Bulk Loads, GPS Tracking, & More Q&A | Final Mile 89

Nate Cross & Ben Kowalski answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:

• What's the biggest challenge brokers face when it comes to shipping freight?
• How to find bulk carriers and handle washout requirements.
• GPS tracking issues: Why isn't it pinging every 30 minutes like it should?

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Chapters

• 0:38 Welcome and Listener Questions Introduction
• 1:23 Biggest Problems in Freight Brokerage
• 6:04 Finding Bulk Carriers and Washout Process
• 11:14 GPS Tracking Frequency and Issues

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome back. It's another episode of the Final Mile. We've got some listener questions that have come into us from some of it was from our Facebook group. Might have been a YouTube comment in there, but we appreciate it. Keep sending them our way and we'll get them answered. Contact form You'll also find all of our other content our full searchable library up there. You'll also see the Freight Broker Basics course if you're looking for a good educational option for your team or for yourself. And please check out the sponsors in the description box to help support the channel. That's Quickscope, levity, bluebook and DAT. Ben, let's get right into it. I like this first one. It's pretty broad, but I'm curious what our takes are on it. Someone asked what's your biggest problem with shipping freight as a broker. I think it was generally just like what's the biggest headache you have or the biggest problem you run into in brokerage. What would you say? How would you answer that one personally?

Speaker 2: 1:23

It's a tough one, man there's a lot.

Speaker 1: 1:25

I got a list.

Speaker 2: 1:27

I'll go first.

Speaker 1: 1:28

Yeah, here's mine and I've kind of said this for years. It's what I would consider the unnecessary animosity between brokers and carriers. We're both vital in our industry, were both vital in our industry and I just wish that we could all get along to say it like nicely or to put it simply but there's been so many times when and we talked about this a little bit on a recent episode on Assesurals but like you know brokers, if a broker gets a load canceled on them, carrier might automatically assume that, oh, you just found a cheaper truck. And the same goes the other way. Truck falls off and a broker might assume, oh, they found a higher paying load. And the reality is that might not be true. It might be true. The whole thing with rate transparency and you know carriers think that brokers control the rates in the market. And you know we don't need brokers and things like that, and I think that we both need to exist for this industry to operate the way that it does.

Speaker 1: 2:38

And I wish that I'm. I wish that there was more broader perspective from both parties and not just one side or the other. So that's my take. It's just a frustration on you know you talk. You know you talk to a driver and they immediately go down to, like you know, trying to get you to pay more on the load, or vice versa, a broker might try to hammer down a driver and it's like what are the actual circumstances here that are important to both parties? So that's mine. I went the carrier side of things. That's my biggest frustration or problem that I see. But you got anything more specific. I feel like a lot of people would answer saying it's hard to find customers, but what do you?

Speaker 2: 3:23

got Finding customers. But I would say finding customers is probably like the biggest one, because you're always trying to get more, but the I would say the biggest one is communication. Like getting customers to clearly communicate what's happening. Like I can go through so many instances where shippers are not giving you the details you need and then getting frustrated, like that drives, drives me nuts. Like we talked about that the other day. I don't even know if it was on the show, but it was like what was it? What was the thing? It was like a drop trial, what was the trailers? And it was just like, yeah, but like on the bid, it just said like oh, the live load yes or no?

Speaker 2: 4:01

Yeah, yeah, live load, yes or no. And it's like, okay, well, like, if you're gonna want drop trailers, like what are the terms of your drop trailers? Is it like two hours, six hours, 12 hours, 72 hours? You need to leave it on site and just like no thought into that. Like that drives me nuts.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Like the other one, too, is like getting carriers to tell you when things are going wrong or likely to go wrong ahead of time. I get it from a carrier's point of view. It's like you don't want to alarm a broker if you think you'll be able to get there in time, so you kind of push that as close as you can, sometimes between getting empty and getting to your next place. But the reality is like this is why carrier and shipper relationships matter so much is like carriers I've used for years, like their drivers will just tell me hey, man, it's, I'm getting slow getting unloaded, like it's going to be close. Okay, great, at least then I know what to plan for. I can communicate that back over to my customer.

Speaker 2: 5:01

This is what is harder, I think, sometimes from a broker's point of view than like a carrier, because if the carrier like these are the drivers that work with you or for you in the same company. I think they're more likely to tell you when things could be an issue ahead of time, because everything is easier to work through when you get the information sooner. When you are finding out after the fact and late, like it just throws your whole day out of whack. You got to fix things, you got to jump on calls, you got to resolve issues Like to me that's probably the biggest one.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Yeah, I agreed. That's a very good point. Let us know what you guys think in the comments too. What's your biggest problem that you deal with or biggest frustration? What's your biggest problem that you deal with or biggest frustration? Next question how do I find bulk carriers and how does it work when it requires a washout? So you know way more about this than I do, but I at least want to drop a little plug here. Episode 208, I just had to look it up here we had Jared Flynn from Bulk Loads on the show, so we talked for about an hour about the bulk freight market, how it works and ways to source. But I mean, bulkloadscom is a that's like, I would say, the reputable load board that's out there. But, ben, you have, you've got experience moving bulk commodities. I haven't ever done it. So what would you say? How do you source these carriers? Is it as simple as a load board or is it more networking? And talk about the washout process as well, jared's board, what is it?

