ASK ME ANYTHING

Yeah the Uber for trucks apps are doing this the wrong way. There's plenty of room for technical innovation in the industry but replacing the people who actually keep the ball rolling isn't realistic anytime soon. The trend of each broker doing more loads for less money per load will probably continue because of software. There's no way they have enough good data to replace me with a script anytime soon. Too many fuzzy variables and no good way to collect the vast amount of data needed for machine learning. Computers are really good at gathering information but not so good at doing a lot of critical thinking beyond very strong pattern recognition. For pattern recognition to start to resemble what's going on in my head for something as situational as freight brokerage you'd need millions of transactions and the logic behind them.

I really doubt if their software could even tell the difference between a good broker and a bad one without inputs like profit and loss honestly.

 

Not enough transparency. Anyone can say anything without proof. The only one who knows all the monetary details is the broker. That has to change.

 

Completely agree.

 

My only thought is the freight gets there when it gets there so no matter how many calls you make it won't speed the process up, the time to make the phone call is when it don't make the scheduled delivery time then i'd start worrying.

 

That's a good point. My stance has always been, no news is good news. Otherwise, they'd be hearing things from me such as delay or complication issues until the empty call is made. I have a bluetooth for when I'm rolling down the interstate but when I'm navigating very heavy traffic I simply cannot talk and blowing my phone up only makes me remove the battery.

 

Professional communication is an easy way to stand out as a professional.

 

Absolutely. The carriers that communicate with me well really stand out and get an enormous amount of leeway. It's amazing how much I can fix when I'm told there's a problem with 24 hours to fix it rather than 45 minutes.

Honestly I'm convinced that 90% of the problems in this business come down to miscommunication. The other 10% is careless idiots being careless idiots. People who don't give a #### should be kicked out of the industry really quickly. It's really not OK at all. That goes for every role in the business IMO.

 

The issue with that is that once the truck is already late the #### has already started going wrong and it's too late to really do much about it. Even grocery store DC's will work with a late truck when we tell them 12 hours in advance. Far too many drivers just never bother to tell us when things aren't working out for them and feel like it's not a big deal or not their problem to tell us.

Those guys cause check calls. Trust me we hate check calls more than you do. Do you know how much time my wife and I spend doing check calls during the busy season? It's gotta be 4-5 hours a day between us. If you think getting called a few times over a 2-3 day period is annoying try doing that for 30 loads over a 3-4 day period. It just really sucks.

 

There's the late or problem side, and also the "keeping tabs" side.
Someone is entrusting cargo worth $ to a carrier. Those people appreciate knowing just where there product is at any given time.

To OO carriers, the model I utilize is: Frequent email/text with timestamp, status, attached photos/video, Cargo condition reports, location, consignee contact with eta/working along with promised delivery time vs best time for consignee, be polite, dress like a person that owns a business, maintain a calm & positive attitude.

It's 2018- get a camera phone, keep in contact, BE A PROFESSIONAL.



No one has to do it like I do it. But it certainly works for me.

 

BLIND SHIPMENTS.

Receiver gets his usual shipment that comes from 1000 miles away. Pays for everything just as always. Shipment is out of stock so they use another shipper to fill the order that is only 250 miles away from the receiver.

Does the receiver still pay for a 1000 mile shipment that only moved 250 on a fake BOL?