Your First 90 Days as a Freight Broker: A Week-by-Week Plan

Most new brokerages don't die because the owner couldn't sell. They die because the owner spent the first three months doing things in the wrong order, two weeks perfecting a logo, a month researching load boards, then a panicked scramble for customers when the savings ran low. Here's the order that works.

Weeks 1-2: Get operational, not perfect

Authority active, BMC-84 bond in place, W-9 ready, insurance certificates handy. Set up your bank account, your invoicing method, and pick your software stack, one TMS, one load board. Skip the custom website for now; a clean one-page site and a professional email are enough. Write your carrier packet and your shipper credit application once, properly, so onboarding is never the thing slowing you down.

Weeks 3-6: Prospect like it's your only job, because it is

You need a list of 100-200 shippers in niches you can talk about credibly. Local manufacturers, food distributors, building products, businesses that ship weekly, not once a quarter. Call 20-30 a day. You're not selling on the first call; you're finding out who handles freight, what lanes they run, and when their current arrangement causes them pain. Log every conversation. The fortune is in call number four, not call number one.

Weeks 5-8: Land and survive the first load

Your first load will probably come from a smaller shipper whose regular broker dropped a ball. Quote it fast, honestly, and slightly under market if you must, the first load buys the second. Then protect it: vet the carrier's authority and insurance like your business depends on it, because it does. Confirm pickup, confirm delivery, send the invoice with the POD the same day. A flawless first load turns a test into a customer.

Weeks 8-12: Build the rhythm

By now you should have a daily rhythm: prospecting calls in the morning when shipping managers are at their desks, covering loads midday, paperwork batched, not scattered, in the afternoon. Follow up every quote within 24 hours. Ask every active customer one question a week about upcoming freight. Track three numbers religiously: quotes sent, loads moved, margin per load. Everything else is noise until you're past 10 loads a week.

What kills new brokers in the first 90 days

Three things, in order: running out of prospecting energy after the first rejections, a fraud loss from skipping carrier vetting when rushed, and cash flow surprises from 30-45 day shipper payment terms. Plan for all three on day one, a call quota you hit no matter what, a vetting step you never skip, and either factoring or enough cushion to float six weeks of carrier payments.

The paperwork side of this plan shouldn't take more than an hour of your day. Haulan handles the operational spine, instant FMCSA carrier checks, one-link carrier onboarding with e-signature, rate confirmations, BOLs and invoices in one click, for $70 a month, so your first 90 days are spent on the phones, where the business actually gets built.