May 27, 2025 • 36 mins
Nate Cross & Ben Kowalski answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:
- Freight Broker Certificate Courses
- Canceling a Freight Brokerage Start-Up
- Covering Step Deck Loads
- AI for Freight Brokers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back for another episode or edition of
the Final Mile.
We're going to answer yourquestions all about freight
brokering.
We got these from a mix ofYouTube comments, our Facebook
group and I think I did snag oneoff of Reddit.
Every now and then we'llsprinkle one in from the
extended community.
So if you're brand new, or ifyou're newer to us, make sure to
(00:23):
check out all the other contentFreight360.net, including the
Freight Broker Basics course fora full-length educational
option, and check out thedescription or show notes to see
our sponsors to help supportthis channel.
All right, ben.
Our first question Is it worthtaking a certificate course for
freight brokering at a techschool if I already have a
business degree, and how hard isit to break in to the broker
(00:46):
community?
This person was talking aboutgoing to like I think it was a
local college for like, a techor tech school, as they said it.
And dude, I've seen these atmany, many community colleges
and they are like the cost iswhat blows my mind.
so my knee-jerk reaction threecredit hours for generally no um
(01:10):
, and here's why I'm not sayingdon't take training, um, but
think about this if I am acollege professor teaching about
freight brokering, oftentimesthey're not brokering freight
currently.
And, even more scary, they maynever have done it before, right
(01:32):
.
And then, third, there's thecost Like you're going to pay
collegiate level pricing for percredit hour, right.
So like I've seen three grandto go through like whatever
community college freightbrokering and they get one, or
like how old is the curriculum?
Et cetera.
There are some garbage tradingoptions out there for sure.
(01:52):
I think one of the things that Ilike about ours is we both work
in brokerage.
A lot of our content, I think,is superior to the rest of the
industry for that reason alone,specifically the course that we
put together with DAT.
The other piece, too and wementioned this on the podcast
(02:15):
that we recorded previously islike we've been able to white
label it for certain companies.
So they're like, hey, we wantto train our employees, but we
don't have trained material.
So they're like, hey, we wantto train our employees, but we
don't have training material.
They basically can duplicateour training and then take out
what they don't want, whitelabel it to them for their
company's name and stuff likethat.
So it's a really a good optionfor that matter.
So what do you think, man?
(02:36):
I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I mean, have you seen those?
Like the college, I've lookedat the curriculums and I've
looked at the teachers and I'velooked them up on LinkedIn to
see if they were brokers.
I mean, I am a huge proponentof education.
I'll just start there.
So, like I'm in no way sayingthat, like education is
invaluable.
However, also, someone thatrepaid probably 150 or 200.
(03:21):
I have no idea what that numbereven was that I repay back in
college debt, like I absolutelygot value for it.
Right In hindsight, what I knowand how I make money in any
entrepreneurial business thatI've ever been in was the things
I learned, practically speaking, doing the thing.
It's great to have afoundational understanding, but
(03:43):
you also have to be open-mindedand willing to make mistakes and
learn and work really hard.
So, like I think our courseagain well, probably because I'm
biased, we wrote it, but likewhen we wrote that, we spent
like the better part of a yearand we really spent time like
dozens of hours a week formonths going like what did we
(04:06):
need to learn to do this job?
How can we frame this in a wayfor somebody that doesn't know
this to understand it?
So I would say, like, as far ascourses go, ours is the most
comprehensive.
That really takes you througheverything you need to
understand to do the job.
(04:28):
The job, however, just metelling anybody and then them
listening to me, even if it wasa lecture for a week, right,
that's not going to allow you tojust build a business easily
because you have the information.
Like this is just how you buildit.
You still have to spend atremendous amount of work.
Like if I went and build abroker, I I built a bunch of
them.
You've done this a bunch oftimes.
Like it still takes a ton ofwork, even when you know where
(04:48):
the easy way is, where you'vemade mistakes, what to avoid,
how it functions.
Like it's still a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So for somebody trying to like playbook.
We gave you the playbook so asyou go through your journey you
can reference it so I want agreat analogy yeah, 100.
So, and here's what I want tocompare it to, I just pull one
of these up.
This is a freight broker slashagent training, 1895 dollars
from monroe community college.
(05:18):
I wonder if that's monroe, theone that's like not far from me.
Um, here's the syllabus, right16 lessons, keep in mind.
Ours is like 40 something umbasics of freight brokering
setting up your business,setting goals, setting up your
shipper packet operations, typesof freight transportation law,
(05:40):
broker carrier contracts, brokershipper contracts, insurance,
record keeping, determiningquotes, carry relations, sales,
marketing, negotiation.
So out of 16, I think it was umyeah, 16 lessons.
There's one on sales dude, wehave two modules in the business
(06:02):
we have two modules.
It's 90% of the business.
We have two modules full oflike eight lessons each on just
customer sales, and then we'vegot another whole section with
multiple lessons on carrier sideof things.
They spent a lot of time, youknow.
I saw this is kind of the samething with Freight Broker
Bootcamp.
There's a lot of fluff in thereon like administrative things
that you know they're importantbut like you don't need to be, I
(06:28):
mean, hey, this is honestlytaught like a college class,
Like you learn a bunch of crapyou pretty much don't need and
there's zero applicability to it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So, yeah, the thing I would say too to what you just
said is like, if you're going toget a business degree anyway
and you can fulfill some prereqwith this class and you want to
go work in freight brokerage,take the class.
If you're going to take someother class anyway to graduate
and this fulfills somerequirement, hey, there's no
harm in taking this overwhatever other general business
class.
If you're just going to spendyour money to take a class to
(07:00):
try to get a job, I honestly Iwould rather go through our
course than that course.
And then the last thing is likeyour playbook analogy right,
you can give a high schoolfootball player an NFL playbook.
They can learn every play in it.
That does not mean they'regoing to be able to execute them
without practice, makingmistakes and learning.
(07:20):
Right, the thing that thedifference between a high school
or college quarterback and anNFL is the amount of effort,
practice and time they spendmaking mistakes and learning and
like sales to your point is 90%of it.
Like I have read almost everysales book I can find in over 20
some years, from like largenames to small names, the
(07:41):
content we write content.
I've looked at every psychologybook I can find on it, gone
into neurology to find it, andlike there's a lot of great
stuff out there.
But I will tell you like evenif I had read all those books
somehow by the time I wasstarting in sales at like
whatever 25 or whatever year itwas, however old it was, like
(08:02):
that wouldn't have meant like Iwould have been able to do it
just the first day I went towork.
I still would have had to makethree to four to 500 calls in
that industry with that company,with that service or product to
learn the practical side of it.
Like understanding the frameworkis great and is super helpful
to moving faster and to doingthings and making less mistakes
(08:25):
and to get effective quicker.
But there's no avoiding thefact that, like you are just
going to like my daughter'slearning to ride a bike.
Like you got to fall off thebike to learn how to stay on the
bike.
Like and there's no avoidingthat in sales and sales is you
don't get to admin, you don'tget to any of the rest of that
until you've got a customer thatwill give you loads.
So guess what you do for thefirst three to six months is you
(08:47):
got to learn how to buildprospecting funnels.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
What customers are going into your CRM, how to use
that tool and call them.
And they didn't even haveanything about prospecting in
there.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, when to find you Great.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I will say like when it comes to like accredited
education.
So you like you and I, right,we help the the live coaching
portion of TIA's education fortheir new members and we had to
become accredited or we had tobecome professors in Virginia to
be able to teach those.
(09:19):
I do like about that format isyou get a mix of like the
education, working with theactual instructor, engaging with
them back and forth as thesepeople go through their journey,
right Versus just take thecourse and like, learn it all
and then move on.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And I'll like whatever bookmark it with what
my mentor at the first job I hadlike real job.
