1073. #TFCP - Is Co-Brokering Freight Actually Bad?

And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Corey BUCHAN. Happy Friday. TGIF, everyone. He says out there he's watching over on YouTube. Since this is a solo show, you guys, I gotta put this out there again. YouTube is really where I'm trying to get everybody to migrate over to and check it out. Sunny Sharma. Good morning, orange shirt, gang. I got the orange shirt on. Sunny, as you know, you were here in Arizona last week, bro. It was like 40 degrees out this morning.

It's freezing. I'm soft now. I'm a soft desert rat. I'm not Wisconsin tough anymore when it comes down to that weather. But I'm trying to get everybody to come over to YouTube and start watching the show. I've tried watching some live streams of some other creators on LinkedIn specifically here over these last couple of weeks, and I experienced it as well. It freezes up. It's not as quality as YouTube. So I'm trying to get everybody to jump over to YouTube to tune into the live show. Just look for the freight coach. You'll find me on there. That's like literally the first thing I did when I started creating content is like, I got the freight coach handle at every social media site that I possibly could, and YouTube is one of them, you guys. So go over there, check that out.

You guys, subscribe over there and then you can see all my content because we put out little shorts on there as well, and we're really expanding this stuff out next thing. And as you can see, I got this cool little layout right now on my screen. Christian on my team is an absolute gangster, and he's helping me improve the esthetics of the stream. So as you can see, you guys, we got the Apple, we got the Spotify over there, and then we have the freight coach.com. We do a weekly newsletter, you guys, and I'm really trying to grow that out again. It's all freight focused and it's mainly about, you know, the industry. Right. And then so if you want to go there and automatically register for that, it will prompt you if you're.

And I'm thinking about putting a poll out there on social media to find out if you're cool with getting auto registered for newsletters or not. I have mixed feelings about them, you know, and it really just depends on it because I get auto subscribed to some newsletters. Some of them are cool, but at the end of the day, I try not to spam people with it because I have a day job. Everybody has a day job. And I try and just want. I want people to tune into my content because they choose to tune into it, not because they got registered for it. And now they just get fucking worn out. So, yeah, check that out, you guys. We release a newsletter every single Wednesday.

And, you know, just like with everything, just like how the podcast started and it's evolved, the newsletter, we started it. That's going to evolve and everything else as we continue to grow and scale this little budding media empire out there. Because I personally think traditional mainstream media is dead. This last election proved that the. The independent creator is the way of the future. And that is where more and more people are going to gravitate towards to get their information. And, you know, I got a pretty good track record of proving that's an accurate statement as well here. So Steve Setka, what is up? He said 44 degrees right now in Minneapolis. Same in Winnipeg. Zona is the place to be right now. Zona is always the place to be, bro. Sonny. Yeah. It was cold when you were here last week.

57 in Clovis, man. Let me see here. Robert Peterson, what is up, man? He says, looks good. Great job, Christian. And Christian edits all this stuff out too. So as long as he's watching this replay later on, he's gonna see that. He. He's. He has, man. Honestly, Christian has been such a phenomenal addition to the team to help all of this stuff out, man. I love having him out here. And there's a big part of it. But we are going to go back to here, what were doing. Corey says it's 32 in Montana. I feel for you, bro. All right, we are today we're going to break down some industry headlines. We are going to keep it, we're going to keep it focused in on that.

You know, there's been a lot of news that has kind of come up there and you know, when I started going back when I just kind of transitioned the structure of the live show, you know, I did this and I keep it at 30 minutes because I have a lot of data from viewership on my show on multiple platforms and that I saw that the average person was watching or listening to the audio version for like 20 some minutes. And so I was like, all right. So I had to chop it down and that's why I did this. And I got it down to 30 minutes and ironically my viewers tune in for a lot longer now. They're, it's almost at like the 26, 27 minute mark on a 30 minute show, which is massive ROI out there.

