Nobody handed us a playbook. This is the one we wrote.

LIVE's hazmat desk started at two people and grew to six, and passed 6,000 hazmat loads a year. Everything FlowLine checks is something the team used to check by hand, at 5 a.m. and again at 9 at night.

The numbers went out every morning

At 8 a.m. the whole team got a screenshot of yesterday's loads, margin and who booked what. Who was first in and last out was in the email. Praise and corrections went in the same message, in front of everyone. FlowLine's dashboard is that email, live.

Four rules for every carrier

Written to the brokerage team in June 2022. Get the driver's number and call them. Get copies of their CDL. Tracking must be used. Updates three to five times a day. Read the memo and what it became.

Drivers we recruited ourselves

There was no recruiting department. We found drivers, walked them through the application, the medical card, the drug screen and the Clearinghouse, and sent the welcome email ourselves. A driver who feels looked after answers the phone at 3 a.m. That is the whole tracking strategy.

When nobody would give us drop trailers, we bought them

Hazmat shippers load slow and ship often. A customer's distribution center had no room to stage trailers, so we bought our own 53-footers with placard holders front and back, and kept a weekly sheet of where every one was parked and who moved it last.

Pricing by hand, then by data

Every rate was Ian's. He was one of the first users of FreightWaves SONAR and built Power BI reports from the load history so the desk could see what a lane paid before it quoted. Eleven years of that is now the rate calculator and every lane page.

Sales was a cold email and a phone

Carrier setups with Fortune 500 chemical and industrial shippers began with a short email asking to be included in the next bid, then showing up on time until they were trusted. Half the replies went out from a truck cab or a parking lot. Fifteen-hour days were the normal day.

Paperwork before the wheels turn

A driver checks the shipping papers against the load and keeps the Emergency Response Guidebook in the cab. FlowLine's Paperwork Agent checks the same things on every load before billing.

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