Blythe Brumleve:
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Welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. I am Blythe Milligan, and this show is presented by SPI logistics. And this episode, I want to do something a little bit different. It's a solo episode, but I want to go through some previous Reddit threads and bring you the best sales tips that I have seen from the freight broker sale subreddit over on Reddit. Now, if you're not familiar with what Reddit is, it's basically an online forum that has been around for, God, more than a decade, definitely more than a decade, probably closer to, like 15, maybe 17 years, but it's an online forum for niche communities. So a few of them, off the top of my head, that I belong to is like beach calming or sea glass or trucker cats or for relevant to this particular episode, is the freight broker subreddit, which, at the time of recording, this has about 33,000 members, and topics are posted all of the time. And so as you can imagine, over the last year or so, there's been a lot of conversation around, how do I get new customers? How do I get more business? How do I do cold calling, you know, things like that. And there's so much valuable information that is inside of those threads, and I've been saving them over this period of time in preparation for this episode, because I knew that I eventually wanted to make this episode so wanted to bring you some of my favorites, so hopefully it can help you and your sales efforts, especially as you know the the holidays are here. We're planning for, you know, new budgets, new initiatives, things like that. But a lot of times, you just kind of got to use the holidays as a way to reevaluate what methods are working for you. What methods are a little you're not exactly sure if they're working for you anymore, and it's a good time to sort of test out of what you want to try to do in the new year. And so let's break it down from a couple different angles. Because number one, I have it kind of segmented out from a cold strategy and a social strategy. So the social strategy is going to be a little bit later on, but for the cold strategy, I want to talk about in person, via phone and via email. Some of these responses. I have about six responses here that can help all of those different situations, highly upvoted. When I say upvoted, that means it's very popular on a particular Reddit thread, for folks who may not be aware, but yeah, 33,000 people. So you can imagine that this group is, you know, anytime a question like this is posted in a question, meaning, like, how can I get better at my sales, there's a lot of joking going on in the threads where people, you know, they're kind of, kind of, they're going to poke fun at each other. They're not exactly going to some people are not exactly going to be forthcoming with you know how to be better at sales in freight brokerage, as you can imagine, it's very competitive industry, and so people don't want to share their good stuff, which is why it's probably taken a year to save up some good comments. But let's go ahead and get into some of the better ones. Now the the first thing I want to talk about is an in person, cold strategy. And one of the first questions that was answered is, can someone direct me to the right sub, meaning subreddit? And so this question comes in and it says, I've been doing, I've been doing this. I almost said digital dispatch there. I've been doing dispatch for five months now for a very small logistics company. Our main account has cut their production by 50% where we normally see 200 bids a day, we are now seeing maybe 30. Last night, I worked my eight hour shift and saw one. Needless to say, it's hard to your company. My boss asked us to reach out to see if we can find contacts and shipping departments to try and land new clients. Would someone be able to put me in the right sub if it exists? Also new to this industry? Is this the best approach for finding new clients? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Now I have to go back to that remark where he says the main account has cut their production by 50% 50% is a huge loss, if that's your major client. Now, the way I kind of like to think about marketing and sales, especially from a sales pipeline, especially from a revenue standpoint, you never want one customer to fill up more than I would say 30% of your overall revenue coming from one customer, and 30% still feels too high. I've heard other people say that, you know, it could be as low as a 5% for each and every customer, but we're dealing with, you know, freight brokers. Who maybe have a handful of counts, or maybe freight agents who have a handful of counts. And sometimes it's unreal. It's sometimes you have to work up to, you know, getting more than 30 accounts so you can have that really good balance. But 30 accounts is still a lot of people to manage. And so for a brokerage, you'll typically have a handful of accounts that you manage, and then it all funnels into the same business. So what it sounds like here is that this is a smaller company. This person is handling dispatch for a very small logistics company, and so they're struggling with that problem. And one of the responses that was left was really, really good. And or the reason I put it in the in person category is because this person who is a smart assignment 499, I'm going to link to all these Redditors in the comments. So if you want to check out these comments and see the follow up, or see some of the other responses in the post, you can check it out. But their response is, take a drive to the industrial area where you live. Look for manufacturers. Note types of equipment at business. At the business, loading up. Also head to the local truck stop, check