August 26, 2025 • 20 mins
Nate Cross & Ben Kowalski answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:
🚫 How to address customers that ask for quotes but never award you business
🤝 Why shippers use brokers instead of going direct to carriers
⚖️ Breaking down negotiating during a hostage load situation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back.
It's the final mile the Q&Asession all about you guys and
your questions for us and yourfeedback and comments.
So please take a moment tocheck out the sponsors in the
description box.
That helps support this channel.
Check out all of our othercontent, including the Freight
Booker Basics course, if you'relooking for your educational
option for yourself or for yourteam.
And we got some good questionstoday, but we wanted to want to
(00:23):
start off.
We just we just wrapped up asales conversation.
What do you think, ben?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I want to set the stage right.
So lots of people, from ourpoint of view as people that
sell things, whatever it is,always wonder what it looks like
from the other person'sperspective.
Right and right, when we gotdone with that episode, nate got
a great follow-up from a techcompany that wants to sell his
company a product.
However, nate's company alreadychose their other provider and
(00:50):
I want you to literally kind ofjust as I set the stage and go
into it exactly the way you toldme.
It right, like even from themessage to you, because it is
perfect.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah.
So I didn't get very goodfollow-up.
So we were looking at a certainsoftware, a certain tech tool
that we're looking at gettingand we checked out, you know, a
bunch of different options forit and the sales.
I mean we ended up going with aproduct that meets our needs,
(01:20):
exceeds what we need, exceedswhat we need.
But, more importantly, there'sa relational aspect with this
company that we were able todevelop over time and that came
through great conversation withmultiple different people in
their organization great followup, very tailored conversations
Everything we were talking aboutin the last episode.
Right, there's trust.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You know them, you like them and you trust them.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, like a lot by the time we signed a contract
with this provider, like wehadn't even gotten follow up
contact from a lot of thesepotential providers.
So this one follows up and islike, hey, you know, we'd love
to schedule a follow up demo.
And I'm like, oh yeah, wealready signed a deal with so
and so.
And he's like, oh, can I askwhy, Like?
(02:01):
And I'm like, ok, like, and Idon't have to take time out of
my day to tell somebody why Ididn't go with them.
So, you know, I forgot aboutthe email.
And then he tried to call meand I was like, hey, I'm busy,
I'm away at Army.
I told him yeah, hit me up nextweek, I'll definitely give you
five minutes for some generalfeedback.
Like you don't, you don't evenhave to do that.
Like I'm busy, but I at least.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I definitely wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So I've had the conversation with other
providers that have had given mea lot of follow up, built some
rapport with me and I felt likeI almost owe it to them to
explain to them why we didn't gowith their solution, but why I
thought their products great,but a different one was better
for us.
So, anyway, this guy, he's notvery tailoring the conversation
(02:45):
with me.
And then he's like hey, when heemails me like when is good
this week, and I was like I'mpretty flexible thursday and I
thought he would have suggestedsome times or ask me more
details.
He just sends me his calendarlink, says book a time and it's
like 6 am, 7 am, 8, 30 am orlike his options, and I'm like
dude, I'm working first of all,that's the most like
(03:07):
unpersonalized.
I get the calendar, booking isgreat, yeah, but I just, you
know, it just feels veryinformal and the times like if
you know, I work in brokerage,like what the hell, are you
thinking that I'm going to be uplike in personal, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
No, like, and again, like he could have just framed
that and added like one sentenceto change the entire tone of
that of hey.
I'm going to send my calendarlink yeah.
I appreciate you taking the time.
I only have early morningThursday.
If that doesn't work, let meknow I can shoot you a couple
other dates, right, likeanything, to just make it seem
(03:44):
like you're actually talking toanother human being, not
somebody.
That's like okay, great, pick atime.
Like dude, I don't work for youand I'm not going through your
calendar to find something thatlike.
Again, it's not that thecalendar is the issue, it's the
fact that it was just impersonal, like there was just no context
to like how you wouldcommunicate with another person
doing you a favor in thisscenario.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, with another person doing you a favor in this
.
In this scenario, yeah, likewhenever I send out a calendar
link, I'm always like, hey, ifyou want to let me know, can you
let me know some days, timesthat work best for you?
Or if you want, here's a,here's a link to my calendar.
If you prefer to just see whatI have available ahead of time,
yeah, and it's just that littleshift in the way you say it that
I think makes the bigdifference instead of just like
here's my calendar book,something.
Um, all right, let's get to ourother questions.
(04:28):
First one one of my customershas been requesting quotes for
me for a year but never awardsme the business.
How do I politely tell them, no?
So this is like you know, youget the customer that you know
you're on their email list forall their here's this shipment
going out.
You quote them and they nevergive you business there.
Here's this shipment going out.
(04:49):
You quote them and they nevergive you business.
