How Freight Brokers Find Carriers | Episode 349

Join us as we break down practical carrier sourcing strategies for freight brokers, including how to use load boards, TMS tools, market data, and AI to find capacity more effectively in the spot market. We also cover deadheading, spot market dynamics, posting loads the right way, and creative ways to turn better carrier sourcing into better margins.

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Transcript

Opening: Sourcing Spot Market Capacity

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today we're talking how to source capacity for the spot market. We've seen a lot of folks lately that have been talking about how it's hard to find trucks and how pricing has been really difficult with the you know the existing market and what's going on and their margins are thinning out. So Ben, we just wrapped up a really great discussion on our personal tips and tactics to best source capacity so you can find the right truck in the right place at the right time and for the right price. Right. What are your thoughts on the episode there?

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Yeah, it was a really good episode. I think we covered a lot of different strategies, techniques, and really went through like the fundamentals on how you can almost always find a truck, I think is like the tagline of the whole thing. Like if there's enough money and that freight needs to move, you should be able to get it moved.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yep. Because remember, not every truck that's out there is going to be posted as available on the load board. So let's hop into it and give you all of our best practices here. Hey guys, welcome back for another episode of the Freight 360 podcast. We got a good one today. Um, but if you're brand new, make sure to check out all of our other content. Our website is packed full with a searchable library. So you can go right to freight360.net. If you want some information on prospecting, just type in prospecting or sales. If you're looking for information on carrier vetting or carrier sourcing, just go ahead and type that in. It'll it'll spit out blogs, full-length podcasts, short videos, all the good stuff there. And you'll also find information on the Freight Broker basics course if you're looking for an educational option.

Why Documentation And Contracts Matter

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Um Ben, what's going on with you today, man? How's uh how's summer coming along?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Not bad. Finally got a roof on my house and I had to replace my air conditioner. So there you go, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

We're getting the like the story on unfolds one week at a time. I love it. Yeah. Are they all done with all of it then?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

They are not done with all of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Now I got the shingles. Uh the uh yeah, all the tile is on my roof. They still need to do the gutters and some other things. Got it. It is all a very good lesson in why contracts matter, details matter, and those things shouldn't be overlooked. And everything should be in writing. Because this would have been a nightmare if I didn't just treat the whole thing like I do, like a shipment. Which we talk about all the time. I'm like, yeah, I have your email. Yeah, the salesperson said this, yeah, your estimator said this. Because when you deal with like any company, especially even like a larger one, like don't ever assume that information actually is making it from one department to the next. Like literally none of it is. It's like the larger roofing company that's on TV advertising, and like every time I talk to someone in a different department, they have no idea what the other person said, which is a great reminder why everyone should use a CRM and why everyone in a company should be able to see what's going on with a particular customer.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Dude, I had a similar situation actually with uh well kind of similar. We're like at a dispute between some things, but uh this was with Indeed, the job hosting site. So like we use we use Indeed um to you know hire any, you know, any anybody within the company, right? So whether it's brokers or you know, back office, whatever. And we had um we had an account with them for years, and all of a sudden, like in February, it got flagged as like a it needed to go under review to verify that we're like a that our brokerage is like a legitimate company. And we like submit all this uh documentation and they denied it. They're like, Yeah, this you're you don't pass our verification. And I was like, what? So we did it like a dozen times. Ends up like I ended up getting a refund for what we had already prepaid for that month. Again, this is back in February. I got an email this morning, and it's like, hey, you know, something from Indeed, and I go to log in, and our account eventually did get reinstated, like maybe the last month, and it shows like five thousand dollars in charges for like accruing over all those months. And I was like, no, like I'm like, I'm like, I like we didn't have access to your site and your services. We ended up, we did create a different account with them um eventually, but it had it its own separate billing. But I'm like arguing with this person in a foreign country on a in a chat, and they're like, Well, I can't authorize, you know, you you should have canceled this on your own. And I'm like, I couldn't because I couldn't log in, couldn't even log into your website because our account was flagged. I'm like, but I have all the documented emails with your different support people from this past spring that verified our account was closed and re they refunded our money, blah, blah, blah. So they're gonna get it escalated. But it's like, that's why documentation, because when one person's not talking to the other, and you can't assume that they're gonna keep their own notes internally, um, just goes to show the importance of documenting everything.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

