Learning New Commodities and Equipment | Episode 269

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome back. It's another episode of the Freight 360 podcast. We're up to episode 269. And today we're gonna be talking about how to expand and broaden your book of business with new commodities, new equipment types, just some different stuff that you're not used to. So we'll get into that just shortly here. If you're brand new, please make sure to check out all of our other content. You can go right to our website, freight360.net. It's a searchable library of all of our full-length podcasts, shorter-length educational videos you can even see some of our shorts and our reels from social media, as well as downloadable content and the full-length Freight Broker Basics course. If you're looking for a training option to start a brokerage or train some of your new team members, comment like share. Do all that good stuff. It helps the algorithm get us in front of more people, just like you guys. Ben, what's going on in Florida today?

Speaker 2: 1:12

Not much Woke up to the election results. Definitely don't want to get into politics, but it's more noting.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Yeah, I will say. Regardless of where you stand on all of this, I think a good takeaway is the the speed of the results compared to the past that we all remember, 2000, where it took five weeks with the hanging Chad in Florida. 20 took a handful of days. But at the end of the day, your brokerage business and your operation is in your hands and you can be the driver of any growth or the person responsible for any failures within your own business.

Speaker 2: 2:05

So keep that in mind, whoever's in the White House doesn't determine your success in this industry. So I want to say two things. One is the thing that shocks me to get, not the political side of it, but it's like our whole state has been Republican, I think they said for like 20 years now, like the majority Right. So, whether it's the House, the whole state legislator, the governor, and it's like, the thing I love about Republicans is the smaller government spend less. We want more people to have individual rights.

Speaker 2: 2:30

And I'm like I wake up to election results and there were two other things on the ballot in Florida. One was the abortion thing at six weeks and the other was recreational use of marijuana and both failed primarily because the governor and a lot of put a bunch of weight behind basically voting these things down. And I'm just like how, in a state where we're supposed to be about small government and less regulation, do we end up with more regulation, more government, less rights at the exact same time? I'm like, isn't this like the definition of hypocrisy? I don't know, those things just frustrate me.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Yeah, I saw. The one thing that was news to me was that you guys need a super majority in Florida for your ballot.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Yeah, 60% because they ratcheted that up, Like they made it harder to pass any of these and they're supposed to do it again before the next election to make it even less likely for these things to pass. And they were like 58% of people voted for both of those things but they felt 2% short of what they needed to pass it and it's just like I don't know. The political commercials are just ridiculous in the whole scenario, Like I tried to not pay attention.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Living in New York, we don't get. We didn't get a whole lot of the ads because it's pretty much one-sided. I can only imagine what it's like. But hey, this is what we have elections for. There'll be another election literally every year. Well, we'll get into some other news and then some sports.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Make sure you guys are subscribed to our newsletter. It goes out every Tuesday and Thursday. We sent out some stuff so we're recording on Wednesday right now. So Tuesdays came out. Biggest thing freight related. Christmas tree season for shipping has already kicked off. I know we were just thinking about summer and then Halloween. Before you know it, you're going to see Christmas trees going up everywhere. So if you're in that space, it's too late to start prospecting. You should have already started that. Like we have talked about in the past, you want to get ahead of these seasonal commodities, but Christmas tree season is picking up, and yeah. So if you, if you miss the ball on that one or miss the train on that one, look ahead a few months to the next seasonal commodities that should be rolling out in the beginning of the year and start making those phone calls now. Canadian port lockout you tracking this at all?

Speaker 2: 4:54

I did not see anything about that.

Speaker 1: 4:57

So I'll read this from our newsletter. But as tensions rise, dock employers in British Columbia have announced a lockout of union workers set to begin today. That was, I believe, yesterday at Vancouver and Prince Rupert ports, the busiest and third busiest in Canada, the British Columbia Marine Employers Association decided to lock out 734 persons and other local 514 members after the union issued a 72 hour strike notice on October 31st. I won't read the rest of it, but it seems like the ports in North America in general have kind of been like the hot topic for disruption in the last couple of months. It could be and it might be just the way the of months.

Speaker 2: 5:44

It's pretty wild and it might be just the way the contracts fell. They kind of fall into the same year and they're just up at the same time. Well, the other thing, too, related to the election that Craig Fuller put out that was on Free Caviar this morning, I read, is that, like there's expected to be, you know, an increase in business being pulled through ahead of anticipated tariffs.

Speaker 1: 6:06

So apparently lots of companies I think we all kind of projected that and I think a lot of retailers and manufacturers did as well, even just kind of bracing for impact. Here's the irony, the irony is.

Speaker 2: 6:17

anytime you impose a tariff on any other country, it does what to the price of that good? It doesn't go down, it goes up. So when everybody's yelling about inflation and things being more expensive, and you win, and then the first thing everyone talks about is adding taxes to goods from other countries. That doesn't make things cheaper either.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Yeah, I think the science behind it, the science behind it, if you like, the, I guess the political science behind it is it's. It's it's trying to emphasize domestic manufacturing, right.

Speaker 2: 6:51

That's kind of like the goal of what you're trying to understand, you kind of think yeah, and the reason those things went to other countries was because of the cost of labor was too high to create a product that people were affording to buy.

