Freight Broker Yes or No

Starting a new freight brokerage business automatically brings skepticism. When you start cold calling, don’t be surprised if you get 50 “no” answers before you get 1 “yes” answer. Why? Freight Brokers have not had a very good reputation for quite a few years now. Thus, making it even harder for a new freight broker to get started or become well established. Can it be done? Yes. Is it going to be easy? No. By now you are probably wondering why a freight broker will get 50 “no’s” before getting 1 “yes.” Bad business practices. How? There were and are a lot of freight brokers out there that will take the money and run. Meaning? The freight broker decides to take a load from the shipper, then he contracts it to a carrier, collects the monies in due time but then he never pays the carrier. This can become quite profitable in the 30-120 days it takes for the circle to be completed. By then, the freight brokerage office has closed down, taken the profits, paid another surety bond, and opened a new freight brokerage in another name. Thereby starting the process all over again. Is it legal? No. But anybody can go out of business, and any company can close down, so most of the time they get away with it. While this is a scary thought, new freight broker companies should be aware of why they get more "no's" than "yes's" And how they can help overcome a lot of the skepticism. Yes, you can be honest. Yes, you can have integrity. Yes, you can provide excellent customer service. Yes, you can keep up with the FMCSA. And as it stands now, every freight brokerage must have a Surety Bond in place. But hopefully in the near future, the cost of the Surety Bond will be raised in order to help weed out a lot of those who make a habit of doing this type of business. And this is not all that they have done to tarnish a freight brokers' reputation. A lot of freight brokers out there still make a living by ripping off the truck. What does this mean? They keep monies that should go to the truck but does not because the freight broker lies. The freight broker lies? Yes. Should you lie? No. How do they lie? When they tell the truck the extra fees that are sometimes required aren’t payable, when in fact they were paid to the freight broker. Only the freight broker did not pass them on to the truck, he pocketed them. Do things like this really happen? Yes. Should they happen? No. Sad but true, these are some of the obstacles a new freight broker has to overcome. But now you know some of the reasons why a new freight broker might get 50 "no" answers before he gets 1 "yes."