Like so many independent freight agents John had a solid business but since he was the face of the customer and really the value to the business, he couldn’t find anyone interested in purchasing his Freight Agency. He was also worried that he had not built up enough savings to maintain his lifestyle upon retiring. He had tried to work out a succession plan with his daughter and son-in law, but they were not interested in the long hours and hassles of being a freight broker and business owner.
John did not want to walk away from his business altogether. He still enjoyed interacting with customers and even visiting once or twice a year. He just couldn’t find anyone to come in and take over for him, so he didn’t have to take the calls at all hours of the day and night.
SEL provided him with an alternative to his problem. He let us run his day-to-day operations so he could enjoy his partial retirement. We proposed a 50/50 split whereby SEL would handle the dispatch, check calls, customer service and after-hours operations. John would have recurring income as long as we serviced his customers.
The first month he was skeptical and had a hard time giving up control of his systems. We decided to take it load by load and cover some of his hard to cover freight. Flatbed freight out of the Houston area is not so easy to cover. After a few weeks, we were moving a couple of loads per day for him. He had a dedicated contact in our office who got to know his business. The more his contact got to know his business the easier it got for our team to cover.
Slowly but surely, he started turning more and more of his business over to us. Last month we handled a little over half of his loads and he had the best month he has had in 3 years thanks to our operations solutions. Just the loads we covered for him generated a gross profit of $40,000. That is money he would have walked away from without our operational solution. No longer does John have to not worry about not having enough money for retirement or being tied to a phone. SEL gives him peace of mind to enjoy his retirement.
