Insider Secrets to Successful Freight Brokering

What's Your 20?

Where are you located? Working as a freight broker or agent, it doesn't matter. It's like my training.

I have trained or worked with clients while visiting Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Amarillo, TX, St. Louis, Springfield, MO, Peoria, IL, Chicago, IL, Boulder, CO, San Diego, CA, Las Cruces, NM, Alburquerque, NM, Monterrey, MX, Guadalajara, MX, Puerto Vallarte, MX and, yes, El Paso, TX.

And nobody cares WHERE I am located. My clients come from all over the U.S.A., Canada, the Philipines, Okinawa and Iraq. Likewise, I don't care where THEY are located.

You can do the same working as a freight broker or an agent. Service is the name of the game and if you have good computer and telephone access, you are in business no matter where you are. Furthermore, you will be working with customers and truckers in potentially all 48 states.

Keep this in mind as you consider some of the benefits of becoming a broker or agent.

Freight Broker Business: Top 10 Reasons for Becoming a Freight Broker

Here are the first five .....

1) If you are a trucking company, go directly to the shipper for loads and cut out the middle man

2) If you are tired of trucking, get ready to kiss the road good bye

3) If you are an employee, fire your boss and find your independence here

4) Unlimited income potential

5) Get started for less than $3,500 if you have good credit (this includes training)

Tomorrow I'll give the other 5 reasons for becoming a freight broker.

Pepper Spray??

One thing you will NOT need as a freight broker or agent is pepper spray. Why do I say this? I just got off the phone with an individual. He was obviously unloading somewhere and I heard a voice in the background asking him, "Pepper spray?"

Yes, it may get tough out there on the road.

But as a freight broker or an agent, the only thing you might need in the summer is a fly swatter.

Have a good day.

Freight Brokers Asking Questions

Ironically, most customers will not be asking a lot of questions when a freight broker calls on them for doing business. It is then up to the freight broker to start the ball rolling with questions.

If you, as a freight broker, do not know what questions to ask, you will not get far. You might as well start looking for other work.

Asking the right questions will do two things:

• It will help you gather important information on your customer,
• It will establish your credibility with your customer

Three questions you might want to ask are:

1. What kind of cargo do you ship?
2. Where do you normally pick up and drop?
3. Do you have unloading fees on your loads?

There are a ton of other questions. Get trained, get smart and build credibility. Go to: http://atexfrei.ipower.com

Freight Broker Principles vs Techniques or Tactics

Running a freight broker busines is a BUSINESS! As such, you need to know MORE than just how to broker freight. There are freight brokers going under as we speak because they don't know how to run their business based upon solid fundamentals.

In my training, in addition to how to broker freight, I teach the four fundamentals of:

• Cash management,
• Marketing,
• Operations, and
• Planning

These are fundamental to every business and will never change. They are PRINCIPLES.

Then within each fundamental, there are various techniques or tactics. These change over time.

Be sure you know the difference between all of these and how to implement both principles and techniques in your business. If you miss one or several "techniques" or "tactics", you may not suffer that much. If you miss just ONE principle, however, you are surely doomed to failure.

To learn more about the training and business fundamentals, go to: http://www.atexfreightbrokertraining.com

 

Freight Broker Business Model

Many people just don't get the "business model". They learn bits and pieces about brokering and think they have it all summed up. For example, many individuals think they need to go to the loads boards to get loads. No, No, No. The loads on the load boards are posted by OTHER freight brokers.

Why would you want to post a load on the load board that you picked up from another freight broker? It doesn't make sense. You want to go DIRECTLY to the shipper to get you own loads.

By looking to the load boards to find loads, a person is making a fundamental mistake and it underscores the fact that they really don't understand the business model.

Even when you "get" the business model correctly, there are numerous procedures that need to be learned and you need to learn how to do them in sequence. These errors in thinking and doing are a big reason why there is such a turnover in brokering.

People think freight brokering is simple only to find themselves out on the street after six months or so.

Freight Broker Confusion .....

