February 20, 2026 • 45 mins
Freight theft doesn’t usually look like a midnight trailer heist anymore. Today, it shows up as a cloned MC number, a forged COI, a believable email domain, and a real carrier left unpaid while a fake “carrier” vanishes with the money. We sit down with Minnesota-based freight broker Jason Mischica of TEN Logistics to break down how modern fraud actually unfolds, how to spot it before it hits, and why calm, human-first communication can de-escalate situations that feel like theft but often start as breakdowns, missteps, and bad days.
Jason walks us through his path from LTL operations to building a brokerage inside a 110-year-old parent company at Ten Logistics—and how that foundation shaped his uncompromising SOPs. We dig into layered identity verification, VIN plate photo capture with geolocation, continuous MC monitoring, and disciplined payment controls. He also shares a recent real-world incident where a tractor failure and sudden radio silence triggered red flags—and how de-escalation, verification, and clear communication restored trust, protected the shipper, and ensured the carrier got paid.
Along the way, we map the real mechanics of double brokering, identity cloning, and fake shipper schemes—some serious enough to draw FBI attention. The conversation then turns practical. For new brokers, Jason’s advice is blunt: learn operations first, build mentors, and never pressure drivers into unsafe or illegal situations. Load boards should be used for intelligence and introductions—not as a race to the cheapest truck. For shippers, the message is just as direct: brokers who validate, communicate, and show up—like the team at Ten Logistics—are worth more than rock-bottom rates that burn carriers and collapse networks when things go wrong.
AI also enters the chat. Used well, it accelerates vetting and workflows. Used poorly, it supercharges scams. Either way, layered controls and shared intelligence are no longer optional.
If you care about preventing fraud, protecting your lanes, and building resilient broker–carrier–shipper relationships, this episode delivers a field-tested framework you can use today.
Key Takeaways 👇
🟩 Freight theft today is digital—cloned MCs, fake COIs, and spoofed emails
🟩 Strong SOPs like those used at Ten Logistics are the first line of defense
🟩 VIN plate photos with geolocation add a powerful verification layer
🟩 Continuous MC monitoring helps catch problems before loads move
🟩 Calm, human-first communication can de-escalate high-risk situations
🟩 Double brokering and identity cloning are organized schemes, not accidents
🟩 New brokers should learn operations before chasing volume
🟩 Load boards are tools for intelligen
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:12):
What's going on, everyone?
Welcome back to That'sDelivered.
I'm your host, Truck and Ray.
We have another episode here foryou today.
We're going to talk about realfreight, real experiences from
people actually living thisindustry.
Today I've got Jason Mishikawith me, the freight broker
based in Minnesota who's dealtfirsthand with freight fraud,
cargo theft, and the challengesof trying to build something
(00:33):
legit in the market.
It isn't always fair.
We're going to talk about whathe's seen, what he's learned,
uh, maybe even the hard way.
And what people need tounderstand if they're thinking
about getting into the freightbrokering business, Jason, thank
you so much for coming on theshow.
Really appreciate you.
Uh, let's start from thebeginning.
(00:53):
How are you doing today, Jason?
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
Good, good.
Thanks for having me on.
Uh, yeah, I'm looking forward toit.
And uh I'll tell you what,you're hitting on some key
topics, ironically enough, overthe last uh four days, been
dealing with a situationdirectly related to what you're
talking about.
So we actually just got it allsorted out.
So it's uh, you know, anytime westart getting into freight
(01:15):
fraud, double brokering,obviously theft of loads, um
alarm bells kind of go offeverywhere.
So we uh we have you know somepretty specific processes that
we follow and folks that wereach out to to make sure we're
covering all our bases on thatkind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Yeah, man, that's that's crazy.
It's almost gonna be a dailything because of how much people
are getting involved andthinking that, hey, this is the
way to go and that I can juststeal this freight and nobody
cares except for the ones thatare affected.
Um, and nothing will happen tome.
That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's become pretty rampant.
So what would you like me tostart with first?
You want to talk a little bitabout uh kind of how I got into
this business or do you want totalk about specifics?
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So what's your background?
SPEAKER_00 (02:00):
Yeah, so I actually worked in the LTL industry for
years and years, um, starting in2000, let's see, 2004.
Yeah, 2004 started out at uhyellow, which became part of YRC
Freight or YRT Worldwide.
Um worked in operations therefor 10 or 11 years.
(02:22):
And uh I just got a message froma hockey coach saying, I got
time to talk now.
I'm like, you're out of luck,pal.
Um so uh worked there inoperations for about uh 11
years, then moved over to thesales side, uh customer side,
and then worked with uh customerservice as well as sales uh with
YRC for an additional, I want tosay four years, something like
(02:47):
that.
So um, let's see, until 2017.
So yeah, no, probably aboutthree years on that side.
So anyway, um ended up runninginto uh my current company
during that time.
Um my parent company, SteinIndustries, was doing projects
and they were running projectsand things like that with YRC.
(03:07):
So they were a customer of mine.
And uh as I got to know theirlogistics folks better, um, you
know, they they eventually endedup offering me position as we
started to build out uh 10logistics.
So uh one thing led to another,and here I am now.
So our company essentially thebest way to describe it is was
(03:28):
the logistics department of oursister companies.
And uh uh quite a while back,somebody along the way said,
Hey, you know what?
Let's uh let's start doing thisfor for you know other other
folks outside of our four walls.
So they got it all set up, anduh, and I've been there since uh
since 2017.
And it's been a great run, greatcompany to work with.
(03:48):
Uh the folks that we work withwith our parent organization are
fantastic, and uh it's been alot of fun, kind of like
building a startup within a110-year-old parent company.
So uh kind of the best of bothworlds, so to speak.
So it's been a it's been a coolride, but kind of related to
what you were talking about atthe intro.
Um, obviously, as we have uhbuilt out our company and made
(04:11):
sure that we have protections inplace and vetting processes in
place, and just you know,obviously protecting ourselves
and our customers, um, as wellas the other carriers that we
work with from this type ofactivity is a huge part of the
industry and seems to becomemore so every day, uh for sure.
So yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
So on the lines of guidance, uh, who's helped you
um along the way or did you kindof figure out on your own?
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
So on the brokerage side, you know, obviously a lot
of folks, you know, kind of likeyou and I met, right?
So um, you know, our we we metthrough a mutual friend in the
industry.
Um, and I actually have a lot offolks that I connect with that
way, right?
Whether they were custom currentor former customers, uh, current
or former employees.
(04:59):
Um, so for instance, we've haduh three different company
presidents over the last eightyears um in different, you know,
differing uh situations.
And I talk to those guys almoston a weekly basis.
I mean, there's a lot ofcollaboration that goes on, even
though they're no longer withour organization.
You know, we talk about industrytrends, we talk about how are we
making sure we're protectingourselves from risk.
(05:21):
Um, and then, you know,obviously doing research with uh
with places like TIA, with uhfreight waves, a lot of great
information out there on aregular basis, uh, transport
topics, that stuff all the time,right?
So we're always looking to uh tosharpen the sharpen the sword
and make sure that we're uh thatwe're being vigilant about um
(05:42):
just staying current.
And that's a huge key, right?
Is can't always wait forinformation to come to you.
You got to seek it out.
So uh as of for most of thefolks in your in your audience
are uh listening to this for areason, right?
SPEAKER_01 (05:55):
That's right.
So what's uh what's a day looklike?
Uh, you know, for you, a typicalday.
Uh walk us through that for us.
SPEAKER_00 (06:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
So in my current role, so I'mthe director of sales for our
organization.
Um, so most of my time is spentinteracting with customers,
whether they be prospectivecustomers or customers we
currently work with, making suretheir needs are being met,
seeing if there are uh newopportunities for us to
strengthen those relationships,build those out even further.
Um, and then, you know,obviously looking for new
(06:25):
business on a regular basis.
I uh my role is a little bitfluid in that I end up uh
interacting with our operationspretty significantly as well,
obviously being there the wholetime and knowing everybody.
Um, so it can depend on the day,right?
Some days I'm I'm wearing anoperations hat more so, and
other days I'm wearing the uhthe sales hat.
(06:45):
So it just depends on what we'redealing with uh on a day-to-day,
week-to-week basis, and whatwe've got scheduled out.
So um, you know, kind of what Iwas alluding to earlier, we had
a uh we actually had a breakdownum last week.
Uh unfortunately, the tractorthat our carrier um is utilizing
had a pretty major uh mechanicalmalfunction, put him out of
(07:08):
service.
He was luckily lucky enough tobe able to limp it to uh to a
truck stop, you know, like apilot.
And uh so we had to get awrecker in, cage the brakes a
little way from the track thetrailer.
At a certain point, we had somealarm bells going off because
the carrier stoppedcommunicating with us, and
that's really where we startraising some flags, right?
(07:29):
Like, so that's you know, inspeaking about like freight
fraud as an example.
So my team brought that to myattention right away.
Obviously, I'm the one thatinteracts the most with with the
customer.
And uh, so I was communicatingwith the customer communicating
with the customer as well asthen my team and I were
communicating with the with thecarrier as much as we could get
them to respond.
Um, but that's where you know westart elevating the level of
(07:54):
concern, right?
Is when we stop gettingcommunication.
Um so on a day like that,obviously most of my attention
shifts from where normally Imight be, you know, calling
possible customers or talking toexisting customers on the phone
or setting up meetings and andthose kind of things.
We're doing stuff like thiseven.
Um, my attention thenimmediately shifts away because
(08:17):
timing is is of the essence,right?
Um, so that's an example wherethat's a little bit of an
out-of-the-ordinary day.
Um, we've been very lucky to uhto avoid the the theft of any
loads.
Um we have we've been close.
And I mean, uh, you know,anybody who's been in this
(08:37):
industry as long as as even wehave, with you know, our short
(09:04):
tenure of eight years, uh theamount of volume that we move,
um, that's always a possibility.
So um really it's just a matterof making sure SLPs are in place
and then following those to theletter.
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
So it's so it's possible, especially in this day
and time.
Happens all the time.
I mean, that to have to be atzero, have zero theft, it's
possible.
SPEAKER_00 (09:27):
Yeah, again, I'm gonna I gotta bunk the s I just
keep knocking on one at yeah, sowow, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
That's great.
SPEAKER_00 (09:36):
Yeah, it's the same thing like when we talk about
damage claims and and you knowany kind of OSD type of
situation, right?
