Finding Trucks, Crossing Borders, and Growing Your Customer Base | Final Mile 109

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome back. It's another edition of the Final Mile. Your questions we're going to answer them on today's show. If you're new, continue or I shouldn't say continue. If you're new, check out all of our other stuff. If you've been with us for a while, continue to share us, leave those comments, reviews and check out the Freight Broker Basics course. If you are looking for an educational option for you or your team, team and check out the sponsors down below to help support the channel.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Ben, we're going to get right into it this morning. Man, all right. First question and I think this came from, I think someone just emailed us or did a form on our website which you can do right at Freight360.net. They said here's my question. I've got about 10 customers, but they're all very small. The largest one might give me three loads a week at most. I'm trying to scale past the 10K a month mark. I've quoted for one or talking brokerage profit there, or brokerage revenue, some people call it. That's what you're retaining after you pay your carriers, right? So we're not talking 10K and customer invoicing, we're talking after we pay the trucks. Here's how much we're able to work with as a brokerage. So 10K a month, I think is a great benchmark for folks to you know, to kind of aim for that's. You know, I would say you made it per se.

Speaker 1: 1:48

If you get to that point, first thing I would say is great job having a diversified book with 10 customers, three loads a week for one. I think you know. The positive there is that if you lose any one of those customers it doesn't ruin your business. But how do you get bigger customers? There's probably two ways to look at it. How do you get more business out of your existing customers so they become a larger part of your book? And there's also how do I get customers that just do more business. There's really no change to your prospecting methods other than the types of companies that you're targeting. Ben, you've had kind of a benchmark of loads per week that a customer is shipping for them to be a good candidate. What would you say as far as the size of customers for this person to prospect? And then I'll kind of talk about how to leverage what you're already doing. But what would you say as far as size to be prospecting?

Speaker 2: 2:47

Pretty much like. This was what TQL taught years ago and I think it always kind of holds pretty true, as if a company again there are exceptions to all of these. It does not mean this always holds true, but it's like a rule of thumb If a company's not shipping at least 20 to 25 loads a week, they're not going to rely on a broker too often because they can coordinate with trucking companies. They usually sometimes have enough lead time to get the load so the trucks can reposition themselves for the shipper. So they'll occasionally have a load that they need covered because they come up last minute. And those are probably the three loads a week that maybe this person's getting right. The other ones are probably going directly to trucking companies or they could be going to other brokers. But I mean most of the time.

Speaker 2: 3:31

That pretty much holds true.

Speaker 2: 3:32

And if you think about it, if you're a one person cradle to the grave brokerage, if you're booking five loads a day, five days a week, that's 25 loads. One or two loads every other day falls off which requires you to scramble to recover that load. That's what the shipper's doing, except the shipper doesn't have the ability to access that in the open market as quickly as you do, which is why those loads come to the broker right. So again, there's lots of other variables of planning. It's like the staffing at the shipper. If there's three people there and they're moving 25 loads a week, like maybe they still don't need a broker that much because they've got enough people over there to call trucking companies. But usually a company of that size, shipping that volume, probably has one person and that's really where they'll need to rely on a broker for time to time. Trucks that get held back, delayed incidents over the road you know traffic, whether they need somebody who can get them capacity in a short period of time, frequently enough that it makes sense to work with them.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Yeah, absolutely. Now the, as far as you know, what can they do to leverage their current book of business? We've said this before. I probably don't say it enough. If you don't ask, you'll never receive most times from a customer, right? So whoever's given them three loads a week, I would and and your other nine customers, right, I'd be asking them about other opportunities that they've got, other lanes that they're running, because you're likely not moving 100 percent of their business If you are here's here's a trick to that.

Speaker 2: 5:00

Right Before you move past that point, I want to interrupt you. But, like, how you ask that question matters, right. If you're just saying what other freight do you have, that is clearly a self-centered question, meaning it's like, hey, I'm asking you what else I can have, what other freight do you have that I can run for you, right? However, if I give them a reason why they should tell me this, the whole thing changes. Hey, I know you have these facilities in these cities.

