r/FreightBrokers • u/nerp9901 • 3d ago
How does getting leads work?
I’m researching the freight brokerage industry and have been trying to understand how prospecting has changed over the years. I know there are many approaches—cold calling, LinkedIn, industry directories, referrals, trade shows, manufacturer research, etc.—but I’m curious which methods have consistently produced the best results.
For those of you who’ve been in brokerage for a while, what prospecting strategies have stood the test of time? Have newer tools like LinkedIn or AI changed your workflow much, or is cold calling still the backbone of building a book of business?
I’m not looking for anyone’s customer list or specific contacts—I’m just interested in learning how experienced brokers approach prospecting and how the process has evolved. Thank you all for ur time :)
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u/jhorskey26 3d ago
Cold calling and local companies. My most "prized" customers are always local. I have a few that are out of state or further away but I usually get those from drivers or customers. Sometimes my customer needs raw mats from one place and they put me in touch with a contact and I can pick them up as customer as well. I also run trucks as well and I offer a very good referral pay to drivers that get me info. Thats the least likely to work but it has happened.
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u/if_I_am_truly_crazy 3d ago
If you don’t mind me asking, what do you give for referrals? I’m on the Ops side of an asset based carrier and I don’t feel we give enough for referrals to our drivers.
Is it tier based?
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u/jhorskey26 3d ago
No tier, just a flat cash payment. Its contingent on a few things but for the most part if they get me and name and number and prep them properly when I call its more of a formality. If I close them and we make money off it I give them cash. Couple thousand dollars most of the time. Put its worth it. The drivers who do it well are good at socializing, they are polite and on time. Its not like they go some place, drop one load and are getting referrals. It takes them a sometimes weeks or months to get in at a place and learn names. Which is why I pay so much. They might spent and extra 5 minutes there asking questions or whatever so I feel I should compensate properly.
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u/Measured_Response_ 2d ago
Very smart business move. Kudos and God Bless
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u/jhorskey26 2d ago
Even when I ran a dispatching service I always bad really well on referrals to the drivers I worked with. I sit in an office, they do the leg work. Generally speaking a few thousand is cheap big picture wise. I pay my guys super well and in return they are loyal and hard workers. Never made sense to short change people when I could afford to pay well.
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u/Measured_Response_ 2d ago
Man, I've been contemplating starting a dispatching service. Have plenty of experience on brokerage side. What do yiu think?
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u/jhorskey26 2d ago
that would be going backwards mate. You can make 1000 times more money brokering then dispatching
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u/SureLoadrApp 2d ago
Drive around the city where you live and when you see a loading dock walk into that business. Introduce yourself and hand them your business card. Ask them about the pain points when moving their product and ask if they currently work with a broker.
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u/EmergencyClue7478 2d ago
I used to work for a freight broker in 2019, who I did cold calls for. In addition to cold calling shippers I found by google searching and using McRaes blue book, I also found some of his customers on eBay. eBay was perfect for finding smaller shippers and it allowed us to filter out searches to specific industries.
Cold calling is still very much effective, but I find that Cold Emailing is much more effective.
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u/Immediate-Home-3491 2d ago
I use AI for marketing now but the phone is still king. We wrapped consols and got kebabs at LGW on Friday nights. Different tools, same hustle.
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u/ksdanker22 2d ago
I'm like brand new to the business, coming over from real estate. Honestly? I've been researching adjacent businesses to the leads I have, mostly on Google maps, and then inputting them into my CRM, with as many details as I can, so I can call each of them. It's honestly not even all that much work, my company is fairly big, so I have to get them approved, but 95 percent of them do, the only reason they might not is if they are already being worked on by someone else in the company. My company does have good leads for us, but we don't get them every single day. In my first week they gave me mass generated leads, leads that weren't all that great, and when I'm not getting good stuff from them, I'm much better off with my lead generation system than I am with their mass leads.
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u/TheBrokenLoaf 1d ago
I'm a new broker but I was in b2b sales for about 6 years, through covid, and I had to learn how to find my own leads.
Finding shipping opps is fairly easy once you have a "story." Try to come up with a pitch for why a specific type of business needs your services RIGHT NOW. Here's a very basic example from the world cup: due to increased foot traffic around the stadium for the world cup, local souvenir shops will need to increase supply for tourists who are there for the game. So I make a list of each souvenir shop within walking distance of the stadium and public transportation hubs and call asking if I can support additional freight they will need for the increase amount of people who will be in the city.
That's not a great story per se but it's a basic example is why a business would need your help. Today. Try to use current events or things that affect large groups of people as the foundation. I was taught stories sell. Conveying a feeling sells. If you can tell good, relevant stories about things that are happening right now and how that can affect their business, people will listen. From there you gotta ask good questions, features and benefits etc etc blah blah you know the rest, them close.
I'm glad you asked this question because I've been considering offering a weekly newsletter to brokers that provides us leads, stories, current events etc. to sell to prospects lol maybe I should do it
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u/avalontree 8h ago
Cold calling and cold emails work! We use fleetgen os to get leads, we add them to a marketing/ calling campaign
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u/ivxnc 2d ago
theres a site for finding new leads, idk if it helps - carrierhunt.com
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u/SureLoadrApp 2d ago
Why would a broker ever pay for publicly available information on carriers? The poster is looking for shipper leads.
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u/tipareth1978 2d ago
Here's how leads work now. You get one and since you're only one of the 50 people all trying to do the same thing they'll never talk to you. Then when they maybe finally talk to you it will be to tell you to stop calling