, great, because now I really understand what's happening. Here's me adding value. Well, hey, jimmy, let me ask you I mean, if the guy's done this to you for the past two or three weeks, the thing I want to let you know is like, if you're going to wait till one in the afternoon, there's just far less options, and all these carriers know they can hold you against the wall because you need to move this. So let me ask you this, jimmy if you keep running into this, do you want me to reach out to you like early in the morning, friday around 10, to just see if the guy picked it up? And then, if you're good, we're good, but I can at least touch base with you because if you need help, I'd like to get on this as early as possible Friday to get you the best price. Is that something that you think might help you Right? So now I've added value and I've learned a little bit more. I learned the situation right and the thing what most people think is all they want to win is the load right.

Speaker 2:

But think about if you play poker and if you're playing with a few people, or even one person for an hour or two. Right, winning one hand does not make your night. Learning one thing about any person at that table helps you win the whole time. Right, and that might be a tell. I might notice when you bluff, you do this, or when Steven does, he holds his chips. This way, I would rather lose one hand and learn about how either of you play, because then I can play that against you forever, right. So for me, learning one thing about a situation I would take over, getting one load, one load helps me one day. A piece of information about how they operate helps me help them every day, every week, forever. So winning sometimes is not getting the load and just learning right, asking these questions and getting the information.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll add in before you move on to the next part is, you're right, it's not about just getting a load, it's also about getting the relationship to the next level, and this is also applicable with carriers too. So like, let's say, let's say you don't end up moving a load for a customer, it's a great conversation starter Like, hey, how did that, how did everything work out for you last Friday? Did everything get picked up on time? Were there any issues? Or flip it to the carrier side.

Speaker 1:

If you've got a go-to, like if you're building up your carrier network and you've got a bunch of go-tos and you know these guys tell you, hey, yeah, we're usually looking um outbound cincinnati every monday morning and you come and they don't have a truck available. Follow up later in the week. But, hey, how'd that all work out? For? Did you guys end up getting loaded the way you wanted to? Where'd you end up going? You know how was the, you know how was the rate on it and everything like that. Um, those are great ways to build rapport because you're you're not going into the conversation like, hey, I want, I want your business, and it's more like I'm trying to build rapport and relationship with you. That way the pressure is way lower in those conversations, because you have nothing to lose, literally.

Speaker 2:

And they're not. I me, me, mine. You calling to ask for things, which nobody likes to talk to people, when all they do is call them when they want something. We avoid those types of people. That's why they don't want to answer your phone, right? So you want to add value, so that they want to talk to you when they realize they're gaining something from it For sure. So let's fast forward to Friday in this scenario. So let's say he says yeah, reach out to me Friday. I call at 10 in the morning and the same thing happened. Truck didn't show up, right. Well, guess what? The reason that truck's not showing up is because that shipper was trying to pay way too less money. So as soon as that carrier found a better load every Friday which happened the past three weeks he just goes truck's broke down takes a better paying load.

Speaker 2:

Right, and he goes and picks a load off the board for an extra 500 bucks and this shipper's like man again, right, okay, so now what do we do as a broker? So I'm calling this guy 9.30, 10 in the morning. Hey, what happened? This is the scenario. I'm going to say okay, thanks, jimmy, do you want me to get to work on this? I can have my team jump on this now.

Speaker 2:

And the first important thing is, like I don't care if it's just me, I'm still saying my team, because I am setting the impression that, like, all of my resources are going at this. I want to reassure him that I'm going to go work on his behalf to solve his problem. And now I'm going to set the expectations. Hey, just took a quick look at the board, jimmy, and I would have done that as I'm calling him. Hey, market looks like it's around here. I know your target was 1500. Looks like most of the loads right now are moving probably a little closer to two. I don't know what I'll be able to get. I know you got some special requirements for this reefer, but I'll probably be around that range. I'll let you know when I got some options. First expectation I set is that he's not paying that rate that he asked me about Wednesday, because that's not where the market is, and I'm giving him clues as to why he had that problem in the first place, right?

Speaker 1:

now, let me add in real quick too is like we.

