New Brokers, ELD Tracking, Lumper Fees & More | Final Mile 76

We've got a lot of content there as well , including the Freight Broker Basics course , and you can see all of our sponsors in the description box or the show notes to help support this channel . We'll get right into it .

Our first question today I have got my MC number , but should I wait until my MC number and DOT number become three to six months old before calling prospects ? Hell , no , that's my answer .

I get the idea of wanting to let your authority age a little bit , but it's gonna probably take you three to six months before you get good at prospecting and actually get some good people that you're building relationships with .

And honestly , if you meet the right customer and you guys hit it off and you're knowledgeable of with and honestly , like if you meet the right customer and you guys hand it off and you're knowledgeable of their commodity , their shipping , they probably don't care how long your authority has been around , for they want to know . Do I feel ?

Do I trust this person . Do I feel good about entrusting this person with handling my transportation of my business ? Because your authority could be 40 years old and they can just hate you and the age doesn't matter at all .

So that's my big take on it is I would start dialing right away , building relationships , and because I think that matters a lot more than your authority age . The carrier side is a little bit different . You know , some carriers and factory companies are not going to want to preferably work with a brand new authority . But what are your thoughts there ? Agreed .

three to four months , give or take , I mean , depending on who you're talking to right now . So I think like the more , the earlier you can start , the better off you are for sure .

Even the reefer temp setting is a great tool to have for a broker who wants to stay in tune with their freight setting , you apart from the competition . So it's super ironic , literally . In the last hour I got an email from Trucker Tools . We were asking them how to set this up on behalf of one of our carriers .

So I have the actual answer of how they do it , but I'll talk on a more broad level . So one of the risks , um , or potential areas of fraud in any cell phone tracking and I've had it happen before and I think , ben , you brought it up on the interview is like people could just forward your text to somebody else and that person turns the tracker on .

Like we had a guy who literally , like he pinged in Azerbaijan and I was like what ? Like I remember that .

So there's really no excuse to not just go the ELD route , unless if you're ELD exempt , I get it . But , like , if you have ELDs , like it's , the driver usually prefers to not have their phone tracked . They'd rather have the truck tracked .

Um , so you can just , literally you can still send the request out the same way , and if they have their eld integrated into trucker tools , it just pulls the location of trucker tools . So I'll actually I'll pull the email up , since I just had it here . But , um , it says uh , it says uh , yeah . So there's , there's an ELD page on the trucker tools site .

Um , the carrier can proceed with uh , let's see , uh , yeah , it basically just they . They basically fill out one additional thing when they're um on the trucker tools site to agree , and there's a link that they can integrate through the . It's the same thing with , like highway .

We're like if on highway a carrier wants to integrate their eld for verification purposes or location purposes . All you do is , like you , literally just put in your username and password of your eld provider and it allows the connection , the same way if you're connecting your bank to any like PayPal or Venmo or whatever . It's the same exact concept .

But I'm a big fan of the ELD . I love it . Integrated tracking because , like you , don't have to worry about a driver that can't figure out how to turn on location services on their phone .

It's literally , it's truckertoolscom forward slash eld , dash carrier , dash integration , integration . I set it up too .

So it's way more efficient , it's way more consistent . And to the other question about , like reefer temp settings like it is a fantastic thing that when you can do this and have this set up , it really only works , though , when you've got carrier relationships , because it's very few and far between .

You're gonna get a carrier on one load that is going to integrate their ELDs to move a load for you . They've gotta be doing business with you and have some relationship usually for them to be willing to do that , because it does take a little bit of time .

But when you do have that , like that is a huge advantage for your customers too , because , like , you can tell them , like hey , we do have ELD tracking , we can track reefer settings on this Like , to me that is a giant value add and a differentiator , because most brokerages aren't doing that .

Um , do you remember dat like kind of dabbled with their own tracking like four or five years ago , I don't , and it was free to try . I don't think it ever went anywhere and I think that's one of the real benefits of the Trucker Tools . Acquisition is like why recreate the wheel when we can just join forces with someone who's mastered it ?

So good deal , all right . Next question what do you usually do as a carrier when you don't get payment from the broker ? The broker has 60 claims against their bond , so this we're talking about bond off air earlier . But uh , um , don't take any more loads from that broker stop the bleeding to begin with . Um , next up file on the bond .

You're probably bottom of the totem pole , not going to get paid beyond that . There's not a whole lot you can do besides go direct to the shipper .

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And the brokerage is basically like hey , agent , like find a way to pay this guy , or like we're letting you go , like you're not going to tarnish my name . And he , he got it worked out . Um , they didn't go .

So I'm like , if you didn't pay the carrier that's why I want to ask I want to get an attorney on here to ask some of these like very specific transportation questions .

So I my thought is that you could go after the shipper for this , but I'm definitely not an attorney and I have not seen that happen at least I think you can .

All right , this goes for Comcheck , EFS , any type of wire advance for a lumper . Okay . Now listen , if you're a carrier and you want a fuel advance or a quick pay and there's a fee involved , hey , it kind of comes with the territory . There's a fee , yes .

So , customer , you know , you send a truck in and they go load your truck or unload your truck . You send a truck in and they go load your truck or unload your truck . You've got to pay these people on the spot , though . One option is the carrier pays them and gets reimbursed by the broker with their line haul pay . Maybe it's $100 .

I'm a carrier , I send my $100 receipt in to the broker . The broker pays me my money plus the $100 extra . The other option , and it's somewhat common , is to get an advance , like , hey , I need a comm check or an EFS advance or whatever advance service you're going to use for this lumber . It's $100 . And all right , great , here's $100 .

Well , there's a 3% fee that comes out , so you're only getting $97 . And it's like fee that comes out . So you're only getting 97 and it's like why , as a carrier do I have to eat that and I totally agree you should .

So here's here's my take on it is , as a broker , just pay him the amount including the fee , like if it's if it's gonna cost you that , by the way , I was gonna set this up last or a couple weeks ago .

But if you're a broker and you're making your carrier eat those fees , I would challenge you to think about if that makes sense or not , because for years carriers have been eating that fee and it's very rarely do they complain about it , but when they do , it's totally valid 100% valid . Yeah , 100% Like it's the customer's request , right ? Whose customer is it ?

It's the broker's customer , broker's . So , mr Broker , mrs Broker , if you want to use that customer , or if you're going to service that customer and they have that kind of thing , either ask them to eat the fee or you eat the fee .

I would suggest you don't be putting on your care because otherwise , like the alternative , like I said , is have the carrier paid up front and asked to get reimbursed . Well , our last question was just uh , what do you do when the broker doesn't pay you ? So like , right .

And also like I remember and again I don't hold me to this , but I could have swore that when I worked at a larger company and it was automated , like you said for , like the com check or the efs , like we would just up the fee , like if there was a three percent fee and 100 bucks , we'd just pay them , like 108 , we'd just do the math and be like 106

bucks . So they got more plus the fee , yeah like there's really no , yeah , there's no excuse for making a carrier pay a fee for a service your shipper and your customer required that carry to do . It's not their fault and not their responsibility .

The shipper doesn't want to hire somebody on staff to unload trucks and wants to outsource it to a third party that needs paid in cash . Yeah , to me that's absolutely ridiculous .

Any final thoughts Ben ?

If you change your habits , you'll have a new year , right and like to me , I think that really resonates like do the same thing you did last year might as well be 12 more months of 2024 . You change your habits and what you're doing on a daily basis , you're far more likely to have a new or a different year than you did before . That's good .