It was at a bank and I gothired there out of college.
So like I just finished fiveyears of school, major in
accounting, stayed an extra year, got a major in finance, minor
in econ.
I, after finishing all of that,felt like I'm just going to go
and know what to do and just beable to do this job.
I'm just going to go and knowwhat to do and just be able to
(10:03):
do this job.
And I'll never forget sittingat the table with all the other
I think we were interns thatthen we got our job after like a
whatever time frame and theexecutive vice president at the
bank had been there like 50years at that time.
He's been there forever.
He stands at the end of thetable and he goes.
I'm going to tell you one thingfirst off, I don't give a shit
(10:26):
what college you went to, whatmajor you had or what your GPA
was.
Whatever you're going to needto know in this job, you're
going to learn doing the job.
The only reason I cared aboutyour college degree was to know
that you could commit tosomething for four years follow
through with it.
To me I don't care if youmajored in basket, weaving or
you know whatever high levelmath or finance, and I remember
being so demoralized.
(10:47):
To this day I can remember theemotion I felt.
I just felt like everything Ijust invested in learning was
just not worthwhile and has noapplication.
Now, again, it did.
It did make it easier for me toget and make progress in that
job, but again I kind of feelthe same way, like you still
have to learn by doing it, and Ithink our course is the best
(11:07):
way to get you a leg up in thatworld.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Agreed.
It's funny you had me thinkingabout when I learned business to
business sales, the guy thatthis is like let's see how many
many almost 20 years ago it waslike while I was in college.
Um, so the guy that taught mebusiness to business sales, um,
(11:33):
he works for me now.
Like it came full circle towhere, like he, I was like man,
this guy's good, I learned it solike so, how to build rapport
and everything that.
Like when it came time to growPearson where I'm at, um report
and everything that.
Like when it came time to growPearson where I'm at, I knew, I
knew I needed to hire somebodyand I hired him.
So it worked out pretty good,all right.
(11:53):
Next question I started afreight brokerage but didn't
finish the application.
How do I cancel it?
Does anyone know or does anyonehave advice?
Well, you didn't start afreight broker, ok, so they
started.
They started to start a freightbrokerage.
If you didn't finish yourapplication, you don't have to
(12:13):
do anything.
But I picked this questionbecause I wanted to.
I wanted to hit on a couple ofthings First of all, what the
requirements are and then, ifyou want, if you, let's say you
want to shut it down and like gobe an agent.
What do you have to actually doare?
And then, if you want, if you,let's say, you want to shut it
down and like, go be an agent,what do you have to actually do?
So, uh, you have to get yourauthority from the fmcsa.
The unified registration systemhandles all of that.
You'll get your um authority,you pay your application fee.
(12:35):
You get not the surety bond andyour BOC three.
Now here is where, when someonewants to close down their
authority, I've seen it happenLike they want to exit the
business, they want they go tobe an agent and they're like oh,
(12:59):
do I need to renew or just notrenew my authority?
And what you basically have todo is you and correct me if you
have any more details on thisbut the recurring payment is
your bond right, or any otherinsurance policies you might
have.
Think about all your softwarethat you've got.
You definitely want to makesure any of your renewing
payments are done through theFMCSA, the exact same way that
(13:31):
if you were going to make namechange to it, or the same way
that you got it started throughthe FMCSA.
It's just the exact same thing,except for you're just going to
have it revoked.
So if you look at like authorityhistory for a carrier or a
broker, you'll see likeauthority granted and a date and
then you'll see like arevocation, which is the date it
was revoked and then reinstated.
(13:51):
Sometimes you'll see like ifsomeone has, they'll call it
like yeah, my authority lapsed,meaning like they, they shut it
down for a certain period oftime.
I've seen like truckingcompanies, for example, they
might get their authority andthen, um, have it revoked while
they lease on to another company, um, and then maybe they decide
no, I want to go back torunning it myself and not being,
you know, being leased onthrough our company.
(14:13):
They reinstate theirs, but it'sall done through the FMCSA.
It's the Unified RegistrationSystem is where the actual
authority piece comes in.
But don't forget about all thoseperipheral things that you may
be paying for on an annual ormonthly basis, be paying for on
an annual or monthly basis.
Any good business needs tounderstand where its money is
(14:33):
going every single month,otherwise it'll get messy.
But do you have any otherinsights on how to?
We don't get the question a lotof how do I shut down my
brokerage, but it's pretty muchit.
I'd be curious what thereasoning was for this person.
Maybe they just realized itwasn't for them, or maybe
they're becoming an agent, Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I mean if you, I would say this I mean you cover
pretty much everything.
But like if you've beenoperating under a brokerage and
you've been moving enoughfreight and you've got
established credit, I would say,like before I shut it down, I
would jump on our Facebook groupand just let anyone know Try to
sell it.
Yeah, and again, even if it's alow dollar amount, like you
built something you might beable to get some value out of it
(15:15):
.
Speak with an attorney abouttransferring it, and we're not
going to go like we could do awhole episode on how that
actually transpires, but like Iat least would throw that out
there before I just shut it downAgain.
The main thing is that you'vebeen in business a year and you
have established credit, like onDAT, to post loads and access
trucks, because there's quite afew people that are still going
to start brokerages every week,every month, and you might be
(15:38):
able to help somebody get asignificant head start with all
the time you invested and theymight be willing to pay you for
that right, or maybe they mightcome in and be a partner with
you and you still own it.
You get a smaller piece.
They get a bigger piece,because there is a significant
amount of work, money and effortthat goes into getting a
brokerage off the ground andestablishing credit.
(15:58):
If you've even got it that farand you are thinking about
walking away, I would for sureput that out there before you
just revoked it and shut it down.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, all right.
Uh, next question what loadboards are best for covering
step deck loads beyond DAT,truck stop and parade?
Okay, so if we're not going to,if we're going to exclude the
biggest load boards in theindustry, um, how do you cover
step deck loads?
Uh, I don't have a load boardsolution for you, but here's
(16:33):
what I will tell you is,whenever it comes to something
specialized like that this isbig, with, like heavy haul, or
over size, over dimension,things like that these carriers
that run that stuff and are inthat niche, they are the experts
when it comes to equipmentrequirements based on size,
(16:54):
permits that are needed incertain states, depending on the
route, if an escort vehicle isneeded, all that stuff, right.
So what I'd recommend iswhatever sourcing tool you're
using, whether it be a highwaycarrier, source, um, what are
some of the other ones?
Neutral is one.
(17:15):
Um, call, you're going tomanually, right, have to build
it, build a relationship.
Call these folks.
Um, find out, hey, do you havecapacity available?
Typically with a uh, oversized,over-dimensional load?
Um, load, you got some leadtime on it.
It's probably involving someproject or something that has a
sequence of events that leads tohey, on this day.
(17:37):
This thing needs to move fromhere to here in order to fit
into the whole project.
Um, I have is, I'm gonna go, I'mgonna answer the load board
question and ignore not usingDAT or truck stop, because I
think you would want to use DATand truck stop.
So truck stop has historicallybeen pretty good for open deck
(17:59):
equipment.
Dat has been historically goodfor owning probably the biggest
slice of the market for loadboards.
But remember, as you and I havetalked about in the past, not
every truck that's out there andavailable is going to be listed
on a load board.
Right, you need to makeindividual connections with
carriers.
I was talking about it on thepodcast previously where, like
(18:20):
the girl that, the lady that hadthe issue with with sourcing
because all she would do is justpost on the load boards didn't
actually ever reach out to atrucking company and try to
discuss long-term business andthings like that.
So I'm a big fan of the sameway that you're going to build
rapport with your customers.
Do the same thing with yourcarriers.
