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Troy: Alright hello and welcome truckers the date is March 4th and you’re listening to the 49th episode of big rig bander I am your host Troy Diffenderfer.
Lenay: And I am your favorite co-host Lenay Ruhl and this episode is brought to you by the pilot flying jay app saving you time at the pump and money in the store. Now you may be wondering why all you can do in the app, well you can reserve an overnight parking spot you can book a shower you can start feeling from inside your cab and best of all you can save money every single day on food on drinks on gear for your rig and more. So, go ahead and visit the app store or google play store and call the flying jay app today.
Troy: Thank you, Lenay! How are you doing today?
Lenay: I’m good, Troy! How are you?
Troy: I’m good I see you have a nice fresh cup of coffee in front of you.
Lenay: Yes, with my almond milk thank you, Troy!
Troy: I know for just listeners for all the crap that Lenay gives me. I just want it to be known I went out of my way to get her a cup of coffee specifically ordered with your like ridiculous almond milk and two specific packets of sugar and –
Lenay: Yeah Troy’s amazing and he wanted me to wake up so –
Troy: Exactly so I just want to know that I do these amazing nice things for Lenay and know we have on-air proof of it.
Lenay: *Clears Throat* So anyway …
Troy: Yea but, how are you? What did you think of the game day we just had? We had an awesome game day in the office. We got to play you know ping pong and different board games those following us on social media saw a beautiful picture of myself.
Troy: Yea if you haven’t seen that be sure to go to our Instagram or Facebook page and check it out!
Lenay: Um, Game Day. You know I am like I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me but I’m the least competitive person on the planet and uh yea games are just not really my thing. But I will say I did enjoy watching Brett beat you at ping pong yesterday, that that was fun I did enjoy that!
Troy: I know I’m like totally the opposite, cause growing up as an only child, like I never really played a lot of board games or like I played a lot of video games. Because you could play them by yourself so like even now at 26 years old I’m super into being competitive and board games and stuff. I feel like I didn’t get a chance when I was younger so now that like there’s people around and stuff I’m totally into playing board games and Lydia is not a huge board game fan but like when I can talk her into a board games cause she is super competitive then it gets really fun.
Lenay: It gets really intense?
Troy: Yeah.
Lenay: Maybe that’s why I never get into games my sister is like kind of mean she always won at everything, so I just never wanted to play anymore.
Troy: Yea but I did think it was a lot of fun. It was really cool company activity we got to do. Um, yea check out that picture Lenay you always catch me at the best light. So, thank you!
Lenay: I know it’s my awesome photography skills!
Troy: Yea, but –
Lenay: Or it’s just your face!
Troy: Exactly!
Troy: But let’s jump right into today’s episode we have a guest on the show talking about load boards um for those listening it’s going to be um an important topic for many of you especially if your um new to the load board game or want to know how to navigate that we have some awesome tips um from Todd Burch so let’s listen to that.
Troy: Alright, I’m here with Todd Burch the product marketing manager at DAT.com.
Todd, how are you?
Todd: I’m doing great thanks for having me.
Troy: Awesome so we’re talking about load boards um I think it’s something that a lot of our listeners are going to be involved in, they’re going to be interested in. Why don’t you give us a brief rundown of how a load board works and why do so many truckers use it? Why do we hear the word “load board” all the time?
Todd: Yea a load board is um I always get into this example to use it’s basically like Match.com um for you know truckers and um for brokerages. I guess a more updated um example would be a Tinder but um basically it’s a centralized location where ah both carriers and brokers can go to ah basically tender freight. And, so for brokers and shippers they can post loads for calling for carriers so they can find um available loads that meet their preferences. And you know at DAT our responsibility is to create an environment in which they can make those business deals you know that they can connect with each other. Yea and I guess the second part of your question, right. Um, why is it important? You know well um I was trying to think like an accurate way of describing this but essentially like a load board is like a Rolex um you know for both the brokers for both sides of the marketplace. And so, if I was a carrier trucker and I was going to get new business you know what am I going to do? I’m just ready to go out, I’m trying to find those loads. You know preferably with a shipper but if I am going to find that I’m going to go look at my load board where I know my brokers are participating and that’s kind of where we are at where we are facilitating opportunities for people to make new business or to keep their truck running or utilized throughout the day. And I think why load boards are such a common way or like the most prevalent way of finding freight, especially in the spot market is because it empowers both sides of the marketplace to do business the way they want to do it. Ah, you know what you want; you know how you want to do your business so you can go out and sort of search and so you can be more practice and how you um you know get the business.