So for everything, right? And here's another interesting thing. So when the person, they said my roof was finished, but is clearly not finished, right? Sends me the contract, and basically their definition of finished is it excludes literally finish work. So, like finished, their definition of the contract is like it's under tile, but finishing the wood, the paint, the gutters, and everything that is literally finish work is not included and defined in that contract, which I thought was like really comical. However, even in addition to this, once I got this escalated, because again, I do think this is applicable for shipping and just disputes, claims, it's all the same process, right? So now, to your point, I'm talking to like the senior person at the company on his cell phone, he's apologizing. And I have all of the emails, right? And the text messages. I'm like, this is like the salesperson, the estimator, your installation team, and like your HOA team. I'm like, none of them know what the other one is saying. I'm like, I can see that because they'll literally like argue with me. And then I send them the email from the other department. I'm like, what are you guys doing over there? Like, honestly, I'm like, do you guys not have a system to communicate like across? And he's like apologizing. But it was really funny because as I'm talking to him, I go, Well, your sales guy confirmed all this. And I'm like, I'm very, I was now very curious. I'm like, well, how do you want to resolve it? And he's like, I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it. I'm sorry. But then I put the contract through um a bunch of LLM models and I just explain the situation. Like, I use Google Notebook LM a lot because you can put a bunch of files in there and just basically ask questions of all of the data that's in there, right? So I'll put the contracts in there, I save every one of those emails, uploaded into a notebook, and I go, you can see this salesperson says this here. I go, what does the contract do? And like, what would I do if they didn't want to just finish this? And it compares the contract to what they said and are doing. And it basically said, Oh, here's the language in the contract that basically excludes them from being responsible from the salesperson saying anything. And I asked, I was like, so the salesperson can literally just say whatever they want in writing, but then this contract has a language in there that basically says they don't have to stand behind anything their sales reps say, and said, Yes. And I'm like, that's so wild, right? Because like people sign things and are so used to doing it digitally that I think everyone should be in the habit of using even a cheap AI software and download that agreement before you sign it. You don't need to read a 30-page document anymore or 50 or 100. You can just put it in there and say, is there anything I should be concerned with in signing this? And it'll find the sections and just point them out to you. Yeah. And again, we always talk about having an attorney to redline agreements. I use this with attorneys because it makes my attorneys cheaper. I basically find all the sections and I go, these are the things I'd like to redline. Then the re the attorney charges me a less hourly rate to review what I found instead of them charging me to read the whole agreement. And now my hourly rates are cheaper with like every contract dispute I have to deal with now. It's like super efficient.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

There you go. AI. Um real quick on sports, the United States has been eliminated from the World Cup. I we were watching like all the games. It was exciting, but it was a pretty embarrassing final match they had against uh Belgium, I want to say it was.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yeah, I think it was. I didn't see it, but I definitely heard the recap.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

It was heard like it was awful.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah, they I mean they they were never winning. They got scored against like in the first couple minutes, and then it just got bad. So but anyway, we'll see how that pans out. I actually had Wimbledon on this morning.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

I was just gonna ask you, watching any of tennis? Did you haven't watched the tennis like that?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

You know, listen to something. I have no idea who's who or what's what. I just like I like sports.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

So women's number one seed got knocked out over the weekend. Um that was pretty interesting. And the the defending women's is a Polish girl, Iga Swatek. She got knocked out too over the weekend, which were two pretty big upsets.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Gotcha.

Ascend TMS Update And Carrier Vetting

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Um, well, in the in news here, if you're not subscribed to our newsletter, it goes out twice a week most weeks. Um, go to our website. There is a subscribe to the newsletter button on there. Um, the one of the big ones that we put out earlier this week was a press release from Ascend TMS. So we've had Tim Haim on the show. He's the uh the head there at Ascend TMS. Um, and they're also a sponsor of this show. So you can get three months for free of their uh pro version, the the full everything under the hood of that uh TMS. You can get three months free, no credit card needed. You just gotta use the referral code in the show notes from us. Um, but they did a partnership in integrated search carriers. Um, you probably have a better understanding of search carriers than me, but they're uh Garrett, I don't know if we've had him on the show, but he's definitely he's been in the background on some of that three-part series we did last year about uh a lot of the fraud and and whatnot. Um he does a lot of stuff. It's like real-time monitoring of of different data and whatnot, and that's feeding into a sense already pre-existing carrier verification um or qualification system. I forget what the actual name of it is, um, but now it's powered by search carriers. So do you have any any insight into how search carriers work specifically?

