This is How You Get Customers as a Freight Broker! | Final Mile 47

Make sure you check out our website and the Freight Broker Basics course If you're looking for an educational option on how to start a brokerage , the playbook to grow it , build a carrier and customer network , hire folks all that good stuff .

And please take a moment to check out the sponsors in the description box or the Whether it's the episode , show notes on podcast or description box on YouTube . Our partnership with the sponsors helps us continue to bring all of you listeners this content at no cost . All right , ben , let's get right into it . We got three questions today .

The first one this was a direct question from a listener through our website , I believe says as brokers call on shippers and are prospecting for customers , are they finding customers that don't currently have a broker , or do the shippers usually have a broker and you're just trying to replace the current broker ? So I did send him a message .

I said , short answer is both , but we'll break it down on this episode today . So I'll give a very brief response and I'll let you kind of elaborate . The reality is , if someone's it's probably very rare that they're not using a broker and you're going to come in and become that broker solution for them , it's possible , right ?

They might just have a few asset-based companies that they work with and they might be paying more than they need to because they haven't shopped around using a broker .

But more likely than not , they're already working with somebody else and you're going to try and come in and be better than that existing broker whether it's service failures , building a better relationship , better communication , maybe you can help find better rates or solutions for them .

I would say , if I had to guess , probably 99 percent of the people that you're prospecting , you're trying to win their business from somebody else . It might even be higher than 99 percent . What do you think ? What's your experience ?

Like the overwhelming majority are already working with , in fact , not just one broker , but usually multiple brokers , and the exception of that are usually newer companies that have come into existence in the past two or three years , maybe if it's a company that existed pre-pandemic 2019 , 2020 , like everyone had so many issues just getting capacity that almost everybody

reached out to any broker or any broker that reached out to them . They took their phone call . Yeah , took their phone call and were using them in some capacity . So the vast majority , you're trying to replace somebody or make it onto the team , and that's the analogy I use , like when I'm working with a client on what this looks like .

I'm like the coach already has a full team . I mean like he's got his first team squad of baseball players or basketball players . Whatever the analogy you want to use , your job is to basically hustle next to the field every single day while they practice and play games .

So the coach sees you and then inevitably , you don't usually get your shot until one of the starting lineup either gets sick , doesn't show up , makes an error always happen with their A team for them to consider the person on the bench or behind the bench trying to get the coach's attention . That's prospecting .

You got to get their attention and then you got to prove to them in any and every way possible that you deserve to be on the team and included , to be able to help like the other people that he or she has trusted forever .

If you're , if you're in major league baseball , those are the customers right Now . If you're prospecting a customer , you're in AA or AAA , you're trying to get a spot on the Major League team . Same thing with hockey , with racing , like this stuff . Every sport , right , you're just you're , they're likely .

It's not like , oh , we're just going to create a new , you know , you get the new expansion team and everyone kind of gets a pick of the litter on who they're going to bring in . That's the exception , not the rule .

The reality is that you're likely competing against somebody else and this is why I always tell people is , you know , don't be afraid of like conversations that don't go anywhere after three , four calls , anywhere after three , four calls , like , if you're persistent , like some of the best success stories are like , yeah , you know , the 10th time I called them , they ,

they just had one of their go-tos like slip up . They were pissed off and they were like you know what . You're clearly persistent . Let me give you a shot with this one . And that is like you have the . I mean you're . You work when hard work meets opportunity .

You create the hustle so that when the opportunity happens , you're positioned to be able to help .

He we did this was probably from over a year ago now Talked about how he built his brokerage from scratch , and it comes down to old school relationship building .

Right , because here's what happens when you're a brand new brokerage the same way that a new customer doesn't have credit history , you don't have credit history or worthiness when it comes to carriers or , even more so , the factoring companies that will tell that carrier if they're going to factor a load for you .

So the factoring company goes we're not going to pay a carrier for this brokerage because we have no ability to know what you don't think we're going to get paid getting a credit card when you're 18 , right , like ? there's some companies that will , but most of them are like well , like you need some history for us to be able to give you a loan .

That's all the factoring company saying . That's why this is usually hard , as well , as there are no reviews on your brokerage and the carrier doesn't know anything because there's no information on you yet .

We'll give you a quick pay of one business day at no cost to you . We'll fund it all up front . And that takes some , obviously , financial investment from you . Or , obviously , if you're using a factoring company yourself , that's where you might be able to do that . But that's the attractive pay option that we've mentioned before .

Now , some other ways it's going to be different . What's important to everybody is going to be a little different . So if a carrier says we can't work with you , you're too new , my response would be well , what would it look like for us to work with you ? What would you need to see ? And the same thing goes with your conversations with the factoring company .

Oh , my factoring company says we can't work with you , you're too new . Okay , can you give me a point of contact there so I can call them and find out what their requirements are and what we would need to do to you know for that to suffice , because I think what I suppose is a lot of new brokers that don't succeed .

For this reason , they're probably not making that call and saying , hey , I understand , we don't meet your normal qualifications . What does that look like ? What is there ? You know , what can we do to help make you feel comfortable to do business with us ?

Maybe it's a personal guarantee , maybe it's a look at personal credit from another business that you ran or you know . Maybe they want you to . You know , the same way that people do like pre-funded credit cards . Am I using the word right there ?

