Prospecting New Shippers Without The Pressure | Episode 328

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

Welcome back to the Freight 360 podcast. Gonna have a great episode today. We're gonna talk about prospecting. It's like the number one uh requested topic, Ben, that we get from everybody. And we we do a lot of content on this. And you not, you and I have spent a lot of time recently within our own companies and you know doing some external coaching and whatnot, whether it's with the TIA or just other other folks. But this is a great, great chance for us to just really go through a lot of the basic tips on how to get yourself over that hump to find the right leads, what to say, questions to ask, what to avoid, and things like that. So we're gonna have a good, a great prospecting episode today for all the listeners out there. If you're brand new to us, you caught us out a great one, check out all the other content in our back uh library or back catalog, whatever it's called, freight360.net, and on our YouTube channel, you'll find the Freight Broker Basics course there. If you're looking for a training option, share it with your friends, all the good things, like, subscribe. And if you're looking for a new TMS, uh, this episode is brought to you by Ascend TMS. It is the preferred and recommended TMS for small to medium-sized brokers. That's a lot of our audience. It is very user-friendly, and you can get started for free. 90 days, no credit card required on their full pro version. Just make sure you use our promo code listed down below, and uh you'll get three months for free. So, Ben, what's going on? You got you guys just like dodged apparently like the ice and snowstorm that most of the country hit.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

Yes and no. Like, I mean, yes, the first one, like it was it, we actually got warmer because I think as the cold air came above us, it brought warm air up because it went into the 80s, like it was hot, like over the weekend. But as a Tuesday, the lows are like in the 40s, highs are in the 60s. In fact, I think Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, over those three days, like it's gonna be 32. Like it's gonna hit freezing here. And I don't even know if in the whatever dozen years I've lived here, I it it's ever been like literally below freezing. So we definitely have the cold front coming through this week, which is actually kind of nice. Like, I kind of miss the cold weather, at least the change a little bit. So, like, I don't have your weather, but I still have fridges, man.

SPEAKER_00: 2:32

Like, it's just cold.

SPEAKER_01: 2:34

And like I it's so funny because like I still listen to Pittsburgh Radio every morning, like their morning shows. So like I hear them talking the same way I did when I lived up north about the snow shoveling driveways, and like it's kind of nice because like I'll walk my dog in the morning, I'm like, oh, it's like 4550. So like it's not that cold, but like it's chilly enough that it makes me nostalgic, I guess.

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

So I'm like, dude, speaking of Pittsburgh, Mike McCarthy, you guys hired as your new coach. Bill's basically just hired from within. We got Joe Brady, who was literally the quarterback's coach, and then got elevated to OC when we fired Ken Dorsey, and now he's the head coach. Now that we fired McDermott. So um a lot, I think there was like what 10? We were talking about this last week, but like 10 head coaching changes. So there's a lot. Yeah. But uh we'll see. Anyway, that's sports. Um, back to winter weather, though. Like this is like I'll just kind of shift into like the news news bit here for freight, but like this was this was a big one, and it impacted a lot. Like we had, first of all, this happens every year, but not always on as broad of a scale and as much of an impact, right? A lot of times it's more of an isolated incident or more focused in a certain region. It's like hurricanes, right? Like they're gonna come and impact, you know, certain areas of the country every year. But like this storm was big and people knew it was coming. I had one of my agents call me last week and he's like, hey, um, just a little, you know, bit of feedback and a tip for everybody else. He goes, I just talked to my customer about the upcoming storm. This was like maybe I think it was like Thursday, right before it was coming in that weekend. And he's like, they really weren't aware of how big of an impact it was gonna have. So they ended up tossing me like an extra four or five loads to get covered. And he goes, I'd recommend everyone else do that. And I was like, absolutely. So, like, you know, fast forward, storm happens, you know, people are refusing to go into certain areas for various reasons, and um, rates go wild. We had a driver earlier this week like emailing us complaining that they couldn't get unloaded and blah, blah, blah. And they showed up on Saturday and there was no one there, and they're like, Well, we're like, Yeah, like originally you were scheduled to deliver Saturday um by noon. And then later in the week, when the projections came out, we told you that the receiver will be open on Saturday, but they are shutting down at nine o'clock. So if you can't get there by nine o'clock, you um, you know, you you're gonna have to wait until after the storm. And they're like, okay. And then they showed up at 10 o'clock on Saturday, no one's there, and they're complaining they want, you know, they have our our customers freight on board, and they, you know, they're demanding we pay them for their time, blah, blah, blah. And we're like, dude, we we told you this stuff ahead of time. Like, we'll try to work it out with you, but this is an act of God. Like, we we don't have control over it, you don't have control over it, the shipper and receiver don't have control over it. We've done all the communication, and it came down to like the carrier like or dispatcher, like failed to confirm with the receiver that the things that we told them. They just blindly were like, I think the re I think the dispatcher never relayed to the driver that new cutoff time or whatever. And um, driver could have made it, but didn't. So it's like this stuff happens all the time, but it causes it causes chaos and and heartbreak and all kinds of things. So, but it'll, you know, within a few days or a week, it tends to kind of all unravel itself and get back to normal, kind of like hurricanes. But what's your what was what's been your experience with this winter storm? Was it Fern or something like that?

