June 18, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, you’ll hear an analysis of what shippers look for when selecting freight providers, their sentiments and challenges, and how to build long-term relationships with them effectively. Tune in so you won’t miss another discussion that will help you stand out as a freight broker!
2025 Shipper Pulse Report: https://shorturl.at/Eixz9
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them make a bigger balls.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey what is up ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is a freight coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central to break down some industry headlines.
But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information.
If this is your first time tuning in, welcome.
(00:45):
This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen.
And I do say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve.
So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
(01:05):
Happy Wednesday everyone.
Going to do a solo show today and I topic of the show today is going to be about what shippers actually look for in a provider.
And we with my friends over at Denim sent me this amazing case study that they put together.
They surveyed a hundred shippers about what's important to them and stuff like that.
(01:27):
So we're going to break that down on today's show.
We're going to break down a couple of articles as well.
And also before I go any further, I have been reminded by my team to let you guys know if you guys see value in what you hear today and you're not subscribed, do your boy a solid and subscribe to the show.
And if you're going to feel really ambitious after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify.
(01:49):
Even if you hate it, comment on it, that you hate it on there as well, you guys, because at the end of the day, if you see value and you want to put it out there, that's how we get others to see value as well.
Corey Bukin, happy hump day to you, my man.
But again, you guys, it is a solo show, like I said.
One more quick subtle reminder.
Every Wednesday we drop a newsletter.
(02:09):
I just need you to go to the FreightCoach.com to register for that though it's growing.
I mean, it's actually amazing what not signing people up to this stuff, how it keeps growing week over week just by word of mouth.
And that comes from each and every one of you guys who listen to the show.
So if you want to get in on it, drops every single Wednesday.
Just need you to go to the freightcoach.com we just talk about the industry in there.
(02:31):
We dropped this week's fuel prices in there for you and we do some rates as well.
My friends at Green Screen send me a lane report on some big changes out there in specific lanes and just you know, again you guys, it's just free game to help you guys go out there and try and better prepare and understand how things are actually going in the market out there.
(02:52):
And you know, again there's a lot of things coming up here especially you know, like with the fourth of July.
I would recommend, excuse me, I would recommend getting in front of your customers right now about what their holiday schedule is going to look like.
Couple of my shippers are shut down the third and the fourth and you know, again, just get ahead of that stuff you guys and then you're going to see a natural price increase around there.
(03:17):
It should happen.
It might not.
I don't know.
It's, it's up for grabs at this point on what's gonna go on.
But I wanna jump in because you know, how do I find shippers is the number one DM I get.
Number two is how do I cold call, how do I prospect people?
And it's one of those things.
(03:37):
And I, I got another, I got a, just put the, put this out there for these guys.
I just recorded a podcast last night.
I don't do a lot of pre recorded episodes but when I do know it's going to be a good one for you guys and I recorded one and these guys are building something pretty cool behind the scenes.
I'll wait till you guys show up.
But they're out there helping people in the industry as well and how to find shippers and how to cold call and processes and all that fun stuff.
(04:03):
But you know, again, I'm going to dive in here.
This is from my friends at Denim.
I got a link that I will include in the show notes out there for you guys to get access to this report.
It is a shipper pulse report.
Again they interviewed and spoke with over about a hundred shippers for this.
Right?
You're not going to get better feedback than something like this because at the end of the day I can sit up here all day Long and all these other people can sit up here all day long and talk about stuff.
(04:32):
But like you need to hear from your target market, right?
You need to hear from your prospects.
And this is top feedback that we can get out there.
And obviously shippers are raising expectations.
Freight providers are under pressure to deliver more than just competitive rates.
While price plays a role, it's not what wins the deal or keeps it.
And you've heard me say this on the show, right?
(04:53):
Price becomes secondary.
And you know, of course it's a factor when you're beginning.
But at the end of the day, once you become somebody's preferred provider, price becomes secondary because they can justify why they're paying you above other people because of what you deliver upon.
And we're going to get into that here, you guys, because they got some awesome statistics on what was actually important to them and it's going to shock you a little bit here.
(05:21):
67, I want you to think about that, right?
So out of 10 people, seven out of 10 shippers, seven of them or even better, out of the 100 shippers they interviewed, 70 of them said service reliability is their top priority.
Think about that.
70% of respondents said reliability and service is their top priority.
(05:44):
Again, we can sit here and say this all we want about how great everything is, but until the rubber meets the road and you get in there, you got to prove yourself, right?
And that's what they look for when they're saving, selecting a freight partner.
I want you to think about this and you know, if you're listening to this on the replay here in a little bit.
But out of all of those respondents, 10% said price was the biggest factor.
(06:08):
10%.
So think about that as you're going out there and prospecting some of your shippers.
How should you tailor your approach?
Right?
Because again, I had a couple of stuff sit down meetings with two separate prospects of ours last week and both of them asked the exact same question when were in there.
They said, out of all the people we talked to, what makes you guys different than everybody else?
(06:33):
And at the end of the day, I was brutally honest with him.
I told them there's probably nothing I'm about to say that you guys haven't been told time and time again and probably been burnt by those exact statements.
So I'm going to jump in and I'm going to talk to you about our processes.
This is how we execute your freight.
And I laid out our step by step what we do day in and day out on every single shipment, whether we're losing $500 on a load, making $500 on a load, breaking even, it does not matter.
