Observations by Brian Everett, CEO, Transportation Marketing & Sales Association

During our recent TMSA Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference in Nashville, I had the chance to reconnect with Ken Guest, Chief Revenue Officer of Sandler Training by The Ruby Group. His company provides sales force development and management training to businesses using Sandler training methods and has significant experience working with companies in transportation and logistics. Sandler Training by The Ruby Group is one of our TMSA Affiliate members. Ken is author of the book, Digital Prospecting, and we chatted briefly about the question I’ve heard a lot from members recently: What's the best way to approach cold-calling?

Are you a Hunter or Farmer? If you are in sales, this question is often asked when referring to your sales personality profile. When it comes to sales strategy and your most effective approach, it’s good to instantly know which one you are.

Getting into the right mindset for selling is crucial for business success, especially in current times. Even at Landstar, the best way for independent agents to gain business during a global pandemic is to maintain a positive attitude, to get in the right mindset and to understand the psychology that goes behind selling.  

Many in transportation and logistics call it “consultative selling.” This means a sales approach that prioritizes relationships with shippers and other qualified buyers, and opens dialogue to identify and provide solutions to a prospect’s needs. It’s hyper-focused on the customer, rather than the product or service being sold. Ultimately, it guides the salesperson to better understand the challenges faced by the prospect so they can position their solutions in a more compelling, relevant, effective way.

The most successful sales reps in transportation and logistics know that when a presentation is done right, making a sales presentation with impact is a high-earning skill. So make sure to invest adequate time and energy to perfect your sales presentation techniques. Don’t lead with differentiators, lead to them. And be personable and conversational. Here are five sales techniques that will help you to successful close more deals quicker.

Shippers are limiting external visits and sales calls to their facilities to minimize any chance of COVID spread to their workforces – which layers additional challenges to building relationships with customers and prospects. Industry events have been cancelled, postponed, or have gone completely virtual – so there are significantly fewer opportunities to meet in-person with customers, prospects, colleagues and partners. And of course, transportation and logistics companies also are wanting to keep safe their own sales personnel as well. 

So What’s the Impact on Sales-Related Travel?

During TMSA’s Virtual Town Hall earlier this week, there was significant discussion around the impact COVID has had on sales success. As part of the Town Hall virtual event, TMSA had polled members and asked them about their currently travel policies as they relate to sales. Through the survey, 32 companies responded (59% are 3PLs, 25% are motor carriers, and the remaining respondents were consultants, ocean carriers, port authorities, railroads, and technology innovators).  

By John Boyens, Co-Founder and President, Boyens Group and speaker at the 2020 Logistics Marketing & Sales Virtual Conference

Think about the last time you felt pressure from a salesperson. It could have been when you were shopping for a mattress a month ago or the last time you bought a car. Or maybe it was that random cold call you received from a telemarketer in the middle of the day last week at work. 

How did it make you feel? 

I’m guessing if you felt pressure, it wasn’t a “good” feeling at all. Instead, I expect you wanted to get out of the room (or off the phone) as quickly as possible. 

You’ve got 30 seconds to write down as many words/phrases as possible that come to mind when I say the word: SALESPERSON

Go!

We hear it all the time: “I have my own style of selling.”

Or from sales management: “I let my salespeople do their own thing. As long as they’re bringing in business, I don’t care how they do it.” 

“Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win.”  - Max McKeown

We’ve seen a lot of commentary in sales professional networking groups about how now simply isn’t the time to sell. At Luminaries, we believe that couldn't be farther from the truth! People who need your services are buying and you definitely can, and must, keep selling right now. Some of it involves simple adjustments to our approach: a little more empathy and grace. But we should be doing is what we should have been doing all along --- just with even more focus and discipline. It’s in that spirit that we’re providing these four tips for effective, adaptable sales organizations as they slowly get back on the road in the coming weeks and months:

This is the second installment of a 4-part series that provides perspectives from TMSA members on predictions for freight transportation in 2020 – and the impact Marketing and Sales can have on overall business success.

During a recent TMSA conference, we participated in working lunches where several contemporary sales and marketing topics were discussed including a discussion on sales incentives and how an organization can use incentives to drive more effective revenue generation. Over two days of discussion, we had participants who held a range of roles, from individual producers to sales managers and commercial leaders; representing small logistics organizations to major publicly traded transportation companies. 

In our discussions, we came to a common agreement, across the board, that incentive drives behavior. Each of our organizations were commonly bound by their membership in the transportation and logistics industry, however, each had a different strategy relative to how they motivated their sales team to reach the organizations independent revenue or sales goal.

Hubtek had the pleasure of Hosting a Roundtable at TMSA’s Marketing and Sales Conference last month. The topic for our table was “Best Practices in Outsourcing Sales.” Below are a few of the key takeaways that came from their discussion. 

Culture 

Work culture is a concept which deals in the study of: Beliefs, thought processes, attitudes of the employees. Ideologies and principles of the organization.

By Holly LaBoda, Partner and Founder at Luminaries Consulting, LLC, an Affiliate member of TMSA. She has 10+ years experience in strategy facilitation, talent management, sales development, change management, leadership development and custom learning content with leading companies such as C.H. Robinson and Emirates Group.

Picture it: An executive team is reviewing their quarterly results when the CEO asks, “why are we not hitting our revenue targets?” and all eyes turn to the sales leader. If results are struggling, some sales leaders will naturally jump to a few places. Perhaps the issue is their team not having the right talent or skills to achieve their goals. Maybe it’s a tool or resource gap, they need a CRM to better manage sales activity. These things may be needed, but a successful and sustainable sales function can’t be built by solving singular issues. Whether your sales function is thousands strong or a few key players, there are four key elements required to create lasting success.

In the 2017 TMSA Sales & Marketing Metrics Study, outside sales employees with transportation- and logistics-related companies contributed on average about 51% of the revenue for respondent companies that had outside sales teams. 

In contrast, it’s interesting to note that Inside Sales contributed an average of 41% of revenue for those companies that had inside sales, a slight decrease from 2015.

If classic movies like Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Tin Men (1987), Used Cars (1980)—or more recent hits like Wolf of Wall Street (2013)—have taught us anything, it’s that sales is not for those of a weak disposition.

And whether the character portrayal is ruthless and intimidating like Alec Baldwin’s Blake, broadly comedic like Danny DeVito’s Ernest Tilley, or charmingly sneaky like Kurt Russell’s Rudy Russo, movies have also suggested that salespeople need to be either pushy or conniving to achieve success.

Jeff Davis is founder of The Sales + Marketing Alignment Summit, an executive peer-to-peer event series that develops actionable insights for companies struggling to achieve alignment that drives revenue. He is a keynote speaker at the 2018 TMSA Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the news that CEB released some time ago that shows us that the typical B2B buyer is already 57% through the purchase process before reaching out to sales. Additionally, the average number of decision makers on a typical purchase has increased from 5.4 to 6.8 according to Brent Adamson, Principal Executive Advisor at CEB.

Part 2 of a 2-part series on how emerging technologies, more immediate access to market data, and changing needs in transportation and logistics have become disrupters of the traditional sales funnel.

Part 1 of a 2-part series on how emerging technologies, more immediate access to market data, and changing needs in transportation and logistics have become disrupters of the traditional sales funnel.

There's no question that sales activities are becoming more personalized, complex, and dictated by today's buyer of transportation and logistics products and services.