How To Teach A Dispatcher To Cover Loads Without Guesswork | Episode 336

Most brokers don’t stall because they can’t sell—they stall because they’re stuck doing ops and don’t know how to train help without losing quality. This episode breaks down how to hire and train a dispatcher so you can scale without burnout.

We also cover the current market—tight capacity, rising rates, and spot vs. contract tension—and walk through a practical dispatcher workflow, carrier sourcing, and negotiation tactics that actually work in today’s environment.

Support Our Sponsors:

Togo: Click Here

OperFi: Click Here

QuikSkope - Get a Free Trial: Click Here

DAT One - Brokers & Carriers: Click Here to get 10% off your first year!

DAT Outgo Factoring for Carriers: Click Here

AscendTMS: Click Here and use promo code RA-freight360! to get AscendTMS FREE for 90 days!

Recommended Products: Click Here
Freight Broker Basics Course: Click Here
Join Our Facebook Group: Click Here
Check out all of our content online: Click Here

Transcript

Welcome And Training Resources

SPEAKER_01 0:19

All right, today's episode, we're going to be talking about training a dispatcher or an operations person, some uh, you know, what to do, some things not to do. Uh, if you're brand new, make sure to check out all of our other content. We've got an entire searchable library on the website. Leave us a comment, review, question. Um, if you want your questions answered, you can check out the Freebroker Basics course as well down in the description box for a training or educational option for your yourself or for your team. Um, Ben, great episode. We just wrapped up there. I think this is a really good one. If you're if you're at that point where you're either your your workload is like, you know, just you're almost overwhelmed. You can't grow because you're doing too many operational-based things, and you you're looking for somebody to help you do those dispatcher type roles of sourcing capacity for you, um, you know, finding you options to bring to your customers. You know, what are your thoughts on what we just wrapped up there?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, it was a great episode. I mean, because I think this is relevant whether you've been a broker and have a$20 or$30 million company, or you're just starting to train people, because I see this so prevalently and so commonly with everybody we come in to coach and train and work with from like existing large companies to new smaller companies or groups, right? And the thing that even just hit me, because we wrapped it up and then we did the intro, but it was like I always end the show with like whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right. The funny thing is related to this, and this is what I was doing a training on last week, is it's the same thing with your support staff. If you don't believe the person that is on your team that you hired to help you can do the thing that you expect of them, you can be damn sure they don't believe they can do it, right? So it's not just you, but you need to both support and understand the people that are joining your team. And if you don't believe they're capable of getting better at it, the likelihood that they actually improve and care enough is zero. Like if I work for you and you don't think I can do the job, I'm gonna be pretty unmotivated and appear to be very lazy. But it's because neither of us expects us to be able to get any better at this.

Freight Market Volatility And Opportunity

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, and I think it's this is really good. Um, you have to realize that if you're gonna grow your book of business over time and add new, uh add new customers, or if you're gonna scale your brokerage, right? You are gonna be your own worst enemy if you don't trust that somebody else can come in and assist you, right? Because people oftentimes think no one's ever gonna do as good of a job as I will. And it's not that they won't do as good of a job, it they just will do it differently. And I think as you listen to the episode, we kind of talk about different tools you can use and different ways to train people. Um, keep that in mind that everyone's a little bit different. And if you can focus in on the sweet spot of where their strengths are, and and um, you know, I think that's gonna be a big game changer. So, all right, let's hop into it. All right, let's have a good episode today. We're gonna uh we're gonna explore a couple different things. Um, but first let's let's look at what's going on in the freight market and and news. Um Ben, have you been noticing anything with kind of like uh just capacity tightening rates, you know, kind of what's been the vibe on your end? I see that there's been a lot of like viral people posting on social media about like it's hard to cover a truck now and you know fuel rates up and all the all this stuff, but what are you seeing?

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I mean, it's definitely tightening up. We're definitely seeing rates pushing up, and I'm seeing more of kind of what I'm used to seeing pre-pandemic, which is like fluctuations. So like fuel's definitely playing a part of that. I don't think freight demand is. I think it's both some of the carrier enforcement, which we've talked about with Dean, where a lot of the drivers that were probably in the gray area of legitimate are just choosing not to drive anymore. Um I think that's part of it. I think the FMCSA or DOT enforcement is doing some of that. I think the ELD, you know, push to use more legitimate ones is having some effect. It's really hard to gauge which and fuel for sure. So, I mean, we're seeing more of a volatile market, which to me is this is the best part of being in the middle, right? As a broker, the intermediary. When it gets a little harder to cover your customers' freight, and they're always going to try to hold their rates down as much as they can while we feel that pressure and your book of business is gonna get strained. Your margins get tighter, you get a little bit less loads or more pushback. Well, the opposite side of that, since we're in the middle, are the prospects you're talking to that have said, we're not looking at anybody, we don't need any help, we're not evaluating. They're seeing rate increases and requests from their carriers and brokers.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Tender rejections too. The the contract market is like super jacked right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Correct. Which means they are now moving towards evaluating new brokers, which opens the door to more new customers.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah. I'll give you a um, here's a national, national numbers, okay? And we've kind of referenced this for a a while now, but I'm gonna give you uh like we're starting to see contract rates adjust in the last few weeks. Um here, I'll give you some numbers here, okay? So I'll go spot first. All right. So we really started to see things tick up in the fall. So if I'll give you a baseline of October, that's just about six months ago, right? Five months ago. Um well here, I'll go September. We'll go six months. So spot rates, this is gonna be without fuel. Okay. Um, I'll go with fuel because fuel's a part of this, all right? So because spot rates are typically all in anyway. So with fuel in September,$2.05, national average for van. So$205. March,$249. That is 44 cents per mile increase. All right. Even if you take fuel out of it, you're still up like 30 cents or so. So um more money for carriers, obviously, some of that's going to fuel. And the good thing about spot freight, if you're a broker, is that customers when they need something shipped and it's in the spot market, they're going to pay the spot market rates. Okay. The contract, now here's the difference, right? Let's look at contract over the same time period with fuel 242 in September and 270 now. So less than a 30 cent increase versus 40, you know, 45-ish, whatever we had before. So drastically different. But even like if you go to last month, it was only 253, which is like 10 about 10 cents in five months, versus we saw a big jump of almost 20 cents in the last month on contract. And that's a lot of these like mini bids or um what did somebody call it before? The uh spotty contract rates. If you ever heard that, where it's like these 30, you know, 30 day, it's kind of a mix of the hybrid, what some shippers have done between spot rates and contract, they call them spotty contract, where it's like, hey, we know there's fluctuation, so we want we want contract rates, but in a shorter time frame. Um, but yeah, anyway, so if you're operating in the contract market, this is where you'll hopefully if you have a bid that's renewing for you know, starting a lot of them starting like Q2. Um you know, hopefully your rebid does well. Because we saw a lot of our like national level customers that like so no joke, uh Publix, right, is a customer we've done business with for a long time. They literally said this is like last month, they said, you know, uh, we're not budging on our rates, move them at a loss, or we'll find somebody else. And it's like wow, like that is a ballsy statement, but big customers like that they can do that when they want to, and you got to decide as a broker do you want to do business with them? So um but yeah, so I mean we're we're seeing it. I mean, Craig Fuller had a post this week about I think he quoted like a CEO of a top 10 brokerage, basically saying very similar, like the the let's see if I can find it here. Um here it is. Um, this is a quote a good portion of our contract freight is underwater, but fuel is helping. We're starting to see shipper routing guides break and we're picking up new clients with big volumes. Our spot freight is doing so well, it's offsetting our contract losses. So that's almost echoes exactly what we just outlined there is that um the spot market is where people are really doing well right now, brokers and carriers. And the contract market, which I personally tend to stay away from just because I don't like the um as a broker in the middle when you don't know how you're gonna what you're gonna pay for a truck any at any given week, I find it very volatile. Um larger brokerages will tend to hop into those um longer term contracts because they can, you know, they can take the like the CEO said, we're it's we're underwater on it. They can take the hits certain times of the year and then make the big gains other times of year. You're really just gambling on like, you know, what's gonna happen in the market and fuel and all the all the things.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

