The Dispatcher's Guide to the Galaxy: Fundamentals of Dispatching Motor Carriers: The Dispatcher's Guides, #1

By Jorie Myers

Do you want to become a dispatcher for a corporation or establish your own independent dispatch agency, but need to grow your industry knowledge? The Dispatcher's Guide to the Galaxy is as ode to practicality. It establishes a baseline of knowledge from which advanced guidance can begin. This book covers foundational pieces like insurance and how it affects a motor carrier's load selection, vetting the brokerage and freight opportunities, onboarding motor carriers onto a dispatch service and getting motor carriers onboarded with brokerages, and incorporates the FMCSA's November 2022 dispatcher guidelines. Most individuals entering the market as an independent dispatch agency have no prior experience as a dispatcher or in transportation as a whole. Which is not inherently bad. BUT it does put an exorbitant amount of pressure on that individual to absorb as much industry knowledge that can possibly be squeezed into a weekend training. In addition to operating as a dispatcher since 2018, the author has interviewed countless dispatchers, brokers, freight forwarders, insurance agents, load board providers and has succinctly synthesized all of that industry knowledge into this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Humble Bee Enterprises
• Release date: Dec 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215727737

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to God. Thank You for always putting me where I needed to be exactly when I needed to be there. This book is dedicated to my family—special shoutout to my supportive wife and amazing Sun Son. Lastly, this book is dedicated to the Transportation & Logistics Podcast community. Thank you all for embracing me and being a medium through which I have given and have been given encouraging words, industry insights, and, most importantly, love.

Epigraph

Drivers are the heartbeats of our society who afford us many of our liberties. And to state it plainly—without a driver, there is no need for a dispatcher. This relational dependency is a critical lesson in dispatching.

The Introduction

The supply chain is the backbone of commerce, and transportation companies are as vital to this system as veins and arteries are to the human body. Trucking companies are so essential to our society that practically every item in every room in every home in America was at one point transported on a truck. Yet, as fundamental as trucking is to our lives, its execution is no easy feat.

Born out of the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is the government’s leading authority responsible for regulating and providing oversight for the safety of commercial motor vehicles. The mission of the FMCSA is to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses. The FMCSA regulates every portion of today’s transportation industry setting the expectations for our nation’s motor carriers. A motor carrier is defined as a company that transports people or products for compensation. These companies can leverage equipment ranging from sedans, cargo vans, and pickup trucks, all the way to up box trucks and tractor trailers.

While motor carriers are in the pursuit of complying with the regulations set by the FMCSA, they can become overextended. It takes a lot of mental bandwidth to develop, implement, and maintain procedures to remain in compliance with these regulations. This can result in motor carriers lacking the time and/or energy to dedicate towards building a quality book of business or finding high-quality freight opportunities. It is in this gap where a dispatcher has the greatest impact. The primary role of a dispatcher is to identify and procure profitable freight opportunities. While motor carriers are experts at transporting freight, leveraging the expertise of a dispatcher to determine which freight opportunities to transport can radically grow the motor carrier’s profit margins.

The Dispatcher’s Guide to the Galaxy is written to provide foundational knowledge for those interested in dispatching for a corporation, dispatching as an independent dispatch agency, or dispatching their own vehicles. The reader will gain proficiency in many areas including commercial insurance and how it affects a motor carrier’s load selection, vetting brokerages and freight opportunities, and onboarding motor carriers onto a dispatch service. This book even incorporates the November 2022 release of the FMCSA’s dispatcher guidelines. The author has operated an independent dispatch agency and has interviewed countless supply chain professionals to amass the principles for this guide. Though this book establishes an industry baseline, this information is intended to be supplemental to the niche specific training and strategy sessions offered in dispatch training courses. It is the hope that by first studying this guide, the reader will be able to confidently determine where further development is appropriate.

Part I: What is a Dispatcher?

Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Dispatcher

The dispatcher of yesteryear traditionally worked for a large asset-based carrier and merely communicated where a driver needed to be and at what time. In recent years, however, the role of a dispatcher has grown beyond borders—becoming consultative even. During a typical day, a dispatcher’s tasks can range between (or go beyond) the following:

analyzing and negotiating rates for load opportunities

planning the weekly routes of the drivers

performing administrative duties (e.g., receiving, signing, and returning documents to and from brokerages)

tracking, tracing, and keeping all stakeholders updated on a load’s progress

creating new business opportunities while nurturing existing relationships

performing fleet management duties (e.g., overseeing maintenance, managing fuel cards, managing driver safety and ELDs, etc.)

motivating drivers to do the seemingly impossible while protecting them from unsafe conditions.

The areas where a dispatcher can add value to a transportation company are inexhaustible. We will elaborate on some of the auxiliary roles later in this book. However, we will start with something more foundational: load selection duties.

Load Selection

A dispatcher’s primary role is to identify and procure profitable freight opportunities on behalf of a motor carrier. A good dispatcher focuses on consistently booking profitable freight opportunities while a great dispatcher focuses on cultivating relationships that consistently yield profitable freight opportunities. Relationships drive everything in the supply chain, and, within trucking, relationships are like their own currency. Ultimately, it is the quality of a dispatcher’s relationships that will either make them privy to high-paying, dedicated freight opportunities or force them to operate load-to-load in the spot market.

