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Big Plans? Small Plans? Does It Matter?
Having trained freight brokers for nearly 20 years, I’ve come upon an interesting mix of clients. Some have big plans, some want to stay small, others just want to get going instead of kicking the can down the road.
One of my clients told me directly that he wanted to hire 20 agents – and he did hire some but maybe did not get to 20 as we spoke two or three years later.
He was doing about 7 or 8 million a year. Unfortunately, his accounts payable person was shifting money to her personal account instead of paying trucks. (Unbelievable, but a reality in this case).
Needless to say, his business is out of business now.
Then another client, a young guy with absolutely no experience in this industry, called me about three months after finishing training and I thought he was going complain about not finding loads.
He said, NO, I’ve had as many as 200 loads but I can’t find enough trucks!
That’s a nice problem to have – if you can’t get a truck, you’re not going to make a nickel.
He also told me he was doing “thousand dollar days!” That surprised me because, to be honest, that’s not the norm.
Then I had another client from El Paso. I did not hear from her for about 8 years and she had been doing well on her own after moving to Florida. She wanted to know if there were some additional services to provide.
Additional services mean two different things and it’s called “scaling” – is the freight broker business “scalable”? Yes, it is.
One way to scale the business is to offer different services to the same group of customers you have; another way to scale your business is to offer your regular services to more people.
It’s up to you to decide how and where you want to scale your business.
The most important thing I can impress upon you now is – regardless of how you want to grow your business, you need to “bring your ‘A game’ to the table each and every day”. Some successful brokers start going downhill because of one or both things: they get sloppy on their service or they get too expensive.
This is bad for them but it’s GOOD FOR YOU!
You’ll sometimes get your foot in the door easier than you might think simply because the shipper wants to switch brokers. Keep this in mind.
I could go on and on and on about some of these dynamics and with my training we do discuss what shippers and carriers are expecting of you and what you can expect from them.
Folks, this is one of the most exciting business ventures you may run in to but it’s also fraught with obstacles. Only about one in ten beginning brokers will make it to year three in my opinion. I’m confident that the success rate is much higher for my clients.
I’ll stick with you as long as you need me.
If you want to learn the freight brokerage business from a former freight broker, a business trainer with over 30 years’ experience and who has a real passion to teach others, go through my website to learn more.
Then either call me or shoot me an email. I’m out of town and perhaps the best phone number to use is my cell at 915-526-5252.
One last thing – I’m including a testimonial here below –
Read What Rita Thought About My Telephone/Online Training
“The Atex phone/internet training worked great for my schedule, especially because my base is on the East Coast. The workbook is a great resource tool with a wealth of information (literally)!!! Having the option to schedule convenient phone sessions was essential to clarifying anything in the manual that wasn’t clear to me as a new broker. I wholeheartedly recommend John and this training module. John is phenomenal!”
– Rita from Freeway Freight Brokerage
– Rita from Freeway Freight Brokerage