New Brokers, ELD Tracking, Lumper Fees & More | Final Mile 76

Nate Cross & Ben Kowalski answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:

• Starting Out: Wait 3-6 months with MC/US DOT before prospecting?
• ELD Tracking: DAT vs. Trucker Tools for brokers.
• Reefer Temps: Use to stand out from competition?
• Payment Issues: Broker owes, 60 claims against bond—what to do?
• Lumper Fees: Why are carriers charged EFS check fees?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Freight Broker Authority and Tracking Integration
• 9:13 Carrier Fees for Lumper Services
• 15:12 Change in Habits for New Year

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome back. It's the first final mile of 2025. So happy new year. Welcome back, everybody for another good session here where we answer all your questions. Please make sure to share us with your friends. Send us your questions through the website Freight360.net. Freight360.net. We've got a lot of content there as well, including the Freight Broker Basics course, and you can see all of our sponsors in the description box or the show notes to help support this channel. We'll get right into it.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Our first question today I have got my MC number, but should I wait until my MC number and DOT number become three to six months old before calling prospects? Hell, no, that's my answer. I get the idea of wanting to let your authority age a little bit, but it's gonna probably take you three to six months before you get good at prospecting and actually get some good people that you're building relationships with. And honestly, if you meet the right customer and you guys hit it off and you're knowledgeable of with and honestly, like if you meet the right customer and you guys hand it off and you're knowledgeable of their commodity, their shipping, they probably don't care how long your authority has been around, for they want to know.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Do I feel? Do I trust this person. Do I feel good about entrusting this person with handling my transportation of my business? Because your authority could be 40 years old and they can just hate you and the age doesn't matter at all. So that's my big take on it is I would start dialing right away, building relationships, and because I think that matters a lot more than your authority age. The carrier side is a little bit different. You know, some carriers and factory companies are not going to want to preferably work with a brand new authority. But what are your thoughts there? Agreed.

Speaker 2: 2:08

I think the biggest part of prospecting is that, like it takes time to get good at it, like it's just like anything else in life, like you've got to spend a lot of time doing it to learn the objections, to learn the needs of the industry, those things change and even when you get somebody that can talk to you like again, average sales cycle is probably three to four months, give or take, I mean, depending on who you're talking to right now. So I think like the more, the earlier you can start, the better off you are for sure.

Speaker 1: 2:39

Yep, all right. Next question Yep, all right. Next question for DAT. This is actually a comment from the interview with DAT and Trucker Tools. For DAT, it sounds as if ELD tracking is being implemented instead of or in combination with, trucker Tools app tracking. How does a broker utilize these services? Even the reefer temp setting is a great tool to have for a broker who wants to stay in tune with their freight setting, you apart from the competition. So it's super ironic, literally.

Speaker 1: 3:12

In the last hour I got an email from Trucker Tools. We were asking them how to set this up on behalf of one of our carriers. So I have the actual answer of how they do it, but I'll talk on a more broad level. So one of the risks, um, or potential areas of fraud in any cell phone tracking and I've had it happen before and I think, ben, you brought it up on the interview is like people could just forward your text to somebody else and that person turns the tracker on. Like we had a guy who literally, like he pinged in Azerbaijan and I was like what? Like I remember that.

Speaker 2: 3:49

You're not. I think I used that example probably in that episode.

Speaker 1: 3:53

It was, and it was trucker tools at the time this is a few years ago, but it was trucker tools. They just forwarded the link. So what we've done at Pierce specifically is we're really pushing towards using the ELD version. Like just about everybody has ELDs now. So there's really no excuse to not just go the ELD route, unless if you're ELD exempt, I get it. But, like, if you have ELDs, like it's, the driver usually prefers to not have their phone tracked. They'd rather have the truck tracked.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Um, so you can just, literally you can still send the request out the same way, and if they have their eld integrated into trucker tools, it just pulls the location of trucker tools. So I'll actually I'll pull the email up, since I just had it here. But, um, it says uh, it says uh, yeah. So there's, there's an ELD page on the trucker tools site. Um, the carrier can proceed with uh, let's see, uh, yeah, it basically just they. They basically fill out one additional thing when they're um on the trucker tools site to agree, and there's a link that they can integrate through the.