Speaker 2: 6:38

The domain is saved in my thing. I don't type it Bulkloadscom.

Speaker 2: 6:40

Yeah, bulkloadscom. Yeah, bulkloadscom is a great load board to find bulk carriers. One lots of them are on there. It's great to sort. You can find them by state. You can also find them through tools like Highway and things where you can select tanker to find carrier options. So there's quite a few ways to find them. So there's quite a few ways to find them.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Now pricing them is different, because pricing bulk loads tend to work round trip, not always, but like I'm going to talk tankers, not like bulk solids, but they kind of operate similar because, like it is really hard to match up a front haul and a back haul in tankers because the commodities have to match, which is the first thing. Second, loading and unloading times can vary quite a bit. But it's not even just the loading and unloading, it's the last question, it's the washout, right. So what really happens is, say Steven is my driver on a tanker and say he's going to run like this is literally a lane that I've run. Say Steven runs from Charlotte, north Carolina, to Houston, texas, to deliver a load of glycerin. He's going to deliver that load.

Speaker 2: 7:47

Now here's what happens with the washout. I have to request from Steven his three prior loads. Steven is going to put that on letterhead, literally from his company that certifies these are the last three loads I ran. Some companies require three BOLs. What are the last three loads, bill of ladings that were in that tanker? I send those, either the certification on a letterhead that says the dates and what was in it, and sometimes the bills of lading, to that shipper. The shipper reviews those and they are going to have a list of priors that they allow. Basically right, like it's a list of every commodity they allow to be on that list of the three loads before it. Okay, and then they're going to review his three loads against that list and go all three are approved. Then they will tell me we want a type one, type two or type three wash. They're different in regards to the extent and temperature, I believe. Then I let Steven know hey, you need a type 3 kosher wash for my load.

Speaker 2: 8:47

Steven, once he is empty, has to go to a washout. Now it's not like a trailer wash, like he's going to go to a tank wash where they are going to sterilize the inside of the tank, all of the pumps and all of the hoses. Now that could be a two or three hour process. Sometimes it takes all night, like they'll drop the trailer off at the end of the day and pick it up in the morning, and it is not uncommon for that tank wash when the driver goes there in the morning to go sorry I didn't get to your trailer last night and then have to wait another three hours. So the time to match up a delivery and unloading and a pickup at a next facility is very, very hard to do, which is why front halls and back halls aren't lined up as much, which then means you've got to quote them front hall only. Basically.

Speaker 1: 9:33

I got you.

Speaker 2: 9:33

Let me ask you this the cost of these washouts and also $350 to $450, depending on where- you're in the country and then do you $250 to $350, I would say $450, the highest, depending on where you're at.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Do you treat it almost like a lumper where you're going to advance that driver money?

Speaker 2: 9:52

Or is it included in, like the-. Yeah, it's typically invoiced. Now, the only things that are a little similar to lumper is like yeah, the shipper is going to pay for it.

Speaker 2: 10:02

So, occasionally a shipper will say can you quote it all in? And I wrap that number in and give them an all in invoice to make it easier. But when they don't know what the tank wash fee will be, it'll be like you'll see the carrier will quote like 350 or actual. Then the carrier is going to send me the washout receipt. I am going to add that to the invoice, add that to the shipper's invoice.

Speaker 1: 10:25

But the carrier's paying for it out of pocket when they go there to get washed out.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Yeah, but they usually have an account Like they invoice and like they have accounts because like there's national tank wash companies, so usually the carrier will have like an account where they're invoiced, probably at the end of the month for everyone. I don't think many of them are paying cash on site unless it's like a one-off tank wash where they're going to a place they don't normally go. Then they might pay that out of pocket. But, rarely have I ever advanced or needed to advance for it.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Gotcha, All right, cool, Good question. It's a unique one. Third one here how often should GPS be pinging a driver and why doesn't it ping every 30 minutes, like it should? So this is kind of a two-part question. I'll give a short answer on both and then we'll break it down. So how often should it be pinging a driver? It depends on what you're using and how it's set up. We'll come back to that. Why isn't it pinging as often as it should?

Speaker 1: 11:23

Common reasons that GPS will cut out could be that the driver has location services disabled, either intentionally or unintentionally. The driver could be in a dead zone, meaning their cell phone is not getting reception to ping. It could be that the driver doesn't have their GPS setting or their location settings to always allow. I've seen that happen so often with some of these mobile app-based tracking tools where they set it to only while using the app and then they close the app out and they're not tracking, or their phone might die or whatever the case might be. Those are like the common ones that I've seen.

