Check Call

Check Call: Getting turkey with it

Turkey Take

image: WeirdNutDaily.com

Turkey Day is coming this week! Put those birds in the fridge now to defrost them in time to have a fantastic Thanksgiving turkey. In honor of the turkeys, I thought we’d take a look this week at what goes into getting the sheer volumes of turkeys to market at the same time. 

Every year the U.S. consumes about 45 million turkeys — or 675 million pounds of turkey — during Thanksgiving. That’s one-fifth of all U.S. turkeys produced annually. Minnesota and North...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-getting-turkey-with-it

Check Call: Welcome to the party, pal

Hot Take

If anything was clear from the F3 Virtual Experience last week, it’s that a cleaner supply chain is on the horizon. Whether it’s autonomous trucking, reduction in carbon footprints or the advancement of technology, the future is here and everyone is angling to have the next big thing for supply chains. 

In an effort to make good on its #NoEmptyMiles campaign, big gun Convoy has taken what I consider an Amazon-like approach to freight networks. It has announced Convoy for Brokers, a...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-welcome-to-the-party-pal

Check Call: Do you even onboard?

Hot Takes

Image: memecreator.org

After months of building trust and showing how dependable you are during the prospecting phase, you finally get the customer to take the plunge and sign with you. New customers, new business, new opportunities for growth and growing pains.

Onboarding new business is oftentimes seen as a necessary evil. Some don’t see value in having onboarding calls with carriers that are new to the account because “we don’t want to bother the customer” or “that’s not an...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-do-you-even-onboard

Check Call: Trust the experts

Hot Takes

Image: SONAR Market Dashboard

TRAC us out! Yeah … that was a bad pun. Moving on. FreightWaves has formed the Trusted Rate Assessment Consortium (TRAC), which provides the freshest view of spot rates in the U.S. Fresh rates PLUS SONAR data. I mean, what else could you want?

TRAC is a little different from other spot rate measurements in several ways:

  • Data is collected at the time a load is covered or accepted by the carrier. 
  • There are a minimum of five contributors with no single...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-trust-the-experts

Check Call: A higher level of service

Hot Takes

Image: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

Turning and burning, these wheels don’t quit moving. Stuck trying to get a carrier to go to a certain market but you have another shipper within about 100 miles from there? I smell a continuous move in your future. Continuous moves are a result of stringing multiple loads from one or more shippers together, which allows you to negotiate a slightly better rate. 

For example, if you have a shipper that has a load from Bardstown, Kentucky, to Fayetteville,...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-a-higher-level-of-service

Check Call: Cloudy with a chance of profits

Hot Takes

Image: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

At the beginning of 2020, no one could have predicted the transportation market would be where it is today. With a pandemic that shut down the world for weeks, spot market rates reached the highest they have been in years and capacity has gotten tighter than a lid on a pickle a jar.

In this industry, more so than others, you have to be ready to change your course of action at any moment. Most days aren’t the same in the freight world. You come into various...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-profits

Check Call: Data is everywhere

Hot Take

Image: memecrunch.com

Getting useful metrics that actually help provide an accurate picture of what is happening can be challenging. Metrics can simply be on-time rates, bounce percentages and visibility. Or they can get more in-depth with margin, revenue and service per carrier/shipper. 

Scorecards for carriers, shippers and brokers aren’t going anywhere. They’re here to stay and through some proper planning and development, you can make them work for you. 

Using the data collected...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-data-is-everywhere

Check Call: Teenagers scare the living heck outta me

Group of people huddled around desks

Hot Take

Image: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

Every year there are over 400,000 truck drivers who enter the market, with a 90% turnover rate. It’s no secret that driver retention has always been a struggle in the industry. Between the often poor work-life balance and new regulations popping up, it’s hard to keep people who aren’t in love with the business around very long.

The average age of all truck drivers on the road is about 48 years young. The age that federal retirement benefits start to kick in...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/check-call-teenagers-scare-the-living-heck-outta-me

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