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Not any longer because they've upgraded and added features. I was working with Garrett a lot when he started it, and I was very familiar with it for the first few months that he was working on it, but I have not been back at it in a few months. Um to know I I know they've done a lot more. I know everyone I've talked to that's been using it um is very, very happy with it.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Um so I mean, I'll I'll just read this right off. So Ascens TMS are Ascend TMS already had what they called their um CVQ. It's carrier verification and qualification system. So CVQ. And then search carriers is a platform that compiles carrier and broker data from multiple live sources, cleans it, monitors it, and updates it in real time so freight professionals can make better, faster, and safer carrier decisions. So the big takeaways, and this is from Tim, is that Ascend TMS users now get free real-time carrier and broker vetting and selection intelligence from search carriers built right into the TMS. Search carriers now fully powers Ascend TMS's CVQ, that's the carrier verification and qualification system for carrier and broker vetting and selection. And CVQ can be used as a free primary vetting tool or as a second look alongside something like highway, MCP, or RMIS, which are also already built into Ascend TMS. Um, qualifying, all qualifying Ascend TMS Pro customers, which you can be if you just use our referral code for free. Um, get a fully paid for search carriers compliance subscription as well as Shipper CRM Pro for find new shippers, fully paid for by Ascend TMS. So if you are in the hunt for a TMS or considering uh a change or an upgrade, this is a great time to do it. We talked about how they have the access to highway, which is typically untouchable as far as a budget standpoint goes. If you're a smaller brokerage, um, but if you're an Ascend TMS user, that's how you can really get into uh a lot of those you know high-powered platforms. So that's kind of that's kind of big. I feel like Tim's always like one step ahead. There's so many new things that they're releasing all the time. So agreed. Good stuff. Good

Spot Market 101 Rate Or Date

SPEAKER_00 12:58

stuff. Um, and today we're gonna talk about finding carriers. So this is like a very, very valid point. Um, you know, I've heard a lot of this lately, and we kind of talked about the market where everyone's like, you know, rates are up and I can't find a truck for whatever price, and you know, so their margins get thin, and it's like, well, no, it's not really how the spot market works, right? If the spot market is more expensive, you don't have to give your customer a discount because you aren't doing a good job at sourcing capacity. Um, or if just in general, if rates overall are up, customers should be paying more. So, but we're gonna try and give at least some uh some tips and techniques to find the you know the best ways to find capacity out there in the spot market. So remember, spot market is the unpredictable, the here and the now. Um, it's not you know the contract world where we can predict out months in advance and you know lock down an asset-based carrier, you know, at a set rate for a certain amount of time. This is like, hey, I got two loads that popped up that are going out this week. I need um I need trucks for, right? That's what we're gonna talk about today. And um I think that's a a very important distinction to make because the way that you go about sourcing and pricing the spot market definitely differs from that of the the contract world.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yeah, I want to go like very, very 101 level, right? To like get everyone to conceptualize. I guess the way I think about it or the way I was taught it at first, right, is like on any given day, you can almost get a truck to load any load going anywhere. It's usually do you have enough money? Okay, because at a certain dollar amount, like someone will take the load, right? And like this is a very important distinction. Like we always use that example of like you have a rate or a date. If it's gotta move today, I mean, literally has to move, and I've got open checkbook, like you can keep up in your rate until eventually, if there are trucks there, they will take it, which is like the simple one. But like, let's take an example of you have a load that needs to pick up in like a very um like maybe rural area or somewhere out in the desert where like there's just literally not a lot of trucks that deliver there every day. So if you looked at posted trucks, there just literally might not be one, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

I that's why I wanted to add in a caveat to what you're saying is it's not just about um, you know, the rate, it's also how do you know where there actually are trucks? And if there's not a posted truck, it doesn't necessarily mean there's not a truck willing to go there. It's just not a posted truck.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Right. So then the second thing is for anyone that's out there, like one of the things that people don't necessarily, I think, think of when they're starting is just because there's no posted trucks there does not mean there are no empty trucks there watching posted loads. Just because every truck isn't literally posting themselves up to get phone calls, a lot of times there are trucks there literally looking for loads. They just don't want to field calls. So even if there are no posted trucks, does not mean there are no trucks that can are available and will take your load is like the next distinction. Some of which have settings on their load boards where they literally get alerts when a dollar per mile is reached. Very common in flatbeds in Texas, where like they'll all set truck stop at a certain dollar per mile, and until the lane hits that rate, like they it's just not worth them to run the lane. So they like just don't and they just wait for the money to shift and they do other things, right? So just because they're not there doesn't mean they aren't and there aren't a truck there. But then the next thing is like just think of a map, think of any city that is like very small and not close to any major metropolitan areas. The one I always used to run into this, I was used as an example, is like Sparks, Nevada, because that's where they built the Tesla paint. I don't even know if it's still there, I think it is. But like lots of loads would need to get picked up or delivered there, but it was very far from everything else, right? There's plenty of these cities around the country where like you will need to load there, but not a lot of things get delivered every day. So like there may not be a truck within a hundred and fifty mile circle around where that load picks up. Well, then the next step is where is the next major city where you're likely to have trucks? Because the term is just deadhead. But if my load is picking up 200 miles away from like St. Louis, maybe in like the rural area, like I can then post my load out of St. Louis and pay that driver the same dollar per mile as if he was loaded from St. Louis, but he'll drive to pick up my load empty, then run my lane. And that's really basic math. If my load was going from wherever