Speaker 2: 5:26

We've got guys delivering for other customers that are in these areas pretty frequently. Do you guys have any other lanes during the week where you might need some capacity? Because, like I, literally already have drivers in some of these areas. Maybe we can match up some of the dates and times where I can either get you some better service or maybe some better pricing. Is there anything else you guys are moving that we can discuss to see if it makes a fit? Now I'm giving them a reason why they should tell me about other lanes instead of just asking what else I can have and what else I can price and what else I can get out of the situation.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Yeah, the other way I would do it too is just ask for general feedback on how you're performing service-wise for them. How are your rates looking, how are the drivers you're sending in doing, how's the interaction at the dock, any issues with paperwork or pickup numbers being confused? And when you sort of get that feedback, then you can, you know, assuming it's good feedback hey, you know how am I stacking up against your other providers? Right, and you could crack the egg open on. Actually you're doing a great job. I just I wish I can get so-and-so over at TQL, you know, to have the same kind of service you do, or whatever the case might be.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Well, and that gives you a clue into what else might be there. If you're talking to a customer and you can get them to tell you how many other brokers they work with, and you're getting three loads a week and they're telling you in one way or another they're working with four other brokers regularly, that's 12 loads, right, yep? Just take what you're getting to multiply by the number of other brokers are working with. It's not going to hold up 100%, but it gives you some insight into probably how that person is divvying up what they have and actually what they do have, that you might have an opportunity to service better.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Now, as far as you know, finding other shippers, the internet is like your best friend in this case.

Speaker 1: 7:12

So if you know that, I'll just make this up, if this is a if your three load a week customer is like a small widget manufacturer. That's just a local, regional type production. You can go to like chat, gpt or Google and just say like hey, who are the midsize widget manufacturers, united States or you know? Replace widget with whatever commodity and Google right up top now has like the Gemini AI thing or you know just sort of standard search or chat, gpt or any of the LLMs out there will help you or any other prospecting tool that you're used to using. Just look up the same type of commodity or manufacturer and search a higher revenue size. So that will you know that will tend to get you the results you're looking for, because the key here is, if you're succeeding in a certain area, lean into that. There's no reason for you to pivot to a totally new commodity or equipment type or region if you're already doing well and have a carrier network that works well with those commodities.

Speaker 2: 8:13

I did this yesterday. So we've got a pretty large project over a long period of time where all of the material we're shipping is going to a specific type of project and all of those projects are managed by certain types of companies. Just to throw out an example, like let's just say it's like a construction site, right, if you know the construction site. Or like use oil rigs. Like okay, my niche is shipping crane mats and pipe to oil rig companies, right? What I do is look exactly for what you said here's my company, put all the details in into ChatGBT and give me like a comprehensive list of companies that compete in the same commodity and service the same industries that are of similar size is where I always start. You can always go bigger and smaller, but I always start with what is working. And then what I do is, like you need a piece of information to use in those calls to help speed up the trust, right? So then what I would do is I would call, like the project managers for the oil companies the ones that are on site or managing the actual oil rigs and ask them hey, name, drop who I'm working with. Hey, I'm shipping crane mats and pipe for ABC Pipe and XYZ Crane Mat Company to a bunch of sites out in West Texas. I know you guys are in that industry too. Just out of curiosity, could you point me in the right direction? Who handles like coordinating with your vendors when you guys need crane mats for your oil rigs and when you're getting new sites off the ground? Those people don't get prospected much because they don't ship anything. Their vendors do. But you can call the people that are actually purchasing the stuff from your customer. But you can call the people that are actually purchasing the stuff from your customer. They'll tell you who else they buy from. Then you get their name and their company name. Then you call the other companies in your niche, like the other Craymac companies in Texas, for instance, just to make one up and you go.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Hey, I was talking with Brian over at BP Oil. He manages a bunch, brian James. He runs a bunch of the oil projects out for BP in West Texas. He said he sources most of your crane mats from you guys. We ship a lot of the crane mats out to these other projects for XYZ Crane Mat Company. Just out of curiosity, are you guys have any projects coming up? This is something that might be a good fit, because we've got already carriers that are kind of lined up servicing that area. Now I've connected all of these dots and guess how quickly that conversation turns into something. Now they're like receptive they probably know that company. If they don't know that person, they know. There's a small group of companies that put oil rigs up. They know who their competitors are when you name drop your shipping for their competitor and you're in contact with their customer. Now all of a sudden, in 30 seconds they start talking to you.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Now they're not going to give you a load in 30 seconds.

Speaker 2: 10:57

but now it's opening up like, oh, you know your shit, you know who the players are, you're in the mix. You kind of understand this industry. Here's what we're running into. We don't have any lanes right now, but we've got a big project coming up in a few months. Reach to me in a few weeks and let's see if there's something that we might be able to line up. That's how you can like expedite that whole process from. I've got trucks in the area. Can I talk to who's in charge of shipping? To playing like expert level, to get directly to these people, name dropping who you need to to be able to get that conversation moving a hell of a lot faster.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Yeah and further, because I always like dig on the whole phrase. I have trucks in the area.