That's the best way to havegood, reliable capacity, good,
(18:41):
reliable, long-term rates, etc.
So any take on that.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, my brain goes to when you ask that question.
You're probably just postingloads and not getting enough
hits, so you want to find abetter place to post loads.
What I would suggest is look atthe tool differently and
utilize it more effectively.
Like going into lane makersfinding out carriers that have
searched that lane, calling them.
(19:07):
Like here's how you build acarrier base.
Like it's a lot of work.
Like we were talking about theother question about building a
brokerage it's hundreds of phonecalls a day, right, like maybe
your buddy that runs a brokerjust tells you about how he
posts loads.
But like you're starting yours.
Your book of business, maybeeven at a decent brokerage, has
been around.
Like, like the expectation tobuild a brokerage is I'm making
(19:28):
120 phone calls a day, sometimesfor a week or two, just calling
carriers.
I'm calling every carrier onlane makers.
Hey, I run this lane for thiscustomer.
This is about how frequently itseems any interest in it.
The more specific yourequipment is and the less there
is, the more phone calls you gotto make.
Yeah, you post up a van load,you'll find one.
There's more of them thananything else.
(19:48):
Reefer there's less Flatbed.
There's less Stepdeck less thanflatbed RGN less than stepdeck.
So if I got to cover stepdecksand RGNs, I need a network of
people I've talked to and hadconversations with.
You can't do that over emailand just posting.
You got to put the effortbehind it.
Your phone is the best friend.
I'm calling every posted truckon that lane every day asking
(20:10):
them hey, would this work?
And finding out, moreimportantly, not just if this
would work.
If it doesn't work, why wouldn'tit work.
What would you need to make itwork?
To find out where the issue is.
It might be that there's plentyof step decks calling this
person and they don't haveenough money in it.
It could be there's plenty ofstep decks calling this person
but, like the requirements arevery obscure and it's over
(20:31):
dimensional, it's over length,or like maybe they don't know
the dimensions.
Maybe every step deck thatcalls them ask them questions
that they don't have clarifiedwith their customer so they
don't get it booked.
There are so many reasons whyyou might not be covering this
load outside of the load board.
My guess is it's not the loadboard, it's you're not talking
to enough of them.
It's your process, yeah yeah,asking enough questions, using
(20:51):
the tool differently and thenagain like the way we used to do
, it is still.
I think one of the best ways is, like with all the fancy tools
and I've done most of them it'slike build an excel sheet every
carrier you talk to put the mcin the person you talk to, how
much they want, when they wantwould want that lane, how many
trucks, what days of the week itmight work your.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
TMS likely has a profile.
I can add preferred lanes in myTMS for a carrier If they say,
hey, I don't have anythingavailable, but I love running
Jacksonville to Chicago orwhatever.
You could put that Florida toIllinois lane in there.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And now I got a small group.
Right Now I look at that sheetand I'm like okay, these
carriers said they would runJacksonville to Detroit on
Tuesdays, so I get a load onMonday.
I'm going to email that fivecarriers hey, got a load for
tomorrow.
Would this work for you guys?
Right, like little by little,it takes you a while to get it
built up, just like we weretalking about.
But once you get a carrier baseand you start building
relationships, these loads get alot easier to cover.
(21:55):
Like there's trust on bothsides of the fence carriers with
brokers and brokers withcarriers.
So like if the carrier doesn'tknow you and you're trying to do
something that you don't reallyunderstand, they're probably
not going to take that loadeither.
Like they don't want to go toload and then not fit on their
truck or have a requirement theydon't have and waste time.
So like you really want tospend as much time building
(22:16):
relationships with carriers asyou do your shippers.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yep, agreed.
That's why you have the largestcompanies out there have
carrier sales reps thatliterally do that.
I always thought it wasinteresting that you're called
carrier sales when really you'recarrier purchasing, but it
takes sales skills to do that,so all right.
Lastly, what AI tools canfreight brokers use with daily
(22:41):
tasks?
Shout out to our sponsor,levity.
So you actually you're usingthem quite a bit, so can you
just talk through use case forlevity?
And then I want to give acouple of pointers on automation
after that.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I was on a call with him right before our recording
today.
One use case that is reallyprevalent is like load building
out of emails.
Like lots of TMSs say they cando this, I haven't seen one that
does it well.
Levity is very effective at ifyou've got customers emailing
you, load tenders and a lot ofvolume, they can automate that.
(23:22):
So it literally takes theinformation out of the email and
builds the load in your TMS.
Again, a lot of them will offerit.
I've seen very few that do thiswell as one Second one I would
say.
Is.
So load building because that'sa very menial task of somebody
just literally takinginformation from one screen and
putting in the other, and alsowhen it's automated it makes
less mistakes because it's justtaking it from here and moving
(23:45):
it.
When you've got a person,they'll miss the equipment, the
date might be wrong once in awhile and that error costs money
.
So load building is huge.
Another one that I think is apretty good use case is
requesting PODs.
I can't tell you how many loadsa week the carrier hasn't sent
in.
The POD hasn't sent an invoice.
You can't invoice your customer.
(24:06):
You can't invoice your customer.
So we've automated it whereit's emailing every carrier the
day it delivers and going hey,just a reminder, this load's
delivering.
When you get the POD, pleasehave your driver send it.
It can email them again at theend of the day hey, load
delivered.
We want to make sure this loadwas delivered clean.
Please send the POD so we canupdate the customer.
There were no issues.
And then it emails them thenext day and then it emails them
(24:28):
in the afternoon the next dayand then it's just consistently
a hundred percent of the timereaching out to the dispatcher
and the driver and saying, hey,please send us this pod so we
can get you paid.
And it can do it by text and itcan do it by email.
So again, instead of payingsomebody to just make phone
calls all day to drivers andasking them to send their
paperwork, that's a big timesaver and it's 100% of the time.
(24:49):
So, every single load, everydriver and dispatcher gets that
to get the paperwork.
Third, check calls Reallyvaluable to be able to automate,
and Levity can do it by phone,email or text.
It can automate check calls.
Hey, it can literally call adriver and say hey, you're
loading in about two hours.
Just wanted to check to makesure you're empty.
You're rolling to the pickup.
(25:10):
Do you need any information?
Everything okay.
Driver can say it.
It can put that note right inyour TMS so it can automate the
task of just literally callingand making sure your drivers
have what they need and you getto know whether they're on track
before a problem happens.
Biggest problems brokerageshave is driver is going to be
late to pick up.
Nobody found out about it untilyour customer called you,
(25:33):
screaming at you going.
My customer said your truck'snot there.
How do you not know where yourdrivers are Right?
So when you get a hundredpercent adherence at finding
those issues before they come up, incredibly value.
I would say like those are thethree really time consuming ones
that save you lots of hours orstaff to do 100% of the time.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, I had a pretty, I had a pretty good
conversation with one of theguys I work with recently
because he asked me he's like,hey, we might be switching our
tech provider, like our, our itcontract con or our, we don't
have an it guy in house, wedon't have enough, uh demand for
(26:13):
one, so we outsource that to afirm.
And he's like hey, we might beswitching companies.
Um, this new one that we'relooking at has asked us about
any automation we may want toput in place using AI and
whatnot.
Um, so we had a good, we had agood discussion about, like,
what tasks can be, can be, like,automated, and one of the big
(26:38):
takeaways that I was explainingto him is that, like, if and
this goes with any processchanges, like don't make
anything too abrupt or setsomething up that you don't
understand how it's going towork Right, or you don't
understand why it's doing it solevity, I'm sure when you, when
you implemented it, like you,once you realize its
(27:01):
capabilities and how it works,you're then going to implement
it at a pace that is comfortableto you, because I always think
that automation and AI is notmeant to replace a human.
