June 27, 2025 • 55 mins
We’re celebrating 300 episodes by sharing the most valuable lessons we’ve learned in building a successful freight brokerage. From finding your niche and qualifying leads to building strong carrier relationships and tracking profit—not just revenue—this episode is packed with time-tested strategies. Whether you're new or seasoned, these fundamentals will help you grow smarter and stronger in any market.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back and happy 300 for a 360.
We've made a milestone here,ben.
Episode 300.
I think the last big one we hadwas like 200 or 250.
I remember, I remember Trey wason like episode 100 and then, I
think, like 200 or 250.
Maybe I was like on the roadfor Army and I cracked a white
(00:23):
claw while we were recording.
I do, yes, but it's I'mdrinking water today.
So no, no, no adult beverages.
But anyway, man, congrats towhat is this?
Our sixth year?
Yeah, cheers, but in as a wayto give you guys what you want.
(00:45):
We've looked at our best contentand we're going to pack a lot
of it into one episode today.
This is great for anyone that'snew or growing or just wants to
learn.
We're going to go through ourbest advice for freight brokers
in today's episode, and a lot ofit.
You know, if you want a deeperdive into any of these sections
or specifics, there's probably afull length episode on it.
So this is a great one to keepthe keep the engine all tuned up
(01:10):
and remind yourself of thelittle things you got to make
sure you're focusing on to besuccessful.
But first, if you haven't,there's two hundred and ninety
nine other episodes and a wholebunch of Q&A sessions and short
form content.
You go to the websiteFreight360.net or our YouTube
channel and share us with yourfriends, leave us comments, ask
your questions, sign up for thenewsletter.
You can check out the FreightBroker Basics course as well for
(01:32):
an educational option foryourself or your team, and we
appreciate all those of you whohave been with us for many, many
years.
So, ben, what's going on Is it?
Is it like super hot in Florida, as the whole country's in a
heat wave right now, or what?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You know it's funny Like I keep seeing that on the
news and like different articles, but like it's what's the
temperature right now in Boca I?
think it's crazy hot.
It's 89.
I mean I will say this, like wewere at the beach yesterday,
like I think the real feel waslike 103, so like it was that
(02:08):
last week.
I mean I was telling you in thelast time we recorded like it's
.
I really notice it because I'moutside playing tennis this year
, which is different than any ofthe other years, like playing
golf.
I don't notice it as muchbecause like you get back in and
out of the cart, like I feellike I can play I totally do
during golf, man, but I alsodon't tennis, so I don't have
that to relate it to.
Let's see what is the real feelright now.
Yeah, I mean it feels like 89.
I mean it is 89.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
It feels like 98 in Orchard Park right now it's 86
degrees accurate or like actualtemperature.
Feels like 98.
It's because it's humid.
But, dude, I was outsideyesterday and the day before
just doing like stuff around thehouse, like yard work, and I
showered three times yesterdayand three times.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Like Florida.
You know what else I've beendoing that I think might help a
little bit is like I've beendoing the sauna a lot more, like
I try to do it at least threeor four days a week in the
morning I do it before the coldplunge and like I do breathing
exercises like in there just toget used to sitting in.
Mine only goes up to like 160,but like it's making it easier
(03:07):
to tolerate the heat otherportions of the day well, I love
summer heat, so bring it on.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That's what I say.
Yeah, people are complainingabout it.
I'm like, yeah, you won't becomplaining in six months when
it's literally christmas, yeah,but anyway what we got, nhl has
wrapped up.
I think we already hit on thatlast week.
The Florida Panthers won andthen NBA wrapped up.
We're recording on Monday thisweek, so I think it was last
night.
Don't follow NBA, but somebodywon.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Somebody won, somebody didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
To all the listeners out there that follow basketball
congrats if that was your teamout there that follow basketball
, congrats if that was your team.
I'm a baseball guy and the RedSox actually traded Rafael
Devers last week to the SanFrancisco Giants, who then the
Red Sox played the Giants andDevers hits a home run against
(03:59):
the Red Sox.
That was like some weird karmathere.
But outside of that man, youknow, you got mini camps going
on for football.
I actually put on NFL Networkthis morning for like the first
time in a couple months, justtrying to get myself back into
like NFL mentality.
We'll see, we'll see News.
I mean there's a lot of newsgoing on in the world right now.
(04:19):
What's going on in the freightworld?
Anything, nothing, nothing, Iguess related, because we're
just talking about off-air.
I definitely want to get SalMercogliano back on here again
soon because he had a veryinteresting post yesterday on
Twitter about maritime trade,because he bombed.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Iran, he bombed Iran.
And if they close the HormezStrait, iran, and if they close
the Hormez Strait.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, iran basically threatened to close one of the
shipping passages and Sal hadthis post about how like fun
fact, like a country does nothave the authority to basically
do what they were saying weresaying.
But I'd be curious his take onlike rising conflicts in general
in the Middle East, how thatwill impact trade as it funnels
(05:12):
into the US and pricing andshipping delays, things like
that.
I'll be really curious to see.
We'll try to get him on thissummer at some point again and
follow up on that, because thatyou know that could be on the
horizon.
But what do you got?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Two kind of related things I heard recently Somebody
was talking about that and theysaid one if we actually were at
war with Iran, like we don'thave the ability to defend
against, I think, supersonicrockets that go faster than the
speed of sound, which Iran hastechnically.
I think Russia has rockets thatgo faster than the speed of
sound, which Iran hastechnically, I think Russia has,
and maybe China, which youmight know more about being in
(05:50):
the army.
But they were like yeah, likeyou can't defend against them in
the same way that you do othertypes of rockets, and they were
like no, you just try to takethem out so they can't use them.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, let's see on the freight horizon here, let's
see what we got.
I haven't heard, haven't.
Uh, I feel like nothing big inthe freight world.
I feel like it's the same stuffevery week.
Like you know, more companiesare going bankrupt, um, tariffs,
this, that and everything.
But as far as like industrynews, I feel like there's been
(06:22):
nothing terribly breaking lately.
I will say, excuse me, the thetrends that I've seen lately,
and this is just something to bevigilant of.
As you move into the busy summermonths, when we have like
Fourth of July coming up andpeople taking off and people
kind of like losing theirvigilance per se is the types of
(06:44):
like fraud and cargo theft aregetting very, very like they're
they're getting very complex now.
So, like, if there's ever atime to like double down on your
standard operating proceduresand your use of tools to
implement safeguards, now is thetime.
We have a good listenerquestion that we'll answer,
that'll come out on the finalmile on the next episode of that
(07:07):
and we'll, you know, I'm surewe'll hit on some SOPs today on
the episode, but I've definitelybeen seeing more and more of it
and hearing more and more aboutit.
So, yeah, yeah, ai.
I feel like AI is like poppingout left and right new new
features within existingplatforms and new tools out
(07:30):
there.
So outside of that, I gotnothing else on news.
All right, cool man.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Jump in.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Let's get into some good content today.
So it's episode 300.
We wanted to talk about some ofthe best, best advice that
we've given over the years and,ironically, this goes to prove
two things Number one, ai, andnumber two, how much content
we've put out there.
I was able to use AI to tell mewhat the best to compile a list
(07:58):
of the best advice that we'vegiven and it came out almost
100% accurate, which is prettycool that you know.
We've put out that much contentand helped this many people.
So really happy to, to to bethere.
But we'll go through.
There's no particular order onthese, but, um, the.
The first one that came up wasto start with a niche and it's
(08:19):
really a bigger picture.
We've.
We've used the phraseprospecting with a purpose,
right, which is always likedon't just, you know, when you
start new as a, as a broker orin a sales role, you don't
necessarily want to run with therest of the herd and you also
don't want to just do what theguy next to you is doing just
because that's what he's doing,right, you want to have some
(08:40):
intentionality behind it.
You want to have someintentionality behind it, so
like the three part thing thatwe've always said with
prospecting with a purpose islike have a niche, so like go
after something specific whichwas you know.
Pick a commodity or maybe alocation of the country that has
a similar, you knowcircumstances when it comes to
their capacity, or maybe it's aspecific type of equipment you
(09:02):
want to work with, specializedopen deck types of things, so
you know.
You see people whose emailsignature is like we handle full
truck load, uh, ltl, air oceanexpedite, final mile white glove
, and it's like do you really,do you actually like?
I remember the, the firstbrokerage I worked at.
We like advertised in brochuresand on our website that we did
(09:23):
air and ocean and I was like wedon't do an air and ocean.
What are we talking about here?
My dog's going nuts.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, I mean to that point.
I think it's important that,like you make your customers
aware of what things you canservice for them once they are a
customer.
But I certainly don't thinkthat's what you lead with,
because I mean, whenever you'relooking for anything, like you
want somebody that's really goodat what they do, not just okay
(09:52):
at doing everything.
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Think about it Like dude if you want to go buy, if
you want to go buy like a highend TV, are you going to go to
Walmart and ask some generalassociate there about a super
good TV, walmart, and ask somegeneral associate there about a
super good TV, are you going togo to the Magnolia home theater
section of your upscale Best Buyor a local home theater store?
It's the same concept.
Yeah, other, we'll move on toanother one.
(10:17):
Pick up the phone.
Relationships, drive thebusiness.
Cold calls, follow-ups andregular check-ins are
non-negotiable.
So that's kind of a word saladthere.
But I've always been of themindset that's like a bunch of
you know there's a bunch oftrucks in and around my
neighborhood all the time, or inmy local area or city, and
(10:45):
while I think you might be ableto get a lot done and build
rapport face to face, it's not avery efficient use of your time
if that's the only way you'regoing to go about prospecting,
because you can make you knowyou might be able to make five
visits in a day.
You can make 200 phone calls ina day.
Also, if you're only going towork in your area, you're
limiting yourself to everywhereelse in the country.
(11:05):
Like I remember we had a girlfrom TIA that we coached a
couple of years ago.
That was like yeah, I grew upin the agricultural industry,
live on a farm and there's abunch of farms in my area.
I'd love to prospect thembecause they're right here.
I'm like that's great, I said,but don't only do that, right,
because you can pick up thephone and call a farm three
(11:26):
states away.
Who's moving the exact sameproduct in a similar cyclical
nature throughout the year,right?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, and also like in any type of prospecting, like
I feel like it's good to kindof like, like, have your
ammunition kind of loaded beforeyou go to shoot.
I guess as a kind of an analogy, meaning like, if I'm going to
go pick up the phone to thefirst point of like finding a
niche, there is basically oneopener I'm using for all of that
(11:53):
group of prospects, right.
Like if it's because this areajust had a storm, like I am
addressing that likely need inevery call.
It's a little bit different,but that's my opener, right,
that's the reason I'm callingyou.
If you're going to bothersomebody and make a cold call,
you've got to get to what's init for them as fast as possible,
(12:13):
right.
Same thing.
Like I've door knocked in lotsof different things, especially
early on in my sales career, andlike one you learn real fast.
You just start walking intobusinesses and you don't know
who you're asking for or whatyou're asking about.
Like it gets real awkward anduncomfortable real quick.
Like you're just walking into abuilding and you're like um,
hey, is, uh, who's in charge ofshipping around here?
(12:36):
And like the secretary'sstaring at you and like you feel
super nervous already and it'sjust like you don't.
You don't have a cleardirection.
You want to go Right.
Yeah, but when you are sellinglike you need to lead that
conversation or at least have aplan for where you want it to go
.
So like, if I'm going to goknock on doors, I always like
canvas by phone.
First, because, one, Ihopefully know who it is I'm
(12:59):
trying to speak to before Iknock on their door.