Speaker 1: 7:05

So when you force them back in the other direction, it also makes costs go up in both scenarios, that's the only way that it works out is if you can um, reduce regulation and a lot of the red tape domestically. That would then, um, you know, I guess helping a lot of that stuff. So I saw a um, I forget which podcast it was, but it was about the environmental um wreck or uh. Like, basically, for any project, if you're building something, all the environmental wrecks that have to get done beforehand and basically the. It was definitely an opinion-based thing that they were talking about, but it was like these environmental regulation folks they're basically slowing down the process to do any projects in the US and they're profiting heavily on it because all the fees that go into it, all of the money you got to pay to these experts and attorneys that know how to weave their way through it. So at the end of the day, you're still spending all this money and slowing down the process. So, who knows, elon Musk?

Speaker 2: 8:14

had a really good point on that. Like the one thing that he was saying is he's like one of the rockets they built.

Speaker 2: 8:19

He was like we built a rocket ship from scratch in six months, less than it took to approve it to fly it. He's like it should not take longer to push the paper to get the approval for a launch than it does to build a rocket from scratch that has never been built and I'm like for sure. I mean, there's no ability in our government to repeal any of the regulations once they're in there. There's literally not even a process to like roll back things that they put in place. They just keep adding to it.

Speaker 1: 9:54

Yep. One last quote from our newsletter, and this comes from Craig Fuller. Again, this was this was pre election. He said it was that the enormous impact on logistics with an election or an administration, knowing that 32 percent of the U U S economy is tied to logistics, dependent industry. So, um and again, just because someone was elected or someone wasn't elected doesn't mean that things are going to go the way they said they were. So make sure that you guys are doing the things we teach right Making the connections, making the phone calls, making all the follow-up, learning new stuff and we're going to talk just about that today as well. Sports real quick, steelers. You guys had a bye week, right?

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yep.

Speaker 1: 10:44

Watch the Bills game this weekend. The Bills. This is what blew my mind and for a hot minute I was like the Bills are going to lose. It's against Miami, spoiler alert. They won and they continue to basically hold Miami hostage as far as head-to-head contests, since Josh Allen has entered the league a number of years ago, but it came down to a game-winning field goal and the Bills' place kicker, tyler Bass, who had missed an extra point, that game and doinked one in.

Speaker 1: 11:20

So basically his foot and his leg were a little unpredictable on Sunday but had a franchise record 61-yard kick to win the game for Buffalo. So go Bills, excited to see that they're looking good right now. Got the Colts coming up and then Chiefs and then the Niners so interesting few weeks coming up and then chiefs and then the Niners Um, so interesting few weeks coming up here. Um the, I know I'd like the uh formula one. I've been like, I've been kind of interested in like checking out some of the news on it. And there there was this race in Sao Paulo, uh, last weekend that pretty much rained the entire time and you had like dudes crashing left and right. Rained the entire time and you had like dudes crashing left and right, but the winner, max verstappen, started in 17th place and he won. So he's like basically fourth from the back and uh, had a miraculous win. So any of you f1 fans out there, um the uh, the apparent heir to the throne, uh, max verstappen looks like he's one step closer to another season as the champion.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Oh, trade deadlines in the NFL A lot of moves that was earlier this week. A lot of moves around the league of all positions wide receivers, linemen, defensive ends, all that stuff. But yeah, hopefully everyone's. You know whatever team you're a fan of. You've got pretty much your finalized roster, you know, outside of any injuries and whatnot, going into the second half of the season here, so we'll see how it shakes up. But yeah, got a lot of surprisingly good teams and some surprisingly not so good teams, so we'll see. All right, ben, today's topic was your idea, so why don't you kick it off here and we'll get into it.

Speaker 2: 13:09

I was thinking about this because I was training somebody else on some new commodities, and it was mostly tanker stuff. But what I wanted to cover isn't necessarily teaching anybody specifically how to move one different commodity or different piece of equipment. It's a process that you can go through with almost any type of shipment, any type of equipment, and allows you to learn as you're progressing right. It's very similar to, I think, some of the content we did in prospecting, like prospecting with a purpose how you can use your prospecting calls to not just get business but to learn as you're making progress right. Same thing goes for learning new equipment, learning a new commodity, learning new requirements something you're not used to doing, because the reality is is you're in the middle. You don't need to know everything. You have folks on both sides the carrier side and the shipper side that can give you pieces sometimes the whole picture, sometimes most of the picture and you can go back and forth in a standard like methodical way to really learn how to move or ship really anything. And I think that's a process that everybody can benefit from. And the thing that I wanted to like kind of point out is that Elon Musk has it has a blog or something years ago that he talks about this. They were asking him, like, how he's able to do so many different specialties like businesses? Right, it seemed very different. Right, building a rocket ship, building a car, building robots, whatever the example? Yeah, and he says the exact same thing.

Speaker 2: 14:41

Really, that we're going to talk about today is and the term for it is first, principles thinking. Right, everybody kind of starts thinking about all of the specifics on the end Okay, what security requirement do I need for this load? What needs to happen? What needs to be done here? What do I need to worry about? Like, those are all the things on the outside, all the things on the outside.