SPEAKER_01: 6:08

I mean, it's the same thing, right? And it's like brokerages, like yes, we handle shipping, but the reality is like we're in the people and communication business, right? So like document everything, make sure you're confirming things multiple times. That's why I'm like a huge advocate of like phone calls to drivers, not just to dispatchers, because if you get enough loads over the road, one of the dispatchers is either going to forget or get busy, or maybe just not pay attention to it, it gets lost, and it never gets to the person that matters. So, like I've always just made sure those phone calls and someone actually speaks to the driver, confirms them, and lets them know at the very least as soon as humanly possible. And to your point, like, I mean, it's two sides to the same coin, right? Like, if a driver is on the way somewhere and there's a storm in between where they pick up and deliver, and the driver can't make it, like that happens. It's an act of God. No one's gonna yell at the driver. Like maybe some like unethical people or just really rude people may, and I'm sure that happens from time to time. But like usually the receiver will work with that driver to take them when they can get there because they can't control the weather, right? Or an accident or any of those things, right? Well, the same thing happens at receivers, too, right? Like, hey, I know you're on your way there, but guess what? Like, they're expecting a foot and a half of snow in the next five hours, so they need their employees to be safe and to get home. So like we've got to now work with them. Like, if we all just cooperate, all this stuff gets a little easier and there's always a way through it as long as everybody knows what's going on. I think that's like the biggest takeaway in situations like this.

SPEAKER_00: 7:43

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. I like how you said we're in the communication and people business because like so much of all of these issues that we deal with comes down to just, or like, you know, when they come up, a lot of it's preventable had you like communicated properly. So um any other news going on freight-wise? Did I see did did CH Robinson lay off like a hundred people remotely? Didn't see that. I thought I saw that somewhere. I don't know. The big like company recent one is the R family of companies. Um I didn't realize how many companies they owned. There's a there's like like five or six because we had a we've had like an influx. I want to say we've we got like at Pierce, we had like three new agents join us this month. Um that we you know, these are people that we've we've known. So like one of our guys that works at Pierce used to work at um AGX. Like they're like, they're one of the R and R companies. So he had like some contacts that these guys, when the news came out, like he's just talking to them. He's like, dude, he's like, are you guys gonna lose your lose your job? Are they shutting it down? They're like, we don't know, they're not paying, they're not paying carriers. And they're like, can we come work for you at Pierce? And we're like, yeah, like what's let's bring you over. Um so a lot of opportunity there, if you want to look at it that way, if you're in the growing your growing your uh head count, like whether it's an agent or a W2, depending on how you want to set them up, but um, yeah, that was pretty big. And I think it came down to I mean, what does it always come down to? Mismanagement of of uh funds. Yeah, debt exactly. So and I think they're expect I don't know if it it if it was announced that they were expected to basically file bankruptcy, which um even if the even if it's the I forget what chapter is where you just kind of re-org, um, it's gonna shake a lot of things up.

SPEAKER_01: 9:40

So yeah, a lot of customers up for grabs, lots of loads that someone was moving that they can't move anymore, that are all up for grabs for prospecting, which we're gonna dig into today, right? Yeah, things are always changing, things are always shifting. Some things are better, some things are worse. But as long as they're changing, there's an opportunity to go grab a new customer, grab a new lane, grab another carrier, and to be able to expand whatever you're doing.

SPEAKER_00: 10:03

Yeah. So let me set the stage here and I'm gonna kind of let you run with it. Um we were talking about this off-air beforehand, but I one of the things I do a lot with um the agents that work for our company is um those that want it, I will, you know, we'll we'll do some just kind of general business meeting and you talk through um what their goals are, kind of how they're performing, what their tactics are, and try to give a second perspective um, you know, and and some a second opinion on what they're doing, because maybe they're missing something, right? Maybe they're like, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, but I'm I'm struggling to grow and to get new business. And because they're only they're operating in their little tunnel, right? Whereas if you're, you know, a team leader or a manager, director, whatever, you've got a whole slew of of folks underneath you on the team that you've got um, you know, your own experience plus your interaction with everybody else to kind of get the the overall sense of where things are going and what's working and what's not, to then share that with an individual. So this guy, um I forget where he had worked previously, but he had started in brokerage, um, kind of like in the COVID heyday, when like, you know, it was just like it was almost like the Wild West, right? Where you could just pick up the phone and just about any customer would talk to you because they were all having issues securing truck capacity. And they they answer they're basically like the way the conversation was like, if you can get me a truck, this loads yours. Like that, I mean, am I right there? Like that is that is what it sounded like. The issue was now you're talking to drivers who want five bucks a mile, and they're they're you know, they're falling out because someone else is offering them more, and it was just nuts, right? So, but overall, when he had started and got his first couple of customers, that's what the experience was like. You know, then he took some time off. I think he had like a non-compete non cluster, something like that. Um, comes back in with us last year and has just really struggled to struggle to get business revamped. And I had to like take a minute and just kind of explain the reality of the market now versus how things were, you know, years previous, right? Where, you know, what a lot of companies have done, and this, you know, depending on when you're prospecting, when you're listening to this episode, this could apply to you, or it could be a different variation of a market cycle. But um what a lot of customers did after, you know, the COVID craze is like they're like, someone, someone's like, guys, we have 700 transportation vendors right now. We need to trim this down, right? We can't have this many brokers and carriers that we're you know having as payables and trying to, you know, track different accounts and whatnot. And a lot of them went through and they refined it down. Like, who are our base, you know, our trusted asset-based carriers? Who are the couple of brokers that we're gonna have for our spot loads and you know, business that we didn't expect, et cetera? So you might go in there and say, like, hey, call, call your old, your buddy Jim at ABC Lumber. You're like, hey, Jim, I'm over at you know, XYZ logistics now, let's get set up. And he's like, let's go. And then he goes to his procurement team or whatever, transportation department, and they're like, Yeah, we're not adding, we're not adding anybody new right now. We're still trying to trim it down. So, you know, this guy, he's got like three, three of his big customers that he was excited about, and he's like, I just can't get on board with them. And I'm like, Well, well, you know, what else have you been prospecting? And that's when he's like, I don't even know what to prospect because I haven't had to in so long. So, you know, I we had a really good conversation about it. But that's I kind of wanted to set the stage with that because you get a lot of people that they're either you're either brand new and you got to build up from nothing, um, or maybe you lost a customer or you're starting to lose business from some of your customers, and you're like, I gotta get back in the saddle here. Which, and I'll preface with you should always be prospecting, right? That should be a a pivotal part of your business. But uh, we're gonna talk through some some real world tactical tips, um, techniques, what to do, what not to do, what to say, how to avoid certain objections, etc. But what do you got for us, Ben?