I feel like we've had thissimilar question before.
I'd probably pick up the phoneand call them and find out, like
, try to get some feedback.
And like, hey, am I notreplying fast enough?
Or you know how does my quotelook compared to what you're
actually booking everything for?
I want to get some context.
That's my take on it.
But if you got somebody thatfor a whole year, I probably
(05:11):
won't even let it go that longbefore I'm trying to have that
conversation.
What's your take on it?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, I would have not let that go for a year.
I would have called probablytwo weeks in after I sent the
second quote.
Just, hey, want to know if yougot that one and check in with
you to see how my rates lined upwith your expectations.
Was I in line with kind ofwhere your target rates are too
high, too low?
Just want to know, was I fastenough for you to get the rate
when you needed it?
(05:36):
Just looking for anything thatI could do to be able to help,
you know, work with you a littleeasier, make your life a little
easier, right, Anything to justget some feedback on where
you're falling, right?
Because again, like from theshipper's point of view, what
are they doing?
They're literally going okay,I'll add you to my list, they
put you on literally a BCC listand then every time they get a
load they just hit sendWhoever's the fastest or the
(05:58):
cheapest in a lot of thisfreight.
That's who they go with.
They're not putting a lot ofthought into this and then those
probably aren't relationshiptype customers anyway.
But you also don't know that.
Because here's the thing I wantto point out that could be true
for maybe 5% of their freight,but there might be 25% of their
other loads where they work withtwo or three brokers every
single week that they trust thatis high service, that is not
(06:19):
price sensitive, that they arewilling to pay fair price and
fair rate for good service.
It's just these loads happen tobe the cheap ones, that the
customers don't care when theyget delivered.
So they're like, hey, whoever'sgot the cheapest truck and get
it picked up the soonest, youguys can have it.
But you don't learn any ofthose things and have no idea
what the other side is doing orcares about, unless you're not
(06:40):
interacting with that person.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, I had a guy a couple of years ago he's not
with us anymore, but he hisentire book of business that he
ran was all lumber load listswhere they would literally tell
you here's what it's paying, andit was like here's my rate.
Whoever could get a truck first, like won it.
And so that's why he said like,if you know, in situations like
(07:02):
that, if if you're not gettingthe load, it's because someone
was just faster than you.
Right not getting the load.
It's because someone was justfaster than you.
But had you not called them tofind out why you never got the
load?
You know you're sitting therewondering like what, why am I
not getting anything?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And every customer is a little different, so and you
can go one layer beyond that too.
And if you really want tocompete in that freight, the
next question is like okay, if Ireally want to move, this is my
only customer right.
The next question is okay,what's my competition probably
doing?
If they're beating me and I'mgetting my rates back or my
truck offer in within 10 minutesand someone's beating me every
(07:35):
week?
That broker probably didn't havea truck, is probably just
taking the load and hoping theycan cover it before the cutoff,
and if they do that enough times, eventually they're going to
fail.
So now my conversation withthat shipper is going to be like
hey, it seems like everyone'sbeen kind of beat me to the
punch how things been going onyour end.
Oh, pretty good.
Why do you ask?
(07:56):
Well, because I'm assuming that, like, if people are grabbing
these loads off you in a minuteand a half to two minutes, like
they're probably taking themwithout a truck in hand, because
like that's not even enoughtime to talk to a carrier before
they call and send your email.
So I got to imagine at leastsome percentage of your loads
aren't getting picked up whenthey're supposed to, or some
percentage of these loads aregetting picked up late.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Is that affecting?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
you at all Right Like you can keep going beyond that
to play that one level above itif it's worth the time.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yep.
Next question Someone asked whydoesn't the shipper skip the
broker and go directly to thecarriers?
I just love that somebody askedthis.
So this is a curious newlistener.
I'm guessing they're new tobrokerage and trying to
understand, like, why do weexist here?
It's a great question and thisis we've.
We've used this all the time tohelp explain our role.
(08:45):
One of the value adds thatbrokers provide to shippers is
that they don't have to have afull-out traffic department
that's able to source carriers,vet carriers, schedule things
with carriers, do all the thingswith carriers that we pay all
the different carriers right.
So we, you know, we pay fortools and marketplaces to get us
(09:07):
access to things like DAT andvetting tools like Highway or
RMS or whatever you're using,and we spend time and we have
processes to make sure thatwe're not getting, you know,
defrauded by somebody or scammedout of something.
Great example one of one of theguys on our team, legitimately
(09:28):
like a customer that he lostthat he's getting back in the
door with what.
What they did was they tried tohire someone internally to do
with the brokers job and itresulted in them like, like what
was it?
Like they ended up somethinghappened and they're paying like
a ridiculous tonu on aspecialized equipment and they
(09:48):
overpaid on it.