(07:02):
We operate the literal, exact same way every single time on every single shipment because we want to deliver consistency to our customers.
Our customers should never guess what is going on.
And that clearly aligns with the results of this survey when 67 of them say service and reliability is their top priority.
(07:23):
So again, price is a factor.
Yes.
You can't obviously quote a million dollars a mile and expect to win somebody's business.
But at the end of the day, you guys, how you execute upon their freight is what delivers the result of price becoming secondary.
And again, even when price is secondary, it's not like you can go out and get double the price or anything like that.
But you know, you can obviously quote what you need to deliver that service and reliability.
(07:50):
I'm going to go on here.
And then it goes on to say, here's another big one to you guys.
And again, I would.
This one to me is another angle that a lot of you can take in the prospecting phase of things.
And again, denim already did a ton of the work for you guys here.
And you guys just need to look at this report and see how can you tailor your pitch.
(08:10):
Because another one, you guys think 38% of the shippers surveyed in this site chasing paperwork as a top frustration.
So again, look at your internal processes.
And when they say chasing paperwork, you guys, pod retrieval, bill of lading retrieval.
How are you going about that and how are you presenting that to your customer?
(08:32):
How are you invoicing your customer?
That is a big thing, right?
Because if you are not organized behind the scenes, it doesn't matter how great you are out there, if you cause internal headaches for that company, your name will have a target on your back on how do we remove them.
So one thing we do, you guys, we are constantly asking people for the pod, right?
(08:55):
Like it is as soon as they are delivered, we, we are asking them for their pod when, hell, when we're booking the load, we let them know exactly what we need from them about how do we get the pod, our retrieval process, so we can get that.
We get our customer invoice.
And then again, here's a very important step that I want you guys to incorporate.
(09:17):
When you're in the onboarding phase of them, ask them about their billing requirements and ask them, is there anything specific we need to do to ensure that there is a seamless invoicing process that is done right?
How do they need it structured on there?
Do we need something visible?
What specific requirements are there from a billing perspective?
(09:38):
And how can you go out there and set yourself apart?
Right, so again, you guys, 7, 67% said service reliability and then another 38% said what they look for is how you can invoice them, right?
Chasing down paperwork is a major concern for a lot of people.
All right?
(09:58):
And then here's another thing, all right, so they got this all down here.
And again, if you guys want to get access to the survey, you guys got to click on the link after the show.
But again, 67 prioritize service and reliability.
61 of shippers stop working with providers due to missed or late deliveries.
(10:18):
All right, Pickups or deliveries, poor communication, 36% and then 31% about surprise fees.
That's what gets you kicked out of somebody's network.
All right, so think about that.
How are you quoting your freight when you're going in there, right?
Do you like to slip some things into the back end?
(10:38):
And there's going to be some of you who are listening to this that actually do that, right?
And trust me when I say that you guys actually do that because I hear about it from my customers and I don't speak about it publicly because I don't need to get in on any of the drama in the industry.
But if you're doing that where you're trying to slip in a surprise fee at the end, remove that instantly from your operations here, you guys, because that is a major concern amongst people, right?
(11:03):
So it's like my thing is when I quote Somebody say $2,800 on a load, that's the invoice that they're getting, all right?
There's no surprise fees that come along when you're booking freight with me and my organization out there.
And then again, communication, 36%, right?
So how many times are you updating your customers on the freight that you're moving for them?
(11:24):
My internal operations, you guys, eight points of communication for every single shipment that we move.
All right?
Eight points of communication.
So look at that.
Are you letting your customers know exactly what's going on at all times?
If it's a multi day transit, are you updating them in that timeframe to let them know, hey, here's where the truck is?
This is how we're tracking into delivery.
(11:44):
It's just little things like that.
You guys do that.
If you're not doing that, they need that.
I have never had a customer who Said, hey, Chris, you're communicating too great.
Please stop.
On the contrary, the only time a customer has ever said anything to me about the amount of updates was they're like, dude, we trust you at this point, just let us know if there's anything that happens in transit that we need to know about.
(12:09):
Other than that, man, just let us know when it delivers.
That was it.
You know, again, they still wanted to be updated.
They still wanted to know what was going on in the event something was running late, if there was a delay of any kind, anything like that.
Right?
So again, the most part, communicate.
Building a communication process.
Ours is personally, eight points of contact for our eight updates for every single shipment that we do.
(12:34):
Take that into consideration, break it down inside of your operation and start delivering that to your customers.
They will love it.
You can thank me later by growing your book of business and doing really great things out there in the market.
Because that's all I want from this, you guys.
I want you guys to take what we do internally in our business, apply to your business and make a shitload of money and change your lives with it.
(12:55):
All right?
That's all I'm looking for.
So again, back office pain.
That's another one.
And then here's a.
Here's also a.
You know, a pretty large percentage here.
They said shippers lack confidence in their own back office as well.
58% are only somewhat confident in their back office team internal.
(13:16):
So shippers, back office, billing department, 58% are somewhat confident in there.
So again, that's a massive opportunity for you.
All right?
It's not a, I can't believe these guys can't get any of their billing done.
It's how can we deliver value to our customers to help them streamline their billing and become the only provider who's clearly taken the time to help them become more and more organized and come to them with a plan.