For one.
Two, hopefully find when aconvenient time for day is to
stop into is ideal.
Three, if I know those two, I'mprobably going to take
something, because now it's veryeffective, like bagels, coffee,
whatever, right.
And it's really hard to do thatif you're just knocking on
(13:20):
random doors and then trying tofigure out who you want to talk
to there.
So it's like, hey, if I've gotcompanies say there's a business
park, an industrial park, abunch of farms, whatever that
are grouped close to my house, Iwant to hit those or my office.
I'm first going to look up allthe companies, then I'm going to
go search LinkedIn and see if Ican find who the shipping
managers are.
Then I'm going to go searchLinkedIn and see if I can find
who the shipping managers are.
(13:40):
Then I'm going to go to Zoominfo and at least get a pretty
good idea of who they are, andthen I'm going to call all of
those companies first and see ifI can speak to them.
And then I'm going to make mysecond touch showing up in
person, because now I'm goingand going hey, is Jimmy around,
sally, like I know who the whoanswered the phone when I called
and I know who the guys I'mtrying to reach answered the
phone when I called and I knowwho the guy is I'm trying to
(14:01):
reach and I can say somethinglike yeah, I connected with him
on a call last week.
He said if I was in the area Ishould swing by around now.
Now there's a much higherlikelihood I'm going to speak to
them.
I've got a reason to speak tothem.
All of that gets so much easier.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Agreed A hundred percent.
So to that point it made methink to a couple of different
things.
So years ago I'm trying tothink, when this was, when I
worked at Conway, all of oursales was outside sales and it
was territorial.
So like it was, you know youwould make calls, but like we're
going, like these are basicallyin the LTL world.
Like you know, the companiesthey're shipping LTL and you're
(14:34):
either you're either trying toget more of their business or
you're trying to get businessfrom a competitor, right, so
everyone knows who all the LTLplayers are in the in the game.
So it was very much about, likeyou know, I can't call three
states away because that's notmy territory.
I do want to go in personbecause I want to have time to
sit down with this person, grablunch with them, get them in a
(14:55):
comfortable setting and buildrapport and then we'll talk shop
as you know deems necessary.
But in our industry with, withbrokerage, where it's not
territory based, very, verydifferent, like sky's the limit
as far as like who you canprospect.
And I think about the customervisits that I've done in
brokerage for full truckload.
I had two that I did that werein my town a few years ago.
(15:21):
No three, they were in theBuffalo area and they were great
to build rapport.
That was not the first time wetalked.
I didn't just cold arrive there.
It was a lot of conversationsbeforehand and then it turned
into routine visits at a coupleplaces.
Like you said, we're taking ina subplatter on Christmas time,
or donuts or bagels or whateverthe case might be Christmas
(15:42):
cookies.
You know, you name it.
Another one I did which is acity over which required a
little bit of driving like I'mdefinitely planning that one out
in advance because I'm wastinghours of my day round trip
driving there and to, or youknow, to and from.
But that was more of a hey.
This was actually like a um, abeverage company that did
contract um brewing fordifferent like um, like
(16:08):
alcoholic beverages.
So I did like Mike's hardlemonade, for example, and some
other like basically like hey, abrewery that wants to get their
beer brewed and distributed, um, that's in an area that's not
where they're based out of.
So like, let's say, I'm basedin Rhode Island but I want to be
distributing in, you know, newYork and Pennsylvania.
Well, I might have a contractbrewery in Western New York so I
(16:28):
can reach that.
You know wheel and spoke.
So what do we do?
We went and got a brief tour ofthe facility, sat down at the
brewery there, had lunch andtalked about you know big
picture stuff, but also justbuild rapport about family life,
what's going on outside of work.
And those are great for twothings you build rapport and you
get eyes on the actual facility.
(16:49):
You can see the issues thatdrivers talk about with.
Yeah, that sign doesn't makesense when I turn here.
But again, like the initialconversation happened via phone
and I think that you know not tolike beat a dead horse here,
but when we say you can make 200phone calls a day, you can
literally make 200 phone calls aday.
It doesn't mean you're going tohave 200 conversations that day
, but it's a numbers game and italways has been in our industry
(17:10):
and it's always going to be.
That's why you see AI phonecompanies and phone systems that
are out there now and AI thisand that to try, and people are
trying to find the shortcut toget you past all the nonsense of
calling.
That's why you had auto dialersthat were around even 10, 15
years ago.
Right, trying to reduce theamount of downtime in between,
(17:31):
but the phone is king when itcomes to this.
If you're going to try and hidebehind your keyboard and email
campaigns to get new customers,it's not going to work.
I've had people that swore tome I've mastered this.
It's going to work, never works.
So pick up the phone.
If you are close by, yeah, byall means, meet in person and
(17:54):
definitely use meeting in personas a way to strengthen that
relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
But the phone's huge.
Well, I mean, our wholeindustry functions on
relationships and trust.
Why?
Because it's a commoditybusiness, meaning, like you can
pretty much interchange a brokerand a carrier and another one
can perform pretty similar tothe same work, Except in two
instances when things don't goright and they don't get the
information, or somebody justisn't paying attention and they
(18:17):
don't know what's going on,right?
So trust has a huge value inthis industry and I can
guarantee you don't have arelationship with anybody unless
you've had a conversation withthem.
Like I can't think of anyexample in any aspect of life
where you could say you have arelationship with somebody that
(18:38):
you haven't actually talked to.
I guess maybe you could saythat if you've had really
in-depth conversations onlineabout, maybe, something specific
.
But even in that scenario, likeit's nowhere near the type of
relationship you have, becauseand somebody was talking about
this recently it's like, well,we used to talk about this a lot
.
It was like 90% ofcommunication is like nonverbal.
(19:00):
When you're like talking tosomebody, it's like your
gestures, your facialexpressions, how you're saying,
what you're saying, not just thewords, right.
So it's like your tone of voice, your inflections, your energy.
All of these things mean things,and when you're communicating
so even when you're on the phone, you lose a lot of that, but
you still have a lot of it.
(19:21):
Now you go one step beyond thatand you talk about text
messages, right, or emails.
You lose all of the context,all of the personality.
All you're getting is theinformation, which leaves tons
of room for error,miscommunication,
misinterpretation.
Somebody was talking about theother day I think it was on Joe
Rogan.
They said, like the mostupsetting text message they
(19:43):
pulled a lot of people was justthe letter K, right, like when
somebody responds K and it'smostly because everybody just
runs through their head tryingto think like well, what did
they mean?
Are they mad at me?
Are they upset?
Did I say something that upsetthem?
Why are they being so shortwith me?
It's all because there's just alack of context and no real
anything around it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
It's funny because I, when youwere talking through you, don't
really know someone until you,like, get to talk with them.
I had someone.
I had a call with someoneearlier today.
It was basically like they're,they're trying to sell, we're
looking to upgrade something atour company and they're trying.
We're basically like we'reexploring a bunch of different
(20:24):
options out there and I get onthe phone with this girl and
she's talking to me like I knowher, and I'm like huh, she's
like yeah, you know, we've beenconnected on LinkedIn for 10
years.
I was like I've never talked toyou before, though, and she
treated it.
She's like, yeah, you know like.
(20:45):
I just wanted to say it's youknow good to, you know good to
talk to you again, and I waslike what like?
And then, like, by the end ofthe conversation, she's like you
know what?
I don't think we've actuallyever talked before and I was
like no, we haven't, but it'salmost the way that it made me
feel weird that she was treatingit that way, whereas throughout
the next 20 minutes, weactually did build a little
rapport through conversation.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So I don't want to go on like a huge tangent, but
like there's this thing I'veread about it's called
parasocial relationships whereyou hear somebody talk in their
voice so much that you feel likeyou know them, but they don't
know you, Right.
So like take, for instance,like I listened to a lot of
podcasts, right.
So like whether it's like timferris or one of these guys like
(21:20):
I've listened to probablyhundreds of hours of them having
in-depth conversations withpeople they know, so you feel
like you kind of know them.
That's why they're engaging,but they don't know you.
In fact, the person I wastalking about this was there was
a business interview with Ithink it was a porn star that
was making like a ton of money,and she's like it is the
(21:41):
weirdest thing ever becauseshe's like people who come up to
me in public and talk to melike they know me and she's like
and also there's like stalkersand like really actually some
like serious issues with thatindustry, I guess, and things
like this.
And she's like, yeah, likepeople see you and hear you talk
so much that they feel likethey know you, but like they've
(22:02):
actually never actually had aconversation with you.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, that's wild man .
Yeah, I guess, treat everyconversation where it's at, and
one of the next ones on our list, too, was qualify before you
quote and all that.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
That's a big one.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
We've told the story numerous times of like 30
minutes, of like greatconversation, and then you
realize like they're not adecision maker, right, or they
should?
one ltl a month yeah, yep, yeah,we had.
I had a guy it was almostexactly that like, um, we were
doing a cold calling sessionthis is a few years back and, um
(22:38):
, I, I did it.
We're like, I'm muted, I'm justlistening and I'm to give him
feedback at the end and he gotto the point where the guy it
wasn't LTL, but the guy had likeone, it was a farm and they had
like one shipment that would goout of whatever their product
was, like every two months orsomething like that, and I was
like, oh my God, you just wastedlike so so much time.
(22:59):
And I was like, oh my God, youjust wasted like so so much time
.
No, I shouldn't say wasted, butit could have been used better.
Right, like you, probably, earlyon, want to know what are you,
know what are certain veryobjective facts about this
shipper that are relevant to us.
Right, and we talk about likewe've got a list of like
questions to ask on our websiteand like one of them is you know
(23:21):
what methods of shipping areyou are you typically doing?
Is it?
Is it full truckload?
Do they try to partial thingsout?
What's the frequency?
Is it every day?
Is it?
They've got a few a weekBecause those matter, because if
a company is moving oneshipment every two months not a
great use of your time.
(23:41):
There are plenty of customers atmy brokerage where we've got
brokers that are.
They service a customer onceevery two or three months and
those are great.
Those are like little little pecustomers that you can.
You literally become part oftheir logistics and supply chain
(24:06):
within their company becausethey're relying on you for not
just capacity but also likekeeping a pulse on the freight
market and what's going on andtrends and where things are
headed and also how to handleproblems when they happen,
whereas like someone you dealwith every two to three months,
you really never have that muchof a rapport.
You're very replaceable, sodefinitely make sure you're
asking the right questions.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So Well, my favorite qualifying question to this day
and like there are always goingto be examples outside of this,
but it's a good rule of thumband this is beating to my head
at TQL was like you got to getwhat is their weekly full
truckload volume number?
Get to that question as quickas you can, because that's
(24:47):
really your qualifying line andlike the way my manager like
trained me in this businessexplained it and it makes a lot
of sense.
He's like if they're notshipping about 20 to 25
truckloads a week, they probablyaren't going to have too high
of a need for a broker.
It doesn't mean they don't, andthere are plenty of examples.
I've had customers that ship 10loads a week but they always use
a broker because, like, theydon't have a transportation
(25:08):
department.
So they give everything to onebroker and you can make good
margins because they care moreabout service than price.
Instruction is a really goodexample of that.
Like they're not going to havea logistics person when they got
projects.
They're giving everything toone guy.
They want you to handleeverything and everything's got
to be there on time.
Cost is usually second toservice, right?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
yeah but for most companies they're overall like
price of the project.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, and they just add that on literally to the
customer, pays the bill and then, like the way he explained to
me was he's like because whenyou, when I learned the business
, I covered freight right beforeI sold so you can understand
the thing you're selling, right,you deal with the problems and
that teaches you what problemsyou solve for your customers.
