In business, the notion of a level playing field is essential to long-term success. A level playing field is defined as an “economic and legal environment in which all competitors, irrespective of their size or financial strength, follow the same rules and get equal opportunity to compete.” Great business people can be clever, cunning, and shrewd, but they always respect the need for a level playing field. Unfortunately, level playing fields are hard to find for freight agents.
The vast majority of trucking and transportation companies run their own internal brokerages, while also soliciting freight from independent agents. In doing so, they have failed to create a level playing field for their agents. For obvious reasons, this system creates numerous conflicts of interest within the company. Sharing a single set of resources, internal and external agents cannot be expected to play by the same rules and cannot receive equal opportunities to compete. In nearly every instance, the needs of internal agents will win out over the needs of external, independent agents.
In these environments, transportation companies do not view freight agents as true partners. Rather, they are seen as lead generation vendors—a channel for supplementing the leads brought in by their internal brokerages. Naturally, independent agents find themselves low down a long list of priorities for the brokerage. In extreme cases, independent agents have even seen their freight customers stolen by an internal brokerage.
At Freight-Tec, we built our business differently. We don’t have an internal brokerage company. In fact, as our only source of business, our agent program entirely determines our success. That reliance on freight agents is a primary differentiator for our company. Because our agents are so important to our business, we view them as true partners and we take customer service very seriously. Local, personable, and responsive, our offices provide agents with everything they need to succeed. Most importantly, Freight-Tec is the only company that will guarantee, in writing, that it will never steal from its agents.
Freight agents looking for a level playing field must seek out a transportation partner that does not manage its own internal brokerage. Unfortunately, such companies are a rarity in the industry. Many agents select a transportation partner, only to find that they are competing with an internal brokerage and that the fight isn’t fair. Freight-Tec built its business model on the success of its agent program and, in doing so, created an ideal working environment for hardworking agents.