Which which freight theft,unfortunately, is part of that
world, is I always kind of, youknow, when I'm talking to
customers as an example andsaying, look, you know, for me
to if somebody walks in andsays, hey, we're never gonna
have a damage claim, unlessyou're shipping steel ingots in
(09:58):
a box, like even that, I mean,it's you move stuff around your
living room long enough, you'regonna ding a wall, you're gonna,
you know, break a leg off achair or something.
What something is going tohappen when you move things the
way that we all do, right?
Point A to point B as quicklyand safely as possible.
Um, but it would be naive tothink that nothing's ever gonna
go sideways.
So it's a matter of saying,okay.
(10:19):
Just don't move anything.
Yeah, yeah, right.
If everything, if everything wasjust manufactured right where,
you know, right where it neededto be, that'd be that'd be
great.
But then uh people like me andpeople like you'd probably be
out of a job.
So but uh yeah, so it's it's amatter of looking and saying,
you know, what what do we dowhen we see warning signs for
(10:40):
that?
Again, whether it be you knowdamages, whether it be you know
lost items, whether it be atheft uh risk.
And so that's why I use thatexample is we didn't have a
theft situation, but as thingsprogressed, you know, all of a
sudden a carrier drops off uhcommunication-wise.
That's a red flag for us rightaway to be like, okay, we gotta
have all eyes on this thing.
(11:00):
What's going on?
Why is the carrier no longercommunicating?
In this particular case, I thinkit was just a situation where
the driver uh was frustratedwith the situation, obviously a
huge hit to his business.
And uh, so that's impactful.
So we need to be, you know, asthe broker, we need to be
supportive of that and uh andjust make sure that we engage
the right way.
SPEAKER_01 (11:20):
So um get desperate, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:24):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
You know, you know, a lot oftimes it's about diffusing the
situation, right?
De-escalation is is key.
Um, and so I think for brokersespecially, I think that we have
we have a responsibility to tryto help the carriers.
And I think unfortunately, a lotof the relationships out there
(11:45):
between brokers and carriers isis pretty sour.
Um, and I think that there's,you know, there's responsibility
on both sides of that thatrelationship.
And so obviously uh my folks andmyself, we want to control what
we can control, which is ourbehavior and the way that we
communicate.
And uh, and so you know, when Isee folks say, oh, this
carrier's not communicating, youknow, and I go, well, hey, let's
(12:08):
put ourselves in that driver'sposition, right?
In this particular case, it'sit's a single owner operator.
He just spent$4,500 trying tofix this truck and it didn't
work.
You know, what do you think hisheadspace is like right now?
Right?
This is his business, this islivelihood.
This is how he's gonna feed hisfamily and put a roof over their
heads, and it's going sidewaysin a big way right now.
(12:29):
And he didn't necessarily doanything wrong, it's just luck
of the draw, right?
So reaching out that way, thecarrier immediately started
communicating again.
So, hey, how can we help?
You know, how can we help thesituation?
What can we do for you?
Uh, you know, we're all in thistogether.
So those can be some big keythings, as opposed to, you know,
coming at him with guns blazingand saying, Well, you're out of
(12:49):
line, and you know, everythingelse, it's like the guy's
already having a bad day, let'snot make it worse.
And then sure enough, you know,we got the communication going
and we're able to kind of workthrough that.
So that's a big key.
SPEAKER_01 (13:00):
That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
Great job.
Congratulations.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
Speaking, yeah, thank you.
In speaking to um, you know, theI mean, as much as I would love
to say it's all us, some of itis luck, but the again going
back to that what we control,right?
Is is avoiding freight theft,avoiding fraud.
SPEAKER_01 (13:21):
Um what's the two main SOPs that you go to?
Like uh that you know, I knowyou want to share your secrets,
but um what can you share?
SPEAKER_00 (13:31):
Nothing that nothing that we have is is a real big
secret when it comes to fraudavoidance, right?
So um the big keys are makingsure we use the tools that are
out there.
Um, so the big ones I would sayis utilizing um so you know a
fraud prevention softwaresystem.
There are several out there thatare pretty robust.
Um, you know, highway's a bigone, uh, carrier 411 is another.
(13:55):
Obviously, trucker tools has alot of different tools out there
for brokers and for carriers.
You know, I mean it's a two-waystreet too, right?
It's not like when people hearabout freight theft, they think
like somebody takes a trailerfull of stuff and you know, runs
it to some dark warehousesomewhere.
You know, you even see likefarmers insurance commercials
and things like that.
(14:15):
But what happens more often thannot, the fraud that we see um
has nothing to do with stealingphysical items.
It's about stealing identity ofboth carriers and brokerages,
right?
So we have um things in place aswell where uh software programs
that just constantly look outthere and say, hey, is our MC
being used um, you know,somewhere by somebody else, by a
(14:39):
by a bad actor?
Or are the carriers that we'reworking with um have it maybe
somebody has stolen their MC orDOT number and is representing
that they're that person.
So as we start to line thingsup, all of a sudden we're paying
the wrong, we're paying thewrong party.
Um so there's software programsto help us with that.
(14:59):
And then from when we get intothe physical verification side
of that, right?
So when we line up a new carrierthat we haven't worked with in
the past, maybe on a new lane orit's a new commodity type or a
new mode of transportation, youknow, hey, we normally run vans
over this lane and now we needflatbeds, right?
Uh, maybe the customer's productthat they need to move has
changed or the unload haschanged.
Uh, so when we're sourcing thosenew partners, um, there's
(15:22):
several different pieces.
One is we're doing VINverification on any new setup.
So if we set up a new carrierand they're gonna pick something
up, we actually get an image oftheir uh vehicle identification
plate on that tractor.
Um, and then it's geolocated aswell.
So we can tell that they are whothey say they are, they're where
they say they are, and that thetractor they're using is the
(15:45):
tractor that they say they'reusing that is then registered
under their COI that they'resending us uh for their
insurance.
So it's that's a prettyfoolproof way to make sure who
you're talking to is really whoyou're talking to.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Um so when when is when is there a point that you
realize, hey, this is goingwell, I guess the most sensitive
area when you do that umtransaction that you can tell
this might go bad, where is themost sensitive area that we can
probably strengthen in this asan industry?
SPEAKER_00 (16:12):
Yeah, so initially, obviously during setup, right?
When we're when we're firststarting the relationship
between uh the brokerage and thecarrier is making sure, you
know, if there are things thatfeel off, they probably are,
right?
And so then asking morequestions.
We don't want to just, you know,86 that relationship
immediately.
But when you hear something,you're like, well, wait a
(16:34):
minute, that doesn't really makea whole lot of sense.
Um start digging, right?
Start asking more questions,start making sure that
everything is on the up and up.
And and that responsibility umthat brokerages have, it also
protects the carriers that theywork with or that they could
potentially work with, right?
Because if a carrier has theiridentification stolen, and now
(16:57):
we're allowing that bad actor toto you know take money out of
the industry, it's it's hurtingthat carrier's reputation as
well.
So it's on us to make sure thatwe do everything um to help
protect everybody.
Um, so that's a big piece.
SPEAKER_01 (17:12):
Okay.
I like it.
I mean, that's it affects a lotof people.
I mean, you think about theaftermath and who pays, who
suffers.
Uh, when a load is stolen orfreight fraud happens, uh, who
takes who's taking the biggesthit?
What do you what would you say?
SPEAKER_00 (17:25):
So it's, you know, it can depend on the situation,
right?
So we have seen situations ofnot a load being stolen, but
where identity identities can bestolen.
Um, you know, where we've had topay carriers um because somebody
will line up a load, you know,like a double brokering type
type of a situation, right?
(17:47):
Where uh a bad actor, abrokerage is has somebody else's
MC that they're using, they'rerepresenting themselves as um a
carrier when they're not acarrier, and then they double
broker that load to an actualcarrier who's taking that load
somewhere.
And of course, the red flagsthat we would see on that are
like if somebody when things aretoo good to be true, they
(18:08):
probably are, is a greatindicator of that.
So just to kind of map that out,right?
Bad actor represents themselvesas a carrier with a stolen MC.
So they take, they take a, youknow, we we say, oh, hey, here's
a load for you guys to carry forus.
They obviously don't actuallyphysically go pick up that load.
They then turn around and call alegitimate carrier and say, Hey,
(18:29):
I need you to pick this load upgoing from Dallas to, you know,
whatever, going from Dallas toKansas City.
And so that carrier, thinking,oh, okay, I'm working with this
legitimate broke, thislegitimate brokerage.
Now there's two differentidentities being stolen.
They go pick up that load, theyrun it to Kansas City, they drop
it off, right?
That bad actor says, Okay,sounds great.
(18:50):
We'll get you paid shortly.
They invoice my company,representing themselves as a
carrier.
We pay them, they never pay thecarrier who actually moved the
freight, right?
So then eventually the carriergoes, Well, hey, all of a sudden
nobody's communicating with us.
And we're saying, Hey, where'sthe pod?
And we can't get a hold ofanybody, right?
(19:12):
And so you end up in this, thisor they or they pres, you know,
they submit a a false, afalsified or a forged POD.
And now you've got we're notgonna be uh getting paid by our
uh by our customer, but yet westill need to pay that carrier,
right?
So it ends up being a situationwhere everybody loses except for
(19:33):
obviously the bad actor inbetween.
So the big keys for us are thenreporting that.
What we end up finding out is inresearching those those VIN
numbers, um, is making sure thatyou know once a VIN number's
been stolen, it doesn't takevery long for everybody to
figure that out, hopefully,especially if everybody's doing
their due diligence.
(19:54):
So it it can limit the damage.
Um, we've also had um bad actorsrepresent themselves as
customers, where they're saying,hey, we're the shipper, come
pick up at our location at X, Y,and Z.
Um, and we had one, I want tosay back in 20, late 2017, early
(20:16):
2018, when we were first gettingstarted out, we had a customer.
Turned out that the actualcustomer had no idea.
They thought that they wereworking with somebody else.
That that place ended up beinginvestigated by the FBI.
I know that for a fact becausethey've called us asking
questions.
But uh uh essentially afraudulent organization.
Represented themselves as ashipper.
(20:39):
The actual shipper had no ideathat this was happening.
They thought they were justworking with a legitimate
brokerage.
And so same thing, right?
Is that we we were runningloads, paying carriers.
And after a little bit, we'relike, well, wait a minute, how
come this customer's not payingtheir invoices?
Well, then obviously diggingdeeper, we found out, oh, the
the person that the the entitythat we've been interacting with
(21:02):
isn't actually the shipper.
They're this shadow organizationthat represented themselves as
the shipper when really it'ssomebody else.
So it's uh it's amazing howcreative some of these criminals
can be.
Uh, and you know, and they builda lot of uh they build a lot of
uh ways to shadow that or waysto to misrepresent themselves.
