10 Key Skills Needed to Be a Successful Freight Agent

Our Freight Broker Training course is unmatched in the online training industry, because we give our students many tools that other online broker courses do not offer, like load board access, transportation database, license filing service and we sell our broker courses for half of the price.

#1: Ability to Develop Creative Strategies: Strategy Skills

The strategy is a huge part of making your freight agency successful. With so many different links along a typical supply chain, you have to have the ability to develop creative strategies to get the job done. Strategy skills are not always second nature and if you don’t hone them, your freight agency is going to be dysfunctional. Deliveries will not get there on time and you will lose business.

#2: Ability to Keep Everything Organized: Organizational Skills

If you are like many freight agents today, you work independently. You are your own assistant, scheduler, booker, strategist, and financial planner. That is on top of managing your daily influx of requests and orders. You cannot compete in this industry if you can’t keep it all straight.

#3: Ability to Manage Workload and or Employees: Management Skills

Successful freight agents have to be good managers of their workload as well as people. If you’re running a top-flight freight agency, then you know very well how easy it can be to get overwhelmed by your workload.

#4: Ability to Connect with Clients, Vendors, and Customers: People Skills

People skills go beyond being good to your employees and helpful to your clients. Having these skills is more about your ability to connect with people from your customers to your vendors. In your daily interactions, are your communications fraught with tension and misunderstandings?

#5: Ability to Build and Grow Your Business: Business Skills

Once you’ve established yourself as a freight agent, you need to build a thriving business that grows. That requires a number of business skills including:

Negotiating Prowess – Whether negotiating a contract with a national carrier or figuring out the right pay rate for your drivers, you will need some negotiation skills to maximize your profits.
Financial Planning – Without smart forecasting planning for your finances over the long term is going to hinder your business growth.
Marketing Knowledge – In this day and age you have to know how to market your agency especially as an independent freight agent online and through social media.

#6: Ability to Make Smart Connections: Networking Skills

Building your list of clients and contacts requires strong networking skills. As you are making connections, you have to be strategic. Think about contacts that could help your business both directly and indirectly then start networking.

#7: Ability to Handle Many Tasks at Once: Multi-Tasking Skills

All freight agents know that the ability to handle many tasks at once is an important skill. Part of the day you are working on building up your clientele. Another part of the day you are processing invoices and contacting vendors. For the majority of the day you in constant contact with multiple drivers on the ground moving freight.

#8: Ability to Analyze Best Shipping Routes: Logistics Planning Skills

Logistics planning is made much simpler today using advanced technology. Still, technology can only provide you with the information, you have to analyze it and make the best decisions. Your logistics planning skills can make you an extremely successful freight agent.

#9: Ability to Adhere to Different Regulations: Compliance Skills

Every state and city has its own regulations for hauling freight. It’s not usually right up a freight agent’s alley to know the ins and outs of regulatory policy. However, if you want to do your job right, you need to understand and comply with different regulations from multiple jurisdictions.

#10: Ability to Apply Advanced Systems to Freight Management: Technical Skills

Did you know that more than 80% of freight industry professionals are preparing to harness the power of the Internet of Things to further speed up their supply chains? The future of logistics technology is wide open. From the IoT to drone technology your ability to compete in the highly competitive logistics field is going to take advanced technical skill.

Source: https://www.globaltranz.com/blog/10-key-skills-needed-successful-freight-agent/