By Chris Peer, Owner & CEO of SyncShow. Peer presented "10 Reasons Google Hates Your Transportation & Logistics Website - And What You Can Do About It" at the 2018 Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference.
Your website has the potential to be the most important member of your logistics sales team. But just like your sales team members, your website must constantly stay at the top of its game if it's going to generate the kind of leads needed to meet your business goals.
During the 2018 TMSA Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference this week, attendees had their choice of 20 topics that involved peer-to-peer discussion on opportunities, challenges and best practices involving those topics. One topic was on lead management. Jason Ickert, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, FLS Transportation Services facilitated discussions on this topic and shares a summary of what his peer group discussed:
Lead Generation can come from a multitude of sources. As we spoke about challenges and best practices in our Lead Management Interactive Discussion Roundtable, it became evident that to more easily manage and track a lead’s progress and conversion, one must be able to deploy technology that provides visibility.
Jeff Davis, Founder of jd2 Consulting Group, laid out a compelling argument for S&M alignment at the TMSA Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference this week.
In an ever more litigious culture, collision costs are growing significantly each year. According to the Large Truck Crash Causation Statistics, in 2013, the average cost for trucking companies per accident was more than $11 million for those that involved fatalities, close to $500,000 for those with injuries and nearly $75,000 for ones that caused property damage. Without a neutral eyewitness on the scene, it’s often impossible to prove that accidents were not the fault of the truck driver.
As a marketing, communications and sales professional in North American transportation and logistics, you likely manage the private information of your customer, prospects, workforces and/or key stakeholders. If so, the General Data Protection Regulation should stop you in your tracks.
Particularly if you’re managing relationships, data, and marketing activities involving targets in the European Union (EU).
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.
In today’s business environment it is becoming more and more important to have strong alignment between Sales and Marketing. The Aberdeen Group’s research shows that companies that optimize the marketing/sales relationship grow revenue 32% faster. This is clear evidence that the dysfunctional and sometimes toxic relationship between these two functions can no longer exist if the organization is to succeed against the competition. Some may ask then why don’t we just appoint an executive, like a Chief Revenue Officer, and make them work together?
“Talent is now the most scarce and valuable commodity on earth, so companies who really understand how to attract, retain, and manage people will win.” - Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP. (1)
It is undeniable that the demand for talent across the business world has been picking up for the past few years, and the things employees value most have shifted as well, partly because of generational attitudes and partly because new technologies redefining the workspace.
If you're going to have a successful business relationship with a customer, a team associate, or any other stakeholder for that matter, it's critical that you build credibility. This is particularly true in a business relationship. But surprisingly, only 13% of customers believe salespeople demonstrate understanding of their business challenges, according to Forrester Research’s Buyer Insight study.
You can overcome this obstacle through a concept called "Empathetic Listening," according to Eric Maddox, who used this technique while serving as an interrogator in support of operation Iraqi Freedom. Maddox's efforts were pivotal in achieving actionable intelligence from numerous detainees. During his time, Maddox created a unique methodology and technique for "Empathetic Listening" and used it to collect the intelligence which led to the exact location of Saddam Hussein – the Ace of Spades in the infamous Deck of Cards.
By Ian Addison, LinkedIn ABM. If you find this article interesting, Addison will be presenting a live TMSA webinar, "Real Account-Based Marketing Using LinkedIn," on June 1 at 11am Central. > Register Now
Before taking an Account Based Sales & Marketing approach, Schneider Logistics was seeing maybe 1 out of 5 leads engage successfully. In speaking with many other complex solution-sales companies, I am finding that has become a growing trend.
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.
I've talked to many leaders about the need to align B2B Sales and Marketing. Through those exchange of ideas, I've learned a lot about where a majority of companies are in their journey toward alignment. Now that a significant amount of attention has been directed at alignment, we are starting to see more research that helps us better understand its impact on revenue. This evidence has given more leaders confidence in taking an alignment initiative between Sales and Marketing serious. However, two major challenges persists -(1) knowing what good looks like and (2) knowing how to get started. Because of this, I wanted to share my thoughts on how I would go about aligning with my sales counterpart.
The importance of effective teamwork has never been more critical than it is now. Why? Simply put, businesses aren’t run the way they used to be. In the past, organizations had a clear top-to-bottom hierarchy, departments were self-contained, and neat borders existed between individual roles. Such a set-up may appeal to our sense of order, but, as we all know by now, silos aren’t particularly efficient or agile in today’s business environment.
