Trucker Forum - Trucking & Driving Forums - Class A Drivers - How to make $1,000,000 a year from home as freight broker

A little freight broker 101.

The freight broker is a licensed individual (company) from the U.S. Government. The "authority" will cost you $300. The bond is $10,000 for right now, the amount you pay for this depends on a lot of different factors. Cargo insurance - this is not required but many brokers have them.

An agent is one that works for the broker and everything he does uses the "authority" of the broker. There is no required licensing, no required insurance.

They both do require a computer, faxing abilities and a good phone service (lot's of minutes). They both do not require formal training (as of yet).

The broker / agent can find loads by directly calling companies and then being setup as service with that company or by using the load boards to find available loads.
The finding of companies is easy, the setting up with the companies is easy - but getting a company to use your services can be a long drawn out affair. Get ready to use your people and sales skills. If you don't have these-you will need to get them. Finding the loads on the load boards get's into a situation of double-brokering.

That company will sometimes just tell the broker find me the best price you can, sometimes they say this is the flat rate of what i'll pay, sometimes it's given as a per mile and certain percentage for FSC. I'm going to ignore factoring in this example. Once the amount is agreed to the broker will usually take 10% off the top (his income).

Ok, load pays $1,000 I will not pay FSC the customer says. When you look it up the number of miles is 300.
$1,000/300 = $3.33 @mile
$1,000 - 100 = $900 <<< this is the amount that will be paid to the carrier BTW that's 3.00@mile
$100 <<< this is the amount the broker will get (he pays all of his expenses from this, including pay the agent that sets it up.
what the agent get's paid all depends on the arrangement they have. For shagrins let's just say 60%.
$100*.6=$60 <<<<< this is what the agent would get, the remaining $40 is what the broker get's to keep to pay his expenses

Once the load get's delivered the broker will send the paying customer/shipper the bill for $1,000. When the broker receives the payment from the customer, he will pay the agent his $60, and once the carrier submits his paperwork will be paid his $900. From this $900 the carrier will then turn around and pay the driver according whatever the arrangement is. This would assume that an agent is involved. If there was no agent then once the broker receives the $1,000 payment then they would pay their $900 and the broker would keep all of the $100.

So how many loads would it take to get to $1,000,000. Using the above examples, the agent would have to "book" 16,666 loads in a year, the broker would have to "book" 10,000 loads in a year.

Brokering and broker agent is not a get rich quick scheme. It requires persistent, consistent work as well as a thick skin. On average be prepared to make 100 to 300 calls a day, be prepared to send / receive 10 to 100 faxes a day. It requires you to make relationships between yourself and your customers and to your carriers.

Can you make $1,000,000 in your first year -- hmm only if you are extremely persistent consistent with lots of good breaks.

Hopes this helps.