Troy: And what are some tips that you would give to a truck driver who’s navigating a load board for the first time it’s only I mean I’ve looked around on DAT.com it’s very clean and easy to use but I’m sure it’s still going to be overwhelming for a lot of people?
Todd: Yeah, I think it can be overwhelming especially for doing it for the first-time ah what we try to do at DAT is, we try to really think about the user experience and how um we can make that as easy as possible. But, to give you some tips it’s, first of all, do your research. Um as any sort of business endeavor you would want to know who the other side of that is thinking or is doing. You want to arm yourself with as much information as possible. So, an example is you know we at DAT try to provide as much data and information as possible um through our product we have trend reports, uh we have rate, market rate information. So, my recommendation would be you know to leverage those tools to understand what is the specific lane paying, you know, before you start to interact with these loads that are posted to for that lane? Um, another is ah let a load board, let our platform and allow for DAT to work for you. Uh, we have this tool called, you know, “Post Your Truck” where you can list your truck and you can say,” Hey I’m in this origin location I want to go to this destination” and let the load board work for you. Let it, you know, brokers can come in and see that those trucks are posted. You know, for those specific times. That specific type of equipment. For that specific lane. And then they can start the proposal, brokers can start actively reaching out um to you. Um and the thing, one of the last things, kind of with research if you are considering a load, ah one tip might be looking at you know once you get to that destination, try and do kind of research and see what is coming out. Because the last thing you want to do is ah you know get to a place where there are a lot of trucks and not a lot of freight. Ah so you always want to be thinking ahead you want to think like, “okay if I go to one place, you know, where is that going to take me?” “Is this going to take me to where I want to go if I want to go back home?” “Am I going to be able to get out?” Things like that.
Troy: I like that you mention research a bunch of times it’s like to use your Tinder analogy it’s like running a background check on someone to make sure they’re not like a murderer.
Right, you know that goes to a kind of a big theme with us at DAT were about enabling trust um we want to remove uncertainty from the marketplace. So, we’re always thinking about how we can provide tools and services to both sides, to both brokers and carriers, that will kind of build that trust and kind of give us that insight to make business decisions move faster. You can kind of make a decision with confidence.
Troy: And I know you mentioned some of these factors um that come into play when you’re doing research. What are some other factors that maybe might make a trucker swipe right on the ah load board?
Todd: ha-ha! Yea you know um, the swiping right ah I think I would be doing a disservice to your listeners if I said that the top reason to swipe right would be anything but like a rate-per-mile. I think that’s what we hear the most from a DAT perspective. It’s “What am I going to get paid?” And we know that’s important for people to understand like they you know they wanted if they have a load and it meets their criteria you can’t go for free. Or you can’t do it for something that would not ah help your business grow or bring a profit or put money in your pocket. So, it’s not like the number one reason does it, is the pay right. But that’s like only like the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a reason to book a load. There’s many other factors can go into why that load would be great for you. And its kind of like, my thought is like you know that saying where one man’s trash is another man’s treasure? Um, there’s sometimes there are opportunities if I’m a driver or carrier um to pick up a load that it might not seem appealing to someone else, based on the rate. And because that, this one carrier that’s who picked up this trash let’s say, has thought about “how does this chain together” or “how does it get me home for my kid’s baseball game?” Or, there might be other factors that are playing into why they would do that for a lower rate. It could just be they are better at modeling their business or planning for the future. Um, so that’s the other thing. There are other criteria that go into it. Um, and you can do that research all through DAT. You can understand like, ah, what you know what’s the equipment size let’s say what’s necessary or like what’s the weight of the load? One of those types of factors.
Troy: And how to do changing freight rates and other factors affect um not just you but you know the truckers using your site? I mean it’s no secret that the industry definitely can fluctuate for the better or the worse. How does stuff like that effect um, your business? And, just you know, just truckers in general, using load boards.
Todd: You know that’s an interesting question. Um, I think from an outsiders perspective you would think that changing rates um would you know have a negative impact on load boards but, you know, at the end of the day at DAT what we know is that we have been in this business for a very long time um we actually see a lot of activity whether the rates are down or up. And it just, it’s a different activity based on what needs to be done. So, when rates um, go down what’s happening, you know, is there might be a lot more volume on the platform on the brokers’ side. They need to put those loads on because ah shippers are shifting their strategies. Potentially from contracts freight to spot market because that’s you know it’s ah. It would be a potential opportunity for them to save money. So, we see them with more loads, but from a carrier’s perspective, there’s a lot more competition. Um, there’s a lot you need to have a stronger business model to understand what the impact of taking that load may mean all the toughest. So, there might be from a carrier or truck driver perspective there needs to be a lot more planning involved. Um, when the rates are high. You know ah, carriers might be looking into carrying new business so they might be conducting new research, using our um rate forecasting tools for data and understanding how do they maybe take on a new lane or how do they expand their business or how do they add a truck. What kind of load could they pick up if they did that? So, I feel like the down and ups there’s always a larger amount of activity cause at the end of the day. What we are doing is creating business regardless of the rate it all depends on what type of business some model exists, and which ones are going to thrive in those environments.