SPEAKER_01: 14:06

Well, I'm gonna start where you kind of like brought us to, which is there's always expansion and contraction, meaning things get bigger and smaller. So, like, let's just look at the number of vendors or brokers at a shipper, which we are one of those people, right? Yeah, prospecting is I don't know you, and I've got to get you to know you, like me, and trust me in order for you to add me to that list of vendors. So the first thing to understand is like that changes, and it changes based on the ability, ease, and price of getting a truck to move your freight. Okay. So if there's not enough trucks to move the amount of loads you need moved in any city or in a whole country, then shippers are more likely to add more brokers because they just can't get their stuff moved. I've sold Nate a truckload of basketballs, and I can't get a truck to pick this up for the past three days. Nate's yelling at me, my broker can't get me a truck. So somebody calls me, dude, you get me a truck today, the load's yours. Nate needs the basketballs. That's why during COVID, it was much easier to call somebody, get onboarded, and get a load. Because if they can't move it, anybody that can move it gets the green light. You could do that in one phone call, right? If you've got the truck or the capacity. Well, post-COVID, what happens is there was a lot of trucks and lots of people entered the market to move freight because there was a lot of money to be made, and then there was more trucks than there were loads to move every day. So rates come down. Well, the other thing that happens to understand what it looks like from the person you're calling to get onboarded with is their accounting department, right? Just keep it simple. The people that literally write checks and pay bills, they're like, okay, I would rather not write checks to 50 different brokers every month because I got to reconcile that, make sure the number's accurate. I have to pay money to actually send money to another person, whether it's fees, ACH funds, and there's just more work for me. So companies have an inherent, like already there, incentive to have the smallest number of vendors while retaining good pricing and good service. They don't want any more than they're. So there's more reasons, but the the big takeaway is like this changes. And the first indicator that is changing is your ability to cover your own freight. So where I always start with brokers that have a book of business, and we're talking about this, is I'm like, how does your book look? And right now in the past month, this is a great example because everyone I've talked to is like, I have this customer, they're sending me five, six loads a day. I can't get their loads covered or at their rate. Rates are going up. There's a lot of pressure. They want me to stay at five grand where I was at all year last year on this lane, but now this lane's 6,300. Well, shippers are always going to try to keep rates where they were because their boss is like, we don't want to pay any more than last year. But the broker is looking at the market going, well, hey, there isn't a truck that's going to take your freight for five grand when every other shipper in your city is paying trucks$6,300. So it's not us, it's the other companies that are looking for the same asset on the same day as you in your area, willing to pay more than you're willing to. So you're not going to get one. Now, shippers are going to keep arguing with their brokers and try to make that work. And eventually they're going to have to pay what the market is going to tell them, right? Well, that same problem you have moving your customers' freight today or this week or last week or this month is the same thing happening to every other shipper in that market that ships that lane. So the problem in your right hand becomes an opportunity in your left hand, which is prospecting. The harder it is for you to get your customers' freight moved, the tighter the market is, the more rate pressure there is, or the less trucks there are, the more likely the phone call you make to a shipper in that same city is running into the same problem with their brokers. Because we all access the same market. It's all the same market, right? So these things that seem terrible end up being really beneficial and huge opportunities for the other aspect of your job, right? Which I don't think most people just inherently connect.

SPEAKER_00: 20:08

Yeah. And you brought up a pretty good point there that I want to expand on, is that one of the ways that you can really build rapport and gain trust with a customer is to very clearly let them know, not that like you are the almighty, I'm gonna get you a truck, it's gonna be the greatest truck and it's gonna be the cheapest truck. What your job is, is to get them access to the market. And if you can just level with them and be like, look, here's what we're dealing with capacity-wise, here are a few options that we can look at, right? If it's gotta go today, right, the market is wild, we're gonna have to pay a premium to be able to secure that capacity. If we've got a little bit more time to work on it, we can let things shake out and we can try to find the right truck and spend some time to really work that carrier network and try to get you a more um reasonable price. But when you can, even with just two options like that, right? You're not telling them that here's my price. You're saying, well, here are some options and here's why these are the options, and here's what this means for you. So I think that's a really good way. And a lot of brokers don't do that. Actually, I had this conversation yesterday with somebody about insurance. And they're like, Well, you know, what do we do? You know, if the customer, my Sometimes my customer has you know loads worth$700,000. And um I'm like, well, here are some options, and you can go to your customer with these options and let them decide. You can say, All right, we're gonna buy an all-risk policy and it's gonna start at$1.1, cover the entire thing. If there's a claim, you are the beneficiary of it, and it'll settle within 30 days. Here's the price, it's the more expensive option. An alternative method, I can find a carrier that's got 100K, and we can go buy a spike policy that's gonna cover above 100K. It's gonna be a little bit cheaper, but if there's a claim, now we have two separate claims to file. One on this spike policy and one on the carrier's policy. The carrier's policy might take four months to settle. There's a chance that something could go wrong there. So you could save some money, but you know, there's your added risk. And let the customer decide. And let alone right there, when we were talking about it, he's like, wow, he goes, if I do that, like I'm I I really come across as like a future value added to my customer. Exactly what you should be, right?

