How Can I Find A Broker

[woolylocks]

Hello everyone. I'm trying to start my own fleet in order to to work in the LTL business. I just require a little bit of aid and some more information on how to get started. Right now I'm a little confused as to how to get a broker. If you have any helpful information please do not hesitate to share it. Happy late New Years!

 

[xiggi]

Hello everyone. I'm trying to start my own fleet in order to to work in the LTL business. I just require a little bit of aid and some more information on how to get started. Right now I'm a little confused as to how to get a broker. If you have any helpful information please do not hesitate to share it. Happy late New Years!

If you do not even know how to find a broker you are a very long way from starting your own fleet. Not trying to be negative just honest. What this site about is expediting which is different from ltl although we haul much of the same freight.

Do you have a truck at this time, how long have you been driving, what size trucks are you wanting in your fleet?

 

[Lawrence]

Welcome Woolylocks,

I have to agree 100% with Xiggi. Please take a few days on this site and read as much as possible - then let's start that question process over again.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

 

[idtrans]

Hello everyone. I'm trying to start my own fleet in order to to work in the LTL business. I just require a little bit of aid and some more information on how to get started. Right now I'm a little confused as to how to get a broker. If you have any helpful information please do not hesitate to share it. Happy late New Years!

Sorry to be honest but pack it in before you dig yourself into a deeper hole.

And happy new year to you also

 

[kwexpress]

well in order to work with a broker you have to have your own authority.
you can pay someone to get it for you or you can go here

Registration & Assistance: USDOT Number/Operating Authority - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

just click on the link for registration and updates fill out the form and pay $300

you will also need process agents so someone can sue you even if they dont have your address.best I found is rex $30 for the lifetime of your company.also he will provide you with alot of information

Process Agent Service - only $30 | Evilsizor Transportation Services

now it takes 2-3 weeks for you to get your number

you will also need insurance both primary liability and cargo

1 million liability and get at least 100,000 cargo

once you get your number and insurance depending on gvw of the trucks you run you may have to set up an ifta account to pay fuel taxes if your over 26000 gvw
and you may need an irp account this is so every state your gonna travel in gets a chunk of your registration fees.

if you tell me what state your from I will give you phone numbers or web addresses of who to contact.
its a piece of cake as long as you dont mind keeping good records and if its your dream to build a company just do it but consider yourself warned its easy to get into and easy to go broke tring to keep it running.

 

[60MPH]

Most of the LTL freight is not "Broker" oriented. LTL freight usually moves with a real LTL line like ABF and they have customers they go to everyday, sometimes they pick up freight sometimes they don't. LTL freight usually have big pk and drop windows and does not pay all that good, especially if it has a BIG window. There are some truckload boards that have some LTL style freight and if that is what you want to haul, that is where you should start looking for brokers that move some of it.

 

[blizzard2014]

LTL = Larger Than Truckload.

 

[60MPH]

LTL = Larger Than Truckload.

No permits required either

 

[ChanceMaster]

Isn't LTL " LESS than truckload" ?

Sent from my PC36100 using EO Forums

 

[60MPH]

Isn't LTL " LESS than truckload" ?

Sent from my PC36100 using EO Forums

Yes, Blizzard was being sarcastic

 

[Bruno]

LTL = Larger Than Truckload.

That's a good one Blizzard.

 

[woolylocks]

well in order to work with a broker you have to have your own authority.
you can pay someone to get it for you or you can go here

Registration & Assistance: USDOT Number/Operating Authority - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

just click on the link for registration and updates fill out the form and pay $300

you will also need process agents so someone can sue you even if they dont have your address.best I found is rex $30 for the lifetime of your company.also he will provide you with alot of information

Process Agent Service - only $30 | Evilsizor Transportation Services

now it takes 2-3 weeks for you to get your number

you will also need insurance both primary liability and cargo

1 million liability and get at least 100,000 cargo

once you get your number and insurance depending on gvw of the trucks you run you may have to set up an ifta account to pay fuel taxes if your over 26000 gvw
and you may need an irp account this is so every state your gonna travel in gets a chunk of your registration fees.

if you tell me what state your from I will give you phone numbers or web addresses of who to contact.
its a piece of cake as long as you dont mind keeping good records and if its your dream to build a company just do it but consider yourself warned its easy to get into and easy to go broke tring to keep it running.

Thanks for all the extra information but I still need to know how to find a broker. I didn't know there was a difference between LTL and expediting. I'm a little blurry on that but I'm interested in the expediting business and no one on this site wants to answer my questions. They just sit around posting useless comments and not answering my question.