out flats and step decks, coming in, see what they're loaded with. Usually the manufacturing name is located, located on the product that is loaded. In my early days, I just did dry van rates and rates for poor but from my experience, dark deck of eight, not dark freight. Deck freight pays well as for reefer, I've never quoted on it, but another user says, I'll second this and add on to it being a shipper, if someone knocks on my door as a true blue local carrier and tells me how they're going to make my life easier by having capacity that shows up and delivers on time, game on, spot on, with the equipment types too. The more you can fit a niche, the more loyalty you're going to get, even if it's not something that you currently specialize in. So obviously that one of those tips is from the carrier perspective, but from the broker perspective. This is something that you could be doing all of the not all of the time, because you still have to work, but on maybe that is instead of cold calling and spending a couple hours doing that, you're scouting the location in your local area for those manufacturers, and going to a certain zip code a certain area of town, and driving around, looking at the equipment and looking at the types of manufacturers, and then being able to build up enough research so then that you that way, you can go back to the office and be able to connect with them more. Or if they're if there's someone is on site, you would be able to introduce yourself. There was an episode I posted over the summer with a gentleman called Rust Belt kid. He is one of the shipping managers for a tool called Gator bar, which is rebar, but it's manufactured in the United States, manufactured up in Michigan, I believe. And so he says in that episode, I have only done business with carriers that have come to my office and knocked on the door and shook my hand and introduced themselves, and so just keeping that in mind from the shipper perspective, because they know that the broker is going to represent their company, the carrier sure surely is going to represent their company. That is oftentimes the carrier is the person that is meeting the shippers customers, and so they would like to meet them as well. And so being able to form that bond can really turn what was something, you know, driving around a parking lot as cold outreach, that could turn warm and hot very, very quick. So that was a big reason why I loved to bring up that first one. Now this second one on the list is this question that comes and, well, I'll link to it so I don't have to read off these like weird Reddit names. They always have weird, weird names, so I'll link to them in the comments or in the show notes, just to be sure. But they ask what software solution partner has been the biggest game changer for your brokerage, whether it be a load board, carrier, compliance, tool, tracking, software, TMS, what has changed your life with the better, or perhaps changed your life negativity or negatively, venting is welcome. So then there's another comment that is left, and it says, I'm literally walking into a business and brokering the loads that they have. Lol, sometimes it pays to go back to the basics when everyone tries to gatekeep or deter you from getting into the game. And so basically, this original question is asking, you know, what kind of software solution has helped you in your sales effort? And this gentleman is coming back, and I'm assuming it's a gentleman, because by the look of their little avatar here, but he says, I'm walking into businesses and brokering those loads because, and they say, so there's a thread that goes on because there's other people that are asking, Well, how do they receive that? Genuinely curious? About how a business receives someone that's going to come into their office and promise to broker loads for them, and he follows up with haven't had an issue yet. Sometimes they actually have pallets that sprinters and fans can take that's going local, just waiting for someone to grab. And so that is another area of of just or another, reinforcement of the power of going in person, when so many people's inboxes and calls are just flooded right now, not just from folks within the United States, but also folks that are doing sales overseas, offshore. There's a lot of trust and verify in this industry that is going on, especially with with all of the fraud issues. And so for a lot of shippers, a lot of brokers and carriers, fraud is that the number one fraud prevention, is that their number one issue that they're trying to prevent from happening? And so if you can separate yourself a little bit more by doing tasks like this, researching manufacturers local in your area, and then going and trying to schedule a visit, or just walking into their office, can make a lot more waves than trying to send your 10th cold email or you're trying to blast out, you know, 15,000 different emails that all said the same thing, and they're not customized For the audience that you're trying to get. And so those were a few in person comments that I thought were were really well received in this group. And it feels like people are genuinely shocked that this works. But anecdotally, the shippers that I have talked to, they want somebody that's going to personally be there, that they can talk to, that they can pick up the phone, that they can shake your hand. And so knowing that that could be a way for a lot of sales folks in this industry to zig while everybody else is zagging. Okay, so next up in the cold strategy, even though I just mentioned this, that everybody is doing it, but there is a right way to do it, and there is a more successful way to do it over the long run. And so let's go into via phone, like, what happens? How can you really