Speaker 2: 15:00

And the way he explains it is he's like think of a tree. If you start trying to understand what the leaves do before you understand how the tree works, it's very confusing and it's hard for your brain to understand why that's there. But if you start by going, okay, like what is a tree? And you understand it from the roots, where it gets things from, where it takes the nutrients up through the trunk, what the leaves do from like a very simple point of view, the rest of it starts to make sense, right? So I think one of the most valuable things I've ever learned is to do this first not think about the complicated aspects or any of the other things that you hear people talk about, but like how simple can you make this situation? And think about it starting from there, and then move from there right, like at the end of the day, what do we do as a broker? We move things from one place to another, right.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Yeah, we help people find trucks when they otherwise couldn't, and we help trucks find freight that they otherwise couldn't.

Speaker 2: 15:55

Right, and one of the things that I think is really helpful what I do when I try to conceptualize something I don't understand yet in our industry, like a new commodity or a new piece of equipment, like I learned tanker stuff mostly last year it's probably two years now, but anyway, like recently and the first thing I try to think of is think, like a truck driver, okay, if I have to go pick something up, what do I need to know about this? If it needs to go somewhere, what do I need to know about it? If I had to physically perform this work myself and somebody called me and said drive this vehicle to there and pick this up, what questions would I ask and what do I need to know? Right, and if you work from there and then you understand what's important to the person putting the product on the vehicle, whatever that piece of equipment is, now you understand both perspectives, what's important, and little by little you build a picture and an understanding of what you need to coordinate, because at the end of the day, like you said, we don't actually move things. We are in between the people that need to move things or need to have things moved and the folks who move them.

Speaker 2: 16:56

So, guess what? There is plenty of experience in the people you are going to be talking to, about this anyway, that you can learn from as you're progressing, and I think the other thing I want to say is, like, before we get into it, it is really important, is I think?

Speaker 2: 17:12

this is something that's harder for newer people, but as you get into the industry it's a little easier is you're not expected to know everything. You don't have to know everything. You don't need to give the impression to a customer or a prospect that you have years of experience and have done this every day for 10 years in order for them to use your services or your help. In fact, sometimes it's far more beneficial to that relationship to ask questions and to let them know that you want to make sure you understand their needs, Because now they hear you, listening, they know you care and you end up with a better relationship anyway than going in telling somebody you know how to do all of it, then trying to figure it out later, making a mistake. Now they're never going to use you again, right?

Speaker 1: 17:54

Yeah. So two things I want to hit on. There is, if you think about, at our core function, the strengths of a good freight broker is not always oh, I've got a great truck or a great price or whatever it's. We're effective communicators, we have a problem solving mentality and we can give prompt responses and updates. Right, those are, and that's not all encompassing, but those three tenets, right, there are like fundamental building blocks of a of a effective freight broker.

Speaker 1: 18:21

So to to kind of like set a stage here you get a lot of people that are intimidated to try and move into a new commodity, cause they're like well, I don't even know the first thing about that and I don't want to sound stupid. And the thing is like well, even if, let's say, let's say, you're an expert in heavy haul, right, and you know all the permits and the weights and the equipment types and all that, well, when you talk to a new shipper in heavy haul, you don't know exactly what they're moving or what the size is, or where it's going, or what's most important, is it going to be the delivery date and time? Is it going to be the communication? Is that the price? You know, you don't know any of that stuff necessarily.

Speaker 2: 19:04

So you don't know the need right.

Speaker 2: 19:14

Whether you're an expert in a certain field or you're not. You're going to need to ask questions and be an effective communicator, have prompt responses and have a problem solving mentality. I think I wanted to point out what you just said, right too right, because the two things I think people missed what is communication? A few things I think people miss. What is communication? Communication only takes place when both people are understanding and learning what the other person needs. That is communication. It's not talking and then waiting for someone to stop talking and then talking. That's not communication. That's a monologue Me talking out loud and waiting for you to talk and neither of us understanding each other. Communication to your point. What makes a good broker is understanding and asking questions. What is important to this prospect or this customer or this shipper? Was it the pickup, like you said? Is it the delivery? Is it the transit time? Is it securing it? Is it the insurance? Is it the liability? What is the most important thing to them in this situation?

Speaker 1: 20:00

Let me give you an example, right, and this is not about new commodities, but it's a good generalized example to explain and this happened just this week, because the communication goes both ways with asking questions and understanding the other person what's important to their person, right? So this was between a broker in our company and a shipping customer, right? So what was important to us was we needed to have verification from the shipper that the correct carrier showed up. So that was hey, can you provide to us a BOL that you produce that has the carrier's name on it that you have verified? When they get loaded, right? And that's important to us because and we explained to them this is fraud prevention we want to make sure that your freight is not going to be double brokered or taken hostage. We've properly vetted the correct carrier, all right. So now they understand what's important to us and we have to understand what's important to them. And looking through the email thread that I was reviewing this morning, there was literally statements in there from like sales directors saying, like, price is not an issue on this one. The most important thing to us is to make sure that this truck gets delivered on time to our customer, the receiver, because they need this product Right. So now we know it's important to them. We've got more money in the load. We can go out there and pay a little bit more to get the highest quality carrier possible. All right, so now we know we have two totally different things that are important to us, but it's just as important that each party understands the other.