Speaker 1:

I want to go back to how we talk about educating our customers, because oftentimes a traffic manager, logistics coordinator, whatever the title is of the person that's tendering freight to you, they, they might be new on the job, they might only they only know what they know and they don't know what they don't know. So if you can just give them some context and and fill them in like someone who's new, they probably don't know that. Like when you get to friday, especially if it's before a holiday, or the day before a holiday in the middle of the week, like literally every like 30 minutes, the markets yes, market rate is going up and up and up, and if you can educate them on how that works, just on a like, a very basic one-on-one level, then they'll be like oh, because again, it's not us, we're not, we're not the ones changing the market, it's the carriers, right, it's the capacity that's out there, because they know it's other shippers, taking the carriers that need it last minute, that are paying a little more to get things moved.

Speaker 2:

It's the market right. So again and think about this we put shippers and I've done this too like on the pedestal. They're very hard to reach. So when we finally get a chance to talk to them, we just assume they know things that we don't. But the thing I want to set is yes, they do have a lot of practice at this, but they are not accessing the market, which means what they don't see. That we see is exactly what you said. They are not getting calls from carriers that are empty over and over a dozen calls every hour telling them the rate's changing. They don't hear that because for them to work for a carrier, they got to get a bid, they got to get it approved. It takes a week and then they just look at static numbers. They don't see the market move the way we do because they're not meant to access it. The same way. They don't have our tools. They can't vet a carrier in 30 seconds to get them booked on a load, check their insurance and make sure they're good. That's the value we provide. That they don't have, because even if they've got DAT and could post a load, like they're not built to do what we are. This is our value to them. So you need to let them know how and what's happening in the market, because a lot of times, like they just don't know this, right, they see things go wrong but they don't know why. So when, like you said, you provide this context, this adds value to that conversation.

Speaker 2:

But now is where there's going to come the second very difficult conversation that nobody wants to have and everyone avoids. But it's really how you make money or actually get that freight. So now it's 10 o'clock in the morning and say myself or someone on my team gets me a truck. That truck is at, say, 1900 bucks. His target rate was 15, right, so I know I got to pay 19 and I've got a truck in hand. Like literally, my guys got him on the phone. This truck's like, got everything we need. We're 75 miles from pickup, we can be there in an hour and a half. Everything's good except the money, right, the guy wants 19. My customer wants to pay 15 and everyone goes. Well, how do you make money on that? Right? This is that hard conversation and guess what, that shipper doesn't want to have the conversation. They want you to email the rate so they can wait and then call every other broker to see if they can get a cheaper one. Then they email you back an hour later and that truck's gone and now you've got to pay $2,200. And this is what happens to that shipper all day. That's why the rates are blowing up by four in the afternoon when he actually covers it and his boss finally goes. You know what? Just pay the three grand to get it moved. Well, they ended up paying three at four in the afternoon. They could have paid two at noon, but they don't move fast enough because they don't do what we do.

Speaker 2:

So now I'm calling him. Right, it's 1030 in the morning. I'm going to go. Hey, jimmy, here's what I got. I got a truck, meet your insurance, got the right equipment, vetted it, driver's good, out of service rates.

Speaker 2:

Great on. This. Looks like newer equipment, clean. They're already empty. I can get them rolling to you right now. I've got them on my other line. He's going to go great, line. He's going to go great and I'm going to go.

Speaker 2:

Okay, this guy wants 2450. Okay, so the guy wanted to pay 15. The truck wants 19. I'm throwing $550 on this, right, and everyone's going to be like how are you going to get a guy to pay 2550 that wanted to pay 15 and you got a truck at 19 and you're actually going to make money. So now I'm throwing a real margin on there.

Speaker 2:

And why am I doing that? Because I just busted my ass to get that truck in a very short amount of time probably talked to 30 of them between me and my partner, right, and we've got this truck. We worked and did everything we could to create the value to get him what he needed. Now I'm going to charge for that amount of work, right, because I just did that. Right, the truck got what he wanted 1900 bucks. It's above market and I need to get paid for getting that truck to get to solve his problem.