They ended up paying liketwelve thousand dollars for a
tonu, and it was because thegirl didn't realize that, just
because.
So she screwed up and theymoved the shipment to like
Monday from Friday.
So the truck shows up and sheforgot to cancel them.
Truck shows up and she justdecides, oh, that's my mistake,
I'll just pay them their fullrate anyway.
And it's like what are youdoing?
(10:09):
So she just cost this company$12,000.
But because of that mistake,that brings the conversation
with the broker back on thequestion hey, maybe this is why
we were using you.
We could have prevented all ofthis.
And so, basically, this girlthree months worth of her salary
just got like burned becauseshe made one mistake.
This is one of the reasons whybrokers exist and they don't go
(10:30):
direct to care.
There's a time and a place to godirect to carriers.
That's a great one.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And here's the other one, right, like, put yourself
whoever asks us whether you're acarrier or a broker, right,
think about your job as ashipper, right, if your job is
to arrange the pickup for 10loads a day, okay, you've got to
make sure all 10 of those pickup on time to get to your
customer, okay.
Well, if you want to use acarrier that has less than five
(10:57):
trucks, right, you might have tocoordinate with literally 10
different companies every day.
That's 50 different companiesright On top of that making sure
your load gets delivered,picked up on time, dealing with
your warehouse, making sureeverything's arranged, all your
POs are in order and all yourother responsibilities at that
shipper right.
What people don't realize is,like, that is a very different
(11:18):
job to communicate with threecompanies versus 50 every week.
The second thing is, if one ofthose trucks is stuck at their
last delivery, as a shipper youdon't have access to just go to
DAT and book a truck.
And even if you do have accessand some shippers can like, do
you have the vetting software tomake sure the company you
booked is the company that youthought you booked?
(11:39):
Is that the company thatactually picked up your load?
Right.
And then also you need to setthem up to also pay them quickly
.
Like you've got to be able toget that carrier vetted,
onboarded, get all of theirinsurance documents, get them to
sign all of your agreements anddo that inside of like two or
three minutes with thatdispatcher before that truck
books another load.
(12:00):
And like shippers one like yousaid, don't have the tools,
don't have the experience,because, like that's not what
they do all day, and also liketheir back end accounting team
doesn't want to pay a different50 companies every week.
At the end of the month youmight have 200 different
companies you're sendingpayments to right.
Like that is a huge cost for ashipper to do that on top of
(12:22):
what they're already doing.
So when people go like, oh, whywould they pay even an extra
200 bucks a load, like that'smoney they could keep.
Well, then they got to hiresomeone else in accounting, then
they got to pay for thesoftware, then they've got to
train their people to be able tovet, book and negotiate quickly
and without any mistakes andwithout getting robbed and
without understanding thenuances of how our industry
(12:44):
works.
And like shippers aren't inthat business, they're in the
soup business, they're in thebasketball business, they're in
the furniture business, they'rein the steel coil business, like
they're not in the shippingbusiness, like that is just a
necessary aspect of theirbusiness.
That's not what they want tofocus on.
That's not how they make money.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Whereas what we do is we are not in their business.
We are in the shipping and thevetting.
And then here's the other side.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
So from the carrier's point of view.
You have four trucks.
This shipper emails you everyday and goes, hey, can you pick
up this load?
And you're like, no man, all mytrucks are booked today.
Well, imagine that times 200.
So the shipper's emailing two,300 carriers every day going can
you pick up this load?
And now they get 50 emailscoming back going no, I don't
have anybody today.
Can the load move tomorrow?
Now they're replying to everyone of those like, no, I might
(13:30):
have this load tomorrow, but Idon't have it today.
Can you take it today?
No, you can't take.
Like that is a lot ofcommunication and just think
about, like your to deal with asmaller number of points of
contact to access a largernumber of trucks.
That's what we provide.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Even look at this.
Like some larger customers thatbuild out in-house brokerages,
they still separate the role ofthe brokerage versus shipping.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Correct.
So just almost always separateentity, separate business model,
separate credit rating,separate everything.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yep, our last question this is a comment,
actually there's.
One of our more popular reelswas a clip about a load being
held hostage.
So I'll read the comment and itgives feedback and then a
question and then we'll answerit.
So the listener said got tolove seeing, or got to love all
the seething carriers in thecomments.
(14:29):
Brokers need carriers, carriersneed brokers.
Saying that all brokers are badbecause you had a bad
experience is low IQ.
When it comes to holding freighthostage, if a carrier has a
layover a day to deliver and isdemanding a thousand dollars
layover to deliver the load whenthe amount agreed to on the
rate count is 150, am I thescammer for accepting the
(14:49):
demands under duress and thenreducing the rate to the
appropriate amount once it'sdelivered?