SPEAKER_01 (21:27):
So that's sad for the industry.
What do you think this isheaded?
How does someone stay alive in atough market like this?
What do you think?
Uh what's your predictions, Iguess, as to how it may get
better or what people can do?
SPEAKER_00 (21:37):
Yeah.
So I think the biggest thing isbuilding great relationships
with with organizations, right?
So the less I have to go andwork with a carrier that I've
never heard of before, the lessthat a carrier has to go and
work with a brokerage thatthey've never heard of before,
um, or don't have a pre-existingrelationship, right?
The the less often that happens,the better off you're gonna be,
(21:57):
as a general rule, right?
Um when it comes to especiallythe fraudulent activity.
Uh, and then just making surethat, you know, we we always
trust but verify, right?
Um so even if I'm working with acarrier that I've worked with
for a long time, or if I'mworking with a customer that
I've worked with for a longtime, continue to look at, hey,
what what are their creditratings looking like?
(22:19):
You know, are they starting toget into a situation where
they'd be tempted to to do somethings that aren't on the up and
up um to keep things afloat?
I mean I think a lot of thepressures that we see in a in a
market like it's been for thelast three and a half years is
that when things when thing whenit's easy to make money in a
(22:39):
great market, people are lesstempted to do fraudulent things,
you know, because they can justgo make money on the up and up.
Um, I think the harder themarket gets and the longer it
goes, the more tempted peopleare to try to do some things to
uh to circumvent the process.
SPEAKER_01 (22:55):
So it's uh I kind of think about it on a on a I guess
more personal level.
I know when the economy is doingwell, uh you don't see so many
people doing weird things liketowing their cars with with a uh
with a rope.
SPEAKER_00 (23:11):
Yep, you're right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:13):
Yeah, they get desperate and they start doing
all kinds of clever things thatget the job done.
And uh you're like, man, that'snot safe.
SPEAKER_00 (23:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and as far as you know, Imean, every time a bad actor
creates a way to to to commit acrime, the industry in you know
self-preservation mode says,Hey, we gotta find a way to keep
this from happening.
So we do that, and everybody,you know, everybody gets on
(23:40):
board with that.
And then, you know, anothermonth, two, three later, oh, now
every every criminal out therehas come up with a new way to
circumvent that process, right?
So every time that happens, it'salways this this pendulum swing,
right?
And that's been going on sinceprivateers, you know, like think
about shipping across theAtlantic Ocean from Europe to
the New World.
(24:01):
That's what it was going onthen.
So they found, you know, we'vebeen finding ways to solve those
problems since what, the 1600s,1500s?
SPEAKER_01 (24:08):
So I think too, sharing the stories um of what
people may try to do so thatpeople can be more aware as to
some of the tricks that aregoing on out there.
So, like you sharing your story,uh letting people know that
they're not alone, um, I thinkit's gonna be huge.
I think um long interviews, uh,podcasts and things like that
have helped so many people.
(24:30):
So, no, you're you're definitelyum a soldier out there for a
force for good in the truckingindustry.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:37):
Well, I think you make a great point there, right?
Is that if you know, if folks,especially folks are starting
out, is that such a great point?
Is that making sure you build anetwork of people that you know
that you can ask questions.
Hey, have you ever seen this?
What are some things that havehappened?
Paying attention to podcasts,paying attention to news
articles, right?
It's one of those things that wefeel like, oh, I'm kind of
wasting my time by researchingall this stuff, and you're
(24:59):
really not, because you're justbuilding your experience, you're
building your knowledge based onthings that other people have
had to go through, right?
Kind of like when we're teachingour kids, it's like I don't want
my kids to make the samemistakes I made throughout life.
I want them to learn from mymistakes.
It's the same thing in business,right?
We want we'll be able to helpeach other out.
Uh, you know, everybody helpingeverybody is only gonna make the
whole industry better off.
(25:19):
So yeah, uh, nothing wrong withthat.
SPEAKER_01 (25:21):
You know, the criminals are talking amongst
each other, they're telling eachother what they're doing, you
know, hey, try this, do that.
So, you know, the good guys, wegotta we gotta stick together
too, you know.
We gotta help you.
100%.
100%.
So what advice do you have forpeople that are considering
being in a vocal brokeringbusiness or just helping out and
say, you know, I'm young, I wantto try this, um, want to get
(25:42):
into an industry that I'm notsure of.
If someone's thinking aboutbecoming a freight broker today,
what would you tell them or whatwould you need them to know?
SPEAKER_00 (25:49):
So I have uh three young sons, right?
Uh 21 through 16.
And if they were to walk up tome tomorrow and say, hey, you
know what?
I want to do what you do, I wantto run a brokerage, or I want to
own a brokerage, or I want tostart a brokerage, the first
thing I would say is learn theindustry, right?
Either go work at a brokerage orgo work for a carrier or go
drive truck, right?
(26:10):
I mean, you want to learn it.
Doesn't I get a lot of folksthat do ask that, right?
And the biggest thing that I sayto folks all the time is you
need to know it before you canwork in it.
It'd be like it'd be like ifsomebody had never cooked a meal
in their life and they want togo open a restaurant, right?
You need to know it.
SPEAKER_01 (26:28):
I like that.
I like those common sense ones.
SPEAKER_00 (26:31):
And I think I think a lot of folks think, oh, I'm
gonna go, you know, I got abuddy that works for brokerage
and they make tons of money andit's like, well, you know, I'm
25 years in almost.
What is it?
It's 2020, uh 19, 20 years in,20 years of practice, right?
20 years of experiences, it's 20years of of relationship
building and and askingquestions.
(26:51):
So it might look like a piece ofcake when you're looking at
somebody who's practiced for 20years.
It's the same thing if I'mtalking to a driver and you know
they back a 53-foot trailer intoa dock between two other
trailers like it's nothing,right?
I might look at that and belike, oh, well, this should be a
piece of cake.
Well, I'll probably rip allthree of those trailers apart if
(27:11):
I don't have the experience,right?
SPEAKER_01 (27:14):
16 pull-ups.
SPEAKER_00 (27:15):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, we've all seen it, right?
Yeah.
When when the guy that's brandnew is like on his 40th attempt
to bump the dock, and you'relike, all right, we're all
running out of time here.
So I think that's the biggestthing is that as just to be
patient and start start on stepone, don't try to start on step
20.
(27:36):
Um, I think the barriers toentry for becoming a brokerage
are very low.
But the barriers to entry tobecoming a sex, a successful
broker are that experiencepiece.
And I think people are like, oh,well, I can just go get my MC
and file for my bond and grabsome insurance and I'm good to
go.
I can just start right away.
(27:57):
But I'm not saying that hasnever worked.
I'm just saying that that's whenwe start talking about you get
yourself in some really stickysituations because now you don't
have the experience to recognizethose fraud red flags, right?
And you don't have the networkto reach out to people and say,
hey, who do I talk to?
I've got a legal situation here.
And it's putting you at risk,it's putting anybody that work,
(28:17):
you know, your carriers thatyou're working with at risk,
putting your customers at risk,of course.
So I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01 (28:23):
How bad can it get for your livelihood?
Um, let's say you do have abroker and you got your own
insurance bond and things likethat.
Can someone lose their home?
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
They can lose their home.
Especially, you know, I mean,you think about it.
If you're starting out as abrokerage, you're probably
starting as an LLC.
You are personally liable.
They can go after your personalassets because that's what
you're gonna have to use to backup for cash flow purposes and
things like that.
So yeah, you could lose yourhome.
You could, I mean, it's food offthe table.
And not only that, when you'retalking about fraud prevention,
if you don't take the propersteps when the red flags come,
(28:55):
you could be culpable on acriminal level, right?
So just just not knowing isn'tan excuse.
And the legal system isn't gonnasee us as an excuse either,
right?
Because I mean you think aboutlittle, and it's not just fraud,
right?
Like, so if if I have a carrierthat's running late, they have a
breakdown and they're runninglate, and I as a broker start
(29:17):
calling that driver and I say,Boy, you better make up that
time.
My customer needs that freightright now.
What am I doing?
I'm I'm putting that person'ssafety.
It's not his fault that the Imean, trucks break down.
Yeah, welcome to trucking,right?
You get brokers that'll do that,they'll start pressuring a
driver to violate hours ofservice rules.
Next thing you know, that guy'sin a wreck, he's hurting
(29:37):
somebody, he's hurting himself,he's putting property and lives
in danger.
That's a criminal issue, youknow.
So it's not, you know, somebodywho's never worked in the
industry walks in and says, Oh,I'm gonna be a broker, it's a
piece of cake.
And they don't know that it'sillegal for a broker to pressure
a driver that way.
It's not just to your home,you're risking, you're risking,
(29:58):
you might be might be in roughshape.
So that would be myrecommendation to anybody
starting out is hey, get to knowthe industry for go work at a
brokerage first, or go work at ago work for a carrier, or go
work with a carrier, work in theindustry, work at a shipper, get
to know all sides.
I'm not saying you gotta go doit for 20 years, but you're you
(30:18):
need to have that background inorder to be successful and to
keep everybody safe, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (30:23):
Um, so sometimes people just need to believe in
themselves.
I know it may sound a littlenaive, but um you know, just uh
encouraging them to do the jobright um goes a long way.
I know as a truck driver myself,uh you can really hammer
somebody.
I've seen it happen, I've seenpeople do it, but that that
stuff is short-lived.
(30:44):
Um, I'm glad you mentioned that.
Um, you know, that relationshipthat the broker has with the the
truck driver, and you you hearabout these incidents going
online where people get hurt.
I'm not getting bad, you know,bashing the broker, but you
don't know why that person hasthat pressure on them.
Why why would they why wouldthey be doing that?
(31:05):
Um you know, uh texting anddriving and possibly even using
substance to keep going.
You know, I I can stay awake ifI do this.
Yeah, so great point.
I like that.
You know, that's one that wethink about the freight
brokering and you touching onthat.
There's another side that'sactually more um the one that's
(31:27):
been around the longest is therelationship with the the truck
driver and the broker.
You gotta have a healthy one.
SPEAKER_00 (31:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
We're all in together.
I last time I checked, we don'town a single truck.
So tough for me to move mycustomers' materials across the
country without without greatdrivers, without you know,
great, great uh partnerships.
SPEAKER_01 (31:47):
How big are you guys?
How many brokers are uhspecialists?
SPEAKER_00 (31:50):
Are you so my team, yep.
So my team is just over 15.
So we don't have a huge, youknow, we're not TQL or some of
these bigger, bigger outfits,but uh we got about 15, 16
folks, I think, right now.