Speaker 1: 5:06

It's the same thing with, like highway. We're like if on highway a carrier wants to integrate their eld for verification purposes or location purposes. All you do is, like you, literally just put in your username and password of your eld provider and it allows the connection, the same way if you're connecting your bank to any like PayPal or Venmo or whatever. It's the same exact concept. But I'm a big fan of the ELD. I love it. Integrated tracking because, like you, don't have to worry about a driver that can't figure out how to turn on location services on their phone.

Speaker 2: 5:46

Or GPS issues, yeah, or just service went out.

Speaker 1: 5:48

Whatever the case might be, and you'll still have like there's dead spots in the country and that happens for cell phone or eld. It is what it is, but it still records internally and gets updated. So, um, big fan. Um, so yeah, there there is a. Let's see if I can pull the website up here. It's literally, it's truckertoolscom forward slash eld, dash carrier, dash integration, integration. I set it up too.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I did it recently with one of my tanker carriers. It's super easy, carrier. Basically all they do is log into their ELDs and connect it the way you connect a bank account to something. Like you know it's safe, it's secure, and then all the carriers got to do is give you the tractor number for the loads and it automatically shows you where they are. So it's way more efficient, it's way more consistent.

Speaker 2: 6:36

And to the other question about, like reefer temp settings like it is a fantastic thing that when you can do this and have this set up, it really only works, though, when you've got carrier relationships, because it's very few and far between. You're gonna get a carrier on one load that is going to integrate their ELDs to move a load for you. They've gotta be doing business with you and have some relationship usually for them to be willing to do that, because it does take a little bit of time. But when you do have that, like that is a huge advantage for your customers too, because, like, you can tell them, like hey, we do have ELD tracking, we can track reefer settings on this Like, to me that is a giant value add and a differentiator, because most brokerages aren't doing that.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Yeah. So I guess, to circle back and answer the question, DAT is not replacing this. The trucker tools tracking Trucker tools itself has already had both cell phone and ELD tracking.

Speaker 2: 7:34

So now that's part of the and they're going to continue operating as a separate company At least they announced and talked to us about it on the show. So like you shouldn't see any changes there and it really is a great tool, like it's super easy, excuse me and you can send that to your shippers. The shippers can see that information through the link.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Oh yeah, we use it all the time, like when we send out a tracking link for trucker tools from our tms there's a spot to enter in like I think it says literally ship or email, but you can put whoever you want and you can say send them updates every two hours or eight hours or whatever. Um, do you remember dat like kind of dabbled with their own tracking like four or five years ago, I don't, and it was free to try. I don't think it ever went anywhere and I think that's one of the real benefits of the Trucker Tools. Acquisition is like why recreate the wheel when we can just join forces with someone who's mastered it? So good deal, all right. Next question what do you usually do as a carrier when you don't get payment from the broker? The broker has 60 claims against their bond, so this we're talking about bond off air earlier. But uh, um, don't take any more loads from that broker stop the bleeding to begin with.

Speaker 1: 8:50

Um, next up file on the bond. You're probably bottom of the totem pole, not going to get paid beyond that. There's not a whole lot you can do besides go direct to the shipper.

Speaker 2: 9:01

That was what I was going to ask you have you seen scenarios where the carrier then goes after the shipper for payment because I believe there's recourse there. I'm not an attorney, but I think it's possible. I haven't.

Speaker 1: 9:13

I'll give you the closest example that I saw. Guy had his own brokerage, went out of business. His bond got chewed up, becomes an agent. The carrier one of the last carriers that hadn't gotten paid finds out where he's working now, goes to that brokerage and says this guy owes me money. And the brokerage is basically like hey, agent, like find a way to pay this guy, or like we're letting you go, like you're not going to tarnish my name. And he, he got it worked out. Um, they didn't go.

Speaker 2: 9:50

The carrier did not go to the shipper, though and that's a double broker, like I think they can. What's that? Yeah, well, in a double broker load, if you pay the wrong carrier, they can go to the shipper. So I'm like, if you didn't pay the carrier that's why I want to ask I want to get an attorney on here to ask some of these like very specific transportation questions.

Speaker 1: 10:09

We're going to have left one here at some point this year, right?

Speaker 2: 10:10

Yeah, and I'm really curious because at least my understanding of the way freight law works is that, like, the beneficial cargo owner owes money to the carrier that provided the service to them, regardless of what the broker paid, didn't pay or got paid. So I my thought is that you could go after the shipper for this, but I'm definitely not an attorney and I have not seen that happen at least I think you can.