You on the other hand have been kind enough to to actually try to help me. So if you would be so kind as to tell me how to get a broker I would greatly appreciate it. And thanks for the link. It was on my to do list.

 

[Turtle]

...no one on this site wants to answer my questions. They just sit around posting useless comments and not answering my question.

That's because your question reek of "cart before the horse" type questions. You want to start a fleet to get into the LTL business, even though you don't know what LTL or expediting is, and you need to know how to contact a broker. Well, do you even know what a broker will do for you? No, you don't. You think a broker will give you lots and lots of loads for your new fleet. They won't.

Call Panther, FedEx Custom Critical, Bolt, they're all brokers. Do a Google search for freight brokers. Many of them have phone numbers. That's how you find a broker.

Now that you've found a broker, what's next? You don't have a clue, do you? Very early on in this thread you were give two very good pieces of advice. One was, if you don't already know how to find a broker, and what to do with one, then you aren't anywhere near close to starting your own fleet, and the other piece was spend a few days reading on this site and then once you come back with some knowledge you can start the question process again, because your questions will be based on knowledge and intelligence rather than on sheer ignorance.

Before you get a broker and know what to do with one, you need to fully understand this business and how it works, where freight comes from and what a broker can and cannot do for you. You need to be in this business for a while, learn it, and then be able to make intelligent decision about brokered freight. You need to get behind the wheel yourself and drive for a fleet owner for 6 month to a year, then buy and drive your own truck for another 6 months to a year, and then you will have a intelligent foundation for which you can make intelligent decisions of fleet ownership and whether you want to be leased onto a carrier or if you want to deal with brokering your own freight or working with brokers to obtain your freight. If you go about this in another other manner, unless you have insanely deep pockets, the likelihood of failure is somewhere north of 99 percent.

 

[blizzard2014]

Thanks for all the extra information but I still need to know how to find a broker. I didn't know there was a difference between LTL and expediting. I'm a little blurry on that but I'm interested in the expediting business and no one on this site wants to answer my questions. They just sit around posting useless comments and not answering my question.

You on the other hand have been kind enough to to actually try to help me. So if you would be so kind as to tell me how to get a broker I would greatly appreciate it. And thanks for the link. It was on my to do list.

You are going to have a lot of hurdles to overcome in the LTL market with a fleet. The first hurdle will be your biggest hurdle. Most Brokers will not work with a carrier unless they have been in business for either 6 months or 1 year. Another problem you are going to have on the expedite side if you are not a team. Most of the expedite loads that I see for straight trucks are hot and require team service.

What i'd suggest for you to do right now is to file for your contract carrier authority and pay all of the insurance and put it on the shelf and let it age for 6 months before you do anything on your. I'm pretty sure you can find a larger company to haul fore while you are aging your MC Number. Remember there are a lot of shady type of broker and carrier operations out there and that is why carriers and brokers like to see you in business for at least 6 months before they hand over their customers freight,

Now if you are wanting to do strictly LTL freight i'd recommend a gooseneck trailer and a 1 ton dually pick-up truck with a big diesel engine in it. You will get more LTL work from brokers if you can be side loaded because a lot of the ltl stuff is bulky and pays the same whether it is heavy or not so heavy. That is the best set-up you can get for running multiple LTL loads or hot-shot loads. If you want to drive a straight truck i'd suggedt just leasing it on with a bigger carrier.

The bigger carriers are going to pay you 1.60 per mile at least and on your own you can get between 1.80 per mile and 2.00 per mile (sometimes more if the load is a shorter distance or going into a bad area) but not always. So you want to make an extra 20 cents per mile but you have to deduct higher expenses from that amount. Your cargo insurance, the cost of starting a LLC, time spent collecting payment or fees associated with a factoring company, time spent looking for loads for yourself. There is a heck of a lot more work involved for that extra 20 cents per mile. Just take your time before you jump right into owning you rown company. I wish you the best.

 

[kwexpress]

Thanks for all the extra information but I still need to know how to find a broker. I didn't know there was a difference between LTL and expediting. I'm a little blurry on that but I'm interested in the expediting business and no one on this site wants to answer my questions. They just sit around posting useless comments and not answering my question.

You on the other hand have been kind enough to to actually try to help me. So if you would be so kind as to tell me how to get a broker I would greatly appreciate it. And thanks for the link. It was on my to do list.

Transportation Brokers Online Directory - Trucking Home/Search Results

there is also a gold book
that list brokers that pay within 30 days.