Or is the carrier the scammerfor trying to use the
opportunity to charge me anunreasonable amount?
I think there's a gray areahere and it really depends on
how it's all panning out.
So if a carrier if the carrieris not at fault for the reason
for being late on something andis asking for more money, I
(15:12):
don't think they're in the wrongfor asking for that.
If it's an egregious amount,like you know, a thousand
dollars for a layover is prettysteep, right, like 500 bucks
maybe.
Maybe depends on the equipmenttype, but we're talking like
when carriers are asking forlike three thousand more dollars
.
Like that's an egregious amount, right?
If a carrier is asking for asimple layover fee, right, and
(15:33):
depending on how long thelayover if it's like they were
supposed to pick up at four andnow it's eight the next morning
like I don't think 500 bucks isunreasonable because that's
about a day's worth of theirtime.
Um, now, this case if a carrierhas clearly taken an
opportunity to pounce on you andask for more money because they
(15:53):
know they can screw yourcustomer relationship up, I
don't think you're in the wrong.
And that was the whole point ofthat clip.
Is that what we've done iswe'll agree to whatever they're
asking for and we'll justannotate it to get it delivered,
and then, yeah, we're justgoing to deduct it off the rate
con and their final payment,because we literally agreed to
it under duress.
But if they're asking for areasonable amount and it's not
(16:15):
their fault, then I'm going togo to my customer and try to
work something out Like, hey, Iunderstand, we wasted this
carrier's time.
I'm not about taking anyone'smoney or being falsely leading
people.
The whole point, whole point ofthat, that conversation we had
in that clip was if a carrier islike you know, there it's, it
was their fault, they missedsomething.
(16:36):
You know, a lot of times it'slike they tried to book two
partials when it was supposed tobe a dedicated and they're
going to be a day late orwhatever, and they're, you know,
demanding more money orwhatever the case might be.
That's when we've used thatscenario.
What is your take?
Where do you kind of draw theline on?
Where does the broker step overthe line versus where is the
carrier overstepping the line?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I start by defining the word scam, right?
I've literally looked it upDishonest act, fraud, a trick or
a ruse, right?
So the thing that I would wantto understand in this situation
is what was communicated andwhat happened To your point.
If the broker tells the carrieryou have an 8 am delivery
(17:17):
appointment and when they getthere they realize it's first
come, first serve, there's 25trucks ahead of them, they don't
get unloaded all day and haveto lay over to the next day,
right, that's probably anextreme situation where the
broker was either incorrect oroutright lied to get the load
delivered, to get the carrier totake the load.
And in another scenario, likeyou said, which is probably the
(17:39):
least egregious, is like, maybethe carrier did have like a 4.30
appointment and the shipperjust couldn't get them unloaded
on time and he said, well,you'll be first to unload
tomorrow morning, right, ok,like now, the broker didn't do
anything dishonest and maybe thecarrier probably deserves 350
to 500 for having to lay overthe whole day and maybe they
(17:59):
have to cancel their load andthey need to be able to recoup
that because now they don't havea load tomorrow and they look
bad to their customer, whichisn't the broker's fault isn't
the carrier's fault, is theshipper's fault.
And that scenario, just likeyou said, you want to understand
where the carrier is comingfrom and why it occurred and
then maybe go back to yourshipper and be like, hey, listen
, like what can we work out forlabor for this guy?
(18:19):
My driver had to cancel hisload tomorrow.
His customer's pretty upset,like he's only asking for 350.
Can we make that work?
Now, in the other scenario, likewhere you were just in the
wrong, you didn't pay attentionto the detail, it wasn't an
appointment, or you outrightlied and told him he had an
appointment at eight in themorning so he would take your
load.
Then, like, for sure that fallson the broker.
(18:40):
And, like most things, it isn'tblack or white.
The answer is somewhere in themiddle.
Right, what actually occurredin working with both or all
three parties to find the thingthat solves it for everybody?
And the responsibility issometimes on the broker,
sometimes it's on the carrier,and sometimes it's on the
shipper, and sometimes it'sspread amongst all three of them
.
Right, and like you really haveto work through these things,
(19:04):
not just make black and whitedecisions based on what happened
definitively, but understand,like, why that happened in the
first place and who understoodwho and where the communication
was clear, where it wasincorrect and where it might've
been a little gray, and youshould have been a little more
clear in how you sold the load.
But without those details it'sreally hard to determine, like
(19:25):
who is at fault more or less andit's usually a percentage.
Maybe it's 30% your fault, 70%theirs, 60, 40, 50, 50, or 33,
33, 33, where the ship werescrewed up, the broker made a
little mistake and the carrierwas a little late for their
appointment.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yep, it's a great analysis there.
Good questions.
Keep them coming our way Again.
