Gatekeepers, False Reports, and Other Freight Broker Headaches | Final Mile 111

Speaker 1: 0:19

All right, it's another edition of the Final Mile, our Q&A session. We're answering all of your questions. Most of our stuff, actually, I think all of it came from our Facebook group today, so if you haven't joined that, check out the link in the description box or the show notes. There's about 100,000 of you in there and there's some interesting discussion, so we're going to pull our questions from there today. But if you're brand new, check out all the other content. You can check out the Freight Broker Basics course on our website if you're looking for an educational option, and please check out the sponsors of this show to help support the channel.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Ben, let's get right into it. This is I'm four weeks in and I'm having trouble landing a client. So a couple thoughts here. My first one is expectation management. I wouldn't expect anybody who's brand new at anything to be very good at it. Four weeks in, you're still in a learning curve process and even if you're a really good freight broker and prospecting as a freight broker, four weeks is still not a very long time. You know. We talk about the amount of touches it takes and conversations it takes to build rapport and knock down that trust barrier. Just, you know, and that's just to have those conversations. You haven't even yet started quoting this customer, yet conversations. You haven't even yet started quoting this customer yet. So what's your take on expectation management for somebody that's brand new at it? One month in, you know, and then we can kind of give some tips on how to, you know, shorten that timeline as much as they can.

Speaker 2: 1:58

My brain went right there. Right Like expectations and how you're approaching it and like I'll just give you an example of a lead I'm working on. Right Like this was three. You're approaching it and like I'll just give you an example of a lead I'm working on. Right Like this was three weeks ago now.

Speaker 2: 2:08

I had probably an over an hour conversation with somebody and I mean it was probably one of the better calls I've had all year. Like there were so many things we connected on hobbies, interests, and like even literally at the end he's like man, dude, you guys spent 35 minutes talking to me. I think it was about like fishing, right, and he's like dude, yeah, I'll give you a shot, I'm going to try to help you get worked in. And like great call, like it was as close to a 10 out of 10 as you can get Time rapport and also the company is where I grew up, so we had lots of things to be able to like you know, chat about and connect on. And I spoke to him again like probably about 10 days later, usually about like when I kind of do like my first follow up another great call. And like was very honest. Like hey, look, man, I absolutely. It's still on my to do list. Did not forget about you. I will help you guys out, I'll help you get in. Just be a little patient with me. So like I'll probably have my third follow-up call like the end of this week, which will be five weeks four or five weeks probably since my first call, right, and I'm like that is like a realistic expectation.

Speaker 2: 3:13

And the thing that I think is hard is when you're younger and in your like 20s, I would get frustrated because my perception of the decision makers were like, dude, you don't have 10 minutes to be able to do this one thing. So like I could get on board and start working with you because all I cared about was what I was trying to do, right, but then once you get older and more companies are selling me, then I'm on the phone selling too. Like I have a lot of stuff to do and there are genuinely people that I want to get back to on things that, like I just can't do them all in one day. And as you get more responsibilities and you get older in your career, like you can't do everything that you need to or want to every day. So like it just takes longer. So like not only does your patience grow, but like understanding why it takes longer to get approved and onboarded with a new company makes a lot more sense the older you get.

Speaker 2: 4:02

So like if I'm, if I was talking to myself, it would just be like one patience and don't approach it like you're selling somebody or closing a deal, and there's all these memes and videos and books you can read on how to close a deal and negotiate, but like at the end of the day you're just trying to get somebody to know you, trust you and like you, and like that takes time. It takes time. Any person you've ever met in your life that you became friends with. It does not happen the first time you meet them. You might like them and have a good time, but you're not like texting each other and are like bonding and are very good friends and doing things for each other. Like 48 hours later you got to see them a couple of times. It takes some time to get comfortable. It happens in every aspect of life and I think, like to your point, like that is probably the most important thing. I wish I was better at.

Speaker 1: 4:46

Then I would have put less pressure on the people I talked to and probably closed more deals no-transcript, depending on the size company and what the role of that person is and just put yourself in that person's shoes and to give you an example, like I had, one of the guys in our company is I think I was telling you about this was like looking at a prospecting tool and it's basically like they're trying to leverage AI to do voice calls and email campaigns and they got a call center to try. They're basically trying to present you with some warm leads, um, you know, and then you know the broker takes over and tries to your get on the call. You know you're basically you're paying to get past the gatekeeper and have warm leads and then you still gotta go and close them. So, um, I he's like, hey, I wanted to show this to you. Um, and I was like, cool, I'll hop on a meeting with them, hopped on a meeting with them and it was a terrible sales presentation.