(13:41):
They're going to love that and they're going to love you for it.
And that is how you get a customer for life.
And then here's another thing, too.
Shippers do not care if a broker or carrier factors.
All right?
30% don't think about it or aren't familiar with how it works, while 15% see it as a business tools.
So that's almost 50% of the shippers that they survey when it comes to factoring.
(14:03):
They don't care about it.
They don't even think about it because they.
At the end of the day, you guys, most manufacturers and shippers utilize a payment Firm as well, right?
So it's very common out there.
So if you're out there utilizing these services, nobody thinks about it at all.
(14:24):
And number one, and then another one, professional collections matter.
65% prefer email for payment reminders.
But shippers get frustrated with the unknown third party outreach, misdirect messages and overly aggressive follow ups.
And again, take that into consideration.
How are you going out?
And you can save yourself so much time on the back end, you guys, when you're in the early stages of prospecting, when you can just kind of lay all of this out and develop a system at the end of the day.
(14:52):
And again, keep in mind, things change.
I have a customer of mine who they've changed some of their internal billing, but they let us know like, hey, we have a single point of contact now.
Do not email any of these other individuals.
Have it go to this one person.
They will send it to the internal people that need to get it.
All right?
So again, they're looking to change that and streamline that.
(15:14):
And again, we got to update our records to ensure our internal teams are not wearing people out because that can cause an issue if it's overly aggressive, right?
Also, look at it like this, you guys.
It's just like the sales reps who fucking call 100 times in a month just to try and bid on somebody's freight, right?
(15:34):
And when I'm going through a lot of this stuff, I really compare my operations because I, anytime I see data and information from a trusted source in the industry, I look internally at my operations and say, how do I stack up against this?
Where can I improve?
(15:55):
How do I just become a little bit better with our internal operations?
Because again, it's very little about what, there's very little of what you can say in the beginning stages of a relationship that's going to like blow somebody's mind in this industry, right?
And I think it's like we also need to accept, where are we in the prospecting phase?
(16:19):
How much do you misalign your messaging when you're building out and trying to build that rapport?
And I truly, truly feel like too many people try and sell on price and be buddy with people way too soon, right?
Like, I do not talk rates.
I do not say I can save somebody money.
(16:40):
I do not care about what the weather is looking like in rural Alabama today, if that's where I'm calling somebody, just like they don't want to be asked that.
So again, it's just little Things like that, right?
So I break it down, you guys.
When you're originally going out and trying to qualify, right?
Icp, ideal customer profile, that's a big term that's being thrown out there.
(17:02):
And that's because my friend Kara Smith Brown wrote a badass book about it.
Now everybody's trying to coin it, that it's their idea, but it's not.
Kara Brown really coined that term for the transportation industry when she released her book here.
So again, you have your ideal customer profile.
You're going to go out there and you're going to get a thousand companies that move that are food and beverage.
(17:23):
We'll just, we'll just keep it here because that's a large portion of the market.
You got a thousand companies that are out there.
Now you're going to start calling them, right?
What do you do and what business are you going after?
I'm just going to talk about what we do in my business.
We're.
We're full truckload at the end of the day, right?
That.
That's what we do.
I don't do ltl.
I don't do intermodal.
I don't do airfreight, stuff like that.
(17:44):
So I am all full truckload.
So when I'm calling people, and here's some prime examples, I cold call every single day, you guys.
So I'm going to give you some real feedback on how my calls went this morning.
I've already made 35 cold calls today so far.
And the people that I got on the phone, again, more people than not, you guys, I would err on the side of like, 90% of the people that you call are extremely cordial as long as you don't waste their time.
(18:09):
Right?
Because they got a job to do, too.
It's not just sit around and wait for you to call them again.
I am very calculated on why we're calling people.
This is my name, all right?
This is Chris.
This is why I'm calling.
This is what we, you know, like, this is why I'm calling.
This is what we do, all right?
And again, I want to get to that yes or no as soon as possible, because it's not a yes here.
(18:31):
We're set up.
You're going to start moving all of our freight.
It's yes, we move full truckload or no, we don't move full truckload.
We're all ltl or no, we don't work with outside providers because we have our own internal fleet.
And again, I'm trying to Disqualify somebody as much as I'm trying to qualify them for the initial outreach.
Right?
And that is where a lot of us spend the majority of our time.
(18:55):
Because when we're out there prospecting a shipper, it takes a long time to get the decision maker on the phone and then an even longer time to get like a 15 minute sit down to show like, hey, we're a real person.
Right?
So again, I want to verify, especially if that shipping manager answers the phone.
I would say the decision maker answers about 10% of the time of my, all of my outreaches.
(19:20):
Right.
The most of the time it's the gatekeeper and again, the gatekeepers are extremely cordial.
If you do not waste their time.
Same thing with the decision maker.
I want to get in there, I have a plan on why I'm calling and I, I want to identify and let them know this is why I'm calling.
Right?
Because again, I don't want to waste anybody's time in pro and then, but most importantly, I don't want to waste my time.
(19:43):
I don't want to waste my time constantly calling somebody that doesn't even have the freight that I'm trying to do, right?
Like I need revenue, I need full truckload revenue.
I don't need ltl revenue, I don't move ltl.
Right?
So again, identify all of that and then understand where you're at in the process.
All right?
