What do you want in a broker?

Good advice.

 

I've been hanging around the forum some time now - being new to the business and inexperienced in the ways of the trucking business, I've kept my mouth shut and my ears open to learn from my elders.

TX_Proud you have some fairly consistent logic about you but I must respectfully disagree with this comment; seems the logic is a bit skewed: If my oldest son, who is now away to college and out of reach for punishment breaks a cardinal rule - do I turn to my next son and punish him for what his older brother did?
What does it matter to the next driver that the broker has to eat a load because of failure on the last drivers part? It matters not what the reasoning behind why the load has to be moved. In business it is always a gamble as to whether there is a profit made every time. If a broker says to me "because the last driver stole the load and this is a recovery load that I'm offering you and you will be punished for what the last driver did by a cheaper rate - If I'm fool enough to accept it, I've only opened myself up to more excuses why the broker can pay me a cheaper rate.

I agree with you that it does not matter what the broker makes on a load - as long as there is full disclosure, and I agree with his offer.
What really sticks in my craw is when people state that "well, he deserves the lion share because he put up the money" I say to that, 'take that money and make a big pile, hand it the keys and a dock appointment.'

An honest broker that is fair to his/her haulers will have his/her pick of good honest drivers; with a keen eye and a set of core values, there can be no stopping this kind of relationship.

 

I would suggest to focus on a specific type of freight, in a certain amount of lanes. If you start out trying to do Flatbeds in TX, Reefers in CA and Dry vans in ME, you probably will fail quickly. As for ordering shippers in a list, I would not suggest that. Google is free. Again, pick something you think you are comfortable shipping and go for that. Getting out on your own will be really tough and I come from a family of trucking. In today's world, I would suggest you be an agent. Make sure the company has contingent cargo, some hold $250k, a lower mc# (at least 500xxx and under) and 1st thing to do is pull credit on them and their pay terms. I could offer you 80% of profit, and pay carriers in 120 days. The 80% sounds great, but you will never get a carrier to haul for you. Your first hurdle will be getting a shipper to even talk to you. Then you will be added on some email list, competing with other brokers and carriers. It's not easy by any means to broker. Signing up as an agent, brokerages will tell you they have 50k carriers in their system. Ask them how many active ones. Of the 50k, there probably is only 5k active. Others are one and dones. Carriers, as you can see, don't like filling out long packets and sometimes its too time consuming to add new ones. Hurry up and wait, in this industry. Also ask the brokerage company what type of lane matching software they have. If you plan on just posting, you won't do as well. Many older operations can match your shipment in their system to carriers that have hauled that lane, and you will also see the pricing to get you an idea for quoting. Hope this helps some!

 

Any update OP? Did this ever happen or were you bored and decided to start a thread?
It would be very difficult to get started in the biz so late in the game especially with no shipper contacts or prior experience. I wouldn't worry about what a carrier wants, I would worry about getting freight from a customer.

 

I figure that basically brokers and truckdrivers both fall into two categories. Those that are willing to eat doo-doo and race to the bottom and those that aren't.

When I call a large brokerage and the broker is talking fast but doesn't know any real info about the load and is basically reciting lines to me, "I don't have that much into this load" , "I need to check with the shipper, I'll get back to you", etc... I mean I've only been doing this from the truck owner side a few months and I can see right through all that stuff.

Likewise, from the broker's side I'm sure they get tired of if they offer a good rate hearing truckers demand more for a myriad of reasons, not showing up on time, being rude and hanging up on them, etc...

Now what I'm saying is if I have a bad experience with a broker I won't do business with them again. If a good broker has a trucker screw up a load he/she probably won't do business with them again. So what you wind up with is only the bottom rung of truckers working for the bottom rung of brokers. These people are only screwing themselves and they don't even know it, the bad brokers become jaded with all truckers, the bad truckers become jaded with all brokers and they wind up doing a lousy job all the way around for the shippers and then they can only compete by offering lower and lower prices. Don't agree with me ? Have you ever noticed that it is usually the cheaper loads that not only pay less but are all around problematic. not as described, overweight, wrong address, etc... Most of the better loads I book are actually easier, and I can often tell within a few minutes on the phone and a few questions the broker who knows their shipper and knows what info I need to do my job correctly without problems.

I hope that answers your question, we're not really so different truckers and brokers. Just like truckers who wind up running 3500 miles/week for a few pennies per mile profit, there are also brokers who are trying to get way too many loads/day moved for way too little money per load for themselves or the driver. birds of a feather and all that.

 

this post should be required reading and stamped on the heads of everyone in management in the trucking industry

even company drivers should be treated as partners, because they are the one doing the actual work, NOT the salespeople

yes, we need sales, dispatchers, brokers, even weigh stations and cops, but it is the superiority attitude that wrecks these relationships and results in disgruntled workers

 

we have a bad company section

do we have a bad broker section?
which would CHRobinson fit?