You can leave a comment inYouTube, you can send us a
message at our through ourwebsite, freight360.net, and we
will continue to add them to ourfinal mile segment.
Final thoughts, ben.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And until next time go Bills.
Welcome back.
It's the final mile the Q&Asession all about you guys and
your questions for us and yourfeedback and comments.
So please take a moment tocheck out the sponsors in the
description box.
That helps support this channel.
Check out all of our othercontent, including the Freight
Booker Basics course, if you'relooking for your educational
option for yourself or for yourteam.
And we got some good questionstoday, but we wanted to want to
(00:23):
start off.
We just we just wrapped up asales conversation.
What do you think, ben?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I want to set the stage right.
So lots of people, from ourpoint of view as people that
sell things, whatever it is,always wonder what it looks like
from the other person'sperspective.
Right and right, when we gotdone with that episode, nate got
a great follow-up from a techcompany that wants to sell his
company a product.
However, nate's company alreadychose their other provider and
(00:50):
I want you to literally kind ofjust as I set the stage and go
into it exactly the way you toldme.
It right, like even from themessage to you, because it is
perfect.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah.
So I didn't get very goodfollow-up.
So we were looking at a certainsoftware, a certain tech tool
that we're looking at gettingand we checked out, you know, a
bunch of different options forit and the sales.
I mean we ended up going with aproduct that meets our needs,
(01:20):
exceeds what we need, exceedswhat we need.
But, more importantly, there'sa relational aspect with this
company that we were able todevelop over time and that came
through great conversation withmultiple different people in
their organization great followup, very tailored conversations
Everything we were talking aboutin the last episode.
Right, there's trust.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You know them, you like them and you trust them.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, like a lot by the time we signed a contract
with this provider, like wehadn't even gotten follow up
contact from a lot of thesepotential providers.
So this one follows up and islike, hey, you know, we'd love
to schedule a follow up demo.
And I'm like, oh yeah, wealready signed a deal with so
and so.
And he's like, oh, can I askwhy, Like?
(02:01):
And I'm like, ok, like, and Idon't have to take time out of
my day to tell somebody why Ididn't go with them.
So, you know, I forgot aboutthe email.
And then he tried to call meand I was like, hey, I'm busy,
I'm away at Army.
I told him yeah, hit me up nextweek, I'll definitely give you
five minutes for some generalfeedback.
Like you don't, you don't evenhave to do that.
Like I'm busy, but I at least.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I definitely wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So I've had the conversation with other
providers that have had given mea lot of follow up, built some
rapport with me and I felt likeI almost owe it to them to
explain to them why we didn't gowith their solution, but why I
thought their products great,but a different one was better
for us.
So, anyway, this guy, he's notvery tailoring the conversation
(02:45):
with me.
And then he's like hey, when heemails me like when is good
this week, and I was like I'mpretty flexible thursday and I
thought he would have suggestedsome times or ask me more
details.
He just sends me his calendarlink, says book a time and it's
like 6 am, 7 am, 8, 30 am orlike his options, and I'm like
dude, I'm working first of all,that's the most like
(03:07):
unpersonalized.
I get the calendar, booking isgreat, yeah, but I just, you
know, it just feels veryinformal and the times like if
you know, I work in brokerage,like what the hell, are you
thinking that I'm going to be uplike in personal, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
No, like, and again, like he could have just framed
that and added like one sentenceto change the entire tone of
that of hey.
I'm going to send my calendarlink yeah.
I appreciate you taking the time.
I only have early morningThursday.
If that doesn't work, let meknow I can shoot you a couple
other dates, right, likeanything, to just make it seem
(03:44):
like you're actually talking toanother human being, not
somebody.
That's like okay, great, pick atime.
Like dude, I don't work for youand I'm not going through your
calendar to find something thatlike.
Again, it's not that thecalendar is the issue, it's the
fact that it was just impersonal, like there was just no context
to like how you wouldcommunicate with another person
doing you a favor in thisscenario.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, with another person doing you a favor in this
.
In this scenario, yeah, likewhenever I send out a calendar
link, I'm always like, hey, ifyou want to let me know, can you
let me know some days, timesthat work best for you?
Or if you want, here's a,here's a link to my calendar.
If you prefer to just see whatI have available ahead of time,
yeah, and it's just that littleshift in the way you say it that
I think makes the bigdifference instead of just like
here's my calendar book,something.
Um, all right, let's get to ourother questions.
(04:28):
First one one of my customershas been requesting quotes for
me for a year but never awardsme the business.
How do I politely tell them, no?
So this is like you know, youget the customer that you know
you're on their email list forall their here's this shipment
going out.
You quote them and they nevergive you business there.
Here's this shipment going out.
(04:49):
You quote them and they nevergive you business.
I feel like we've had thissimilar question before.
I'd probably pick up the phoneand call them and find out, like
, try to get some feedback.