I see the value as it will allowyou to grow and scale without
having to add more humans toyour team.
(27:21):
Correct, team, correct, likethe, basically the, the number
of the ratio of team members toprofit.
Um improves when you leverageautomation and ai.
That's like.
It's not like, hey, we're gonnafire three people and replace
them with ads.
Like no, we should be able togrow and use these people, uh,
in broader, uh use cases,because the menial tasks, like
(27:43):
you outlined those three cases,those three use cases, a few
things, those are automated,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
To add to what you said right, if you're going to
automate something, you do notwant to automate it and then
just pull your team members awayfrom it that we're doing it.
Just take check calls, forexample.
Right, the thing I really likeabout Levity is they are going
to work through it with you andthey're very upfront with the
(28:09):
time it takes to be able to getsomething to work a hundred
percent.
Perfectly, right, like there'salways things you've got to work
back and forth with.
Like I work with themconstantly where it's like, hey,
we're getting this new, any ofthe automation I was talking
about, like it works.
But then you find, like, oh,this one word your customer puts
in there makes it miss that.
Ok, now we've got to changethat.
Ok, it works perfectly Twoweeks.
(28:30):
Oh, this other customer sendsthis and has different phrasing
or doesn't put in theinformation the other one does.
You've got to tell it to payattention to that.
Right, so it definitely takessome time, almost like a person
to get it to where you need itto.
So it was a back and forth.
And like a person to get it towhere you need it to.
So it was a back and forth.
And if you just let this thinggo and you pull your staff away,
there's a percentage of yourdrivers that just wouldn't get
check called every day until youfound out exactly why that was
(28:52):
occurring.
It wasn't, and that has to dowith every TMS is built
differently.
All the APIs are differently,the fields, how these things
communicate.
You can do it exactly based onthe way the TMS will tell you to
connect it, but they never workperfectly.
And that isn't even just withAI.
This is connecting your TMS toa legacy TMS at a shipper.
I've never seen any of thosework a hundred percent of the
(29:14):
time out of the gate, and alwaysa month or two later you find
an issue where, like it's notgetting this amount of
information, it's not gettingthese correctly and you've got
to fix this.
Like I've never seen anythingwork out of the box, 100 percent
right out of the gate.
And every other AI company I'vetalked to in their market
material says, oh, you justdon't need people, just use this
.
And then I get on a call andask them a bunch of like tech
specific questions and I'm likeoh, so you're like 60 percent of
(29:37):
the way there.
They're like yeah, we'll getthere.
I'm like, yeah, but like yourmarketing material and your
sales guy told me like you canjust do this, but the reality is
like I still need people to doall these things because, like,
almost in our business is afailure.
Like you don't get paid forgetting a load 75 of the way
there, or getting a driver halftheir information and they can't
get the load.
(29:57):
Like it's got to all be corrector it doesn't move.
Like that to me is like a bigdifferentiator from them and
other companies.
And the last thing I want tosay in this I was thinking about
this yesterday I was doing alot of AI research on being able
to use the new chat GPT pro andto see what can and can't be
done in it.
It absolutely heard of that.
(30:18):
What's pro?
Pro, it's 200 bucks a month.
It's supposed to give you alittle bit of possibly like
seeing how the agents might work.
But it has a deep researchfunction where it basically will
keep asking itself questions tofind its own mistake.
And I've heard there's somelike really good use cases for
(30:38):
research where it's much betterthan the others.
And I asked ChachiBT.
I looked at the plans on theirpage and said tell me what and
where I can use each of theseplans and why I would pick one
or the other.
It made a mistake in telling meits own plans, like literally,
and I said but and then Iscreenshotted the plan page and
put it in there and went yourplan page has some discrepancies
(30:59):
from what you told me and itgoes oh, thanks for pointing
that out Like it's even stilllearning.
Yeah, I noticed that with chatGPT these things are all making
mistakes still and everyone isaware of that.
So remember that, like as muchof the hype as you hear anywhere
, right, like it's still forsure, needs people overseeing it
, it still has the opportunityto make a mistake and you do not
(31:22):
want to gamble your business on70% or 80.
Again, the thing that I, againwhat I like about working with
levity, is like they'll beupfront with where and what it's
going to take to do it and howthey've got to go through the
learning curve to get it to thatpoint, which takes work, time
and investment.
Right, and I've, again almostevery company in our space I've
(31:43):
at least reached out to talk, toask them, tried to see where
they are within the range ofwhat's possible now and what
might be.
And to me, like I still thinkthey're the best bet for, like
all of those reasons, All right,I'll end on a funny note here.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So I just asked oh, it just went away.
I just asked ChatGPT.
I said why would I buy ChatGPTPro versus my current plan?
And it says it already deletedits answer.
It says unable to displaymessage, but it said ChatGPT Pro
offers a bunch of somethingthat you don't get in your
(32:20):
current plan.
And it says here's a detailedbreakdown.
And it says current plan $20 amonth, ChatGPT Pro $200 a month.
And that was it.
That's all I told.
It was that it cost 10 timesthe price, 10 times more.
And then it now it clearly itdeleted its answer to me.
So, um, cool, good questions,keep sending them.
Hold on.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I want to give you one funnier one right you always
.
You always laugh because I'llbring up the cold punch.
But when I was asking bothGemini and GPT right about how
much chlorine to put in it, itwas off by a factor of 10.
Both of them, gemini and GPT.
If I would have put thechlorine that both of them
(32:59):
recommended, I would have had 10times the amount of chlorine
and 100 gallons of water.
That is just a little biggerthan my body.
Like it would have literallyburned me.
And then I went and looked.
I'm like wait a minute, likethat doesn't seem right and I
don't know anything aboutchlorinating anything.
So like I just looked at a fewother sources and I went back
and not only did it then go ohyeah, I'm sorry, but I went back
(33:21):
to that chat like three weekslater when I was changing it
back and asked it again and itdid go back and gave me the
wrong answer again.
So again, like you want to beaware, because like these, these
things we're trusting decisionswith like you for sure want to
double check before you're goingto do anything that could cause
you bodily harm yeah, you'regoing to eat anything it tells
(33:43):
you or that you're going to doanything where you're going to
gamble your customer, yourbusiness on.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Trust but verify.
So I use ChatGPT to help me getideas a lot.
I'll end with this.
I was trying to figure out.
I was in a summery mood, like awarm weather mood recently, and
I was like, oh, I wonder how, Iwonder if it can give me a
recipe for a rum bucket, like Ialways love getting rum buckets
when I'm at like a tiki bar inFlorida.
(34:09):
So I just tried to pull up theold chat and I was like I was
hey, you know, can you make me arecipe for rum bucket?
And it like did the math wrongon like the ounces?
And I was like I said, like Ipointed out like your math is
wrong on the ounces.
And it was like uh, it saysthanks for the catch, bro.
And then it like uh, gave methe correct one.
(34:31):
And then, but it's funny.
So I guess what I'm getting atis um, it makes mistakes, but it
it.
It's impressive how it'slearning Cause.
Then it said um, what did itsay?
What did it say, do you want meto back this off a little bit
or do you want to go full piratemode and add more 151?
And I saw a mess of it that I'mlike go for it and it said I
(34:56):
can, here's your full piratemode Dangerously fun territory,
rum, bucket of doom, like justthe kind of the funny stuff it
does.
Yes, but again to your caution,the math and its it's accuracy
on certain things.
These things are still learning, so, um, and it's like anything
, it's gonna always have areasto improve and there's gonna be
(35:17):
new use cases.
So, um, as our industry changes, as things that we can automate
change, as our tasks change inbrokerage, you know, keep that
all in consideration as youimplement new processes or tools
along the way.