stand out from the fray? And so this new freight broker is really, really struggling. They haven't been able to land any new accounts yet, and they've been on the job for months. And so this one, this response, is going to be a long one, but it's very, very good. And so he starts off by trying to help this, this new freight broker, by saying, as much as I don't want to help, to be helping competitors, I feel your pain. So here you go. Okay, number one in his response is, do your homework before you call. Know the person you need and the products they need. He mentions a tool that says, apollo.io is free and will get you that content, contact information. Number two is, take away the sales pressure. Tell them, Hey, John, I know you get a lot of these damn phone calls. Can I have 30 seconds to tell you why I'm calling? And then you and then if you can hang up on me if you want. So that's his opening line that he uses anytime he calls. Number three, do not send emails or leave voicemails. Just keep calling unless there is a legit no way to get them on the phone, or if the company is a good fit and you're told to kick rocks, email the CEO or the owner of a small to medium sized company. Are you in freight sales with a book of business looking for a new home? Or perhaps you're a freight agent in need of a better partnership? These are the kinds of conversations we're exploring in our podcast interview series called The freight agent trenches, sponsored by SPI logistics. Now I can tell you all day that SPI is one of the most successful logistics firms in North America who helps their agents with back office operations such as admin, finance, it and sales, but I would much rather you hear it directly from SPI freight agents themselves. And what better way to do that than by listening to the experienced freight agents tell their stories behind the how and the why they joined SPI hit the freight agent link in our show notes to listen to these conversations, or if you're ready to make the jump, visit SPI three, pl.com, number four, you're going to get smoked on truckload By TQL, by CHG, CH Robinson, you will never get truck load unless you already have a relationship with them and they like you. And if they get screwed by either of those two companies, you need to go after LTL, specifically volume LTL, where you can compete against the major LTL carriers. How do you do this? He goes on to mention and number five, if you are targeting a region for customers, you must locate small to medium sized trucking companies in that region that offer LTL service. You have to introduce to them and tell them that you are a broker trying to break into accounts and service in their area. These companies will eat up two to eight kids. Shipments all day if it falls into their lanes of service. For example, I have a carrier in PA. They will pick up in PA, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Rhode Island, and they all go to the 48 states. I have other carriers that will only go as far as the Midwest. I have Texas guys that come to the northeast and will take anything going back down to Texas. This is your in go after freight that doesn't hold up to regular LTL, known steel, commodities, paper, low margin shit. Go after machinery, expensive, manufactured, good, high class freight. These trucking companies don't care about class. They care about price by the pallet and major LTL carriers will not be price competitive for things that have more than two skids. These local trucking companies will be then number six, he says, when you talk to the shippers, let them know that you have a niche and you are worth your salt. Show them that you didn't pick out their name out of a hat before you called them. You know your shit and you know what you excel in get your foot in the door, provide good communication and service, grow the relationship over time and expand into more opportunities. That last one, I think, just hits, or that last couple of them just hit the nail on the head. As far as being super strategic on who you're contacting and why, and then also your carrier relationships and who you're contacting and why he closes out this statement with I've had my fair share of being put into a broker email list of 100 other people, and after a two minute phone call, fuck that garbage I'm reading from this guy, everyone is beating the piss out of each other. No thanks. Your only way to get in somewhere is to be different. Maybe you're an expert in flatbed LTL and have a ton of flatbed carriers that you can offer LTL with. Not everyone can do that well, but please do not be like every other broker. Have a niche something you do better than any anyone else will. If you just copy and paste dat rates and use LTL carriers with $50 as your margin, you are going to get smoked and will have no shot. Good luck. And so he ends it with that piece of advice. And there's so many replies that it's really, really an insightful conversation, especially for someone like me, who was really on the marketing side of freight brokering for so long. And then to be able to see the strategic ness of what this person does. This would have helped me so much in marketing campaigns. So if you're in marketing and you're looking for specific things that you're trying to target, I would be going right to the salesperson and being and asking, what kind of collateral Can I help you create? What kind of landing page can I help you create that will help you track the success of some of these different campaigns and see once you start to get something working, like the niche of what he's talking about, then maybe you can help your sales team, you know, be able to replicate those efforts for other members of the sales team, At least the structure of a campaign, just to