[00:00:00] Jesse Juett: You're working on this bot load. You're like, we nailed it. We got $2,500 in this load. This guy's doing it for $1,200. Let's go, baby.
[00:00:06] Teddylee Knox: I understand that they were nice, but if they don't have a license, you can't load them.
[00:00:10] Jesse Juett: If we say Sean Buckworth is gonna be picking up this load and Teddy
[00:00:14] Sean Buckle: Knox shows up, that should also be a red flag.
[00:00:16] Teddylee Knox: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Also think it would be second nature to bring your license when you're driving a truck, but, you know, sometimes you're
[00:00:23] Jesse Juett: under that, a load disappears, a carrier vanishes. Sounds like a logistics crime scene.
[00:00:27] Teddylee Knox: Calling all CPG shippers, truckers and log.
[00:00:32] Jesse Juett: Welcome to the truck.
[00:00:33] Teddylee Knox: Yeah. Podcast your ultimate cheat code for smarter shipping, smoother logistics, and dominating the shelf where it matters most. Buckle up. It's time to learn, laugh, and get your freight on.
[00:00:47] Jesse Juett: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another edition of the Zipline Logistics Podcast. My name is Jesse Jewitt. Joined with me, Teddy Lee Knox. Hello, Teddy.
[00:00:57] Teddylee Knox: Hello. How are you?
[00:00:58] Jesse Juett: Wonderful. We got a special guest, our director of carrier sales, Sean Buc. Hello, Sean.
[00:01:05] Sean Buckle: Hey, how we doing, guys?
[00:01:06] Jesse Juett: Wonderful. We're getting deep in the weeds today.
[00:01:09] Sean Buckle: Let's go.
[00:01:09] Jesse Juett: If I had creepy music, it'd be playing right now.
But we're talking about some challenges here. A load disappears, a carrier vanishes, the paperwork doesn't match. Sounds like a logistics crime scene. We're diving in day to day problems that we deal with out there. It's certainly ramped up since the COVID pandemic. 2020 to now, 2026. We're talking about carrier cold cases, primarily fraud. Bad actors. Sean, are they out there?
[00:01:40] Sean Buckle: There's plenty out there.
[00:01:41] Jesse Juett: Are you dealing with them every single day?
[00:01:43] Sean Buckle: These guys are sifting through bad actors consistently.
[00:01:46] Jesse Juett: Yeah. So we're going to talk about some examples, we're going to talk about some preventative ME measures, and maybe we'll go into some not quite fun. I was going to say fun scenarios, but they're not fun scenarios. They're real life things that we deal with. And we're doing our best to ninja kick the bad actors. But let's talk about an example here. A truck shows up, the carrier name doesn't match. The driver has different paperwork. What happened? Sean, can you help me with that? How did that. How did we get to that point? It hasn't happened to us in a long time. Hypothetically, how would that even come about?
[00:02:20] Sean Buckle: Yeah, we reach out to a carrier and they say they have A truck in the area.
So we go ahead and book them and say if there are EOD is tracking around that area too, we will obviously believe them. And then we'll send the driver information to our shipper and then we hear that it is not who we say it is.
[00:02:43] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:02:44] Sean Buckle: Which draws some pretty big red flags.
[00:02:47] Jesse Juett: Right. So we have. So we have some really good protocols in place with driver information, right?
[00:02:54] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:02:55] Jesse Juett: I think for some of our customers we've encouraged if not required copies of driver's license. Truck and tractor, Truck and tractor. VIN number, trailer number, VIN numbers for. For the truck and trailer as well. So we're sending that, that out ahead of time.
[00:03:11] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:03:12] Jesse Juett: If we say Sean Buckle shows is going to be picking up this load and Teddy Knox shows up, that should
[00:03:17] Sean Buckle: also be a red flag.
[00:03:18] Jesse Juett: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
[00:03:20] Teddylee Knox: Correct.
[00:03:20] Jesse Juett: Let's verify. Right.
[00:03:22] Sean Buckle: That's why we need to have shippers on our side too.
[00:03:24] Jesse Juett: So how does that work?
I'm going to use another example and I've seen it before, of. Do all these drivers work for one trucking company?
[00:03:35] Sean Buckle: It's hard to say. It's. They should only be working for one trucking company really.