And you know, again we keep all, when I have guests on, I like to talk about specific topics, right? Like what are they on for their subject matter expert, their expertise. Because you know, at the end of the day, you guys, I just did. The whole point of the show is education and insight into the industry. It's by transportation professionals, it's for transportation professionals and that's the way that we like to keep it. And you know, for a long time I did the breakdown of the articles and everything else and I'm going to do a little bit of that today. And I'm, you know, when I do these solo shows, I'm going to do that and then if I'm feeling really fiery, I'm going to do some training, right? Like where I'm going to go out there.

Like I did the last week, for example, I showed everybody how I personally read freight markets, how I personally bid on freight and how I see things are going out there in the industry. Because you know, as much as I understand the value of national averages on stuff, it is so unapplicable to so many people who are out there just trying to build their business. And the reality is it is very rare when you onboard a new customer that you're just going to get published rates right away and you're just going to have RFP level volume and everything else. It's going to start off with a last minute, oh shit option hey rookie, prove yourself.

And so went through a lot of that and as the solo shows kind of trickle in, I'm going to continue to do that, you guys, because again, the whole point of this entire show is just to add value out there to people. And Steve says Christian is a baller that when he was a guest he dialed in the experience. He really does, man. He, he makes me look really good. That is for damn sure. But so first article we're going to break down. I saw this kind of breaking out there yesterday and across the social media verse and I try not to engage in a lot of the stuff that I see out there on social media.

But you know, I did this morning I replied to a post that was out there about this specific topic and fortunately my good friend Eric Johnson with the JOC wrote an article about this. So you know, Double Brokering co brokering it all is it's always back in the news. It's one of the, you know, the hottest topics that are out there. Know that go on. And you know, Andrew Silver put a post out there about this. He I just saw the one that he had put out today talking about this in specific, you know, and I agreed with what he, you know, a portion of what he had said on there about the customer not needing it, not knowing about it. And you know, it's ultimately the one who has to sign off on all this stuff.

But we're going to talk about this so Uber Freight Opens Truckload Capacity Networks to Rival Brokers Uber Freight on Thursday opened its network to truckload carriers to fellow brokers under a new product called Broker Access. The product, which is operated independently of its own freight brokerage business, gives other brokers the ability to expand the pool of capacity to move truckloads for those broker shipper customers. Broker Access in some way mirrors the development of a similar product at now defunct Convoy, which is kind of not defunct because Flexport is running the technology. Convoys was, you know, goes on to say that was acquired by Flexport out there and it's renamed that the Convoy platform. The commonality between these two products is leveraging a network of hundreds of thousands of truckload carriers who have downloaded the company's apps, and those apps allow drivers to book loads.

Uber Freight sees broker access as another channel for brokers to find capacity outside of contracts with truckload carriers and posting spot freight on load boards, said Brooks McMahon, the company's vice president of emerging products. We think it'll continue to happen where more and more carriers will want to work this way. Who McMahon, who spearheaded Convoy for brokers before joining Uber freight in late 2023. But there will always be a place for relationships and there always be a place for load boards. Keep doing what you're doing and consider this another path to get access to a carrier base.

And then as brokers look for vetted carriers outside of their network, it's a cohort of drivers who are embracing apps, you know, because you know they're technology savvy or English is their second language and they might feel disadvantaged when business is conducted over the phone, McMahon said. Programs like this level the playing field for carriers, he said. And then it all, you know, data is behind a firewall. One key behind Broker Access is offering is that it utilizes the same back end technology that Uber Freight uses, but the data is kept behind a firewall. So Uber Freight's brokerage business isn't advantaged. We've got different tables for all of our data, McMahon said. We have access controls. We don't share data with third party teams. They don't share it with us. So we truly put up walls.

And, and then McMahon said uber freight has been trailing Broker Access with group of brokers since May. And the product, you know, it's done via API integration or an EDI exchange. Yeah. So I look at it like this. I am always skeptical and let me be abundantly clear. I personally think Uber, the app, all of that, what Convey was doing, I think that there is a major opportunity for that inside of this space. I truly feel that they are very much onto something. The early adoption of that, whatever is irrelevant. I truly do feel that in the future there is going to be a time and a place for certain freight. All right.

