Freight Brokerage Business. The Staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
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who is happiest shuffling papers behind closed office doors or within their cubical. However, courage and an extroverted personality alone won’t guarantee you a successful freight brokerage either. According to Davis, “Anyone involved in operations needs to be able to handle stress, make quick decisions, handle multiple tasks, have a good phone voice, and develop top-notch communication skills. It’s also good to possess some general business knowledge.” You not only need to understand the freight industry, you must also appreciate the business demands your customers face.
Andrews agrees that communication skills and a solid foundation in the industry are important for brokers. You need to be able to speak industry jargon to demonstrate your knowledge. “The worst thing you could do is call a shipper and start fumbling on the phone,” he says. “He’s never going to give you any freight because he’s going to know right away that you have no knowledge of the business, and he would not trust his goods being moved with you.”
Williamson says you’ve got to be “a good all-around person.” That means being comfortable with the financial side, the sales side, and the operations side. Understanding how to leverage technology and specialized software designed for use by freight brokers has also become increasingly more important within the past five years.
The TIA’s Voltmann says, “The future for intermediaries is very bright as asset-owning carriers concentrate on what they do best, and shippers concentrate on their core competencies. Shippers and carriers need the innovation and expertise intermediaries provide. The result will be continued improvements, which will mean more choices for consumers and lower costs.”
Start Your Own Freight Brokerage Business is an easy-to-read resource that will introduce you to this business opportunity. However, it’s only a starting point if you opt to pursue this type of career path. How you proceed should depend on your goals, financial resources, existing education, the amount of additional job-specific training, and general business education you’re able and willing to acquire, as well as your willingness to build your own business from scratch over time (as opposed to working for an existing freight brokerage business, potentially as an agent or as an employee).
If you opt to pursue starting your own freight brokerage business, one of the first things you’ll want to do is obtain proper training. Simply by visiting your favorite internet search engine, such as Google (www.google.com) or Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com), enter the phrase “freight broker training” within the search field, to learn about the various schools and organizations that offer this type of training.
As you’ll discover, you can participate in online-based classes at your own pace, or obtain instruction in person within a traditional classroom setting. Depending on which training program you choose, the cost will range from just under $500 to several thousand dollars, and the time commitment required will typically be between one week and several months.
Some of the organizations that offer the specialized training that you ultimately need include:
• Brooke Transportation Training Solutions (www.brooketraining.com). Offers classroom training in multiple cities across the United States, as well as an online program that can be done from home. The course price starts at $2,495.00 for the intensive, five-day (40-hour) program, although a two-week (80-hour) course is also offered that’s designed specifically for people looking to start their own brokerage business as opposed to working as an agent or as an employee for a broker.
• Ed2go (www.ed2go.com). Offers a six month, classroom-based course (in conjunction with Palm Beach State College), which starts at $1,895.00.
• FBC Freight Brokerage Course (http://freightbrokerscourse.com/products/freight-broker-training/). Offers home study and online-based programs ranging in price from $99 to $699.
• TIA Delivers (www.tianet.org). Offers a home study course.
Optionally earning a Certified Transportation Broker accreditation will provide you with the textbook knowledge needed to establish yourself in this industry. However, absolutely nothing can replace the need for real-world training and experience, which you can only obtain from actually working for an established freight brokerage, or by working in other aspects of the ground transportation/freight industry.
While this work experience is optional prior to starting your own freight brokerage business (or becoming an agent), it’s an extremely savvy business practice to acquire at least some industry-related, real-world experience before attempting to launch your own freight brokerage business.
Beyond the industry-specific training and knowledge that’s required, running any type of business requires the business operator to juggle many responsibilities, and wear many different proverbial hats, so you’ll also want to develop general business and bookkeeping experience. In other words, you need to be able to efficiently handle the core responsibilities of being a general business operator.
Thus, taking general business, marketing, and technology-related courses will help you develop and fine-tune the core business and marketing skills you’ll need. If you’re not technologically savvy, learning how to operate a computer and use industry-specific software, as well as general business and bookkeeping software, will all ultimately be essential if you opt to launch your own freight brokerage business.
• Further Your Education Online
General business classes can be taken online, at your own pace, from a wide range of accredited institutions. It’s also possible to participate in free, online-based classes from iTunes U, for example, by downloading the free iTunes U app onto your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. The iTunes U app is available from the App Store. Once you launch the free app, you will be able to browse an extensive course catalog, choose which classes to participate in, and then sign up and participate in each selected class.
University of Phoenix (www.phoenix.edu/colleges_divisions/business.html) is just one example of an online, accredited institution that offers fee-based business classes. Open Culture (www.openculture.com) and Alison Learning (http://alison.com), however, are other resources for participating in free, online business classes that range from accounting, human resources, operations management, leadership skills development, marketing, business writing, and negotiation to business communications, sales management, and fundamentals of business law.
It’s also essential that you develop strong written and verbal communication skills, since you’ll continuously be interacting with other people in person, in writing, via email, and over the phone. At the same time, becoming a savvy negotiator will help you. These skills can be acquired through the use of self-help courses, or by participating in evening classes, community college classes, or online classes, for example.
Before Becoming a Freight Broker or Agent, Get the Proper Training
Reading Start Your Own Freight Brokerage Business is a wonderful first step toward obtaining the knowledge and skills needed to start a freight brokerage business or becoming an agent for an existing business. However, it is just a first step.
After reading this book, if you decide this is a career path you want to pursue, seriously consider investing the time and money needed to acquire the proper training and education. This can be done by taking a live, hands-on training program that requires between 40 and 80 hours in a classroom environment, or it can be done at your own pace, by participating in an online-based training course.
As you’ll soon discover, the people who want to acquire the most comprehensive training begin by completing