[00:03:39] Jesse Juett: But some, if you're an owner, operator, theoretically you could work for more than
[00:03:44] Sean Buckle: one, I would assume. Okay. That's what they say. And they say that they're leased on to their insurance.
[00:03:50] Jesse Juett: Okay. So they're legally allowed to. In theory.
[00:03:54] Sean Buckle: That is legally what?
[00:03:55] Jesse Juett: We're not lawyers here folks, we're just detectives.
[00:03:59] Sean Buckle: The paperwork that they could send, the paperwork that they can send over will legally say that whether that holds up or not, we still don't know.
[00:04:08] Jesse Juett: But that's what some of our tools are used to. To verify, Right?
[00:04:11] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:04:12] Jesse Juett: So we have some ways to verify if truck or trailer. Trailer is. Is on carrier's insurance.
[00:04:20] Sean Buckle: Correct. Through highway or through carrier 41 1. If you search the VIN number through their sources, it'll show that it's registered under their insurance. And then if it's not, then that also draws a red flag.
[00:04:33] Jesse Juett: Sure. That's a great tool for us then.
[00:04:35] Sean Buckle: Oh, it's an amazing tool.
[00:04:37] Jesse Juett: Yeah. So that's a, you know, future sponsor.
Highway. Give me the full legal name. Highway Transportation.
[00:04:46] Sean Buckle: Just Highway.
[00:04:46] Jesse Juett: Just Highway. H I G H W A. Yeah.
[00:04:49] Sean Buckle: Highway.com.
[00:04:51] Jesse Juett: highway.com. They're helping us verify carriers information, their safety ratings, obviously, like you said, their insurance.
[00:04:59] Sean Buckle: They also have safety scores on there.
[00:05:03] Jesse Juett: Right.
[00:05:03] Sean Buckle: The basic scores, blue wire scores, which is big right now for broker liability.
[00:05:08] Jesse Juett: Sure. Tell me about broker liability and what's happened in the last couple months.
[00:05:13] Sean Buckle: Well, if you hire somebody with a bad safety score and something happens over the road, then there's a possibility that the broker can be liable.
I haven't read the whole article yet, but there was an issue with down in Florida with a U turn, which I'm sure we all heard about.
Ch did just get off that case.
[00:05:34] Jesse Juett: Really? That's relatively new.
[00:05:36] Sean Buckle: That is relatively new. I just saw the article before we walked in here. I was reading it briefly.
[00:05:41] Jesse Juett: Yeah, Breaking news. Well, but the ruling from the Supreme Court was essentially, you know, previously it was all on the carrier.
[00:05:50] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:05:51] Jesse Juett: And then the Supreme Court ruled that, well, through negligence or, or whatever, not following proper procedures, the broker should accept some liability for hiring a bad. A non safety approved carrier.
[00:06:07] Sean Buckle: Correct. But the FMCSA has also proven these carriers. So it puts the brokers in a weird position because they already have made them active.
[00:06:16] Jesse Juett: Right.
[00:06:16] Sean Buckle: But they say they don't have enough employees.
[00:06:19] Jesse Juett: Yeah. So that's, that's a challenging element of this whole gumbo of freight that we're dealing with.
[00:06:27] Teddylee Knox: So when I first started, I remember everyone asking me like, oh my gosh, is your life like fast and furious? Do you have people like running up and like stealing trucks or like, how do you prevent that? And I was like, that's. I haven't had that happen to me necessarily. I know that we've had some instances where, you know, drivers have explained that not on our loads, but other loads. There were some dicey situations. But all of that like is a lot of misconception of what the issues actually are and how much goes into it.
So like a rate confirmation and a bill of lading are two very different things. But the information needs to be accurate on both of them. And I think that's where it goes into how much we do and how much goes into sourcing the carrier, confirming the information, making sure that they get dispatched, making sure that they show up on time. It is so many steps that you and your team, Sean, make look really, really simple. But like when you line it out, I think our internal SOP on carrier qualification just to confirm that the carrier is able to book on the load. Not even the steps of booking is 12 pages.
[00:07:33] Sean Buckle: Yeah, it's a doozy.
[00:07:34] Teddylee Knox: It's a lot easier.