And I'm going to say the repeatable business, you know, and what I'm alluding to that is I look at the Atlanta to Chicago that are 53 foot dry van, 30000 pounds, never changes stuff. All right, that's where I truly feel like that could be automated. And I think that it's only a matter of time before somebody comes in and really dials that in and puts that out there. My skepticism of this is because I'm a skeptic at heart, you guys. I, I am very much a skeptic. Is that the data is behind a. I am not accusing Uber of not doing this at all. But that's a red flag to me. I feel the exact same way when I'm working with shippers and they use a tms that is a business entity of another broker. I just don't fucking trust brokers, all right?

Because I am a broker and if I had the ability to see what somebody else was paying, I'm just not saying that, you know, maybe the company as a whole, but what stops the sales rep or two from doing something about it, Right? Again, I'm a skeptic at heart, but ultimately it breeds the question is this just double brokering, right? And when you fundamentally boil it down, whether you want to call it co brokering, whether you want to call it double brokering. I'm from northern Wisconsin. We have this saying that's called this. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a fucking pig. And that's what I feel like this is. I just feel like this is trying to, you know, with tech, double broker the freight. I truly do.

Because ultimately, and this is the part, you know, to tie Andrew's post back into this about what I had agreed with him on is the customer aware of what you are doing? Because if you're going to co broker, double broker, fucking whatever you want to call it, you guys, because there's going to be another term that's going to be came up with here in the near future that's just going to mask what that ultimately is. And if your customer is aware of it, you operate your business however you see fit, if your customer is aware of it. But if it's not aware of it, and if your customer is not asking for this, that means that you are falsely selling them on your capabilities to execute upon their freight.

And furthermore, if you need some other brokerage to book your freight for you, give me your customers right now. Because it's only a matter of time before I cold call them and it's only a matter of time before I service them. And it's only a matter of time before you're going to work yourself out of business. Because if you can't build a carrier base, if you can't do your literal job, because that's what this is, you guys, you're giving another broker the ability to broker their freight. They're going to have all the carrier, they're going to have all that shit. Why do they need you? Why does your customer actually need you if you're just going to take that and give your freight to somebody else to do it? You know, I look at it like this.

Sonny Sharma, he's a really good friend of mine, he does reefer Freight, he does proteins primarily. If for some odd reason he had a customer of that might do what I do, which is specialize in open deck freight. Right. Or here, I'll put it this way. Say I have a customer who is moving steel and for some reason they have a need to ship out a hundred reefer trucks of steak. For whatever reason, I'm not going to have a co broker agreement with Sunny. I am going to tell my customer I have a guy, Sunny Sharma, who you need to talk to, who can handle all of this for you. I do open deck freight. All right. And if this is something that you want to do, I'm not going to co broker. I'm not going to do any of that stuff.

You need to go direct to Sunny. Because ultimately, here's what it boils down. I trust I know Sonny does the right thing. I know how Sonny operates. But I don't want to lose my business because of something Sonny does or vice versa. Sunny probably wouldn't want to have his business affected based on something I did. Right. So there has to be that clear separator that goes on out there. And the same thing with ltl, right. Like I don't do LTL at all. But my boy Gabe Pinketon dominates ltl. So I'd probably pass him something and not have a co broker agreement because I want no part in that. But I, I truly feel that this is one of the, it's just another iteration of that.

And if you need another broker to find trucks for you, like literally that's your only fucking job as a broker, is to find trucks. And if you can't find trucks, I don't think brokerage is for you. Okay. I truly don't. If you have trouble sourcing capacity, brokerage is not for you. That, that's literally what you're selling is your access to capacity. And I am not going to change my opinion on this no matter what is what Uber offer is what Uber freight broker access. Is this a great tool for somebody? Probably it's going to be a great tool for somebody. I don't think it's a bad idea as a whole. Right. I just do not think that you are going to make it as a freight broker if you need to find somebody else to cover your trucks.

