Tallgrass is where the best in freight come to thrive, and freight agent Tom V.’s story illustrates exactly that! With more than two decades of freight industry experience, Tom came to Tallgrass with his eye on the prize, desiring a career that gave him the freedom and independence to succeed on his terms. And that’s precisely what he has found as a Tallgrass freight agent. Get to know Tom and see how his vision aligned so well with ours, and how he’s found so much success here at Tallgrass.
Where He Was: Life Before Tallgrass
Tom started his post-college career in advertising and sales, but quickly got involved with the logistics and freight side of the company. He fell in love with the freight and logistics aspects of this job — so much, in fact, that in 2012, he pursued a new opportunity fully focused on freight.
While this helped him gain a lot of experience and learn the ropes of being a freight broker, Tom was dissatisfied with the limited freedoms he had there.
After a brief stint in freight software sales, Tom’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to a sales position in a totally different industry to explore a career outside of freight. This didn’t last long, as Tom realized how much he loved freight! So back in he went, but this time with a new career goal: to find a freight brokerage where he could own his book of business, have freedom as an agent and chase his ambitions.
While he found this freedom with a smaller Mom-and-Pop freight company for a while, their lack of sophisticated systems for reporting and commission was limiting Tom’s growth potential. So about six months later, Tom connected with Tallgrass on LinkedIn.
After three weeks of meetings with Damon and David, Tom took the leap and joined Tallgrass in August 2017. While chatting with our leadership team, Tom noticed how well their goals and vision for freight brokering aligned. “I appreciated how Damon was very hands-on as a broker, beyond his role as an owner,” recalls Tom, “As he was running his own book, he was in the same seat that I was in as an agent.” Their shared drive and ambition really clicked.
At the time, Tom’s goal was to find a home with the structure, team and systems in place to let him be an agent and build his business as he saw fit. At Tallgrass, he found was he was looking for — and as Tallgrass has grown, he has found so much more.
Where He is Today: Success with Tallgrass
In the six years since Tom joined our team, Tallgrass has continued to improve our systems, from back office support to our freight CRM and everything in between — and for Tom, it’s all added up to advantages in his career. Tom has especially appreciated the work culture that encourages agents to share their ideas and feedback with us so we can make our backend support the best it can be.
Tom appreciates how we challenge ourselves as a company to provide Tallgrass agents with resources, opportunities, and different ways to grow their businesses and themselves. “Tallgrass has experienced exceptional growth since I joined,” Tom reflects. “But Tallgrass has the same mindset of caring for each agent in and outside of the freight world. This personal touch helps them align well with their agents and meet the career and personal goals of agents.”
And as far as Tom’s success with Tallgrass, the numbers speak for themselves. His own timeline of growth is truly admirable:
LIFETIME REVENUE GROWTH: 79% increase from first load through December 2022
LIFETIME MARGIN GROWTH: 10% increase from first load through December 2022
Top-of-the-Line Systems for Top-of-the-Line Success
As an agent with experience in logistics working with a bigger box store, Tom knows that there tends to be a lot of negative change in the freight industry, from commissions to ethics to logistics. But he hasn’t experienced any of that at Tallgrass.
“They run the business with a lot of pride and a focus on ethics,” says Tom. “Being an agent at Tallgrass has been life-changing for me, and my family. It has catapulted my career in sales as an individual agent to stages that I didn’t know I could get to, stages that I didn’t know existed. It’s a very gratifying role.”
Tom will be the first to tell you that being a freight agent is not easy. It requires a lot of work and dedication, but at the end of the day it’s an incomparable experience. When talking with friends in other industries and career paths, Tom always notices how different his career with Tallrass is. He has so much independence and support from a backend team who is always cheering him on, and most of his friends can’t say the same for their companies.
Take the Leap
Like Tom, you may have experience in freight brokering and know the hard work that goes into it, and that experience will only serve to show you how amazing the opportunity is that Tallgrass presents its agents! Tom and his colleagues all agree they only wish they had made the move earlier in their careers.
Everyone takes a different path to become an agent, but if your road leads to Tallgrass then you’re headed in the right direction! Contact us to learn how we can help skyrocket your freight career!
