Trucking companies: is your dispatch office worth money?

What buyers value is the decision-making: matching loads to trucks, what to do when a driver hits the hours limit, how to break news of a late drop to a shipper. Those live in dispatch notes, the TMS and email.

ELD logs and telematics are machine data, not written work. Ask before assuming they are worth much alone. The note a dispatcher types while rerouting a load is just what buyers want.

Logistics tops Pewter's demand list, sits on micro1's list as logistics and operations, and appears on Polyshares' and Grepped's lists. Troveo counts it among the sectors labs pay extra for.

Headcount means people, not trucks. A few buyers only count US-based office employees, so drivers and leased owner-operators drop out.

Freight is one of the rare trades with public examples: Pewter says a 100-staff freight brokerage got $650,000 via its licensing partner. That is Pewter's own claim and does not name the company.

A carrier's inbox is full of shipper and broker names, and rate confirmations show your pricing. Scrubbing names leaves the rates intact. Exclude rate sheets if they matter, and keep driver HR and medical files out entirely.

Less than most owners expect. By the buyers' own estimates the owner's part is roughly 1 to 3 hours: a scoping call, deciding what is in and out, and approving the export. The buyer can usually work with your IT person or provider on the export itself.

Start with the match quiz using your headcount and systems, and get every promise in the written offer.