Yeah. But it's just kind of goes to show like we have customers all the time. Tell us like, oh no, no, just send us over a blank bol. It doesn't matter. And we're like, no, it matters. We need all of the information in here. So I think for us to do our jobs well with the court rulings, with, you know, all the different, I guess, legal rules and things that we need to keep an eye for, like we have to be able to be the experts so we can coach and tr. Train the network that we're working with as well. That. No, I understand that they were nice, but if they don't have a license, you can't load them. We, we understand that they were, you know, like they're here and they're on time, but if you can't confirm that the. These numbers are matching, please don't load them. We need the sign bols. We need to confirm all of these details. And I think there's, there is some trust and then there's a lot of facilities and shippers that have zero trust.
[00:08:26] Sean Buckle: Yeah.
[00:08:27] Teddylee Knox: And, you know, I think it would just be nice if everyone could, could be on the same page, but then there wouldn't be people like us who do it really right to help everybody else out.
[00:08:36] Sean Buckle: Yeah, we definitely need the shippers on our side. Like we are going through our processes, whether it's through carrier 411 highway history, checking VINs, checking ELDs, checking Macro Point to see how many times that driver has possibly tracked on a load or if there's ever been a spoof load with that driver.
So there's a lot of things that go into it, but the shipper needs to help us out and they need to be partnering with all brokers.
[00:09:03] Teddylee Knox: And macro Point and ELDs are different. So macro point is pinging the driver where elds is the electronic data logs. That is the truck itself. Correct?
[00:09:14] Sean Buckle: Correct. But Macropoint does both. Macropoint can either track their TMS, their ELD, or their cell phone.
[00:09:22] Teddylee Knox: Okay, so we prefer the EOD.
[00:09:24] Sean Buckle: The first option is EOD for MacroPoint. And then that's the same with Highway. Highway is tracking only L ds, no cell phones.
[00:09:32] Teddylee Knox: Okay. Because I know that. Jumping quickly to another scenario, we can go back to our original one, but we were talking before recording that there's relays where drivers will drop at a yard to have someone else with fresh hours go and do the delivery. It's completely legal. It is the same carrier, Everything is fine. But if it is pinging a driver's cell phone, it will change or look like he's going all of a sudden a different direction.
[00:09:54] Sean Buckle: Correct. That's our biggest pain point right now with Macropoint and tracking either EOD or cell phone. If that dispatcher is not telling us that they change drivers Then we're going to be tracking the local driver for that, whatever. How many hours are after hours if we don't catch it. So until the next morning is when we'll find out.
[00:10:16] Teddylee Knox: But I am surprised by how many lanes and loads that we have that we just. It's just. You just know. Yeah, like, you have a new. You have new hire coming on. You're talking to them like, well, that the macro point's going to cause an issue here for 15 minutes. So you tell the customer not to panic. They're not actually in Kansas right now. Everything is fine. And it's just a, you know, one quick sentence and everyone is calmed down. And it's not actually an issue.
[00:10:41] Sean Buckle: Correct. And you think it would be second nature for a lot of these dispatchers too, but you have to reach out and ask for the OTR driver or
[00:10:47] Jesse Juett: where the road driver.
[00:10:48] Teddylee Knox: You also think it would be, you know, second nature to bring your license when you're driving a truck. But, you know, that is true.
[00:10:52] Sean Buckle: We do run into that.
[00:10:54] Jesse Juett: We'll get into some best practices here shortly. But I just want to, you know, this would be a good time if I had. I think of the scene in Animal House when they're under the.
The jury and they're singing Glory, Glory Hallelujah. So if we could.
I was going to touch on the fact that Teddy was talking about, you know, that people would just say, oh, just send a driver. You have like a driver circling around this warehouse. Don't you like the amount of effort and proper procedures that need to be followed all across the board? Not just in our office, not just at a shipper, not just at a receiver, but everyone together, right?
To move of load of product. It can be anything. It can be chips, it can be beverages, it can be hazardous materials. But to think about that, you have to pick up in Ontario, California and drive 2,800 miles or more to Edison, New Jersey to drop it off in a timely manner. You have to show up at the shipper within the hours. You have to have the right pickup number. You have to have the right equipment to load the right number of pallets. You have to verify the paperwork on the bol. You have to follow the protocols. Depending on the weight in the certain, you know, areas. You may have to go to the southern route to not go into elevation because of the type of product. You have to follow the speed limit. You have to follow the directions.
