Cold Calling Shippers

As for going after direct business try and stick mostly to your mid-size and smaller shippers. If your brother / uncle / best friend is the shipping manager at Proctor and Gamble go for it, other than that your probably going to have an uphill climb on your hands.

As someone stated, get some business cards ( Vista Print ) can even work as well...the one thing I did in going after business was that I came with a 6 page brochure that I could email out or hand deliver to a place. The brochure had one of the first pages that showed who our insurance carrier was and the limits we carried. The reason being before anyone puts a load on your truck they have to know your insured. The other pages were who we are, what we do, our equipment, and where we go along with photos off the internet of trucks & trailers ( no one has to know they aren't yours ).

Some shippers have a spreadsheet of loads based on orders they have or are expecting and the shipping manager will ask for rates on lanes...keep in mind a customer can drop an order too or ask that it be sent the complete opposite direction than what you were thinking.

Direct shippers can be great but reliability and friendly service will take you only so far - at the end of the day you still have to be within reason of the next guy in terms of price. Good luck to you though!

 

I only chase the worth it shippers. Send calanders. My trucking company is always infront of their face.

 

Heh, why not? Some of the shippers whose business youre trying to solicit? That's exactly how their marketing departments work; they're in your face enough that, when you decide you need that type of service, their name comes to your mind before anyone else's. All because you kept on panting that bug in their ear.

 

Actually apart from business cards that's a brilliant idea that way they have your company name in front of them, the other thing i've found works really well years ago i used to sell Encyclopedia's and they used to have what they called the "yes technique" basically all you do is ask a question that gets them to say yes e.g encyclopedia sales person asks parent "Are you interested in your child's education?" of course they'll say yes. So a carrier could ask something like Are your interested in using reliable carriers? Do you want a good rate? You should get 2 yes answers, how it works is that people get into what they call a "yes mode" its all psychological so you then ask "how about giving our xyz company a go?"

 

Some people are simply amazing at selling.

I hate when "don't you care about _______?" Typucally like insurance, books, programs etc.

I went to buy a car a week ago and a guy asked me if I had my kids. I told him one on the way and he was stuck on selling me a sports SUV. I simply didn't want it. I wanted something fast. But he insisted I take the sporty audi SUV because it's powerful and te kid will love it.

 

yeah i hear ya mate nothings worse than a pushy sales person, the big diff here is that he was pushing something on you that you were not interested in. Shippers, manufactures are most definitely interested in a carrier so your foots already in the door so to speak having the extra edge won't hurt none will it.

 

No it won't. Problem with cold calling now a days tho is that shippers phones are ringing off the hook.