TIAwebsite | Introducing TIA Performance Certified

 

[kwexpress]

I would also suggest maybe becoming a member of ooida.
you have to know that most on here not all but most on here are just fleet owners or drivers.nothing wrong with being either.

there are many on here that have more alot more smarts than me.I dropped out of high school to join the navy cause I was bored with being a farm boy but today I farm a few hundered acres not enough to get rich on but enough to call myself a farmer.

I also call myself an oil man because back in the fifties ashland oil drilled about 18 oil wells on this 300 acres and made gramps a afew millon in a short period of time and once production dropped down my dad purchased the operating rights so today I am a oil producer on a very small scale but I can do it because we own our own rigs and although I only sell about 150 barrels a month I can do it by keeping my overhead low.

my point is dont invest everything in trucking of any type bbe it expedite,ltl,truckload,od or heavy haul there is no 1 broker or company that will be your answer.and brokers are not the answer.A good sales team and direct customers will take you further.brokers are part of it but dont depend on them.when you deal with brokers your like a blind man on disability dont limit yourself.you never know how much of the pie they keep.

 

[nightcreacher]

If your going to pay a broker to find your freight,then pay a factoring company so you get paid for the loads you have done,why not just be leased to a company that will do all this for you,and your bottom line will be close to the sameIf your going to run your own authority,you need to be a salesman and get your own loads

 

[blizzard2014]

my point is dont invest everything in trucking of any type bbe it expedite,ltl,truckload,od or heavy haul there is no 1 broker or company that will be your answer.and brokers are not the answer.A good sales team and direct customers will take you further.brokers are part of it but dont depend on them.when you deal with brokers your like a blind man on disability dont limit yourself.you never know how much of the pie they keep.

The reason why there are brokers is because a lot of trucking companies are not sales oriented. Also, a lot of owner operators are not good at sales. The broker makes all of the phone calls, tracks down the customers, and then matches the truck with the shipper. I think the broker deserves to be paid for his time. The broker also assumes all of the financial responsibility if the shipper failes to pay for a load. If you get direct customers and that shipper decideds he is not going to pay you for 10k, you're out the money with no bond to file on. Don't knock brokers. There are a lot of shippers who do not want to spend their resources managing their shipments and thus use brokers to be their traffic managers. Once again, don't knock all brokers.

 

[blizzard2014]

If your going to pay a broker to find your freight,then pay a factoring company so you get paid for the loads you have done,why not just be leased to a company that will do all this for you,and your bottom line will be close to the sameIf your going to run your own authority,you need to be a salesman and get your own loads

I can get myself loads in my van for 1.40 a mile as opposed to .85-1.00 a mile if I was to lease on with a larger carrier. Why would I give up all of that extra income just to have someone else do the office work for me? If you get direct customers, you can get all of the money. When you are leased on to a company there are three hands in the pie. Your company gets the load from a broker who takes his cut, then they take their cut on top of that, then you get your cut. Why not just get the brokers cut and the carriers cut at the same time? Granted owning a company is not most O/O's cup of tea but it can be a very profitable enterprise if you can think outside of the box.

Look at what happened to you at Fedex (not to knok you in any way) but they canned you over something that was very trivial. Well when you have your own company who is going to can you? Who is going to tell you that you can't take a month off or that you absolutely have to take a load going into a bad area? It's about freedom for me. But it can get expensive if you are not properly capitalized.

 

[kwexpress]

The reason why there are brokers is because a lot of trucking companies are not sales oriented. Also, a lot of owner operators are not good at sales. The broker makes all of the phone calls, tracks down the customers, and then matches the truck with the shipper. I think the broker deserves to be paid for his time. The broker also assumes all of the financial responsibility if the shipper failes to pay for a load. If you get direct customers and that shipper decideds he is not going to pay you for 10k, you're out the money with no bond to file on. Don't knock brokers. There are a lot of shippers who do not want to spend their resources managing their shipments and thus use brokers to be their traffic managers. Once again, don't knock all brokers.

I didnt mean to knock them in anyway all i meant by the blind man comment was that when you deal with brokers you dont see what that load really pays and your selling yourself short most of the time.So I dont think you should limit yourself to dealing with just brokers.

On the other hand you are correct if a shipper decides not to pay then you could be stuck.brokers do have the bond you can file against but in most cases its only 10k and chances are if your filing so are 100 other owner/ops and once the bond money is gone its gone.you may be lucky and get ten cents for every dollar they owe.

But there are alot of very honest brokers that pay well and are established and you can depend on themto pay like clock work.they do have expences to and take away alot of leg workso that is worth alot to me.
in my case if it was not for the broker I would be doing alot more sitting and deadheading.
all types of trucking is high risk for any one.