Because if you're going to get five minutes of somebody's time or 15 minutes of somebody's time, have a plan in place and again, that's your opportunity to prove yourself.
(20:10):
Talk to your about your internal operations.
Talk to them about how you execute their business.
Be very matter of fact and very to the point out.
All right, so now back into this here you guys.
Freight moving.
Freight is in the solo act.
Shippers rely on a web of external vendors to keep goods moving.
(20:33):
In fact, 90% say that they work with outside providers to move freight.
All right, Most commonly carriers, obviously 85% go direct to carriers.
Freight forwarders, 56% brokers, 50, 53% of them work with brokers.
And 3 PLs are at 42%.
That makes brokers and carriers a core part of the shipper experience.
(20:54):
And then obviously when choosing a fate, provider reliability is out there.
And again, 67% said service and dependability matter the most, which is extremely further ahead than price out there.
And you know, so again, as we're looking about this, you guys, the back office, all of that and then, you know, not.
(21:14):
And then getting your.
Your collections.
Right, doing that.
So again, look at this out there, you guys.
As, as we're.
We're kind of wrapping up this part of the show, and it took up a little bit more than I had anticipated.
But this is a great piece of information that I want you guys to all go and download from my friends at Denim.
(21:35):
And again, the link will be in the show notes for you guys to check it out.
But again, you guys, if we're looking at it operationally, that is where the majority of the frustrations come from.
All right, 10 said price.
So think about that.
And again, this isn't me saying go out there and start doubling your prices or anything, but look at your operations.
How many of you were just given a list of phone numbers and said to just start dialing and figure it out, right?
(22:01):
A lot.
A lot of people are.
You don't have to mention any company names or anything like that, but I hear it and I see it all the time, you guys.
The majority of people are handed a list of cold call phone numbers and they're told, just start dialing.
Figure it out.
Get us anything and everything.
Selling freight and executing upon that freight are two very different things.
(22:22):
So if you're out there and you're having any cold call anxiety or any, you know, angst on making dials out there, you guys, I want you to be very aware.
That's the easy part.
All right?
The easiest part of this job is cold calling and selling.
The real work always starts when you get that first bill of lading and you get that green light.
(22:43):
All right, Go pick this load up.
Make it happen for us.
And you can see, based on the report that my friends at Denim put out there, you guys, 70% service and reliability, 40% mentioned back office and billing reliability.
All right, so think about that as you're going through here and you're like, how do we separate ourselves from our competition?
(23:06):
Because, you know, again, new business development right now, you guys, it's a challenge.
It's always a challenge.
But the sales cycles take a little bit longer.
They take a little bit longer than a lot of us want out there in the market.
But at the end of the day, how do you create more depth with your current customers?
Because a lot of the growth that most businesses want are already inside of their book of business.
(23:28):
They're not capturing enough opportunities.
They're not deep selling to their customers once they're onboarded and moving, you know, Consistent freight.
What more can you do?
Is there anything else you guys need to improve upon?
How can you become a more trusted provider to.
To them?
Right?
And that's got to be our approach when we're in the door.
Because chasing new business and new revenue takes a lot longer than the revenue that's already there inside of your business.
(23:56):
And are you capturing it to its fullest extent?
Right.
And again, that's a process.
You're not just going to be given 100% of somebody's freight or access to 100% of their freight right away.
It takes time to build that out, you guys.
And again, you.
It's a lot easier to establish what you need to get better on early on in a relationship with somebody, then it's too late, right?
(24:19):
Because most people think like, oh, I'm bidding on freight, I'm winning some.
I got to be getting everything.
I'm their top person.
Are you, though?
Are you their top provider?
Because nobody's entitled to anybody's business out there, all right?
Results matter.
Results are everything.
And I, you know, our company motto is one truck at a time.
That, that is our literal company motto is one truck at a time.
(24:39):
It does not matter that we've done 200 loads for a customer and picked up on time and delivered on time, build it on time.
We're not entitled to that 201st.
And when we get that 201st, we got to make sure our customer is taken care of.
They get everything that they need in that moment to ensure that they're going to give US shipment number 202.
So take that into consideration, you guys, as you're going out there and you're trying to develop business, all right?
(25:05):
And then think about how you're prospecting somebody.
Most people want to go in there and say, we can do everything.
We're the best at everything.
Just give us your freight, let us bid on it.
Where's the freight?
Give us more opportunities, you know, give us something.
How's the weather?
You know, like again?
And you gotta.
Eventually you gotta stop and think, is your process actually working?
Are you getting through and moving along the.
(25:29):
The sales process, or are you getting stuck every single time at the gatekeeper saying you're not interested, they're not interested, not happening.
You're not getting passed back to the decision maker.
Eventually you got to look at how you're prospecting people, what's important.
And again, you guys, operational efficiency is the most important thing.
(25:49):
All right?
Picking up on time, delivering on time, communicating, billing.
You lock those four things in maybe three, I might have combined one there.
You lock that in, you guys, you're gonna have customers for life.
All right?
They should never have to wear you out about an update about where's their truck.
They should never have to wear you out about where's the bills for this one.
Why aren't you invoicing us properly?
(26:10):
These are all things that you can handle pre moving your first shipment with them, and then from there, how do you get a little bit better?
Is everything that we're doing working out for you guys internally?
