Hi everyone, I’m Jose, I created this space to share my experience as a freight dispatcher and fleet manager.
You will see other trucking related topics, in this space, not only the freight dispatcher side of things, although … If you want to be a freight dispatcher you will be involved in anything related to the trucking life and you will see why. Just you stick around.
But first…
Let me start off by saying that nothing in life is as easy as it is told or … sold in social media.
Before I jump into the details on how it is to be a freight dispatcher, I want to share that lately, I’ve been seeing a trend of people wanting to be a freight dispatcher and not behaving as a business.
Not treating the freight dispatching business as such but rather as a one-time effort to cover a past due bill is generating many issues to the industry and to the main and most important character in this whole story… The Truck Driver. Yes, if you didn’t know, the industry is built by more than 80% Carriers with less than 8 trucks, so, don’t think that an industry that’s worth more that 900 Billion Dollars is the problem when you got a couple of clients to get on a load to the middle of nowhere and you couldn’t take them out of there (this is actual driver feedback) The issue is the lack of preparation to actually become a Professional Freight Dispatcher.
Anyways, I will leave the topic above for a later post, I will talk more about the real deal here, how is it? How does it feel like being a dispatcher?
The Routine
It all starts with a routine, if you don’t have one it’s going to hurt. You need one from the very beginning. After you created your company and opened your bank account (yes, remember you should treat this as a business) this routine I’m talking about begins with countless hours of looking for clients.
Ok, let’s say you got your first client (I will post more on how to effectively get clients) you will start servicing them depending on their needs and of course, their needs will have to align with yours if you want to keep that client and here comes the first piece of advice, be pragmatic.
If your client likes early loads, what do you do? You want your business to grow right? You will wake up early, brew that nice and delicious coffee and with all the energy and good vibe, give your driver a call to check on him/her, confirm the truck is loaded and finally, grab that piece of information and relay it to the broker, that right there is good communication.
Comunication
Passing on every relevant aspect to the broker (mechanical situations, delays, loaded and unloaded times) will help you start creating and solidifying the relationship with them and with time, positive results of your solid routine can be that you get the first call for available loads.
Now that you have an idea on how to get ahead of those who don’t treat this as a business. Be mindful that you will have days that don’t run that smooth, days with weather issues, road blocks, traffic delays, or other reasons that turn your day into an unhappy path. How do you deal with those? Well, it has to do a lot with your capacities of dealing with stress situations and problem solving (I will post more about this topic soon)
Regardless of the way your day goes, pat yourself in the back and treat yourself after a day of work, in my case I write things down to get thoughts out of my head, I also workout and every other day I can do breathing exercises. Anything that helps you keep a good state of mind counts, the important part here is that you will be learning how to deal with different and new situations almost every day.
So, how is it?
For me is fun, challenging and new every day, that’s what I love about being a freight dispatcher, the fact that you learn about trucks, equipment, people and the industry itself. Every day is fascinating to me. I come from an operations background and I believe it has shaped a bit of the problem solving and achievement mindset.
I’m sure that just like I did you can learn how to do it, be professional and I have the certainty that the industry and every single person you come across with will elevate your company’s and your name to the stratosphere.