Start your dispatching business in 8 steps.

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Hello, this is Ennis from Never Stop Trucking. We're talking about eight steps that I would take if I were to become a dispatcher today if I were to start from scratch. Throughout the years of dispatching and driving a truck, I learned a few things, and I wish I had known them before, but better late than never, and today I wanted to share these tips with you about what would I have done differently, or maybe what if I had to start all over from scratch. So, let's start right away.

Researching the truck markets

The first thing that I would do, I would research the markets and the industry, research everything. There is content available for free on the internet, on YouTube, where you can read articles, you can watch videos, get a sense of what it feels like to be a dispatcher what are your duties, and what dispatchers have to do, and that way you can see whether you have what it takes to do this kind of job. Also, you can research to see if you can make money because this industry always goes up and down, and not all the time you can make the same money because we as dispatchers are usually paid by percentage. Now, I'm talking about independent dispatching here, just so you know. If you're a dispatcher working for someone else, that's different, you have your own salary, but in our case, we are paid usually by percentage. So, if the markets go up, then we make good money; if they go down, then same as drivers, we make less money. Nowadays, the markets are really bad, and hopefully, when you watch this video sometime in the future, they will become better, but right now we have to adjust. It's what it is, and it's always like that, so you have to know that before you start.

Educate yourself as a new dispatcher

The second step, I would do is to educate myself. After I made a decision that I wanted to do this, I would educate myself. I would get a book, and I would read articles online, but mostly now, everything is on YouTube, and you can just go to YouTube. There is so much free content, especially on my channel, but there are other channels as well out there that will show you things, and you can learn how to call brokers, how to find drivers, and how to set up your documents. You can read comments, and there are a lot of people who are asking in these comments the YouTubers, these dispatchers, and they answer as much as they can. I also like to answer as much as I can, but sometimes I get so many same questions that it just doesn't make sense to reply every time like 10, or 20 times. What you can do is you can go to the previous videos, and previous comments, and just look around, to see if someone already has asked that question, and if it was answered. You can also email me, but either way, there is a lot of free content.

Now, if you can find a mentor, that would be great, someone who will teach you. It could be someone that you already know, someone that is in a similar kind of business, because you never know, like if you ask a friend or a family member what they do, they never tell you exactly what they do. But if you know that someone has something to do with this kind of industry, doesn't even have to be trucks, it's something that includes deliveries, or even salesmen, how do they get new customers, how do they talk to new people because you will need those skills to get new owner-operators, a new business, and talk to brokers as well.

If you watched my previous videos, you will notice that I never recommended anyone's course because I didn't really know if they were any good. I imagine that they were good because they're selling so many online, and there are so many students, but lately, what I have noticed is that a lot of these courses are not that great. They are good in the sense that if you are a total beginner, they will teach you some basic things, but they will not teach you how to call on loads, how to talk to brokers, and how to find owner-operators. We started a new course as well, and check out the description of this video if you want to sign up, we try to teach you from the ground up like if you're a beginner, and even after you finish a course, we will have a training for you, live training where you call brokers, and then even after that, we have 30-day support if you have any questions, if you need any help with your new dispatching company, you can talk to Amro and me because we are the instructors in this course.

Register an LLC as a dispatcher

The third step that I would take is a get an LLC company. This is not really a must, and you will see a lot of videos on YouTube that talk about this, but in our case, it's highly recommended, not only because it protects you and your private assets and your family and your private life, it separates the business from your personal accounts. That's a great thing about that. Another thing is that the DAT board will not let you sign up without a company register. If you want to have the biggest load board out there in the United States, you will have to have a company registered. They will check that. You may be able to sign up without it or with like a fake name, but they will check it. DAT checks your company, and if it's not a legit company, they will suspend your account. Also, what they like to do is, if you're not located in the United States and they find out, they will also suspend your account, so you kind of have to make sure that if you're living abroad, that you have an LLC formed here in the United States, and I also have a video on my channel that talks about it, how to do that, and you have to kind of make sure that they don't find out that you are not in the United States because they will suspend your account, and that's why you need to have an LLC company. I mean, you can have any kind of company, doesn't have to be LLC, but LLC is really in right now, and everyone is doing it, so, it's very easy to get.

