I'm a Independant Dispatcher in Training Looking for Advice

Have you done the math on the amount of money you make doing this? To make $40k per year you need $800k revenue. That will be 8-10 drivers. When all if going well you will be working 10 hrs a week per driver. 80-100 hour week.

Bigger problem is where are you finding the loads? If you say load boards then you are looking at the same freight they are. Now you only advantage is you can look for loads when they are sleeping (doesn't help you because you can't book it till you talk to them) or when they are driving.

Now, you make a mistake booking a load. Who is paying for that mistake? Not the broker and not the driver. It will be on you.

And you are green to all this so you will make mistakes. Lots of them.

I love business. Love to start new businesses. If I had my way I would just sit around starting businesses and handing them off for others to run. And I just don't see the viable business her based on the hours, revenue and risk. And you are looking at doing this at the worst time. Next year you will have 1,000's of small brokers WITH freight accounts entering the market when they can't get a bond and don't want to go work for someone else. Now you are competing with people with years of experience, freight and contacts.

And I am the optimistic one.

 

The biggest handicap I see is you know nothing about freight. That's not a dig at you it's just that you don't know what you don't know. I can look at loads posted on a board and tell by pickup/delivery times lots of times even know what the shipper or receiver is depending on the location in a specific city. It sort of falls into what Grumman said: Trying to maximize the revenue off loadbards takes a trained eye with a great understanding of geography, time and distance, loading capabilities, rapid decision making, and negotiating techniques. Like for instance yesterday I booked a load within 20 minutes of CHR agency closing after just emptying out. This was after a quick glance at what was available and weighing 2 different prospects. pretty much knew my minimum rate on it without running numbers, although I typically like to take a couple of minutes to crunch those on all prospective loads before calling... Now in your situation you're gonna be hard pressed to book that load... You may see it and realize it works then you have to call some wishy washy owner who doesn;t know how or can't make a quick decision right there on the spot. He'd end up sitting overnight because of it... And some of that will be a trust issue... ...you can say it's all about maximizing revenue and what-not. I believe you, but when an owner is not booking loads and has no clue what rates are like, they are going to expect the world on everything.. You're going to have to deliver... These things move along quickly...

 

Teal, best of luck to you. It sounds like you've done a lot of research and have run a successful small business. I tend to agree with BBB however and think you will go through some painful learning experiences. If you plan to only get direct freight for your clients, you will be spending a great deal of time on sales/business development. You will be competing with thousands of brokers. The time you will need to spend making those calls and building those relationships will take away from other tasks you are suggesting you'll do.

Hopefully, you are in a position to be self-supporting until you get your cash flow going. You'll be charging your O/O's for your service and their payments will depend on their AR cycle. Do you plan on only getting paid when they get paid or when the load delivers and your services are completed per load? The margins are thin in trucking so how you do this has an impact.

There's so many things to be successful as an independent dispatcher, I'm too lazy to type it all and I probably don't know the half of it. Getting some experience with a small trucking company would be really advantages for you. If not, you'll be gaining experience at O/O's expense and the learnings you garner along the way will never be forgotten, good or bad. It can take a long time to earn back credibility if you damage it early on. I know the job sounds like a cool way to work from home and make money by wheeling and dealing freight and phone calls. The money is lean, it takes so much work it's ridiculous and the economy/freight is pretty soft. I'll look forward to hearing your update posts for the next couple of quarters.

 

An Independent Dispatcher is working on behalf of the owner operator, so they are working under the Owner Operator's MC#. All monies for delivering the loads go straight to the Owner Operator from the customer, and the Owner Operator pays his/her dispatcher for their services.

 

I have been following this thread and find it very interesting. My husband is leased on with a company and I look at that load board for him and book loads when he needs me too. I have been thinking about doing something like this but, I need more information.Can you answer a few questions for me Teal? Have you checked to see the percentage of O/Os who use a personal dispatcher? Have you spoken with any personal dispatchers outside of the training environment? What are they saying about their business? Have they had problems getting direct shippers to work with them? Thanks.

 

I commend her for looking into running her own business, but the fact remains....it takes knowledge and experience first before anyone can just run a dispatching service. Learning dispatching from a training book/course is just that...its a book. If I could ever work again and Lord knows I really wish I could...then you bet I would do what she is thinking about doing. I miss working in the trucking business and dealing with drivers on a daily basis, but I started from the bottom of a company and worked my way up to dispatching. It takes knowledge of how to bill brokers and knowing their AR cycle which is 30 days, but even though they say 30 days...it is more like 45. Does that person know what to do if the broker doesn't pay? I do....and that's because I did it. Does a person know how to write Sales proposals to go in and sale to a manufacturer or a small company to gain contracts....I do because I had to write proposals all the time to gain new business for our sales managers. So here is a scenario that I want you to really think about?

Let's say that we both have the same business, and we are both trying to get O/O to join us who do you think they would choose?

A: A person with 7 years experience, a degree in Business Management, and a degree in Supply Chain logistics who is also a truckers wife that knows how to deal with brokers, and how to negotiate with brokers, and knows how to handle situations that may arise, and who can fight with the broker to get the extra accessorials that are due to the driver? Who can do billing and fight with brokers to get the drivers money, and if they don't pay then file against their surety bond to make sure that the driver gets their money. Who knows how to make sure the pickup and delivery times are within the appropriate parameters...because brokers will push them to an extremely tight schedule. Who also knows the safety compliance rules when it comes to FTMCA and the HOS rules? Who also knows what areas are the hardest to get freight out of, so that a driver isn't sitting for 3 or 4 days waiting?

or

B: A person who is taking a training course to become a dispatcher, who has no knowledge of the trucking industry or who is not familiar with how the bottom dollar really works for Truckers. Who will make costly mistakes for the O/O and will quickly lose trust of any driver coming to them to handle their business affairs.

I would take a gander and say they would possibly go with option A.

Working for a broker or hotshotters is just that working for them, and learning how to get the lowest dollar for transporting....it works the other way around when it come's to O/O. I didn't just have 8 or 10 drivers to look out for...I had 25-30 drivers that I had to account for on a daily basis. Most loads are accepted off of DAT...and I have also worked with CH Robinson. They called us to see if the driver we posted would take a load for us...because they knew that we had a high service with low service failure. I would truly say, that if a person wants to run their own dispatching service....it is a great idea, but have the knowledge of every component before jumping into the frying pan. I think you would be better to work for a company that has a fleet....to really gain the whole concept of what a dispatcher really is. I am not trying to be mean...and again I do commend you on your desire to run your own business, because running a grooming business ain't nothing like the trucking industry.

 

How does a O/O when looking at a load board know which loads are better than others? This is really a interesting concept that could be very helpful to a new O/O.