And like, hey, am I notreplying fast enough?
Or you know how does my quotelook compared to what you're
actually booking everything for?
I want to get some context.
That's my take on it.
But if you got somebody thatfor a whole year, I probably
(05:11):
won't even let it go that longbefore I'm trying to have that
conversation.
What's your take on it?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, I would have not let that go for a year.
I would have called probablytwo weeks in after I sent the
second quote.
Just, hey, want to know if yougot that one and check in with
you to see how my rates lined upwith your expectations.
Was I in line with kind ofwhere your target rates are too
high, too low?
Just want to know, was I fastenough for you to get the rate
when you needed it?
(05:36):
Just looking for anything thatI could do to be able to help,
you know, work with you a littleeasier, make your life a little
easier, right, Anything to justget some feedback on where
you're falling, right?
Because again, like from theshipper's point of view, what
are they doing?
They're literally going okay,I'll add you to my list, they
put you on literally a BCC listand then every time they get a
load they just hit sendWhoever's the fastest or the
(05:58):
cheapest in a lot of thisfreight.
That's who they go with.
They're not putting a lot ofthought into this and then those
probably aren't relationshiptype customers anyway.
But you also don't know that.
Because here's the thing I wantto point out that could be true
for maybe 5% of their freight,but there might be 25% of their
other loads where they work withtwo or three brokers every
single week that they trust thatis high service, that is not
(06:19):
price sensitive, that they arewilling to pay fair price and
fair rate for good service.
It's just these loads happen tobe the cheap ones, that the
customers don't care when theyget delivered.
So they're like, hey, whoever'sgot the cheapest truck and get
it picked up the soonest, youguys can have it.
But you don't learn any ofthose things and have no idea
what the other side is doing orcares about, unless you're not
(06:40):
interacting with that person.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, I had a guy a couple of years ago he's not
with us anymore, but he hisentire book of business that he
ran was all lumber load listswhere they would literally tell
you here's what it's paying, andit was like here's my rate.
Whoever could get a truck first, like won it.
And so that's why he said like,if you know, in situations like
(07:02):
that, if if you're not gettingthe load, it's because someone
was just faster than you.
Right not getting the load.
It's because someone was justfaster than you.
But had you not called them tofind out why you never got the
load?
You know you're sitting therewondering like what, why am I
not getting anything?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And every customer is a little different, so and you
can go one layer beyond that too.
And if you really want tocompete in that freight, the
next question is like okay, if Ireally want to move, this is my
only customer right.
The next question is okay,what's my competition probably
doing?
If they're beating me and I'mgetting my rates back or my
truck offer in within 10 minutesand someone's beating me every
(07:35):
week?
That broker probably didn't havea truck, is probably just
taking the load and hoping theycan cover it before the cutoff,
and if they do that enough times, eventually they're going to
fail.
So now my conversation withthat shipper is going to be like
hey, it seems like everyone'sbeen kind of beat me to the
punch how things been going onyour end.
Oh, pretty good.
Why do you ask?
(07:56):
Well, because I'm assuming that, like, if people are grabbing
these loads off you in a minuteand a half to two minutes, like
they're probably taking themwithout a truck in hand, because
like that's not even enoughtime to talk to a carrier before
they call and send your email.
So I got to imagine at leastsome percentage of your loads
aren't getting picked up whenthey're supposed to, or some
percentage of these loads aregetting picked up late.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Is that affecting?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
you at all Right Like you can keep going beyond that
to play that one level above itif it's worth the time.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yep.
Next question Someone asked whydoesn't the shipper skip the
broker and go directly to thecarriers?
I just love that somebody askedthis.
So this is a curious newlistener.
I'm guessing they're new tobrokerage and trying to
understand, like, why do weexist here?
It's a great question and thisis we've.
We've used this all the time tohelp explain our role.
(08:45):
One of the value adds thatbrokers provide to shippers is
that they don't have to have afull-out traffic department
that's able to source carriers,vet carriers, schedule things
with carriers, do all the thingswith carriers that we pay all
the different carriers right.
So we, you know, we pay fortools and marketplaces to get us
(09:07):
access to things like DAT andvetting tools like Highway or
RMS or whatever you're using,and we spend time and we have
processes to make sure thatwe're not getting, you know,
defrauded by somebody or scammedout of something.
Great example one of one of theguys on our team, legitimately
(09:28):
like a customer that he lostthat he's getting back in the
door with what.
What they did was they tried tohire someone internally to do
with the brokers job and itresulted in them like, like what
was it?
Like they ended up somethinghappened and they're paying like
a ridiculous tonu on aspecialized equipment and they
(09:48):
overpaid on it.
They ended up paying liketwelve thousand dollars for a
tonu, and it was because thegirl didn't realize that, just
because.