Deadhead Math And Smart Ghost Posting

SPEAKER_02 18:40

in the middle of the country to wherever at three bucks a mile, and it's 200 miles to the next major city to pick up, and I can't find a truck where my load is picking up. You take your three bucks a mile times 200 miles, add 600 bucks. That's how much you would expect to deadhead a driver empty to pick up your load in a city where there aren't any trucks. Really good taxi and run it.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Because that carrier otherwise would have never searched for or found your load. Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

And that's this the strategy you use is like people get frustrated because they call it like ghost posting, but like when you do it correctly, meaning like my load is 200 miles right out of St. Louis, there are no trucks, nobody's calling me, I'm calling out, can't find anything. Okay, like if I find trucks that are in the next closest city that are posted, I post my load out of St. Louis, delivering to the same place it is. And I just basically explain to the dispatcher, like, this is basically a uh three-stop load. Except it's actually better for them. So instead of it being like a two-pick, one drop, because they leave St. Louis, go to this city, and then deliver somewhere. I go, hey, like it's gonna run like it's loaded for a three-stop load, and I'll pay you loaded from where you're at right now, and you're not burning as much gas because you're driving empty for 200 miles. So you'll make an extra $600 to drive empty to pick up my load, and you don't have the extra stop. So it's as fast as a one-pick one drop, but you're getting paid, like it's a one-pick two drop, and you'll actually make more money on the load. And care's like, oh yeah, that'll work. And there's one caveat that I noticed, it's more psychological. People don't like to drive in the opposite direction, even though, like, just like geometrically or mathematically, it doesn't make a difference. Like, if I drove south to pick up the load and then had to drive north, drivers are like, no, I don't want to drive that direction and turn around. It's like this psychological thing. So I always draw a line from where my load picks up or delivers through where it picks up and keep going and find the next major city because those are the easiest to find drivers to do. Because there's just a psychological effect of like they want to keep moving in the same direction. And if they have to go west and then east, like I could talk to 10 companies and just like nobody wants to do it. But if you find one there, they just drive the same direction, it's just like so much easier to cover those loads for some reason. And my guess was always like the psychological aspect of like people feel like they're wasting time, even though you're paying them to drive empty and shouldn't matter which direction it is. It definitely does when you're trying to actually cover freight. You just get way more friction, way more rejections having to turn around before they pick up the load and go in that direction.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yep. So, for example, um, you used St. Louis to Nevada. If I'm looking at a map here, you might be looking at Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, right? These are all like they're gonna be east of where you're starting, and they're gonna all drive west to St. Louis, some southwest, some just west, some northwest, but they're gonna head in that direction and then keep going. Versus if I were to go to Kansas City and say you're gonna drive east and then turn around and go back west, you're gonna probably get less people that are just interested in that.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

So it's good. And this was fun, like because I remember this was like during ELD. So when that happened for like a good one to two quarters of 2017, there were a lot of open checkbook loads because capacity just overnight disappeared because of the new regulation. So I had customers back then in flatbeds and containers that were just like, I have to get this loaded today. So, like, literally it's open checkbook. And like they're like, within reason, like I'm not gonna spend 20 grand, but like it might have been a $3,500 lane where they would spend seven grand because like their customers just needed it. So this was happening so frequently that year that like that's why I remember like you get really good at this because the customer's gonna pay you to go work on the load, you're gonna make a thousand dollars and they're okay paying it because they need a good truck and they need it picked up today because it has to deliver by whenever it is, because their customer needs it. When you're doing this every day, one, it's more fun because you're also you know you're getting paid to do the work to find it, but it makes the job of finding the truck enjoyable because you're actually paying. The driver, what his time's worth. It's not like anybody is losing. It's like the customer needs it, driver's getting paid very well. We're getting paid well as a broker to go source a truck when it's really needed that no one else can find. And that's like the most fun part of this job, I think. Honestly, like that was like my favorite like era of like being a broker was just like finding creative ways to like match up carriers and drivers with shippers that just like absolutely needed things and couldn't find it anywhere else.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