Um and uh, you know, we run um,you know, we run in the hundreds
of loads a week um across thecountry.
So we have some key markets thatwe work in.
(32:12):
We do a lot of open deck stuff.
We do a lot of work in the uhkind of industrial and
construction sector.
Um, a lot of specialized things.
We, you know, a lot of what wedo is more project management
than it is just pickingsomething up and dropping it
off, right?
So we go all the way back toscheduling of materials that are
coming out of manufacturingplants and then coordinating,
hey, how are those going to gointo where they're being
(32:32):
installed?
Uh and working with, you know,the the customers' project
managers just to time, you know,get that timing figured out.
So it can get pretty involved.
Um, and again, it just goes backto asking questions and learning
and you know, like like yourpodcast, you know, you talk
about well, what's what'ssomething somebody can do to
become a broker?
Well, there's a lot, you know,we live in the uh the day and
(32:54):
age of YouTube and podcasts andeverything else.
There's a lot of information forpeople for free.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:01):
So, you know, it's not like back in the day where
you had to go sign up for truckdriving school and and and learn
it from step one, right?
Now you can you can learn fromother folks' uh input.
There's a lot of informationbeing put out there all the
time.
SPEAKER_01 (33:14):
Just um another side piece uh for someone who's
getting started, they look atthese load boards and they say,
all right, I can afford that permonth and all the work is right
there, um, versus going out andestablishing those networks and
those relationships by gettingcontracts.
Um, you know, those I thinkthere's two different ways, or
maybe even a third that I don'tknow about.
But uh, what would you say as tousing the spot board or the load
(33:38):
boards?
I'm not saying I think a lot ofthem are great.
Um, but should you start in thatarea or would you prefer to do a
contract, start one, startsmall, and grow that way?
SPEAKER_00 (33:49):
So if I'm a broker, you know, I typically use the
load boards for, you know,because like we'll, you know,
you see a lot of things aboutlike load lists as well, right?
Um, I don't know that I've everbooked a load with a customer
from a load board, um, butthat's where we get a lot of our
initial carrier relationships istalking with folks like that.
(34:09):
Hosting a load up and and tryingto cover it that way can be
really risky, right?
So we try to talk to carriersdirectly.
Sometimes we'll get you knowcontact information, obviously,
by looking at load boards andthings like that.
But you just have to be reallycautious, right?
The the easier the easier it isfrom a it's it's a tricky way to
(34:33):
say it, right?
Like sometimes if something'sfeels like it's a really easy
way to do something, it's aproject.
Probably somebody that's yeah,there's probably somebody that's
like, oh, somebody who wants todo things the easy way is gonna
be easier to take advantage of,too.
SPEAKER_01 (34:46):
So that sounds like something you would tell your
kids.
SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
Exactly.
You take the easy way out,you're gonna pay eventually.
Yeah, you're gonna payeventually, and sometimes that
ends up being worse the longrun.
(35:19):
So yeah, I mean we utilize yeah,we utilize lowerboards every
day, but we use them for youknow more informational purposes
than anything else, I think isthe key.
Um, and and then you know,creating those initial steps to
a relationship for sure.
Um, but yeah, we need to uh justgotta stay vigilant, man.
Gotta stay vigilant.
As soon as we're asleep at thewheel, that's when things get
(35:40):
crazy.
SPEAKER_01 (35:41):
So look moving forward, uh, just uh looking at
the industry.
What do you think AI or uh thetechnology piece is going to
help help out with brokerage oruh maybe even take something
away?
SPEAKER_00 (35:55):
Well, so it's again, it's both sides of that coin,
right?
Is that we're utilizing AI, um,even within my organization to,
you know, expedite processing ofinformation and data, right?
Um, you know, using AI agents totake data that we need to come,
you know, come in on one sideand come out the other.
Rather than having a human beingdoing that, you can train an AI
(36:17):
program to uh to handle a lot ofthat workload, speeds it up,
makes it more efficient.
Now that person has more time todo other things like vetting out
carriers or or you knowsearching for solutions that
were maybe more on the creativeside.
Um, you know, where they canthat human element is still a
very big piece.
Um, I know there's a lot offolks out there that think, oh
yeah, you know, they're takingover the world and they're gonna
(36:39):
put everybody on a job.
I think we're I'm a little, Imean, maybe it's because I'm an
old man, but I think we're alittle ways off from that yet.
Uh, you know, when I ask Siri todo something for me, half the
time she gets it wrong.
So I think we gotta wait beforewe gotta worry too much.
But it's definitely a tool to beutilized in that same breath.
Fredulent actors are also usingAI to find ways to create false
(37:05):
information, to createopportunities for them to uh to
get things that they don'tdeserve.
So it's a two-sided coin, right?
Like we can use AI to solveproblems, but there are folks
that are gonna use AI for fornefarious purposes as well.
SPEAKER_01 (37:21):
So yeah, it's almost like uh the technology is
helping uh people do it the easyway, which could be uh to the
detriment of the quality that weneed.
Um but again, I love technology,I think it's great, I think it's
a great tool.
I use it here on the show aswell.
So um we just gotta sticktogether, like you said, keep
those networks, don't isolateyourself.
(37:43):
Um, some of those great thingsthat they told us to do in 2020,
uh is try to get out of there.
But uh yeah, don't be just byyourself a lone wolf.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (37:54):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (37:55):
All right.
Well, final thoughts, anytakeaways?
What's one of the biggest thingsthat shippers you want them to
understand about brokers?
Maybe there's something that uhsome misconceptions out there.
Maybe we can help some of thatmyth busters break those, break
people free from them.
SPEAKER_00 (38:10):
I think it's, you know, for shippers, it's the
same thing when you're lookingat working with brokerages.
Is I think a lot of focus in theindustry when it comes to fraud
and all that stuff, it's justkind of not to be the dead
horse, but it goes back to thoserelationships, right?
It's is that it's funny, likemost of my selling to new
prospects or to newrelationships or even to
existing customers that we havewhen we're adding new locations
(38:32):
across the country is wephysically go and meet with
them.
And and I'm always amazed at howsurprised uh folks in a shipping
office are to see a broker,right?
Carriers obviously have beendoing that for decades, but I
think building realrelationships with people that
you can actually talk with andshare ideas.
Um, if I was a shipping manager,I would want that connection.
(38:55):
I would want it with mycarriers, I would want it with
the brokerages that I use.
And uh, you know, it's funnybecause I think brokers complain
a lot about how hard it can beto build those relationships
with a shipper.
But I personally see it as anadvantage because if we can
build a real relationship, offerreal value, right?
It's just not not just a priceplay.
(39:16):
Um, everybody kind of benefitsfrom that, right?
There's always gonna be somebodyout there who can give you a
better deal, you know, fivebucks cheaper.
But is it is it really gonna begiving you a better opportunity
to improve your supply chain?
Um now it's gotta be marketcompetitive as well, right?
It doesn't mean that you canjust, you know, I don't drive a
Porsche, right?
(39:38):
Um, I need to be able to getfrom point A to point B, and I
don't want something that'sgonna break down, but I also
don't need it to be a luxuryitem either, right?
So you gotta find that balance.
So as a shipper, I think thebiggest thing is just just the
same brokers and and carriersneed great relationships.
And shippers, when they'relooking for brokerages, they
need to find somebody that thatis willing to do the do the hard
(39:59):
work, which is build therelationship first, find ways to
add value, right?
If I'm onboarding a brokeragejust to save a couple extra
bucks, I'm probably just makingit worse for the folks that I
already have relationships with,as well as that new guy.
It's not gonna last very longbecause eventually the truck
driver's gonna go, look, I can'ttake these loads.
I have to be able to pay forfuel, I have to pay for
(40:21):
insurance, I have to be able topay for the upkeep of my truck.
I gotta feed my family and put aroof over their heads as well.
So it's got to be realistic foreverybody involved.
So, you know, you mentionedduring COVID, and we all saw at
the beginning of that whererates were falling through the
floor before the big wavestarted, right?
And we were, I had guys on myteam that I was like, call that
(40:41):
carrier back, you're paying themmore than that.
You're not getting they'd belike, Oh, I just booked a load
for 80 cents a mile.
I'm like, you can't fuel a truckfor 80 cents a mile.
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (40:50):
Call them back because we don't own any trucks.
If all these carriers go out ofbusiness that are partners of
ours in this relationship.
Not gonna be able to moveanything.
We need them.
It's gotta be sustainable,right?
So just you know, gotta keepthose things in mind.
So, yeah, same thing for theshippers, right?
Is if we get a great price, butwe drive all of our partners out
(41:11):
of business in the process, it'snot gonna last very long.
SPEAKER_01 (41:15):
Yeah, I like that you're protecting you're
protecting the industry insteadof degrading it.
I mean, that's huge, man.
Um, big ups to you for doingthat, and to uh pass that along
to to someone that's not asexperienced as yourself.
Like, uh, what's one lesson youwould pass on to your younger
self?
Uh, if you could, you know, seeyourself, you say, Man, that
that individual, I could seewhere they headed.
(41:38):
It's just like me.
What would you say?
SPEAKER_00 (41:41):
Uh be patient and treat everybody the way you want
to be treated.
So we we work in a stressfulbusiness.
It's freight never sleeps.
It is 247, 365.
And I think just being patientwith folks, you know, I think I
was a bit of a hothead, youknow, growing up in uh on the
dock overnights, you know,working working freight in the
(42:03):
middle of the night on 20 belowdays, and tensions can run
higher, tempers can flare.
And I think growing up in thatside of the business, um, I
developed some bad habits.
And as I've gotten older,realized, hey, you know, I
wouldn't like it if somebodytalked to me this way in a
stressful situation.
Um, I need to change mybehavior.
So that's probably the biggestadjustment I've made over the
(42:24):
last five plus years is learningto, like I said in the
beginning, right?
Learning to de-escalate um sothat we can, you know, we can
get get the key uh communicationin place and make sure everybody
knows, hey, we're all on thesame team here.
Trying to learn stuff from it'snot that complicated, right?
I mean, it's point A to point Bas safely and quickly as
possible.
Um, we're all on the same teamat the end of the day, I think,
(42:47):
and that's that's a big key.
SPEAKER_01 (42:49):
So well, Jason, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you comingon.
Uh, being so open about thisside of the industry, freight
fraud and cargo theft aren'ttalked about enough.
I think uh the conversation likethis we need to keep having with
individuals like yourself toprotect ourselves and the
industry so that we continue tomake better decisions.
So uh to everyone out therelistening, if you're in the
freight industry and you'rethinking about getting into it
(43:11):
or just making a change or oreven just doing what you're
doing to do it better, uh, totake it more seriously.
