About this episode
Stephanie Harmon spent about 15 years as a police officer in Winston Salem, North Carolina before starting a transportation company with her son and, more recently, an independent NEMT brokerage that passes trips to providers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Arkansas. She tells Nirav Chheda she never planned to become a broker, that she handed trips to other providers for free until a friend told her to take a cut, and that a TikTok video of hers argued brokers will make you broke. She also covers provider meetups, rate math, and a six week course on business fundamentals.
Key takeaways
- Harmon refuses trips priced below cost. She says a broker paying 15 dollars each way when her own expense math calls for 25 leaves a new owner starting out in the red.
- She fell into brokering by accident. For a stretch she handed trips to other providers for nothing, until a former contract driver told her she should be splitting the fare.
- Offered as an illustrative example, she priced a Greensboro to Durham trip near 480 dollars against the provider's own quote of about 190, then planned to call and have the invoice raised.
- She does not own a wheelchair van and does not advertise that. Wheelchair requests get routed to providers she met through her course, her consultations and her meetups.
- At her provider meetups she runs a Soul Train line so owners have to deliver a thirty second pitch, on the theory that owners who freeze cannot sell to facilities.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:47 Stephanie's background
- 7:47 Consulting others on dealing with brokers
- 11:27 Losing money on broker trips
- 15:47 Building relationships and networks
- 18:40 Starting to broker NEMT trips
- 23:50 Growing the broker business
- 25:40 Being a high-trust broker
- 30:50 Relationship with Bambi
- 32:58 Learning about transportation
- 35:40 Building relationships all over America
- 37:47 Organically increasing broker business's reach
- 39:50 Collaboration over competition
- 43:10 Why you can trust Stephanie
- 46:00 Conclusion