So um well, creates opportunities for sure, is the thing I would say. Like there's definitely more opportunities for us when the market is changing and shifting. Because let's take your point on publics. They're gonna use their heavy hand and say, hey, we'll find somebody else. Okay, well, at a certain point, you can have all the leverage in the world, but all the vendors you work with that support you cannot indefinitely lose money, right? So I had to ride that as long as they can. Yes. So the other interesting thing was I heard the exact opposite last year. Someone I knew that was a client had been working with Aldi's for years, like seven, eight years, right? Contract lanes and a lot of them. I can't remember what it was, but it was significant, like probably hundreds, right? And their margin shrunk to like, I think it was just under 7%. The brokerage gave all of the business back to Aldi's in the middle of the year. They went, we just can't run this anymore. They were like, we can't. Aldi's like, well, we can't do any rate increases on any of this. And they went, Okay, here's all of your business back. We're walking away from the account. We cannot just operate this account for a loss for the rest of the year. And that's the other side. And again, and it's funny, we'll do an episode on this next week. But the other thought I had for a topic is just defining trust in our industry and why it's so relevant. This is why. Because you can have the biggest contract on both sides that works well. But as soon as it becomes lopsided and one company is losing more than the other, there's a clock. I mean, maybe it's a month, maybe it's a day, maybe it's six months, maybe it's a year, but it can't be forever that one company is losing money supporting the other company.

Sports Break And News Check

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah. Yeah, agreed. I mean, we we do all these business as well. And um luckily they're one of the ones that we just resubmitted the um or the agency that runs them just resubmitted their uh their rates for the next cycle. Because the last like four or five months was um really, really thin. You know, you're losing money on some lanes, you're breaking even on others, you're making a little bit on some of them, but yeah. Um sports. Did you see uh what's that indoor golf thing? I saw like Tiger Woods.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

What's it called? Last night I can't remember, but it's indoors. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

TGL or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Is that so top golf league TGL maybe?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

TGL, that's what it is. Yeah, I saw Tiger. Um Tiger made his like you know first appearance since like 2024. Um here's the headline. It says LA spoils Tiger's return cruises to TGL title. So the LA Golf Club, which is I was watching this yesterday too. Is it Justin Rose? Maybe it doesn't matter, but hey, whenever you see a goat like Tiger Woods, like that's that's good, right? Like after his injury when he got in his car accident, just to see him come back. Um you know, exciting stuff. So uh are you a March Manis guy now? Got a bracket?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I do.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

So I got a couple brackets, and there's been some upsets. I had Florida going all the way, which is probably a dumb pick because they won last year, and it's pretty unusual for back to back like that. Um, but they lost in the second round, and I had them going all the way, so that'll mess my bracket up. But got some uh some strong front runners. Um, some of the top teams obviously still in an Arizona, Michigan, Duke, uh, Florida's out. They were a number one, but we'll see how the brackets go. Good luck to everyone who's got one out there. And uh yeah. Anything else in the in the news or sports?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

No, honestly, I haven't followed much of anything. War, maybe a war, maybe there's troops going, maybe there isn't. Maybe they're negotiating a ceasefire, maybe they aren't. Both sides go back and forth changing what either one says.

Sponsor And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Um I've had periods of time where in the last month where like I've watched I've followed national news like daily, and you kind of get all the updates. And then I've had times when like take a few days off from it, and you literally never know what you're gonna come back to when um you take a few days off of following it because it's just so it's so fluid and it's it's ever changing. So yeah, we'll see. Um, hey, this this uh episode is brought to you by Ascend TMS as well. So if you're a uh brokerage, you know, specifically small to medium size, growing, looking for a good software option for your brokerage, check out Ascend TMS. You can get 90 days of the pro version for free, no card needed. Just make sure you have to have a referral code. We've got one with a link down in the uh show notes description if you're on YouTube. So check that out. We're gonna talk um hiring, training, managing kind of like your operations dispatch process. Um what's your what's your kind of opening take here on this? Because there's obviously a reason we're gonna talk about this. Some people tend to often fail at it initially when they're trying to bring in a dispatcher to cover their freight. What do you got for us, Ben?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I think it kind of stems all from one very common thing, at least most of the time, which is to build your book of business. Most folks are covering and selling at the same time. They are learning how to cover their own freight, they're servicing their own customers, even if they have support, like that's a pretty common path, right? And the folks that are successful at learning how to get really good at doing both jobs at the same time, which is definitely not easy, right? Then they, you know, earn the right either at a W-2 or as an agent. Like earning could just mean I have enough money to pay somebody to help me, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Or it could be get to a point where you have the ability to go to the next phase, right?