So, and I think on that note,we can put a lid on this
(35:37):
extended length Q&A session.
So final thoughts, ben.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And until next time go Bills.
Welcome back for another episode or edition of
the Final Mile.
We're going to answer yourquestions all about freight
brokering.
We got these from a mix ofYouTube comments, our Facebook
group and I think I did snag oneoff of Reddit.
Every now and then we'llsprinkle one in from the
extended community.
So if you're brand new, or ifyou're newer to us, make sure to
(00:23):
check out all the other contentFreight360.net, including the
Freight Broker Basics course fora full-length educational
option, and check out thedescription or show notes to see
our sponsors to help supportthis channel.
All right, ben.
Our first question Is it worthtaking a certificate course for
freight brokering at a techschool if I already have a
business degree, and how hard isit to break in to the broker
(00:46):
community?
This person was talking aboutgoing to like I think it was a
local college for like, a techor tech school, as they said it.
And dude, I've seen these atmany, many community colleges
and they are like the cost iswhat blows my mind.
so my knee-jerk reaction threecredit hours for generally no um
(01:10):
, and here's why I'm not sayingdon't take training, um, but
think about this if I am acollege professor teaching about
freight brokering, oftentimesthey're not brokering freight
currently.
And, even more scary, they maynever have done it before, right
(01:32):
.
And then, third, there's thecost Like you're going to pay
collegiate level pricing for percredit hour, right.
So like I've seen three grandto go through like whatever
community college freightbrokering and they get one, or
like how old is the curriculum?
Et cetera.
There are some garbage tradingoptions out there for sure.
(01:52):
I think one of the things that Ilike about ours is we both work
in brokerage.
A lot of our content, I think,is superior to the rest of the
industry for that reason alone,specifically the course that we
put together with DAT.
The other piece, too and wementioned this on the podcast
(02:15):
that we recorded previously islike we've been able to white
label it for certain companies.
So they're like, hey, we wantto train our employees, but we
don't have trained material.
So they're like, hey, we wantto train our employees, but we
don't have training material.
They basically can duplicateour training and then take out
what they don't want, whitelabel it to them for their
company's name and stuff likethat.
So it's a really a good optionfor that matter.
So what do you think, man?
(02:36):
I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I mean, have you seen those?
Like the college, I've lookedat the curriculums and I've
looked at the teachers and I'velooked them up on LinkedIn to
see if they were brokers.
I mean, I am a huge proponentof education.
I'll just start there.
So, like I'm in no way sayingthat, like education is
invaluable.
However, also, someone thatrepaid probably 150 or 200.
(03:21):
I have no idea what that numbereven was that I repay back in
college debt, like I absolutelygot value for it.
Right In hindsight, what I knowand how I make money in any
entrepreneurial business thatI've ever been in was the things
I learned, practically speaking, doing the thing.
It's great to have afoundational understanding, but
(03:43):
you also have to be open-mindedand willing to make mistakes and
learn and work really hard.
So, like I think our courseagain well, probably because I'm
biased, we wrote it, but likewhen we wrote that, we spent
like the better part of a yearand we really spent time like
dozens of hours a week formonths going like what did we
(04:06):
need to learn to do this job?
How can we frame this in a wayfor somebody that doesn't know
this to understand it?
So I would say, like, as far ascourses go, ours is the most
comprehensive.
That really takes you througheverything you need to
understand to do the job.
(04:28):
The job, however, just metelling anybody and then them
listening to me, even if it wasa lecture for a week, right,
that's not going to allow you tojust build a business easily
because you have the information.
Like this is just how you buildit.
You still have to spend atremendous amount of work.
Like if I went and build abroker, I I built a bunch of
them.
You've done this a bunch oftimes.
Like it still takes a ton ofwork, even when you know where
(04:48):
the easy way is, where you'vemade mistakes, what to avoid,
how it functions.
Like it's still a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So for somebody trying to like playbook.
We gave you the playbook so asyou go through your journey you
can reference it so I want agreat analogy yeah, 100.
So, and here's what I want tocompare it to, I just pull one
of these up.
This is a freight broker slashagent training, 1895 dollars
from monroe community college.
(05:18):
I wonder if that's monroe, theone that's like not far from me.
Um, here's the syllabus, right16 lessons, keep in mind.
Ours is like 40 something umbasics of freight brokering
setting up your business,setting goals, setting up your
shipper packet operations, typesof freight transportation law,
(05:40):
broker carrier contracts, brokershipper contracts, insurance,
record keeping, determiningquotes, carry relations, sales,
marketing, negotiation.
So out of 16, I think it was umyeah, 16 lessons.
There's one on sales dude, wehave two modules in the business
(06:02):
we have two modules.
It's 90% of the business.
We have two modules full oflike eight lessons each on just
customer sales, and then we'vegot another whole section with
multiple lessons on carrier sideof things.
They spent a lot of time, youknow.
I saw this is kind of the samething with Freight Broker
Bootcamp.
There's a lot of fluff in thereon like administrative things
that you know they're importantbut like you don't need to be, I
(06:28):
mean, hey, this is honestlytaught like a college class,
Like you learn a bunch of crapyou pretty much don't need and
there's zero applicability to it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So, yeah, the thing I would say too to what you just
said is like, if you're going toget a business degree anyway
and you can fulfill some prereqwith this class and you want to
go work in freight brokerage,take the class.
If you're going to take someother class anyway to graduate
and this fulfills somerequirement, hey, there's no
harm in taking this overwhatever other general business
class.
If you're just going to spendyour money to take a class to
(07:00):
try to get a job, I honestly Iwould rather go through our
course than that course.
And then the last thing is likeyour playbook analogy right,
you can give a high schoolfootball player an NFL playbook.
They can learn every play in it.
That does not mean they'regoing to be able to execute them
without practice, makingmistakes and learning.
(07:20):
Right, the thing that thedifference between a high school
or college quarterback and anNFL is the amount of effort,
practice and time they spendmaking mistakes and learning and
like sales to your point is 90%of it.
Like I have read almost everysales book I can find in over 20
some years, from like largenames to small names, the
(07:41):
content we write content.
I've looked at every psychologybook I can find on it, gone
into neurology to find it, andlike there's a lot of great
stuff out there.
But I will tell you like evenif I had read all those books
somehow by the time I wasstarting in sales at like
whatever 25 or whatever year itwas, however old it was, like
(08:02):
that wouldn't have meant like Iwould have been able to do it
just the first day I went towork.
I still would have had to makethree to four to 500 calls in
that industry with that company,with that service or product to
learn the practical side of it.
Like understanding the frameworkis great and is super helpful
to moving faster and to doingthings and making less mistakes
(08:25):
and to get effective quicker.
But there's no avoiding thefact that, like you are just
going to like my daughter'slearning to ride a bike.
Like you got to fall off thebike to learn how to stay on the
bike.
Like and there's no avoidingthat in sales and sales is you
don't get to admin, you don'tget to any of the rest of that
until you've got a customer thatwill give you loads.
So guess what you do for thefirst three to six months is you
(08:47):
got to learn how to buildprospecting funnels.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
What customers are going into your CRM, how to use
that tool and call them.
And they didn't even haveanything about prospecting in
there.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, when to find you Great.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I will say like when it comes to like accredited
education.
So you like you and I, right,we help the the live coaching
portion of TIA's education fortheir new members and we had to
become accredited or we had tobecome professors in Virginia to
be able to teach those.
(09:19):
I do like about that format isyou get a mix of like the
education, working with theactual instructor, engaging with
them back and forth as thesepeople go through their journey,
right Versus just take thecourse and like, learn it all
and then move on.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And I'll like whatever bookmark it with what
my mentor at the first job I hadlike real job.
It was at a bank and I gothired there out of college.
