The EASIEST Way To Find Direct Shipper Loads + Real Life Example

hey wassup everybody I'm David McGill now a lot of people out there looking for ways to get direct to shipper contracts for their trucking business and you know there's a lot of different ways that you can go about finding those type of loads but one of the things that I overlooked before that I want to make sure you guys don't overlook this is just looking within your own network like your own sphere of influence your family friends and things like that now I'm gonna tell you guys a story I didn't realize I had a great great opportunity front of me and I'll let you guys know like how it came about and also what went wrong with it and you know why went wrong to explain to you guys like you know how you can avoid you know the same same situation so about ten years ago I was playing poker a lot with some buddies on with a new group of friends and during that time you know I met a few guys who they were they were store managers for you know a certain company out here in Indianapolis and I didn't think anything of it you know that we were friends we played poker we talk sports I like this stuff but then fast forward in in 2017 when I started my trucking business some of the guys got wind of it and you know one guy in particular reached out to me and he said hey you know the company I worked for I'm really good friends with the logistics manager and you know I can if you want to I can you know get you a meeting schedule to where you know you can talk about you know possibly you know running some free floors he said I had already talked to him I told him I had a friend who started a trucking business and you know he's willing to meet with you so you know I said cool that'll work so I met with this I met with this guy like I say he's the logistics manager so he's running trucks you know all over the to Midwest and during the conversation you know things were going things are going real good you know we met over at his office I explained to him and I just started my trucking company I only had one truck one driver and you know he really liked you know what I was telling him so he told me he's like oh yeah man I love to give you a chance to you know move some of our trailers the lows they don't go for anywhere from you know fifty to a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles away so you know same day trips you know all this good stuff was a grocery store chain and this is a very reputable company by the way who you know most people in the area are very familiar with you know what type of have a product these these people sell and he gave me the insurance requirements and you know he gave me a printout of everything I would need in order to get to get started running their Freight and one of the things that I found was you know you needed it was a ten million dollar umbrella policy and maybe you guys know that for most brokers that you work with they're only gonna require you to have a million dollars worth of liability insurance so you know the ten million dollar number it seems no very high but I decided to reach out to my insurance agent and you know see about you know what it would take to get a policy like that you know what it will cost and mind you we were just starting out at the time and you know my insurance agent came back and told me like yeah we could piece it together we can get you up to this ten million dollar policy it'll probably double your policy your monthly policy now at the time you know like I said we had just started out I was still trying to figure things out as I was going so the thought of you know having an insurance payment of you know 32 to 33 hundred dollars a month it just I got nervous so what I decided to do was put that on hold and the plan was hey one side you know once I build things up a little bit more get some cash rolling in then I revisit this situation and you know looking at getting that 10 million dollar policy so that I can sort of I can haul these loads for this this particular customer now I'd say I have been running for you know maybe maybe a year and I always had it in the back of my mind I kept that insurance requirement paper that he gave me I kept it pent up you know my my board and one day I got a call from my friend who who uh who set the meeting up for me and he's like hey did you ever get a chance to you know to work with with such-and-such and I told him I was like now I was gonna you know I was you know getting my stuff together and I was gonna reach back out to him as soon as I you know I got stable and he told me I okay cuz he just he's on he's almost like he's about to retire so he actually transferred to a different state and that's where he's gonna be working out of and you know he's gonna be retiring soon and the person who replaced him here locally I don't have the same kind of relationship you know with her so I was crushed because in the back of my mind I knew that the whole reason why I wasn't delivering any Freight for this company is because I was too afraid to invest even more into myself so I blew the opportunity now I don't like to dwell on it too much but when I think back I see a lot of you know big trucking companies pulling they're pulling their trailers and to think that I had a chance to you know as a small as a small company pull their trailers you know you just never know what what that could have led to at the time during the initial meeting the logistics manager he let me know like yeah you can grow with this so you know as you buy more trucks you know we'll put those on the road to you know as long as you know as long as uh you know things are you know things are going great then know we'll continue to build now at the time I didn't realize how good of an opportunity I had until one day I was you know at the parking lot where I parking I was talking to the owner and we were just talking about you know different Freight and he said something because he he is actually haul Freight for them before but it was through it was through Landstar and he said man some of the best freight that I've ever moved was from such-and-such and he said if you ever get a chance to work with them make sure you do so and when he said it my heart just sunk and I looked at it was like midnight I had a meeting with the logistics manager and everything he was alright so cool when you start I was like I don't I don't start for him because the guy I met with you know he's he's on his way out he's already transferred to another to another state and I didn't I didn't get a chance to you know build with them before he left and you know the the guy was talking to he was he just looked crushed she's like I can't believe you had a chance to you know pull their Freight and you know you missed an opportunity so I explained to him you know how much the insurance was gonna cost me and he was just like man didn't even matter like they like if you look around like their Freight is everywhere they always had to deliver to all of their stores so you would have made the money back but it was just you know being new and you know already having so much money invested in the company you know I just I got a little gun-shy and it's one of those things that yeah I regret it but at the same time if it wasn't meant to be it wasn't meant to be but the whole point of my story was to let you guys know that as you're out here looking for these direct shipper relationships and you know you might be doing a lot of you know networking and calling around and driving around doing things like that make sure you're not overlooking you know just show a small circle of friends like your sphere of influence you never know like you may have somebody in your network who they have connections to certain certain on certain companies so start there before you start going before you go out and you know start trying to you know build all these crazy relationships look at your existing relationships and see what opportunities you might find through there now hopefully you know you guys can take the information I K you in this video and learn from from my mistakes by you know overlooking some of the opportunities that I had and also you know being a little shy to pull the trigger so hopefully you know this this information will be helpful to you guys out there it's learning from you know some of my shortcomings now as always if you found this video helpful go ahead and give it a thumbs up let me know in the comment section if you have any thoughts you'd like to share also if you haven't already done so subscribe to the channel and if you know anybody else who could benefit from this information please share this video with them and as always thanks again for watching

Channel: Trucking From Scratch [David McGill]

Views: 69,847

Rating: 4.9053974 out of 5

Keywords: trucking, trucking business, how to start a trucking business, semi trucking, hotshot trucking, dump trucking, owner operator, company driver, independent contractor, employee, operating authority, self employment, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, david mcgill, maxxforce, international prostar, freightliner, volvo, kenworth, peterbilt, prime inc, swift transportation, jb hunt, us xpress, roehl transportation, fmcsa, dot, success, keeptruckin, eld, business, ch robinson, amazon

Id: Z-WQP_53uQU

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2020