SPEAKER_01: 22:28

Correct. Yeah. So let's go back to like this example. I can't cover, I'll just a Houston to Seattle lane for my customer that I was running all year last year for$5,000. Okay. Can't cover it at all. Customers tell me they have more issues, they're really upset. The market's at$6,800 for that lane this month because of the storm and all the other things and the you know holidays, yada, yada, yada. So they're super frustrated. I'm frustrated, I'm not making commission, I'm not moving their loads. Now, let's take that same thing and let's use that to our advantage. So now I look at all the other companies that ship, I don't know, just asparagus, okay, from Houston to Seattle. And I have a list of a hundred companies that all ship that from Houston to Seattle. Now, I've got two approaches. I would say the most common approach for newer salespeople or salespeople that have come from like business to consumer sales is hi, this is Benjamin Kowalski. I work with XYZ. I'm really good at moving reefer freight. I'm really good at moving dry van freight. I can handle your drayage, maybe you're international, and we have the best service. Do you have any loads that I can move for you today? Okay. So, first off, and this is the thing, the analogy I always kind of use. We were talking about off-air, but I do this in most trainings. I'm like, I ask people before I start any of these, I'm like, how do you open your calls? And the most common for newer folks is they say their name, who they're working for, and what they're good at, and then ask for something. Okay. Now, the thing that I always do is like, I want people to learn this, not to just lecture them, which you and I talk about in a lot of the trainings we do is like engaging people to get them to think about this. And like the first thing I'll always ask is when you get a phone call from anybody you know or anybody that you actually engage in a conversation with, do any of those people ever say who they are and where they're calling from? Answer is always no. Like, okay. Well, when somebody does call you and you don't recognize the number and they say their name and where they work, what is the first thing that comes to mind? They're like, oh, they're trying to sell me something.

SPEAKER_00: 24:33

They're trying to sell me something.

SPEAKER_01: 24:34

Yep. And then I go, what do you do right after you realize that or hear that? The moment you hear that, how to get them off the phone.

SPEAKER_00: 24:41

Or just right.

SPEAKER_01: 24:43

Which I did that yesterday with somebody.

SPEAKER_00: 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:45

Exactly. Which is an objection. Okay. So most people want to know how do I handle the objection after I get it? But the truth is, it's better to avoid the objection in the first place than to try to handle it after you get it. The best way to handle objections is to just get less of them. Like that's step one. So if everybody that calls you and says their name and who they work for, you make them go away, let's not sound like the people that you want to go away and just at least change the perception and the way they're going to hear you in their first interaction with you.

SPEAKER_00: 25:20

Let me, yeah, let me pivot or hop in here too. So I had, like I mentioned the conversation I had with somebody. Um, I had another person that I talked with last week, similar conversation. Um, two different people. One's a guy, one's a girl, one has more experience, one has less experience, one has a um very vibrant tone of voice and is very um energetic. The other one is a little bit more um, you know, I don't want to say monotone, but like a you know, more moderate speaking pace. Yeah. And that's why I, you know, I've I've told both of them, and I've told people this, I tell them all the time, is like, you have to find the best way to use your personality and your voice effectively in a call. And it's gonna be different for every single person. Yes. Right? And that's why people are like, well, do you have a script? And it's like, yeah, you can find a script. But if two people that are two different personalities read the same script, one might sound great, and the other one might sound just super awkward, right?

SPEAKER_01: 26:26

So here's the the way I usually kind of explain this is I'm like, you basically have three call it variables or three things that come into play when you call somebody. You have what you say, right? You have your rate of speech, how fast or slow you speak. I can either speak like this or I can speak really slow at the same tone of voice. And then you have tone, pitch, up, high, low, right? Just like an instrument. How fast are you playing, how high, how low, and what notes you're playing, right? It's the same thing with your voice. So to your point, like you can have the same song played by two people. One sounds really good, one sounds really poor, and then someone can play those same notes differently with different pitch and rate of speed, and it sounds different. It's the same thing with your voice, right? So I always start with what you're saying, and then let people just intuitively or instinctively find their pitch and rate of speech, how fast or slow, how high or low, based on the feedback they're getting in the phone calls. This is why it's so important to practice this, not just in front of a mirror, but on a phone call. Because when a person like pushes you away or you feel the friction where like it's not connecting, your brain realizes this like instinctively before you actually know why it worked or didn't work. So like you learn really quick when you keep making phone calls of like, when I talk like this, I keep getting people pushing me away and hanging up on me. So then you just instinctively bring it down. And then you just will change based on how much pain and resistance you get from the other person. So, like, I always start with like, come up with like what you want to say, write it down for yourself, and then just do this a couple hundred times, which is like two days. You will fall into what works with your personality, to your point, right?

SPEAKER_00: 29:47

Yeah. I want let me add in here too. Um, I think about some of the best brokers we've got in our company. And when I when I personally have a conversation with them, it's a fun conversation. Like we feel like you're you're reviving with them. We kind of match each other's um personalities and everything. And I think that's both of us doing a good job at matching the other when it matters the most. And then I look at people who struggle, and oftentimes I'm like, yeah, it's like hard to have a conversation with them. And um, sometimes what you need to work on is not what to say, it's just really just how to speak overall more comfortably and more effectively. Like I used to work with a sales guy um in retail that he literally was just his voice was so annoying. And um I like I feel bad like saying that, but the reality is we all learn how to adapt and change the way that we handle certain things and the way that we talk in certain situations, or at least we can change that. And that might be something that you need to do when you're new into brokerage, is to just work on, like you said, 200 times, work on that, right? And you'll you'll fine tune it. We always call it like find your voice, right?