Speaker 1: 12:04

Um, but let's go back. How often are? And I'll give you some examples from some tools, Because there are some that are continuous and there are some that you can literally set them to. However, the interval you want is right, Like every eight hours, every 30 minutes, I think is pretty standard, Like trucker tools will every 15 minutes. Trucker tools will request a location update if they haven't been, if it hasn't pushed one.

Speaker 1: 12:31

But it also depends too on like are they using a mobile app? Is it integrated through the ELD provider? And then what does that ELD provider allow for how often it's sending locations? But there are, there are continuous ones that like, for example, Quickscope, great partner of ours they're in development for their next version and one of the things on their horizon is to have that in-transit visibility, that ongoing tracking, instead of just hey, where are you right now when you take this picture. But I've seen too macro point I haven't used in a while, but I think it was every.

Speaker 1: 13:13

There were some that was every two hours and then there were some that had the, or maybe it was every. There were some that was like every two hours, and then there were some that had like the, or maybe it was every four hours, but you could pay extra to have it like every 30 minutes or every hour or something like that. The reality is there's a lot of different vendors out there that provide the ability to do GPS tracking, whether through a mobile app or through a telematics like an ELD or an onboard GPS tool inside the cab, Some of these even like the reefers. Now you can track location and temperature and stuff like that. It just depends on what that specific provider has their technology set up to do. Do you I mean you got any of your thoughts or insights on ones that you've used or seen, and how often they are?

Speaker 2: 14:00

I've used all of them. Well, I don't want to say all of them, I mean probably at some point I've used all of them. They the biggest thing is what you named the big ones like is the phone on the right settings for to keep pinging? The second one, again, is usually like go through a dead area. When they come out of the dead area it doesn't always pick back up sometimes, so there's an issue there. The other thing is like where are you looking at this? Are you looking at it in your TMS or are you looking at it in the platform?

Speaker 2: 14:30

I was on a call yesterday with our TMS because there is different information in MacroPoint's dashboard versus what we see in Thai, for example, and I'll give you an example of what we can see there but not here. One is if a driver clicks on site in the app, it will tell our TMS the driver's there, but if I look at MacroPoint's dashboard, he could be 250 miles away, so he could literally be at his last stop and go. I'm on site. It will click into the TMS because it sends that message that he's on site and it'll go on-handed origin, but he's not there. Now if I look in MacroPoint's dashboard, I can see and sort by the ones that the driver clicked manually versus the GPS initiated. So if I'm tracking trace, I can look at the five or six that the driver did manually and just look and go okay, that guy's there, that guy's there. That guy is nowhere close to there. I got to call him and see what's going on. So that's another thing.

Speaker 2: 15:30

The other piece too I spent a lot of time on this in the past year is like MacroPoint will estimate whether or not they're going to be late based on how fast they're driving and where they need to go. Right. But I've seen some TMSs that only take that information, apply it to the destination but not the origin. So I've been working with Ty and that is resolved now where it'll literally tell me the time to pick up or to delivery. Cause what we really want our track and trace team to do is to be able to look at the guys that aren't going to make it, not have to look at every single load to figure that out, and in macro points dashboard you can just click a toggle. It's pretty cool. It'll just go here's all your drivers that are delayed and might not make it, and then you can just look at those loads and then just see if you have any problems there.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Yeah, I've seen that trucker tools as a similar feature to where, like I, you know we'll use it as like training. So we'll set up like a training load and training tracking and whatnot, and it'll tell me like, yeah, the driver's not like warning driver may not make it on time. There are X amount of miles. Driver's not like warning driver may not make it on time. They're x amount of miles, yeah, so, but yeah, I mean, here's the big takeaway.

Speaker 1: 16:39

Here is, the technology exists for real-time tracking, um, but the way that you implement it and the way that you're using these tools and the integrations to where you're actually viewing the, the data, like you mentioned the tms integration that will determine how often you'll get updates, and and there's some too like text locate, for example, is like it's not live. You just you send a text whenever you want one and the driver says, boop, here I am Right, and there's plenty of um tools like that, that that exist, um, one of the things that I wanted to mention here, too, is like uh, I think it was a. So I think someone asked this question in the in our Facebook group and someone commented like why do you need, why do you need my location every 15 minutes, like well.

Speaker 2: 17:21

The reality is, I might not care but my customer might Right, and if you, want to haul their load.

Speaker 1: 17:27

These are the terms of it Right, so like you get some of this high priority stuff. Like you might have someone whose sole job that day is make sure you're tracking where that truck is so that they're going to get there on time, Because if they don't, it could cost us millions of dollars if it doesn't get there on time. Exactly, but good question.