Why Ops Hires Fail Early

SPEAKER_00 15:57

And I mean, we can define that, but we cover that in other episodes. And and then what happens is is like, okay, I've been covering my own freight. I've gotten so used to the way I do it and being able to do it that I hire somebody, I show them what I do maybe for a week, and then I just start sending them loads. Or maybe someone else trains them and I don't really know what they were trained on, and I just start going, get me quotes on this and get me loads. And then some I do, some I don't. And then what we hear on the coaching side when we come in is like, hey, I need help with this. Is I find very quickly that there's a lot of assumptions, right? Where the broker is running, trying to prospect, get more business. They're very busy. That's why they needed somebody that they either don't make or take the time to mentor the person that they're relying on. Oftentimes they don't treat that new person as part of their team. It's more of just like, go do this for me, which is way more management than mentor or leader. They don't necessarily support them. They're not specific in what they're asking for and when. They're not specific in understanding what that support person is or is not doing to actually cover load. And all of these assumptions create a lot of confusion and a lot of frustration, and usually more yelling and either firing and redoing that over and over again, right? So really understanding what and how that person is or is not doing is going to one help you both get more done together. It's a more enjoyable job. But also, even going really farther down that is like if my support person is operating with me in the similar ways that I would do it. And of course, everyone's gonna have their own little way to do it, but at the very least, there's some basics that everyone should know how to do and should be executing. Because the job between a broker and a support person isn't just how many trucks did you book at which margin. It's also what is going on when I don't get a truck? Because that information is what makes me a better selling broker, makes me a better consultant to my shipper, allows me to get more prospects to become customers, allows me to get more freight and more margin and actually grow. And again, like we could use analogies of sports and whatever you want, but like if two teammates aren't communicating, like that team is not going to do very well. Whether it's a two-person sport, like doubles tennis or a basketball team of five, a baseball team of nine, or a football team, like if there's no communication, no team is going to do well.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah, and I want to I want to pose this too. So, like we talk, there's there's like I'll give two general ways that you can grow your brokerage, right? You can add salespeople that will run their own book, you can add operations people that will will support your book. Those are kind of like two just generic ways. That's not the only two ways, but those are two ways, and we've talked about them both. So we've talked before about like if if you think, oh, I'll just hire a salesperson, set it and forget it, and they're gonna help grow my business. Like people like, oh yeah, I'll just get five sales reps and have them make a hundred calls a day, or I'll just bring on agents. Like you it doesn't work that way if you don't finesse and kind of tweak how things are are happening because no one's gonna sell the same way that you sell. No one is going, and the same thing goes for operations, right? If you just hire an ops person and think, oh, cool, I'll just have them cover my freight. Like they're not gonna operate the same way that you do. And that's why it's really important to make sure that you adequately train and coach these people to do things in a way that um, you know, harnesses their strengths because they're not, I mean, unless you have a, you know, a clone of yourself, which unless you're using like some AI agent, right? And we're not 100% there yet, but you're not gonna be able to find that perfect replicate replica of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Agreed. And like it's so funny that you just said that because like I got an email from a client, right, completely unrelated even to this industry. It's actually more on like consulting and tax basis, but like this guy is like a high-end surgeon, right? That owns a few businesses. But it's so funny because like when he's emailing back to this company that I'm copied on, I can literally tell he's just asking Chat GPT or an LLM. And all of what he's sending back to this other company that I'm watching is not correct. And I'm like, like, I've been doing that for eight years. And I'm like, that's definitely not right. And I'm like, I don't think people also realize that like AI or a person, what you get back is a function or a result of how you ask it, not just what you ask it. And changing how you ask something will give you wildly different answers in AI or a human being. And there's so many assumptions based on how we do things that I think like most people don't look at their own behavior. They just yell at the person next to them or the other person they're working with and never just pause and go, like, did I ask that question in the in a way that is allowing that person to understand what I'm trying to understand, right? Like, oh, a question is is like you might know something that I don't know, and I'm trying to get you to tell me the piece that I need. But if I phrase it in four different ways, I'll get four different answers from you, an LLM, or anybody. And I just don't think people I think people rarely look at what they're doing. They always just want to blame everyone else and everyone around them for their frustrations. When the reality is, is like they have the ability and authority to probably correct most of these things themselves.

Teach With Questions Not Lectures

SPEAKER_01 22:40

So uh, not to go on a tangent, but Tim Hyam from Ascend, who we've had on the show before, he had a really funny post, I think it was like last week, about AI, the car wash thing. So, like if you haven't, if you haven't seen this one, it's actually pretty funny. And it was like, um, if you asked ChatGPT or another large language model, here's the scenario that you ask you say, Hey, um the the car was I need to get a car wash. The car wash is a hundred meters away. Should I walk there or should I drive? And that I actually tried it and like ChatGPT was like, Oh, easy, man. You definitely walk there. Only 100 feet away. But there's the logic behind it is like, well, how do I get my car washed if I don't drive my car right? And he's like, I asked my five-year-old this, my five-year-old got it right, and AI got it wrong. So that's where we're at with AI, that it's still not fully there yet. Um, and we talked all about, you know, technology and software and automations last week. So if you want to deeper dive into some of that stuff, I think it's to hear the tail end of episode uh 335. We talk about the AI side of things. But back to dispatchers and whatnot and training operations people, you made a good point before of like, you know, did I ask that question the right way? Did I did I phrase that properly? And I have found that myself when I'm dealing with one person in our company versus somebody else. Um, you get to know people over time and and you find, like, if you're a very effective communicator and and salesperson, you find that like the way that you ask the same question or try to deliver the same message to two different people might sound black and white, like night and day, one versus the other. Like some people prefer to be um given like very clear-cut instructions, like and they'll follow it like a monkey, like do X, Y, and Z. They do it, right? Like, whereas other people, they need to understand why and what is the implication of the reasoning behind the way that we're doing something, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