Also, another thing with an LLC is, that I understand that you don't know if this is going to be a success because you're just starting, you don't have any customers, you haven't done anything yet, and here you are, you have to open up a company. I totally understand, but if you want to start, if you want to look for owner-operator and they tell you, "We need a load now," or "We need a load tomorrow," how are you going to find that load? You can sign up for other load boards like one, two, or three load boards or TruckerPath, but they're very small loads versus DAT is the one to get, and you can't do it on an LLC, so you have to be ready. What I suggest if you're not sure whether this is going to be a success, is to come up with a generic name for the LLC. That way, if something changes, you can keep the LLC name, and if you down the road want to do something else, then you can still use that name for your other business. They are not that expensive to maintain. In Michigan, it's like 25 dollars every year to renew. I don't know about other states, and it's also fifty dollars just to start. Other states maybe may have bigger fees. In some states, you have to have a registered agent. I think New York state, has that, but either way, they're not that expensive to maintain, and if you get a generic name, something that doesn't include word dispatching or transportation, something like that, then maybe if this is not a success, you can just keep it, and if you down the road try to do something else, you can use that LLC for that. I know there's an article, like in Michigan, that asks you what you're going to do, but you can change that later as well.

Also, you have to have a bank account because you have to be ready to work with money. The best way to charge owner-operators for your fees is through PayPal, so PayPal is also free. They have a fee for transactions, but just to set it up and use it, it is free. Along with LLC, you will need a bank account, and a business bank account, and usually, they have free accounts everywhere for that as well, so that's free, and you also need a PayPal account, and that's also free.

The next thing that I would do is sign up for the DAT board. I would also sign up for other load boards just so you have them: one, two, three load board, TrackerPath, Direct Freight, Truck Stop. They will not let you use Truck Stop as a dispatcher, so I would forget about Truck Stop. At the time of this recording, they are not accepting dispatchers, but 99% of the loads you're going to be looking for at the DAT board, so you would have to sign up. I always recommend DAT Power, and right now, they're 180 dollars per month for one user. It's a lot of money, but if you compare it to Tracker's Edge, Tracker's Edge is like 50, sixty dollars. In Tracker's Edge, you can only post one truck at a time. In DAT Power, you can post as many trucks as you want, as many postings, and it's live. It keeps updating live. You can switch between them, and it's so much much easier to work with. You absolutely have to have it. If you're an owner operator and you're looking for a load for yourself as a one-driver, then Tracker's Edge is totally fine. It makes sense to get it, but if you're a dispatcher, DET Power board is the way to go. Also, they don't have a free trial, but there is a link in the description of this video where you will get 30 days for free. They give this affiliate link to YouTubers to promote DAT board, and I'm not promoting it just so I can get you to click on it. Because if you watch my videos, I always look in the DAT board anyway. I've been using it for 15 years. It just makes sense for you. It's 30 days free, and you can't get it if you go directly to them. They will not give you a free trial, so this way, you can get DAT board and use it for free, and then if you see that absolutely this is not working or something, you can change your mind, and you don't have to pay any money. So, the DAT board is good to have because you will see in next steps, you're going to look for owner operators.

If you find an owner operator, you call them, and you tell them, "Hey, we're a dispatching company. I can dispatch you," and they can say, "Okay, well, let's start. I need a load now," or "I need a load tomorrow. What are you gonna do?" You have to be ready, so yeah, it's you have to get it before you have any owner operators. I know it's, it doesn't make sense, but it's the way to go.