Um, keep asking questions, stayalert, and don't assume that
everyone's playing fair.
So uh if this episode's helpedyou, um please sure to
subscribe, uh leave a review,and share it to someone else
that needs to hear it.
So thank you so much for comingon the show, Jason.
SPEAKER_00 (43:33):
Um what's the best way for people to reach out uh
to maybe talk to you or my uh mycompany is 10 Logistics for
based out of Minneapolis,Minnesota.
Um, really appreciate thisopportunity.
Anytime we have a chance toconnect with other folks in the
industry is is always a goodthing.
So a lot of stuff out there thatneeds to be moved.
So I'm not much of aprotectionist when it comes to
(43:54):
information.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um best way to reach us, uh ourour general email inbox is ship
it at tenlogistics.com.
So that's uh ship it uh at10logistics.com.
General office number is 612845.
Oh wait a minute, what is it?
612 902 8620.
(44:16):
So those are the two best waysto reach us.
Um and uh we're always there 247365.
Freight never sleeps, my friend.
SPEAKER_01 (44:26):
All right, until next time.
What's going on, everyone?
Welcome back to That'sDelivered.
I'm your host, Truck and Ray.
We have another episode here foryou today.
We're going to talk about realfreight, real experiences from
people actually living thisindustry.
Today I've got Jason Mishikawith me, the freight broker
based in Minnesota who's dealtfirsthand with freight fraud,
cargo theft, and the challengesof trying to build something
(00:33):
legit in the market.
It isn't always fair.
We're going to talk about whathe's seen, what he's learned,
uh, maybe even the hard way.
And what people need tounderstand if they're thinking
about getting into the freightbrokering business, Jason, thank
you so much for coming on theshow.
Really appreciate you.
Uh, let's start from thebeginning.
(00:53):
How are you doing today, Jason?
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
Good, good.
Thanks for having me on.
Uh, yeah, I'm looking forward toit.
And uh I'll tell you what,you're hitting on some key
topics, ironically enough, overthe last uh four days, been
dealing with a situationdirectly related to what you're
talking about.
So we actually just got it allsorted out.
So it's uh, you know, anytime westart getting into freight
(01:15):
fraud, double brokering,obviously theft of loads, um
alarm bells kind of go offeverywhere.
So we uh we have you know somepretty specific processes that
we follow and folks that wereach out to to make sure we're
covering all our bases on thatkind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Yeah, man, that's that's crazy.
It's almost gonna be a dailything because of how much people
are getting involved andthinking that, hey, this is the
way to go and that I can juststeal this freight and nobody
cares except for the ones thatare affected.
Um, and nothing will happen tome.
That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's become pretty rampant.
So what would you like me tostart with first?
You want to talk a little bitabout uh kind of how I got into
this business or do you want totalk about specifics?
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So what's your background?
SPEAKER_00 (02:00):
Yeah, so I actually worked in the LTL industry for
years and years, um, starting in2000, let's see, 2004.
Yeah, 2004 started out at uhyellow, which became part of YRC
Freight or YRT Worldwide.
Um worked in operations therefor 10 or 11 years.
(02:22):
And uh I just got a message froma hockey coach saying, I got
time to talk now.
I'm like, you're out of luck,pal.
Um so uh worked there inoperations for about uh 11
years, then moved over to thesales side, uh customer side,
and then worked with uh customerservice as well as sales uh with
YRC for an additional, I want tosay four years, something like
(02:47):
that.
So um, let's see, until 2017.
So yeah, no, probably aboutthree years on that side.
So anyway, um ended up runninginto uh my current company
during that time.
Um my parent company, SteinIndustries, was doing projects
and they were running projectsand things like that with YRC.
(03:07):
So they were a customer of mine.
And uh as I got to know theirlogistics folks better, um, you
know, they they eventually endedup offering me position as we
started to build out uh 10logistics.
So uh one thing led to another,and here I am now.
So our company essentially thebest way to describe it is was
(03:28):
the logistics department of oursister companies.
And uh uh quite a while back,somebody along the way said,
Hey, you know what?
Let's uh let's start doing thisfor for you know other other
folks outside of our four walls.
So they got it all set up, anduh, and I've been there since uh
since 2017.
And it's been a great run, greatcompany to work with.
(03:48):
Uh the folks that we work withwith our parent organization are
fantastic, and uh it's been alot of fun, kind of like
building a startup within a110-year-old parent company.
So uh kind of the best of bothworlds, so to speak.
So it's been a it's been a coolride, but kind of related to
what you were talking about atthe intro.
Um, obviously, as we have uhbuilt out our company and made
(04:11):
sure that we have protections inplace and vetting processes in
place, and just you know,obviously protecting ourselves
and our customers, um, as wellas the other carriers that we
work with from this type ofactivity is a huge part of the
industry and seems to becomemore so every day, uh for sure.
So yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
So on the lines of guidance, uh, who's helped you
um along the way or did you kindof figure out on your own?
SPEAKER_00 (04:39):
So on the brokerage side, you know, obviously a lot
of folks, you know, kind of likeyou and I met, right?
So um, you know, our we we metthrough a mutual friend in the
industry.
Um, and I actually have a lot offolks that I connect with that
way, right?
Whether they were custom currentor former customers, uh, current
or former employees.
(04:59):
Um, so for instance, we've haduh three different company
presidents over the last eightyears um in different, you know,
differing uh situations.
And I talk to those guys almoston a weekly basis.
I mean, there's a lot ofcollaboration that goes on, even
though they're no longer withour organization.
You know, we talk about industrytrends, we talk about how are we
making sure we're protectingourselves from risk.
(05:21):
Um, and then, you know,obviously doing research with uh
with places like TIA, with uhfreight waves, a lot of great
information out there on aregular basis, uh, transport
topics, that stuff all the time,right?
So we're always looking to uh tosharpen the sharpen the sword
and make sure that we're uh thatwe're being vigilant about um
(05:42):
just staying current.
And that's a huge key, right?
Is can't always wait forinformation to come to you.
You got to seek it out.
So uh as of for most of thefolks in your in your audience
are uh listening to this for areason, right?
SPEAKER_01 (05:55):
That's right.
So what's uh what's a day looklike?
Uh, you know, for you, a typicalday.
Uh walk us through that for us.
SPEAKER_00 (06:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
So in my current role, so I'mthe director of sales for our
organization.
Um, so most of my time is spentinteracting with customers,
whether they be prospectivecustomers or customers we
currently work with, making suretheir needs are being met,
seeing if there are uh newopportunities for us to
strengthen those relationships,build those out even further.
Um, and then, you know,obviously looking for new
(06:25):
business on a regular basis.
I uh my role is a little bitfluid in that I end up uh
interacting with our operationspretty significantly as well,
obviously being there the wholetime and knowing everybody.
Um, so it can depend on the day,right?
Some days I'm I'm wearing anoperations hat more so, and
other days I'm wearing the uhthe sales hat.
(06:45):
So it just depends on what we'redealing with uh on a day-to-day,
week-to-week basis, and whatwe've got scheduled out.
So um, you know, kind of what Iwas alluding to earlier, we had
a uh we actually had a breakdownum last week.
Uh unfortunately, the tractorthat our carrier um is utilizing
had a pretty major uh mechanicalmalfunction, put him out of
(07:08):
service.
He was luckily lucky enough tobe able to limp it to uh to a
truck stop, you know, like apilot.
And uh so we had to get awrecker in, cage the brakes a
little way from the track thetrailer.
At a certain point, we had somealarm bells going off because
the carrier stoppedcommunicating with us, and
that's really where we startraising some flags, right?
(07:29):
Like, so that's you know, inspeaking about like freight
fraud as an example.
So my team brought that to myattention right away.
Obviously, I'm the one thatinteracts the most with with the
customer.
And uh, so I was communicatingwith the customer communicating
with the customer as well asthen my team and I were
communicating with the with thecarrier as much as we could get
them to respond.
Um, but that's where you know westart elevating the level of
(07:54):
concern, right?
Is when we stop gettingcommunication.
Um so on a day like that,obviously most of my attention
shifts from where normally Imight be, you know, calling
possible customers or talking toexisting customers on the phone
or setting up meetings and andthose kind of things.
We're doing stuff like thiseven.
Um, my attention thenimmediately shifts away because
(08:17):
timing is is of the essence,right?
Um, so that's an example wherethat's a little bit of an
out-of-the-ordinary day.
Um, we've been very lucky to uhto avoid the the theft of any
loads.
Um we have we've been close.
And I mean, uh, you know,anybody who's been in this
(08:37):
industry as long as as even wehave, with you know, our short
(09:04):
tenure of eight years, uh theamount of volume that we move,
um, that's always a possibility.
So um really it's just a matterof making sure SLPs are in place
and then following those to theletter.
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
So it's so it's possible, especially in this day
and time.
Happens all the time.
I mean, that to have to be atzero, have zero theft, it's
possible.
SPEAKER_00 (09:27):
Yeah, again, I'm gonna I gotta bunk the s I just
keep knocking on one at yeah, sowow, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
That's great.
SPEAKER_00 (09:36):
Yeah, it's the same thing like when we talk about
damage claims and and you knowany kind of OSD type of
situation, right?
Which which freight theft,unfortunately, is part of that
world, is I always kind of, youknow, when I'm talking to
customers as an example andsaying, look, you know, for me
to if somebody walks in andsays, hey, we're never gonna
have a damage claim, unlessyou're shipping steel ingots in
(09:58):
a box, like even that, I mean,it's you move stuff around your
living room long enough, you'regonna ding a wall, you're gonna,
you know, break a leg off achair or something.
What something is going tohappen when you move things the
way that we all do, right?
Point A to point B as quicklyand safely as possible.
Um, but it would be naive tothink that nothing's ever gonna
go sideways.
So it's a matter of saying,okay.
(10:19):
Just don't move anything.
Yeah, yeah, right.
If everything, if everything wasjust manufactured right where,
you know, right where it neededto be, that'd be that'd be
great.
But then uh people like me andpeople like you'd probably be
out of a job.
So but uh yeah, so it's it's amatter of looking and saying,
you know, what what do we dowhen we see warning signs for
(10:40):
that?
Again, whether it be you knowdamages, whether it be you know
lost items, whether it be atheft uh risk.
And so that's why I use thatexample is we didn't have a
theft situation, but as thingsprogressed, you know, all of a
sudden a carrier drops off uhcommunication-wise.
That's a red flag for us rightaway to be like, okay, we gotta
have all eyes on this thing.
(11:00):
What's going on?