help them, get them, you know, just get them going. Because this poor, poor bastard, you know, started in probably the worst Freight Economy in a decade, and I he can't get any new accounts. Well, that is six steps that I just laid out of how you can get new accounts. It's going to take a little bit of work. It's not a spray and pray method. Maybe some brokerages are not going to be fans of a method like this, but if it's about getting long term business, then that is going to be a much smarter company than someone who's just going to tell you to what would he say? You know, add $50 in margin from a load board. That is, to me, a lot of those tactics will always exist, but it's also not where the best freight never makes it to a load board. And so by establishing relationships with carriers and with your shippers, and you can find those happy mediums for both parties involved and obviously have a better career for yourself. Okay, last couple here, the next one, this is under the email category. So we kind of keep talking about ways to, like, not do cold outreach, and email has been in first of these two sections, but I think there's a way to do email right. And so the the next response on in that same in that thread that we mentioned earlier, what software solution partner has been the biggest game changer for your brokerage. And we mentioned this tool earlier, but apollo.io he's and this commenter goes on to say, before we were just using Google Maps and calling the businesses and trying to find out contact info from the decision maker, etc, or looking on LinkedIn, I found Apollo and taught my co workers how to use it, and we've had so much of an easier time of booking meetings. And so really, the process looks like you can either drive around town and find those different manufacturers and see what kind of equipment that they're using to move their freight, and that's one way to get into the door with them, because apparently searching on Google and LinkedIn really aren't having the impact. That they once had another way is that you can just do your damn research and just ask for referrals, pick a niche. And then lastly, if you're doing all of those things using apollo.io because this was mentioned several times as I was going back through to make the notes for the show. Apollo.io was mentioned several times. I personally have not used it, but there, there were several people in here that spoke very highly of this solution. So it could be a tool that you maybe want to give a try after you've done all of the other necessary research in order to make sure that it's a that your cold call or your cold email is is going to actually be read or be actually answered. Okay, last one that I did want to bring up is for better broker carrier relationships, because it also helps your customers. But this one commenter, it comes from this thread, and the original poster says, as a carrier, after providing good service with great communication on multiple loads, I'm still having trouble hearing back from brokers on the same loads. What do I say to keep the relationship going? Obviously, pricing is a huge factor here, but a couple of brokers keep having shitty experiences with other carriers, but still don't want to pay. What can I say or do so they don't go out looking for another carrier? And the number one comment on this thread was always shoot them an email of where you'll be and when you'll be there. Make it personal, or at least like you're not sending it to dozens of other brokers. I know that I and this is a broker speaking. I know that I always keep a list going of where carriers are and how I can match them up with what I've got. I'll go to these carriers before sending out any available load lists I might have and before posting them to load boards. Now follow up. Comment also says I've ran into the same predicament and emailed only going to the new MC speech that no one mentions having a major hurdle with a truck your insurance Hold on. This complex is kind of all over the place, but they said one thing that I do know is that in this business, you can't give up just like in life, when it gets good, it'll it'll be great. And I think for a lot of folks, you're kind of expecting that now that the presidential election has been determined and we can kind of all move forward with our lives. So hopefully business is going to get a lot better for a lot of folks in our industry, but I did really like the fact that, Hey, be proactive with your relationships, whether it's carriers or whether it's brokers. And this sounds so I think, entry level, but a lot of folks just don't know this. A lot of folks are fresh out of college. They sit down at a desk, they're handed a bunch of cold leads, and they're told to do something with it. A lot of them don't have the opportunity to even breathe and sit back and say, maybe there's a better way to do this. And so I think that this is a really good example of being a better carrier and being a better broker and actively wanting to have a better relationship together, which is what I'm starting to see more in this industry. Broker carrier Summit is a perfect example of that. It's a recent conference that just took place in doubt or Fort Worth Texas, and it's about bringing brokers and carriers together so they can find out the issues, get those issues resolved, find new ways to work together network. Networking is one of the bigger pieces of that summit, and so being able to establish these relationships from the jump or as or not from the jump, but as an ongoing basis, then that will lead to greater partnerships in the future. Because, like the other commenter had said, if as a shipper, if I know that you are going to have a truck in a certain area, you're not going to give me grief. I