3 months in and only 1 load

I'm with @wichris here - in this current market environment, if you've only been able to snag up one customer, and have moved only one load? You need to reevaluate your approach. We've had five baby brokers start since December, and all of them have been hammering business left and right. It's a much better market to be starting out than when I did several years ago.

 

One load in three months at 10% margin is not great but you've gotten something. I've been told that the average margine for the brokerage I work at is 12.5%. All of these guys on here talking about the current market conditions as favorable to brokers are either uninformed or must have almost all 3pl's as customers. It's a competitive market, truly raw capitalism. There is a huge TL capacity shortfall in the country right now. This is a driver's market with TL rates at record highs during the month of May. Brokers that run 3pl freight or in other words "copy and paste " are doing a diservice to drivers and brokers. The load board is full of this sh@#. Here's where you're wrong; instead of making 30-40 calls per day you should be knocking on 30-40 doors per day. It's a sales job, don't be one of the caca-head leaches in the industry that runs their operation off of 3pl's, get your own freight.

 

You're misunderstanding. In a tight market, it is 100% easier to sell new customers because they are most likely experiencing disruption with their primary carriers. That isn't to say that from a cost or difficulty standpoint that this is a favorable market for brokers. If it were favorable, it would make selling more difficult.

That the OP has moved one load in three months speaks to some other underlying factors. Be it pitch, work ethic, personality- what have you- he or she is doing something wrong.

 

Ok, so, correct me if I'm wrong, but, the way I see it, a broker should at least have 2 to 3 shippers that they can work with by 3 months. I don't think that is unacceptable, 2 shippers maybe 3, that will let you find a driver for their loads. If you had 2 to 3 shippers as customers, a person should have been able to find more than one load in 3 months right? I only ask all of this BS, because I know you to be a good broker, at least as far as I can ascertain on this forum.

 

It may be however; when your building a book of business from zero and have no experience, it takes awhile to get started. Freight brokers are like drivers, a dime a dozen (lots of competition.) Persistence is the key, if you don’t have it, you won’t succeed at this. Some guys just get lucky and run into a goldmine on one of their first sales calls.

You’re right about selling customers in a tight market.

 

Most shippers will start you out with one load if you can get your foot in the door. It took me 7 months to get all the freight from my best customer.

 

One suspects. We give our guys a wide runway to get going. Like I said, We've had several new hires start since December. Of those, two of them are currently outselling a couple of folks that have been here for a couple of years or longer. Even our newest hire, who started three weeks ago has moved two loads since then, with a customer that he put up last week.

I'm not disputing your points. I've been doing this for several years now. I've seen folks take five to six months to get comfortable and really start moving. I've seen folks quit a week after completing training. I've seen the guy who hits a gold mine out the gate- he's currently the top seller in our office.

What I am saying is that if OP hasn't at least gotten more proper customers to entertain their pitch in a market that lends itself to getting new customers to talk to him/her, then they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what they're doing wrong.

I've said it before: I can teach you the technical details of the industry. I can't teach you personality. And sometimes, sales isn't a good fit. That's not to say that this is the case with OP- I don't know them from Adam and I have no idea what they're doing necessarily. But it could be the case.

 

Cold calling is brutal.