Why is the carrier no longercommunicating?
In this particular case, I thinkit was just a situation where
the driver uh was frustratedwith the situation, obviously a
huge hit to his business.
And uh, so that's impactful.
So we need to be, you know, asthe broker, we need to be
supportive of that and uh andjust make sure that we engage
the right way.
SPEAKER_01 (11:20):
So um get desperate, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:24):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
You know, you know, a lot oftimes it's about diffusing the
situation, right?
De-escalation is is key.
Um, and so I think for brokersespecially, I think that we have
we have a responsibility to tryto help the carriers.
And I think unfortunately, a lotof the relationships out there
(11:45):
between brokers and carriers isis pretty sour.
Um, and I think that there's,you know, there's responsibility
on both sides of that thatrelationship.
And so obviously uh my folks andmyself, we want to control what
we can control, which is ourbehavior and the way that we
communicate.
And uh, and so you know, when Isee folks say, oh, this
carrier's not communicating, youknow, and I go, well, hey, let's
(12:08):
put ourselves in that driver'sposition, right?
In this particular case, it'sit's a single owner operator.
He just spent$4,500 trying tofix this truck and it didn't
work.
You know, what do you think hisheadspace is like right now?
Right?
This is his business, this islivelihood.
This is how he's gonna feed hisfamily and put a roof over their
heads, and it's going sidewaysin a big way right now.
(12:29):
And he didn't necessarily doanything wrong, it's just luck
of the draw, right?
So reaching out that way, thecarrier immediately started
communicating again.
So, hey, how can we help?
You know, how can we help thesituation?
What can we do for you?
Uh, you know, we're all in thistogether.
So those can be some big keythings, as opposed to, you know,
coming at him with guns blazingand saying, Well, you're out of
(12:49):
line, and you know, everythingelse, it's like the guy's
already having a bad day, let'snot make it worse.
And then sure enough, you know,we got the communication going
and we're able to kind of workthrough that.
So that's a big key.
SPEAKER_01 (13:00):
That's awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
Great job.
Congratulations.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
Speaking, yeah, thank you.
In speaking to um, you know, theI mean, as much as I would love
to say it's all us, some of itis luck, but the again going
back to that what we control,right?
Is is avoiding freight theft,avoiding fraud.
SPEAKER_01 (13:21):
Um what's the two main SOPs that you go to?
Like uh that you know, I knowyou want to share your secrets,
but um what can you share?
SPEAKER_00 (13:31):
Nothing that nothing that we have is is a real big
secret when it comes to fraudavoidance, right?
So um the big keys are makingsure we use the tools that are
out there.
Um, so the big ones I would sayis utilizing um so you know a
fraud prevention softwaresystem.
There are several out there thatare pretty robust.
Um, you know, highway's a bigone, uh, carrier 411 is another.
(13:55):
Obviously, trucker tools has alot of different tools out there
for brokers and for carriers.
You know, I mean it's a two-waystreet too, right?
It's not like when people hearabout freight theft, they think
like somebody takes a trailerfull of stuff and you know, runs
it to some dark warehousesomewhere.
You know, you even see likefarmers insurance commercials
and things like that.
(14:15):
But what happens more often thannot, the fraud that we see um
has nothing to do with stealingphysical items.
It's about stealing identity ofboth carriers and brokerages,
right?
So we have um things in place aswell where uh software programs
that just constantly look outthere and say, hey, is our MC
being used um, you know,somewhere by somebody else, by a
(14:39):
by a bad actor?
Or are the carriers that we'reworking with um have it maybe
somebody has stolen their MC orDOT number and is representing
that they're that person.
So as we start to line thingsup, all of a sudden we're paying
the wrong, we're paying thewrong party.
Um so there's software programsto help us with that.
(14:59):
And then from when we get intothe physical verification side
of that, right?
So when we line up a new carrierthat we haven't worked with in
the past, maybe on a new lane orit's a new commodity type or a
new mode of transportation, youknow, hey, we normally run vans
over this lane and now we needflatbeds, right?
Uh, maybe the customer's productthat they need to move has
changed or the unload haschanged.
Uh, so when we're sourcing thosenew partners, um, there's
(15:22):
several different pieces.
One is we're doing VINverification on any new setup.
So if we set up a new carrierand they're gonna pick something
up, we actually get an image oftheir uh vehicle identification
plate on that tractor.
Um, and then it's geolocated aswell.
So we can tell that they are whothey say they are, they're where
they say they are, and that thetractor they're using is the
(15:45):
tractor that they say they'reusing that is then registered
under their COI that they'resending us uh for their
insurance.
So it's that's a prettyfoolproof way to make sure who
you're talking to is really whoyou're talking to.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Um so when when is when is there a point that you
realize, hey, this is goingwell, I guess the most sensitive
area when you do that umtransaction that you can tell
this might go bad, where is themost sensitive area that we can
probably strengthen in this asan industry?
SPEAKER_00 (16:12):
Yeah, so initially, obviously during setup, right?
When we're when we're firststarting the relationship
between uh the brokerage and thecarrier is making sure, you
know, if there are things thatfeel off, they probably are,
right?
And so then asking morequestions.
We don't want to just, you know,86 that relationship
immediately.
But when you hear something,you're like, well, wait a
(16:34):
minute, that doesn't really makea whole lot of sense.
Um start digging, right?
Start asking more questions,start making sure that
everything is on the up and up.
And and that responsibility umthat brokerages have, it also
protects the carriers that theywork with or that they could
potentially work with, right?
Because if a carrier has theiridentification stolen, and now
(16:57):
we're allowing that bad actor toto you know take money out of
the industry, it's it's hurtingthat carrier's reputation as
well.
So it's on us to make sure thatwe do everything um to help
protect everybody.
Um, so that's a big piece.
SPEAKER_01 (17:12):
Okay.
I like it.
I mean, that's it affects a lotof people.
I mean, you think about theaftermath and who pays, who
suffers.
Uh, when a load is stolen orfreight fraud happens, uh, who
takes who's taking the biggesthit?
What do you what would you say?
SPEAKER_00 (17:25):
So it's, you know, it can depend on the situation,
right?
So we have seen situations ofnot a load being stolen, but
where identity identities can bestolen.
Um, you know, where we've had topay carriers um because somebody
will line up a load, you know,like a double brokering type
type of a situation, right?
(17:47):
Where uh a bad actor, abrokerage is has somebody else's
MC that they're using, they'rerepresenting themselves as um a
carrier when they're not acarrier, and then they double
broker that load to an actualcarrier who's taking that load
somewhere.
And of course, the red flagsthat we would see on that are
like if somebody when things aretoo good to be true, they
(18:08):
probably are, is a greatindicator of that.
So just to kind of map that out,right?
Bad actor represents themselvesas a carrier with a stolen MC.
So they take, they take a, youknow, we we say, oh, hey, here's
a load for you guys to carry forus.
They obviously don't actuallyphysically go pick up that load.
They then turn around and call alegitimate carrier and say, Hey,
(18:29):
I need you to pick this load upgoing from Dallas to, you know,
whatever, going from Dallas toKansas City.
And so that carrier, thinking,oh, okay, I'm working with this
legitimate broke, thislegitimate brokerage.
Now there's two differentidentities being stolen.
They go pick up that load, theyrun it to Kansas City, they drop
it off, right?
That bad actor says, Okay,sounds great.
(18:50):
We'll get you paid shortly.
They invoice my company,representing themselves as a
carrier.
We pay them, they never pay thecarrier who actually moved the
freight, right?
So then eventually the carriergoes, Well, hey, all of a sudden
nobody's communicating with us.
And we're saying, Hey, where'sthe pod?
And we can't get a hold ofanybody, right?
(19:12):
And so you end up in this, thisor they or they pres, you know,
they submit a a false, afalsified or a forged POD.
And now you've got we're notgonna be uh getting paid by our
uh by our customer, but yet westill need to pay that carrier,
right?
So it ends up being a situationwhere everybody loses except for
(19:33):
obviously the bad actor inbetween.
So the big keys for us are thenreporting that.
What we end up finding out is inresearching those those VIN
numbers, um, is making sure thatyou know once a VIN number's
been stolen, it doesn't takevery long for everybody to
figure that out, hopefully,especially if everybody's doing
their due diligence.
(19:54):
So it it can limit the damage.
Um, we've also had um bad actorsrepresent themselves as
customers, where they're saying,hey, we're the shipper, come
pick up at our location at X, Y,and Z.
Um, and we had one, I want tosay back in 20, late 2017, early
(20:16):
2018, when we were first gettingstarted out, we had a customer.
Turned out that the actualcustomer had no idea.
They thought that they wereworking with somebody else.
That that place ended up beinginvestigated by the FBI.
I know that for a fact becausethey've called us asking
questions.
But uh uh essentially afraudulent organization.
Represented themselves as ashipper.
(20:39):
The actual shipper had no ideathat this was happening.
They thought they were justworking with a legitimate
brokerage.
And so same thing, right?
Is that we we were runningloads, paying carriers.
And after a little bit, we'relike, well, wait a minute, how
come this customer's not payingtheir invoices?
Well, then obviously diggingdeeper, we found out, oh, the
the person that the the entitythat we've been interacting with
(21:02):
isn't actually the shipper.
They're this shadow organizationthat represented themselves as
the shipper when really it'ssomebody else.
So it's uh it's amazing howcreative some of these criminals
can be.
Uh, and you know, and they builda lot of uh they build a lot of
uh ways to shadow that or waysto to misrepresent themselves.
SPEAKER_01 (21:27):
So that's sad for the industry.
What do you think this isheaded?
How does someone stay alive in atough market like this?
What do you think?
Uh what's your predictions, Iguess, as to how it may get
better or what people can do?
SPEAKER_00 (21:37):
Yeah.
So I think the biggest thing isbuilding great relationships
with with organizations, right?
So the less I have to go andwork with a carrier that I've
never heard of before, the lessthat a carrier has to go and
work with a brokerage thatthey've never heard of before,
um, or don't have a pre-existingrelationship, right?
The the less often that happens,the better off you're gonna be,
(21:57):
as a general rule, right?
Um when it comes to especiallythe fraudulent activity.
Uh, and then just making surethat, you know, we we always
trust but verify, right?
Um so even if I'm working with acarrier that I've worked with
for a long time, or if I'mworking with a customer that
I've worked with for a longtime, continue to look at, hey,
what what are their creditratings looking like?
(22:19):
You know, are they starting toget into a situation where
they'd be tempted to to do somethings that aren't on the up and
up um to keep things afloat?