SPEAKER_01: 30:58

Yep. Now, to like the other thing that I think on this topic that is really important and often overlooked, right, is listening. Everyone wants to focus on what they're saying and how they're gonna convince the other person to do what they want. But a conversation is me speaking, you listening, hearing, understanding what I say, and then responding in a way that makes sense. That's why conversations flow, right? The two types of listening, right? You can listen to respond and listen to understand. And everybody at some point can remember listening to respond. It's when I am so excited to tell you something that while you're talking, all I'm thinking about is what I'm gonna say next. And I didn't hear a damn thing you said, what you meant, your tone of voice, where you're coming from, none of it. I'm just waiting for you to stop so that I can say what I want. A really good place where you see this a lot is in like political arguments between two different people from two different sides. Neither one is hearing anything the other one's saying. They're just waiting to make their next point. And that's not a conversation. Those things aren't flowing. Nobody's getting to know each other, nobody's learning anything, and that's not really a back and forth, right? So, listening to understand, right? There's a really simple tip I used a long time ago to practice this. And the other thing I would add is like, it's really important to practice this, not just on sales calls. Like, do this all day with everybody you know. You will get so much better at it so much faster. And guess what? Like, the other thing I'll do with people is I'm like, think about when you're upset. And the first person that comes to your mind that you would call when you're upset about anything, right? Does that person talk most of the time or are they a really good listener? And everybody will say, When I'm upset, I call this person because they're a really good listener. I'm like, that person literally could say nothing for 40 minutes. You could talk the whole time, get off the phone, feel better, and feel like that person was there for you, right? Yeah. That is like active listening. That's what connects us to other people, right? Now you don't have to go to that extreme, but like a really good tip to practice this is count to three every time there's a transition in the conversation. So as soon as you're done talking, go in your head. One, two, three, then respond. First, it will stop you from just responding without thinking. The second thing is you'll be shocked that the other person will keep talking sometimes when you give them that space. And in a prospecting call, like I've done this and had people tell me literally everything I've needed to know without even asking a question. Like they just kept filling that silence because silence is also a really powerful tool in sales. Like if I just say nothing, most people will talk because silence makes them uncomfortable. And you can use that silence to help keep the conversation going, right? So just practicing listening to hear, not just because just like you have three tools, if you will, like what you say, how fast you say it, and your tone, so does the other person, right? So when you give yourself that space, that few moments between them stopping talking and you talking, you are now starting to process. Does this person seem frustrated? Do they seem at ease? Do they seem comfortable talking to me, or do they seem like they need to get off the phone? And that's all the other information you get in a verbal interaction that you never get in a text message or any written communication. That's the other 90% we lose when we don't talk to other human beings, right? So, like just those things alone are gonna help you a ton. But I'm gonna loop this all the way back into the other thing. Okay, so that example, I've got Houston to Seattle, asparagus. I can't cover my customers' loads. So people are like, well, what do I say when I call somebody though? Right? Like, what am I gonna open my call with if I don't say who I am and what I'm good at and what I can help them with, right? You start with the problem you had with your other customer. So now I'm calling Nate, who ships asparagus from Houston to Seattle. Or at least I know he's in Houston and he has the same commodity. So he probably ships it up there. It's at least a good likelihood, right? My opening to Nate is gonna be I'm literally just going, as soon as he picks up the phone. Hey, Nate, I was just reaching out because like a bunch of my other customers, specifically um XYZ produce, I know they do a lot of asparagus out of your area. They've been having a hell of a time getting capacity up to Seattle. At least the number of trucks they need, and I know the rates have been an issue. Look, that's my opening. Like just that right there. I'm literally just saying your name and telling you the thing and who's experiencing the problem. Because that does so many things. One, it doesn't, it's not me telling Nate, I have other customers and I'm good at this job. I showed Nate that by explaining a problem he likely has that I'm experiencing with somebody he probably knows. He also knows that I'm moving freight, so I'm at least decent at my job, and I'm good enough at my job to recognize these problems and recognize them well enough to know that if I tell you, it might be helpful for you. So it's literally like showing somebody a resume without bragging and also adding value, right? Because my next objective after avoiding sounding like a salesperson and making you give me an objection is I've got to get to what's in it for you as fast as humanly possible. I just interrupted your day. If I don't get to what's in it for you, you're gonna give me an objection. Or just tell me you're not working with anybody, or tell me you gotta go, or a whole host of other objections to make me go away, right? Like that is like step one and two. Don't give them a reason to give you an objection. And two, get to something that at least could be helpful to the person you called, right?

SPEAKER_00: 36:29

Yeah. No, that's a good point. And I want to add this in too. And I you had me thinking about it earlier, is um when you're talking with a prospective new customer, and I've had this happen where like before the call, I'm like, yeah, everything looks like it's a great opportunity. And I get on the phone and the person is just like either a hard egg to crack or like I just don't, I just don't click with them. And it's it feels like a lot of work to have the conversation. My personal preference is just to move on. When there are hundreds of thousands of opportunities out there, I'm not gonna waste a lot of mental calories or get stressed over having a heavy lift phone call. Just like if it if it just feels hard to have the conversation, no thank you. There's too many other options out there. I wanted to point that out.

