What you should know before cold Calling/Emailing

Apr '24 (edited) • Freight Broker

I've seen a few people talking about prospecting struggles and not getting engagement in logistics sales recently. Let's tackle this so group members can continue to grow their business.

The one thing that I think is currently overlooked from sales training in logistics is research. The days of looking at a website for 3 minutes and picking up the phone or sending an email are gone. But that leaves the question of what should i know before i call a customer.

1) What do they make or what does their business do?

2) How does it ship (LTL, FTL, VAN, REEFER, FLATBED)?

3) What locations do they have and do they ship from them? (Easy google search of the location look for a dock) Use linkedin and look at job postings for a company and you can find most of their locations.

4) Who are their suppliers? Import Yeti is great to use for mid-big companies.

5) Do they import or export? Again Import yeti (if yes what ports) Now I know where they possibly have supply shipments coming from.

6) what are common supply chain and logistics issues in that industry?

My question to you would be can you really add value if you don't know your prospects business and can you ask thought provoking qualifying questions if don't have any idea of what they do and how they do it?

My second piece of advice is stop trying to get people to be customers on the first phone call/email. The first call/email is just to start a conversation.

Please add your thoughts or things that have worked for you!

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