So like I just finished fiveyears of school, major in
accounting, stayed an extra year, got a major in finance, minor
in econ.
I, after finishing all of that,felt like I'm just going to go
and know what to do and just beable to do this job.
I'm just going to go and knowwhat to do and just be able to
(10:03):
do this job.
And I'll never forget sittingat the table with all the other
I think we were interns thatthen we got our job after like a
whatever time frame and theexecutive vice president at the
bank had been there like 50years at that time.
He's been there forever.
He stands at the end of thetable and he goes.
I'm going to tell you one thingfirst off, I don't give a shit
(10:26):
what college you went to, whatmajor you had or what your GPA
was.
Whatever you're going to needto know in this job, you're
going to learn doing the job.
The only reason I cared aboutyour college degree was to know
that you could commit tosomething for four years follow
through with it.
To me I don't care if youmajored in basket, weaving or
you know whatever high levelmath or finance, and I remember
being so demoralized.
(10:47):
To this day I can remember theemotion I felt.
I just felt like everything Ijust invested in learning was
just not worthwhile and has noapplication.
Now, again, it did.
It did make it easier for me toget and make progress in that
job, but again I kind of feelthe same way, like you still
have to learn by doing it, and Ithink our course is the best
(11:07):
way to get you a leg up in thatworld.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Agreed.
It's funny you had me thinkingabout when I learned business to
business sales, the guy thatthis is like let's see how many
many almost 20 years ago it waslike while I was in college.
Um, so the guy that taught mebusiness to business sales, um,
(11:33):
he works for me now.
Like it came full circle towhere, like he, I was like man,
this guy's good, I learned it solike so, how to build rapport
and everything that.
Like when it came time to growPearson where I'm at, um report
and everything that.
Like when it came time to growPearson where I'm at, I knew, I
knew I needed to hire somebodyand I hired him.
So it worked out pretty good,all right.
(11:53):
Next question I started afreight brokerage but didn't
finish the application.
How do I cancel it?
Does anyone know or does anyonehave advice?
Well, you didn't start afreight broker, ok, so they
started.
They started to start a freightbrokerage.
If you didn't finish yourapplication, you don't have to
(12:13):
do anything.
But I picked this questionbecause I wanted to.
I wanted to hit on a couple ofthings First of all, what the
requirements are and then, ifyou want, if you, let's say you
want to shut it down and like gobe an agent.
What do you have to actually doare?
And then, if you want, if you,let's say, you want to shut it
down and like, go be an agent,what do you have to actually do?
So, uh, you have to get yourauthority from the fmcsa.
The unified registration systemhandles all of that.
You'll get your um authority,you pay your application fee.
(12:35):
You get not the surety bond andyour BOC three.
Now here is where, when someonewants to close down their
authority, I've seen it happenLike they want to exit the
business, they want they go tobe an agent and they're like oh,
(12:59):
do I need to renew or just notrenew my authority?
And what you basically have todo is you and correct me if you
have any more details on thisbut the recurring payment is
your bond right, or any otherinsurance policies you might
have.
Think about all your softwarethat you've got.
You definitely want to makesure any of your renewing
payments are done through theFMCSA, the exact same way that
(13:31):
if you were going to make namechange to it, or the same way
that you got it started throughthe FMCSA.
It's just the exact same thing,except for you're just going to
have it revoked.
So if you look at like authorityhistory for a carrier or a
broker, you'll see likeauthority granted and a date and
then you'll see like arevocation, which is the date it
was revoked and then reinstated.
(13:51):
Sometimes you'll see like ifsomeone has, they'll call it
like yeah, my authority lapsed,meaning like they, they shut it
down for a certain period oftime.
I've seen like truckingcompanies, for example, they
might get their authority andthen, um, have it revoked while
they lease on to another company, um, and then maybe they decide
no, I want to go back torunning it myself and not being,
you know, being leased onthrough our company.
(14:13):
They reinstate theirs, but it'sall done through the FMCSA.
It's the Unified RegistrationSystem is where the actual
authority piece comes in.
But don't forget about all thoseperipheral things that you may
be paying for on an annual ormonthly basis, be paying for on
an annual or monthly basis.
Any good business needs tounderstand where its money is
(14:33):
going every single month,otherwise it'll get messy.
But do you have any otherinsights on how to?
We don't get the question a lotof how do I shut down my
brokerage, but it's pretty muchit.
I'd be curious what thereasoning was for this person.
Maybe they just realized itwasn't for them, or maybe
they're becoming an agent, Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I mean if you, I would say this I mean you cover
pretty much everything.
But like if you've beenoperating under a brokerage and
you've been moving enoughfreight and you've got
established credit, I would say,like before I shut it down, I
would jump on our Facebook groupand just let anyone know Try to
sell it.
Yeah, and again, even if it's alow dollar amount, like you
built something you might beable to get some value out of it
(15:15):
.
Speak with an attorney abouttransferring it, and we're not
going to go like we could do awhole episode on how that
actually transpires, but like Iat least would throw that out
there before I just shut it downAgain.
The main thing is that you'vebeen in business a year and you
have established credit, like onDAT, to post loads and access
trucks, because there's quite afew people that are still going
to start brokerages every week,every month, and you might be
(15:38):
able to help somebody get asignificant head start with all
the time you invested and theymight be willing to pay you for
that right, or maybe they mightcome in and be a partner with
you and you still own it.
You get a smaller piece.
They get a bigger piece,because there is a significant
amount of work, money and effortthat goes into getting a
brokerage off the ground andestablishing credit.
(15:58):
If you've even got it that farand you are thinking about
walking away, I would for sureput that out there before you
just revoked it and shut it down.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, all right.
Uh, next question what loadboards are best for covering
step deck loads beyond DAT,truck stop and parade?
Okay, so if we're not going to,if we're going to exclude the
biggest load boards in theindustry, um, how do you cover
step deck loads?
Uh, I don't have a load boardsolution for you, but here's
(16:33):
what I will tell you is,whenever it comes to something
specialized like that this isbig, with, like heavy haul, or
over size, over dimension,things like that these carriers
that run that stuff and are inthat niche, they are the experts
when it comes to equipmentrequirements based on size,
(16:54):
permits that are needed incertain states, depending on the
route, if an escort vehicle isneeded, all that stuff, right.
So what I'd recommend iswhatever sourcing tool you're
using, whether it be a highwaycarrier, source, um, what are
some of the other ones?
Neutral is one.
(17:15):
Um, call, you're going tomanually, right, have to build
it, build a relationship.
Call these folks.
Um, find out, hey, do you havecapacity available?
Typically with a uh, oversized,over-dimensional load?
Um, load, you got some leadtime on it.
It's probably involving someproject or something that has a
sequence of events that leads tohey, on this day.
(17:37):
This thing needs to move fromhere to here in order to fit
into the whole project.
Um, I have is, I'm gonna go, I'mgonna answer the load board
question and ignore not usingDAT or truck stop, because I
think you would want to use DATand truck stop.
So truck stop has historicallybeen pretty good for open deck
(17:59):
equipment.
Dat has been historically goodfor owning probably the biggest
slice of the market for loadboards.
But remember, as you and I havetalked about in the past, not
every truck that's out there andavailable is going to be listed
on a load board.
Right, you need to makeindividual connections with
carriers.
I was talking about it on thepodcast previously where, like
(18:20):
the girl that, the lady that hadthe issue with with sourcing
because all she would do is justpost on the load boards didn't
actually ever reach out to atrucking company and try to
discuss long-term business andthings like that.
So I'm a big fan of the sameway that you're going to build
rapport with your customers.
Do the same thing with yourcarriers.
That's the best way to havegood, reliable capacity, good,
(18:41):
reliable, long-term rates, etc.