So she screwed up and theymoved the shipment to like
Monday from Friday.
So the truck shows up and sheforgot to cancel them.
Truck shows up and she justdecides, oh, that's my mistake,
I'll just pay them their fullrate anyway.
And it's like what are youdoing?
(10:09):
So she just cost this company$12,000.
But because of that mistake,that brings the conversation
with the broker back on thequestion hey, maybe this is why
we were using you.
We could have prevented all ofthis.
And so, basically, this girlthree months worth of her salary
just got like burned becauseshe made one mistake.
This is one of the reasons whybrokers exist and they don't go
(10:30):
direct to care.
There's a time and a place to godirect to carriers.
That's a great one.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And here's the other one, right, like, put yourself
whoever asks us whether you're acarrier or a broker, right,
think about your job as ashipper, right, if your job is
to arrange the pickup for 10loads a day, okay, you've got to
make sure all 10 of those pickup on time to get to your
customer, okay.
Well, if you want to use acarrier that has less than five
(10:57):
trucks, right, you might have tocoordinate with literally 10
different companies every day.
That's 50 different companiesright On top of that making sure
your load gets delivered,picked up on time, dealing with
your warehouse, making sureeverything's arranged, all your
POs are in order and all yourother responsibilities at that
shipper right.
What people don't realize is,like, that is a very different
(11:18):
job to communicate with threecompanies versus 50 every week.
The second thing is, if one ofthose trucks is stuck at their
last delivery, as a shipper youdon't have access to just go to
DAT and book a truck.
And even if you do have accessand some shippers can like, do
you have the vetting software tomake sure the company you
booked is the company that youthought you booked?
(11:39):
Is that the company thatactually picked up your load?
Right.
And then also you need to setthem up to also pay them quickly
.
Like you've got to be able toget that carrier vetted,
onboarded, get all of theirinsurance documents, get them to
sign all of your agreements anddo that inside of like two or
three minutes with thatdispatcher before that truck
books another load.
(12:00):
And like shippers one like yousaid, don't have the tools,
don't have the experience,because, like that's not what
they do all day, and also liketheir back end accounting team
doesn't want to pay a different50 companies every week.
At the end of the month youmight have 200 different
companies you're sendingpayments to right.
Like that is a huge cost for ashipper to do that on top of
(12:22):
what they're already doing.
So when people go like, oh, whywould they pay even an extra
200 bucks a load, like that'smoney they could keep.
Well, then they got to hiresomeone else in accounting, then
they got to pay for thesoftware, then they've got to
train their people to be able tovet, book and negotiate quickly
and without any mistakes andwithout getting robbed and
without understanding thenuances of how our industry
(12:44):
works.
And like shippers aren't inthat business, they're in the
soup business, they're in thebasketball business, they're in
the furniture business, they'rein the steel coil business, like
they're not in the shippingbusiness, like that is just a
necessary aspect of theirbusiness.
That's not what they want tofocus on.
That's not how they make money.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Whereas what we do is we are not in their business.
We are in the shipping and thevetting.
And then here's the other side.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
So from the carrier's point of view.
You have four trucks.
This shipper emails you everyday and goes, hey, can you pick
up this load?
And you're like, no man, all mytrucks are booked today.
Well, imagine that times 200.
So the shipper's emailing two,300 carriers every day going can
you pick up this load?
And now they get 50 emailscoming back going no, I don't
have anybody today.
Can the load move tomorrow?
Now they're replying to everyone of those like, no, I might
(13:30):
have this load tomorrow, but Idon't have it today.
Can you take it today?
No, you can't take.
Like that is a lot ofcommunication and just think
about, like your to deal with asmaller number of points of
contact to access a largernumber of trucks.
That's what we provide.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Even look at this.
Like some larger customers thatbuild out in-house brokerages,
they still separate the role ofthe brokerage versus shipping.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Correct.
So just almost always separateentity, separate business model,
separate credit rating,separate everything.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yep, our last question this is a comment,
actually there's.
One of our more popular reelswas a clip about a load being
held hostage.
So I'll read the comment and itgives feedback and then a
question and then we'll answerit.
So the listener said got tolove seeing, or got to love all
the seething carriers in thecomments.
(14:29):
Brokers need carriers, carriersneed brokers.
Saying that all brokers are badbecause you had a bad
experience is low IQ.
When it comes to holding freighthostage, if a carrier has a
layover a day to deliver and isdemanding a thousand dollars
layover to deliver the load whenthe amount agreed to on the
rate count is 150, am I thescammer for accepting the
(14:49):
demands under duress and thenreducing the rate to the
appropriate amount once it'sdelivered?
Or is the carrier the scammerfor trying to use the
opportunity to charge me anunreasonable amount?
I think there's a gray areahere and it really depends on
how it's all panning out.