SPEAKER_01: 37:17

I agree. I will add a caveat, right? We're dealing with people, and like everybody has good days and bad days, right? So like I typically, and it it has to be a company. That's a good thing it has to be a company I want to work with for some other reason, not just a random phone number is the first thing, right? So, like if you, if I know you ship asparagus on the same lane and I know you have enough volume, and I know other carriers and other customers have told me about you and it could be a good fit, then what I'll do is like, I'll call you back in three or four days at a different time of day and see if I get the same thing. And if it's like pulling teeth the second time, I'll probably call another person at your company and then see how that one goes before I scrap it. Maybe a third time if I really want to work with you. And if I get it two or three times where I confirm it's just no way that I'm gonna be able to connect with you, I'm gonna try to reach someone else at the company or move on to your point, right? Because everybody knows when they're frustrated, they don't sound the way they normally do versus when they're in a good mood. Right. So, like I at least verify more than once that it's not just a bad day or time of day before I go, this person's not worth connecting with or doesn't have the ability to connect with. Now, the thing that I want to go back to is like, okay, so I call you, hey, and I just literally start the conversation. And then I go, right after I say, Nate, look, hey, I know you guys move a lot of asparagus. One of my other companies is literally right up the road from you. They ship a ton up to Seattle. I don't know if you guys are running into this, but they're having a hell of a time getting capacity up into the Northwest, rates are going up, and there's just a lot less trucks, specifically with the weather. Now, as soon as I get to what's in it for you, right, which at the very least usually gets you to at least give me a moment where you pay attention to me. That's all I'm trying to get. A window. Crack that door where you at least for a moment stop reading the email you were reading or stop doing the thing you were doing to just glance or look at the phone of like, okay, because if I can get you there, it's like the nibble on a on a fishing line, right? Like, I don't have the hook set yet, but I have you there and I can kind of feel like I at least got your attention and you didn't throw an objection. I don't wait and I don't pause there. I immediately do what's called a takeaway, which is like I relieve the pressure. Cause when you call somebody and you say something that can help them, like they kind of are expecting it's a pattern, they're expecting you to ask for something. Hey, I think you guys are probably running into this. I've run into my other customers. The other shoe to drop that they're waiting for is now this guy's gonna ask me for a load or ask me for business, right? Which is the second obstacle and the second area to get an objection, right? So I don't ask for anything. I do the opposite. I go right after I go, look, I don't know if you guys are running this. And to be honest, Nate, like I don't even know if we'd be a fit to work together. Like, I don't really know too much about your operations. I'm not even sure if you guys are moving that lane this time of year, but I thought it was worth a chat or at least reaching out because I do have a couple of carriers that have capacity heading up there on a few days of the week. And I thought it might make sense at some point for us to see if this is a fit. So I take that pressure back out of it by going, telling them the truth. Cause like I don't know. I don't know. Are you first come, first served by appointment? What are you putting in your trucks? What's the temp? What are your insurance requirements? What does it look like at delivery? How many days, which days of the week are you moving the freight? How consistent is it? All the questions a carrier would ask me if I was gonna negotiate a dedicated rate with them, I know none of those things. And I don't even know if you have credit, I don't know if you pay your bills, nothing, right? So it's absolutely true. And it is true that I probably could help you if I have other carriers that run this for another customer, but it also makes you now feel like, okay, Ben's not gonna ask me for something right now. He doesn't know me well enough to promise me cheap rates or all of the world without knowing anything about my business, which is the other red flag, which makes people throw up objections, like, oh, I'll get you cheaper rates and I can do better than who you're working with. They're thinking in the back of that, you don't know a damn thing about me. You know nothing about our business, you don't know what I do, when I do it, what I need, or what I expect. How in the world can you tell me you're gonna do it better than the other guy or cheaper? Like, that's ridiculous, right? Yeah. So when you do that, those are like the really the first two steps where you have step one. If you're moving free, you've got a problem somewhere. And if you got a problem somewhere, you can use that to call other companies likely experiencing the same thing. And then all you do is your own version of like, look, I don't really know if this might make sense. It probably would, but at the very least, it was why I reached out. I thought it was worth us chatting to see if at some point down the line we might be able to help each other or work together.

SPEAKER_00: 41:54

And let me let me add in too as a caveat. Like the the verbiage that you just used there works great for you, right? It works great for your tone of voice, it works great for your personality. If you talk nothing like Ben, you're gonna probably want to shift how he's saying that. Like if you are a very um, like for example, it if you're a very southern person with a southern accent, there are certain ways that you talk and words that are you know, lingo that you might use that's gonna be more appropriate to sound normal to your tone of voice. If you it's the same thing, like I when I look at like I'm from Buffalo and I'm in the northeastern part of the US. When I talk to someone from Southern California, I know right away that we talk very differently, and it's just it's if I were to say the things that they were saying, it would sound unusual for me. And if they were to say the things that I was saying verbatim, it might sound weird for them. So you've got to find your own version of if you're gonna go with this tactic of the um getting kind of right to the point and then the pressure release there, um, you gotta kind of find your Your version of what does that sound like? And here's the great part when you're making hundreds of calls, you can trial and error all different versions of it. So if you want to go the script route, write something down and say it to yourself, tweak it before you then say it on the phone, and then start trying it out on the phone, right? Eventually it's going to come natural to you. And then maybe you tweak it a little bit more and you find what works and what doesn't work. And that becomes your quote unquote script, but it's stored up in your head because it's part of your actual just it becomes really part of your sales personality and your um demeanor at that point.

SPEAKER_01: 43:40

So the other two things I want to cover, right? Is that you call it like a takeaway? Some people call it like going for no, where you're basically if you can get to know before the person you're trying to sell something to is first, like they're more likely to want it. And like there's a lot of other stuff we get on rabbit holes on like psychology of you being able to like push somebody to pull them back. But the the thing I want everyone also to realize is like the takeaway, if you will, that second part is also what you use to handle the objection. So I called Nate, I go, hey, you know, like I know you guys are right up the road from other customer, blah, blah, blah. I know they're running to a bunch of issues with this lane. I don't even know if if if you guys still move this lane or are moving it. And to be honest, like, I don't even know if we'd be a fit to work together. We kind of really don't know each other that well. I don't know much about your operations, but I thought it was worth a chat. Then Nate says to me, Oh, hey, thanks for the call, Ben, but we're not onboarding brokers. I handle the objection with the takeaway. Oh, no worries, Nate. Like I said, I wasn't expecting us to do any business now. Hell, if you had five loads for me to move today, I wouldn't be able to. Like, I don't know if you guys have credit, and I don't even know if it would make sense for my cares on your lanes. But like I said, that was worth a chat. Oh, well, hey, we onboard brokers in like three months. Why don't you call me back in June? Hey, no problem, Nate. Like I said, like I wasn't expecting, I literally say the same takeaway again. Nate, like I wasn't expecting us to work together. Like, I just figured I wanted to connect, learn a little bit about you. I'll catch up with you later. Then I'll call you in 12 days and do the same thing again, right? You can just use that same pattern over and over because the goal isn't necessarily to move loads your first call. That's like your ninth call. The goal is to actually minimize the time you keep them on the phone and familiarize them with talking to you because every time you do this.

