Hello all! Broker here with about a year experience in the industry, this is my first post in this forum! Got tired of lurking so I decided to start contributing. Anyway, regarding my question: I'm assuming just about everyone uses DAT and Internettruckstop.com, and of course relationships with carriers, but are there any other tools that can be utilized? Other load boards? Email blasts? Ultimately, what helps make YOU successful in moving your freight? Please answer in terms of flatbed/stepdeck, as that is what I primarily deal with. Thank you all.
If you have a quick pay program that pays quick like 2 or 3 days make sure you post that info. If you offer fuel advance make that gets out there too.
I don't much, if any at all, specialized equipment freight. But i use a website called carrier411 to lookup carrier by commodity hauled. If it is a consistent lane, I will only use this tool because it takes a lot of time to call down a list, call carriers and figure out if they could be of any use to your loads. I also use Microsoft CRM to send out e-mail blasts to our carriers who are already set up but try to keep these to a minimal. I realize dispatchers & owner ops are busy and don't need another e-mail to flood their inbox.
I use getloaded.com sometimes. But mostly I send emails to carriers that I have relationships with. I will only send two emails a day. One in the morning and another in the late afternoon so I can start building out loads for the next day.
I think that emails that list the specs for your loads are fine. The non-specific "email blasts" saying "hey anyone with any available trucks?" are what carriers find annoying. It's also very important to call your contacts at the carrier at least once a week to keep up the relationship. Also, when you actually call, you can find out good info on the carrier's routine and get a better feel for when and where they will have available trucks.
This is spot on EXACTLY right. I hope Kodi with McGuire Logistics reads this. Thankfully yesterday he did remove me from his email list after several weeks of worthless empty spams. The brokers I work with regularly have an idea of my lanes. They send emails of available loads however they don't send several very desperate reading spams daily. Takes a few loads and time, and a little effort, to learn the business of the people you work with. Always worth it long term.