I mean I think a lot of thepressures that we see in a in a
market like it's been for thelast three and a half years is
that when things when thing whenit's easy to make money in a
(22:39):
great market, people are lesstempted to do fraudulent things,
you know, because they can justgo make money on the up and up.
Um, I think the harder themarket gets and the longer it
goes, the more tempted peopleare to try to do some things to
uh to circumvent the process.
SPEAKER_01 (22:55):
So it's uh I kind of think about it on a on a I guess
more personal level.
I know when the economy is doingwell, uh you don't see so many
people doing weird things liketowing their cars with with a uh
with a rope.
SPEAKER_00 (23:11):
Yep, you're right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:13):
Yeah, they get desperate and they start doing
all kinds of clever things thatget the job done.
And uh you're like, man, that'snot safe.
SPEAKER_00 (23:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and as far as you know, Imean, every time a bad actor
creates a way to to to commit acrime, the industry in you know
self-preservation mode says,Hey, we gotta find a way to keep
this from happening.
So we do that, and everybody,you know, everybody gets on
(23:40):
board with that.
And then, you know, anothermonth, two, three later, oh, now
every every criminal out therehas come up with a new way to
circumvent that process, right?
So every time that happens, it'salways this this pendulum swing,
right?
And that's been going on sinceprivateers, you know, like think
about shipping across theAtlantic Ocean from Europe to
the New World.
(24:01):
That's what it was going onthen.
So they found, you know, we'vebeen finding ways to solve those
problems since what, the 1600s,1500s?
SPEAKER_01 (24:08):
So I think too, sharing the stories um of what
people may try to do so thatpeople can be more aware as to
some of the tricks that aregoing on out there.
So, like you sharing your story,uh letting people know that
they're not alone, um, I thinkit's gonna be huge.
I think um long interviews, uh,podcasts and things like that
have helped so many people.
(24:30):
So, no, you're you're definitelyum a soldier out there for a
force for good in the truckingindustry.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:37):
Well, I think you make a great point there, right?
Is that if you know, if folks,especially folks are starting
out, is that such a great point?
Is that making sure you build anetwork of people that you know
that you can ask questions.
Hey, have you ever seen this?
What are some things that havehappened?
Paying attention to podcasts,paying attention to news
articles, right?
It's one of those things that wefeel like, oh, I'm kind of
wasting my time by researchingall this stuff, and you're
(24:59):
really not, because you're justbuilding your experience, you're
building your knowledge based onthings that other people have
had to go through, right?
Kind of like when we're teachingour kids, it's like I don't want
my kids to make the samemistakes I made throughout life.
I want them to learn from mymistakes.
It's the same thing in business,right?
We want we'll be able to helpeach other out.
Uh, you know, everybody helpingeverybody is only gonna make the
whole industry better off.
(25:19):
So yeah, uh, nothing wrong withthat.
SPEAKER_01 (25:21):
You know, the criminals are talking amongst
each other, they're telling eachother what they're doing, you
know, hey, try this, do that.
So, you know, the good guys, wegotta we gotta stick together
too, you know.
We gotta help you.
100%.
100%.
So what advice do you have forpeople that are considering
being in a vocal brokeringbusiness or just helping out and
say, you know, I'm young, I wantto try this, um, want to get
(25:42):
into an industry that I'm notsure of.
If someone's thinking aboutbecoming a freight broker today,
what would you tell them or whatwould you need them to know?
SPEAKER_00 (25:49):
So I have uh three young sons, right?
Uh 21 through 16.
And if they were to walk up tome tomorrow and say, hey, you
know what?
I want to do what you do, I wantto run a brokerage, or I want to
own a brokerage, or I want tostart a brokerage, the first
thing I would say is learn theindustry, right?
Either go work at a brokerage orgo work for a carrier or go
drive truck, right?
(26:10):
I mean, you want to learn it.
Doesn't I get a lot of folksthat do ask that, right?
And the biggest thing that I sayto folks all the time is you
need to know it before you canwork in it.
It'd be like it'd be like ifsomebody had never cooked a meal
in their life and they want togo open a restaurant, right?
You need to know it.
SPEAKER_01 (26:28):
I like that.
I like those common sense ones.
SPEAKER_00 (26:31):
And I think I think a lot of folks think, oh, I'm
gonna go, you know, I got abuddy that works for brokerage
and they make tons of money andit's like, well, you know, I'm
25 years in almost.
What is it?
It's 2020, uh 19, 20 years in,20 years of practice, right?
20 years of experiences, it's 20years of of relationship
building and and askingquestions.
(26:51):
So it might look like a piece ofcake when you're looking at
somebody who's practiced for 20years.
It's the same thing if I'mtalking to a driver and you know
they back a 53-foot trailer intoa dock between two other
trailers like it's nothing,right?
I might look at that and belike, oh, well, this should be a
piece of cake.
Well, I'll probably rip allthree of those trailers apart if
(27:11):
I don't have the experience,right?
SPEAKER_01 (27:14):
16 pull-ups.
SPEAKER_00 (27:15):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, we've all seen it, right?
Yeah.
When when the guy that's brandnew is like on his 40th attempt
to bump the dock, and you'relike, all right, we're all
running out of time here.
So I think that's the biggestthing is that as just to be
patient and start start on stepone, don't try to start on step
20.
(27:36):
Um, I think the barriers toentry for becoming a brokerage
are very low.
But the barriers to entry tobecoming a sex, a successful
broker are that experiencepiece.
And I think people are like, oh,well, I can just go get my MC
and file for my bond and grabsome insurance and I'm good to
go.
I can just start right away.
(27:57):
But I'm not saying that hasnever worked.
I'm just saying that that's whenwe start talking about you get
yourself in some really stickysituations because now you don't
have the experience to recognizethose fraud red flags, right?
And you don't have the networkto reach out to people and say,
hey, who do I talk to?
I've got a legal situation here.
And it's putting you at risk,it's putting anybody that work,
(28:17):
you know, your carriers thatyou're working with at risk,
putting your customers at risk,of course.
So I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01 (28:23):
How bad can it get for your livelihood?
Um, let's say you do have abroker and you got your own
insurance bond and things likethat.
Can someone lose their home?
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
They can lose their home.
Especially, you know, I mean,you think about it.
If you're starting out as abrokerage, you're probably
starting as an LLC.
You are personally liable.
They can go after your personalassets because that's what
you're gonna have to use to backup for cash flow purposes and
things like that.
So yeah, you could lose yourhome.
You could, I mean, it's food offthe table.
And not only that, when you'retalking about fraud prevention,
if you don't take the propersteps when the red flags come,
(28:55):
you could be culpable on acriminal level, right?
So just just not knowing isn'tan excuse.
And the legal system isn't gonnasee us as an excuse either,
right?
Because I mean you think aboutlittle, and it's not just fraud,
right?
Like, so if if I have a carrierthat's running late, they have a
breakdown and they're runninglate, and I as a broker start
(29:17):
calling that driver and I say,Boy, you better make up that
time.
My customer needs that freightright now.
What am I doing?
I'm I'm putting that person'ssafety.
It's not his fault that the Imean, trucks break down.
Yeah, welcome to trucking,right?
You get brokers that'll do that,they'll start pressuring a
driver to violate hours ofservice rules.
Next thing you know, that guy'sin a wreck, he's hurting
(29:37):
somebody, he's hurting himself,he's putting property and lives
in danger.
That's a criminal issue, youknow.
So it's not, you know, somebodywho's never worked in the
industry walks in and says, Oh,I'm gonna be a broker, it's a
piece of cake.
And they don't know that it'sillegal for a broker to pressure
a driver that way.
It's not just to your home,you're risking, you're risking,
(29:58):
you might be might be in roughshape.
So that would be myrecommendation to anybody
starting out is hey, get to knowthe industry for go work at a
brokerage first, or go work at ago work for a carrier, or go
work with a carrier, work in theindustry, work at a shipper, get
to know all sides.
I'm not saying you gotta go doit for 20 years, but you're you
(30:18):
need to have that background inorder to be successful and to
keep everybody safe, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (30:23):
Um, so sometimes people just need to believe in
themselves.
I know it may sound a littlenaive, but um you know, just uh
encouraging them to do the jobright um goes a long way.
I know as a truck driver myself,uh you can really hammer
somebody.
I've seen it happen, I've seenpeople do it, but that that
stuff is short-lived.
(30:44):
Um, I'm glad you mentioned that.
Um, you know, that relationshipthat the broker has with the the
truck driver, and you you hearabout these incidents going
online where people get hurt.
I'm not getting bad, you know,bashing the broker, but you
don't know why that person hasthat pressure on them.
Why why would they why wouldthey be doing that?
(31:05):
Um you know, uh texting anddriving and possibly even using
substance to keep going.
You know, I I can stay awake ifI do this.
Yeah, so great point.
I like that.
You know, that's one that wethink about the freight
brokering and you touching onthat.
There's another side that'sactually more um the one that's
(31:27):
been around the longest is therelationship with the the truck
driver and the broker.
You gotta have a healthy one.
SPEAKER_00 (31:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
We're all in together.
I last time I checked, we don'town a single truck.
So tough for me to move mycustomers' materials across the
country without without greatdrivers, without you know,
great, great uh partnerships.
SPEAKER_01 (31:47):
How big are you guys?
How many brokers are uhspecialists?
SPEAKER_00 (31:50):
Are you so my team, yep.
So my team is just over 15.
So we don't have a huge, youknow, we're not TQL or some of
these bigger, bigger outfits,but uh we got about 15, 16
folks, I think, right now.
Um and uh, you know, we run um,you know, we run in the hundreds
of loads a week um across thecountry.
So we have some key markets thatwe work in.
(32:12):
We do a lot of open deck stuff.
We do a lot of work in the uhkind of industrial and
construction sector.
Um, a lot of specialized things.
We, you know, a lot of what wedo is more project management
than it is just pickingsomething up and dropping it
off, right?
So we go all the way back toscheduling of materials that are
coming out of manufacturingplants and then coordinating,
hey, how are those going to gointo where they're being
(32:32):
installed?
Uh and working with, you know,the the customers' project
managers just to time, you know,get that timing figured out.
So it can get pretty involved.
Um, and again, it just goes backto asking questions and learning
and you know, like like yourpodcast, you know, you talk
about well, what's what'ssomething somebody can do to
become a broker?
Well, there's a lot, you know,we live in the uh the day and
(32:54):
age of YouTube and podcasts andeverything else.
There's a lot of information forpeople for free.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:01):
So, you know, it's not like back in the day where
you had to go sign up for truckdriving school and and and learn
it from step one, right?
Now you can you can learn fromother folks' uh input.