And the way he described itlike it makes a lot of sense.
(25:51):
He goes well, think about it.
Like, write it around 25 loadsa week, how many of those trucks
do you need to reschedule?
If you have one customer andfive loads a day, right and like
, no matter how good you are atyour job and how long you've
worked with these carriers,things happen right, like, truck
is delayed at the delivery,truck is stuck in traffic, maybe
there's a breakdown, there'ssome issue that came up right
(26:14):
and right around 2025, you starthaving enough need for
recovering loads to keep themall picked up five a day that
you kind of need to access theopen market.
And if you're only shipping fiveto 10 loads a week, he's like
that person can pretty much workdirectly with a trucking
company and if they all don'tneed picked up on the day
they're supposed to.
They can just wait for thatcarrier to send another truck
(26:36):
tomorrow.
Like that's not a problem, theycan save money and it's not too
much of a headache for them toneed to pay to go get trucks
last minute.
So like that is always the linethat I kind of have in my head
and like in my firstconversation or two with anybody
I'm trying to get that questionanswered.
That's my qualifying line.
If you're not shipping aroundthat or more, then like,
(26:56):
probably not that fit to beworking with a brokerage.
Like you can probably rely onmaybe a broker here and there,
but like you're not going toneed the services we provide as
much as a company that'sshipping five to 10 loads a day
because some of those trucksthey scheduled just aren't going
to make it.
They're going to need lastminute assistance.
That's what we provide.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yep, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.
Here's another one Carriers areyour customers too, so I'm huge
on this and I have met plentyof what I would consider like
scummy freight brokers thatdon't follow.
This is that you should betreating carriers with the same
level of attention and respectas you do your customers,
because they are just asimportant in my opinion.
(27:35):
Just like you said if you haveto reschedule a load because a
carrier falls off, just like yousaid if you have to reschedule
a load because the carrier fallsoff.
Yeah, like that tells me thatyou don't have a good carrier
relationship with that driver orwith that dispatcher.
So some of my favorites arewhen you don't even have to
think about where is my truck orwhat truck am I going to use
for this load, because everyTuesday and every Friday Jimmy
(27:58):
from Great Lakes Trucking isgoing to be hauling this load of
mushrooms for me.
Right, he's going to be pickingit up.
I'm going to definitely verifywith him.
Hey, you still good for thatTuesday pickup.
Yep, all good, boss, sweet,awesome.
You want to get to that point.
That is like we had an episodewe went through like the
evolution of what a book ofbusiness looks like, and it
(28:24):
starts with like, yeah, you'rejust cold calling and then
you're, then you're working offlocal and you're quoting, right,
and then then you got like acustomer that's giving you
opportunities and now you've gotrepeat business out of a
customer and now you're, um,you've got contract business and
, as that goes along, right,your relationship with carriers
should also be developing.
Um, you know, insynchronization with it, like
when you're brand new bookingyour first load, you don't have
any carrier relations, so soyou're probably posting to DAT
and calling out on some carriers, et cetera.
(28:46):
Right, you're trying to sourcecapacity from the open network,
open market, whereas you get tothe other side of that spectrum
and, like you know, whether it'sfrom just your experience or
your relationships, or TMS data,like who is the best fit to
haul this load from us?
Right, and there's tools tohelp you bridge that gap.
Gen logs, great example of away to source capacity because
(29:08):
it has a lot of the data for you.
But your own TMS like hey, thisguy's been running these loads
and we've got a note in herethat he prefers to operate in
these states.
Right, that stuff is key.
So the same thing goes with,like you know, accessorials and
fines and stuff like that.
I had a dude that I had to havelike a stern talking with last
week.
Who the driver was, let's see.
(29:34):
Driver confirmed pickup on.
I'll just make it up on Tuesday, right, customer was able to
switch the appointment if needed.
But the driver said, yep, I cando Tuesday, didn't show up till
Wednesday.
So naturally the customerdocked a certain amount of money
.
Well, this guy tries to makemoney on that and says, oh,
instead of a couple hundredbucks, I'm gonna deduct two
(29:55):
grand and it's like, no, don'tdo that, first of all, and
this's an egregious amount, butlike, second of all, you don't
have any documentation that evensupports that number or where
it came from, other than thefact that you probably just
wanted to make an extra 1500bucks this week or whatever the
case might be.
But don't yeah, don't beatthese guys up, um and try to
(30:16):
make money off it.
Like the same with like if acustomer is paying a tonu for
200 bucks, that goes to thedriver, don't pay him 100 and
pocket 100 yourself.
So things like that.
Because when the market issuper tight and you need drivers
, that is when it's going tobite you in the butt if you've
treated these folks like trash.
So any thoughts on that one.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Other than that, I agree with it 100%.
I mean, it is really simplethings like they're people and
you need them.
We don't ship things.
We coordinate with other peoplethat do that and you should
treat them exactly the way youwould want to be treated.
Yeah, there's a reason that'sbeen around for thousands of
years treating other people theway you want to be treated and
(30:59):
it pays huge dividends inbusiness.
It saves time, it allows you tomake more money, it allows
everybody to win Like.
There's so much more to be doneand so much more opportunity to
grow when you do thingsethically and you do the hard
things, even when somebody elsedoesn't want to like I just to
(31:22):
me.
Those are some of the thingsthat are probably most important
in this business.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
There's actually there's another one on our list
here that kind of ties in withit, which is to document
everything.
Um, so like this is huge, right, whether it's the customer side
or the carrier side,documenting is, like, extremely
important.
So, for the example we justgave about finding a carrier, if
you don't have a clear likeverbiage or a rate for different
(31:50):
things like detention, you know, layover, late, whatever the,
you know, whatever the, whateverit might be right, it is very
hard, um, to fight that uphillbattle like I have seen people
file on a broker's bond and thebond company is basically like
dude, just just pay it becausewe're gonna, we're gonna pay it
(32:11):
out and you're gonna pay us back.
Just pay it like we don't wantto yeah deal with this because
you did not have cleardocumentation.
We don't care what yourcustomer said, you never told
the carrier this.
So, same thing with your, withyour customer, like, if your
customer has, like, if they'rejust like, yeah, we're going to
deduct a thousand dollars forthis because it was.
You know, we had a, the driverhad an issue, it's like, what
like?
And that's a tough one.
When you're done with yourcustomer who's literally giving
(32:33):
you the business, that's likekind of a a tough situation to
navigate through.
But document like times, likelike when the tension comes down
to, like literally like thewhat's the timestamp when that
driver checked in and checkedout, like those things really
matter when it comes to you know, whether it's 50 bucks or 500
bucks or whatever.
The numbers are very, veryimportant.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Here's the thing I do want to add is I think lots of
people end up in the habit wherethey don't put this in the TMS
because they think it's in theiremail.
Like, you really should get inthe habit of uploading all that
documentation to the TMS for alot of reasons.
One, everybody can see it inyour company.
Almost everybody works remoteat some point or another and no
one else in your company can seeyour email.
(33:15):
Like I can't tell you how manytimes I've been working in a
brokerage where, like we hadthis happen over the weekend
once where, like the otherowners getting phone calls from
drivers, or I'm getting phonecalls and we go to help and we
pull up the TMS and we're likewe just genuinely don't know
what's going on.
None of the communication thatthey've had is in there, the
(33:36):
load's not updated right, noneof their conversation with the
dispatcher is in there.
So, like when someone comes into help, they're just literally
blind and can't do anythingright.
Like there's a reason all thisinformation lives in your TMS.
It's so everybody in theorganization can access it.
Like, again, I got into thathabit because I worked at a big
company.
When you have after-hoursupport or a team that's going
(33:58):
to work over the weekend.
If it's not in there, it mightas well not exist.
It doesn't help anybody if it'sjust in your email or in your
head.
You need to have it in therefor lots of reasons your
accounting team invoicing thingslater.
Documentation is absolutelyessential.
We do business in information.
That's literally how we makemoney and create value as
(34:21):
freight brokers is.
We take information from oneparty and get it to another, and
sometimes things don't go well.
Everything that happens inbetween what did and what should
happen needs to be written downso that somebody else can pick
up where you left off.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yep, a hundred percent.
I'm like I might overdo this,but I write stuff down like
locally all the time and then Imake it a point to have like a
shared version of those noteswith anyone who has to see it.
So like I'm even doing it onlike the administrative side for
for Pierce right now, which islike compiling like a cloud
(34:56):
based.
We've got like trackers thattrack certain things that are
important for, like you know, 10different people to see at any
given point in time, wherecertain people can edit them,
certain people can just see themfor visibility.
We've even got like um sop,like documents put together so
that, like anybody at any timecan access um to understand.
(35:17):
Like one of them was actuallyabout uh, it was about, I think
it was something with ASLcircles, like we just mentioned.
So like, if there's like whenin doubt, like reference this
and this will tell you exactlyhow we're going to handle X, y
and Z.
So yeah, that's huge.
Speaking of which we had one onhere.
Follow the processes, stick toyour SOPs.
So I can't, I can't, I can'tlike emphasize this one enough,
(35:40):
but like have processes in placeis basic or as detailed as they
, you know, needs to be able tostep in and handle how your
(36:01):
customer's billing gets done orhow the customer's tendering
happen, whatever, like someoneshould be able to see that.
Also, when it comes to biggerprocesses that are broad, like
how do we vet carriers andonboard them?
Like there should be a set or aset process that's written out
and when a new rep comes in andgets hired, they know that.
(36:21):
Like, okay, we've created alist of rules that we want to
check to make sure that carriermeets X, y and Z.
If they don't pass this basicsniff test, we will not use them
.
That could be they haveinsurance, they have an active
authority, right.
You might have other ones thatare subjective, like you might
look at safety scores or howlong have they been in service,
(36:44):
et cetera.
And then how are we going to gothrough the process of
onboarding them?
Is there a contract in place?
Is there?
Do we use credit applicationsfor new shippers?
Do we vet a shipper's or amotor carrier's email address to
make sure that it matches theFMCSA?
Like, whatever the case might be, having processes in place like
(37:07):
that will help you scale andnot have to feel like you're
carrying the weight ofeverything in your head on your
shoulders because it's writtendown somewhere Right and also
helps you just breathe easierknowing that, like, as long as
follow these, these SOPs thatI've created, that are that are
time, trusted and proven,everything else is okay, right,
like so, um, and we were talkingearly on about how, like
(37:30):
fraud's gotten wild, like thisis.
This is when I highly encouragepeople that if you've got high
value load or maybe it's thefirst time with a certain motor
carrier or a first time with acertain shipper and you want to
make sure you're doing anexceptional job, this is when
you want to look at implementingprocesses like tracking for the
entirety of the load, using atool like quick scope to verify
a carrier's identity before theyget loaded at that pickup
(37:53):
location, using things like awalk around, right, hey, take a
quick video, walk me around yourtruck.
I want to just want to make surewe've got everything here that
looks good, we've got the rightequipment, or, you know,
pictures are good too.
But stuff like that like I'veseen the wrong size flatbed show
up, I've seen the wrong type ofopen deck trailer, the wrong
(38:16):
size tarps, you name it Likethis stuff could have been
prevented if we followed acertain set of instructions.
We have a dispatching checkliston our website.
It's a great one to help youremember the questions to ask.
You know customer and carriersto make sure you've got the
right driver in the right placeat the right time with the right
trucks.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I mean, not only does it prevent things from going
wrong, it allows you to trainnew people to.