I truly feel that way and my opinion is not going to be swayed on that at all. But you know what, if this is something that you want to do and you want to have a more hands off approach and it works out, dude, more things to you but ultimately your customer better be aware of what you're doing. Okay? If you are using another third party system, because customers aren't dumb, right? Like, they fucking know that we ultimately use load boards to find capacity, but then, you know, using those same carriers time and time again and not going out to a load board is really what the whole point of that is. But, you know, if your customer is aware of this, go out there and do it. But otherwise you're knowingly and willingly double brokering your customers freight. Co brokering your customers freight.

Yes, I know that people want to try and delineate between the two, but it's an iteration of the exact same thing, all right? I don't care what anybody says, I don't care how they try and spin it. None of that bullshit. It's all the same. It is. You're adding another broker into the mix. And if you need to add another broker into the mix, you should not be moving that freight at all. All right? You shouldn't be doing that. You know, it's, you know, I just look at it as. It's hard enough to get business, right? It's hard enough to get business. It's even harder to keep business, and it's even harder to scale that business up.

And for you to just do that and then just give it to somebody else and then just blatantly lie to your customer about it and then, you know, because like, I don't know, there's just. I believe you got to control your variables, right? And me having direct access to the carrier and sourcing that capacity myself and speaking to the driver and doing that and handling all of that stuff, that is a competitive advantage ultimately. But if you're just looking to outsource your, you can park your book of business with me, all right? Give me your book of business. We'll work something out and I'll take care of everything for you. If you don't want to fucking book freight. Because otherwise, you guys, it's only a matter of time before somebody comes in there and takes that business away from you.

You know, like, we're out there, we're cold calling, we're prospecting, we're trying everything we possibly can to get in the door. And when you're cold call like, customers hear the exact same pitch time and time again. Like the really, the only real way that you're going to be able to separate yourself is how you operate their business. And it is a massive risk for somebody to bring you on as a provider. And to begin with, it is a massive risk to contract them, you know, at all as a broker. And then if you're just going to do some more shady shit that they're not going to be aware of, like you're literally just digging your own grave there. All right? And I hope I did a good enough job of separating the fact that I don't think Uber Freight's in the wrong.

I don't think what Uber Freight is doing is a bad idea. I think somebody's going to do it. I just don't think it's for me. I don't think it's going to be for me. And frankly, again, when it boils down to it, if you need another broker to cover your freight, you're going to have a very hard time making it as a broker in this industry. And you know, again, I'm just, I'm a skeptic, right? Like, I don't care what firewall. It could be in Fort Knox for all I care. I still don't trust that somebody's not going to have access to my data. I don't trust it at all. But that's my opinion on that. If you want to go out there and do that, you do. You ultimately do. You, it's your business.

But that's the beauty of the free market, ladies and gentlemen. That's the beauty of the society that we live in, is you can make that decision and you could be right or you could be massively wrong and then somebody else who's going to do the right thing is just going to come in and eat your lunch, essentially. So that being said, next start. That article is from the joc. Hit him up, you guys. Eric Johnson's the man. All right, next article. Ttnews.com Trucking sector weakness looms over Q3 results over capacity. Low demand continue to hamper earnings. The trucking industry continued to bounce along the bottom of the cycle. It was certainly mixed. City analyst Ariel Rosa said earnings were down year over year. Excuse me. Year over year. All of the truck load carriers and three of the five LTL carriers.

And so certainly not a lot to get excited about in terms of the current environment. The question is more about what does the outlook look like. I think fourth quarter outlook was still pretty. Rosa believes the question of when the market might fully rebound will stretch into 2025 and possibly 2026. He noted investors in the space right now are thinking about what the cycle inflection could look like, what the implications might be. Earnings. It's almost like Citi Financial watches this show and have heard me state numerous times that the market is going to take a very long time to rebound and it's going to be little incremental bumps.

And then in 12 months from now, maybe 18 months from now, I don't know, nobody knows, people are going to look back and be like, damn, freight rates are up 30 cents a mile over the last 12 months or 40 cents a mile, hypothetical example. But you get what I'm saying. Nobody knows, you guys. There's a lot of that's going on out there. And it goes on to say that the main difference is in LTL is that industry production is really weak. As long as industrial production remains weak, you're going to see some limit on demand on the LTL side. And then Rosa says that they don't believe yellow closing is having any impact on there. And then let me see here, Evercore ISI analyst Jonathan Chapel said, you go back to the second quarter earnings season.