You have to then check in at the receiver. You have to have that correct number. You have to have the right address, you have to go to the right dock door. You have to have the right equipment to help unload. You maybe have to have a safety vest or safety goggles or safety hat to get into that warehouse.
At some point you're going to have to stop if you're a single driver. So you have to stop at the right truck stops that are verified as safety. You have to secure the load, you have to have a seal on it, you might have to have a padlock on it to avoid getting stolen.
All of these things need to go right and this is where I think it's really important that we do a really good job here of kind of appreciating the people who are doing the work that are out in the field. But that's, it's wild to think about that on that level because we process those types of transactions every single day.
But to think that we are just a cog in the trillion dollar industry of the, of logistics.
A grain of sand if you will, to get real philosophical.
But no wonder people are. Right now we're seeing rates go up and right now we're seeing capacity exit some would say, or at least there's a hypothesis. This is quote unquote bad capacity, right? These are folks who came in at a time they, that were allowed but maybe passed and got their CDL licenses in, in this case we're calling it fraudulently. There were schools that were set up that were taking people's money to give them CDLs with maybe not verifying that they could pass all of the right tests. So to think that we have a bunch of 80,000 pound missiles going 70 miles an hour down the highway and we, we are allowing people to operate those without the right verifications and aren't able to follow all of those steps. What I just listed out is concerning but what's great is I feel really good about the people here at Zipline that are executing this on a daily basis. And there's certainly shippers, receivers, customers out there who are helping us execute that. And when you find one that's really, really good, that's doing everything the right way, who's engaging with us to make sure that we're verifying the drivers and certainly when you find a driver or a, a carrier partner that's doing things the right way, who's giving you the extra step of communication, who's providing you the information, who's got a clean truck, who's, you know, appropriate when things, things change, right? Things go, go poorly sometimes. Like this is the Nature of the game. Like, we're not perfect 100 of the time, but when you have a good attitude, when you have the right mindset about, hey, this is. We thought you were 10am it's actually 10pm let's stick around. I'm sorry. This is what's going to happen. Here are the steps we can take. It makes you appreciate that much more. So stop the music. Now let's move on to our next scenario.
[00:15:19] Teddylee Knox: Well, it's okay. So if you are getting something done in your house, you're.
We just had to have like our air conditioning replaced.
[00:15:28] Jesse Juett: Always fun.
[00:15:28] Teddylee Knox: Always fun. You. There's so many options that you have. You can go through like generic home warranty and they have options and then you can get referrals. But you, you don't just like, call someone and be like, hey, you got this right. You gotta double check. You check their ratings. Like, even like if you're applying for a new job, you double check and see, like, what the reviews are of the job. Like, things like that. There's so many instances in our every single day life, like, you don't just get a new doctor without looking at the reviews or reading up on them. So, like, you shouldn't do that with a logistics partner either and confirming that information. And usually, and at least in my cases, it's always the slightly more expensive option that I should have gone with in the first place and I would have ended up saving money. But I'm like, no, I'll do this one because it's cheaper, it's a hundred dollars less. It's going to save me, save me money. This is the way to go. And I usually always regret it. We've said in so many podcasts before that this is an investment.
And in order for an investment to be successful and grow long term, it might be a little bit more expensive upfront, but it will save you money in the long run. And I think that's like, if you, if you were talking to your partner and they can't confirm what their process is or they're not explaining to you why rates are increasing because of all the different court rulings and things like that, then they're probably not doing this the correct way. There's probably some fraudulence going on. And that should be, that should be your red flag, is if they are not willing to have these discussions.
[00:16:53] Sean Buckle: Problem.
[00:16:53] Jesse Juett: Great call out.
[00:16:55] Sean Buckle: Very well put, guys.
[00:16:56] Jesse Juett: All right, so we're going to talk about some of these red flags, Sean. And you just give me a, give me a Quick riff on them. Or you could say, yep, that happens all the time. So some. Some typical common warning signs that we're seeing when we're talking to carriers. Okay, you ready?
[00:17:11] Sean Buckle: Ready.