So I want to I want to start talking through different um sources and tactics you can use to source these carriers. We just hit on load boards, and I want to make a couple notes on that. So um just posting a load and praying that you get a phone call is it's one technique, it's not a very good one, right? There's other things you want to do, and I'll add in too, and we've probably said this before, but some people say, like, should I include a rate on a posted load? And the general consensus is that posted loads that include a rate have a higher uh higher visibility to carriers than those that don't. Reason being, some carriers will log in, they'll search for a load, you know, a certain lane, and they're just gonna sort by a highest price. Okay. Um, and I got that same feedback from the folks at Highway um in the last week or so as we started to roll out our the, we're using like the their new load board, the trusted freight exchange or TFX, and you know, trying to map where in the TMS your posted rate goes that will display on their

Posting Rates And Working Load Boards

SPEAKER_00 24:36

um on their board. Um, and that's kind of still that consensus continues, is like, you know, in most cases it makes sense to post a rate with your load because it will get visibility, um, higher visibility with carriers that are searching for it. Now, here's what I want to add in is that not every truck that's out there and empty that wants a load is gonna have their truck posted on the load boards, right? Yeah so if you're just simply searching for trucks on DAT or truck stop, you're not seeing the majority of the capacity that's out there. So there's there's a lot of really cool additional things you can do to tap into that capacity. I remember years back, DAT even rolled out their uh lane makers tool that I I thought was really smart because um this was before we started getting like you know companies that would compile inspection and ELD data and all that. But DAT is basically like let's let's take a look at not only when carriers have posted a load or sorry, posted a truck in that area, but have searched for a load in that area as well. And it kind of like weighted them. So maybe they don't have a truck posted today, but I could see that historically in the last like month or so, they've posted a truck in this area 30 times and they've searched for a load in this area a hundred times. Um, so they might not have a truck posted right now, but they sure as should have historically been very interested in this lane, so maybe I'll give that carrier a call. And that's like one example of you know just a slighter, slightly better way to use a load board to try and source capacity. So um I always say, and we'll kind of go through different external tools, but I always say your internal TMS can tend to be like your your biggest best friend if you've got good data in there to find a carrier. So like most uh TMSs should have the ability for you to say, all right, I've got this load, we'll use your lane, and we're saying it's going from St. Louis to where's it? Sparks, Nevada, is what you said. Um, and you should be able to like do a quick search and it should tell you carriers that have run that lane before in the past. And if your TMS is not doing that for you, um, whether you have the settings turned off or you whatever reason, it's not if it doesn't have that ability, um, you're you're kind of doing yourself a disservice because it's it's great to know, you know, who's run it's great to know what trucking companies have run in the past for other brokers, but I want to know who's run it for me and when and how much I paid them and what was my experience with them, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:19

That's all very true. And something else that like just because of Sparks

Use TMS Data And Geography

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Nevada made me remind reminded me of something else, which is like a really good thing to learn when you're doing this, right? Because this is the part of the job that like to me is like literally more like sales. Like you're you're trying to sell the load to get the carrier to take it, right? But it's not just where cities are located, it's also the topography of the map. Okay. And Sparks, Nevada, what it reminded me of was I remember when I first tried to cover this lane, if you just look west, it looks like there's a lot of capacity pretty close to Sparks, Nevada. If you didn't know there's a mountain range between Sparks, Nevada and California, and what looks like as the crow flies, maybe 120 miles, it's actually like 400 miles because you got to drive around the mountain range. And like those are things that if you're just looking at a map that has no topography, like the mountains and where things are, like you could end up in a very difficult situation because you just assume, like, oh, that city looks close to that city. So, like anything where the Rocky Mountains are, or even the Appalachian Mountains on the other side, like it matters because like sometimes you can't drive a loaded truck through some of those roads. Sometimes you can't drive an empty truck through any of those roads. And just because there's a road there does not mean you can run 80,000 pounds through some of these roads. This is why, like, when you're talking to carriers, like they'll know that. Ask those questions, right? And as you're covering your lane, you will learn these things just through trial and error anyway. But like they're very important because like it very much matters how far your truck's gonna deadhead. And if you didn't know that, you end up quoting this way off, and then you end up definitely not saving face with your customer.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

You bring up a really good point, is like the like Google Maps it can be like your best friend. If you're unfamiliar with a certain lane or region, just put in the origin destination. And like, for example, if you were to do uh, I just did Sparks, Nevada to Sacramento because they look, you know close. Yep. They look close. And if you just zoom in on that route, it's like the biggest squiggly line, right? Because it's got to go through the uh mountain range. I think we had when we had Dean on the one time from DAT, he was explaining that like there are some um, I think he like took a trip out there recently or whatever, but there's like basically um a bunch of drivers that like they just refuse that they're never never going to be the kind of driver that is feels comfortable um driving through those mountains, right? Um especially with an 80,000-pound you know, set of equipment there. But it's so many twists and turns because you gotta go. You're think about the elevation change, you gotta go up, over, and down uh to pass a mountain range.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

