u/UnfairFrog

I spent a week sitting with several SMB brokerages and timed every step of every RFQ that came in. 247 RFQs that week. Here's the time breakdown per quote:

• Reading the email and figuring out what they actually want: ~4 minutes
• Looking up the lane in the TMS or rate sheet: ~3 minutes
• Calling 2-3 carriers or posting to a load board: ~12 minutes
• Waiting for carrier callbacks: ~47 minutes (mostly dead time)
• Doing the margin math and writing the response: ~6 minutes
• Sending: ~1 minute

Total active time per quote: about 26 minutes. Total elapsed: 73 minutes.

Out of 247 RFQs, he won 38. Win rate around 15 percent.

Here's the part I didn't expect. The brokers he lost to weren't cheaper. They were faster. RFQs answered in under 10 minutes won 31 percent. RFQs answered over an hour won 4 percent. Same lanes. Same customers. Same rates.

What does your time-to-quote look like? And what's the part of the process you'd hand off if you could?