What do we need to improve upon?
Is there a new billing contact?
Is there a new way you need to get invoiced?
Stay on top of that, you guys, that's part of it, right?
It's not just about cash and commission checks.
(26:31):
All right?
As cool as that is, you know, like at the end of the day, you guys, it's extremely expensive to go out and develop new business.
It's extremely expensive.
It's not like you can just call somebody and they just give you all this freight, right?
It might cost, you know, flights, hotels, rental cars, meals.
It costs.
Costs a lot of money.
Cost time to develop new business.
(26:52):
And you might be overlooking the business that you already have inside of your book of business already.
You just have not become a top provider for them because most people feel entitled out there as a sales rep, I did for a long time.
I stopped as soon as I had to, you know, figure out how to make money 12 months out of the year because I stopped getting a salary when I went into business for myself.
(27:15):
So again, you guys, just a perspective.
So take that for.
Take that and run with that, you guys.
I'm going to put the link for that article that Denim put out, you guys, and it's got a long list.
It's like seven pages, bunch of great data on how you guys can look at it, of how do you get a little bit better in your prospecting, what's actually important to shippers when you're going on out there?
(27:36):
Because you can redirect what you've been saying.
Maybe you've just been relying too much on price and it hasn't really worked out for you.
And then with the information that's inside of that article, you guys use it and run with it, you guys, and go out there and get some business, create some solid partnerships and get after it, you guys.
But that will be it for today.
I got to get back to covering freight.
(27:57):
That's why were a little bit late this morning.
Is I won a last minute load there and used to, you know, use my friends over at Revenova to build that load quick before I jumped on and then I used it earlier today to tender a bunch of freight as well you guys.
So take that for what it's worth because your boy here is slanging with you guys every single day as always.
If you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show you guys.
(28:19):
And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify because if you see value, your network's going to see value as well.
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Came back with a bank Hey O Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back a Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast a Let them all cross if they hate and let them hate them make a bigger boss a.
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them make a bigger balls.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey what is up ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is a freight coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central to break down some industry headlines.
But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information.
If this is your first time tuning in, welcome.
(00:45):
This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen.
And I do say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve.
So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
(01:05):
Happy Wednesday everyone.
Going to do a solo show today and I topic of the show today is going to be about what shippers actually look for in a provider.
And we with my friends over at Denim sent me this amazing case study that they put together.
They surveyed a hundred shippers about what's important to them and stuff like that.
(01:27):
So we're going to break that down on today's show.
We're going to break down a couple of articles as well.
And also before I go any further, I have been reminded by my team to let you guys know if you guys see value in what you hear today and you're not subscribed, do your boy a solid and subscribe to the show.
And if you're going to feel really ambitious after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify.
(01:49):
Even if you hate it, comment on it, that you hate it on there as well, you guys, because at the end of the day, if you see value and you want to put it out there, that's how we get others to see value as well.
Corey Bukin, happy hump day to you, my man.
But again, you guys, it is a solo show, like I said.
One more quick subtle reminder.
Every Wednesday we drop a newsletter.
(02:09):
I just need you to go to the FreightCoach.com to register for that though it's growing.
I mean, it's actually amazing what not signing people up to this stuff, how it keeps growing week over week just by word of mouth.
And that comes from each and every one of you guys who listen to the show.
So if you want to get in on it, drops every single Wednesday.
Just need you to go to the freightcoach.com we just talk about the industry in there.
(02:31):
We dropped this week's fuel prices in there for you and we do some rates as well.
My friends at Green Screen send me a lane report on some big changes out there in specific lanes and just you know, again you guys, it's just free game to help you guys go out there and try and better prepare and understand how things are actually going in the market out there.
(02:52):
And you know, again there's a lot of things coming up here especially you know, like with the fourth of July.
I would recommend, excuse me, I would recommend getting in front of your customers right now about what their holiday schedule is going to look like.
Couple of my shippers are shut down the third and the fourth and you know, again, just get ahead of that stuff you guys and then you're going to see a natural price increase around there.
(03:17):
It should happen.
It might not.
I don't know.
It's, it's up for grabs at this point on what's gonna go on.
But I wanna jump in because you know, how do I find shippers is the number one DM I get.
Number two is how do I cold call, how do I prospect people?
And it's one of those things.
(03:37):
And I, I got another, I got a, just put the, put this out there for these guys.
I just recorded a podcast last night.
I don't do a lot of pre recorded episodes but when I do know it's going to be a good one for you guys and I recorded one and these guys are building something pretty cool behind the scenes.
I'll wait till you guys show up.
But they're out there helping people in the industry as well and how to find shippers and how to cold call and processes and all that fun stuff.
(04:03):
But you know, again, I'm going to dive in here.
This is from my friends at Denim.
I got a link that I will include in the show notes out there for you guys to get access to this report.
It is a shipper pulse report.
Again they interviewed and spoke with over about a hundred shippers for this.
Right?
You're not going to get better feedback than something like this because at the end of the day I can sit up here all day Long and all these other people can sit up here all day long and talk about stuff.
(04:32):
But like you need to hear from your target market, right?
You need to hear from your prospects.
And this is top feedback that we can get out there.
And obviously shippers are raising expectations.
Freight providers are under pressure to deliver more than just competitive rates.
While price plays a role, it's not what wins the deal or keeps it.
