It's a Team's Life
Our thoughts on starting with Landstar
Finally, our friend asked the group we are involved in “Why do you keep asking Linda how she is doing at Landstar? When changing companies, you put their logos on your truck and go back to hauling freight.” The answer surprised him when it came from one of the leaders of our group that going to Landstar is NOTHING like changing logos on your truck and continuing to haul freight. There is a learning curve and freight is not handed to you or force fed to you.
The expedite side of Landstar is different than the truckload side as we get very few loads off of the load board. At orientation, we are given a list of Expedite agents, their emails, their phone numbers, and where they are located and the rest is up to us. There are some agents that are on the constant lookout for trucks and will be the first to call you but most sit back and wait to see how you will perform.
The only way I can explain it is like a startup business. As a startup business we are given a list of our customers and now it is up to us to make the contacts and sell ourselves. As with any business the more we put into it the more we get back out in the way of income. One of the first things we did once we arrived at Landstar was to create a flyer with pictures of our truck, pictures of us, and a picture of us on our lift gate. The flyer also includes all of our qualifications and why we are very capable of handling their freight and any problems that might arise.
Along with the emails we make phone calls to agents to see if they have any freight in the area we are in or the area we will be delivering to. Learning who to call was one of the most difficult things to learn at Landstar. What worked for me is to start a file system where I keep track of what agents to call in each state. The list was created by taking loads from agents, watching the Omnitracs postings, and talking to other drivers. Once at Landstar there are several groups where we can turn to for help in all areas of our Landstar business.
Slowly but surely, we started gaining a “customer” base and learned as soon as we have a load on our truck we start working on getting our next load by either calling or emailing agents that often have freight in the area of our delivery. To begin with, it was stressful to figure out who to call as everything had to be looked up in my files, but now I know who I am going to call from memory. When we accept a load from a new agent I get their email and ask where they have freight. As soon as possible I send them a flyer so they can visualize what we, as well as our truck, looks like that they are sending to their customer. After we finish the load the agent will know how we work and they will have the flyer so that if they need us with a special customer they will think of us.
Growing a business is not easy and if it was everyone would do it! Right now, when freight is very good it is much easier to get an agent to use us and the key is to get them to want to use us again and again when freight slows back down.
Bob & Linda Caffee
TeamCaffee
Saint Louis MO
Expediters since January 2005
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle;
Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;
Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;
Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.