So if a carrier if the carrieris not at fault for the reason
for being late on something andis asking for more money, I
(15:12):
don't think they're in the wrongfor asking for that.
If it's an egregious amount,like you know, a thousand
dollars for a layover is prettysteep, right, like 500 bucks
maybe.
Maybe depends on the equipmenttype, but we're talking like
when carriers are asking forlike three thousand more dollars
.
Like that's an egregious amount, right?
If a carrier is asking for asimple layover fee, right, and
(15:33):
depending on how long thelayover if it's like they were
supposed to pick up at four andnow it's eight the next morning
like I don't think 500 bucks isunreasonable because that's
about a day's worth of theirtime.
Um, now, this case if a carrierhas clearly taken an
opportunity to pounce on you andask for more money because they
(15:53):
know they can screw yourcustomer relationship up, I
don't think you're in the wrong.
And that was the whole point ofthat clip.
Is that what we've done iswe'll agree to whatever they're
asking for and we'll justannotate it to get it delivered,
and then, yeah, we're justgoing to deduct it off the rate
con and their final payment,because we literally agreed to
it under duress.
But if they're asking for areasonable amount and it's not
(16:15):
their fault, then I'm going togo to my customer and try to
work something out Like, hey, Iunderstand, we wasted this
carrier's time.
I'm not about taking anyone'smoney or being falsely leading
people.
The whole point, whole point ofthat, that conversation we had
in that clip was if a carrier islike you know, there it's, it
was their fault, they missedsomething.
(16:36):
You know, a lot of times it'slike they tried to book two
partials when it was supposed tobe a dedicated and they're
going to be a day late orwhatever, and they're, you know,
demanding more money orwhatever the case might be.
That's when we've used thatscenario.
What is your take?
Where do you kind of draw theline on?
Where does the broker step overthe line versus where is the
carrier overstepping the line?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I start by defining the word scam, right?
I've literally looked it upDishonest act, fraud, a trick or
a ruse, right?
So the thing that I would wantto understand in this situation
is what was communicated andwhat happened To your point.
If the broker tells the carrieryou have an 8 am delivery
(17:17):
appointment and when they getthere they realize it's first
come, first serve, there's 25trucks ahead of them, they don't
get unloaded all day and haveto lay over to the next day,
right, that's probably anextreme situation where the
broker was either incorrect oroutright lied to get the load
delivered, to get the carrier totake the load.
And in another scenario, likeyou said, which is probably the
(17:39):
least egregious, is like, maybethe carrier did have like a 4.30
appointment and the shipperjust couldn't get them unloaded
on time and he said, well,you'll be first to unload
tomorrow morning, right, ok,like now, the broker didn't do
anything dishonest and maybe thecarrier probably deserves 350
to 500 for having to lay overthe whole day and maybe they
(17:59):
have to cancel their load andthey need to be able to recoup
that because now they don't havea load tomorrow and they look
bad to their customer, whichisn't the broker's fault isn't
the carrier's fault, is theshipper's fault.
And that scenario, just likeyou said, you want to understand
where the carrier is comingfrom and why it occurred and
then maybe go back to yourshipper and be like, hey, listen
, like what can we work out forlabor for this guy?
(18:19):
My driver had to cancel hisload tomorrow.
His customer's pretty upset,like he's only asking for 350.
Can we make that work?
Now, in the other scenario, likewhere you were just in the
wrong, you didn't pay attentionto the detail, it wasn't an
appointment, or you outrightlied and told him he had an
appointment at eight in themorning so he would take your
load.
Then, like, for sure that fallson the broker.
(18:40):
And, like most things, it isn'tblack or white.
The answer is somewhere in themiddle.
Right, what actually occurredin working with both or all
three parties to find the thingthat solves it for everybody?
And the responsibility issometimes on the broker,
sometimes it's on the carrier,and sometimes it's on the
shipper, and sometimes it'sspread amongst all three of them
.
Right, and like you really haveto work through these things,
(19:04):
not just make black and whitedecisions based on what happened
definitively, but understand,like, why that happened in the
first place and who understoodwho and where the communication
was clear, where it wasincorrect and where it might've
been a little gray, and youshould have been a little more
clear in how you sold the load.
But without those details it'sreally hard to determine, like
(19:25):
who is at fault more or less andit's usually a percentage.
Maybe it's 30% your fault, 70%theirs, 60, 40, 50, 50, or 33,
33, 33, where the ship werescrewed up, the broker made a
little mistake and the carrierwas a little late for their
appointment.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yep, it's a great analysis there.
Good questions.
Keep them coming our way Again.
You can leave a comment inYouTube, you can send us a
message at our through ourwebsite, freight360.net, and we
will continue to add them to ourfinal mile segment.
Final thoughts, ben.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
And until next time go Bills.
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