don't mind paying a little bit extra for it. I mean, obviously I'm paraphrasing there, but they don't mind paying a little bit extra than the cheapest freight on the load board, because they know they have the peace of mind that the freight is actually going to make it there. So I thought that those were really, good insights into how maybe you can start rethinking how you approach the sales process. From the cold email, the cold calling, cold in person perspective, there's so many different tools out there that can help expand upon business and help you manage that business, but from getting your foot in the door. It still remains a very delicate dance that you have to make in both the digital world and the in person world. So it has really sounded like the most people that have had success are the ones that those they can use the the research that they've built up online, visiting the facility, knowing their problems before you ever talk to them on the phone. And so having those things already lined up for those prospects can help you develop those relationships that evolve in the future into more business, and not only more business, but can help you move up. The company as well. Brokering success demands a battle ready strategy. Ty TMS equips freight brokers with the ultimate battle station for conquering a tough market. With Ty, brokers gain access to a comprehensive platform where raid intelligence and quote history converge on a single screen. It's not just a page, it's a strategic command center designed to help brokers win. Thai equips your team with all of the data they need to negotiate with confidence and allows them to communicate directly with carriers and customers from a simple control base, revolutionize the way your brokers perform by giving them a competitive advantage with Thai TMS. For more info, go to Tai dash software.com backslash battle stations, and we also have a link for you in the show notes to sign up for a demo. Next little area that I did want to talk about is from your social strategy. Now, none of this really comes from Reddit. This is more like just my my personal anecdotalness of what I see that works, especially from a sales perspective, and especially online. You know, this episode is really geared around Reddit, but I also see a lot of folks doing really good job over on LinkedIn, and I say not a lot of folks, if I'm being honest, there's a handful of folks that are doing a really good job that I think more people could be replicating what they do on social media and replicating it for their own business. Now, a few people that come to mind, well, I guess I should back it up a little bit. The reason that this is important, I mean, I say yes, it's easy to say, Go on LinkedIn, go on Twitter, go on X, go on Instagram. You know, post what you do. Post about yourself, you know, make yourself relatable. All that's fine and well, but at the end of the day, like when you're doing business with someone, ultimately you have to be providing value to them. It helps as a bonus, if they like you, that is where you're building. Your personal brand awareness comes into play, and that's where people should be more focused on how they portray themselves on social media, so people can like you, or the right people can like you is probably is a better way that I want to say that there are a few people and I know that there, I can just say, like, Go, just go on social media and post, Go, check out the profiles of someone named Lars ward. He works over at Shima logistics. He posts lots of a variety of different sales content. He really hones into on the KLT method, which, if you don't know what the KLT method is, it's a framework for thinking about how to post to social media. It's one thing to think about, Okay, I'm going to start posting. And it's like, well, what the hell do I post about having a certain kind of framework will help you out a ton. I know that this helps me out a ton, because then it provides a little bit of balance. And what the KLT method is, is knowledge like and trust, and so knowledge is 70% of the posts that you make on, say, LinkedIn, for example, should be what you know, what you're knowledgeable about? What are you knowledgeable about on a certain niche, on a certain commodity, on a certain lane, on a certain type of equipment. Name your niche, or maybe you want to hide your niche. I don't know. There's ways to talk about it, but show how you're knowledgeable, so that that way other people who need those problems solved can, over time, recognize those messages, and over time, get to know you. And that's where the other two parts of the framework come into play, because it's one thing to sort of spout off a sales message in, you know, a variety of different ways. You know, you gotta get used to saying the same thing 100 different ways. But that's where the knowledge part comes into the framework. The next two parts are your likability and your trust. So likability is what you like, who's your favorite sports team? What type of software do you like? Is such a lame question, but apollo.io, is a good example here. I really like this software because it helps me do XYZ, whatever else you like. Maybe you like Disney or, you know, maybe you like a certain sports team, it, you know, whatever. It doesn't matter. You get the point. So 20% should be devoted to that, and then 10% should be devoted to trust. And so trust, trust. Post thinking of I screwed up with a customer. Here's how I rectified it. I, you know, got this new customer. I got this prospect on the phone. It turns out we weren't a good fit. And I let them know, you know, several other people who might be a better fit. There is one person that does a really good job, and she had a really great post. Her name