Hiring staff in Ukraine during the war: what to ask about continuity
It is the first question almost every brokerage asks about staff in Ukraine, and it should be. If you are putting part of your operation in another country, you need to know…
Insights
Insights
Notes on staffing, offshoring and running a brokerage back office.
The four kinds of company that will offer to staff your brokerage
Search for help staffing a brokerage and you get a wall of companies that all describe themselves in roughly the same words: dedicated teams, rigorous screening, significant cost savings. The listings are…
What to measure in an offshore seat’s first 90 days
Most people measure a new remote seat by whether it feels like it’s going well. That works until month four, when someone asks what it’s actually delivering and nobody can answer with…
Can a three-person brokerage afford offshore staff?
Most of what gets written about offshore staffing assumes you already have thirty people and a process. If you are three people covering everything between you, the honest question isn’t whether it…
Freight broker VA or a dedicated freight-trained seat?
“I need a VA” is how a lot of brokerage owners describe this, and it covers two completely different things that cost different amounts and fail in different ways. Worth separating them…
What does it cost to outsource brokerage support?
This is the question everyone asks first and almost nobody gets a straight answer to. Vendors quote a number that depends on things they haven’t asked you about yet, or they refuse…
Offshore, nearshore or onshore: which fits a freight brokerage?
Almost everyone asks this question as a cost question. Offshore is cheapest, nearshore is in the middle, onshore is dearest, pick according to budget. That framing is tidy and it is how…
Does your brokerage need a night desk yet?
Most brokerages get their first night desk the same way: something goes badly wrong overnight, everyone spends Monday cleaning it up, and someone says “we need cover for that”. Then the week…
The first 30 days with an offshore seat
The sales call for offshore staffing tends to end at the moment the seat is filled, as if that were the finish line. It isn’t. The first thirty days decide whether you…