There's a lot of informationbeing put out there all the
time.
SPEAKER_01 (33:14):
Just um another side piece uh for someone who's
getting started, they look atthese load boards and they say,
all right, I can afford that permonth and all the work is right
there, um, versus going out andestablishing those networks and
those relationships by gettingcontracts.
Um, you know, those I thinkthere's two different ways, or
maybe even a third that I don'tknow about.
But uh, what would you say as tousing the spot board or the load
(33:38):
boards?
I'm not saying I think a lot ofthem are great.
Um, but should you start in thatarea or would you prefer to do a
contract, start one, startsmall, and grow that way?
SPEAKER_00 (33:49):
So if I'm a broker, you know, I typically use the
load boards for, you know,because like we'll, you know,
you see a lot of things aboutlike load lists as well, right?
Um, I don't know that I've everbooked a load with a customer
from a load board, um, butthat's where we get a lot of our
initial carrier relationships istalking with folks like that.
(34:09):
Hosting a load up and and tryingto cover it that way can be
really risky, right?
So we try to talk to carriersdirectly.
Sometimes we'll get you knowcontact information, obviously,
by looking at load boards andthings like that.
But you just have to be reallycautious, right?
The the easier the easier it isfrom a it's it's a tricky way to
(34:33):
say it, right?
Like sometimes if something'sfeels like it's a really easy
way to do something, it's aproject.
Probably somebody that's yeah,there's probably somebody that's
like, oh, somebody who wants todo things the easy way is gonna
be easier to take advantage of,too.
SPEAKER_01 (34:46):
So that sounds like something you would tell your
kids.
SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
Exactly.
You take the easy way out,you're gonna pay eventually.
Yeah, you're gonna payeventually, and sometimes that
ends up being worse the longrun.
(35:19):
So yeah, I mean we utilize yeah,we utilize lowerboards every
day, but we use them for youknow more informational purposes
than anything else, I think isthe key.
Um, and and then you know,creating those initial steps to
a relationship for sure.
Um, but yeah, we need to uh justgotta stay vigilant, man.
Gotta stay vigilant.
As soon as we're asleep at thewheel, that's when things get
(35:40):
crazy.
SPEAKER_01 (35:41):
So look moving forward, uh, just uh looking at
the industry.
What do you think AI or uh thetechnology piece is going to
help help out with brokerage oruh maybe even take something
away?
SPEAKER_00 (35:55):
Well, so it's again, it's both sides of that coin,
right?
Is that we're utilizing AI, um,even within my organization to,
you know, expedite processing ofinformation and data, right?
Um, you know, using AI agents totake data that we need to come,
you know, come in on one sideand come out the other.
Rather than having a human beingdoing that, you can train an AI
(36:17):
program to uh to handle a lot ofthat workload, speeds it up,
makes it more efficient.
Now that person has more time todo other things like vetting out
carriers or or you knowsearching for solutions that
were maybe more on the creativeside.
Um, you know, where they canthat human element is still a
very big piece.
Um, I know there's a lot offolks out there that think, oh
yeah, you know, they're takingover the world and they're gonna
(36:39):
put everybody on a job.
I think we're I'm a little, Imean, maybe it's because I'm an
old man, but I think we're alittle ways off from that yet.
Uh, you know, when I ask Siri todo something for me, half the
time she gets it wrong.
So I think we gotta wait beforewe gotta worry too much.
But it's definitely a tool to beutilized in that same breath.
Fredulent actors are also usingAI to find ways to create false
(37:05):
information, to createopportunities for them to uh to
get things that they don'tdeserve.
So it's a two-sided coin, right?
Like we can use AI to solveproblems, but there are folks
that are gonna use AI for fornefarious purposes as well.
SPEAKER_01 (37:21):
So yeah, it's almost like uh the technology is
helping uh people do it the easyway, which could be uh to the
detriment of the quality that weneed.
Um but again, I love technology,I think it's great, I think it's
a great tool.
I use it here on the show aswell.
So um we just gotta sticktogether, like you said, keep
those networks, don't isolateyourself.
(37:43):
Um, some of those great thingsthat they told us to do in 2020,
uh is try to get out of there.
But uh yeah, don't be just byyourself a lone wolf.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (37:54):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (37:55):
All right.
Well, final thoughts, anytakeaways?
What's one of the biggest thingsthat shippers you want them to
understand about brokers?
Maybe there's something that uhsome misconceptions out there.
Maybe we can help some of thatmyth busters break those, break
people free from them.
SPEAKER_00 (38:10):
I think it's, you know, for shippers, it's the
same thing when you're lookingat working with brokerages.
Is I think a lot of focus in theindustry when it comes to fraud
and all that stuff, it's justkind of not to be the dead
horse, but it goes back to thoserelationships, right?
It's is that it's funny, likemost of my selling to new
prospects or to newrelationships or even to
existing customers that we havewhen we're adding new locations
(38:32):
across the country is wephysically go and meet with
them.
And and I'm always amazed at howsurprised uh folks in a shipping
office are to see a broker,right?
Carriers obviously have beendoing that for decades, but I
think building realrelationships with people that
you can actually talk with andshare ideas.
Um, if I was a shipping manager,I would want that connection.
(38:55):
I would want it with mycarriers, I would want it with
the brokerages that I use.
And uh, you know, it's funnybecause I think brokers complain
a lot about how hard it can beto build those relationships
with a shipper.
But I personally see it as anadvantage because if we can
build a real relationship, offerreal value, right?
It's just not not just a priceplay.
(39:16):
Um, everybody kind of benefitsfrom that, right?
There's always gonna be somebodyout there who can give you a
better deal, you know, fivebucks cheaper.
But is it is it really gonna begiving you a better opportunity
to improve your supply chain?
Um now it's gotta be marketcompetitive as well, right?
It doesn't mean that you canjust, you know, I don't drive a
Porsche, right?
(39:38):
Um, I need to be able to getfrom point A to point B, and I
don't want something that'sgonna break down, but I also
don't need it to be a luxuryitem either, right?
So you gotta find that balance.
So as a shipper, I think thebiggest thing is just just the
same brokers and and carriersneed great relationships.
And shippers, when they'relooking for brokerages, they
need to find somebody that thatis willing to do the do the hard
(39:59):
work, which is build therelationship first, find ways to
add value, right?
If I'm onboarding a brokeragejust to save a couple extra
bucks, I'm probably just makingit worse for the folks that I
already have relationships with,as well as that new guy.
It's not gonna last very longbecause eventually the truck
driver's gonna go, look, I can'ttake these loads.
I have to be able to pay forfuel, I have to pay for
(40:21):
insurance, I have to be able topay for the upkeep of my truck.
I gotta feed my family and put aroof over their heads as well.
So it's got to be realistic foreverybody involved.
So, you know, you mentionedduring COVID, and we all saw at
the beginning of that whererates were falling through the
floor before the big wavestarted, right?
And we were, I had guys on myteam that I was like, call that
(40:41):
carrier back, you're paying themmore than that.
You're not getting they'd belike, Oh, I just booked a load
for 80 cents a mile.
I'm like, you can't fuel a truckfor 80 cents a mile.
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (40:50):
Call them back because we don't own any trucks.
If all these carriers go out ofbusiness that are partners of
ours in this relationship.
Not gonna be able to moveanything.
We need them.
It's gotta be sustainable,right?
So just you know, gotta keepthose things in mind.
So, yeah, same thing for theshippers, right?
Is if we get a great price, butwe drive all of our partners out
(41:11):
of business in the process, it'snot gonna last very long.
SPEAKER_01 (41:15):
Yeah, I like that you're protecting you're
protecting the industry insteadof degrading it.
I mean, that's huge, man.
Um, big ups to you for doingthat, and to uh pass that along
to to someone that's not asexperienced as yourself.
Like, uh, what's one lesson youwould pass on to your younger
self?
Uh, if you could, you know, seeyourself, you say, Man, that
that individual, I could seewhere they headed.
(41:38):
It's just like me.
What would you say?
SPEAKER_00 (41:41):
Uh be patient and treat everybody the way you want
to be treated.
So we we work in a stressfulbusiness.
It's freight never sleeps.
It is 247, 365.
And I think just being patientwith folks, you know, I think I
was a bit of a hothead, youknow, growing up in uh on the
dock overnights, you know,working working freight in the
(42:03):
middle of the night on 20 belowdays, and tensions can run
higher, tempers can flare.
And I think growing up in thatside of the business, um, I
developed some bad habits.
And as I've gotten older,realized, hey, you know, I
wouldn't like it if somebodytalked to me this way in a
stressful situation.
Um, I need to change mybehavior.
So that's probably the biggestadjustment I've made over the
(42:24):
last five plus years is learningto, like I said in the
beginning, right?
Learning to de-escalate um sothat we can, you know, we can
get get the key uh communicationin place and make sure everybody
knows, hey, we're all on thesame team here.
Trying to learn stuff from it'snot that complicated, right?
I mean, it's point A to point Bas safely and quickly as
possible.
Um, we're all on the same teamat the end of the day, I think,
(42:47):
and that's that's a big key.
SPEAKER_01 (42:49):
So well, Jason, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you comingon.
Uh, being so open about thisside of the industry, freight
fraud and cargo theft aren'ttalked about enough.
I think uh the conversation likethis we need to keep having with
individuals like yourself toprotect ourselves and the
industry so that we continue tomake better decisions.
So uh to everyone out therelistening, if you're in the
freight industry and you'rethinking about getting into it
(43:11):
or just making a change or oreven just doing what you're
doing to do it better, uh, totake it more seriously.
Um, keep asking questions, stayalert, and don't assume that
everyone's playing fair.
So uh if this episode's helpedyou, um please sure to
subscribe, uh leave a review,and share it to someone else
that needs to hear it.
So thank you so much for comingon the show, Jason.
SPEAKER_00 (43:33):
Um what's the best way for people to reach out uh
to maybe talk to you or my uh mycompany is 10 Logistics for
based out of Minneapolis,Minnesota.
Um, really appreciate thisopportunity.
Anytime we have a chance toconnect with other folks in the
industry is is always a goodthing.
So a lot of stuff out there thatneeds to be moved.
So I'm not much of aprotectionist when it comes to
(43:54):
information.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um best way to reach us, uh ourour general email inbox is ship
it at tenlogistics.com.
So that's uh ship it uh at10logistics.com.
General office number is 612845.
Oh wait a minute, what is it?
612 902 8620.
(44:16):
So those are the two best waysto reach us.
Um and uh we're always there 247365.
Freight never sleeps, my friend.
SPEAKER_01 (44:26):
All right, until next time.
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