Speaker 1: 6:07

But then we did a follow-up this week and this guy he understands that like I'm a busy person and I've got like 150 people under my umbrella that I manage and that I oversee and they all have needs all day long. So when I'm in a meeting with a company trying to sell to me it's taking away time from my day to help focus on our business. Business and this guy I literally, for like an hour, was the owner of the company was like high pressure sales, you know, like literally like I gave him every reason in the world.

Speaker 2: 6:45

Why so much aversion to that now as I'm older? I'm just like yeah, I gave him.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Every reason why I wasn't interested in, um you know, doing something big picture with this company at the time, just based on the needs and desires of the company, didn't make sense.

Speaker 1: 6:59

Yeah, he did not want to take no for an answer did not listen, probably I got to a point where I was like I was like, and even like the, the guy on our team that, like, first reached out to them. He even said like when I'm on here talking to you, I can't be out there making money right now, like, uh, and I had basically the same thing to say to him. It's like there's a very quick way to lose a potential customer's business forever and it's if you not only do you catch them at a bad time or bother them, but if you go so far as to offend them and not, you know, not listen to what they're blatantly telling you. So, understand that not every prospect is the same. More so, no prospect is exactly the same, because they might work at the same company or sell the same or ship the same kind of commodity, but each individual person is different from one another. And understanding that it takes time to to understand, all right, this role at this company is in charge of this and, like you said, right, it takes, you know, if it takes weeks for someone to get back to you on something, um, they're a busy person, right. So that's, and I'll kind of wind up on a tangent there, but just situational awareness is what I would call it. When it comes to like the rapport building and understanding, like, if you kind of get the gut feeling that the conversation is not going anywhere, probably take an exit ramp and get out of that conversation and maybe try again another day. Rapport building and understanding, Like, if you kind of get the gut feeling that the conversation is not going anywhere, probably take an exit ramp and get out of that conversation and maybe try again on our day. Don't force it to a point where you're going to flip the, flip the car over. So that's my take on it. Yeah, but yeah, expectation management, it doesn't happen fast. Those first. You know 500,000 calls are getting better at making the calls. That's what you should be focusing on for yourself.

Speaker 1: 8:41

All right, next question Does anybody know where I can get hands-on training as a freight agent? You know it's funny. I deal with this question super often because our brokerage, pierceville-wide, is agent-based. We're always looking for top quality brokers that want to be an agent for our company. We see if they're a good fit, but there's so many unqualified people that reach out to us. They're always like where do I go and get started as an agent? The reason that they want to be an agent is because they want that remote work they don't want to be an agent is because they want that remote work, the they don't want to. They don't want to be someone's employee, they want to. It's almost like the entrepreneurial franchise business model, um, but they want to like how do I get trained on how to do this? And there's not, like an easy answer to it.

Speaker 1: 9:30

Um, there are people out there who have created brokerages that have a training like separate training entity, where they'll try to feed you into their brokerage upon completion of the training, and I think the turnover is just so high.

Speaker 1: 9:44

What I would recommend for somebody, though, is that, if you know it, it's going to all come down to like networking personally with someone for them to give you a shot, right, and I always tell people, like go to our Facebook group, introduce yourself, just kind of hang out, observe, look for people that are offering training and things like that, and I would find someone that is willing to let you either shadow them or just kind of learn the ropes, and expect a very low commission split, because they're taking a huge risk on you, and there's probably someone out there that's willing to do that.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Expect a very low commission split because they're taking a huge risk on you and that there's probably someone out there that's willing to do that. But companies that have very structured agent programs aren't going to take you if you don't have experience. So it's, you know, find someone, network and, you know, offer to do it at a very, very reduced commission rate or no commission rate for the first X amount of days, right, something like that. What would you add in Someone who's looking for like just the training in general?

Speaker 1: 10:46

Because I mean, our course is great if you want to learn how to start your own business, but to be an agent, someone else is trusting you to represent their brand, so it's a very different situation there.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Yeah, so, like I would probably network and reach out to other agents to see if you could start working with them. Right, and by working like I wouldn't expect commission and I would expect maybe like a salary or maybe some commission for what you do for them. Whatever that compensation is Right, because if you are new and you're expecting somebody to train you, that is a cost that the person you're asking has to pay. Like, if I go to you and I need you to train me, nate, you are paying me right With your time to train me. So, like you now can't do other things, so I have to give you something in return, right, I either got to work for you for free, or work for you to reduce rate to make it worth your while, just for the training hours, or work for you to reduce rate to make it worth your while just for the training hours and time for you to do that. Then the second thing is, every mistake I make is a risk to jeopardizing everything you built, which is the second thing you're asking from this person. So you need to look at this as like, hey, I know you want to get something from someone else, which is training and experience you need to think about what can you provide to them that makes it worth their while? Again, it's the same as the other question Think about it from their perspective and it's hey, I either can work for you for a reduced commission, I can work and help you cover freight for free for a period of time. What is it?