The spot market refers to all one-off, expedited, and non-contractual freight movements. Typically, these comprise the loads advertised on a load board which is an online or mobile application-based forum that brokers, freight forwarders, 3PL companies, and sometimes manufacturers use to post freight opportunities. These platforms are beneficial for facilitating freight opportunities on the fly but are only dealing with a small fraction of the total freight market. Load boards can be viewed as repositories for last-minute and ‘leftover’ loads. Last minute due to the nature of expedited freight, which are just-in-time or emergency loads that arise at a moment’s notice. But the leftovers of what?

The ultimate goal of the dispatcher’s relationship-building efforts is for their motor carrier to be first in line as the preferred carrier for profitable, dedicated freight opportunities that allow for price adjustments as market conditions change. Dedicated freight, which makes up approximately 90% of all transported freight, is contractual freight that guarantees a specified amount of volume over a given period. Being awarded profitable dedicated freight has three significant benefits for a motor carrier:

Dedicated freight enables the trucking company to predict their income and offer insights to support their decision to scale.

Dedicated freight decreases the time necessary to find loads, allowing more time to focus on developing their business and strengthening its infrastructure.

Dedicated freight limits the dependency on load boards and the ever-fluctuating spot market, as thriving outside the spot market is paramount for long-term success as a transportation company.

There is a subsect of transportation companies with drivers that get great pleasure from exploring new places while moving new commodities. Still, the overwhelming majority of drivers prefer schedules that are consistent and predictable. Thus, a fourth benefit of dedicated freight is that it builds driver comfort and confidence. Drivers are empowered and much better trip planners when they can get familiar with a particular route. Leveraging the idiosyncrasies of the dedicated lane will enable the driver to take advantage of what the commute offers, such as truck parking, healthy food options, affordable fueling stations, scales, truck washes, clean showers, workout facilities, etc.

Chapter 2: Succeeding as a Dispatcher

Succeeding as a dispatcher looks like the seamless, uninterrupted flow of freight utilizing all equipment operated by a motor carrier while keeping all stakeholders updated and mitigating all compliance or safety-based violations. Prioritizing the 8 areas below will put any dispatcher on the path to success:

Keeping safety first

Recognizing synergies

Being a power negotiator

Embracing Murphy’s Law

Anticipating the need

Mastering the art of facilitation

Serving all

Powering up with a daily routine

Keeping Safety First

A dispatcher must be knowledgeable about the regulations surrounding compliance and safety. An excellent resource for updated information about both subjects is J.J. Keller’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations Pocketbook (The Green Book), updated monthly to include the industry’s latest rulings.

Driver safety should always be the dispatcher’s number one priority. This principle is most important to remember when the rate for a freight opportunity is the most tempting. Brokers have been known to solicit loads that have unrealistic expectations. Unrealistic due to how far the freight must go in a time frame that does not legally allow the driver to make the commute. Despite the attractiveness of the rate, a successful dispatcher knows when to say no to a load.

Recognizing Synergies

Dispatching is fast-paced, and a dispatcher will speak with seemingly 200 people in a day regarding 200 different freight opportunities. Despite the high volume of calls and email communications, a dispatcher must be able to hone in on opportunities that may benefit a current or future client. The challenge is that sometimes it takes going through multiple layers in the conversation to learn of something that would work for your carriers. Being able to redirect the conversation to see what other areas you may have synergies can be a game changer and exhibiting a curious spirit during each interaction can yield boundless potential. A successful dispatcher approaches every interaction open and available to opportunities.

Being a Power Negotiator

Rate negotiations start before the dispatcher even picks up the phone to call the broker. A great negotiator is willing to walk away from the negotiation table no matter how much time or energy has already been put into the opportunity. Thus, the rate negotiation begins with mental preparation. The dispatcher then wants to determine the motor carrier’s desired rate by factoring in as many of the available load details as possible before contacting the broker. Once speaking with the broker, rate negotiation continues by the dispatcher posturing every time there is challenging or extra work that the motor carrier must do. The goal is to have the broker be the first to state a rate even if it was already listed in the load posting. The idea is for the dispatcher to be able to counter with a higher rate, but still be within reason of the broker’s original rate to have the conversation continue. Negotiations can continue until a deal is accepted or an amiable decision to end negotiations is made. A successful dispatcher understands the power of negotiation and also when to curtail the theatrics surrounding it. Prolonged negotiations often lead to the load being covered by other brokerage employees. A successful dispatcher also understands that the rate is not always the determining factor, but instead the balance between ease, efficiency, and profitability. Two resources to sharpen negotiation skills are Never Split the Difference by Christopher Voss and The Art of Negotiating by Gerard I. Nierenberg.

It is also imperative that the dispatcher is aware when they are being invited to enter a bidding war and why they should immediately remove themselves. A bidding war can look like a broker receiving a call regarding a load they just booked with a different motor carrier. The broker then discloses the rate the load was booked for to the new caller and offers to put the new caller on the load if they can take it for a lesser rate. Not all brokers engage in this unprofessional practice, but it is a race