And like here's a great thing, right? Like two really important points that I think were just like the most valuable lessons I've learned in my life, which is anytime you place the responsibility for an issue outside of yourself, you also lose the agency or ability to fix it, change it, or resolve it. Like if I'm mentally blaming you, right, as my partner, I have lost all ability to change that because it's now your fault and I'm not gonna change anything I do, right? If I look at myself and go, well, this didn't work out in the way I thought you and I were gonna do this, and I go, Well, what could I have done differently to get you to see this in a different way? I can keep iterating and get better at it, right? Which is like point one. Now, like point two to your what to what you said is like, I think just full stop, the worst way to train anybody on anything is to use statements. I think the best way, we'll call like the Socratic method, is just to teach somebody by asking questions. Because if I ask you a question, I both learn how you look at it, not just how I look at it, so I can see where you're coming from versus I where I am to bridge that gap. So we're both on the same page. And two, everybody that has ever been in any class in their entire life, I don't care if you're in first grade or you went through a doctorate program, if somebody is lecturing you, at some point you will daydream and your mind will wonder and you will lose track of what they're saying. But if they're asking you a question, your brain has to engage to respond. So you know they're paying attention. So you both learn and know they're engaged, which to me is like the biggest issue with most managers is they tell people what to do and they have no idea what that person's understanding is when they start. So they're starting where they're at, which is I've done this job for four years. This person's been at six months, they're explaining it like somebody that has five years of experience. And the person that just started is like, I don't know what half of what you said even meant, but they're too scared to ask you. So they say nothing. Now they learn nothing, and then you get more frustrated and they don't improve, right? So to dove tie that into just a real world example for a dispatcher, right? Example one, I got a load for this customer. It's this commodity, this weight going from Miami to Buffalo. Go get me a rate or a truck. Okay. Now, second scenario, ask a question. Hey, I've got a load from this customer. Um, I think they're pretty flexible on the budget. So I'd like to know where the market's at and where some of the options are. So get me some options, even if you think they're a little bit above market, but I'm really trying to understand how tight is this lane and what you think we could be able to get a truck for immediately or over time, right? Now, those two ways that I explain that, I'm gonna get vastly different things from you if you're gonna go cover that load. One, if I go, my customer wants to pay three grand, you very well might just not respond to any carrier that calls on a post that is$3,100 or$32. Because I told you three grand. So like, well, these are too expensive. I'm just not even gonna give Ben the options that are$100 more. If I did that job, I might, because I have more experience, go, well, if the guy's off by a hundred bucks, I'll see if he'll come down a little, maybe fifty, and see if the customer will come up 50. And that is probably still a very good option. But you might not know that because you've just started doing this. And I told you three grand is the target. So you just don't even negotiate with any carriers that start a little bit above that, right? So just those two very simple things. And I see this all of the time from people that are very experienced, guys that have been dispatching for three years and in sales two years, like I just don't know why this guy can't get me a truck. I'm like, well, do we know what he is doing? And they'll be like, Well, what do you mean? I'm like, Well, is he posting the load? How is he posting the load? Is he calling the carriers that email that are interested? Or is he just emailing the carriers back, this is what I want to pay, and then nothing? Because if I do that versus calling the carrier, I will get different responses. Is he willing to entertain options above the target rate to give you so you can understand where that lane is in that market today? I don't know. Is he calling posted trucks? I don't know. Is he calling the trucks that have run the lane for you last week, the week before, and the week before? I don't know. Have you run the lane before? Yeah. Does he know to look there? I don't know. Does he know any of the? I'm not really sure. Okay, well, we can't really help this person improve if we have literally no idea what they're doing, right? It'd be like trying to coach somebody in a sport with a blindfold on, having no idea what they're doing, and going, hey, just help this guy make more basketballs, but you can't see anything that they're doing, didn't bother to ask and have no idea. Like, well, you're probably not going to be able to help them very much, right? If you have no idea what the guy's doing or how he's looking at the situation.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Yeah, I was talking with one of our uh one of our reps a couple weeks ago, and she's gotten to this point where she's kind of like painted herself into a corner where she's doing so much on her own and really can't scale. And she's like, Well, I can't hire anybody because like there's just so much intuition that I have that I can't teach to somebody else. And I was like, What do you mean? She's like, Well, I know that like if the customer, you know, has this lane, well, I automatically know I've got to do, you know, I'm gonna go X, Y, and Z or call this carrier. You know, and if this carrier in this lane says this, well, I know I gotta do this. She's like, I, you know, no one's gonna know that because that just comes from experience. And I was like, well, yeah, but I'm like, you can train that in baby steps, right? You can do that in look small, bite-sized chunks. Because think about it, like we all started somewhere. We all kind of learn in order to get a baseline understanding and knowledge. And then when you start to execute with that baseline knowledge, you then start to get what you want, you're calling it intuition, but it's really just experience and and more knowledge and understanding of the industry. That's really all it is. And everyone can learn that with time, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

And I would make a I would make a second point that all of your experience is just a very long period of time of which you made a mistake, learned from it, didn't do it again, and then did something else. That is literally experience. All of human learning comes from doing it wrong, not wanting that to happen again, and then learning from it to get better, right? Like we don't learn how to do anything without making mistakes, whether it's math, learning how to walk. Like, literally, you don't teach a child how to walk by going put one foot in front of the other. They fall to the left and they go, oh, then they fall to the right. They go, I don't want to fall that way, then they fall forward and they go, I don't want to fall that way, fall backward, and they go, okay. They literally learn through mistakes, right? Like that's how we do everything. And everyone's so scared of making an error that they just inhibit anybody's growth, themselves or the person they're training.