SPEAKER_00: 45:26

Goal of first call is to be able to get second call.

unknown: 45:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:29

If you want to like boil it down that simple, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:32

I'm trying to learn like one thing about you personally or your business or anything, every call. And I'm trying to keep my calls pretty short and I'm increasing the frequency of calls. So like every two weeks, you get a little more comfortable talking to me. I'm not pressuring you, I'm not asking for anything, but we're just chatting a little bit. And then eventually I might learn that you're like a sports fan, you like the bills, you know, you're really into this or you have this hobby. So the next time I call, we talk a little bit about that. So over two or three months, we're actually like friends, can actually chat five, 10 minutes about personal things, what's going on. And then once the trust there, we start talking a little bit more about business lanes and seeing if like it actually makes sense. And why this works is like this low pressure makes it easier to make prospecting calls all day because you're not trying to convince anybody of anything. You're just being yourself and you're just trying to meet people. And if you do this every day and two months from now, you are talking to 80 different companies at the same time, one or two people at each company, right? Which is only manageable in a CRM, then like I've got 80 to 100 people I'm talking to on some consistent basis. This goes all the way back to what we said in the beginning. One of those shippers is gonna get pissed at their broker and drop them and be looking for a new one. And as soon as that happens, which we never know when it's gonna happen or who it's gonna happen with, you're the first person that gets an email out of the blue. Hey, Ben, I know I said we weren't working with anybody until June, but I got five loads. My other guy cannot move. Can you give me a rate and maybe help me out with these this week? So you keep doing this, like pleasantly and persistently following up and just meeting more people. And then eventually, as soon as one of their brokers drops the ball or carriers or like an RR goes out of business, you just start getting emails randomly from one of these people every other week, and you're like, oh, got a new customer. Oh, it seems like customers are just falling out of the sky. Well, that's that whole saying where it goes, it's like, luck is really just when opportunity meets hard work, right? Like you do this over and over consistently. All of a sudden you feel like the luckiest salesperson in the world because like companies are just reaching out to you. Like they're not gonna do that if you don't put the time in. But if you do this and you have a stable of prospects that all know you and are familiar with you and are comfortable talking to you, as soon as they need somebody, you're at least top of mind. Top of mind, right?

SPEAKER_00: 47:57

Let me add this in. This is a great way too that. And I've done this in the past with HubSpot, where you set desktop notifications if somebody opens up an old email, it'll tell you. So, like if I right, you have this call and I'm gonna say, Hey, I'll, you know, we'll catch up in a few months. I'll just shoot you over my contact info in the meantime, right? And then when that time comes up where they're like, let me call Ben, they're gonna open up their email to get your phone number. And you know, maybe they don't call you, but they're at least thinking about it. And your your desktop pops up, so and so just views your.

SPEAKER_01: 48:55

It'll be Houston to Seattle, reefer. And then the body of the email just be like contact info below, which has my signature, nothing else, right? Because to your point, what is that problem they're gonna have? It's usually coverage on a specific lane, and they're gonna go. I remember talking to somebody about Houston. I can't remember who that was, but I talked to them a couple of times. So they search their email for Houston to Seattle, your email comes up and they open it, and then you get the notification and HubSpot. So you can play that whole system to your favor based on the behavior of how a shipper actually looks for their brokers and the cares that they've spoken to about different lanes. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 49:32

So I want to um I want to add another point, unless you have anything you want to drill down on here, but I want to talk broader picture on the prospecting. Um, you got anything else on your your points there? Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 49:44

I mean, we could literally go for like days, but I think it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00: 49:46