Speaker 1: 21:31

All right, so that the customer understands my freight needs to get delivered on time and in order to do that, the broker needs to make sure that we are doing our job, to verify that. We see the carrier that shows up, we have their name printed on the BOL, we provide that BOL to that broker and vice versa. We know that this customer is not concerned about price. They're concerned about the actual service. In this case, the product needs to get delivered. So we need to do this quick. We need to find a good quality carrier. We need to vet them properly. It's a whole looping system here, so it's not just us asking questions to figure out what's important to them. The customer needs to understand what's important to you to get the job done for them as well.

Speaker 2: 23:30

Exactly. So let's go through like an example, like I'll just pick tankers, because this is the one I was doing recently, right, so it was, we were starting out and training somebody new. And they were like OK, like what do I need to know? Like I'm going to call carriers to find, you know, options for these shipments, what questions do I need to ask? Right, and the first thing I did is I go OK, like what are the questions that you would want to ask and how would you want to ask them? Right, and the first are like OK, like what are the requirements? Right, it's a great question to start with. And just asking somebody hey, let me ask you this. Like, hey, if you want me to take a look at this load, you need some help or you need some capacity. What are your requirements? And you can use this for any equipment type.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Right, but specifically in tankers, most shippers, right, or receivers, have a list. It's literally a PDF or it's a Word document. They will send you that breaks down everything that needs to be on that piece of equipment. It will talk about the hoses they need. It'll talk about the valves. It'll talk about what needs to be excluded. Does it need in-transit heat? Does it not need in-transit heat certain times of year? Does it need a single dome heat? Does it not need in transit heat certain times a year? Does it need a single dome? Does it need the ability to have, um, uh, last, like reducers and things for the hoses it connects to the pumps when they unload? This right, it literally itemizes every one of these things, right, so?

Speaker 1: 24:52

if you just, like I, have a I've never done tanker um, you can control the temperature so they have ones that are in transit heat and in transit heat connects to the obviously right.

Speaker 2: 25:04

Yeah, it connects to the tractor and it literally heats it to make sure it doesn't freeze. So he didn't only got cold temperatures, they might have cooling.

Speaker 1: 25:12

I've not run into one but that certainly would make more sense, because you don't want it to freeze like I remember on the trucking side we used to have we you know a diesel fuel. You'd add an additive to it so it could operate at a lower temperature and not disrupt the quality of the fuel.

Speaker 2: 25:26

I'll read these too. I mean, like here's one from this one I was going through yesterday. Tank wagon must be dedicated, food grade, kosher, kosher washout. Certificate of cleanliness for tanker, documented list of the three prior loads for that trailer. Tanker endorsement, wait ticket verification. All openings on the tanker must be sealed and seal numbers recorded on the bill of lading truck must be rear unload no dairy valves. Air fitting on dome to offload must have Chicago air fitting. Driver must have a three inch to two inch reducer and two 20 foot length of two inch hoses. Product must deliver warm in winter months about 115 degrees. Tankers with dairy valves not permitted.

Speaker 2: 26:11

So here's like literally a list of everything I need to know to ask any carrier if they meet these requirements before we book them on a load. So step one right, I've got at least what the shipper's telling me they meet these requirements before we book them on a load. So step one right, I've got at least what the shipper's telling me they need for requirements to equipment, right? Second question I usually ask is okay, hey, thank you very much Anything outside of these requirements that are important to you. I always ask it twice because sometimes you'll get a few more Like oh yeah, we've had some issues with this. Can you make sure they don't have this? These are okay, but we prefer these Like for this customer. They can be center unload or rear unload. They prefer rear, but both are acceptable. And that's another good question to ask. Even in the reefer and van world, I can't tell you how many shippers are willing to load a reefer or a drive van.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Now, that's not always better to be able to load a reefer for a drive-in situation, but sometimes there's a reefer that really needs that load to get back to where they are and if you can get them loaded with that product, you found an option that none of the other brokers working with that shipper were even looking for, because they just didn't ask that question. Is there anything else that I need to know or anything else you can load, just so I understand what's important and what isn't Right? Yep, point at it. Right, so you get it. You got a basic understanding of what's important to them. Well, now the second step is when you call through carriers.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Right to find options, like you go through these requirements, but I always ask the carriers to hey, what do you need to know about a shipper? Is there any information that you require? What information would you like to have before you can quote the shipment or even think about running it for me and for tanker. This is why this is a good example I wanted to go through. So in tanker loads, every single commodity that is a liquid that goes inside a tanker has what's called an SDS, that is, a safety data sheet. A tanker has what's called an SDS, that is a safety data sheet, and a safety data sheet just looks like the label on the back of any chemical. It tells you whether it's hazmat or not.

Speaker 1: 28:08

It tells you MSDS right Material safety data sheet.