Step By Step Load Coverage

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Yeah, and that's why I think, like, with when you've got a dispatcher operations person, you know, you can capacity rep carriage sales. There's all different things you can call it, but it's the kind of the same thing, right? They're gonna help you get a truck. Um, I usually start with like the basics, like explaining what is the task that you're trying to do. And so so it could sound like this. Here's the scenario The customer has offered me this shipment. Our next goal is to find a truck that can meet that shipment's requirements, right? So that's the the what, right? So you have like the who, what, when, why, how, all that stuff, right? And then you want to go to the um, you know, here's the possible solutions that we have. And this is where if you can put together some kind of written playbook or SOP for a new hire that they can at least reference, that way they're not just being lectured by you. They have something they can actually look at. So then they can see, all right, well, here's our options to find said truck is we've got load boards, we've got our internal TMS data, we've got sourcing tools like gen logs or highway or the DAT directory, or fill in the blank on whatever you're using to source carriers. And then you can explain the value and maybe the shortcomings of each of those tools and when each is appropriate. And I'm like boiling this down to super dumbed down level, but that's really a good place to start is explaining you know, a load board, right? It's a you know, you're just throwing something out there and hoping someone just happens to see it, right? It's a very reactive type of thing. Um internal TMS data. I can be proactive. I can see who's ran this load or a similar lane historically, and you know, did they have an on-time delivery? Was the rate, you know, within market average, above, below, et cetera? That's gonna be a more of a proactive approach. I can do things like sourcing through gen logs or highway based on carrier historical data. That's more of a proactive approach. Um, and you start to explain these are the different tools that we have access to. Here's the reason that we would want to use these tools. Here's why this one might be better in this scenario versus another. Um, and even like a load board in itself, there's proactive and reactive ways to go about it. So, like if I just post, post a load and wait for a truck to call me, it's reactive. Um, but that might actually be beneficial because if a carrier calls me, they want something uh more than I want them versus if I proactively call a carrier who has a truck posted, the that leverage changes, right? And you have to explain these different things to a dispatcher because otherwise they might not know. They just think that okay, whether they call me or I call them, it's the same starting point. And that's not the case, right? And that's that's not just intuition knowing that, that's experience and you know, just fully understanding what the scenario is.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yes. So everything you said for sure, right? And I'm gonna break that down because this is where I start with everyone, right? With training a dispatcher. Order of operations, and this is the way I've learned it, doesn't mean it's the perfect way or the only way. It's just the way I found most effective and efficient to teach somebody, and it's also kind of the way I go about this, which is okay, load, load comes in, sitting next to the dispatcher. Here's what I'd like you to do first. One, if I haven't told you, you should ask me the situation for this load. Meaning, is it urgent and needs picked up at a certain time for a certain reason? Like there's a loading appointment in an hour and a half or two hours is very different than see what the market is and can we get the load today? Can it load today or tomorrow? So, understanding your customers' need for when they need this truck, right? And why? Super urgent has to pick up by this appointment. Or we've got some flexibility because it will determine how and where you emphasize the next steps. So, starting point, what is the situation of which I'm going to work on? Mostly related to time. Okay. Now I've got an idea. Customer would like the load to pick up this afternoon. And worst case scenario, we might be able to load it tomorrow, but we really want to pick it up today, which is probably the most common. Okay. So step one, get the load onto the load board. Meaning just get your post up there so that the market can see it, so you can do the next things while everybody is literally able to see this as soon as possible. So I'm going to post that load, put the details in, my phone number, and my email. That is done, step one. As I'm posting the load, what does my rating tools tell me? First one, since I'm posting the load in DAT, as I post the load, it will give me the range typically. And as you and I say all the time, that is not the highest and lowest. That's like your middle 50%. So a range from whatever 2700 to 3200 is what that is telling me this lane has been for the past week, maybe three days, maybe two weeks. Gives me a starting point. Okay. Now the loads posted, I've got an idea of where that is. The next place I'm going to look is my TMS. And I'm gonna go, what have I paid for this load in the past and if I've run it? Okay, it's right in the middle. I've been paying three grand. Says the market is still between 28 and 32. So that matches up. Okay. Next step, right? Where is the market today? Because that is historical information. That doesn't tell me how many loads shippers have today to move and how many trucks are empty and available that meet that requirement. So now I'm going to look at the load board to see all of the loads posted by all of the brokers that are trying to get the same truck I am or close to it. 150 miles from pickup to delivery, equipment tight. I sort by highest rate and look down.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

And to be clear, that is what other brokers are offering to pay for this load.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Doesn't mean that's what they will pay. It's what they're expecting to get a truck for. And I'm looking at how what is the highest rate and how close is that to what I expect to pay? If they're pretty close, all right, I'm in line. If there are posts that are$1,000 more than what I'm expecting to pay, I then look at the next place, which is how long has that post been there? Because if there are four posts up right now for$4,000 that have been sitting there for 45 minutes, why have trucks not taking that load? If the rate has been three grand, I expect to pay three grand. Why has nobody else been able to book a truck for four grand? That is my first uh that doesn't make sense. So then I click into the load. Are they a different load that would make them be more expensive? Is it a one-pick five drop? That would cost more money than a one-pick one drop. Is it my loads 30,000 pounds? And these loads are 47,000 pounds for flatbeds. Okay. Do they have strange requirements that mine doesn't have that would mean somebody would need to pay more for that work? If those are their weird or hard loads, then my number still makes a little more sense. If they're identical to my load, I'm going to get my first real piece of information to give to my broker. Hey, I don't know what's going on. Rates look like they should be the same, but there's a handful of brokers trying to pay four grand for the past hour, and none of them have come down yet. So maybe the market has shifted today and we're not sure what happened. First piece. Now, how many posted trucks are there today? Now that doesn't mean those are all the trucks. In fact, it definitely means those aren't all the trucks that are available to call your load, but it will give you at least a barometer of is there one truck posted or a hundred? Okay, if there's more, then it means the rate's probably closer to what I thought. If there's no trucks there, it's probably going to be more expensive than I thought. I haven't made a call or got an email from any carrier yet, but just looking at those things gave me a whole lot of insight I can give to my broker, or if I am the broker, I can call my customer, literally right back and like, hey, I'm working on that load right now. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Looks like there's a bunch of other shippers looking to move similar loads or same lane on your equipment for like$1,000 more than we normally pay. I'm not saying we're going to need that amount of money, but like just wanted to give you a heads up. This might take a little longer to get a truck at your rate than I thought, or maybe we might need the flexibility. So it's literally not even talk to a carrier, but now I'm adding value back to my prospect if I'm trying to get them into a customer, or a customer to go, hey, just giving you a heads up of what I'm seeing here, this might be a little different than it was yesterday, for example, or last week. That's step one, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Now you got more, or you want me to add something in here?

