How Can I Become a Freight Broker?
By Michael Keith

It's hard to believe that it's been nearly 20 years since I started my transportation career, looking back I can remember wishing that I knew the answer to that question. As I learned nearly 20 years ago and what you'll soon learn is the easy part is becoming a freight broker, the hard part is being a successful freight broker.

I could furnish you a list as long as my arm of companies that would contract you right now, with no experience. Why shouldn't they, it's not costing them anything except a little time. Don't misunderstand me; they would prefer you to have experience, transportation knowledge or some kind of understanding about the business. But there are many that will play the odd's game of contracting freight brokers with no experience.

The odd's game is that if you contract enough freight brokers you'll eventually have one that makes it. The average freight broker contracted to a freight brokerage earns a 60% commission, on average. This commission is derived from the difference of what the customer paid you to move a load and what you paid the truck. The 40% goes to the freight brokerage with whom you're contracted.

The freight brokerage knows how many agents they must contract in order to find one that can make it. Of course the experienced freight brokers don't fall into that picture as it is much easier to contract an inexperienced freight broker. Experienced freight brokers are a give-me.

By playing the odd's game the freight brokerage can't lose. Over time they become the big winners as long as they retain their agents. The losers in the odd's game are the ones that took a chance with little to no transportation experience and didn't make it. They are the ones that purchased equipment and have been without a steady income for "X" amount of time.

In the early 80's I answered a blind help wanted ad in the newspaper. I was in my early 20's and really hadn't figured out what I wanted to do with my life yet. The ad ended up being for an insurance company looking for agents. They would train me for two weeks to pass my state test to get a license. Afterwards, contingent on my passing the test, they would contract me as a commissioned agent. By commissioned I mean I would make a commission of what I sell.

During those two weeks of training I was exposed to other agents coming in and out of the office every day that had made sales with commissions in the hundreds of dollars. The more I watched the more determined I was to make it. Not knocking anyone from those days, but there were several agents that were making great money that convinced me that if they could do it, I could do it!

I got my license and became an agent. I was fired up and ready to go. Five days later I was still ready to go and really fired up because I hadn't sold anything yet. I was really fired up and still motivated because I kept seeing these other knuckle heads make money doing it. I was determined.

Five more days later, I was really mad. Not even a nibble. I mean it was close to being embarrassing. Right then and there I knew I was missing something and that something was how to sell. That Friday afternoon I went straight to the library and checked out all the books they would let me on sales.

That weekend was nothing but a constant study hall. But it paid off. That next week I sold my first policy and that was all I needed. Once I was able to accomplish that it wasn't a matter of trying to make money as an agent, I was an agent!

The insurance company was playing the odd's game. They knew that all their investment would be was a little time...and a newspaper ad while their reward would be the agents that made it. It was up to the agents to make it or not. I chose to make it by learning as much as I could.

Being a freight broker is much more than just having loads to put on trucks. You've got to know how to sell, how to negotiate, how to prospect, how to set rates...and the list goes on and on. This is one of the reasons many in-experienced freight brokers fail, just as I almost had with insurance, they're not prepared.

If you're serious about becoming a freight broker you should give yourself every opportunity to succeed. Do this by educating yourself on the industry as a whole. Learn what you must know and always understand that you've never learned it all.

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