Freight brokers

Well I know a bit about brokerage but by far not an expert by any means.

It probably is best if you could work somewhere at least for a while to learn how they do things, but it can be hard to get in without having any customers.

Generally the brokerages hire agents that already have an existing book of customers that they bring with them, although there may be some brokerages that will train you.

It's probably not impossible to open your own brokerage but I would think that would be difficult not knowing how the operations work not seeing how they handle problems and there's a lot of cash flow involved.

As your own broker you would have to have customers that are paying you on 45 days or 90 days and you will be paying the carriers in 15 days or 30 days. As a new broker you'll not only have a hard time finding customers but you'll have a hard time finding carriers that will work for you.

Then you also need to pay the Carrier whether you get paid or don't get paid or if you get slow paid or whatever.

You could post in the brokerage section as the other person said, but I'd be pretty certain the existing brokers are not going to favorably respond if you have the interest of opening your own brokerage without working anywhere first.

And by the way just because you work for a brokerage doesn't mean that you won't make money. I'm sure there are good agents that can make a ton of money.

Let me know how you make out with this I'm curious where this is going to take you.

 

Keep spending time around here and you’ll learn a lot. Unfortunately, investing time in a course and home office won’t make you any money. However, I understand wanting to have the tools that give you confidence to move forward with your idea.

It’s really not that expensive to open your own brokerage but it’ll be very difficult to figure things out as you go. Not impossible though. The bad thing about working for another company is signing a non compete. You’ll learn a lot but sortof be screwed in opening your own deal for a couple years.

As @PPDCT would say, the phone is your ultimate tool and weapon. Learn to use it effectively.

 

How much money do you have to get started? You could always work another job(non brokerage related) while getting the brokerage going.

 

Whatever you do, do not go into partners with someone. Borrow money is one thing, partner is another. It ruins friendships and family, as well as splitting money sucks.

You could probably start it for under $5,000 but it’s going to take you a year to break even I’d say unless your a selling machine. These things take time especially if you don’t know anything. The good news is now is a fairly easy time to gain customers while rates are high.

It’s like anything, it takes time and a lot of effort, but once you get the snow ball rolling it begins to accumulate and really become something.

 

If it takes you 3 months to find your first customer, and you end up doing 50 loads in the first year and profit on average $100 per load, then you have broke even.

The second year maybe you do 300 loads and average $125 profit per load.

Third year maybe you move 500 loads and average $150 per load.

It all depends on how good you are and the quality of customers you manage to find. But, knowing nothing and starting from zero, don’t expect to make a bunch of money overnight, or even in your first year.