Speaker 2: 28:12

Is that yeah, exactly Material safety data sheet and they're called SDSs, at least in the tanker world. But it literally just breaks it down and goes is this hazmat or not? It gives you the cleanup precautions. It tells you whether or not, if there's a spill, if you need, like, a respirator, can you breathe this? Can you not breathe it? If you get it on your skin, what to do with it? If it gets in your eyes, it just breaks down literally everything you need to know. And again, like if you've got a bottle of rubbing alcohol in your house and you look at the back, it's pretty similar to that, but it's like a two or three page PDF.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Now, clearly, when you get very toxic chemicals that are very hazmat, this is very important. This relates to insurance, it relates to a driver's certification or experience running that type of commodity, but it has everything you need there, right? Every question that carrier probably needs is on that SDS. So the carriers then goes hey, I'd like to take a look at the SDS for this shipment, want to make sure we're good with it, want to make sure we're good with our insurance and make sure everything's fine, okay, great.

Speaker 2: 29:08

And then the last question I always ask is hey, can you tell me some of the specs on the equipment you'd be running? Like what? Can it hold weights, anything? I need to know that I can ask the shipper to just make sure we prevent an issue. The last thing I want is to book you on the load you to get there and then them to say, oh, we can't do this right. So then, whatever that list of questions is, I get from the carrier, write those down, call back the shipper, get these questions answered, right.

Speaker 1: 29:36

It better not sound like effective communication.

Speaker 2: 29:41

Yeah exactly Asking questions and listening to understand, then I mean, the other important thing that I don't think as many people do is, like you should have some digital way to keep notes. I used to do paper. I still have paper. The problem with paper is you can't go back and find them later almost ever. Finding some note in a yellow notepad that I wrote six months ago in here is next to impossible. So even though I write stuff down on here as though they're talking to me, I just have a one note and I just put the date, the title of what I'm talking about and I just write my notes.

Speaker 2: 30:11

So, like I have a list of like tanker requirements, per shippers, per receivers, per carriers, I have a running list of questions I need to ask. So once I do this once, then twice, okay, I have it for the next load, to go back and review the next time it comes up. But the second thing is, once I get another commodity or something else I haven't seen, I add it to that list, because I'm never going to remember all these things. I'm pretty realistic that I can't remember every one of these points from every one of these situations, but little by little you build your own notes, which is really just kind of outsourcing your memory, so you can look at it if you don't get another one of these loads for a month, maybe a year, who knows. But like you did the work once, don't just let it evaporate because you're not doing it often.

Speaker 2: 30:55

Write it down so you can go back and not have to do those things again.

Speaker 1: 30:58

Think about I mean we talked about Christmas trees at the beginning of this episode in the news Think about seasonal commodities that literally half a year or more might go by between seasons. You're definitely not going to remember every detail, so I know it's more of a side note, but good notes.

Speaker 1: 31:14

And then reiterating those notes back to your customer to verify that, hey, is this all still the same? Is there any changes to these previous requirements? So yeah, and I think I want to, unless you've got something else I wanted to add in here. No, go ahead. So you know, talking about getting into different commodities and again it's not just about tanker or anything else but oftentimes I'll come across folks that they only know a certain type of commodity or a certain niche in the market because that's what they were taught. Maybe they worked for a single guy or gal broker who only moved potatoes, or they worked for a brokerage that only did produce or only did drive-in or only did open deck, and they're like well, that's all I know, that's all I'm going to ever do, because I'm not an expert in anything else. The reality is, if you just keep yourself trapped in that mindset, you're leaving opportunities on the table. And I was helping somebody with Heavy Hall a couple weeks ago and they're like I got a referral and this customer sounds great, can you help me out? Can you get me in touch with someone who knows Heavy Haul so they can help me move it? And I'm like well, I'm like, let me talk through this with you, because I'm pretty sure you can probably get the answers you're looking for by having a good conversation with the customer. And they're like well, I don't want to sound dumb. I'm like, well, talk to a carrier who's an expert and their fleet is, yes, these specialized open deck trailers. I'm like they're going to know the weight limits per axle, they're going to know the permits in each state. They're going to know how to get permits and what the costs are, because that's what they do.

Speaker 1: 32:56

Your job is not to be an expert in every single niche and every single equipment type and every single way. It's to be able to effectively communicate and ask questions to get answers for your customer, you know, maybe for any other accessorial or additional thing that might come in there, but they don't necessarily know what it's going to cost today or what the requirement is today, because that's not their job. Their job is to make sure their customer gets their freight, their delivery or whatever that product is. It is your job to help them bridge the gap on the transportation procurement side of it getting that truck, trying to get that price point in the right area, getting making sure you get a quality carrier that's going to deliver on time with the right equipment. So your job is to balance both sides of it. Like you said on the tanker part, that really translates over to just about any kind of commodity and any equipment type. Your customer is going to have things that they need to figure out about the carrier options, and the carrier is going to have things that they need to find out about the customer's requirements. Right, you're figuring out requirements and capabilities and finding a way to match up those two so that the customer gets their goods delivered.

Speaker 1: 34:04

And that again comes down to effective communication, which is asking a lot of questions. You're not going to be dumb by oververifying right, they always say trust but verify. Your customer is probably going to be like wow, ben was really thorough, like I feel like I'm in good hands because he really asked all the right questions and made sure that we dotted all of our I's and crossed all of our T's versus. They're not going to be like wow, he's so dumb I can't believe. He asked me if this had to be tarped and strapped and blah, blah, blah. It's like no. So I think people get in their own head when they think, well, I don't know enough. Well, you've got to ask questions.