[00:17:12] Jesse Juett: Newly established carrier authority.
Give me an example. What does that mean?
[00:17:17] Sean Buckle: That means they just entered into the market and that shows maybe one or two months.
So our process is.
With the new FMCSA ruling, they want it to be at least 18 months. So. Which is going to be an issue, which is also a general issue that you touched on a little bit ago about capacity.
[00:17:37] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Sean Buckle: So before when we had these market shifts, new capacity would be entering into the market.
[00:17:43] Jesse Juett: Yep.
[00:17:43] Sean Buckle: And there wouldn't be as many regulations around it.
So now we have these inflated rates. We have a bunch of people that might want to try to start their own company. Like, hey, the trucking industry is booming right now. You want to go start up an emcee?
[00:17:57] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:17:58] Sean Buckle: They're not going to get loaded unless if you have an in. But more than likely, they're still not going to get loaded.
[00:18:03] Jesse Juett: So that would the end be either
[00:18:06] Sean Buckle: a broker that would be possibly willing to take the risk or if you know somebody personally, not a shipper that works with assets. And that if you have a history.
[00:18:15] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:18:16] Sean Buckle: Like, hey, I have a driving history.
[00:18:18] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:18:18] Sean Buckle: I've been doing this. You can check my record.
[00:18:20] Jesse Juett: Okay.
[00:18:21] Sean Buckle: If you haven't in something like that. But.
[00:18:23] Jesse Juett: So this is the classic conundrum of.
As Teddy was talking about, you're applying for a new job. Like hell. We're really. You're fresh out of college. We're really looking for someone with experience. You're like, cool, well, I don't have a job yet, so how am I supposed to get experience?
Well, we're really looking for carriers that have 18 months of. Well, I'm a brand new carrier, so how am I supposed to drive for 18 months if you won't hire me? That's. This is a little bit challenging, folks. Ye glad we're on the same page.
Red flag number two, extremely low rates. This one is. You know, sometimes it feels you're not.
[00:19:00] Sean Buckle: You're too good to be true.
[00:19:02] Jesse Juett: You're working on this, the spot load. You're like, we d it. We got $2500.
[00:19:07] Sean Buckle: This.
[00:19:07] Jesse Juett: This guy's doing it for 1200. Let's go, baby.
[00:19:10] Sean Buckle: Yeah, that's a red flag. You definitely.
You definitely want to keep an eye out for that. Either they're going to be trying to take your load to another legitimate carrier, which would be double broke.
And they say that they're going to pay carrier two that 2500 for the market.
[00:19:27] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Sean Buckle: We think we're getting a steal at 1200. They have the legitimate carrier move it and then legitimate carrier does not get paid and possibly the 1200 guy could get paid.
[00:19:38] Jesse Juett: Yeah. There's a little quick pay action. Here's the pod.
[00:19:41] Sean Buckle: Yeah.
[00:19:42] Jesse Juett: Send it our way. Phone numbers that don't match FMCSA records. This is another good one.
[00:19:48] Sean Buckle: Yeah that's also a red flag. That's something we're double checking every day we have multiple people that will possibly call in from their cell phone.
[00:19:55] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:19:55] Sean Buckle: Which that could be legitimate but you always want to double check the main line or lines that we're showing on highway or Carrier 411 to make sure we know who we're talking to.
[00:20:06] Jesse Juett: It says you're based in Columbus, Ohio yet you're calling me from Seattle, Washington.
[00:20:10] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:20:11] Jesse Juett: Why is that? Oh I just moved. That's where I grew up.
Generic email domains. Well awesome one one of my faves. Yeah just send it to
[email protected] Bad email backslash.
[00:20:28] Sean Buckle: There's.
[00:20:28] Jesse Juett: Sorry.
[00:20:29] Sean Buckle: Still some carriers out there with the emails but totally did. Definitely carries you. It would draw attention to you would definitely need to do some digging. Majority of the carriers at least after there's been the vat the spur of bad actors. A lot of these guys changed it to have their own domain. The legitimate carriers.
[00:20:50] Jesse Juett: Yeah and I would give another one too of you know verifying the email domains. Sometimes it'll be just like one letter off.
[00:20:57] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:20:58] Jesse Juett: That's a good one.