Speaker 2:

And I'm going to go hey, jimmy, I got this guy, but I know, I know you want to be at 15. I said I could try to get them around two earlier. The only guy I got that can be there in an hour and a half is at 2450. What do you want me to do with them? And I'm going to say do you want me to cut him or do you want me to send him, and then I don't say anything. Hit mute and let that guy sit in that uncomfortable silence, because that's what he doesn't want to do. He doesn't want to be put on the spot to make a difficult decision under stress.

Speaker 1:

I want to point out what's good. What you're doing here is and this is more like the psychology behind it is you have now transferred the ownership and the decision to him, right? It's no longer you have to go and try to beat this guy down on price. It's here's the rate I've got him right now. What do you want me to do?

Speaker 2:

And I eliminated my competition because now he can't call you and Steven and every other broker that he works with and go. Can you get me a better rate? Because he is now risking that he pays more or doesn't get it moved at all. Right, I am playing the same game. He was playing me. He wanted me to send an email so he can call everyone else and then get back to me. And now I'm holding this truck and the truck's irritated and this helps nobody but the shipper. This is their problem. We can solve it, but it's not free and nobody wants to ever pay for work. So I'm going to make him make that difficult decision because the risks is he doesn't take the truck, it's not on my back of the load, it doesn't move, it's on him.

Speaker 2:

I did everything I could, set the expectation and then got him the answer. And now I'm going to hold him accountable to deciding. Most of the time they're going to say you know what, you know what, you know what, you know what. Just send him. I'll deal with my manager, I'll deal with the sales guy later. Just send him. I know it needs to pick up. It's okay, done right. Send the truck in.

Speaker 2:

Maybe he goes look, man, I can't get approval. Give me like five minutes, can you hold him? I might literally. And then I'll literally say this I will let you put me on hold while you go get approval. I don't want him to call me back. I don't want him to be able to waste time while this truck could get a better load. Honestly, this is also for the carrier. I don't want the truck waiting 30 minutes while they're missing other loads that are all getting picked up by other trucks. I'm working for this guy too, right? So now I'm holding him on the spot and it's going to go one of those two ways, right, like he's either going to take it or he isn't.

Speaker 2:

But the most important thing isn't that he takes the load, and I want to point this out, it's that I'm learning about his price sensitivity. He told me all week long he's paying $1,500. If he pays that $2,450, I know how much of it wasn't true and how much of it was true. Yeah, I know what everybody wants to pay, but this is what he's willing to pay when it really comes push to shove. Now I have so much insight I can use into how I quote him into the future. Right, and I set the expectation. You want me to quote something, jimmy, like give me an idea on the timeframe. I'll get you on the lower end if I get a couple of days. If I'm against the gun, I will hustle and bust my ass to solve your problem. But it isn't free and everybody knows this. Just, nobody wants to pay the bill.

Speaker 1:

So I want to add in, if you're good on that part. I want to add in some of the things that are happening in the background on our end, that the brand new novice freight broker probably isn't doing. So. How did you find that truck? It's not the whole post and pray method. Some people are just like, oh, I'm going to post it and just pray that somebody calls me and I get a truck.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot that's going into this on the back end. We're not just looking to find a truck, we're looking to find the right truck, quality too right, and obviously the price. We're going to put price aside here. But yes, you can post on the load boards, but you should also be doing other things like hey, let's look at my TMS. Is there any carriers in here that have hauled this lane before Using sourcing tools like the DAT directory? Like Highway is a great one Calling any carriers that you or even dispatchers that you've got a good relationship with. And then you're looking at the quality right.

Speaker 1:

Are you dealing with a carrier that is going to put your customer at risk for things like double brokerage, hostage load? Are they going to possibly break down and delay the shipment, which now screws up your relationship with your customer and your customer's relationship with whoever's receiving their product. So these all go into there, whereas you go back three years ago and people got away with this. They just post, they get a truck, the money, customer shippers going to pay whatever they have to pay to get it done, boom, all done. That's not the environment and market that we live and operate in anymore. So that's more of a discussion for another time of the actual mechanics of how we're going through this. But I at least want to point that out, that it's not just a conversation and how you approach it with your customer. It's all the stuff that you're doing, all your SOPs and your way of conducting business on the back end. That's going to allow you to present an actual quality carrier at the right time to your customer and for a premium.

