Freight Brokerage Business. The Staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
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You can start and run a successful brokerage as a one-person business, but to really grow, you’re eventually going to need employees. If you find the idea of interviewing, hiring, and managing employees somewhat intimidating, you’re not alone—that’s a common feeling among entrepreneurs. But this is very much a people business, and the people you hire will be critical to the success of your company, so it’s in your best interest to do it carefully and wisely.
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The ability to find and hire competent employees is a skill unto itself. Simply getting along with a perspective applicant and liking their personality are important, but you need to be able to evaluate their skill set, experience, reliability, honesty, work ethic, professional reputation, and education, for example, all of which help to determine if someone will be a good fit for your business.
Instead of taking a costly trial-and-error approach, consider working with an employment agency or having someone with extensive human resources or headhunting skills work with you during the hiring process.
The first step is to define the job you plan to offer. Create a detailed job description that outlines what the person’s responsibilities will be, as well as what skills, experience, education, and personality type you want them to have. The more detailed you are when defining and writing out each job description, the easier it will be for you to find a perfect applicant to fill each position.
When Cathy Davis started MCD Transportation in Smyrna, Tennessee, she was her company’s only employee. Today, the business she has passed on to her daughters has five full-time people. When Cherry Hill, New Jersey-based freight broker Bill Tucker bought his late father’s company, it was staffed by a few part-time, retired traffic managers. Today, there are some 30 people on the payroll, plus a few commissioned salespeople who work as independent contractors. “We pride ourselves on realizing that this is a people business,” he said. “It’s incumbent on us to be able to attract and hold the best people we can.”
Ron Williamson started RJW Logistics with him and his wife working part time. Today, he employs nearly 50 people in his Bloomingdale, Illinois office, plus about 150 drivers—mostly owner-operators—for his trucking operations.
This chapter discusses some of the hiring issues that are specific to freight brokerages. For more general information about developing your own skills as a human resources professional, consider reading specialized business books or taking classes on this topic that are designed for small business operators.
Pay scales in the transportation industry are very much affected by geography and market. For example, an experienced dispatcher in Chicago could easily earn double what the same position would pay in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Do some informal networking in your community to determine what the going pay scales and commission ranges are before deciding how much you’re going to pay. Whatever you decide to offer in the beginning, from the day someone is hired, tell employees what they must do to get a raise without having to ask for it; then follow up by increasing their pay rates when they’ve earned it and have met specific milestones.
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The U.S. Small Business Administration’s website (www.sba.gov/managing-business/running-business/human-resources) offers a handful of free articles and resources related to managing human resources as a small business operator.
It’s a good idea to hire people before you desperately need them. Waiting until the last minute may drive you to make hiring mistakes, which can cost you dearly, both in terms of cash and customer service.
• Develop a Human Resources Strategy
After you clearly define the job position you’re looking to fill, use the resources at your disposal to find qualified applicants. These resources include referrals, social media (including LinkedIn), career websites, industry associations, and freight brokerage training programs that are looking to place their graduates into jobs. Of course, a traditional “Help Wanted” ad in a major daily newspaper can work too, but these days, career websites offer far more powerful recruiting tools.
Before you set up the first interview with an applicant, lay some groundwork to make the hiring process as smooth as possible. Decide in advance what you need. You know you need help, but exactly what kind of help? Do you need a salesperson or administrative support? Do you need a broker (agent), or someone to handle billing? In the beginning, you’ll be looking for people to do the tasks you can’t or don’t want to do. As you grow, you’ll be looking for people who can help you expand your capabilities.
• Write detailed job descriptions. Take the time to put a list of responsibilities and required skills in writing. This forces you to think through what type of person will best meet your needs. It also helps you reduce the risk of hiring the wrong person and allows you to establish expectations for your new employee(s) right from the start.
• Set basic personnel policies. Don’t think that because you’re a small company you can just deal with personnel issues as they come up. You’ll avoid a lot of problems down the road if you set policies at the outset.
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Some of the more popular online job-related websites where you can post and promote your job openings to seek out qualified candidates include: Indeed (www.indeed.com), Monster (www.monster.com), CareerBuilder (www.careerbuilder.com), ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com), and Simply Hired (www.simplyhired.com).
When you first begin hiring people, you may want to consider bringing them on as part-timers until your business grows to the point that full-timers are required. One of the biggest keys to getting and keeping good people is flexibility, and you will find plenty of talented folks who, for whatever reason, don’t want to work full time.
If you can accommodate them, you’ll both benefit. As the workload grows and you need a full-time person doing that particular job, either change the status of your part-timer or, if that won’t work, be creative. Consider hiring a second part-timer, setting up a job-sharing situation, or some other solution that will allow you to retain a valuable person and still get the work done.
Because the service you offer is pretty straightforward, you don’t need a wide range of job titles in your company. Here are the basic positions you’ll need to fill as you grow:
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