So if you look, there's videos um that you could see, some of them are in Europe, I've seen, and definitely in India, with like horrifying roads that you see people driving like buses and like tractor trailers on, and they're flying on them, and you're like, that's a cliff. There's no guardrail, and there's like these giant trucks blowing past each other. And like I just had this mental image because I remember Dean explaining that to us, and like that's all I mean, like it all makes a lot of sense, right? If you've ever been out there and seen those things, like it makes perfect sense. I remember the first time I was in Colorado, we were driving up to Breckenridge to go skiing, and I have a picture on my phone somewhere. There was a tractor trailer that was blown off the road, it had to be a football field off of the main highway that goes from Denver up to the ski resorts. And when you realize, like it also isn't just the mountains, it's the open parts. Because you guys have that up near Buffalo too, sometimes when you have like wind advisories, they shut the roads down. Yep. Because it's a giant sail. Like, I mean, if that truck's empty, it's actually harder to drive sometimes where it's flat and you have huge winds that blow through it because there's literally nothing that slows it down. There's no trees, there's nothing. It's just wide open plains.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Yep. Yeah, exactly. So um, yeah, that's big. I mean, because you got the Rockies through Colorado, Sierra Nevada, California. Um, you get the Appalachians on the eastern half of the U.S. You've got probably less travel, but the Adirondacks in northern New York. But if you're going through, like I remember I was driving from Burlington to Buffalo, or I don't know. I drove this is like a couple summers ago. I drove through uh part of the Adirondack's, and it was like it takes forever to get, you know, just to get distance because you're constantly like twisting, turning and all this stuff. But anywho, that's just you know, it's just things to think about. So back to these uh tools though, because I want to hit on some more of them. I think having a uh a solid practice in your brokerage of documenting not only what carriers have booked a load for you, because that should be obvious and that should be saved in your TMS. But if a carrier, if you talk to a carrier on the phone and they ultimately don't book your shipment, but you find out that, hey, they prefer to operate in this area, or here's here's preferred lanes, or here's when their equipment tends to be available. If you can add that into that carrier's, you know, profile or record in your TMS, that's also going to be helpful. So a lot of times a TMS will have some sort of a searching tool that you know uh will pull various data. So it could be historically they ran this load, or it could be, like I just said, they have identified it's a preferred um preferred lane for them, even though they haven't um booked a load before. And you know, it could pull in posted trucks on you know the load boards as well and stuff like that. So I think I think that's very helpful. Um have you ever used the you probably have the like the highways lane intelligence, I think it's called, which is like part of their it's basically their upgraded carrier search thing that's part of CFX now.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

I would say it's very underwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Um very underwhelming?

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Yes. Like I didn't find it incredibly effective.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

So I was actually I was looking at it um with somebody earlier this week, and I I did find it somewhat good. So basically, what it here's what it does that its previous search hadn't. So historically, highway's search was like, all right, type in an origin destination, and you can pick an equipment type, and it's gonna tell you based on where they're located, where they've been inspected, and what they have identified to highway as a preferred area, it's gonna kind of like rank all those together. And now what it's added in is ELD history based on where that carrier is hauled, and actual live ELD trucks that are pinging within a certain range of that pickup. Doesn't necessarily mean that that truck's empty, available, or interested in your load, but they're adding additional um, you know, data points there to help you figure out which carriers might be best suited for you. And there's there's a lot of different tools that do similar things like this. This these are third-party tools.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

That's like a recent update because six months ago, it was like the early part of this year, I had a meeting with them and I asked them that because what I was doing was I wanted to use like highway and gem logs, and I was gonna build an integration between both of them to use the sourcing data from gem logs and um all my criteria that was set up in highway at the time. It was like end of last year. And I asked Highway what went into the lane sourcing data, which is exactly what you said. And I was like, Well, don't you you have like all this factoring data that you use for like um verification and making sure that like these companies are who they are? Um I was like, is that fed into lane sourcing? And they were like, no. I was like, is your ELD data sourced, you know, factored into this? And they were like, no. And I was like, what is? And it was basically what you used. It it was last year basically like self-reported and inspections. And I'm like, okay. Yeah.

