Time and time again I call carriers asking, "How do you plan on finding your loads?" and 99% of brand new carriers say, "Oh, I'm just going to sign up with the DAT load board and get loads that way." If that's your entire business model, you're going to have a tough time.
I used to work for one of the top 10 brokers in the United States, Nolan Transportation Group (NTG), and that experience was a baptism by fire into the freight game. I sold over 500 truckloads a month to carriers, so I know a thing or two about moving freight. One of the most important things I learned there was that brokers HATE posting loads on DAT — posting is the final, last resort to sell a load. The good-paying loads are not going to be posted on DAT, 123, or TruckStop. You need different methods for finding loads, and here's what I recommend.
Think of your trucking business as a chair. A chair with four legs holds you up comfortably; a chair with two legs leaves you rocking, unstable, uncomfortable. You need multiple legs supporting your business so you're not trying to live off just one — the load board.
The first leg is a load board — DAT, TruckStop, 123LoadBoard, etc. When you're starting out, DAT alone is enough to get off the starting line. I used to book over 500 loads a month, and over 50% of the carriers I found to run them, I found on DAT.
The second leg is dispatchers. Find a dispatcher who can help you find loads — someone whose whole job is being a headhunter for carriers like you. They'll charge anywhere from 5% to 12%. As the saying goes, "it's who you know, not what you know," and dispatchers know tons of brokers, warehouses, and direct shippers. I recommend finding one to create that second chair leg keeping your truck rolling and earning.
The third leg is brokers and Carrier Sales Reps. When you book a load in an area you're in often, build a "Lane History Log Book" — a list of brokers you've run good loads for. So when you'll be in the area again, you can call and say, "Hey, I ran a load with you last Friday from Atlanta to Jacksonville, delivering Monday, paying $1,125. Today's Wednesday, but I'll be in the area again this Friday — do you have that load again?" Building this database and calling ahead — not waiting until it's posted for the whole world to see — gets you first dibs on loads before they're offered to the public.
The fourth and final leg is direct shippers — the easiest one, and yet nobody does it. Say your pickup is 30 minutes from home, close by, no big deadhead, paying well, and the shipper's polite and professional. Before you leave, ask whoever gave you the BOL, "Hey, can I talk to the warehouse manager?" Introduce yourself, hand them a business card, and say, "This is a great facility, I live 30 minutes away — how often do you get this load? I got it from a broker who paid me $X, but if you have this load 2-3 days a week, how about I run it directly for you, no broker needed?" Boom — you've got yourself a direct shipper moving dedicated freight consistently. Let your factor know the name of the direct shipper, and they can process those PODs for payment too.
So going back to the analogy: your business is the chair. Do you want to sit on one leg (the load board), or four legs holding you up comfortably? Diversify to keep your truck on the road, earning you money.