The labor market is tight, and unemployment levels have reached historic lows. Emboldened by their options, many workers are coming to the realization that there has never been a more opportunistic — or safer — time to try to strike out on their own. For folks experienced in the brokerage space, becoming an independent agent can offer the autonomy and independence they crave.
Working as an independent commissioned agent gives folks a level of control over both their business operations and their day-to-day schedules that is impossible to come by in a more traditional setting.
Agents are able to create their own schedules and work from a location of their choosing; whether that is a home, an office, or a beach in the Caribbean. As in any venture, agents can grow their team as large as they would like, or they can stay compact by operating solo. Agents should be mindful that choosing the right company to partner with dictates growth. Capital, corporate support, and scalability are the name of the game in today’s market.
An agent’s day is always sales and operations focused. It is a customer- and vendor-facing role, and agents handle the sales cycle from cradle to grave. Another team handles all the back-end work that typically plagues brokers, freeing agents up to do what they do best, sell freight and book trucks. The “other” team is the agent’s partner, that being the corporate team the agent runs their business under. Agents need a good corporate backbone in order to support their current business, and future growth. California Freight, for instance, removes the complexities for the agent so they can focus on their core competency.
“The daily job of an agent is centered around customer-facing dialogue, and acquiring loads from their customer base. Once loads are in place, they set up carriers and handle operations from the pickup through the delivery. Once the load is delivered, their job is complete,” Ryan Sanders, director of brokerage for California Freight said. “The job then kicks over to a company like California Freight, who then handles all the back-end work from carrier payments, through customer collections.”
Agents do not have to worry about capital, insurance, licensing, bonding, vendor processing, carrier sign-ups and monitoring. They also do not have to concern themselves with TMS applications, load board costs, rate analysis cost, technology, customer processing, claims processing, billing, or collection of monies. Those tasks all fall to the company they run their business through, a company like California Freight.
“Our position is that we would like our agents to have a scalable business. With the tools we provide at California Freight, agents have the ability to grow their business at the rate of their choosing,” Sanders said. “I believe the ultimate goal for many agent terminals is to simply grow; grow sales, hire employees of their own to handle those sales, and utilize companies like California Freight to establish themselves in this opportunistic market.”
For agents seeking room to grow, partnering with a financially stable, established, and technologically advanced company like California Freight may be just the ticket.
Click here to learn more about California Freight’s agent program.