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How Fast Can You Ramp It Up?
Some who call or email me think they can ramp up their new freight broker business in a matter of days or so. Well, not so fast. There’s more to it than meets the eye.
The freight broker business model is so simple it’s sometimes misleading. You normally first get loads from customers, you then find trucks to move that cargo and lastly you collect a commission for doing this.
What are missing in this simple version are all the details and procedures that are essential to make things happen and happen the right way – and it takes time.
So, to get the business ramped up, here is a general sequence of what is needed:
- First, decide on a business name and get it registered (I help on this), next
- Learn how to properly broker freight and what your responsibilities and obligations are (this is the heart of my training in addition to my handouts), next
- Prepare set-up packages with the proper information (I provide templates for this), next
- Sign up for one or two load boards. Now this is where you should spend some time as you learn about the features you need. There are many bells and whistles but there are three essential features you will focus on. Learn them well so you can move loads rapidly, next
- Learn how to talk to prospective customers, next
- Search the Internet and compile lists of prospective customers. Get on the phone or go out and meet with them. This will take time and it’s frustrating at times (I’ll help you understand what to expect), next
- Find out if your customer is creditworthy (it’s not rocket science), next
- Know how to take the order from customers – you have to be exact with no room for miscommunication, next
- Figure out what you want to offer the carrier, next
- Post your loads to load boards or start calling from your list of customers, next
- Know what to expect and how to react to truckers or dispatchers calling for info on your loads, next
- Check the FMCSA and know what you “legally” need to do to check out a carrier, next
- Create benchmarks that are important to you so you can laser-focus attention on making money with good customers and quit wasting time with dead beats, next
- Know how to make the right carrier selection – avoid negligence (many brokers have no clue about this), next
- Create benchmarks for carrier selection and retention, next
- Learn how to avoid broker liability in carrier selection, next
- Know how to “book the load”, next
- Know how to dispatch the driver, next
- Know how to monitor pick-up and delivery, next
- Have Plan B in place for potential problems, next
- Know what to do after the carrier invoices you after delivery, next
- Get your customer invoiced, providing the right information to them, next
- Know how to get your money quicker rather than later, next and last ,,, sort of …
- Grab that money you earned and treat yourself in decent fashion, then rinse and repeat as often as you can.
To be honest, you can learn all of this by yourself without spending a nickel for training. But it will take you months and months, in my opinion and you’ll never know if you “got it” all.
This outline above doesn’t even scratch the surface of my program; my training is intensive. During training, I don’t have prepared jokes, I don’t sing for you neither do I dance. We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about some neat place to go for lunch. It’s just pure information all the while I’m trying to tie it all in to your own personal aspirations. My clients love it even without the jokes, singing or dancing (thank goodness!).
On the first day of live training, we do take a break and if we have lunch together, we talk about your personal situation some more.
We sometimes do some “what ifs” … for example,
What if you could average a profit of $150 per load and get an average of six loads per week – one a day? That’s $900 per week in your pocket after paying the truck or about $47,000 per year.
Can you do this starting out? Maybe, maybe not.
Think what you could do with getting 2-3 loads or more each day. Do the math.
Think 2-3 loads a day can happen in the first year? Probably not for most. Definitely for a few.
What if you had five good agents and they performed as mentioned above ($150×6) and you give them 60% of the profit?
That’s $900 per week, times 40% to you ($900X40%=$360), times five agents equals $1,800 per week or over $93,000 per year.
Can you see the potential here for growing your brokerage?
Guess what? If you sit there and do nothing about it, figure on getting zip, zero, nada, a big goose egg or $0.
Guess what else? This ain’t gonna be easy – but it’s realistic and very doable. The more you learn HOW to do it, the more likely the chance of becoming financially independent and free.
I can show you how to do all this – after all, I’ve trained over 800 people thus far.
Lastly, I won’t apologize for this long post and I know that only about 5% of you who receive this (it’s going out to thousands) will read it in its entirety and only 2% of those will take some kind of action.
It’s the very small percentage that I’ll be working with after they take action on this message.
Give me a call if you have questions or are ready to sign up.