Speaker 2: 34:36

And I think that's a really good point. Right, because even just think about any interaction you have with anybody else. Right, the people that are the most curious, that ask the most questions, you likely have a better perception of them and how much they care. Right, because they're asking for a reason. Right? So when you're answering it, they're not telling you they care, they're showing you they care, which is why you believe it, right? Somebody just goes oh yeah, I could do that, I know how to do that. I've done this a bunch of times, like okay, maybe I believe you, maybe I don't, but I don't have any evidence of whether or not you can or not. Right, but when you ask me, at the very least I know you care enough to look at these details, which is a pretty good assumption. You'll pay attention to them when you move my freight, if you just tell me you know how to do it. That's not any different than when anybody says that does or doesn't know it. Right, you're showing them, which is why it's so valuable.

Speaker 1: 35:31

Yeah, so I want to add a caveat in here too, because and we talked about this very brief- Ooh, I want to add a caveat in here too because and we talked about this very briefly I got some flickering lights here, spooky Well, if my power goes out, we'll have to pause and get back into it, but anyway, I'll continue on here. Yep, all right, now that we've handled the technical difficulties on my end there, I want to add a caveat in here. There is definitely a fine line and we briefly talked about this offline before recording today, talked about this offline before recording today. But there's a fine line between being afraid to get into a new commodity and then getting in over your head with something that's way above your skill level. So let's say, for example, you started off and only doing you know dry goods and you know 53 foot drive-ins right, there's very little risk on it. It's not temperature controlled, there's not a high risk of claims. Probably not a great idea to hop right into heavy haul oversized, overweight hazmat. You know high value freight. On your next load, right, there's a gradual progression to expand your expertise and your knowledge to get to a level of comfort. So that might look something like.

Speaker 1: 36:37

All right, I know dry van and my goal is I want to get into the heavy haul space. Well, let's start with some basic open deck freight. That's low risk. It's not as time sensitive like maybe your lumber or some of your basic raw steel commodities. And then you might move into more specialized equipment types that involve your step decks or your RGNs or your double drops, any of your open decks that are not just your basic flatbed. And then maybe you move into some where it's a higher dollar value and you're dealing with some of the insurance requirements.

Speaker 1: 37:06

How do you get an all-risk policy? How do you verify maybe it's a commodity that might be oftentimes excluded if it's in the reefer space? And then maybe you get into it's also heavy haul or oversized or whatever the case might be, and eventually, over time and this isn't overnight this could take you years or a bunch of months before you get those muscles up in your expertise and comfort level to where now I'm not just dealing with basic cheap dry van freight that most brokers start off with. Now I've kind of embedded myself into a niche and become an expert into a very specific corner of the market. So that is the caveat I want to add in is, you know, don't be afraid to learn something new, but have a gradual progression towards whatever that thing might be. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 37:53

It does make perfect sense. You don't need to get all the way there, but you can make it step by step to get there Right, like that's the ultimate goal. You don't need to know everything day one. You can go back and forth and ask more questions.

Speaker 1: 38:08

So let me ask you about, you know, your experience in the last couple of years with Tanker Right. I remember talking to you at one point when it was all.

Speaker 1: 38:14

it was completely brand new to you and I'm like about a about a month later we had another conversation about it and you were the way you were rattling stuff off. I was like like my head was exploding. I was like I he is way over my head. But you started to learn over that first month the different types of trailers that were out there for tankers, some of the different requirements you started talking about. You know washouts and kosher and all this stuff. So can you talk a little bit through what it was like for you to learn something totally new? Maybe some of the struggles, some of the things you know how you progress through all that. What did that look like?

Speaker 2: 38:49

Well and, to be honest, like I, that's why I like this industry is because there's always something novel, new to learn, which means it never gets stale and boring. And that's just kind of like my personality, like I like learning new things because it keeps me engaged and interested. So, like I wouldn't I don't want to say like struggle, but definitely frustrated. But that's one of the reasons why I do the habit of keeping notes for myself because, like I would spend sometimes hours every day talking with owners of trucking companies, asking lots of questions hey, what do I need to know? What's important? What issues have you had with any shippers or receivers? What do you guys look for? What's some of the pain in the ass? Things you guys deal with or your drivers complain about? What can I go and learn to find out about any of these places that would make it more helpful for you guys?

Speaker 2: 39:37

Right, and the more you ask that question, like and I was lucky enough that, like myself, with people that were very experienced at this, that had 30 years in these scenarios, when I keep notes and I go through this over and over, you start to see patterns, right, you start to see like, oh, this carrier said this I was a little different than what this carrier said. However, like you start to see the things that seem to be more important to most people, some other things, and once you've got a running list right, like it makes my conversations with my prospects so much better Because when I'm asking questions the way a carrier would, not a broker, they look at me different. They can tell to our earlier point like I care, I'm not just detail oriented because I like asking questions for the sake of asking questions. I'm asking questions because I don't want to send an equipment and a driver all the way across the country to pick up a load he gets rejected for.