So any take on that.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, my brain goes to when you ask that question.
You're probably just postingloads and not getting enough
hits, so you want to find abetter place to post loads.
What I would suggest is look atthe tool differently and
utilize it more effectively.
Like going into lane makersfinding out carriers that have
searched that lane, calling them.
(19:07):
Like here's how you build acarrier base.
Like it's a lot of work.
Like we were talking about theother question about building a
brokerage it's hundreds of phonecalls a day, right, like maybe
your buddy that runs a brokerjust tells you about how he
posts loads.
But like you're starting yours.
Your book of business, maybeeven at a decent brokerage, has
been around.
Like, like the expectation tobuild a brokerage is I'm making
(19:28):
120 phone calls a day, sometimesfor a week or two, just calling
carriers.
I'm calling every carrier onlane makers.
Hey, I run this lane for thiscustomer.
This is about how frequently itseems any interest in it.
The more specific yourequipment is and the less there
is, the more phone calls you gotto make.
Yeah, you post up a van load,you'll find one.
There's more of them thananything else.
(19:48):
Reefer there's less Flatbed.
There's less Stepdeck less thanflatbed RGN less than stepdeck.
So if I got to cover stepdecksand RGNs, I need a network of
people I've talked to and hadconversations with.
You can't do that over emailand just posting.
You got to put the effortbehind it.
Your phone is the best friend.
I'm calling every posted truckon that lane every day asking
(20:10):
them hey, would this work?
And finding out, moreimportantly, not just if this
would work.
If it doesn't work, why wouldn'tit work.
What would you need to make itwork?
To find out where the issue is.
It might be that there's plentyof step decks calling this
person and they don't haveenough money in it.
It could be there's plenty ofstep decks calling this person
but, like the requirements arevery obscure and it's over
(20:31):
dimensional, it's over length,or like maybe they don't know
the dimensions.
Maybe every step deck thatcalls them ask them questions
that they don't have clarifiedwith their customer so they
don't get it booked.
There are so many reasons whyyou might not be covering this
load outside of the load board.
My guess is it's not the loadboard, it's you're not talking
to enough of them.
It's your process, yeah yeah,asking enough questions, using
(20:51):
the tool differently and thenagain like the way we used to do
, it is still.
I think one of the best ways is, like with all the fancy tools
and I've done most of them it'slike build an excel sheet every
carrier you talk to put the mcin the person you talk to, how
much they want, when they wantwould want that lane, how many
trucks, what days of the week itmight work your.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
TMS likely has a profile.
I can add preferred lanes in myTMS for a carrier If they say,
hey, I don't have anythingavailable, but I love running
Jacksonville to Chicago orwhatever.
You could put that Florida toIllinois lane in there.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And now I got a small group.
Right Now I look at that sheetand I'm like okay, these
carriers said they would runJacksonville to Detroit on
Tuesdays, so I get a load onMonday.
I'm going to email that fivecarriers hey, got a load for
tomorrow.
Would this work for you guys?
Right, like little by little,it takes you a while to get it
built up, just like we weretalking about.
But once you get a carrier baseand you start building
relationships, these loads get alot easier to cover.
(21:55):
Like there's trust on bothsides of the fence carriers with
brokers and brokers withcarriers.
So like if the carrier doesn'tknow you and you're trying to do
something that you don't reallyunderstand, they're probably
not going to take that loadeither.
Like they don't want to go toload and then not fit on their
truck or have a requirement theydon't have and waste time.
So like you really want tospend as much time building
(22:16):
relationships with carriers asyou do your shippers.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yep, agreed.
That's why you have the largestcompanies out there have
carrier sales reps thatliterally do that.
I always thought it wasinteresting that you're called
carrier sales when really you'recarrier purchasing, but it
takes sales skills to do that,so all right.
Lastly, what AI tools canfreight brokers use with daily
(22:41):
tasks?
Shout out to our sponsor,levity.
So you actually you're usingthem quite a bit, so can you
just talk through use case forlevity?
And then I want to give acouple of pointers on automation
after that.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I was on a call with him right before our recording
today.
One use case that is reallyprevalent is like load building
out of emails.
Like lots of TMSs say they cando this, I haven't seen one that
does it well.
Levity is very effective at ifyou've got customers emailing
you, load tenders and a lot ofvolume, they can automate that.
(23:22):
So it literally takes theinformation out of the email and
builds the load in your TMS.
Again, a lot of them will offerit.
I've seen very few that do thiswell as one Second one I would
say.
Is.
So load building because that'sa very menial task of somebody
just literally takinginformation from one screen and
putting in the other, and alsowhen it's automated it makes
less mistakes because it's justtaking it from here and moving
(23:45):
it.
When you've got a person,they'll miss the equipment, the
date might be wrong once in awhile and that error costs money
.
So load building is huge.
Another one that I think is apretty good use case is
requesting PODs.
I can't tell you how many loadsa week the carrier hasn't sent
in.
The POD hasn't sent an invoice.
You can't invoice your customer.
(24:06):
You can't invoice your customer.
So we've automated it whereit's emailing every carrier the
day it delivers and going hey,just a reminder, this load's
delivering.
When you get the POD, pleasehave your driver send it.
It can email them again at theend of the day hey, load
delivered.
We want to make sure this loadwas delivered clean.
Please send the POD so we canupdate the customer.
There were no issues.
And then it emails them thenext day and then it emails them
(24:28):
in the afternoon the next dayand then it's just consistently
a hundred percent of the timereaching out to the dispatcher
and the driver and saying, hey,please send us this pod so we
can get you paid.
And it can do it by text and itcan do it by email.
So again, instead of payingsomebody to just make phone
calls all day to drivers andasking them to send their
paperwork, that's a big timesaver and it's 100% of the time.
(24:49):
So, every single load, everydriver and dispatcher gets that
to get the paperwork.
Third, check calls Reallyvaluable to be able to automate,
and Levity can do it by phone,email or text.
It can automate check calls.
Hey, it can literally call adriver and say hey, you're
loading in about two hours.
Just wanted to check to makesure you're empty.
You're rolling to the pickup.
(25:10):
Do you need any information?
Everything okay.
Driver can say it.
It can put that note right inyour TMS so it can automate the
task of just literally callingand making sure your drivers
have what they need and you getto know whether they're on track
before a problem happens.
Biggest problems brokerageshave is driver is going to be
late to pick up.
Nobody found out about it untilyour customer called you,
(25:33):
screaming at you going.
My customer said your truck'snot there.
How do you not know where yourdrivers are Right?
So when you get a hundredpercent adherence at finding
those issues before they come up, incredibly value.
I would say like those are thethree really time consuming ones
that save you lots of hours orstaff to do 100% of the time.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, I had a pretty, I had a pretty good
conversation with one of theguys I work with recently
because he asked me he's like,hey, we might be switching our
tech provider, like our, our itcontract con or our, we don't
have an it guy in house, wedon't have enough, uh demand for
(26:13):
one, so we outsource that to afirm.
And he's like hey, we might beswitching companies.
Um, this new one that we'relooking at has asked us about
any automation we may want toput in place using AI and
whatnot.
Um, so we had a good, we had agood discussion about, like,
what tasks can be, can be, like,automated, and one of the big
(26:38):
takeaways that I was explainingto him is that, like, if and
this goes with any processchanges, like don't make
anything too abrupt or setsomething up that you don't
understand how it's going towork Right, or you don't
understand why it's doing it solevity, I'm sure when you, when
you implemented it, like you,once you realize its
(27:01):
capabilities and how it works,you're then going to implement
it at a pace that is comfortableto you, because I always think
that automation and AI is notmeant to replace a human.
I see the value as it will allowyou to grow and scale without
having to add more humans toyour team.
