According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, approximately 5.9 million commercial motor vehicle drivers operate in the United States, and many of them frequently take advantage of load boards as well as load factoring companies, also known as invoice factoring or freight bill factoring companies. Factoring companies can help you improve your cash flow by paying you when you deliver a load. Most load boards allow you to search for loads based on your specific truck information — type of trailer, starting point and destination, etc. If you’re looking for spot freight, you should be hitting the load boards and posting your truck daily.
Here are just a few top tips to help you choose the right load boards.
Browse a wide variety of load boards.
This should come as no surprise, but when browsing load boards, failing to browse a wide enough variety can cause you to miss out on some that may have been a perfect match. Load boards come in countless types, all with different features and offerings. Take the time to analyze your personal needs and explore a wide variety of load boards before choosing the ones that are best for you.
Some offer different levels of subscription and provide a lot of information about the broker or shipper posting the load as well, such as average days to pay, and what the average for that load and lane is.
Look for reviews online.
This may seem like common knowledge, but many people tend to overlook this crucial step. The fact is, looking for load board reviews online essentially means that others have done the legwork for you, and it drastically reduces the risk of choosing a load board you’ll be dissatisfied with.
Take the time to scour the internet to find the most accurate and up-to-date reviews. What are other people saying about how a particular load board helped them? And of course, try to avoid reviews that are on the load board’s website itself. These are more likely to be biased or filtered for positivity.
Are you a member of a trucking group online? Throw out your question there. You’ll get no shortage of reviews straight from people who use these load boards every day.
Know which information to give out (and which to protect).
It’s important to keep your own privacy protected during your search for the right load board. This means you shouldn’t give out too much information too soon. If a load board is asking for more information than is truly necessary to help you get started, it may be a red flag.
Look for load board integrations/partnerships that can help your business.
Many of the leading load boards have partnerships with other industry leaders that can help your business.