Speaker 2: 40:31

And like I'll say that, hey, I know this might be a lot more than many of some of the other questions asked, but at the end of the day, like I just want to prevent any issues as many as I can Can't ever prevent all of them but I just want to learn a little bit more. And here's one that came up last week and this was another interesting one that might lead to. Another customer is one of the trucks got rejected and I looked back at the requirement sheet and I do this with everyone and I'm like I know the carrier read this, I know their safety person read it and said their equipment made the requirements. Why are they getting rejected? And since I did that level of due diligence, I mean it's only a one page document, it's not that long. And then when I went back and then the shipper goes no, we can't take that equipment. And then I sent them their truck requirements and I said the requirement you're asking them for is not listed here and they went yeah, but it's just something everybody knows Well, here's why that matters. One that truck needs paid because he drove there and it's not just a truck order not used, similar to like a drive-in, like I'm paying this guy $1,000 because he waited there all day, drove there and they will not load him at all. He can't just go get another load. It's not like a drive-in or a reefer, there's not just a load board, we just go grab another tanker, load back. I mean, there are some, but like that day is very unlikely. So when I was able to send these details back to that facility and, by the way, that wasn't my customer, my customer was buying product from them.

Speaker 2: 41:55

So now my customer who was very upset that that load did not get picked up and was not going to be at their customer on time, well, they're looped into the conversation and now I am literally communicating with the people they buy from and I'm like you've got to show me where I'm missing this. Then the head of logistics jumps on. Well, you know, most of the carriers know this. I'm like well, at the end of the day, it's not on your document. We cross-referenced everything, sent this driver there, can you load him? And then I almost got them to make an exception, to approve it. But when they didn't, they said they wouldn't.

Speaker 2: 42:30

Okay, they approved the bill because it was not our fault, like we followed every detail they asked for the carrier did Now at the very least. Yeah, the carrier didn't get as much as they should because they didn't get to run the load, but at least they got paid for their time and, more importantly, my customer gave me more business. I literally didn't pick up two loads that their customer needed, that their customer was furious about, but my customer gave me more business because I went through this and paid enough attention to the things that everyone needed and I had their back. And then they came back to me and said we don't want to buy product from them anymore. We agree with what you said, ben, and we don't think they should have this?

Speaker 1: 43:09

Yeah, and then they switched the supplier. So the two things I kind of want to wrap up with here are if you're learning something new and I'll break this into I'm just going to generalize these. I'll call it new commodity and new equipment type, and I know that's not like a catch all, but those are two of the biggest categories. Like for you, tanker is obviously going to be, it's both Right, because tankers you know, if you're not in the tanker space bulk product is going to be a new commodity and obviously a new business. Let's go more basic. If you're used to just doing dry van and someone gives you an LTL request or a reefer request or a flatbed one.

Speaker 1: 43:46

Or a flatbed right. We did mention ask questions. I would say that's not the only solution. That's a huge cornerstone of it. But there's a ton of education out there that you can get ahead of and absorb and learn before you get involved in this stuff. So I mean our website and our content really digs down into a lot of this stuff, and the Internet's full of content on trucking and freight shipments.

Speaker 1: 44:13

On trucking and freight shipments, so like LTL for example and we always say you don't know what you don't know. So if you do a little bit of research you'll probably get an idea of some of the common requirements, some of the common issues in LTL, some of the common terminology and same thing with reefer. So like LTL, there's accessorial charges for lift gate or inside delivery or residential delivery or driver assist or an appointment has to be set, things like that. There's also potential chargebacks for a change in the freight classification or the weight of the shipment if it's incorrect when it gets originally quoted. So those are things that some basic research will just tell you ahead of time. Oh yeah, there's this thing called a rebill. There's these accessorial charges. I'm going to ask about those when I talk to the customer, I'm going to make sure I'm asking the right question, and when I talk to the carrier too. Hey, how do you guys handle X, y and Z? Same thing with reefer, for example.

Speaker 2: 45:05

Well, stay on LTL for a second.

Speaker 1: 45:06

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 45:06

Because I want to tell you this happened to me literally yesterday. We have a customer or a prospect that does does primarily LTO. Well, I understand LTO, I could explain LTO, I know how to book LTO, but I am definitely not the highest level of expertise to go through a spreadsheet worth of lanes to look for areas where you could be helpful or not with different carriers, service levels and any other issues. So what I did was I reached out to somebody at an LTL agency that does co-brokerages with freight brokers and talked with them and said, hey, I've got all the lanes from this prospect. I wanted to be able to analyze them, review them, see what we could do if we were to work with you. They did that. Then they spent an hour with me two weeks ago and went through everything they saw in there, helped me come up with a list of questions for my next prospecting call. But then I went one step further because earlier this week I was like well, I got the call. This week I'm going to reach back out to this guy and see if he's got time for the call. And he did so. Not only that, but they were willing to literally go onto the prospecting call with me yesterday and I was able to have a joint call with somebody that, to your point, has far more experience in it, that asked some questions I probably would have missed. That helped me have a better conversation, but the most important thing wasn't did we get the business or not?

Speaker 2: 46:25

For me, I learned so much in the past two weeks asking those questions and spending the time with this person that now I have a whole bunch of notes on exactly what questions I look for. What are the issues within LTL providers? What is important, what isn't? Because it's the same as full truck load price, service claim, risk and managing those based on what is important to what shipment is how you ask these questions to understand what is a fit and what isn't right.