Speaker 1: 10:37

We'll definitely have that discussion with an attorney, but that's how the law reads as far as I can see it. All right, Next question so this is from a carrier. I actually love this question. So you brokers are charging carriers service fees for comm checks to pay your customers' lumper. How is this the carrier's responsibility? Can someone explain the logic? All right, this goes for Comcheck, EFS, any type of wire advance for a lumper. Okay. Now listen, if you're a carrier and you want a fuel advance or a quick pay and there's a fee involved, hey, it kind of comes with the territory. There's a fee, yes.

Speaker 2: 11:17

You're getting the service.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Right, the lumper is benefiting the customer, the shipper or the receiver, whoever, wherever the lumper is happening, right, if they? If you don't know what a lumper is, it's basically dock hands that are workers, third-party workers on the dock that will load or unload the truck. It's very common in produce okay. So, customer, you know, you send a truck in and they go load your truck or unload your truck. You send a truck in and they go load your truck or unload your truck. You've got to pay these people on the spot, though.

Speaker 1: 11:49

One option is the carrier pays them and gets reimbursed by the broker with their line haul pay. Maybe it's $100. I'm a carrier, I send my $100 receipt in to the broker. The broker pays me my money plus the $100 extra. The other option, and it's somewhat common, is to get an advance, like, hey, I need a comm check or an EFS advance or whatever advance service you're going to use for this lumber. It's $100. And all right, great, here's $100. Well, there's a 3% fee that comes out, so you're only getting $97. And it's like fee that comes out.

Speaker 1: 12:28

So you're only getting 97 and it's like why, as a carrier do I have to eat that and I totally agree you should. So here's here's my take on it is, as a broker, just pay him the amount including the fee, like if it's if it's gonna cost you that, by the way, I was gonna set this up last or a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 2: 12:47

Talk to efs and comp check, and both of them allow the broker, on a per transaction basis, to either charge the carrier or eat the fee themselves oh, that's interesting I wonder.

Speaker 1: 12:58

So at least that's what they said no, I believe it, I totally believe it, because the same thing goes with like uh, when we were we were talking with what's the factor company we were talking about.

Speaker 2: 13:08

I can do that on Allpay too. I can push 50%, 70%, 75% or all of it on the broker to pay any quick pay fee.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Yep, we send them out through our TMS, so we don't. I don't have the ability, like when I send it out, to make a decision. It's probably predetermined when it was integrated. But if you're a broker and you're making your carrier eat those fees, I would challenge you to think about if that makes sense or not, because for years carriers have been eating that fee and it's very rarely do they complain about it, but when they do, it's totally valid 100% valid.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Yeah, 100% Like it's the customer's request, right? Whose customer is it? It's the broker's customer, broker's. So, mr Broker, mrs Broker, if you want to use that customer, or if you're going to service that customer and they have that kind of thing, either ask them to eat the fee or you eat the fee. I would suggest you don't be putting on your care because otherwise, like the alternative, like I said, is have the carrier paid up front and asked to get reimbursed. Well, our last question was just uh, what do you do when the broker doesn't pay you? So like, right.

Speaker 2: 14:32

Yeah, burst. Well, our last question was just uh, what do you do when the broker doesn't pay you? So, like, right, yeah. And also like I remember and again I don't hold me to this, but I could have swore that when I worked at a larger company and it was automated, like you said for, like the com check or the efs, like we would just up the fee, like if there was a three percent fee and 100 bucks, we'd just pay them, like 108, we'd just do the math and be like 106 bucks.

Speaker 2: 14:45

So they got more plus the fee, yeah like there's really no, yeah, there's no excuse for making a carrier pay a fee for a service your shipper and your customer required that carry to do. It's not their fault and not their responsibility. The shipper doesn't want to hire somebody on staff to unload trucks and wants to outsource it to a third party that needs paid in cash. Yeah, to me that's absolutely ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Yep, exactly right. Good questions, keep sending them our way. Any final thoughts Ben?

Speaker 2: 15:14

No, but I did think of the rest of that, the quote I was trying to struggle for in that episode, which is, it said, if you do the same things next year, you'll have another year. If you change your habits, you'll have another year. If you change your habits, you'll have a new year, right and like to me, I think that really resonates like do the same thing you did last year might as well be 12 more months of 2024. You change your habits and what you're doing on a daily basis, you're far more likely to have a new or a different year than you did before. That's good.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Love it All right.

Speaker 2: 15:46

Well, give us your Henry Ford quote whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

Speaker 1: 15:53

I just couldn't, I couldn't sign off without hearing that as my as my queue line here. And until next time, go bells.