Goal setting is an essential practice for any successful professional, and freight agents are no exception. Especially when you’re operating as an independent freight agent rather than a W2 employee, your ultimate success or failure depends completely on YOU. Knowing how to set achievable goals that will challenge your growth as a freight agent will help your business thrive in 2025!
Why Are Goals Important for Freight Agents?
Especially for driven entrepreneurs like the independent freight agents at Tallgrass, goals give them something to aspire to and reach for. Goals help shape your work and add intentionality to each day. After all, how can you build a route if you don’t know the destination?
Tallgrass VP of Growth & Development Chloe Marshall reminds us that the freight industry is a tough one. “There are so many obstacles and challenges that you’re up against day in and day out,” says Chloe, “so having a reachable goal you’re driven to attain is motivating to continue in this industry.”
The Goal-Setting Mindset
According to long-time freight connoisseur Chloe, setting goals requires two key components: a big idea and the smaller, attainable goals that will get you there. It’s both WHERE are you going (big vision) and HOW you’re going to get there (attainable goals).
Chloe encourages freight agents to start with a three-year picture of where they want to be. “Start with the biggest, most grandiose goal out there, then peel it back into smaller, tangible goals,” says Chloe. The small successes and wins will both keep you motivated and get you to the ultimate goal in increments.
In addition to this “big picture, little steps” mentality, Chloe’s go-to phrase for setting goals is this: “Focus on the controllables.” With so many elements in freight out of an agent’s control, it’s easy to get discouraged or deterred by the unexpected. Instead of allowing yourself to get sidetracked, focus on the elements you can control: how many cold calls you make each day, what you can do to adjust your strategy and how you can hit your goal tomorrow if you didn’t today.
Setting Financial Goals
Since much of what we do in freight comes down to the gross profits, Tallgrass always starts new agents with a monthly goal that increases each month over the initial six months. In an agent’s first days with Tallgrass, the goal is $1,000. But by the end of their sixth month, we expect new agents to reach $10,000+ in gross profit. “With sales, it’s a numbers game,” says Chloe. “So the more activity and output you have, the more you can expect to earn.”
This is where focusing on the controllables comes in! You can’t control everything, and sales isn’t a perfect science, of course. But you can set financial goals (i.e., $20,000 in gross profits) and then break them down into smaller controllable goals such as:
- Dollars per day you need to earn to hit your goal
- Load count needed based on your markup
- Revenue margin
When Chloe was growing her own freight business, her strategy started with 100 cold calls per day. Within those 100 calls, she aimed to connect with at least 15 decision-makers. Of those 15, her goal was to get five email addresses that could turn into warm leads she would nurture in coming weeks. If Chloe hit her goal every day for a week, that left her with 25 warm leads she could work on pursuing throughout the following weeks or months.
Setting Entrepreneurial Goals
One of the main differences between a freight broker and a freight agent is the entrepreneur mindset, so setting goals from an entrepreneurial perspective can be just as effective as financial goals! Here are some entrepreneurial goals you can set to motivate your business’s continued growth:
Diversify Your Book of Business
As the saying goes, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. While it’s nice to have that one client who puts bread on the table, you don’t want to become completely dependent. “In this industry, you never know what could happen or change,” says Chloe. For example, your primary contact may move on to a new position, or the company could get acquired. Don’t leave your book of business to chance.
Your three-year goal may be to have a diversified book of business, so what can you be doing now to get there? Increasing the number of cold calls you make? Rethinking how you turn those calls into warm leads? Fine-tuning your follow-up strategy? The potential is endless.
Hiring a Team
Some agents prefer to keep it small and remain a one-person operation, and that’s great! But many have aspirations of becoming multi-million dollar freight agencies with multiple employees! The key to growing your freight agency’s team is identifying the right moment to hire someone new.
Chloe recommends considering hiring a new person for every $20,000 of profit you’re making, as that tends to be a good milestone for when your workload is growing beyond what a single person can manage. Hiring a team may add a new expense to your business. But that expense quickly pays for itself in how you serve your customers and making you available to develop new business. As Chloe puts it, “It’s new blood to the business.”
How Tallgrass Helps Agents Set and Achieve Goals
At Tallgrass Freight, we are as hands-on or hands-off as you want us to be after the initial six months. Our goal is always to help our agents achieve their goals! That’s why we work closely with new agents in those initial six months to help them brainstorm, strategize and even roleplay conversations to figure out how they will get from where they are to where they want to go. As we often say, we’re as hands-on as you want us to be.
Chloe emphasizes how helpful agents find it to roleplay cold calls with the Tallgrass leadership. “We can do this because we’ve been in their shoes and are also having constant conversations [with more seasoned agents] about what is or isn’t working for them in the market today,” says Chloe. In these conversations, we often can help an agent hone in on their niche and figure out who their ideal customer is, and that means each subsequent cold call holds greater value. When you’re chasing the right kind of business, that hustle becomes far more effective.
Set Yourself Up for Success
“Without a plan in place, you’re setting yourself up for failure,” says Chloe. At Tallgrass Freight, we want to help our freight agents do the opposite by finding what works for them and building a plan to bring those goals to life! If you’re ready to take the next step, become an agent at Tallgrass and let’s figure out what your first goal will be!