And you've heard me say this on the show, right?
(04:53):
Price becomes secondary.
And you know, of course it's a factor when you're beginning.
But at the end of the day, once you become somebody's preferred provider, price becomes secondary because they can justify why they're paying you above other people because of what you deliver upon.
And we're going to get into that here, you guys, because they got some awesome statistics on what was actually important to them and it's going to shock you a little bit here.
(05:21):
67, I want you to think about that, right?
So out of 10 people, seven out of 10 shippers, seven of them or even better, out of the 100 shippers they interviewed, 70 of them said service reliability is their top priority.
Think about that.
70% of respondents said reliability and service is their top priority.
(05:44):
Again, we can sit here and say this all we want about how great everything is, but until the rubber meets the road and you get in there, you got to prove yourself, right?
And that's what they look for when they're saving, selecting a freight partner.
I want you to think about this and you know, if you're listening to this on the replay here in a little bit.
But out of all of those respondents, 10% said price was the biggest factor.
(06:08):
10%.
So think about that as you're going out there and prospecting some of your shippers.
How should you tailor your approach?
Right?
Because again, I had a couple of stuff sit down meetings with two separate prospects of ours last week and both of them asked the exact same question when were in there.
They said, out of all the people we talked to, what makes you guys different than everybody else?
(06:33):
And at the end of the day, I was brutally honest with him.
I told them there's probably nothing I'm about to say that you guys haven't been told time and time again and probably been burnt by those exact statements.
So I'm going to jump in and I'm going to talk to you about our processes.
This is how we execute your freight.
And I laid out our step by step what we do day in and day out on every single shipment, whether we're losing $500 on a load, making $500 on a load, breaking even, it does not matter.
(07:02):
We operate the literal, exact same way every single time on every single shipment because we want to deliver consistency to our customers.
Our customers should never guess what is going on.
And that clearly aligns with the results of this survey when 67 of them say service and reliability is their top priority.
(07:23):
So again, price is a factor.
Yes.
You can't obviously quote a million dollars a mile and expect to win somebody's business.
But at the end of the day, you guys, how you execute upon their freight is what delivers the result of price becoming secondary.
And again, even when price is secondary, it's not like you can go out and get double the price or anything like that.
But you know, you can obviously quote what you need to deliver that service and reliability.
(07:50):
I'm going to go on here.
And then it goes on to say, here's another big one to you guys.
And again, I would.
This one to me is another angle that a lot of you can take in the prospecting phase of things.
And again, denim already did a ton of the work for you guys here.
And you guys just need to look at this report and see how can you tailor your pitch.
(08:10):
Because another one, you guys think 38% of the shippers surveyed in this site chasing paperwork as a top frustration.
So again, look at your internal processes.
And when they say chasing paperwork, you guys, pod retrieval, bill of lading retrieval.
How are you going about that and how are you presenting that to your customer?
(08:32):
How are you invoicing your customer?
That is a big thing, right?
Because if you are not organized behind the scenes, it doesn't matter how great you are out there, if you cause internal headaches for that company, your name will have a target on your back on how do we remove them.
So one thing we do, you guys, we are constantly asking people for the pod, right?
(08:55):
Like it is as soon as they are delivered, we, we are asking them for their pod when, hell, when we're booking the load, we let them know exactly what we need from them about how do we get the pod, our retrieval process, so we can get that.
We get our customer invoice.
And then again, here's a very important step that I want you guys to incorporate.
(09:17):
When you're in the onboarding phase of them, ask them about their billing requirements and ask them, is there anything specific we need to do to ensure that there is a seamless invoicing process that is done right?
How do they need it structured on there?
Do we need something visible?
What specific requirements are there from a billing perspective?
(09:38):
And how can you go out there and set yourself apart?
Right, so again, you guys, 7, 67% said service reliability and then another 38% said what they look for is how you can invoice them, right?
Chasing down paperwork is a major concern for a lot of people.
All right?
(09:58):
And then here's another thing, all right, so they got this all down here.
And again, if you guys want to get access to the survey, you guys got to click on the link after the show.
But again, 67 prioritize service and reliability.
61 of shippers stop working with providers due to missed or late deliveries.
(10:18):
All right, Pickups or deliveries, poor communication, 36% and then 31% about surprise fees.
That's what gets you kicked out of somebody's network.
All right, so think about that.
How are you quoting your freight when you're going in there, right?
Do you like to slip some things into the back end?
(10:38):
And there's going to be some of you who are listening to this that actually do that, right?
And trust me when I say that you guys actually do that because I hear about it from my customers and I don't speak about it publicly because I don't need to get in on any of the drama in the industry.
But if you're doing that where you're trying to slip in a surprise fee at the end, remove that instantly from your operations here, you guys, because that is a major concern amongst people, right?
(11:03):
So it's like my thing is when I quote Somebody say $2,800 on a load, that's the invoice that they're getting, all right?
There's no surprise fees that come along when you're booking freight with me and my organization out there.
And then again, communication, 36%, right?
So how many times are you updating your customers on the freight that you're moving for them?
(11:24):
My internal operations, you guys, eight points of communication for every single shipment that we move.
All right?
Eight points of communication.
So look at that.
Are you letting your customers know exactly what's going on at all times?