[00:20:59] Sean Buckle: Yeah. I think there's still a Sean Buckle at Zipline with a logistic dot com. I forget what it was. The cat or logistic or one of the eyes was an L. Yeah it's
[00:21:11] Teddylee Knox: like a lowercase L. Yeah.
[00:21:12] Sean Buckle: So classic. But luckily we had some good carriers out there catching it.
[00:21:16] Jesse Juett: Sure.
Reluctance to provide documentation as far as what are we.
[00:21:24] Sean Buckle: I think we've seen it like no driver's license.
[00:21:26] Jesse Juett: Yeah, driver's license. That's a good one.
[00:21:28] Sean Buckle: If they don't want to provide a driver's license that's pretty big red flag especially with the non domiciled issues that we have going on right now. So yeah if they don't want to provide that. If you're not getting a bol after they say that they're loaded another red flag.
If their pod takes time to get to you. It could be possibly the driver sleeping like they say but the driver still should have been uploading that right when he got empty in the first place.
[00:21:55] Jesse Juett: Sure.
[00:21:56] Teddylee Knox: What about when? So this isn't necessarily the same level as Red Flag, but like you are trying to dispatch your carrier, it's an hour before pickup and they keep saying like, oh yeah, we're working on it, we'll get the information over to you right away.
[00:22:08] Sean Buckle: Yeah, you're off the.
[00:22:08] Teddylee Knox: Yeah. Not necessarily an issue as far as like them trying to steal it or double broker it, but that can cause a lot of issues in the overall like correct transit.
[00:22:16] Sean Buckle: It's usually them trying to buy time. The driver that they thought they were going to be assigned is probably still getting empty at a previous delivery.
Or like you said, they could be looking for another carrier if they're trying to double broker it. But if they're giving you the run around an hour before the pickup, it's best just even if they say they're five miles away, it's best to try to go out there and find another carrier and just go ahead and be straight up with your shipper. Hey, we need to recover this load.
We'll keep you posted on the new driver info.
[00:22:47] Teddylee Knox: I think that part is so important too because if you already are sharing information and you say that this carrier is picking up but then you switch it, you could end up getting your carrier rejected by accident because the shipper's like, no, no, we were told it was this trucking company, we're not loading it and caused some issues or they accidentally do load the original carrier even though we sent a new one in. And you can make a whole lot of people mad for sure.
[00:23:11] Jesse Juett: Yeah, things are moving fast. I think the last two we've got tracking resistance. That's always a good one. Like, oh, he's, yeah, we'll get you his number. He's got to turn it on.
[00:23:20] Sean Buckle: So there isn't too much tracking resistance.
[00:23:24] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:23:24] Sean Buckle: As of from the good folks. Yeah, right now there's none because so many people been pushing on. Well, EODs have to be mandated. I mean there's few drivers or carriers out there that are ELD exempt. But yeah, everyone is asking for tracking. They want to know where their freight's located. And some of the drivers are like, I don't want to be tracked. It's like, dude, we're not doing anything with your location. Yeah, we just want to know where this hundred thousand dollar load's at or more.
[00:23:54] Jesse Juett: It's wild.
Well, again, it goes back to the comment I had earlier about when you, when you find folks who are doing it the right way, it's that much
[00:24:03] Sean Buckle: makes our jobs a lot easier.
[00:24:04] Jesse Juett: Yeah, it makes you appreciate everything. And again, reminder folks, I think we shipped between 65 and 75,000 loads last year. Just us, right. To like this isn't at 250 business days. I'm not going to do some quick math here, but that's like 300 loads a day or something like that.
Maybe that doesn't track, but either way, it's busy.
[00:24:26] Sean Buckle: It is busy.
[00:24:27] Jesse Juett: Right? We're not. It's not just like one person, one load from soup to nuts. It's all the way across the board. Like you're. It's constant.
[00:24:37] Sean Buckle: Right.
[00:24:37] Jesse Juett: And you're. And so when you get into those situations where you know you're looking for those red flags, you're like, hey, this is the expectation. It's nice that we have carrier relationships and partnerships that are.
[00:24:49] Sean Buckle: Yeah, all on the carrier relationships and partnerships are huge because of those loads. Over 70% of those are booked with core carriers.