Thanks to technological innovations in an ever more global economy, a new world of possibility has opened up regarding how we conceive, develop, and deliver products and services. And it takes a new kind of teamwork to pull it off successfully.
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.
By Adrian Gonzalez of "Talking Logistics," who was named recently as another well-known industry thought leader who will be speaking at the upcoming 2018 TMSA Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference June 10-12 near Fort Myers, Florida. Sign up to follow his blog at www.TalkingLogistics.com.
Shippers today find themselves in a difficult and costly situation: their routing guides are often broken and they’re having to go to the spot market to cover their loads, which is costing more than they had budgeted. The great transportation spot market inversion has occurred. What does that mean for shippers? How should they respond? And what actions should they take longer term to prepare for whatever market conditions lie ahead?
The Only Constant is Change.
Recently, the logistics and supply chain industry has been rife with disruption. Even though these events have significant supply chain cost ramifications I am not referring to the perfect storm (see note below) we are experiencing in the North American transport market. I am referring instead to innovative disruption, specifically the conceptual rise of the digital freight forwarder/broker, and segments of the traditional supply chain that can be digitized.
A new member of TMSA, the Port of Long Beach is one of America’s premier seaports and a trailblazer in goods movement and environmental stewardship. Trade valued annually at more than U.S. $180 billion moves through Long Beach each year. More than 7.5 million container units were imported and exported in 2017 through the Port, making it the second-busiest seaport in the United States. Everything from clothing and shoes to toys, furniture and consumer electronics arrives at the Port before making its way to store shelves throughout the country. Specialized terminals also move petroleum, automobiles, cement, lumber, steel and other products.
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.
I think that most B2B leaders across industries would agree that Sales and Marketing Alignment is a necessary transformation that needs to happen. This is a historical relationship that has suffered for many reasons. As more and more focus and information starts to be generated about this alignment, my fear is that executives will lose sight of what is important - the shiny object syndrome. Thus, it is my intent to help drive for clarity while using the great research and insights we get from industry experts. We can have all the greatest insights, research, and thought-leadership, however, if we can't make it actionable for today's leaders then it becomes useless. We need to focus on creating a framework for success.
More than 40 sales, marketing and business professionals in transportation and logistics gathered April 6 at the Toronto Airport Marriott Hotel. Sponsored by the Marlik Group, this seminar highlighted facilitated discussions among attendees involving commercial freight transportation in Canada.
State of Canada’s Transportation Industry
Part of the discussion included context around the state of the commercial freight industry in North America, and how marketing and sales metrics are helping to drive productivity in the industry. Attendees expressed some concerns over potential changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and their impact on trade (and ultimately transportation and logistics activity) between companies in Canada and the United States. There’s also ongoing concern over tight trucking capacity and how to creatively address it to maximize productivity and profitability.
You will be replaced.
Don’t feel bad; it happens to all of us. It’s the cycle of life in the business world. But whether you are taking on a new role or sailing into retirement, it’s important that the person following your footsteps is ready and able to tackle the challenge. Hopefully, that person is already on the payroll.
The Transportation Marketing & Sales Association will host its first-ever TMSA Logistics Digital Marketers Conference. This two-day event will take place Oct. 15-16 in Chicago.
There's a significant trend of companies in the transportation and logistics industries to leverage digital marketing strategies to achieve business goals and revenue growth. In fact, 44 percent of marketing category spend is focused on customer acquisition and lead generation, according to the 2017 TMSA Sales & Marketing Metrics Study, with much of the budget being focused on content marketing, engagement via website and digital marketing, sales and marketing automation, and other related initiatives.
When it comes to identifying high-potential (hi-po) leaders, the 9-Box has become a familiar template, largely because of its highly publicized usage at GE. However, the template provides no guidance on how to define “high potential.” Many large organizations view high potential as the capacity to reach a certain executive level (such as Vice President) within a specific time frame (5 years, for example). But that approach is not meaningful in smaller companies with fewer management layers. Any size organization can have difficulty differentiating genuine hi-pos from people who are solid performers but have limited potential to succeed in much more complex roles.
As noted in a Harvard Business Review article (“How to Keep Your Top Talent”; May 2010), only about 30% of high-performing leaders have significant advancement potential. Put another way, 70% of high-performing leaders do not qualify as high potential! What this suggests is that a track record of high performance is a necessary, but not sufficient, factor in determining advancement potential.