I think the other thing yousaid which is super important is
that, like, if you ever want toactually take a day off,
someone else needs to be able tostep in.
If you don't have a processthat is step-by-step for how you
do what you do, nobody else canpick up where you left off
(38:51):
because they don't know how youdid.
What you did right Is a hugeone.
And also, like you can'timprove.
It is very difficult to findwhere something went wrong if
you didn't standardize it.
Like if you're just randomlylooking at information about a
carrier and then you get a loadstolen and your boss goes well,
hey, how did you miss this?
(39:12):
You're like I don't know.
Like, I looked at the carrier,it seemed fine.
Well, did you look at this?
Did you look at this?
Well, I don't know.
Maybe sometimes I do, sometimesI don't.
Well, that's probably whysometimes your loads don't get
stolen and sometimes they dobecause you're not consistent
with how you're verifying orvetting these things.
Right, oh, my customer's onlypaying nine out of every 12
invoices we sent.
(39:32):
Why?
Oh, because sometimes I add thePO to the load.
Sometimes I don't, sometimes Iremember to put it in there,
sometimes I don't, and sometimesthe customer pays the bill and
sometimes they don't.
Then you end up spending waymore work later trying to fix
the things that you didn't doconsistently, because it's
inherently going to createopportunities for errors or just
(39:53):
things that are going to gowrong.
And it's just like and even ifyou ever dream of automating
anything in your business, youdo the same thing with a
computer, like I'm spending aton of time training models and
trying to see what work we cantake off of people that they
don't want to do anyway.
You do the exact same thingwith an llm.
You train it.
(40:13):
You need a process, you needthe step by step.
What happens here?
Yes or no, it should do this.
If this happens, then thishappens right.
If you can't map that out, youcan't train a computer or
another person to help with itat all.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yep A hundred percent .
Last big one I'm going to hiton here is know your numbers,
understanding things like youknow.
Profit your margin, cost perload.
It's not just about revenue.
We have probably a handful ofepisodes that break down this
and we've told many storiesabout it.
(40:48):
But when it comes to brokering,when I look at if I'm going to
hire somebody new let's say theyhave a book of business I have
oftentimes heard people theytalk about their book of
business in their top linerevenue.
I don't care what someone's topline revenue is, I want to know
what is the margin in thatright.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
So yeah, you know, there's a famous old story right
when this business basicallysells $5 bills for $2, right,
you can generate a ton of salesselling a $10 bill for five
bucks, but you're losing $5every time you do it.
You're like, oh my God, andthat's what lots of businesses
(41:29):
do.
Right, like hey, I raised abunch of money.
We're selling a product for wayless than it costs us to make
it, but eventually we'll makesome money down the future.
Right Like that rarely everworks out.
Right Like you need to knowwhat is hitting the bottom line,
not just the volume of dollars,because it costs money to
process that volume of dollarsthrough the business.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So super basic.
Right, here are some basicmetrics.
I do this with every new rep atone month, two months and three
months.
I go through.
I sent one out today, I gothrough their start date so I
know how long have they beenworking there, how many
customers have they set up, howmany loads have they moved and
we've invoiced, what is theirtotal revenue, what is their
(42:13):
total gross profit and what istheir margin percentage on that
business.
Right, those are basic metrics.
You can get a whole.
You can get way deeper and lookat like what's their average
and I do this on other um otherreports I have is like I do a
company wide and by the rep.
I look at um average revenueper load, average profit per
(42:34):
load and um I've even broken itdown to like what is somebody
gain or what are we making orlosing per month from a rep?
I like pro rata everything out,like cost of support, cost of
software licenses, literallyeverything.
You can get really granular onit if you want to, but basic
numbers you need to understand,like are we making money?
(42:56):
Is this business actually asuccessful business or is it not
?
Because I've seen people thatcome in and their margins are
too thin, their customers arepaying too slow, they have a
claim that was short paid, butthey're not considering that in
the big picture numbers, thisstuff all matters and there's a
reason that when we teach theTIA students the freight
brokering, like the basiclessons of freight brokering,
(43:18):
there's an entire lessondedicated to finance, because we
become the bank of thetransaction and you can find
your entire company in a badsituation, if not going out of
business, if you don't keep aclose, you know a close read on
like what is your financialwellness for the company?
So some people have the wholeidea of like, oh yeah, I'm going
(43:42):
to come in really cheap, try towin this customer's business
and then I'll just like slowlymark the rates up over time and
it's like customers that willmove to you because you're going
to run for them at a loss andthey don't care about service
when you raise your prices.
They're just going to move tothe next dude that's going to do
the same thing.
So it's a slippery slope.
(44:07):
But yeah, I know your numbers,I know you've, you've had.
Well, let's see, stephen had oneand you you've had one.
Basically, where the biggestissue going on or frustration
has to do with finances, likethe financial part of the
business not getting a customerRight.
So, like Stephen's thing waslike the system was tracking
some like wire fee the wrong wayfor like two years and they
were overpaying people and likeno one was even tracking it.
You had one with like factoringdata is coming in but not going
(44:29):
out or vice versa.
The whole thing is like behindall this hey, we find trucks for
shippers is, we are thefinancial institution
essentially that is supportingthis whole supply chain.
So numbers are like superimportant.
That's why we had a guy in oneof the TI cohorts that was like
he was the CFO for a company.
(44:51):
He just he wanted to learneverything else.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
But, like you know, you have very important players
there, so it's probably one ofthe most important things I
think I've learned, like if Ilook at like just traditional
schooling right, whether it washigh school, through college,
and like I majored in financeand accounting and minored in
econ, and it's like econ haslike the most practical
(45:13):
analogies, cause you learn kindof like how markets work and
they react and supply and demand.
Finance teaches you how allthese numbers relate and
accounting really just teach you, teaches you like the format of
which to learn to interpretthose Right.
So it's like you need tounderstand accounting to do
finance because you don't knowwhere what the words mean that
(45:35):
are associated with the numbers.
Right, like it's a number butlike is it an expense?
What kind of expense Is it likea fixed expense, a variable
expense?
And like to me, like anybody inthis, in any business, if you
want to run a business, I feellike you should at least learn
like 101 finance stuff.
Like you don't need a master'sdegree in finance to know this
(45:56):
stuff.
Most of that stuff isn'tpractical anyway, right, like
once you get into high levelfinance, you're doing calculus
and you're trying to predictthings that like are never
perfect anyway and they havevery little practical examples
or uses, unless you're literallyworking in finance.
And, like, I feel like everybodywould benefit just
understanding how to read abalance sheet, an income
(46:17):
statement, and understanding howthose things interact with each
other.
Right, like, what is an incomestatement?
What does it tell you?
What information is valuablethere and how does that relate
to the balance sheet, which isall the money we owe everybody
and all of the assets thiscompany has?
Because, like, the interactionsbetween the two are really
useful and they tell you thehealth of your business.
(46:38):
So it's like, yeah, you go tosee a doctor to tell you about
your health.
You don't need to learneverything about medicine, but
it's probably pretty good tounderstand how your cholesterol
relates to some of these otherthings.
And, like, some basicunderstanding so you can
understand what they're tryingto tell you.
Just because you have a CPA thatruns all your books and maybe
you have an accountant and afinance person, you should
(47:01):
understand the basics.
So when they're talking to you,you know what that practically
means in your business.
Right, we're not making enoughmoney.
Why?
That answer could have ahundred different reasons, right
, to know and to pinpoint toimprove your business, you've
got to be able to look at itlike oh, it's because our
variable costs are too high,it's because we spent too much
(47:21):
money on a fixed cost.
Maybe we didn't need that bigof a building.
We can downsize and all of asudden become profitable.
You can't actually act on thatinformation if you don't
understand what it's telling you, and I'm sure there's tons of
courses you could take.
Even just buying a book likeFinance for Dummies honestly
would probably be a great stepif you're running a business,
because these are things thatare so often overlooked and to
(47:44):
your point.
Like usually, if you don'tunderstand these at all, you get
to a place that is very, verybad before you realized it and
you could have addressed it muchsooner.
Right, it's like oh my God, wecan't make payroll.
What happened?
Oh, that is way downstream fromall these decisions you could
have made like months in advancethat could have prevented that.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Yep, yeah, income statement's huge, like I love.
I do it every month.
I look at, like I'll look at adivision and say, okay, I let it
go top line, which is it'sliterally the top line, the
revenue, and then all the waybottom line is the net income.
That's why they call them topline and bottom line.
You got like 50 other things inthe middle.
I just pulled up a recent onebut I can see like X million
(48:24):
dollars of revenue.
That's the top line and X ahundred thousand dollars is the
net income.
So after all expenses were paid,you know, we know that for
every dollar that comes throughin revenue, x amount of pennies
is going to be the, the expectedprofit.
And if I see that numbergetting too low, then I know
that we're running too thin onmargins somewhere or we're
(48:44):
spending too much somewhere else.
The higher it gets, the better,obviously, but it's when it
gets below a certain point.
So like that three to fivepercent is kind of like what
I've always seen as like the,the benchmark, that for a
brokerage, like if you look ateverything, this is at scale too
.
So like whether you'reagent-based and you're paying
(49:06):
high commissions but have a lowonboarding cost.
Or if you're W-2 based and youhave lower commissions but
you're paying salaries andbenefits and turnover on
employees that don't produceanything.
If you can get to that likethree to 5%, and that's a
monthly return on your money,like you annualize that, that
will tell you if you're asuccessful business long-term.
If your company is doing whatdoes that annualize at Like
(49:28):
somewhere in a 30 to 50% rangeversus putting your money in a
CD right?
That's why we run businessesand put all of our blood, sweat
and tears into it is to providejobs, service people and
ultimately it's going to createprofits.
So good stuff, man.
Any other extras you want tosprinkle in?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
A 5% monthly return when annualized is approximately
80%, it's a pretty big number.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, that's probably saying 5%, is that?
Speaker 1 (49:56):
compounded, because we're not it's compounding, yeah
, yeah.
Well, this wouldn't becompounded though.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, that's probably saying 5%.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Is that compounded?
It's compounding.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah, yeah Well.
This wouldn't be compoundedthough.
Yeah Well, I guess it wouldjust be 5% times 12 if it's a 30
month rolling thing, whichwould be 60%.
So still good, right, like, ifyou're three to 5%, that's
really good return on your money.
But you got to have moneycoming in the door to make money
on.
So that's where sales andgrowing your business comes from
(50:22):
or comes into play, which iswhere all of our other tactics
and tips come in.
So pick up the phone, go outthere and make an extra 10 calls
today that you wouldn't haveotherwise made.
This is a numbers game,ultimately.
So if you're, if you are new tobrokering, definitely
understand that you will notsucceed by just sending emails.
(50:44):
You will not succeed if youmake five calls a day, you will
put in a large volume of phonecalls.
So get used to that and itbecomes second nature to you,
sweet man.
Well, I look forward to thenext 100 episodes.
Go to 400.
It's good.
Glad to see that we got thatmuch content out there.
I wonder how many gigabytes onthe internet servers we're
(51:05):
taking up these days.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
When did we start this 2000?
You started in 19.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
First episode went out September of 2019.
And I 2020, started doing itrebranded to Freight360, and
it's been great.
Since we brought Stephen on in2023, the freight intern, We've
(51:29):
done a mix of doing thingsourselves internally and
outsourcing it, and we've foundsome ways that work and some
ways that don't work.
But yeah, just like growing abrokerage man, like it's the
long game, right, so you got toplay with the big picture in
mind.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Good stuff, that's wild to think what's that?