[00:24:57] Teddylee Knox: It is amazing to me how it does quickly. It does become second nature. Like there are still things that I feel like I have to come over to you and your team about like, I, I don't understand what you're saying or why this is a problem. That seems fine to me. And then you have to ex. Go through all the tools and explain to me and I'm like, oh, okay, well then now that makes sense. But like to someone else it's like, yeah, this, this is fine. It's a truck. Take it. Let's move it. Like, we got things to do. But those 17 extra steps, you do pay off. But it is not always understood how, how you figure it out or how you hear three words and realize we're taking this carrier off. Something's not right.
[00:25:30] Sean Buckle: Right. That is a good thing about this team. They're all vetted. They've all been here for more than three years. So that's always nice to have we
[00:25:38] Jesse Juett: touched on it a little bit. But just dive deep into it. Carrier verification. So we've got highway and Carrier 411 are our primary tools that we use. Correct.
[00:25:48] Sean Buckle: Correct. And then, yeah, there's also safer and modus. Yeah, modus is the new FMCSA.
[00:25:54] Jesse Juett: And we're connected electronically to highway and carrier 41 1.
[00:26:01] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:26:01] Jesse Juett: So it auto updates our system as well. That's what's a positive.
[00:26:05] Sean Buckle: Just highway no longer carrier 411 doesn't auto great, but highway does. It puts comments in their profile. And there's also the two two factor verification now with Highway. So you Send the rate con. They have to be able to log into their highway account to accept the load.
[00:26:26] Jesse Juett: That's cool.
[00:26:26] Sean Buckle: Yeah. So even if a carrier were to say oh my email possibly got compromised, then there wouldn't be a way to get around that if it was sent through their two factor verification.
[00:26:40] Jesse Juett: Right. Another thing we do, monitoring the authority age. Can you tell me about that?
[00:26:46] Sean Buckle: Yeah. I mean some of these MCs are getting bought up, are sold.
[00:26:49] Teddylee Knox: So what does that mean, authority age?
[00:26:53] Jesse Juett: Well that would be how long you've been in business.
[00:26:54] Sean Buckle: Yeah. Like how either you're starting up a new company or you see a history gap. The history gap either could be them not getting their insurance filed on time, which I guess it happens. But still not a great sign they're selling their MCs. A lot of these bad actors will buy up MCs that like holy cow, this carrier has 100 trucks over 100 inspections. Those are right along the route that they used to run.
And psych. It's not them but there is things to look for there. Like with how many tractors and trailers are on their insurance tracking tech.
[00:27:35] Jesse Juett: We touched on it with Macro Point, Samsara trucking tools.
[00:27:39] Sean Buckle: Trucker tools.
[00:27:40] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:27:41] Sean Buckle: Macro Point and then Samsara is always nice too. RIT setup. Samsara links to as long as we put it into the load that it'll automatically update as well.
[00:27:51] Jesse Juett: Those are links to their primarily the year.
[00:27:54] Sean Buckle: Correct.
[00:27:56] Jesse Juett: So again that's, that's feeding right into our system. We can, we can track it, we're monitoring it. It shows up to visibility for our customers. The thing we, we touched on briefly but insurance verification, that's one of my favorite. That's an auto update. So if the insurance slips expires, what have you, that updates automatically into our system. But again, then again we're checking the VIN numbers on the insurance via Highway.
[00:28:22] Sean Buckle: Correct. And that is a good thing about Linked up being linked up with highway throughout McLeod. If their insurance does expire or even say if the load is picking up tomorrow and they're insured and it doesn't live until Monday, but their insurance expires Saturday. Yeah, it's still going to red flag it. You can't book that carrier.
[00:28:42] Jesse Juett: Sure.
[00:28:42] Sean Buckle: Say their insurance is expired.
[00:28:46] Jesse Juett: Communication protocols. This is one of my favorites. You know we're doing our best to connect with drivers primarily.
[00:28:55] Sean Buckle: Yeah, I mean when we get driver info, we want to call the driver, verify who he drives for. Yeah, we want to call the main line. Like nothing should be ever booked. Just through our email yeah. It's always got to be the phone calls.
[00:29:08] Jesse Juett: Yep.
[00:29:08] Sean Buckle: To verify who you're talking to.