Speaker 1: 46:52

Yeah, and I was going to add into like, uh, and I didn't mention before, but asking people that already know this stuff, like take someone out for a cup of coffee or for lunch or if you're, if you do coaching, like coach somebody or somebody your company knows that, like I have in the last five years I have probably trained, you know, 15 to 20 people on ltl, because that was literally my bread and butter when I started, was in LTL. I got very good at it. I understood the issues with it, a lot of the opportunities, so I was able to take someone who's like I don't want to touch LTL I heard it's a headache and get them some base level of knowledge, kind of coach them through when they're getting questions from their customer and pricing stuff out and showing them how to quote everything and what to ask. And then now they're comfortable with it and they're doing it on their own and you might get the occasional question but, um, yeah, research online and asking somebody who does it, those are great ways to learn.

Speaker 1: 47:45

Um, the other part too, like commodities that are new to you.

Speaker 1: 47:49

So maybe you're used to uh, refrigerated, um goods or, like you know, shipping in a reefer.

Speaker 1: 47:56

So you, you, yeah, you understand the continuous versus the cycling setting and pre-cooling and all that stuff, but maybe you're going to take on a new produce commodity or a new temperature control commodity that you're not totally sure on.

Speaker 1: 48:09

Like produce is a great example. Yes, produce blue book right, a wealth of knowledge on educating you on commodities when they're in season, things to look out for, the reasonable and acceptable quality standards when it comes to defects and claims, and whatnot. So there's a ton of options out there for you to do research on your own online and ask someone who is already knowledgeable in that. So I would encourage you to both lean on the available knowledge that's out there for self-education, to lean on folks out there for coaching and just mentorship, and asking questions with your customer and carriers to help fill in those knowledge gaps. At the end of the day, we're always learning in this industry and if you're not always learning, you're probably doing something wrong and you're going to end up falling behind in the long run. So that's my two cents on anything else you want to add in on this.

Speaker 2: 49:02

The only thing I would add is like I've gone through this exact same process with everything I've learned. Even when I was at like TQL and we had an ops department and people to ask like I would still ask, as a third point of view to your point, anybody that has experience, I would still make the phone call and ask and take those notes.

Speaker 2: 49:19

But I learned far more from the carriers and the customers than I ever did from the other person, because, one, they were talking about it in a different way, because the carriers wanted the business and it was important because if they're going to run it, they're going to be more detail-oriented than somebody that's just telling you what you should pay attention to and the shipper cares a lot because they don't want to waste their time and reject trucks and have missed pickups and things, so like whether I was doing very heavy haul, over-dimensional, oversized stuff. That's how I learned permits, pilot cars, what states have what, where you need what. It was literally talking to carriers and going through different bids with them and understanding that, whether it was flatbeds, before I learned how to ship pipe, my shipper was the one that told me the difference between pipe stakes, headache racks, loading a pyramid, stringing pipe into an oil field. All of that information came from my customer and then I talked with the carriers to verify and went back and forth Dreyage. I learned all of dreyage and everything I needed to understand to work with the carriers to verify and went back and forth Dreyage. I learned all of dreyage and everything I needed to understand to work with, like the major shipping lines from them. I asked them what was important, what were their protocols, what were the issues they ran into, what do they want me to be aware of?

Speaker 2: 50:27

They are more than willing to tell you everything they've learned so you can help them better. Then you do the same thing back and forth, right? It really doesn't matter what scenario you're looking at getting into. You can use prospecting to learn more about it at first, and then you can go back and forth with the carriers to verify back and forth information until you get a better perspective of what it takes to ship the load. Now, again, you're not going to prevent every problem, and I think that's the biggest thing I also learned. Planning is fantastic and it is absolutely necessary and it will eliminate 99 out of 100 issues, but you'll never get rid of the 1%. Things are still going to go wrong, and that's okay. And also, no one expects you to know everything. The more questions you ask, the better relationships you have with both your carriers and your customers. 100%.

Speaker 1: 51:15

Great discussion. Your carriers and your customers 100% Great discussion. The big takeaway for me here is don't be afraid to expand into new commodities, new equipment types, new types of business. There's a ton of stuff out there. If you feel like, hey, I can't seem to find any more customers, I don't even know where to look, I encourage you guys, do a little homework, do some research. Um, I encourage you guys, you know, do a little homework, do some research.

Speaker 1: 51:39

We've said it a ton of times 70, some percent of all the stuff we use every day was at some point in time transported on a truck. So just look around you think about those different commodities. Where are they coming from? How are they getting there? Um, be curious, ask questions and learn new things. That's how you're going to differentiate your book of business, continue to grow your book of business and become that expert freight broker. So, looking forward to upcoming episodes, we're going to have next week we're going to have an agent focused conversation with Matt Perkins, who's been on with us before. So if you are looking to bring on agents, you have agents or maybe you are an agent we'll just talk about some of the general considerations there. We'll tell some stories and later this month, or I guess the following week, genlogs man. That one's going to be a good one too. So some emerging technology. So stay tuned for some upcoming good podcast episodes. Any final thoughts, ben?

Speaker 2: 52:38

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

Speaker 1: 52:42

And until next time go Bills.