Troy: So, I mean, you’ve been involved in this industry. When has load board technology changed in maybe the last ten years and in twenty years, I mean obviously with the rise of the internet and things like that I’m sure there are multiple competitors and you know um the industry definitely has changed?
Todd: yea you know at DAT has been around for a long long time. and I have known you for the past 20 years. I mean we were DAT existed for 42 years, so we are kind of a little bit more insightful, yeah.
Todd: Ah, yea we started at dial track at judge truck stop at Portland, Oregon back in 1978 and back then this is where the load board comes from it was literally a bulletin board and notes and stuff and sticky notes you would see on that board. Truck drivers would come in they would look at that there’s a load that where they wanted to go then they would try to you know to call that shipper or that broker to book that freight so we’ve seen it from the very beginning, all the way until where it’s at right now. So, if I was to use you know just based on your questions 20 years ago I mean we’ve seen a lot of advancement as far as technology, in the past 20 years. Of course, you know the biggest being the advent of the mobile phone.
Todd: Which plays nicely into the trucking business most of their business is done, you know, on a mobile environment! You know, it’s become a really big tool for them and um, being able to access freight at any time um along you know as a truck driver has been really important. So, in the past 20 years ah we’ve seen load boards go from being this only at a truck stop location or this physical load board to being put onto the internet um being. Yea it’s you know gone from load board to dial-up to from fax to like dial-up internet to know you can access it on your mobile device and so I think what we’re seeing, and I just want to do a plug for this. I know there’s this huge trend now to move out of like what the next phase of the load boards. And they call it digital freight matching. But the idea is, that, you know, we’ve been digitally freight matching since 20 years ago when we first started putting out our service online. So, load boards have gotten smarter, more intelligent, we’ve offered more filters, more search opportunities, we’ve given more data to help them to make those decisions. To match if you’re a truck driver with a broker that meets your preferences. So that’s kind of a trend that will continue to see. We’ll see accessibility. You’ll be able to access a load board anytime you need it to you know at all hours of the night, non-business, traditional business hours. Also, this is going to get smarter. It’s going to understand the service that’s going to understand the differences that search will be a lot more intuitive. It’ll also be more streamlined based on what you need at that moment.
Troy: That is awesome. I am always excited to hear about the new technology and the future and where the industries are going to progress. Todd, I thank you for coming onto the show to talk to us. I think there’s going to be a lot of truckers that are going to appreciate this information. Um, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Todd: Yeah, you know if you won’t mind, I share a shameless plug we have a feature called Book Now ah which is kind of feeling into that trend that we are talking about of getting smarter and being more accessible um. We’re now, you can, if people are familiar with the DAT load board now there is an ability to go on to the load board find the load you need and find the board that meets your preferences and you’ll be able to click through; go straight into the brokers kind of portal experience to book that freight so that we have reduced the number of steps necessary to negotiate those rates and uh enable you to kind of say hey I want that freight, book it in lesser steps and go get to what you maybe enjoy doing which is driving or working on other parts of your business.
Troy: Awesome! Well, I think a lot of our listeners are going to definitely check that out. Once again, that’s Todd Burch from DAT.com! Todd, thank you so much!
Todd: Alright, thank you!
Lenay: Wow! What a lot of great information there, big thanks to Todd and Troy for that interview. If you like what you hear here be sure to leave us a review on whatever platform you’re listening, we’d love to hear from you.
Troy: Yea thanks again Todd we appreciate it, but I think that wraps things up ah, Lenay don’t forget to turn your clock forward we’re springing forward in what four days?
Lenay: Sunday! I am so excited for the time to change. More daylight!
Troy: I know that’s gonna be awesome but once again I’m your co-host, Troy Diffenderfer.
Lenay: And I’m your favorite co-host, Lenay Ruhl.
Troy: And this has been a big rig banter.
Music – Thanks for tuning into another edition of Big Rig Banter. For your next job check out AllTruckJobs.com, the premier online source for finding the best driver jobs in the country. Browse hundreds of positions by freight or driver type to get back on the road with confidence. Click subscribe to keep the conversations coming until next time on Big Rig Banter.