Stephen Oatley has joined FreightWavesTV as its newest “freightcaster.”
The one-man host of the popular transportation vlog “Freight Broker Live” is adding his show to the extensive list of FreightWaves’ digital content.
Oatley said he is excited to join the No. 1 news source in freight. He discussed his dynamic career path with FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller on the FreightWavesTV show “Fuller Speed Ahead.”
“I’m a little bit unique in the way that I look at the industry because I used to be a carrier, so I have a different perspective,” Oatley said.
Oatley, with recent experience as a freight broker, started vlogging back in August out of frustration with the way brokers were perceived in the industry, especially among carriers.
“As a broker, we deal with carriers all day long,” Oatley said. “I think I heard ‘brokers are greedy’ one too many times so I decided to make a Saturday Q&A on Facebook saying, ‘I’m a broker. Ask me anything.’ It had a huge reception.”
Despite operating in the same industry, carriers and brokers often don’t see eye to eye and become skeptical of each other’s intentions. Oatley’s intention with “Freight Broker Live” is to quelch the misconceptions both sides have of each other through transparent dialogue.
“I think transparency is the name of the game for me,” Oatley said, explaining that transparency played a major role in how he operated as a broker, carrier and driver.
“That’s what I still want to impress with ‘Freight Broker Live’ — to be transparent and give an honest insight into what it’s like to be a broker as well as a carrier and driver because I did those things too.”
Oatley asserted that the opinions of truckers are regularly heard on sites like YouTube but the broker’s perspective is rarely heard. He wants carriers to understand that not all brokers are “greedy” and just in it for the money. His background on the carrier side of freight has also contributed to the show’s success; he said his show even can lean “pro-carrier-centric” at times.
“I spent a lot of time showing how important it is to treat a carrier as a customer,” Oatley said. “I did that as a broker, and I think it made the show better.”
Oatley attributes a “lack of education” in the transportation industry as to why misconceptions exist and said that unfortunately many enter the lucrative industry without prior knowledge of freight.
“The little independent owner-operators, which make up 95% of the trucks on the road, those guys don’t really have an understanding of what it’s like to be a broker, what they have to go through and how they go about getting shippers,” Oatley said.
Oatley prides himself on keeping up with the latest trends in logistics and said he even sets news alerts for every keyword in the industry on social media. His goal is to share information that helps his audience have a firmer grasp on freight logistics.
“I chose the media side of things because, one, it’s good to hear my perspective, and two, people can learn something if they watch my stuff,” Oatley said. “I think it’s beneficial for new people and the smaller-level guys to get a better understanding of the industry from the eyes of someone who actually worked in it for a very long time.”