Become a Freight Broker or a Freight Agent

Part Time or Full Time Work From Home

     

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Who can become a freight broker or freight agent? 

The opportunity is available for any adult who is looking for unlimited income potential dependent on your personal efforts.

To make the big upper six figure incomes, anticipate having employees (freight agents) working under you in an office environment.

Truckers tired of life on the road, women wanting a part time home job and others looking for a new career have been successful in the freight brokerage business.

In fact, there are more freight brokers or freight agents working part time from their home matching a shipper’s loads with truckers needing a load to haul than there are full time freight brokers or agents in the business.

In a nutshell, your job can be broken into three parts. 

• Find shippers needing freight moved  

• Set a competitive price per mile with the shipper to move the freight  

• Find truckers willing to move the freight for a lower set price per mile  

The difference between the two set prices is your profit for bringing the trucker(carrier) and shipper together.

Many successful brokers use services such as DAT’s Express Load Board to find more business by utilizing their on-line freight matching data bases.

"Can People Actually Make Money as a Freight Broker or Freight Agent?"

Yes, some brokers do very well and some brokers never get out of the gate due to poor planning, inadequate training and lack of commitment to push hard for success.

One broker we know drives a new vehicle and is always taking trips to places like Vegas, Reno and the Bahamas. He has built up his customer base and now takes his office with him on the road.

By transferring his office phone to his cell phone and using apps to conduct business, his office can be wherever he chooses. The key point here is: "He Had to Build a Customer Base!"

With nearly a million shippers in the United States and with many of them outsourcing their shipping needs to save money, a person who is willing to make contacts and build good relationships with shippers, transportation carrier companies and big rig owner operators can make a good living.

Pay day only comes when you "Make The Deal Happen"!

"Sounds easy enough to become a freight broker and make good money, right?" 

Well, as with all things that sound easy; you can fail miserably before you even get started good without proper research and training.

Freight brokering can be very stressful and one mistake can cost you big bucks, a major client or even worse, your business.
 

Do You Need to Have Formal Training to Become a Freight Broker?

Stop! Before Spending Big Bucks on Formal Training

At the minimum, find a freight broker book at your local library or buy a book on line to learn more about the freight business before you invest hundreds if not thousands of dollars in formal training.

With that said and with you understanding our recommendations to pursue formal training of some kind to increase your chances for success; let’s find out what it takes to become a freight broker.

What Do You Need To get Started To Become a Freight Broker?

Licensing, Insurance, and Processing Agent Mandatory Requirements:

• You need to get a broker’s authority that will cost you a $300.00 processing fee if you do the filing yourself. Companies will do the filing for you for a fee in the $150 to $250 range.  
• A $10,000 surety bond from a financial institution is required. The cost for obtaining this surety bond varies depending on the financial institution and your credit rating.  
• File your BOC-3 that designates who your processing agent will be in the event you are served court papers for whatever reason in the course of doing business as a freight broker.  
• Any state or local business license requirements for your area of the country  
• Place of Business Requirements: It is recommended you work from home to keep your operating cost low while getting started. You will need to following items to get started:  
• Dedicated Space at your home to work. Do research federal tax guidelines or discuss the issue with your accountant before trying to claim your home office as tax deductible expense. You have to meet certain requirements.  
•  Fax / copy machine  
• A good broker software program  
• A top grade computer with adequate memory and processing capability  
• Two telephone lines: One line to be used for faxing and one line to be used for voice communication  
• High Speed Internet Access Obtained from your local cable or phone service provider. If you live in a rural area without access to high speed internet service, you can get the high speed service from internet satellite companies.  
• Business cards and stationary imprinted with your company’s letterhead is not required but should be used to promote yourself as a professional freight broker.  
• A company website, while not required, is another marketing tool to promote you as the freight broker wanting to do business. 

What Else Is Needed To Become a Freight Broker?

You guessed it! You need to find the Shippers willing to let you move their freight. You will have to do the following to be successful:

• Build personal contacts and build relationships with shippers by making many phone calls, knocking on doors and using the internet. Yes, working from home doesn’t mean you get to stay home all the time especially at first when you have to build your client base to make your telephone ring or your email account fill up with requests to move freight.  
• You can utilize the internet to locate freight from shippers but do anticipate the shippers wanting references before they entrust you with their freight.  

The road to become a freight broker is not the easiest to take but you can make good money with hard work and a knack for building relationships with the shippers, transportation companies (carriers) and truckers (owner operators).

Keep in mind one person can only be in so many places at a time or do so many things in a given day. If you want to make the upper six figure income, that may require you to recruit freight broker agents willing to work under your authority in a central office or via the internet as subcontractors to expand your freight broker business and your income.

 
You will typically split the commissions generated by the freight agents working under your authority.

Choose To Be A Freight Broker Agent

Some people decide to be freight broker agents instead of a freight broker.

Freight broker agents don’t have to obtain the authority, surety bonds or BOC-3 because they work under the authority of the freight broker. They will work in the freight broker’s office or they’ll work from home.

The freight broker agent will still work the phones, hit the pavement, search the internet and use freight matching services like DAT’s Express Load Board to build contacts and relationships to find freight.

Even for a freight agent, pay day typically only comes when "you" Make The Deal happen!

Typically the commissions generated by you will be split at an agreed upon percentage with the freight broker that allows you to work under the broker's authority.

Some freight broker agents become employees with benefits and a set salary in lieu of commission.  The down side is that you will typically NOT share in any large commission checks and the customer base you're building becomes the company's and not yours so be careful with that arrangement.

You have to decide which option fits the lifestyle that you are seeking; become a freight broker or a freight agent.

BigRigCentral.com Recommends:

To sum up the discussion on how to become a freight broker, Big Rig Central.com recommends the following steps for a better chance at success:

• Do your homework by getting a book at your local library or buy a book on line to make sure the freight brokerage business is "right" for you before possibly spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on training.  
• Complete formal training via classroom training, online courses or a home study course.  
• If you pay for classroom or on line freight broker agent training, do verify the training provider offers placement assistance with a freight broker. Many training providers push you through the training in a 3 to 5 day period then say call me if you have a question. Be careful and ask a million questions because it is your money and time.  
• Allocate a certain amount of hours each day to getting business by:  

1. Making many phone calls  
2. Utilizing Freight Matching Boards To Connect Shippers and Carriers To You  
3. Sending out marketing information about your company  
4. Knocking on shippers' doors to a certain point  
5. Building a relationship with stable carriers who can make you or break you  

Your phone or email has to be active with freight shipping requests preferably from the same shippers everytime to be successful in this lucrative business.

Big Rig Central.com wishes you much success in your efforts to become a freight broker or freight agent.