Speaker 3: 11:36

That's a way of of saying that without saying it, without saying it all right. One of the things I wanted to add real quick along those lines is uh, a lot of people forget to look up associations for those industries. So, like for me, micah, the meat importers council of america right, that's an association most people don't know about, but that's where all my customers are, um, and not only do they give out articles on, like the industry, so you can learn more and have that expert level information when you go to prospect, but then you have a list of prospects as long as you're updating those things. So when you're a prospect Trade show, associations, just trade associations in general.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Yeah, those are great and sometimes, like you know, people will email you and say hey, do you want this list of all these attendees at this conference? I'll sell it to you for blah, blah, blah. You can usually find it for free online somewhere. So, yeah, good, good addition, all right. Our next question I got a load from a customer. How do I find a truck?

Speaker 1: 12:29

Now I won't go too deep into this one, but some of your general carrier sourcing tools the obvious one for a new broker is the load boards. So, posting a, posting a load and you know, that way you can field some inbound calls. You can also search for posted trucks. The load board, I would say, should be your, your last resort, just based off the fact that you have limited information on them. Building rapport and relationships with carriers over time is going to be your best bet, but again, if you're brand new, you're probably going to be using load boards. There's other tools as well. You can use any of the carrier sourcing tools, like Highway. You can source carriers that way. Dat's directory will let you know fleet size, equipment type and their domicile location. People do it in our Facebook group literally all day long Any of the tools I'm missing? I mean, there's a whole bunch of paid for capacity tools out there, but they're all marketplaces essentially. Is there anything that I'm missing there, ben?

Speaker 2: 13:39

No, I mean there's like parades out there, fleetworks, rmis Highway, they all have some carrier sourcing feature. I mean you could also do it through Google.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Genlogs 2 is a great one, if you're a Genlogs customer.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yeah, but I mean honestly, if it's like your first load from your customer, probably go to the load board because you probably have a limited amount of time, like that's where I would start.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Yep, all right. Next question as a broker, can I move Canada to Canada loads? Yes, this question actually came up. Somebody asked me this earlier this week and it's interesting because I remember years ago I was like I don't think we can do that, and then I looked into it. I'm like, actually you can. The only limitation on it is Canadian carrier.

Speaker 1: 14:23

Yeah, cabotage laws. So like you can't send an American carrier that's in Canada, well, first of all, you can't send them into Canada to haul a intrastate Canadian load. You need a Canadian only or a Canadian domiciled carrier that can do that, and that's all cabotage. Domiciled carrier that can do that, and that's all cabotage. The same thing happens with, like, airlines, cruise lines and motor carriers. So it's all. It's all to prevent foreign. It's basically to prevent foreign labor from competing against the country's internal workforce. If I can you know, break it down? Barney style is that. Would you explain it any other way? Cabotage, how that works.

Speaker 2: 15:13

That's correct. I would make it even simpler. You can use the trucking company based in that country to move it in the country, pick up and delivery. If it goes to another country, it can only pick up or deliver, not both. So Canada if it's a Canadian carrier, they can pick up and deliver in Canada, or pick up in Canada and deliver to the US, or pick up in US and deliver to Canada. A US company cannot run Canada to Canada and a Canadian company cannot run US to US. Same thing for Mexican carriers.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Yep, very good. Last question Can I move international loads With just a brokerage authority? No, you can't do the import or export.

Speaker 2: 15:54

Same answer to the first question that we just answered is true Meaning like international to Canada and Mexico yes, to any other country, no.

Speaker 1: 16:04

Very true. Yes, we have the USMCA where you can do cross-border stuff that way. But a question came up to me earlier this week. Someone wanted to import something from I think it was Sweden, and what I said is, when that container hits the US ports, the drayage moves and the inland repositioning or inland transit is where we come in as brokers. But we cannot clear customs on and you know we can't do the import or export portion of it. What I?

Speaker 1: 16:40

I actually have someone at our company who is both an agent for our brokerage and he's an agent for a freight forwarder. So he is able to do both parts of it. But the import and the export part of it and I think it's India to US, us to India that actual import leg or export leg does not run through our brokerage. It runs through his freight forwarding company that he works under their license. I had a guy in the past at another company who did the same thing. He worked as an agent for a forwarder in New Jersey and a broker agent for a company in Buffalo and the domestic stuff ran through the brokerage. The international stuff ran through the forwarder, again with the exception of US, mexico, canada, again as a broker. We're not doing the customs clearance for that. That shipper still is going to probably have a customs agent that's handling their paperwork and the clearance. But you can coordinate the truck for that case.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Yeah, you need a forwarding license or an NVOCC. There's two different licenses One is to move things domestically, like you said, and the other one is internationally. Your free brokerage license does not cover international.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Correct Good questions, keep sending them our way and we'll keep answering Final thoughts, ben.

Speaker 2: 17:54

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

Speaker 1: 17:58

And until next time go Bills.