is Christina Booker, and so she is, I'm assuming a broker. I'm assuming that that's her type. People. But she actually had a post about this recently, and she started off with, I'm just not a good fit. I said this to a shipper in the middle of our discovery call this morning. Why? Because I believe that part that being part of a good freight broker is knowing when to say no. After explaining what I could bring to the table. Here's what the shipper offered, net, 20 no exceptions, competing with other 30 brokerages. Lowest rate will always win. Wait times. Wait times at pickup six plus hours. And she goes on to say, as a smaller brokerage that focuses on service, saying yes, would compromise my standards, my time, my carrier partnerships and my value, I've been with a brokerage that pushed every sale fit or not. Over time, you erode and blur understanding of your true worth and what you're able to bring to the table. You start building on promises, not values. Yes, the market is competitive, but I've also learned that guarding your time, energy and value is priceless. Not every shipper will be a good fit, and the more wrong doors you can close, and the quicker you can close them, the more room you have to open the right ones. And we just what a great post, because I apply all of I'm not afraid broker, but I apply all of those things, all of those sort of sentiments, into my own, into my own business. I'm not a good fit for everyone, but I've learned the hard way that protecting your peace and sometimes firing a customer, firing a shipper, can actually lead to more business in the future. And so just having that mindset, knowing your values, I love this post. I'm going to link to her in the comments so you can follow she. She's always posting stuff like this. And what does a post like this do that tells other shippers that this is somebody that I want to work with. Like, I'm going to keep an eye on her. I'm going to I like the way that she approaches business. I like the way that she is going to put me first, even when I don't even know if it's if it's the right thing for me. Because a lot of your customers, they don't know right from wrong. They don't know the wrong situation they're in until they're already in it. And so if you're able to speak to those problems before they even know that the shipper even knows that those problems exist, then you are well ahead of the game. And so that, to me, is one of those situations where she says, I'm not a good fit. This, to me, combines all three of the KLT framework, your knowledge, your like and your trust, and so that, to me, is like a home run of a post, but just to kind of keep it, you know, at a high level, simplified, think about how situations that happen in your day just like that and that you could document, and then the very next day, you wake up in the morning and you fire off a LinkedIn post, and then you get back to doing your regular job, these types of things, and thinking about it in a framework of that you can share your knowledge. You can share good news. It's like what Kara Brown says from lead coverage, is that she says, says, share good news, follow up, and she's going to kill me for missing on a lesson, but she has three steps. It's basically share good news. And so for a lot of folks, this could maybe not be, I guess, considered good news for if you're that shipper who is going to miss out on a great relationship by working with her, that's probably not great news for them, but you can find different ways of things that happen throughout your day, how you're solving those problems, and then turn it into content that helps you build that brand awareness. I talk a lot on the show about content snowballs, and building up that content snowball so that when buyers become active, when shit hits the fan for another broker or another carrier, and they're fed up. When that shipper is fed up and they're looking for somebody new, they're going to remember a post like that, and then they're going to come back and they're going to pay and they're going to reach out to her, and she's not going to have to do the cold email and the cold outreach, because she's actively building brand awareness for who she is as a person, how she works, and then brands are going to be other companies, other shippers are going to be attracted to that. And then they're going to want to do business with her, and she's going to win before they ever open up your cold email or pick up your cold call. And so that's why I think social strategy is just as much of an importance as your cold strategy. And so she's one of my I think my favorite ones that I like to follow. Lars Ward is another great one. He works over at Shima logistics. I think I already mentioned that, but I'm gonna mention it again, just in case, because he's really good at his job, and he does the KLT method very well. Another person I really like talking about is Matt Dahl. He is a freight agent recruiter, and he got started off in brokerage. He went on the shipper side. I think I'm getting his timeline right. Worked on the shipper side of things, and so he it was a very unique experience. And he actually documented a lot of this, of what he was experiencing on social media. And so he documented his experience on being on the shipper side of things, and the brokers that do outreach. To them, and he was just inundated with emails from all kinds of people every single day. And he really only, I think he at one point, he said he replaced a handful of not out of a handful of their carriers that they were working with. He replaced two of them, and it was due to performance from the previous person that was handling the role. And so he brought in a couple of, you know, his new brokers that he knew that would do a good job so