I think there was some optimism because June was a little bit better than July started counter seasonally really strong. And then Chapel noted that few that market conditions aren't getting much worse, but there are a few indications of things getting there are fewer indications of things getting better. June and July were counter seasonal, but August and September were counter seasonal in a very bad way. And it really confirmed a working thesis that we had thought most of the second quarter where they would pull forward in imports and pull forward in demand. And then Chapel pointed to the ports on both coasts dealing with labor disruptions, the threat of a rail strike. From our capacity, from our perspective, excuse me, the capacity overhang remains. The manufacturing sector is still soft. The consumer is still squishy to use our retail terms.

A long way of saying softer than expectations with probably a little bit more caution towards Q4 than most would have had three months ago. And then US bank, you know, again, these are all just small institutions, you guys, Citibank, US Bank, I'm being completely facetious here. Freight Payment Index noted the quarter marked the ninth consecutive decrease in shipments. And then as a whole there's still a lot of misses, said Stifle Capital Markets and analyst Bruce Chan said, but it seems like the effects of the through of the trough are still very much upon us. I would say to the positive side that there were some slight or very early indications that things are getting better.

So you know, again, you guys, that article was from ttnews.com and I would caution everybody, don't take everything I'm saying as the way go out there and do your own research. And I hope I've done a good enough job over the years of explaining that. Get out there and do your own research on where things are, how things are trending. That article Specifically was from ttnews.com and the trucking sector weakness looms over Q3 results. And you know, again, I, I am an optimistic realist about everything. I am always optimistic that I am going to perform at a high level and do what I need to do to make my business work. I am optimistic about my internal operations. But I'm a realist out there as well that nobody snaps their fingers.

Nobody has that type of power in this country to snap their fingers and say everything's instantly better, ladies and gentlemen, you don't have to work anymore. I think that there we are still a long ways out from any like noticeable changes. Could I be wrong? Absolutely. I could be wrong. It could get better in the next two days for all I know. Right. But ultimately, based on what I've experienced in my 15 years of actually doing this job, is this what we are in a position for is a gradual increase over time. All right. And I think that no matter what there's an opportunity in any market, there is a high probability that somebody out there is fucking up right now.

And you have an opportunity to cold call that shipper today and be that knight in shining armor that's going to come in and not double broker their freight or co broker their freight because you can actually do what the you say you can do. But yeah, you guys, that, that's kind of my opinion on that one and I truly think so. You know, like I had mentioned yesterday, and I'm going to mention this as well, I'm having somebody come on the show next week to talk about tariffs. Right? Like there's a lot of talk out there about tariffs and what that's going to do for the industry. And there's some different school of thoughts out there as well. And I want to bring every single opinion on here that I think is relevant to talk about this. Right.

Whether you're pro any of this stuff or either you're against it, I think it is very imperative that we stop sitting inside of an echo chamber and only listening to what we want to hear. Because ultimately that does not make you help you make qualified and the best decision out there. You need to look at dissenting viewpoints at times. You need to look at all the data that's out there and you can't just say, well, I said this, or you can't just say this. One person said that. So now everything's going to better. You know, ultimately, you guys, nobody's going to come in and make your business profitable but you, all right? Nobody out there is going to write your processes for your procedures, find you business. Nobody's going to do any of that but you.

So ultimately, you got to take these as an opportunity to go in there, get better and make shit happen day in and day out. But speaking of that, I got to get back to making cold calls, you guys, because I actually do that and I don't just post about it. So I got to get back after it. You guys, that's going to be it for today. We got a swarm of guests coming on next week. We are going to be talking about a bunch of cool like we always do. But as always, you guys, if you guys got value in what you heard, which I think you guys do, and you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show. You guys, share it out there to your network. Get it out there, you guys, that's how we grow.

But, but most importantly, this is how we can help more people is because if you see value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon. Let's go.