If it's a multi day transit, are you updating them in that timeframe to let them know, hey, here's where the truck is?
This is how we're tracking into delivery.
(11:44):
It's just little things like that.
You guys do that.
If you're not doing that, they need that.
I have never had a customer who Said, hey, Chris, you're communicating too great.
Please stop.
On the contrary, the only time a customer has ever said anything to me about the amount of updates was they're like, dude, we trust you at this point, just let us know if there's anything that happens in transit that we need to know about.
(12:09):
Other than that, man, just let us know when it delivers.
That was it.
You know, again, they still wanted to be updated.
They still wanted to know what was going on in the event something was running late, if there was a delay of any kind, anything like that.
Right?
So again, the most part, communicate.
Building a communication process.
Ours is personally, eight points of contact for our eight updates for every single shipment that we do.
(12:34):
Take that into consideration, break it down inside of your operation and start delivering that to your customers.
They will love it.
You can thank me later by growing your book of business and doing really great things out there in the market.
Because that's all I want from this, you guys.
I want you guys to take what we do internally in our business, apply to your business and make a shitload of money and change your lives with it.
(12:55):
All right?
That's all I'm looking for.
So again, back office pain.
That's another one.
And then here's a.
Here's also a.
You know, a pretty large percentage here.
They said shippers lack confidence in their own back office as well.
58% are only somewhat confident in their back office team internal.
(13:16):
So shippers, back office, billing department, 58% are somewhat confident in there.
So again, that's a massive opportunity for you.
All right?
It's not a, I can't believe these guys can't get any of their billing done.
It's how can we deliver value to our customers to help them streamline their billing and become the only provider who's clearly taken the time to help them become more and more organized and come to them with a plan.
(13:41):
They're going to love that and they're going to love you for it.
And that is how you get a customer for life.
And then here's another thing, too.
Shippers do not care if a broker or carrier factors.
All right?
30% don't think about it or aren't familiar with how it works, while 15% see it as a business tools.
So that's almost 50% of the shippers that they survey when it comes to factoring.
(14:03):
They don't care about it.
They don't even think about it because they.
At the end of the day, you guys, most manufacturers and shippers utilize a payment Firm as well, right?
So it's very common out there.
So if you're out there utilizing these services, nobody thinks about it at all.
(14:24):
And number one, and then another one, professional collections matter.
65% prefer email for payment reminders.
But shippers get frustrated with the unknown third party outreach, misdirect messages and overly aggressive follow ups.
And again, take that into consideration.
How are you going out?
And you can save yourself so much time on the back end, you guys, when you're in the early stages of prospecting, when you can just kind of lay all of this out and develop a system at the end of the day.
(14:52):
And again, keep in mind, things change.
I have a customer of mine who they've changed some of their internal billing, but they let us know like, hey, we have a single point of contact now.
Do not email any of these other individuals.
Have it go to this one person.
They will send it to the internal people that need to get it.
All right?
So again, they're looking to change that and streamline that.
(15:14):
And again, we got to update our records to ensure our internal teams are not wearing people out because that can cause an issue if it's overly aggressive, right?
Also, look at it like this, you guys.
It's just like the sales reps who fucking call 100 times in a month just to try and bid on somebody's freight, right?
(15:34):
And when I'm going through a lot of this stuff, I really compare my operations because I, anytime I see data and information from a trusted source in the industry, I look internally at my operations and say, how do I stack up against this?
Where can I improve?
(15:55):
How do I just become a little bit better with our internal operations?
Because again, it's very little about what, there's very little of what you can say in the beginning stages of a relationship that's going to like blow somebody's mind in this industry, right?
And I think it's like we also need to accept, where are we in the prospecting phase?
(16:19):
How much do you misalign your messaging when you're building out and trying to build that rapport?
And I truly, truly feel like too many people try and sell on price and be buddy with people way too soon, right?
Like, I do not talk rates.
I do not say I can save somebody money.
(16:40):
I do not care about what the weather is looking like in rural Alabama today, if that's where I'm calling somebody, just like they don't want to be asked that.
So again, it's just little Things like that, right?
So I break it down, you guys.
When you're originally going out and trying to qualify, right?
Icp, ideal customer profile, that's a big term that's being thrown out there.
(17:02):
And that's because my friend Kara Smith Brown wrote a badass book about it.
Now everybody's trying to coin it, that it's their idea, but it's not.
Kara Brown really coined that term for the transportation industry when she released her book here.
So again, you have your ideal customer profile.
You're going to go out there and you're going to get a thousand companies that move that are food and beverage.
(17:23):
We'll just, we'll just keep it here because that's a large portion of the market.
You got a thousand companies that are out there.
Now you're going to start calling them, right?
What do you do and what business are you going after?
I'm just going to talk about what we do in my business.
We're.
We're full truckload at the end of the day, right?
That.
That's what we do.
I don't do ltl.
I don't do intermodal.
I don't do airfreight, stuff like that.
(17:44):
So I am all full truckload.
So when I'm calling people, and here's some prime examples, I cold call every single day, you guys.
So I'm going to give you some real feedback on how my calls went this morning.
I've already made 35 cold calls today so far.
And the people that I got on the phone, again, more people than not, you guys, I would err on the side of like, 90% of the people that you call are extremely cordial as long as you don't waste their time.
(18:09):
Right?
Because they got a job to do, too.