based on previous relationships. And so he's another really good one to follow in that regard, especially now that he's on the freight agent side, because he can speak from that perspective, which is more of an entrepreneurial perspective, still speaking to the free broker role, but then also speaking from the shipper side of things too, and knowing what works and knowing what doesn't. So those are three folks that I think are well worth the follow. I'll link to them in the show notes, of course, but it just it goes on to say, or it just furthers my point of you have to have a multi pronged strategy. You don't want, just like you don't want, you know, any one customer taking up 30% of your revenue. You don't want to have too many of your strategies in the same bucket. And so for that, it's a cold email strategy, a cold phone strategy, a cold in person strategy, and maybe that in person strategy leads to a warmer email introduction, a warmer phone call introduction, but then also from the lens of your social strategy. So if you're looking for examples on the types of content I'm talking about, I'm going to link to both of those three folks in the show notes so that you can follow them and you can check on what they're posting and use it as inspiration for your own messaging and building up your own brand awareness. Now lastly, I will add that I'm going to leave another Reddit thread in the show notes, because I thought it was really important, and I keep this one bookmark to even help myself. But there's and I'm not going to go through and read all of it. Read all of it, but it's a thread from the sales subreddit, and it says, what would what would you go back and tell yourself, if you could go back and give your business development rep self one piece of advice? What would it be? Some of the I'll read a couple year, I just slide so but the first response here is, companies are not your family, and companies that claim they are probably you're not paying you well enough. So that was the number one response. The next one is, I used to be willing to die on the Hill of quality work over quantity. It wasn't until I walked away from being an SDR for a year and a half to start over again as an SDR at a new company, and was being beat by a total fucking loser who said four times the volume that I did, that I was forced to come around, find a balance. But you must be religious about volume. Volume wins. Anyone who tells you that it does. It probably doesn't have a job outside of the norm. It doesn't mean blast 200 non tailored emails, but figure out how to blast 30 to 50 kind of tailored emails a day. Hopefully your company gives you something like sales, loft or outreach, oh, and calling continues to be the most effective way to set meetings. And so this person really, I wanted to highlight that comment because I have personally believed in quality over quantity, but I think he finds a really good balance here with 30 to 50. So if you have the same research approach, maybe you're using AI tools like chatgpt, maybe you're using another tool like Apollo. This could be a situation where you find that really good balance once you find out what works, and then you combine all of that, you know, sort of sales knowledge that you are building in the trenches, and you combine that with sort of your social selling strategy. You know, that is a alliteration nightmare. But if you combine it with that, then that is going to lead to putting yourself into a position where you are going to be more successful in the long run, in the short run as well, and then give yourself the ability to earn more and move up. And I think at this point, for a lot of folks, that is exactly what we're all thinking about, is, how do I make more money? How do I afford to pay for all of this stuff? And how can I make myself a little bit more sane in the process? And so hopefully, you know, a lot of these tips have helped you. I'm going to link to that sales subreddit or that sales thread that talks about what you would go back and tell your former self, because there's a lot of gems in there, not enough for me to read, but I'm going to link to it, in case you want to get just an extra boost of motivation. So this is going to be a show notes heavy one for a lot of good resources, but hopefully you found this episode valuable, because been saving these posts like I said for a while now. So hopefully you guys like it. Let me know if you want to hear more content like this, but until then, I'll see. Real soon, and I guess, I guess go jags. It's a rough time of the year for us. It's October and the season is over. So great. Anyways, setting off. I hope you enjoyed this episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show. Sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everything is logistics.com and in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let you all know about another company I operate, and that's digital dispatch, where we help you build a better website. Now, a lot of the times we hand this task of building a new website or refreshing a current one off to a co worker's child, a neighbor down the street or stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually build the dang website. Well, that doesn't happen at Digital dispatch. We've been building online since 2009 but we're also early adopters of AI automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place, to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as$1,500 along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus freight, marketing and sales content similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digital dispatch.io, just check out the pricing page once you arrive, and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go jags. You