I've been doing this for fiveyears now.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Mm-hmm, wild, wild.
Well, cool man, we'll put a bowon it with that.
Final thoughts on episode 300.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
And until next time go Bills.
Welcome back and happy 300 for a 360.
We've made a milestone here,ben.
Episode 300.
I think the last big one we hadwas like 200 or 250.
I remember, I remember Trey wason like episode 100 and then, I
think, like 200 or 250.
Maybe I was like on the roadfor Army and I cracked a white
(00:23):
claw while we were recording.
I do, yes, but it's I'mdrinking water today.
So no, no, no adult beverages.
But anyway, man, congrats towhat is this?
Our sixth year?
Yeah, cheers, but in as a wayto give you guys what you want.
(00:45):
We've looked at our best contentand we're going to pack a lot
of it into one episode today.
This is great for anyone that'snew or growing or just wants to
learn.
We're going to go through ourbest advice for freight brokers
in today's episode, and a lot ofit.
You know, if you want a deeperdive into any of these sections
or specifics, there's probably afull length episode on it.
So this is a great one to keepthe keep the engine all tuned up
(01:10):
and remind yourself of thelittle things you got to make
sure you're focusing on to besuccessful.
But first, if you haven't,there's two hundred and ninety
nine other episodes and a wholebunch of Q&A sessions and short
form content.
You go to the websiteFreight360.net or our YouTube
channel and share us with yourfriends, leave us comments, ask
your questions, sign up for thenewsletter.
You can check out the FreightBroker Basics course as well for
(01:32):
an educational option foryourself or your team, and we
appreciate all those of you whohave been with us for many, many
years.
So, ben, what's going on Is it?
Is it like super hot in Florida, as the whole country's in a
heat wave right now, or what?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You know it's funny Like I keep seeing that on the
news and like different articles, but like it's what's the
temperature right now in Boca I?
think it's crazy hot.
It's 89.
I mean I will say this, like wewere at the beach yesterday,
like I think the real feel waslike 103, so like it was that
(02:08):
last week.
I mean I was telling you in thelast time we recorded like it's
.
I really notice it because I'moutside playing tennis this year
, which is different than any ofthe other years, like playing
golf.
I don't notice it as muchbecause like you get back in and
out of the cart, like I feellike I can play I totally do
during golf, man, but I alsodon't tennis, so I don't have
that to relate it to.
Let's see what is the real feelright now.
Yeah, I mean it feels like 89.
I mean it is 89.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
It feels like 98 in Orchard Park right now it's 86
degrees accurate or like actualtemperature.
Feels like 98.
It's because it's humid.
But, dude, I was outsideyesterday and the day before
just doing like stuff around thehouse, like yard work, and I
showered three times yesterdayand three times.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Like Florida.
You know what else I've beendoing that I think might help a
little bit is like I've beendoing the sauna a lot more, like
I try to do it at least threeor four days a week in the
morning I do it before the coldplunge and like I do breathing
exercises like in there just toget used to sitting in.
Mine only goes up to like 160,but like it's making it easier
(03:07):
to tolerate the heat otherportions of the day well, I love
summer heat, so bring it on.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That's what I say.
Yeah, people are complainingabout it.
I'm like, yeah, you won't becomplaining in six months when
it's literally christmas, yeah,but anyway what we got, nhl has
wrapped up.
I think we already hit on thatlast week.
The Florida Panthers won andthen NBA wrapped up.
We're recording on Monday thisweek, so I think it was last
night.
Don't follow NBA, but somebodywon.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Somebody won, somebody didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
To all the listeners out there that follow basketball
congrats if that was your teamout there that follow basketball
, congrats if that was your team.
I'm a baseball guy and the RedSox actually traded Rafael
Devers last week to the SanFrancisco Giants, who then the
Red Sox played the Giants andDevers hits a home run against
(03:59):
the Red Sox.
That was like some weird karmathere.
But outside of that man, youknow, you got mini camps going
on for football.
I actually put on NFL Networkthis morning for like the first
time in a couple months, justtrying to get myself back into
like NFL mentality.
We'll see, we'll see News.
I mean there's a lot of newsgoing on in the world right now.
(04:19):
What's going on in the freightworld?
Anything, nothing, nothing, Iguess related, because we're
just talking about off-air.
I definitely want to get SalMercogliano back on here again
soon because he had a veryinteresting post yesterday on
Twitter about maritime trade,because he bombed.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Iran, he bombed Iran.
And if they close the HormezStrait, iran, and if they close
the Hormez Strait.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, iran basically threatened to close one of the
shipping passages and Sal hadthis post about how like fun
fact, like a country does nothave the authority to basically
do what they were saying weresaying.
But I'd be curious his take onlike rising conflicts in general
in the Middle East, how thatwill impact trade as it funnels
(05:12):
into the US and pricing andshipping delays, things like
that.
I'll be really curious to see.
We'll try to get him on thissummer at some point again and
follow up on that, because thatyou know that could be on the
horizon.
But what do you got?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Two kind of related things I heard recently Somebody
was talking about that and theysaid one if we actually were at
war with Iran, like we don'thave the ability to defend
against, I think, supersonicrockets that go faster than the
speed of sound, which Iran hastechnically.
I think Russia has rockets thatgo faster than the speed of
sound, which Iran hastechnically, I think Russia has,
and maybe China, which youmight know more about being in
(05:50):
the army.
But they were like yeah, likeyou can't defend against them in
the same way that you do othertypes of rockets, and they were
like no, you just try to takethem out so they can't use them.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, let's see on the freight horizon here, let's
see what we got.
I haven't heard, haven't.
Uh, I feel like nothing big inthe freight world.
I feel like it's the same stuffevery week.
Like you know, more companiesare going bankrupt, um, tariffs,
this, that and everything.
But as far as like industrynews, I feel like there's been
(06:22):
nothing terribly breaking lately.
I will say, excuse me, the thetrends that I've seen lately,
and this is just something to bevigilant of.
As you move into the busy summermonths, when we have like
Fourth of July coming up andpeople taking off and people
kind of like losing theirvigilance per se is the types of
(06:44):
like fraud and cargo theft aregetting very, very like they're
they're getting very complex now.
So, like, if there's ever atime to like double down on your
standard operating proceduresand your use of tools to
implement safeguards, now is thetime.
We have a good listenerquestion that we'll answer,
that'll come out on the finalmile on the next episode of that
(07:07):
and we'll, you know, I'm surewe'll hit on some SOPs today on
the episode, but I've definitelybeen seeing more and more of it
and hearing more and more aboutit.
So, yeah, yeah, ai.
I feel like AI is like poppingout left and right new new
features within existingplatforms and new tools out
(07:30):
there.
So outside of that, I gotnothing else on news.
All right, cool man.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Jump in.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Let's get into some good content today.
So it's episode 300.
We wanted to talk about some ofthe best, best advice that
we've given over the years and,ironically, this goes to prove
two things Number one, ai, andnumber two, how much content
we've put out there.
I was able to use AI to tell mewhat the best to compile a list
(07:58):
of the best advice that we'vegiven and it came out almost
100% accurate, which is prettycool that you know.
We've put out that much contentand helped this many people.
So really happy to, to to bethere.
But we'll go through.
There's no particular order onthese, but, um, the.
The first one that came up wasto start with a niche and it's
(08:19):
really a bigger picture.
We've.
We've used the phraseprospecting with a purpose,
right, which is always likedon't just, you know, when you
start new as a, as a broker orin a sales role, you don't
necessarily want to run with therest of the herd and you also
don't want to just do what theguy next to you is doing just
because that's what he's doing,right, you want to have some
(08:40):
intentionality behind it.
You want to have someintentionality behind it, so
like the three part thing thatwe've always said with
prospecting with a purpose islike have a niche, so like go
after something specific whichwas you know.
Pick a commodity or maybe alocation of the country that has
a similar, you knowcircumstances when it comes to
their capacity, or maybe it's aspecific type of equipment you
(09:02):
want to work with, specializedopen deck types of things, so
you know.
You see people whose emailsignature is like we handle full
truck load, uh, ltl, air oceanexpedite, final mile white glove
, and it's like do you really,do you actually like?
I remember the, the firstbrokerage I worked at.
We like advertised in brochuresand on our website that we did
(09:23):
air and ocean and I was like wedon't do an air and ocean.
What are we talking about here?
My dog's going nuts.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, I mean to that point.
I think it's important that,like you make your customers
aware of what things you canservice for them once they are a
customer.
But I certainly don't thinkthat's what you lead with,
because I mean, whenever you'relooking for anything, like you
want somebody that's really goodat what they do, not just okay
(09:52):
at doing everything.
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Think about it Like dude if you want to go buy, if
you want to go buy like a highend TV, are you going to go to
Walmart and ask some generalassociate there about a super
good TV, walmart, and ask somegeneral associate there about a
super good TV, are you going togo to the Magnolia home theater
section of your upscale Best Buyor a local home theater store?
It's the same concept.
Yeah, other, we'll move on toanother one.
(10:17):
Pick up the phone.
Relationships, drive thebusiness.
Cold calls, follow-ups andregular check-ins are
non-negotiable.
So that's kind of a word saladthere.
But I've always been of themindset that's like a bunch of
you know there's a bunch oftrucks in and around my
neighborhood all the time, or inmy local area or city, and
(10:45):
while I think you might be ableto get a lot done and build
rapport face to face, it's not avery efficient use of your time
if that's the only way you'regoing to go about prospecting,
because you can make you knowyou might be able to make five
visits in a day.
You can make 200 phone calls ina day.
Also, if you're only going towork in your area, you're
limiting yourself to everywhereelse in the country.
(11:05):
Like I remember we had a girlfrom TIA that we coached a
couple of years ago.
That was like yeah, I grew upin the agricultural industry,
live on a farm and there's abunch of farms in my area.
I'd love to prospect thembecause they're right here.
I'm like that's great, I said,but don't only do that, right,
because you can pick up thephone and call a farm three
(11:26):
states away.
Who's moving the exact sameproduct in a similar cyclical
nature throughout the year,right?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, and also like in any type of prospecting, like
I feel like it's good to kindof like, like, have your
ammunition kind of loaded beforeyou go to shoot.
I guess as a kind of an analogy, meaning like, if I'm going to
go pick up the phone to thefirst point of like finding a
niche, there is basically oneopener I'm using for all of that
(11:53):
group of prospects, right.
Like if it's because this areajust had a storm, like I am
addressing that likely need inevery call.
It's a little bit different,but that's my opener, right,
that's the reason I'm callingyou.
If you're going to bothersomebody and make a cold call,
you've got to get to what's init for them as fast as possible,
(12:13):
right.
Same thing.
Like I've door knocked in lotsof different things, especially
early on in my sales career, andlike one you learn real fast.
You just start walking intobusinesses and you don't know
who you're asking for or whatyou're asking about.
Like it gets real awkward anduncomfortable real quick.
Like you're just walking into abuilding and you're like um,
hey, is, uh, who's in charge ofshipping around here?
(12:36):
And like the secretary'sstaring at you and like you feel
super nervous already and it'sjust like you don't.
You don't have a cleardirection.
You want to go Right.
Yeah, but when you are sellinglike you need to lead that
conversation or at least have aplan for where you want it to go
.
So like, if I'm going to goknock on doors, I always like
canvas by phone.
First, because, one, Ihopefully know who it is I'm
(12:59):
trying to speak to before Iknock on their door.
For one.
Two, hopefully find when aconvenient time for day is to
stop into is ideal.
Three, if I know those two, I'mprobably going to take
something, because now it's veryeffective, like bagels, coffee,
whatever, right.