[00:29:10] Jesse Juett: And then we're setting expectations with the. The carrier, both dispatch dispatcher and driver.
[00:29:16] Sean Buckle: Like multip updates a day.
[00:29:17] Jesse Juett: Yeah. We're not trying to blast you, but our expectation is that you're communicating with us, especially if we're reaching out. But we, we'd like you to be more proactive.
[00:29:28] Sean Buckle: Correct. It's going to be a 10 second call where you located. Is everything good? You still on track? Yeah. Awesome. Drive safe.
[00:29:34] Teddylee Knox: I mean, I think we're really, really fun. I feel like people would want to talk to us anytime.
[00:29:38] Jesse Juett: Speak for yourself, Teddy.
We're just going to do a little round table here. What's the single biggest mistake companies make that leaves them vulnerable to double brokering or fraud or in general? Teddy, do you want to talk about that?
[00:29:52] Teddylee Knox: Not prioritizing communication and confirmation.
[00:29:56] Jesse Juett: Okay. Sean.
[00:29:57] Sean Buckle: Yeah. Not having a core group of core carriers. I would say so. Like I mentioned a little bit ago, over 70% of our loads are booked through core carriers together. Half aren't technically a core, but that we have a history for them. You know, they've somewhat ran the load for us in the past.
[00:30:16] Jesse Juett: Yeah.
[00:30:17] Sean Buckle: There's just some catches.
[00:30:18] Jesse Juett: These are consistent carriers that we have a history with that we. They understand the protocols, they're talking to us, etc.
[00:30:27] Sean Buckle: So if you're booking or if you're dealing with a broker that's posting over 50% of their loads on load boards, then that isn't going to be good. That's probably so we're already reducing that example size for sure. By quite a bit.
[00:30:41] Jesse Juett: Absolutely.
Two good call outs.
[00:30:44] Teddylee Knox: So what's your answer?
[00:30:46] Jesse Juett: Well, we already talked about it. But you know what I think recognizing that there need to be policies and procedures put in place, not following those to a T. Yeah. Moving too fast.
Right. Like again, it gets hectic in the world of logistics, but you got to do your due diligence and everyone's got to be on the same page. So setting the expectations up front. We've talked about this before, but you know, doing the simple things. Well, I don't know what the Warren Buffett quote is, but it's something like it does not take extraordinary actions to have extraordinary results.
Simple basic things that are the same thing every day. That you're doing the right thing every single time. As long as you do that, you should be fine.
[00:31:30] Teddylee Knox: Like I'm trying to teach my kids that right now with like after school, like, how's that going Put your shoes away. Like, it takes 16 seconds. Seconds now versus 15 minutes on Saturday when we can't go to the pool because we can't get out of the door because there's a pile of shoes. Yeah, it's. It's working pretty well, actually. It's. It's getting there. So, you know, the. The 16 seconds versus the 15 minutes, like, we got timers going on. They're. They're seeing it, so it's real.
[00:31:57] Jesse Juett: My lovely wife Maggie put a drew a nice little sunshine on a piece of paper and wrote, have I tidied up my area in the car on our door into our garage and, like, put it on there.
[00:32:10] Sean Buckle: So, yeah, that's a good one.
[00:32:12] Jesse Juett: We'll see if that works.
So far, so good. But, yeah, I mean, they're. The kids are 10 and 5. Like, let's go.
Start pulling your weight around here, kids.
[00:32:22] Teddylee Knox: I'm just saying I feel like it's. It's. It's hard when you think about it, but then all of a sudden something clicks and you realize, I just spent 45 minutes trying to get this set up when it actually would have just taken me less than 30 seconds to do this in the first place.
[00:32:36] Jesse Juett: Correct. Simple things.
[00:32:38] Teddylee Knox: Simple things.
[00:32:39] Jesse Juett: Well, as usual, if you want to learn more about this, if you want to talk to us more about our verification, carrier verification qualification processes. Www.ziplinelogistics.com 888go zipline. Sean Buckle, Director of carrier sales. Thanks for joining us, Teddy. Always a pleasure. Thank you to all of our listeners, our truckeeasters. Our truck, yeah, Heads for coming to another edition of the Zipline podcast. We'll see you next time.