I want to sprinkle some more flavor into this episode here. You know, oftentimes I will talk to somebody that the way they learned brokerage and they learn prospecting from it could be a YouTube video, it could be at an old brokerage, it could it could be from anything, right? They they're coming into their journey with whatever they learned, right? And that could be a huge tunnel vision thing there. So, like, for example, I had a guy, buddy of mine, he's he doesn't broker freight anymore, but he used to um I worked with him like I worked with him actually at two different companies, but he had started at a company here in Buffalo, and all he did was like uh certain kinds of produce out of the Northeast. And when we were talking, and he's like, Yeah, I kind of want to like, you know, find some more customers, and we started talking, and he's like, I never thought about like doing a different commodity or different areas or different equipment type. And I was like, why not? And he goes, Well, that's just this is just what I had learned and what I taught and or was taught, and this is just how we always did it. Like, no one ever did anything besides this at our company when I started there. And I was like, there's the problem, right? It's the same thing with like another guy I was talking with recently at our company that only ever did open deck business, and he was like intimidated by reefer. He's like, Well, it's different. Like, I don't I don't know how a reefer works. And I was like, You can learn that in five minutes. Like the the reality is the problems that customers have with capacity and pricing and service, it doesn't matter between open deck, dry van, uh reefer, sprinter van, hotshot, LTL, like the problems still exist synonymously across the board. You might have to learn a couple different things, like the different terminology of the different open deck trailers and how much deck space they have, and um, you know, the different weight limits and things like that. Um, but you can absolutely pivot what you're prospecting and find something totally new. There are, I just mentioned like different equipment types. There are regions of the country that all have things in common. There are commodities that have different seasonalities that are in common. Um, and this is why I always tell people if if you are like I usually go with like seasonal stuff, whether it's produce or Christmas trees or whatever, right? I'm like, if if you're trying to, if you're getting to like a soft time in your year and you're looking to prospect, look for the things that are going to be shipping coming up in the next couple of months. And that's when you want to start this process. And um, like we used to do some episodes with with Blue Book where we would talk through different produce commodities and when they're shipping and all of that. And to this day, like I still use Blue Book all the time. I was logged in there this morning, actually. Um, but I I go in there all the time just to see like what commodities are coming up to be shipping very soon. Um, but for example, like just pivot. And then if you start to like, let's say you go, you were talking about asparagus. I'm like, yes, asparagus comes through Texas year round because it's coming up from Mexico, right? Um, but let's say you were, I want to say, um, let's go, let's go apples out of like Washington State, right? Like, if I try to prospect apples out of Washington and Oregon, and they're telling me that like, yeah, we, you know, we're not having issues with capacity. Um, we're all good right now. Our our season's delayed, it's not gonna be shipping as soon as we thought, whatever. Um, if I talk to two or three customers and I get the same kind of response, I'm gonna pivot. I'm not gonna make 200 calls to Apple growers in that same region just to hear the same story. Um, but you just pivot. The reality is there are so many commodities, so many regions, a lot of different equipment types. There's so many different kinds of customers. Think about size and the importance of their, you know, is it is it service, is it price, is it um, you know, urgency, things like that. There's a whole spectrum across the board of shippers. So don't feel like you're just pigeonholed into one little area because that's all you know. You've gotta, you've gotta be able to pivot and expand your knowledge base and all this stuff. And um the other side of that is the analysis paralysis, right? Where you're like, there's too much and I don't even know where to start. But um, make the slight tweaks as as things um don't work in one area and just all right, if I tried 50 leads today and I got just it didn't work, all right. Well, let me try 50 different leads tomorrow. Or maybe, maybe I'll give it the week and I'll pivot next week to something different. But you've got to be able to be flexible and change. If you just put yourself in the, hey, I'm only gonna be doing produce out of the Northeast, well, good luck when that's not in season, right? You're gonna be looking for another job.

SPEAKER_01: 54:26

So here's the other thing I would say is like this should make this, I think, uh is a good analogy or metaphor, right? For switching equipment types or commodities is like all a tractor trailer is or a trailer is is like a big wagon. It's a modern day wagon, right? So DAT, you can book any type of equipment. It's literally written there and it's in a drop-down. So whatever you put a post up for, you will at least get phone calls from carriers, whatever that is, whether it's a reefer, flatbed, right? Or it's gonna be open deck, right? Or dry van. So if you worked, you know, 2,000 years ago in your ancient room, Rome, right? And at the end of the road, you can go and get a wagon that is flat, is a box, or has a refrigerator on it, just for this example, right? Which didn't exist, but let's just say there was a refrigerator, right? And then you've got a company as you're walking down the street that goes, Hey, I heard you're good at moving things. Can you move this on a flat wagon? You just go to the end of the road and be like, I need a flat wagon and somebody that can drive that. And you'd be like, Yeah, I got you a wagon. And then the next guy goes, Well, hey, I need to keep my stuff cool. Can you get me one that has a refrigerator? You go to the end of the street and be like, hey, who's got one with a refrigerator on it? You negotiate a price and get him that, right? They're literally no different, right? They all go from point A to point B. And the things where people I think get stuck is like, Well, I don't know what questions to ask or what they need. Here's the easiest way to do that. Whatever shipper you're talking to that tells you, well, hey, maybe you call them for a drive in. They go, Well, I really need reefers, and you've never moved reefers, right? The easiest way to figure that out is to just say, hey, no problem. Let me go work on that for you. While I have you here, what is important to you or what are your requirements for a reefer, right? Even just that question, they're just gonna tell you, here's the temp, it's continuous, and we need this shoot in it, and we need this. Write that down. Then you can either go to Google or GPT and go, hey, what do I need to know about these things my shipper told me? It'll give you some idea. And then the way we used to do it, which is still the way you can do it now, is post that lane up to DAT. And when a carrier calls you, say, Hey, I've got a new customer that needs this moved. This is what they told me. What other questions do you have? Then the carrier who runs that equipment all day is going to go, hey, call them back and ask this, this, and this, and maybe I can do it. So in two phone calls and one Google search, you literally learned everything you needed to make sure happens to move an equipment type you've never moved, right? Yeah, I mean, your carriers are your best.

SPEAKER_00: 57:08

And then boom, you just learned something new. Okay. Yeah. So certain certain refrigerated or temp controlled products have a higher value or sometimes have commodity exclusions on the insurance policies, right? And that's how you start to gain your knowledge that way.

unknown: 57:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 57:23

So like there's always a way to pivot to be able to handle something else. It's just taking the initiative, right? The thing that makes I think brokers better than other brokers, it all comes down to just I'm willing to do one more thing than the people I'm competing with, right? I'm willing to just work a little bit harder, ask one more question, do one more thing than everybody else that I'm competing with is. And if you just do that over and over again, you will be farther along than everybody else you're competing with. Like that's our competitive advantage. Just taking the initiative, doing a little bit more work. It's not a lot more work, like literally, like an extra five, 10 minutes sometimes, and it can open an entirely new line of business for you.

SPEAKER_00: 58:00

Yep. Good stuff. Good discussion today, man. That's uh hopefully this is helpful for everyone that's out there. And if you guys have another part of prospecting that you want us to dig into, um, we can definitely do that. I think we get a lot of we get a lot of requests for like the this kind of stuff where it's like first first time contact with a customer. How do I open it? What kinds of things do I say? We gave you a lot of good examples today and um some practical tips to take with you. So um good stuff. All right. Final thoughts, Ben.

SPEAKER_01: 58:31

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't. You're right.

SPEAKER_00: 58:35

And until next time, go bills.