Evaluating Carriers Beyond Price

SPEAKER_00 41:11

I'm gonna go one more on that. Keep going. After that, right, emails will probably start coming in from carriers with rates that are probably gonna be more than my three grand. So, first thing is if you've got two dispatchers or one, one should be picking up the phone every time they get an email from a carrier, not emailing the carrier back. My customer wants to pay this. This is all I have in it, because that carrier is just gonna look at that and go, Well, I'll try to get more money and they'll keep trying to get better paying loads. You literally won't even learn anything about why that carrier does or doesn't want your load. So, waste of time. You pick up the phone and you ask a question, hey, saw you emailed about that load. Where's your driver looking to go? What are you guys looking for? Do you need to get this guy loaded soon? When is he gonna be empty? Where is he gonna be empty? Has he delivered to the place he's at right now? How long do you think it'll take? I want to be able to see if this might work. Then you go, hey, this is where I'm looking to be. They tell you they want more. You can then go back and give this information to your broker or your customer, even if you haven't booked them yet, because you're learning more. This is what the carriers are expecting. Why are they expecting that? They're talking to the other brokers that are trying to book the same lane with the same type of truck that you are, that's who you're competing with. I learned a whole bunch on the phone calls. I can now tell my broker, right? Ideally, I'm gonna be working those options. But the important piece is how you ask this question. Because if I want to pay three grand and I got a guy that's like, listen, man, lowest I can go is like 35. If you can make that work, let me know. I'm writing that down. Because even though my customer wants to pay three grand, I got an option for 35. And if nobody else gets them a truck for three, they're gonna have to pay 35 if they want that load move today or tomorrow. So now I'm starting at a number that is better than I want, but I work my way to it, which gives me both more information, helps my broker build better rapport with his prospect or customer, and allows the customer to make a better informed decision. Hey, they're talking to other brokers as a shipper, they want to pay three grand, but everyone else is telling them four, and your sales guy told him, hey, we might be able to make this work for 37, for example. Now maybe they're more inclined to pay you what it needs to move that load. We don't know. That's why you start at the higher number and you work down information and service. Then I'm also going to be calling the carriers or emailing them that have run the lane for me last week or the week before. Hey, got another load today. You guys interested? Let me know if you got a truck there today. So those things are happening at the same time, but I'm both learning and starting higher than where my goal is and working towards it. Because as I work towards it, two things. One, my customer might come up on money, which gives me one more load covered than I would have had, just starting at three and saying no to everybody that doesn't give me what I want. Second of all, if my customer books a load for three grand, says don't worry about it, and then their truck cancels on them because that truck got four grand from another broker, the shipper's gonna call my guy right back and be like, hey, do you still have that$3,500 option? The truck I had at three grand canceled on me. I'll pay the$35. Now I go back to my notes, call the guy that was a little too expensive 20 minutes ago, and I'm able to pay him that money and I got the load that way. So it creates so many more opportunities to book more loads when you're working from not the best option down to optimal because shit's changing. The carriers, the other brokers with loads on that lane, other shippers that are going to have loads that weren't there this morning will come up. Trucks that were there might not be there. This stuff's changing all day. So a target is literally that. You don't go and shoot at a target and expect to hit the bullseye every time you pull a trigger. You don't throw darts expecting every dart you throw to go directly in the middle of the board. You miss and keep working until you get better at it. It's the same with negotiation and working the market.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

Yeah, one of the things I think is a good exercise too is if you can show a new dispatcher, um, even just like in a scenario, like a mock scenario. Say, all right, I've got a lane going from let's say I've got a reefer going from Fort Pierce to Charlotte, and you have you look up two different carriers that both have availability, either through a posted load or something like that. And um you have to you look at like the the very objective information about that carrier, and you realize that they're not created equally. Therefore, when covering a load, you know, when one comes in at 50 bucks cheaper than the other, it might not be worth that$50 saved or an additional profit for you or for your customer. Because then you start to look at things like, what is the age of their equipment? What are their safety, like historical safety ratings and inspection history? Is this carrier have a does one have a higher likelihood of um you know breaking down or something going wrong versus the other? Um, how have their, if I've used both of these carriers historically, what is their service failure percentage looked like in my TMS? Meaning things like were they late to pickup? Was there a driver issue? Were they late to delivery? Um, any subjective notes in there? Like you might have I've seen notes. Where like internally someone's like, you know, Boris is an a-hole, don't book with this guy or whatever. Um, there's all these different things that like when you just look at truck and rate, they they're not equal beyond just those those two things there. Like you have to look at, you know, what does this look like for me potentially with having an issue with my customer? Um, and then like how far away are they from pickup? Not necessarily because of the um being able to get there on time, but more so like they might be asking for more money because to them they deserve it because they have to deadhead 250 miles. When the reality is, well, this other truck doesn't need to deadhead 250 miles. I'm not necessarily paying them by paying that this other truck 50 bucks less, I'm not screwing them over. They just don't have to put fuel in their truck to drive empty for all that distance. So there's a lot of like the little nuances that come into it. And I really think that when you if you can do this in person with somebody, I think it's the best because they can they can see what you're doing, the decisions you're making, the reasoning behind all of it. Whereas like if you're trying to train a dispatcher remotely, it can be very, very, very difficult.