(27:21):
Correct, team, correct, likethe, basically the, the number
of the ratio of team members toprofit.
Um improves when you leverageautomation and ai.
That's like.
It's not like, hey, we're gonnafire three people and replace
them with ads.
Like no, we should be able togrow and use these people, uh,
in broader, uh use cases,because the menial tasks, like
(27:43):
you outlined those three cases,those three use cases, a few
things, those are automated,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
To add to what you said right, if you're going to
automate something, you do notwant to automate it and then
just pull your team members awayfrom it that we're doing it.
Just take check calls, forexample.
Right, the thing I really likeabout Levity is they are going
to work through it with you andthey're very upfront with the
(28:09):
time it takes to be able to getsomething to work a hundred
percent.
Perfectly, right, like there'salways things you've got to work
back and forth with.
Like I work with themconstantly where it's like, hey,
we're getting this new, any ofthe automation I was talking
about, like it works.
But then you find, like, oh,this one word your customer puts
in there makes it miss that.
Ok, now we've got to changethat.
Ok, it works perfectly Twoweeks.
(28:30):
Oh, this other customer sendsthis and has different phrasing
or doesn't put in theinformation the other one does.
You've got to tell it to payattention to that.
Right, so it definitely takessome time, almost like a person
to get it to where you need itto.
So it was a back and forth.
And like a person to get it towhere you need it to.
So it was a back and forth.
And if you just let this thinggo and you pull your staff away,
there's a percentage of yourdrivers that just wouldn't get
check called every day until youfound out exactly why that was
(28:52):
occurring.
It wasn't, and that has to dowith every TMS is built
differently.
All the APIs are differently,the fields, how these things
communicate.
You can do it exactly based onthe way the TMS will tell you to
connect it, but they never workperfectly.
And that isn't even just withAI.
This is connecting your TMS toa legacy TMS at a shipper.
I've never seen any of thosework a hundred percent of the
(29:14):
time out of the gate, and alwaysa month or two later you find
an issue where, like it's notgetting this amount of
information, it's not gettingthese correctly and you've got
to fix this.
Like I've never seen anythingwork out of the box, 100 percent
right out of the gate.
And every other AI company I'vetalked to in their market
material says, oh, you justdon't need people, just use this
.
And then I get on a call andask them a bunch of like tech
specific questions and I'm likeoh, so you're like 60 percent of
(29:37):
the way there.
They're like yeah, we'll getthere.
I'm like, yeah, but like yourmarketing material and your
sales guy told me like you canjust do this, but the reality is
like I still need people to doall these things because, like,
almost in our business is afailure.
Like you don't get paid forgetting a load 75 of the way
there, or getting a driver halftheir information and they can't
get the load.
(29:57):
Like it's got to all be corrector it doesn't move.
Like that to me is like a bigdifferentiator from them and
other companies.
And the last thing I want tosay in this I was thinking about
this yesterday I was doing alot of AI research on being able
to use the new chat GPT pro andto see what can and can't be
done in it.
It absolutely heard of that.
(30:18):
What's pro?
Pro, it's 200 bucks a month.
It's supposed to give you alittle bit of possibly like
seeing how the agents might work.
But it has a deep researchfunction where it basically will
keep asking itself questions tofind its own mistake.
And I've heard there's somelike really good use cases for
(30:38):
research where it's much betterthan the others.
And I asked ChachiBT.
I looked at the plans on theirpage and said tell me what and
where I can use each of theseplans and why I would pick one
or the other.
It made a mistake in telling meits own plans, like literally,
and I said but and then Iscreenshotted the plan page and
put it in there and went yourplan page has some discrepancies
(30:59):
from what you told me and itgoes oh, thanks for pointing
that out Like it's even stilllearning.
Yeah, I noticed that with chatGPT these things are all making
mistakes still and everyone isaware of that.
So remember that, like as muchof the hype as you hear anywhere
, right, like it's still forsure, needs people overseeing it
, it still has the opportunityto make a mistake and you do not
(31:22):
want to gamble your business on70% or 80.
Again, the thing that I, againwhat I like about working with
levity, is like they'll beupfront with where and what it's
going to take to do it and howthey've got to go through the
learning curve to get it to thatpoint, which takes work, time
and investment.
Right, and I've, again almostevery company in our space I've
(31:43):
at least reached out to talk, toask them, tried to see where
they are within the range ofwhat's possible now and what
might be.
And to me, like I still thinkthey're the best bet for, like
all of those reasons, All right,I'll end on a funny note here.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So I just asked oh, it just went away.
I just asked ChatGPT.
I said why would I buy ChatGPTPro versus my current plan?
And it says it already deletedits answer.
It says unable to displaymessage, but it said ChatGPT Pro
offers a bunch of somethingthat you don't get in your
(32:20):
current plan.
And it says here's a detailedbreakdown.
And it says current plan $20 amonth, ChatGPT Pro $200 a month.
And that was it.
That's all I told.
It was that it cost 10 timesthe price, 10 times more.
And then it now it clearly itdeleted its answer to me.
So, um, cool, good questions,keep sending them.
Hold on.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I want to give you one funnier one right you always
.
You always laugh because I'llbring up the cold punch.
But when I was asking bothGemini and GPT right about how
much chlorine to put in it, itwas off by a factor of 10.
Both of them, gemini and GPT.
If I would have put thechlorine that both of them
(32:59):
recommended, I would have had 10times the amount of chlorine
and 100 gallons of water.
That is just a little biggerthan my body.
Like it would have literallyburned me.
And then I went and looked.
I'm like wait a minute, likethat doesn't seem right and I
don't know anything aboutchlorinating anything.
So like I just looked at a fewother sources and I went back
and not only did it then go ohyeah, I'm sorry, but I went back
(33:21):
to that chat like three weekslater when I was changing it
back and asked it again and itdid go back and gave me the
wrong answer again.
So again, like you want to beaware, because like these, these
things we're trusting decisionswith like you for sure want to
double check before you're goingto do anything that could cause
you bodily harm yeah, you'regoing to eat anything it tells
(33:43):
you or that you're going to doanything where you're going to
gamble your customer, yourbusiness on.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Trust but verify.
So I use ChatGPT to help me getideas a lot.
I'll end with this.
I was trying to figure out.
I was in a summery mood, like awarm weather mood recently, and
I was like, oh, I wonder how, Iwonder if it can give me a
recipe for a rum bucket, like Ialways love getting rum buckets
when I'm at like a tiki bar inFlorida.
(34:09):
So I just tried to pull up theold chat and I was like I was
hey, you know, can you make me arecipe for rum bucket?
And it like did the math wrongon like the ounces?
And I was like I said, like Ipointed out like your math is
wrong on the ounces.
And it was like uh, it saysthanks for the catch, bro.
And then it like uh, gave methe correct one.
(34:31):
And then, but it's funny.
So I guess what I'm getting atis um, it makes mistakes, but it
it.
It's impressive how it'slearning Cause.
Then it said um, what did itsay?
What did it say, do you want meto back this off a little bit
or do you want to go full piratemode and add more 151?
And I saw a mess of it that I'mlike go for it and it said I
(34:56):
can, here's your full piratemode Dangerously fun territory,
rum, bucket of doom, like justthe kind of the funny stuff it
does.
Yes, but again to your caution,the math and its it's accuracy
on certain things.
These things are still learning, so, um, and it's like anything
, it's gonna always have areasto improve and there's gonna be
(35:17):
new use cases.
So, um, as our industry changes, as things that we can automate
change, as our tasks change inbrokerage, you know, keep that
all in consideration as youimplement new processes or tools
along the way.
So, and I think on that note,we can put a lid on this
(35:37):
extended length Q&A session.
So final thoughts, ben.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And until next time go Bills.
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