Highway Lane Intelligence Versus GenLogs

SPEAKER_02 36:41

But I also know how much work it actually takes into that. It was better than all that.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

You're not using.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

And I know this too because like I have a very large client that does all produce, and they do get loads covered like on a weekly basis that they can't cover through the load boards through highway. So like I know that's been getting better because like just the people I'm talking to are using it up at scale. Like, there's dozens of people calling hundreds of trucks for some of their loads every day, and they're definitely finding trucks in there. So, like, I don't think any of these are like terrible. It's just like order of operations, right? I'm like, I'm gonna start with, like you said, my TMS first. That's your best option. You have a history, you've worked with them, you guys know each other. The second one is gonna be right, like load boards, probably to find a truck if you don't have history on it to try to find one. If then that one doesn't work, then you're probably gonna go to like highway or a lot of the other sourcing ones, right? Like there's Fleetworks, which I think is pretty cool. Product I haven't seen in about a year, but definitely was an interesting take on carrier sourcing. The gen logs to me is still one of the best ways to source trucks because like it's as close to real time and as close to the entire market as you're gonna get on any lane. And to me, like that's still probably best by a long shot.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Um having access to multiple tools is like really helpful, right? If if you can afford it. So, like, I'll give you an example. Like, if I were to do, I'll try and do it while I'm actually on here, but I'll I'll do gen logs and I'll do highways. So, like, I pulled up uh, I just did Chicago to Denver flatbed, and highways land intelligence gives me a ranking of carriers and it's looking at it's telling me where they're based out of, and then it's gonna tell me what they call capacity indicators. So this top carrier that it recommended, um, it said lane history. They've ran this exact lane five times recently, and they have a truck nearby. Their closest truck is 12 miles from my pickup. They have a total fleet of 47 trucks, they're in my network already, meaning I'm already connected with them. All right, so that's that's an example of how highway is up upgraded because now it's looking at who's actually nearby based on an ELD connection and um have they run that. Now, if I look at let's look at Gen Logs. And Gen Logs is great. I know um not everybody has it, and it's it can be pricey, but I'm telling you it is it is worth the cost. They're not even a sponsor of us. We just love Ryan and their and their product. But I'll do the same thing. If I do Chicago to what was it, Denver, and I'll do a uh let's go uh flatbed. What's great is if you don't know how Gen Logs works, they have a series of camera sensors all over major highway um areas that covers, I think it's like 90 something percent of the truck traffic in the U.S. is captured. They get like millions of pictures every single day. But we know in near real time which carriers, and they don't have to be integrated on ELD with highway to get this data. It's just who's passing by a sensor. And I just it I put in that search within a 50 mile radius, and it gave me 564 trucks or carriers that are a potential match.

SPEAKER_02 39:54

And what there's a sort too.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

There's a backhaul out of those 11 would be an ideal backhaul carrier. So I could see click on any one of these carriers, and it'll tell me where they've been identified in the in the sensor map. And um, you kind of get a heat map of like where where these folks have been operating, and they could see like, oh, they're driving this way, and then they're driving that way. And you can kind of see where their normal traffic patterns are as far as where they're driving. It's funny, I used to say like 10 years ago when I when I was newer in brokerage, I was like, man, it would be so great if like there was just like a tool out there that we'd know where all the trucks are in the United States at any given time because they're not always posted on loadboards, and now you've got stuff like gen logs and highway with ELD integration. We've come a very long way. Um, it almost kind of feels like if you don't get access to some of these tools, you're gonna be behind the ball on um, you know, sourcing capacity compared to your competitors.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

So you definitely are, and that's the one thing, just like I would say, I still think is like objectively an advantage of a larger brokerage is they just run more lanes so they have more lane history in the TMS. Yeah, and like there's almost always another load in that company, probably delivering to where your load is picking up, and you can find a lot of the same carriers in your own network to get reloads out of your own lanes, um, which was definitely like a big advantage I think I had when I worked at a big brokerage. However, to your point, I do think at a smaller company with the tools that are available now, that advantage has shrunk, if not disappeared in some ways.