Using TMS Data To Source

SPEAKER_00 47:37

So you brought up a whole bunch of things, right? Like a really good dispatcher, someone that has the experience. Say you and I are working together and I'm dispatching for you and covering, right? Like I want to be able to go to you and give you as much information that could be helpful to the customer and you to help both make the decision, right? Hey, I got a I got a guy at 33, but he's not unloaded and he's never delivered there before. He thinks he'll be unloaded in an hour, but we don't know. Could be two, three. There's a couple other trucks there. That guy's at 3300. Option two, I got a guy at 3,500, but that guy's empty right now. We've run a bunch of loads with them. We've never had an issue. They've got great safety ratings, and the equipment looks pretty new. Everything lines up. It's an extra 200 bucks, but the guy can be there in 20 minutes. Okay. He's literally in the same zip code. Okay. Now you've got a lot of good information. You can now call your customer and you can allow them to make that choice. I got a guy at$3,300, but he's probably not going to be empty for an hour, hour and a half. He might make your four o'clock appointment, but he might be a little late. I got another guy at$3,500 empty right now. He can be at your facility in 25 minutes. Which one do you want? Now, I'm not gambling on behalf of my customer. I'm giving them a buffet of joyces, right? Or, hey, you tell me, is it worth an extra 200 bucks to get this guy in there right now? Or do you want to take a chance that the guy maybe doesn't make it by his four o'clock appointment? Now, your shipper might go, Well, I don't want to pay our warehouse overtime to stay after five. So I need the guy at four because paying overtime is literally more than 200 bucks anyway. So, you know what? I'll pay the 35, get the guy in there now, and I can let my warehouse guys go early and I'll actually make more money as a shipper paying the truck more because I don't have to keep my staff until 530 today. So these are, again, assumptions that people make. Oh, my customer always wants it cheap. Well, they're always going to ask you for the best price. But if you're not giving them the information around what that price gets them, you don't allow them to make better business decisions. That's what makes you a better broker and a better dispatcher and why both have to work together, right? Because the other thing you said that I wanted to just not lose track of, I did this last week. When I learned to do this at TQL, we all had splitters, which is like basically a plug for a headset that goes the two headsets. So both of you can hear both sides of the conversation and one can talk or decide not to. And the fastest way I've ever trained any dispatchers is I sit next to them, just like you said, they put on one, I put on one, and I start covering loads and asking questions. Then instead of me telling them what I did, I show them and go, you try it. And then when they do it differently, I don't tell them what I did and what they did wrong. I say, What did you hear when I did it versus what you heard? Sometimes they go, Oh, I don't, it sounded the same. But like, okay, what did you get differently from the dispatcher that I got? And they'll be like, Whoa, you got a bunch of rates. I the guy just told me no and hung up. Okay, start. Now, what do you think I might have said that allowed him to tell me more than what you said? I don't know. Try it again. The next time, I'll be like, listen to how I connect with the person and build rapport. Hey man, how's your day going? What are you guys looking at? Is this the only load you're working on? You got any other trucks you need me to look at? I got some other lanes, maybe I can help you out with more than this load. Oh, yeah, I got some trust. Now we're talking. Hey, okay. Now they realize they just immediately jumped to what rate do you want? Got a yes or no and hung up. And they're starting to learn by watching and hearing me do it, just like you said. And I can hear what they're doing. So I can help show them more and emphasize what I want them to pick up without telling them and lecturing them. I'm showing them, not telling them. They're gonna learn so much faster, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Yeah, and I'll add in too, and this depends on what access to what technology you have. But one of the really cool things I always recommend is before that conversation begins, the more information you could have going into it, the better. So um different TMSs have different ways of putting this together. But um I've seen VoIP has this though too.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Like most of like the air calls and different VoIP systems, like you can now transfer a call and stay on the audio. So even if you're remote, you can hear them and they can hear you, which is really pretty cool.

Negotiation That Builds Trust

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Yeah. Well, I'm what I'm getting at is like, so I set up a tool for somebody a couple years ago where it will look at their internal TMS data and it will look at certain data points and it will give them, it'll weigh them based on what that preference is. So I'll explain like so. Let's say, for example, we have 100% is the most you can, you know, assign to a carrier, right? So let's say I have that same lane of Fort Pierce to Charlotte, and I've got like, it's gonna the TMS is gonna recommend like, here's the five carriers in this order that meet your criteria. And it's gonna weigh them based off of things such as um where they're based out of, right? You might assign a certain percentage to, because that might dictate a backhaul or a head-all for them. It could be do they currently have any trucks posted on the load boards? That could add another percentage to it. It might be how many loads have they run with us in the past? And the more loads they've ran with us in the past, they get a higher score for that. If they've run none, they get zero points for that. And then a whole scale in between. Then it could be if they've run loads in the past, it's gonna, you know, what's the margin associated with it? And you can create basically these little service failures, right? All these things, right, where you can take, I want to assign, you know, if they have a truck posted right now, I want 50% of that. I want that to be a very heavy weight because I know they have an available truck versus if there's not one posted and I'm calling them. We have no idea if they have a truck. But another way too is like DAT, if you don't have that in your TMS, DAT has a tool called Lane Makers, where you can you can see um it weighs two data points, and that's posted trucks versus um historical them searching for freight in that lane, right? And it might say, well, if they've searched for this in the past, it weighs it, I think like a fraction of if they have a truck posted. So, but it's still taking both into account, right? And there's different ways of taking data and information before you hop on the phone. So if you if someone calls you on this load and now you have their, you know, their carrier information in front of you, you know before they even start talking about price, you know they've been searching for this lane every single week for the last two months, right? I know they're gonna want this, and I don't even have to ask them or have them tell me, but I already know. Or in your TMS, you can see that um, you know, this carrier has had a ton of service failures with your company. They're not on do not use, but you know, nine out of or one out of ten times there's an issue. And we don't want to, you know, we're we're not gonna try to prioritize this carrier over another. So there, and again, there's all different ways to go about getting that information and different TMSs have different tools to apply that. I've heard it called Top Match in McLeod, carrier smart search and another TMS. Um, but there's usually different ways on your on like your operational load board internally with your TMS where you can have a carrier sourcing tool and apply those different um those rules to it. So and again, the more the more you can put information in front of a new dispatcher so they don't have to go searching for it, I think is is usually an optimal thing without trying to overload them, obviously.