The reality is some of them might just say like no , we have a minimum , the same way that some brokers say I'm not using a carrier unless their authority is at least this old , Full stop . That is the case for some carriers and some factory companies . But remember , there are hundreds of thousands of carriers that are out there .

Someone a lot of them , for that matter are willing to work with you . If you can find a way to come to terms on what makes both parties feel comfortable , right , we vet carriers out and we might say hey , we normally look for X , Y and Z . Because we can't figure this one out , we're going to ask for D , E and F .

It's like , oh , you don't have an inspection history . Well , it's because you're new , so let's find another way to verify that you are real and not a fraudster . Oh , by the way , I worked for four years over at this brokerage . I can give you 10 references for carriers that I worked with . Never had an issue with getting trucks paid on time .

Boom right , that's another option . So what's your take outside of that ?

The same thing is true Anytime you've ever had somebody tell you no about anything ever . Right To me like and again , this is something that , like , I pay attention to and try to cultivate , but it's like no is just the first response . Okay , well , let me understand why it's a no , right ?

I am going to keep asking until I clearly understand why and why and what else I might be able to do , what other options that no one's thought of , and just try to keep pushing forward until I get to an ultimate no or an ultimate yes . Right , and it's usually four or five attempts with a prospect . It might be 15 .

It might be a year with a factoring company , it might be two conversations with maybe two different employees . But I'm going to ask every question and go like well , you framed it , perfect , that's exactly what I'd say hey , what would it look like if we work together ? What do you need ?

What are your requirements , what are your suggested requirements , the things you like to see , the things you need to see ? Where are we in both of these lists ? And then ask this question is there anything I can do outside of that list that might make this doable ?

Is there anything you can think of or that I could think of or that we'd be willing to do to maybe make this work ? Because all of the solutions for why you win in anything are on the margins , so that few percentage of chances or things that no one's thinking about . No one's talking about .

And if you ask enough questions and you dig far enough , there's usually something there . Maybe it's a deposit for five grand with this factoring company to get those carriers .

Maybe with this carrier it's what you said meaning , hey , like I've got a track record as a broker , you can use my references and the other carriers I've worked with to make you feel more comfortable . Maybe that works right .

Like I don't care what it is , I'm going to ask enough questions until I can get to the bottom of it and just do that over and over and over again and you will get some . Some you won't get , but you will get far more than doing nothing . That's the important takeaway .

But no , I get it Like is it's very scarce compared to the amount of business that you might do in a month or a week .

Like we had a scenario where one of the guys in our brokerage literally drove and met the driver and handed him a certified check , like find some solution . I'm not saying that's the one you want to do . I'm just saying there's usually something that can be done if you ask enough questions and really understand why they cannot .

And even if it doesn't work with this one this now you're better informed for the next one , you're learning right and now you know what questions to ask , what it might be , what it might not be . You're growing and you're getting better .

Number one is no inspection history and it's funny we just brought this up . It doesn't always mean that they're a double broker . But if someone's buying up MC numbers left and right or opening new authorities left and right , no inspection history is going to be a thing , right ? If they don't actually have trucks , they're not going to have an inspection history .

So that's , it's a red flag . It doesn't mean that you can't have no inspection history and be a legit carrier . It just means that if you're a double broker and you don't have any trucks , you're not going to have an inspection history . So it's not a guarantee , but it's a it's a morning sign Suspiciously high rates .

If the offer seems too good to be true , it probably is . Or too low to be true , what's that ?

right ? So either way , way . If the deal seems too good to be true , that's the takeaway . It doesn't . Yeah , it could be a high rate for one party or too low of a rate for another party , but if it's , if the profit seems too good to be true , it probably is .

That doesn't mean that always works , because sometimes fraudulent people can phish an email and get access to a legitimate email , but most of the fraud is like , instead of it being the domain name , ben at TLC Logistics , it's TLC Logistics logistics at gmail , right like . That's usually a pretty big red flag .

That doesn't mean there aren't legitimate carriers with gmail addresses , but this is a common way to catch them . Um , using quick scope , to be honest , I think is one of the best ways to prevent this .

Meaning , like the product where you know this carrier does not get the pickup information until that mc on that truck is at the location of your shipper , and to me that's probably the best way to prevent a double brokered load .

So if the email domain doesn't match suspicious address , like a po box , uh , glendale california for a location . And lastly , just you know , any community reports , whether it's from highway , the tia watchdog list , which is managed by highway . A lot of excel sheets that get emailed around internal notes in your tms . These are great ways .

Yeah , use the tools out there . Definitely , check out Quickscope as an option to help you add an extra layer of protection for a new carrier that you've never done business with , right ? Quickscope is great for shippers , brokers and carriers , right , it lets the shipper know that their load's not going to be in the wrong hands .

It lets the broker know that their customer shipment will not be in the wrong hands . It lets the carrier know that I'm not being scammed by someone else . It's actually me who's going to get paid for this business , for this load . Good stuff . Check out all of our other stuff on double brokering at our website , freight360.net .

We've got two years of double broker content at this point . It's all in there . Keep sending us your questions , we'll answer them . Final thoughts Ben .