And it's really hard to do thatif you're just knocking on
(13:20):
random doors and then trying tofigure out who you want to talk
to there.
So it's like, hey, if I've gotcompanies say there's a business
park, an industrial park, abunch of farms, whatever that
are grouped close to my house, Iwant to hit those or my office.
I'm first going to look up allthe companies, then I'm going to
go search LinkedIn and see if Ican find who the shipping
managers are.
Then I'm going to go searchLinkedIn and see if I can find
who the shipping managers are.
(13:40):
Then I'm going to go to Zoominfo and at least get a pretty
good idea of who they are, andthen I'm going to call all of
those companies first and see ifI can speak to them.
And then I'm going to make mysecond touch showing up in
person, because now I'm goingand going hey, is Jimmy around,
sally, like I know who the whoanswered the phone when I called
and I know who the guys I'mtrying to reach answered the
phone when I called and I knowwho the guy is I'm trying to
(14:01):
reach and I can say somethinglike yeah, I connected with him
on a call last week.
He said if I was in the area Ishould swing by around now.
Now there's a much higherlikelihood I'm going to speak to
them.
I've got a reason to speak tothem.
All of that gets so much easier.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Agreed A hundred percent.
So to that point it made methink to a couple of different
things.
So years ago I'm trying tothink, when this was, when I
worked at Conway, all of oursales was outside sales and it
was territorial.
So like it was, you know youwould make calls, but like we're
going, like these are basicallyin the LTL world.
Like you know, the companiesthey're shipping LTL and you're
(14:34):
either you're either trying toget more of their business or
you're trying to get businessfrom a competitor, right, so
everyone knows who all the LTLplayers are in the in the game.
So it was very much about, likeyou know, I can't call three
states away because that's notmy territory.
I do want to go in personbecause I want to have time to
sit down with this person, grablunch with them, get them in a
(14:55):
comfortable setting and buildrapport and then we'll talk shop
as you know deems necessary.
But in our industry with, withbrokerage, where it's not
territory based, very, verydifferent, like sky's the limit
as far as like who you canprospect.
And I think about the customervisits that I've done in
brokerage for full truckload.
I had two that I did that werein my town a few years ago.
(15:21):
No three, they were in theBuffalo area and they were great
to build rapport.
That was not the first time wetalked.
I didn't just cold arrive there.
It was a lot of conversationsbeforehand and then it turned
into routine visits at a coupleplaces.
Like you said, we're taking ina subplatter on Christmas time,
or donuts or bagels or whateverthe case might be Christmas
(15:42):
cookies.
You know, you name it.
Another one I did which is acity over which required a
little bit of driving like I'mdefinitely planning that one out
in advance because I'm wastinghours of my day round trip
driving there and to, or youknow, to and from.
But that was more of a hey.
This was actually like a um, abeverage company that did
contract um brewing fordifferent like um, like
(16:08):
alcoholic beverages.
So I did like Mike's hardlemonade, for example, and some
other like basically like hey, abrewery that wants to get their
beer brewed and distributed, um, that's in an area that's not
where they're based out of.
So like, let's say, I'm basedin Rhode Island but I want to be
distributing in, you know, newYork and Pennsylvania.
Well, I might have a contractbrewery in Western New York so I
(16:28):
can reach that.
You know wheel and spoke.
So what do we do?
We went and got a brief tour ofthe facility, sat down at the
brewery there, had lunch andtalked about you know big
picture stuff, but also justbuild rapport about family life,
what's going on outside of work.
And those are great for twothings you build rapport and you
get eyes on the actual facility.
(16:49):
You can see the issues thatdrivers talk about with.
Yeah, that sign doesn't makesense when I turn here.
But again, like the initialconversation happened via phone
and I think that you know not tolike beat a dead horse here,
but when we say you can make 200phone calls a day, you can
literally make 200 phone calls aday.
It doesn't mean you're going tohave 200 conversations that day
, but it's a numbers game and italways has been in our industry
(17:10):
and it's always going to be.
That's why you see AI phonecompanies and phone systems that
are out there now and AI thisand that to try, and people are
trying to find the shortcut toget you past all the nonsense of
calling.
That's why you had auto dialersthat were around even 10, 15
years ago.
Right, trying to reduce theamount of downtime in between,
(17:31):
but the phone is king when itcomes to this.
If you're going to try and hidebehind your keyboard and email
campaigns to get new customers,it's not going to work.
I've had people that swore tome I've mastered this.
It's going to work, never works.
So pick up the phone.
If you are close by, yeah, byall means, meet in person and
(17:54):
definitely use meeting in personas a way to strengthen that
relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
But the phone's huge.
Well, I mean, our wholeindustry functions on
relationships and trust.
Why?
Because it's a commoditybusiness, meaning, like you can
pretty much interchange a brokerand a carrier and another one
can perform pretty similar tothe same work, Except in two
instances when things don't goright and they don't get the
information, or somebody justisn't paying attention and they
(18:17):
don't know what's going on,right?
So trust has a huge value inthis industry and I can
guarantee you don't have arelationship with anybody unless
you've had a conversation withthem.
Like I can't think of anyexample in any aspect of life
where you could say you have arelationship with somebody that
(18:38):
you haven't actually talked to.
I guess maybe you could saythat if you've had really
in-depth conversations onlineabout, maybe, something specific
.
But even in that scenario, likeit's nowhere near the type of
relationship you have, becauseand somebody was talking about
this recently it's like, well,we used to talk about this a lot
.
It was like 90% ofcommunication is like nonverbal.
(19:00):
When you're like talking tosomebody, it's like your
gestures, your facialexpressions, how you're saying,
what you're saying, not just thewords, right.
So it's like your tone of voice, your inflections, your energy.
All of these things mean things,and when you're communicating
so even when you're on the phone, you lose a lot of that, but
you still have a lot of it.
(19:21):
Now you go one step beyond thatand you talk about text
messages, right, or emails.
You lose all of the context,all of the personality.
All you're getting is theinformation, which leaves tons
of room for error,miscommunication,
misinterpretation.
Somebody was talking about theother day I think it was on Joe
Rogan.
They said, like the mostupsetting text message they
(19:43):
pulled a lot of people was justthe letter K, right, like when
somebody responds K and it'smostly because everybody just
runs through their head tryingto think like well, what did
they mean?
Are they mad at me?
Are they upset?
Did I say something that upsetthem?
Why are they being so shortwith me?
It's all because there's just alack of context and no real
anything around it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
It's funny because I, when youwere talking through you, don't
really know someone until you,like, get to talk with them.
I had someone.
I had a call with someoneearlier today.
It was basically like they're,they're trying to sell, we're
looking to upgrade something atour company and they're trying.
We're basically like we'reexploring a bunch of different
(20:24):
options out there and I get onthe phone with this girl and
she's talking to me like I knowher, and I'm like huh, she's
like yeah, you know, we've beenconnected on LinkedIn for 10
years.
I was like I've never talked toyou before, though, and she
treated it.
She's like, yeah, you know like.
(20:45):
I just wanted to say it's youknow good to, you know good to
talk to you again, and I waslike what like?
And then, like, by the end ofthe conversation, she's like you
know what?
I don't think we've actuallyever talked before and I was
like no, we haven't, but it'salmost the way that it made me
feel weird that she was treatingit that way, whereas throughout
the next 20 minutes, weactually did build a little
rapport through conversation.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So I don't want to go on like a huge tangent, but
like there's this thing I'veread about it's called
parasocial relationships whereyou hear somebody talk in their
voice so much that you feel likeyou know them, but they don't
know you, Right.
So like take, for instance,like I listened to a lot of
podcasts, right.
So like whether it's like timferris or one of these guys like
(21:20):
I've listened to probablyhundreds of hours of them having
in-depth conversations withpeople they know, so you feel
like you kind of know them.
That's why they're engaging,but they don't know you.
In fact, the person I wastalking about this was there was
a business interview with Ithink it was a porn star that
was making like a ton of money,and she's like it is the
(21:41):
weirdest thing ever becauseshe's like people who come up to
me in public and talk to melike they know me and she's like
and also there's like stalkersand like really actually some
like serious issues with thatindustry, I guess, and things
like this.
And she's like, yeah, likepeople see you and hear you talk
so much that they feel likethey know you, but like they've
(22:02):
actually never actually had aconversation with you.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, that's wild man .
Yeah, I guess, treat everyconversation where it's at, and
one of the next ones on our list, too, was qualify before you
quote and all that.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
That's a big one.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
We've told the story numerous times of like 30
minutes, of like greatconversation, and then you
realize like they're not adecision maker, right, or they
should?
one ltl a month yeah, yep, yeah,we had.
I had a guy it was almostexactly that like, um, we were
doing a cold calling sessionthis is a few years back and, um
(22:38):
, I, I did it.
We're like, I'm muted, I'm justlistening and I'm to give him
feedback at the end and he gotto the point where the guy it
wasn't LTL, but the guy had likeone, it was a farm and they had
like one shipment that would goout of whatever their product
was, like every two months orsomething like that, and I was
like, oh my God, you just wastedlike so so much time.
(22:59):
And I was like, oh my God, youjust wasted like so so much time
.
No, I shouldn't say wasted, butit could have been used better.
Right, like you, probably, earlyon, want to know what are you,
know what are certain veryobjective facts about this
shipper that are relevant to us.
Right, and we talk about likewe've got a list of like
questions to ask on our websiteand like one of them is you know
(23:21):
what methods of shipping areyou are you typically doing?
Is it?
Is it full truckload?
Do they try to partial thingsout?
What's the frequency?
Is it every day?
Is it?
They've got a few a weekBecause those matter, because if
a company is moving oneshipment every two months not a
great use of your time.
(23:41):
There are plenty of customers atmy brokerage where we've got
brokers that are.
They service a customer onceevery two or three months and
those are great.
Those are like little little pecustomers that you can.
You literally become part oftheir logistics and supply chain
(24:06):
within their company becausethey're relying on you for not
just capacity but also likekeeping a pulse on the freight
market and what's going on andtrends and where things are
headed and also how to handleproblems when they happen,
whereas like someone you dealwith every two to three months,
you really never have that muchof a rapport.
You're very replaceable, sodefinitely make sure you're
asking the right questions.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So Well, my favorite qualifying question to this day
and like there are always goingto be examples outside of this,
but it's a good rule of thumband this is beating to my head
at TQL was like you got to getwhat is their weekly full
truckload volume number?
Get to that question as quickas you can, because that's
(24:47):
really your qualifying line andlike the way my manager like
trained me in this businessexplained it and it makes a lot
of sense.
He's like if they're notshipping about 20 to 25
truckloads a week, they probablyaren't going to have too high
of a need for a broker.
It doesn't mean they don't, andthere are plenty of examples.
I've had customers that ship 10loads a week but they always use
a broker because, like, theydon't have a transportation
(25:08):
department.
So they give everything to onebroker and you can make good
margins because they care moreabout service than price.
Instruction is a really goodexample of that.
Like they're not going to havea logistics person when they got
projects.
They're giving everything toone guy.
They want you to handleeverything and everything's got
to be there on time.
Cost is usually second toservice, right?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
yeah but for most companies they're overall like
price of the project.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, and they just add that on literally to the
customer, pays the bill and then, like the way he explained to
me was he's like because whenyou, when I learned the business
, I covered freight right beforeI sold so you can understand
the thing you're selling, right,you deal with the problems and
that teaches you what problemsyou solve for your customers.
And the way he described itlike it makes a lot of sense.