Before we start looking for owner operators, I would get some documents ready, and these documents you can find also online for free. What you have to have is, uh, dispatcher-carrier contract, and you can go to Google and look it up, and you'll see that there are some free templates out there that you can kind of adjust to your needs, but this is like a couple of pages agreement that will tell the carrier how you operate, and that will tell them that they have to pay you this fee at that time for your dispatching. Sometimes these carrier-dispatcher packets will include a power of attorney. If they don't, you can also look for a generic one online, and you can adjust that power of attorney to dispatching and transportation industry. It's just a small, uh, piece of paper that gives you power to sign on behalf of their company, sign a rate confirmation, fill out a packet, and book a load in carrier's name. Now, if you can't find any of that free, but I'm sure you can, you go to my website, neverstoptruck.in, and there are some documents over there, some templates. Some of these templates that I have are free, some of them are not, but like I said, if you don't want to get them from my website, you can always look for them online for free, but you have to have them ready because when you have an owner operator that wants to sign up with you, you have to send them a document that they're going to assign. I also talk about this on my channel as well, just look for videos that talk about that, and you can find out more about that.

How to find owner-operators as a dispatcher

Now, finally, The Next Step, the sixth step is here to look for owner operators. I also have a free video that's over one hour long or Never Stop Tracking Channel, and I will include it in this video as well, in the description, but basically, it tells you how to look for carriers. I will also add to that video, I didn't talk about that a lot, that social networks are also a good way to do this, Facebook, and Instagram, just look for owner operators over there, and maybe do some ads. Facebook ads are not that expensive, and you can buy some ads and advertise your services if you have the budget to do so, but what I would do is start calling owner operators. Where do you find your numbers? Well, they're free on the FMCSA website. They have a list of new carriers that just got their own authority just now, so they're brand new. It will be a little harder to work with them because most brokers are skeptical, and they will not work with brand new authorities, but some of them will, like TQL and CH Robinson. But also, there are other websites, and I also put them in the description of this video, where you can look for new carriers, already established carriers, and just call them up, keep calling them up, and offer them your services. It's the way it is. You can print out flyers, you can go to a truck stop, talk to owner operators at the truck stop, you can, like when you drive down the road and you see a truck, you know, write down their company name or DOT number, and just look them up and call them, and offer them your services. It's how this industry works. I know, make a Facebook page, advertise your services there, post regularly or Instagram, you know, use hashtags, maybe even start a YouTube channel. I keep telling that to everyone, and I may even be talking about that soon, but, uh, yes, you have to pick up the phone and make like 100 or 200 phone calls a day in order to get some carriers. Once you get one, two, or three carriers, then you should be okay, then you can start working and concentrate on them. You will get more experience and keep educating yourself, and we will talk about that in the next step.

Next step, work in the morning with your carriers, look for loads for the same day if you have to, if you don't have a load for that day, but then once you find a load for today, then look for the next day as well, so they're covered, so you don't have a lot of pressure on you, you can concentrate on other things as well. When you're finished covering these owner operators in the morning, let's say before noon, everyone is covered, then in the afternoon, then you can start calling again, and that's what you have to do in first few months, that's what you have to do because what if you find three owner operators and you're like, okay, I'm all set, what if two of them leave, what if one of them breaks down, one of them takes vacation, one gets sick, something happens, now you have like one carrier, and that's not enough for you to make money, so you always have to look for new carriers, and even if you get to like 10, that's still okay because not all of them will be driving all the time, out of 10, maybe six or seven you'll be driving every week, and you'll be fine, and then if you, you know, you get very lucky, you can always hire more dispatchers to help you out, that's when you, you can say that you really succeeded with this.

I know it sounds so easy, it's not, it's not easy, but you just have to keep doing it, and there are a lot of dispatchers who are already working like this, and they're successful, so if they can do it, if I can do it, you can do it too. It just takes, uh, time and commitment, and then the next step, and I still do it myself, keep educating yourself and keep trying new methods. That's very important because if you don't innovate, you're just gonna go down. You have to keep up with times, you have to come up with new methods to find drivers, talk to them, hire them, and keep them with you. The internet and all these, uh, technical wonders around us, they just demand that we try new things because if we don't, someone else will, and they're gonna take all our business, so you just have to keep innovating and keep looking for new business and keep looking for new ideas.

This video provides comprehensive guidance for anyone looking to start as a dispatcher in the trucking industry, covering essential steps from research and education to legal and operational setups.

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