unknown 41:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

Because you you can when you can find them and you're gonna put the effort in, like you can just get them covered. And like even beyond that, right? Like it goes back to that example I was talking about, like 2017, was just such an extreme scenario that you just like learn whether things are possible, right? And I had the same thing with Dreyage, right? Because like we really didn't even do Drey Age at big brokerages, none of them did it with like these major shipping lines when I got them onboarded, and they couldn't get things moved out of the port, like literally nothing. Like they're just calling me, sending me sheets and sheets of containers, going, if you can get any of these moved, just tell us what it costs. We need to get them to our customers, right? And then you realize, like, oh, again, very long time ago, I figured out how do you just get every drayage carrier? You can go to the UIIA, you can buy that list, you can find every one of them, then you can find every city. Then again, it's a lot of work. Well, you can literally call all of them. I think there were at the time like 7,000 in the whole country. But if you go per city, there's only like a thousand or two. And if you have two people, you can call like 200 a day per person. You can get through that list in a week. And if you've got more business coming through every week, you can genuinely talk to all of them and find out who's willing to be able to help, who's got an extra truck here and there they might be able to help with. And little by little, you could just piece that together from like this giant company. Because that was the interesting thing. I remember Mayersk like literally asking me, they're like, We have the whole UIA directory. Like it's literally in our database. How are you finding trucks to pick up our loads when it's a it's a finite number of trucks, right? Like, you don't have trucks, phone numbers that we don't have. How are you doing this? And honestly, like it's the job of a brook. Like, it's just a lot of work. You go a lot of them, ask a lot of questions, and ask better questions until you find, like, oh, this guy has one more load he can do one day a week. Oh, this person can do two more if this thing happens. This one can get one more load out of this company, and little by little, you got two, three hundred trucks working for you that the other company couldn't get because they're just sending emails, right? And like that's where like the people part of this business really matters, and I do think is still always, at the very least, for a long time, is going to be still an advantage over automation.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Because I agree. Agreed. Um, do we miss any tools? So we hit on obviously you you've got load boards, you've got your internal TMS history, you've got some of the more advanced uh load board tools like lane makers from DAT, you've got highway, you've got gen logs. Um, good I guess I would add this one in. Um, and I'll I'm curious for your take on it because you've gone this route more so is leveraging some good independent dispatcher contacts in their networks, right? Yes. So talk us to that's probably the last one we'll hit on today. But um and hey, if you guys aren't in our Facebook group, there's a ton of dispatchers that are hanging out in there, as well as carriers and brokers. So check that out in the uh in the show notes. But what's your take on the leveraging the independent dispatcher network?

SPEAKER_02 44:47

So, like again, the dispatcher landscape's changed a bit, but like when I was brokering freight, like the the example I always used to use was just in Draves, because in Chicago, when it got really congested, and there were multiple times that happened through COVID, it happened pre-COVID, during the ELDs, where like a lot of the containers go through Chicago from both ends of the country. And when there's not a lot of large carriers that have any capacity, um, I had like two or three dispatchers, and each of them basically only represented like maybe 10 trucks. But each of those 10 trucks was an owner op with its own MC. And every one of them, in fact, one of them was like a family, like it was, I can't remember her name right now, it'll come back to me. But like she had literally like eight cousins or brothers, right, that she was related to that all had that all had their own um MCs and they wanted to run their own trucking company, but they didn't want to do the paperwork, book their loads, or negotiate it. So basically, like their cousin or their sister would talk to me and she's like, Oh, this guy has an empty afternoon, that load got changed. So she would grab me capacity that was just coming up and let me know which MC I would have to switch it to. Because like there was technically I was booking it directly with eight trucks, all of which would pay her, but I didn't have to call eight owner ops to figure out who had an extra four hours to grab a container. Yeah. So yeah, she would just be like, oh, hey, you know, John's got an empty afternoon, and Paul can go take two more tomorrow. And then like I would just switch the MCs as they would become available because most of where that capacity came from was they were like fully booked this morning, but two hours later, this container didn't get grounded on time, this customer's product wasn't ready. So I would backfill them with work the moment they lost their

Independent Dispatchers And Rapid Backfills

SPEAKER_02 46:37

load, which kept them running, kept more containers moving, and allowed us to keep finding capacity, even though if you would have just done that once a day, you just never would have got those moved. Like if I just would have called and emailed each of them in the morning and I'm like, I'm booked, and you would assume they were booked all day, where you really start finding capacity when it's really difficult is in between things where they shift, where they get canceled. So a dispatcher can be a really good resource to help you find some of these things where like they might not literally be on the load board, they might not be posted, and they might not be watching the load board to even get your phone call or to see your load. So definitely a value in the industry. How you use it definitely matters.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Yeah, absolutely. So keep in mind the majority of capacity that's out there in the market is not listed as available on the load board. So you can't just post and pray and expect to get the best results because the best carrier for your load, um, best truck for your load isn't always going to be the first person that calls you, right? If if the the truck that's posted or the carrier that calls you on your load posts is 250 miles away and they want more money than you're willing to pay or you can afford to pay, not a good fit. But there might be a truck 17 miles away that doesn't have a truck posted on the load boards or hasn't seen your posting. And if you can find ways to find that, figure that out, and um you reduce those dead, you know, those empty miles, you're gonna be more in the in the right uh range of proper pricing there. Because the ultimate goal here is not to post a load and get a new carrier and onboard them every single time. You want to start to have repeat carriers as much as possible. You build relationships up and you get comfortable with them and you you understand what kind of service um you're you're gonna get. So um good conversation. Let us know if you guys have a tool or a tactic that we didn't talk about today, and just you know, leave it as a comment on YouTube or send us a message through the website. But um good discussion there, Ben. Any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 48:44

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right. And until next time, go bills.