(25:51):
He goes well, think about it.
Like, write it around 25 loadsa week, how many of those trucks
do you need to reschedule?
If you have one customer andfive loads a day, right and like
, no matter how good you are atyour job and how long you've
worked with these carriers,things happen right, like, truck
is delayed at the delivery,truck is stuck in traffic, maybe
there's a breakdown, there'ssome issue that came up right
(26:14):
and right around 2025, you starthaving enough need for
recovering loads to keep themall picked up five a day that
you kind of need to access theopen market.
And if you're only shipping fiveto 10 loads a week, he's like
that person can pretty much workdirectly with a trucking
company and if they all don'tneed picked up on the day
they're supposed to.
They can just wait for thatcarrier to send another truck
(26:36):
tomorrow.
Like that's not a problem, theycan save money and it's not too
much of a headache for them toneed to pay to go get trucks
last minute.
So like that is always the linethat I kind of have in my head
and like in my firstconversation or two with anybody
I'm trying to get that questionanswered.
That's my qualifying line.
If you're not shipping aroundthat or more, then like,
(26:56):
probably not that fit to beworking with a brokerage.
Like you can probably rely onmaybe a broker here and there,
but like you're not going toneed the services we provide as
much as a company that'sshipping five to 10 loads a day
because some of those trucksthey scheduled just aren't going
to make it.
They're going to need lastminute assistance.
That's what we provide.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yep, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.
Here's another one Carriers areyour customers too, so I'm huge
on this and I have met plentyof what I would consider like
scummy freight brokers thatdon't follow.
This is that you should betreating carriers with the same
level of attention and respectas you do your customers,
because they are just asimportant in my opinion.
(27:35):
Just like you said if you haveto reschedule a load because a
carrier falls off, just like yousaid if you have to reschedule
a load because the carrier fallsoff.
Yeah, like that tells me thatyou don't have a good carrier
relationship with that driver orwith that dispatcher.
So some of my favorites arewhen you don't even have to
think about where is my truck orwhat truck am I going to use
for this load, because everyTuesday and every Friday Jimmy
(27:58):
from Great Lakes Trucking isgoing to be hauling this load of
mushrooms for me.
Right, he's going to be pickingit up.
I'm going to definitely verifywith him.
Hey, you still good for thatTuesday pickup.
Yep, all good, boss, sweet,awesome.
You want to get to that point.
That is like we had an episodewe went through like the
evolution of what a book ofbusiness looks like, and it
(28:24):
starts with like, yeah, you'rejust cold calling and then
you're, then you're working offlocal and you're quoting, right,
and then then you got like acustomer that's giving you
opportunities and now you've gotrepeat business out of a
customer and now you're, um,you've got contract business and
, as that goes along, right,your relationship with carriers
should also be developing.
Um, you know, insynchronization with it, like
when you're brand new bookingyour first load, you don't have
any carrier relations, so soyou're probably posting to DAT
and calling out on some carriers, et cetera.
(28:46):
Right, you're trying to sourcecapacity from the open network,
open market, whereas you get tothe other side of that spectrum
and, like you know, whether it'sfrom just your experience or
your relationships, or TMS data,like who is the best fit to
haul this load from us?
Right, and there's tools tohelp you bridge that gap.
Gen logs, great example of away to source capacity because
(29:08):
it has a lot of the data for you.
But your own TMS like hey, thisguy's been running these loads
and we've got a note in herethat he prefers to operate in
these states.
Right, that stuff is key.
So the same thing goes with,like you know, accessorials and
fines and stuff like that.
I had a dude that I had to havelike a stern talking with last
week.
Who the driver was, let's see.
(29:34):
Driver confirmed pickup on.
I'll just make it up on Tuesday, right, customer was able to
switch the appointment if needed.
But the driver said, yep, I cando Tuesday, didn't show up till
Wednesday.
So naturally the customerdocked a certain amount of money
.
Well, this guy tries to makemoney on that and says, oh,
instead of a couple hundredbucks, I'm gonna deduct two
(29:55):
grand and it's like, no, don'tdo that, first of all, and
this's an egregious amount, butlike, second of all, you don't
have any documentation that evensupports that number or where
it came from, other than thefact that you probably just
wanted to make an extra 1500bucks this week or whatever the
case might be.
But don't yeah, don't beatthese guys up, um and try to
(30:16):
make money off it.
Like the same with like if acustomer is paying a tonu for
200 bucks, that goes to thedriver, don't pay him 100 and
pocket 100 yourself.
So things like that.
Because when the market issuper tight and you need drivers
, that is when it's going tobite you in the butt if you've
treated these folks like trash.
So any thoughts on that one.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Other than that, I agree with it 100%.
I mean, it is really simplethings like they're people and
you need them.
We don't ship things.
We coordinate with other peoplethat do that and you should
treat them exactly the way youwould want to be treated.
Yeah, there's a reason that'sbeen around for thousands of
years treating other people theway you want to be treated and
(30:59):
it pays huge dividends inbusiness.
It saves time, it allows you tomake more money, it allows
everybody to win Like.
There's so much more to be doneand so much more opportunity to
grow when you do thingsethically and you do the hard
things, even when somebody elsedoesn't want to like I just to
(31:22):
me.
Those are some of the thingsthat are probably most important
in this business.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
There's actually there's another one on our list
here that kind of ties in withit, which is to document
everything.
Um, so like this is huge, right, whether it's the customer side
or the carrier side,documenting is, like, extremely
important.
So, for the example we justgave about finding a carrier, if
you don't have a clear likeverbiage or a rate for different
(31:50):
things like detention, you know, layover, late, whatever the,
you know, whatever the, whateverit might be right, it is very
hard, um, to fight that uphillbattle like I have seen people
file on a broker's bond and thebond company is basically like
dude, just just pay it becausewe're gonna, we're gonna pay it
(32:11):
out and you're gonna pay us back.
Just pay it like we don't wantto yeah deal with this because
you did not have cleardocumentation.
We don't care what yourcustomer said, you never told
the carrier this.
So, same thing with your, withyour customer, like, if your
customer has, like, if they'rejust like, yeah, we're going to
deduct a thousand dollars forthis because it was.
You know, we had a, the driverhad an issue, it's like, what
like?
And that's a tough one.
When you're done with yourcustomer who's literally giving
(32:33):
you the business, that's likekind of a a tough situation to
navigate through.
But document like times, likelike when the tension comes down
to, like literally like thewhat's the timestamp when that
driver checked in and checkedout, like those things really
matter when it comes to you know, whether it's 50 bucks or 500
bucks or whatever.
The numbers are very, veryimportant.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Here's the thing I do want to add is I think lots of
people end up in the habit wherethey don't put this in the TMS
because they think it's in theiremail.
Like, you really should get inthe habit of uploading all that
documentation to the TMS for alot of reasons.
One, everybody can see it inyour company.
Almost everybody works remoteat some point or another and no
one else in your company can seeyour email.
(33:15):
Like I can't tell you how manytimes I've been working in a
brokerage where, like we hadthis happen over the weekend
once where, like the otherowners getting phone calls from
drivers, or I'm getting phonecalls and we go to help and we
pull up the TMS and we're likewe just genuinely don't know
what's going on.
None of the communication thatthey've had is in there, the
(33:36):
load's not updated right, noneof their conversation with the
dispatcher is in there.
So, like when someone comes into help, they're just literally
blind and can't do anythingright.
Like there's a reason all thisinformation lives in your TMS.
It's so everybody in theorganization can access it.
Like, again, I got into thathabit because I worked at a big
company.
When you have after-hoursupport or a team that's going
(33:58):
to work over the weekend.
If it's not in there, it mightas well not exist.
It doesn't help anybody if it'sjust in your email or in your
head.
You need to have it in therefor lots of reasons your
accounting team invoicing thingslater.
Documentation is absolutelyessential.
We do business in information.
That's literally how we makemoney and create value as
(34:21):
freight brokers is.
We take information from oneparty and get it to another, and
sometimes things don't go well.
Everything that happens inbetween what did and what should
happen needs to be written downso that somebody else can pick
up where you left off.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yep, a hundred percent.
I'm like I might overdo this,but I write stuff down like
locally all the time and then Imake it a point to have like a
shared version of those noteswith anyone who has to see it.
So like I'm even doing it onlike the administrative side for
for Pierce right now, which islike compiling like a cloud
(34:56):
based.
We've got like trackers thattrack certain things that are
important for, like you know, 10different people to see at any
given point in time, wherecertain people can edit them,
certain people can just see themfor visibility.
We've even got like um sop,like documents put together so
that, like anybody at any timecan access um to understand.
(35:17):
Like one of them was actuallyabout uh, it was about, I think
it was something with ASLcircles, like we just mentioned.
So like, if there's like whenin doubt, like reference this
and this will tell you exactlyhow we're going to handle X, y
and Z.
So yeah, that's huge.
Speaking of which we had one onhere.
Follow the processes, stick toyour SOPs.
So I can't, I can't, I can'tlike emphasize this one enough,
(35:40):
but like have processes in placeis basic or as detailed as they
, you know, needs to be able tostep in and handle how your
(36:01):
customer's billing gets done orhow the customer's tendering
happen, whatever, like someoneshould be able to see that.
Also, when it comes to biggerprocesses that are broad, like
how do we vet carriers andonboard them?
Like there should be a set or aset process that's written out
and when a new rep comes in andgets hired, they know that.
(36:21):
Like, okay, we've created alist of rules that we want to
check to make sure that carriermeets X, y and Z.
If they don't pass this basicsniff test, we will not use them
.
That could be they haveinsurance, they have an active
authority, right.
You might have other ones thatare subjective, like you might
look at safety scores or howlong have they been in service,
(36:44):
et cetera.
And then how are we going to gothrough the process of
onboarding them?
Is there a contract in place?
Is there?
Do we use credit applicationsfor new shippers?
Do we vet a shipper's or amotor carrier's email address to
make sure that it matches theFMCSA?
Like, whatever the case might be, having processes in place like
(37:07):
that will help you scale andnot have to feel like you're
carrying the weight ofeverything in your head on your
shoulders because it's writtendown somewhere Right and also
helps you just breathe easierknowing that, like, as long as
follow these, these SOPs thatI've created, that are that are
time, trusted and proven,everything else is okay, right,
like so, um, and we were talkingearly on about how, like
(37:30):
fraud's gotten wild, like thisis.
This is when I highly encouragepeople that if you've got high
value load or maybe it's thefirst time with a certain motor
carrier or a first time with acertain shipper and you want to
make sure you're doing anexceptional job, this is when
you want to look at implementingprocesses like tracking for the
entirety of the load, using atool like quick scope to verify
a carrier's identity before theyget loaded at that pickup
(37:53):
location, using things like awalk around, right, hey, take a
quick video, walk me around yourtruck.
I want to just want to make surewe've got everything here that
looks good, we've got the rightequipment, or, you know,
pictures are good too.
But stuff like that like I'veseen the wrong size flatbed show
up, I've seen the wrong type ofopen deck trailer, the wrong
(38:16):
size tarps, you name it Likethis stuff could have been
prevented if we followed acertain set of instructions.
We have a dispatching checkliston our website.
It's a great one to help youremember the questions to ask.
You know customer and carriersto make sure you've got the
right driver in the right placeat the right time with the right
trucks.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I mean, not only does it prevent things from going
wrong, it allows you to trainnew people to.
I think the other thing yousaid which is super important is
that, like, if you ever want toactually take a day off,
someone else needs to be able tostep in.
