"Carriers have been vetted to death. ... For 20 years, carriers have been vetted, vetted, vetted. And brokers have not. There's no entry-level audit, no checking in every year like the carrier has to do. The carrier has a responsibility and an ability to start asking questions." --Dale Prax of FreightValidate
Ask questions, that is, to "vet the brokers," noted Prax, freight fraud watcher, FMCSA's onetime "worst critic," Truckstop.com advisor, and proprietor of FreightValidate, a vetting tool offered to both carriers and brokers -- unique in that regard. Prax spoke at length to the one-sided nature of vetting that’s gone on for decades.
In this week's Overdrive Radio edition, track back through the opening panel discussion at the Mid-America Trucking Show where Prax delivered those words. As was the case last year during the opening panel, fraud in freight markets was a big part of the discussion.
Our own Alex Lockie detailed the fraud focus at the show in this report last week, featuring Prax and his success lighting a fire under regulators (and truckers and brokers themselves) to combat the bad actors.
While credit checks and other vetting steps have long been part of many owner-operators' routine looks at potential broker partners, bad information on federal profiles for brokerages is pretty routine in Prax's estimation. More carriers would do well to pay close attention to better ward off problems.
(What steps to you take to vet brokers today? Weigh in via our ongoing survey on broker vetting, fraud, credit checks, and transparency via this link.)
[Related: How freight fraud stole the show at MATS: Carriers getting smart, FMCSA bringing heat]
Fraud wasn’t the only big theme around this year's MATS. Panel moderator Brent Hutto, now working with Truck Parking Club, teed up another topic up at the very start -- AI, and what quick advancement in various forms of automation could mean for freight relationships for owner-operators and trucking more broadly.
Panelists included other voices regular readers will be familiar with, including past Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan of Silver Creek Transportation on his own growing adoption of automation in back-office business process. Yet Cowan underscored the fundamental importance of really working personal relationships for any owner-operator looking to grow.
"I would go to people and say, 'hey I want to haul your freight," he said of his own efforts in days gone by.
The answer, too often, was a question barked back to him: "Well how many trucks do you have?"
In Silver Creek's early days, shippers were looking for fleets larger than his three power units, yet he never lost an opportunity to offer a pressure-release-valve service to any who would listen.
"Hey listen," he might say, "here's my card. When somebody drops the ball, give me a call."
Thus was a meager start to long-term business relationships with a myriad of customers. Silver Creek's up to around 75 trucks today after a recent acquisition, proof positive the approach at least can work, if you deliver. (More about that acquisition at this link.)
More work invested in relationships, too, to get beyond the purely transactional, will insulate you from so many of today's fraudsters' tricks and schemes. As Dale Prax noted near the very end of the MATS discussion:
"This is a relationship business," he said. "This stuff wasn't happening when we were talking to each other. We've got to start talking to each other again."
There's more where that came from, likewise from the other panelists featured in the opening MATS session sponsored by Progressive Insurance and DAT Freight & Analytics. Find them all pictured below, and hear the full talk here:
From left: Moderator Brent Hutto; Bill Driegert, Executive Vice President for DAT Carrier Products and Convoy Platform; Jason Cowan; Dale Prax; Innovative Logistics Group Founder Adam Wingfield; Lee Klaskow, Senior Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence; Jamie Hagen, Owner and President of Hell Bent Xpress; and Sanjay Vyas, General Manager for Commercial Lines Product & Pricing at Progressive.
Also in the podcast: OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh on the outlook for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's broker transparency rulemaking (still expected in May as of the latest), and delay on drafting the next big highway bill in Congress. Partisan arguments over war, over immigration and so much more increase the likelihood Congress might kick the can down the road on that front, Pugh said. But time will tell.
