Any of you hire a dispatcher to grow your business?

You may be best served by getting someone new to dispatching with a good sales/customer service back ground. They don't have to be a hotshot to handle 4 trucks and would likely work cheaper to get the experience. I would go percentage so they only get paid if you are making money. With their downtime they can reach out to shippers directly to find freight that isn't on the boards if they are good at sales. They can also deal with any pissed of customers that arise, leaving you to run the truck. You may have to take some time to get them up to speed though...

 

Dispatching is the easy part, no real training but the finding of the loads will be the problem. You may want to think about getting a sales service for the leads and work with them to help you find the talent because it isn't like other industries, so you got to find a service and people who know what the industry is all about and then focus on one part of it.

 

A good dispatcher who knows what he is doing will be costly. But can make you a lot more money than he costs. But I'd think you'd need a few more trucks before it will be cost effective. If dispatching 3 or 4 trucks doesnt keep you busy, it won't keep them busy either. I wouldnt want to pay too much for that, unless you specifically hire them as part time until you grow some more.

 

What about making your best driver a lead driver and having him dispatch himself and one other truck for a little more money and then that frees you up to dispatch the third and drive the fourth

 

If the dispatcher is also handling sales and customer service that should be enough to keep them busy. I know I am an anomaly out here but I have 15 years customer service, 3 years sales, and 1.5 years driving. If you can find someone that understands all 3 it could be a hell of a hire.

 

Did you ever go either way? I have actually been in the industry since 97 in Logistics and want to get into being a dispatcher for hire.

 

If you added a fourth truck, it may be more cost-effective to hire a full-time driver than have you work part-time.

Then you could be busier with dispatching the trucks and looking for the loads yourself. And if you're still not busy enough then maybe you could buy a fifth truck and hire another driver.

I would think that would keep you busy for a while.