About this episode
Matt Murphy, who was on the founding team at tech enabled NEMT broker Circulation and later served as executive vice president of network at the national broker that acquired it, breaks broker negotiation into preparation, the negotiation itself, and the launch that follows. He tells host Nirav Chheda that providers lose leverage by walking in without knowing their daily cost per vehicle, their fuel, labor and insurance rates, or the mileage profile of the zip codes they serve. Murphy also advises splitting the talks across two separate contacts and calling the broker dispatch line daily after signing.
Key takeaways
- Murphy splits a broker negotiation into at least two contacts, and says the first should not touch rates at all, only questions about trip volumes and rate structure.
- Before talking rates, ask whether the card uses mileage buckets or a per mile rate, what average trip distances are, and what share of trips falls in each bucket.
- When rates are not negotiable, Murphy pushes for terms outside the contract, such as taking zip codes only if 80 percent are standing orders or dispatched 48 hours ahead.
- He advises waiting at least a year before reopening rates, then renegotiating annually or whenever insurance pools, statutes or minimum wage shift the underlying cost structure.
- After launch, dispatchers should call the broker daily about trip mix and pull mileage bucket reports weekly, while the owner meets the network manager monthly to compare promised volume against actual.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:18 Preparing to negotiate
- 5:18 Actually negotiating
- 11:03 Launching after negotiating
- 13:35 Conclusion