Expectations And Training Timeline

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Agreed. And all of that stuff is super helpful, right? Because like if the tool does it, you get better at it and you learn faster and you can rely on that. So like better information allows you to make better decisions, right? But if you're not looking for it, it's useless. So like you still need to coach and train and show people why this is helpful to what we said earlier. The other thing, too, I want to say is like the most common thing I see and the easiest fix that gets you the best results for negotiating with both shippers and carriers, right? I think the most common thing I've ever heard with brokers covering loads with dispatchers is listen, man, I only got three grand in it. That's all of the money I have. My customer won't go anymore. Can you make the three grand work? That's all I have. Do you think that dispatcher believes you? Even if it is true. Like 99% of the time, no. In the same way, you don't believe most of what they're saying is that that is the lowest they're willing to go. So neither one of you believe each other, which means there's no trust. Uh, and you're basically just talking at each other and to see if you either have to give it to them or they have to take your rate. But the easiest, simplest fix is you use something objective, which is a third party, just another person in the negotiation. You tell me you need to be at 33, and I was gonna tell you my customer only goes to three, which you won't believe. A whole other way to do that, which is way more believable, is listen, I got another truck I just talked to. They're not gonna be empty for a little bit. Your guy's empty now, but that guy will take it for three. I'd like to give you the 33, but like I makes no sense because I can just book this guy and wait an hour for three. So let me know if you want to take it for three, or if you can't, then that's fine. Now it's not you believing me. It's me going, like, I got another truck, meets all the same requirements you guys have. He's willing to do it for three. Can you make that? Or I booked another one of these loads this morning already for three, and I think I got another option for three. I'm waiting for them to confirm. Can you make that rate? I know you won 33, but if I got a three, it doesn't really make sense. Now, I will probably get the truth from you a yes or a no of whether you're willing to come down or wait for a better load, right? And the same thing is like when you talk to a shipper, most brokers go, listen, I need this. I need a rate increase. Can you give me more money? Guess what the shipper's perception of that is? That you are taking more money because you said I need more money. They think it's literally profit going into your pocket. So they are going to say, no, I don't want to give you more money. Go get me a truck for cheaper. What you really mean is all the carriers that are willing and able to run your load that meet your requirements, they're asking for$300 more dollars. Would you like the load to pick up today? If so, I gotta give them$300 more. It's not my money. This is what they're asking for. And furthermore, they're not just greedy and asking for$300. It's because all the other shippers in your zip code shipping the same lane as you today are willing to give them$300 more. You aren't. That's not me. That's your competition for trucks on this lane and what the trucks are being offered. That's why they want$33. I have nothing to do with this. All I do is go and find out what's happening and tell you, so you can decide whether you want to pay$33 today or hope you can get three grand tomorrow. Now you don't one get angry at me when the market changes, because it isn't me and I don't control it. I just tell you what's happening in it. And you don't get angry at me when the market goes up because it literally isn't me. But the way we say things create all these assumptions and create more problems. But then you'll hear a broker go, dude, the market's so bad and my customer's so cheap, I can't move anything. Well, it's like, well, it's also how you're explaining what is happening that is leading to this result of your customers not willing to give you what you need to pay the trucks to move their freight because you keep telling them, I need more money. Well, if you keep telling me I need more money, I'm gonna tell you no, and I'm gonna go ask every other broker prospect in me, can you do it for three grand? And I'm gonna take the load from you and give it to somebody else. So it's not just what you're doing, it's how you're doing it and why you're saying what you're saying that is gonna give you vastly different results at this job all day.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

Yeah. And to wrap up on this whole topic, I I want to just kind of remind people that like this is when you're training somebody new, it's a process and you know, expectation management is huge here. So, like on both sides. So for you as the one that's training the new person and for the new person being trained, because if you try and throw too much information at somebody too quickly and you get frustrated with them, they're gonna get overwhelmed, they're gonna get discouraged, and they're not gonna be very motivated to learn and gain their own experience, right? And you, as the person that's expecting this help and to train this person, understand that it's gonna take a lot of repetitions for this person in a lot of different scenarios and a lot of different conversations with different types of uh truck drivers and dispatchers for them to get that what we called earlier that intuition, which is really just experience, right? It's the same thing with making sales calls. The first, you know, 500 uh we often say like they're not meant for you to get a customer, they're meant for you to get experience with how that process works. The same way goes with the number, the first X amount of times that you're sourcing a truck or dealing with a dispatcher or booking a driver, et cetera. It's there's so many different scenarios that pop up, it's just it's gonna take time. So a lot of times that it's like a three to six month um period of time before I think someone is usually you're gonna know if they're gonna be good or if they're just really not a good fit for that role.

Final Takeaway And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

Correct. And I think again, this is very helpful. It's something I do. I don't know what you do. It's like I'm always trying to learn something new or get better at something because it puts me in the student shoes, which is what reminds me of these things, right? And like just like an example of this is like I hear people all the time, these my support staff or dispatchers, they're not motivated, they don't care. I tell them all the time. And in my head, I'm like, are they really not motivated or are they not given the tools and support to be the best they can be at this? Because like, just take a physical learning example of like I was learning how to play tennis again, like two years ago. My daughter takes tennis lessons. So I'm there like twice a week watching all these different coaches and very little kids, even like literally two, three years old, all the way up to like professionals. And it's so funny because like you'll I'll see a coach occasionally show a kid, like, this is how you serve a flat serve, and then go do this. And I can literally see the kid has no idea how this coach did that. They just watched it, and then I'll watch the coach get frustrated and go, Why aren't you doing this? Do you just not care? Are you not motivated? Don't you want to get better? And I'm like, that kid has all the motivation in the world. You didn't give him the tools and the understanding to be able to improve, and then you're blaming him for it. And it's like, no, like the kid's not gonna be able to do what you're doing as an experienced professional. Start and meet the kid where he's at. Like maybe the kid can't toss the ball, maybe the kid isn't holding the racket right. Like, you got to go and find out where the person you're trying to teach or train is and move them step by step to where you are, not starting where you are and yelling at them because they can't bridge a decade gap of experience you have when they've been in the job for three weeks, right? And I think that's why most people don't ask enough questions or think about where is this person at in their learning journey? And why might they be frustrated? And why are they not able or seem capable of getting me results when it's usually not because they don't give a shit. It's usually because like they just have no idea what you're talking about. And that's why if you're frustrated and you don't know how to do what you're trying to do, you are going to appear to everybody else as if you don't care, apathetic or lazy. And it's just like you're just sitting there staring at the wall, like, I genuinely don't know what to do, right? But they're scared to ask and nobody's helping them.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Yep. Well, good discussion, good uh, good tips, everyone out there. Let us know what you think in the comments and leave us your questions. Final thoughts, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

And until next time, go bills.