Speaker 2: 12:12

And what I would do is I would reach out to a bunch of agents and say I'm looking for experience, I'm willing to help on whatever you need. I'm willing to work on either reduced pay or even free for some period of time. You let me know what you need help with so that I can give you something in return to learn from your experience. And then, little by little, day after day, week after week, you could grow from there into running your own freight, doing more responsible tasks, but out of the gate, like you're basically asking somebody to give you a whole bunch of things that they don't get anything in return from.

Speaker 2: 12:42

So you got to figure out and it's different for every person, like you said. That's why you got to network and talk to lots of other agents and find out, like what does that agent specifically need right now? Maybe it's doing lead research, maybe it's lead generation, maybe it's organizing BOLs, maybe it's going through accounting stuff. Who knows what that agent needs. But I'm like, hey, I will help you a couple hours a day for free or some reduced rate for a period of time. If we trust each other and it works out, maybe we can talk about learning some more from you and I can start upping my responsibilities.

Speaker 1: 13:09

Yeah, here here's an example of one, and I've seen this and I've done this before with folks is like I've had owner operator come to us this customer that I hauled direct for I don't have a brokerage authority, but I would love to come be an agent for your company and broker that customer's freight through you guys. And we look at those and we're like, yeah, well, there's no guarantee that they're going to give you business to run brokerage wise. So I've been able to pair folks like that up in the past successfully with an agent of ours where they offer, like the, the driver basically says like hey, you know, here's what's in it for you. I will introduce my customer to you and, um, get some loads to run through you to prove that the business is there. If I can do that for a little bit of time, will you then bring me on under your agency to be a sub agent for you? And I've seen it work great because it helps both parties. Like the agent gets to make extra money and then the driver who's now a sub agent, they've got a second stream of income Plus if they're driving and busy, they've got someone that can be another point of contact for the customer. I've seen that work twice at our company, but that person has a leg up on someone that has no experience because they're already a driver who has a customer that they haul direct for. But here's what's in it for you as well, instead of what can you give just to me?

Speaker 1: 14:39

Last one is does anyone have an idea how to get a false report removed from carrier 411? It's really starting to affect getting my driver's brokered loads to come home, so I'll expand this out to beyond just carrier 411. I've dealt with this with Highway TIA, watchdog, google, dat, all right, when it comes to a report, depending on the platform, there's usually a dispute option. That's in there. Ok, and I know that are my brokerage that I work for, we have had to go through the steps to have false reports removed. If it's like Google or something like that, but just a review, you don't get them removed but you can respond to them. Right, google and DAT we always respond.

Speaker 1: 15:34

But if it's a false report like we've had someone report to us that we did something bad as a broker but someone had tried to steal our identity and got caught so it's like well, we're not, you know, flag us for our identity and got caught. So it's like well, we're not, you know, flag us for our identity being stolen, don't flag us for holding a load hostage or whatever it was. So what you need to do is just go talk to the company. So in this case, go to 411. I don't want to use them, but go to 411 and say, hey, like there's a false freight guard on me, false report on me, do I have the ability to either respond to it or dispute it because it's not accurate? I would do that versus going to a Facebook group. But by going to a Facebook group you did get us to answer it on our show, so hopefully that helps. Have you ever had to deal with that or any stories on what's worked for you? I?

Speaker 1: 16:20

haven't Doing nothing is not going to help you, I can, at least you know.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Definitely would be nothing. I would have done exactly what you said, like I would reach out to care for one. I would first call, I would send an email and I would probably, in that email, copy and paste you know the false report and I would explain politely, right Like you're not going to get somebody to help you by yelling at them and say, hey, this is the situation, this is what occurred, what steps or is there anything we can do because it's adversely affecting my business? See what they respond. If they don't respond, then call again. Right, like I would just keep following up to see what I can do.

Speaker 1: 16:57

Yeah, Very good. Yeah, another thing too is, if you're able to see or contact whoever posted a negative review or report against you, like you just said, great way to go about resolving the issue or clarifying it. I've had a bunch of those too where it's like, you know, there's a little bit of a gray area, and maybe it's about detention or toning or something like that, and we're like, hey, even if our customer's not going to approve this, we see your side in it, we'll get you paid. Would you mind taking that review down? And they're just like yeah, of course.

Speaker 2: 17:32

So yeah, and again that's the other way is going to KR411, but also like going to the broker that did it in the first place and trying to get them to take it down. Like, hey, man, again it happens in the first place usually because two folks disagree for whatever reason. But, like your, fastest point of getting this resolved is the person that actually put the report who can take it down immediately 100% Good stuff. Final thoughts Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

Speaker 1: 18:01

And until next time go Bills.