There is a lot of confusion about who can become a freight broker and what it takes to become one. Let me simplify things:

• just about any individual can become a freight broker - no tests or exams, no background checks and no age limit,
• trucking companies that have their trucking authority still need to get their freight broker authority IF they want to broker loads to other trucking companies (most do),
• if you want to get loads only for your trucks, you do not need a freight broker authority; however, consider this ...
• many shippers will not work directly with trucking companies - you then set up a separate company for the freight brokering,
• this means that a trucking company wears two hats - one as a trucker, one as a freight broker,
• you also want to set up a separate company for freight brokering because the FMCSA requires brokering not to be co-mingled with any other business,
• you do not have to put up the entire $10,000 for your trust fund or surety bond,
• lastly, you can get started for less than $5,000 in many cases (this includes our training fee)

For more details, call me, John, at 1-888-526-ATEX (2839)

How to Win, One Step at a Time

The freight broker business is very elusive, mysterious and simplistic in many ways. First, there are many, many individuals who dearly want to become freight brokers and, yet, the opportunity to take action just never seems to materialize. So, it remains elusive. Many of these individuals are in trucking or some related, logistics-type of work.

Second, many people have never heard of a freight broker. If you tell someone that you are a freight broker, the quick response will always be, You're a What??? So, there is a good dose of mystery surrounding freight brokering.

Third, the business concept makes freight brokering seem so simple. You find shippers with cargo, you find a truck, you put the two together and you gain your commission. Simple? Well, it's not. There are many details and procedures and they need to be done in sequence or you come across looking like a fool at best or losing your business at worst.

The key is to approach all of this one step at a time. First, get a good grounding in all the details and procedures. Frankly, while studying freight brokering with training or from books, much of it does not sink in very quickly.

It's not that it's difficult; it's just the fact that there is a lot to it. So, much of it does not sink in until you DO IT. But too many people try doing it before they are grounded in the details. They have no framework and every day they are "winging it". You can only wing it for so long. Then reality catches up with some cold, hard consequences.

In our training, the materials are layed out pretty much in sequence of how the day will go. All the details are there. As you progress further along in working with a load, you are always able to return to the materials to get regrounded in the details.You are not winging it.

You eventually take more and more orders and you go one step at a time as you proceed moving cargo from point A to point B. After going through the procedures and refreshing yourself with the details, you get more comfortable and more confident.

Eventually, you start getting repeat business from shippers. They will start calling you instead of you calling them. The same thing with carriers - if you give them good loads, pay them on time, treat them faily, you will have won another cog in the wheel of your success.

And you do all this one step at a time and eventually, you start working proactively. This is where things really start kicking in. Want to read a little more about working proactively? Go here: http://atexfreightbrokertraining.com/proactive.shtml

What Is Your Obligation .....?

You first will send your set up package to shippers before you begin working with them. Once sent, you are ready to rock and roll. In the beginning, you will be doing the calling as you seek loads. After you have worked with shippers and have gained their confidence, they will start calling you. It's nice.

Here is a question that frequently arises: if you take an order from the shipper, are you promising to find a truck? What are you obligating yourself for?

The answer is, No, there will be times when you are unable to find a truck. In fact, for some brokers, finding trucks is more difficult than finding loads. Nevertheless, you do what you can do and what you can't do you don't fret about except - you continuously build your database of carriers as well as shippers.

In our training, we hit em both - finding good paying loads and then finding good, reliable carriers. It is both an art and a science and we will show you how.

Check out several of the freebies on this blog if you have not done so already.

Spring is in the Air??? Well ..... Maybe, Maybe Not

I know some of you in the Northeast are getting plastered with snow and all that goes with it. But here in El Paso, Texas, it will get up to nearly 70 degrees next Monday. No - I am NOT trying to rub it in. I just have some good news.

When January is here and February and March are not far behind, NOW is the time to start thinking about moving produce.

You can get trained in a month or so (much quicker if you come here to El Paso) and then you are ready to start contacting produce growers. I started my freight broker career moving produce out of south Texas. I ended up moving produce out of Fabens, Las Cruces, Los Angeles, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Missouri, Minnesota, North Carolina and other places.

I loved it. Can you envision yourself pulling produce loads out of these places? It may be snowing where you are right now, but it won't last and you might as well get started thinking about spring time and start making some money in the process.

P.S. They start moving produce out of south Texas in March.