Speaker 2:

For sure Right. And it's how you're communicating with your customer. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it Right. Because in all these scenarios, what you're really doing right is you are interviewing, you're setting expectations, you're showing them your actual work ethic, right. You're not just telling them I'll work hard for you. You are showing them that you're working hard for them.

Speaker 2:

And even if they don't take the truck, I can guarantee you that if they got four or five other brokers, very few of them are doing these things. They're not proactively reaching out, they're not following up, they're not calling that shipper again, they're not updating the shipper when the truck is literally checked in. Quick email hey, guys, checked in, just talk to them Reassuring my customers so that they can not worry Again. They were worried and freaked out all morning because their loading dock's yelling at them, their sales manager's yelling at them, that this load's not getting picked up again. Think about what they're going through. And just a simple now maybe an email works hey, just want to let you know. Driver's checked in. Jimmy, I'll let you know when he's loaded and rolling. Right.

Speaker 2:

Those little things go such a long way for your customer's peace of mind, right? This is what service is. Service isn't just getting a truck when you said you would to pick up, when you say you could right. It's doing the little things outside that that allow that person to do more work, right. That's why they're paying us, so they can get more things done where they're not worried in the back of their mind. Okay, did this guy actually get there? Do I now need to call Ben to see if the truck was there? I'm anticipating what they need and doing it before they need to ask that service.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and I'll I'll add to that. Like remember, our job as a broker is not to solve all their problems. Our job as a broker, one of our jobs as a broker, is to make their job is smooth and seamless as possible. They know, and you know you don't have to, you know, remind them of this all the time, but we can't just snap our fingers and make a truck appear. We can't. But what you can do is show them and you have control over this right, Like you said, you can show them how attentive you are to whatever the issue they're having is how communicative you are with them, how respectful and professional you are in your tone of voice and your conversations with them, Because we can't just say oh yeah, sure you want to talk to that price, Boom, done.

Speaker 1:

No, it doesn't work that way, but it's. How do you make them? How are they experiencing this process with you on the other end of it, versus the four or five other brokers competing against you for that business? And if you walk, even if you don't get the load, but they had a more enjoyable experience with you, you've already gained points in their book for the next time around.

Speaker 2:

And again, the other thing I think that is really important right is the people that do well in this industry and I think in any industry to be honest and just in life are people that think and take initiative to do one or two more things right. Because if you just ask yourself this question, is there anything else I could do, is there anything else that would be helpful? And just sit with that a second. You usually think of those things right, like taking initiative to make the extra phone call, to take an extra step, to have an extra conversation right. That little bit of extra is not really that much work and it really does differentiate you from everyone else. We're selling a commodity.

Speaker 2:

There are lots of trucks, there's lots of brokers, there's lots of trucking companies, there's lots of providers that say they can do these things right, but most of them don't take that extra step. They won't do one more thing or two more things Right, they just stop at the bare minimum and then wait for the next easier thing to come through. Right, like if you aren't winning in any business with that mindset. Like, call it growth mindset, call it hustle, call it whatever you want, but that's table stakes because, like it's not just outworking people. It's also thinking a little more, planning, a little more learning from your own mistakes.

Speaker 2:

And doing all of these things, not just one or the other, and getting pissed at everything else in the world that you're not making money and you're not successful. But you're not looking at yourself to go, hey, what could I have done better today that I could do tomorrow? Right, ask yourself that every day and every morning. And all of a sudden you get a little better every day. It's not going to happen overnight, but you'll sure as shit get there a hell of a lot quicker than blaming everybody and everything every day. That doesn't work out for you For sure.

Speaker 1:

Well, there you go. There's a little bit of a dive into how good actual freight bookers are getting this job done. So if you're new, hope you take something away from there. Let us know in the comments what you think or any questions. You guys might have Any other thoughts on this topic. Ben no, Awesome.

Speaker 2:

That kind of wraps it up.

Speaker 1:

Yep Final thoughts.

Speaker 2:

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right, and until next time go Bills.

People on this episode

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Benjamin Kowalski

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Nate Cross

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