If you don't have a processthat is step-by-step for how you
do what you do, nobody else canpick up where you left off
(38:51):
because they don't know how youdid.
What you did right Is a hugeone.
And also, like you can'timprove.
It is very difficult to findwhere something went wrong if
you didn't standardize it.
Like if you're just randomlylooking at information about a
carrier and then you get a loadstolen and your boss goes well,
hey, how did you miss this?
(39:12):
You're like I don't know.
Like, I looked at the carrier,it seemed fine.
Well, did you look at this?
Did you look at this?
Well, I don't know.
Maybe sometimes I do, sometimesI don't.
Well, that's probably whysometimes your loads don't get
stolen and sometimes they dobecause you're not consistent
with how you're verifying orvetting these things.
Right, oh, my customer's onlypaying nine out of every 12
invoices we sent.
(39:32):
Why?
Oh, because sometimes I add thePO to the load.
Sometimes I don't, sometimes Iremember to put it in there,
sometimes I don't, and sometimesthe customer pays the bill and
sometimes they don't.
Then you end up spending waymore work later trying to fix
the things that you didn't doconsistently, because it's
inherently going to createopportunities for errors or just
(39:53):
things that are going to gowrong.
And it's just like and even ifyou ever dream of automating
anything in your business, youdo the same thing with a
computer, like I'm spending aton of time training models and
trying to see what work we cantake off of people that they
don't want to do anyway.
You do the exact same thingwith an llm.
You train it.
(40:13):
You need a process, you needthe step by step.
What happens here?
Yes or no, it should do this.
If this happens, then thishappens right.
If you can't map that out, youcan't train a computer or
another person to help with itat all.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yep A hundred percent .
Last big one I'm going to hiton here is know your numbers,
understanding things like youknow.
Profit your margin, cost perload.
It's not just about revenue.
We have probably a handful ofepisodes that break down this
and we've told many storiesabout it.
(40:48):
But when it comes to brokering,when I look at if I'm going to
hire somebody new let's say theyhave a book of business I have
oftentimes heard people theytalk about their book of
business in their top linerevenue.
I don't care what someone's topline revenue is, I want to know
what is the margin in thatright.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
So yeah, you know, there's a famous old story right
when this business basicallysells $5 bills for $2, right,
you can generate a ton of salesselling a $10 bill for five
bucks, but you're losing $5every time you do it.
You're like, oh my God, andthat's what lots of businesses
(41:29):
do.
Right, like hey, I raised abunch of money.
We're selling a product for wayless than it costs us to make
it, but eventually we'll makesome money down the future.
Right Like that rarely everworks out.
Right Like you need to knowwhat is hitting the bottom line,
not just the volume of dollars,because it costs money to
process that volume of dollarsthrough the business.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So super basic.
Right, here are some basicmetrics.
I do this with every new rep atone month, two months and three
months.
I go through.
I sent one out today, I gothrough their start date so I
know how long have they beenworking there, how many
customers have they set up, howmany loads have they moved and
we've invoiced, what is theirtotal revenue, what is their
(42:13):
total gross profit and what istheir margin percentage on that
business.
Right, those are basic metrics.
You can get a whole.
You can get way deeper and lookat like what's their average
and I do this on other um otherreports I have is like I do a
company wide and by the rep.
I look at um average revenueper load, average profit per
(42:34):
load and um I've even broken itdown to like what is somebody
gain or what are we making orlosing per month from a rep?
I like pro rata everything out,like cost of support, cost of
software licenses, literallyeverything.
You can get really granular onit if you want to, but basic
numbers you need to understand,like are we making money?
(42:56):
Is this business actually asuccessful business or is it not
?
Because I've seen people thatcome in and their margins are
too thin, their customers arepaying too slow, they have a
claim that was short paid, butthey're not considering that in
the big picture numbers, thisstuff all matters and there's a
reason that when we teach theTIA students the freight
brokering, like the basiclessons of freight brokering,
(43:18):
there's an entire lessondedicated to finance, because we
become the bank of thetransaction and you can find
your entire company in a badsituation, if not going out of
business, if you don't keep aclose, you know a close read on
like what is your financialwellness for the company?
So some people have the wholeidea of like, oh yeah, I'm going
(43:42):
to come in really cheap, try towin this customer's business
and then I'll just like slowlymark the rates up over time and
it's like customers that willmove to you because you're going
to run for them at a loss andthey don't care about service
when you raise your prices.
They're just going to move tothe next dude that's going to do
the same thing.
So it's a slippery slope.
(44:07):
But yeah, I know your numbers,I know you've, you've had.
Well, let's see, stephen had oneand you you've had one.
Basically, where the biggestissue going on or frustration
has to do with finances, likethe financial part of the
business not getting a customerRight.
So, like Stephen's thing waslike the system was tracking
some like wire fee the wrong wayfor like two years and they
were overpaying people and likeno one was even tracking it.
You had one with like factoringdata is coming in but not going
(44:29):
out or vice versa.
The whole thing is like behindall this hey, we find trucks for
shippers is, we are thefinancial institution
essentially that is supportingthis whole supply chain.
So numbers are like superimportant.
That's why we had a guy in oneof the TI cohorts that was like
he was the CFO for a company.
(44:51):
He just he wanted to learneverything else.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
But, like you know, you have very important players
there, so it's probably one ofthe most important things I
think I've learned, like if Ilook at like just traditional
schooling right, whether it washigh school, through college,
and like I majored in financeand accounting and minored in
econ, and it's like econ haslike the most practical
(45:13):
analogies, cause you learn kindof like how markets work and
they react and supply and demand.
Finance teaches you how allthese numbers relate and
accounting really just teach you, teaches you like the format of
which to learn to interpretthose Right.
So it's like you need tounderstand accounting to do
finance because you don't knowwhere what the words mean that
(45:35):
are associated with the numbers.
Right, like it's a number butlike is it an expense?
What kind of expense Is it likea fixed expense, a variable
expense?
And like to me, like anybody inthis, in any business, if you
want to run a business, I feellike you should at least learn
like 101 finance stuff.
Like you don't need a master'sdegree in finance to know this
(45:56):
stuff.
Most of that stuff isn'tpractical anyway, right, like
once you get into high levelfinance, you're doing calculus
and you're trying to predictthings that like are never
perfect anyway and they havevery little practical examples
or uses, unless you're literallyworking in finance.
And, like, I feel like everybodywould benefit just
understanding how to read abalance sheet, an income
(46:17):
statement, and understanding howthose things interact with each
other.
Right, like, what is an incomestatement?
What does it tell you?
What information is valuablethere and how does that relate
to the balance sheet, which isall the money we owe everybody
and all of the assets thiscompany has?
Because, like, the interactionsbetween the two are really
useful and they tell you thehealth of your business.
(46:38):
So it's like, yeah, you go tosee a doctor to tell you about
your health.
You don't need to learneverything about medicine, but
it's probably pretty good tounderstand how your cholesterol
relates to some of these otherthings.
And, like, some basicunderstanding so you can
understand what they're tryingto tell you.
Just because you have a CPA thatruns all your books and maybe
you have an accountant and afinance person, you should
(47:01):
understand the basics.
So when they're talking to you,you know what that practically
means in your business.
Right, we're not making enoughmoney.
Why?
That answer could have ahundred different reasons, right
, to know and to pinpoint toimprove your business, you've
got to be able to look at itlike oh, it's because our
variable costs are too high,it's because we spent too much
(47:21):
money on a fixed cost.
Maybe we didn't need that bigof a building.
We can downsize and all of asudden become profitable.
You can't actually act on thatinformation if you don't
understand what it's telling you, and I'm sure there's tons of
courses you could take.
Even just buying a book likeFinance for Dummies honestly
would probably be a great stepif you're running a business,
because these are things thatare so often overlooked and to
(47:44):
your point.
Like usually, if you don'tunderstand these at all, you get
to a place that is very, verybad before you realized it and
you could have addressed it muchsooner.
Right, it's like oh my God, wecan't make payroll.
What happened?
Oh, that is way downstream fromall these decisions you could
have made like months in advancethat could have prevented that.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Yep, yeah, income statement's huge, like I love.
I do it every month.
I look at, like I'll look at adivision and say, okay, I let it
go top line, which is it'sliterally the top line, the
revenue, and then all the waybottom line is the net income.
That's why they call them topline and bottom line.
You got like 50 other things inthe middle.
I just pulled up a recent onebut I can see like X million
(48:24):
dollars of revenue.
That's the top line and X ahundred thousand dollars is the
net income.
So after all expenses were paid,you know, we know that for
every dollar that comes throughin revenue, x amount of pennies
is going to be the, the expectedprofit.
And if I see that numbergetting too low, then I know
that we're running too thin onmargins somewhere or we're
(48:44):
spending too much somewhere else.
The higher it gets, the better,obviously, but it's when it
gets below a certain point.
So like that three to fivepercent is kind of like what
I've always seen as like the,the benchmark, that for a
brokerage, like if you look ateverything, this is at scale too
.
So like whether you'reagent-based and you're paying
(49:06):
high commissions but have a lowonboarding cost.
Or if you're W-2 based and youhave lower commissions but
you're paying salaries andbenefits and turnover on
employees that don't produceanything.
If you can get to that likethree to 5%, and that's a
monthly return on your money,like you annualize that, that
will tell you if you're asuccessful business long-term.
If your company is doing whatdoes that annualize at Like
(49:28):
somewhere in a 30 to 50% rangeversus putting your money in a
CD right?
That's why we run businessesand put all of our blood, sweat
and tears into it is to providejobs, service people and
ultimately it's going to createprofits.
So good stuff, man.
Any other extras you want tosprinkle in?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
A 5% monthly return when annualized is approximately
80%, it's a pretty big number.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, that's probably saying 5%, is that?
Speaker 1 (49:56):
compounded, because we're not it's compounding, yeah
, yeah.
Well, this wouldn't becompounded though.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, that's probably saying 5%.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Is that compounded?
It's compounding.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah, yeah Well.
This wouldn't be compoundedthough.
Yeah Well, I guess it wouldjust be 5% times 12 if it's a 30
month rolling thing, whichwould be 60%.
So still good, right, like, ifyou're three to 5%, that's
really good return on your money.
But you got to have moneycoming in the door to make money
on.
So that's where sales andgrowing your business comes from
(50:22):
or comes into play, which iswhere all of our other tactics
and tips come in.
So pick up the phone, go outthere and make an extra 10 calls
today that you wouldn't haveotherwise made.
This is a numbers game,ultimately.
So if you're, if you are new tobrokering, definitely
understand that you will notsucceed by just sending emails.
(50:44):
You will not succeed if youmake five calls a day, you will
put in a large volume of phonecalls.
So get used to that and itbecomes second nature to you,
sweet man.
Well, I look forward to thenext 100 episodes.
Go to 400.
It's good.
Glad to see that we got thatmuch content out there.
I wonder how many gigabytes onthe internet servers we're
(51:05):
taking up these days.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
When did we start this 2000?
You started in 19.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
First episode went out September of 2019.
And I 2020, started doing itrebranded to Freight360, and
it's been great.
Since we brought Stephen on in2023, the freight intern, We've
(51:29):
done a mix of doing thingsourselves internally and
outsourcing it, and we've foundsome ways that work and some
ways that don't work.
But yeah, just like growing abrokerage man, like it's the
long game, right, so you got toplay with the big picture in
mind.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Good stuff, that's wild to think what's that?
I've been doing this for fiveyears now.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Mm-hmm, wild, wild.
Well, cool man, we'll put a bowon it with that.
Final thoughts on episode 300.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
And until next time go Bills.
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