It's not just sit around and wait for you to call them again.
I am very calculated on why we're calling people.
This is my name, all right?
This is Chris.
This is why I'm calling.
This is what we, you know, like, this is why I'm calling.
This is what we do, all right?
And again, I want to get to that yes or no as soon as possible, because it's not a yes here.
(18:31):
We're set up.
You're going to start moving all of our freight.
It's yes, we move full truckload or no, we don't move full truckload.
We're all ltl or no, we don't work with outside providers because we have our own internal fleet.
And again, I'm trying to Disqualify somebody as much as I'm trying to qualify them for the initial outreach.
Right?
And that is where a lot of us spend the majority of our time.
(18:55):
Because when we're out there prospecting a shipper, it takes a long time to get the decision maker on the phone and then an even longer time to get like a 15 minute sit down to show like, hey, we're a real person.
Right?
So again, I want to verify, especially if that shipping manager answers the phone.
I would say the decision maker answers about 10% of the time of my, all of my outreaches.
(19:20):
Right.
The most of the time it's the gatekeeper and again, the gatekeepers are extremely cordial.
If you do not waste their time.
Same thing with the decision maker.
I want to get in there, I have a plan on why I'm calling and I, I want to identify and let them know this is why I'm calling.
Right?
Because again, I don't want to waste anybody's time in pro and then, but most importantly, I don't want to waste my time.
(19:43):
I don't want to waste my time constantly calling somebody that doesn't even have the freight that I'm trying to do, right?
Like I need revenue, I need full truckload revenue.
I don't need ltl revenue, I don't move ltl.
Right?
So again, identify all of that and then understand where you're at in the process.
All right?
Because if you're going to get five minutes of somebody's time or 15 minutes of somebody's time, have a plan in place and again, that's your opportunity to prove yourself.
(20:10):
Talk to your about your internal operations.
Talk to them about how you execute their business.
Be very matter of fact and very to the point out.
All right, so now back into this here you guys.
Freight moving.
Freight is in the solo act.
Shippers rely on a web of external vendors to keep goods moving.
(20:33):
In fact, 90% say that they work with outside providers to move freight.
All right, Most commonly carriers, obviously 85% go direct to carriers.
Freight forwarders, 56% brokers, 50, 53% of them work with brokers.
And 3 PLs are at 42%.
That makes brokers and carriers a core part of the shipper experience.
(20:54):
And then obviously when choosing a fate, provider reliability is out there.
And again, 67% said service and dependability matter the most, which is extremely further ahead than price out there.
And you know, so again, as we're looking about this, you guys, the back office, all of that and then, you know, not.
(21:14):
And then getting your.
Your collections.
Right, doing that.
So again, look at this out there, you guys.
As, as we're.
We're kind of wrapping up this part of the show, and it took up a little bit more than I had anticipated.
But this is a great piece of information that I want you guys to all go and download from my friends at Denim.
(21:35):
And again, the link will be in the show notes for you guys to check it out.
But again, you guys, if we're looking at it operationally, that is where the majority of the frustrations come from.
All right, 10 said price.
So think about that.
And again, this isn't me saying go out there and start doubling your prices or anything, but look at your operations.
How many of you were just given a list of phone numbers and said to just start dialing and figure it out, right?
(22:01):
A lot.
A lot of people are.
You don't have to mention any company names or anything like that, but I hear it and I see it all the time, you guys.
The majority of people are handed a list of cold call phone numbers and they're told, just start dialing.
Figure it out.
Get us anything and everything.
Selling freight and executing upon that freight are two very different things.
(22:22):
So if you're out there and you're having any cold call anxiety or any, you know, angst on making dials out there, you guys, I want you to be very aware.
That's the easy part.
All right?
The easiest part of this job is cold calling and selling.
The real work always starts when you get that first bill of lading and you get that green light.
(22:43):
All right, Go pick this load up.
Make it happen for us.
And you can see, based on the report that my friends at Denim put out there, you guys, 70% service and reliability, 40% mentioned back office and billing reliability.
All right, so think about that as you're going through here and you're like, how do we separate ourselves from our competition?
(23:06):
Because, you know, again, new business development right now, you guys, it's a challenge.
It's always a challenge.
But the sales cycles take a little bit longer.
They take a little bit longer than a lot of us want out there in the market.
But at the end of the day, how do you create more depth with your current customers?
Because a lot of the growth that most businesses want are already inside of their book of business.
(23:28):
They're not capturing enough opportunities.
They're not deep selling to their customers once they're onboarded and moving, you know, Consistent freight.
What more can you do?
Is there anything else you guys need to improve upon?
How can you become a more trusted provider to.
To them?
Right?
And that's got to be our approach when we're in the door.
Because chasing new business and new revenue takes a lot longer than the revenue that's already there inside of your business.
(23:56):
And are you capturing it to its fullest extent?
Right.
And again, that's a process.
You're not just going to be given 100% of somebody's freight or access to 100% of their freight right away.
It takes time to build that out, you guys.
And again, you.
It's a lot easier to establish what you need to get better on early on in a relationship with somebody, then it's too late, right?
(24:19):
Because most people think like, oh, I'm bidding on freight, I'm winning some.
I got to be getting everything.
I'm their top person.
Are you, though?
Are you their top provider?
Because nobody's entitled to anybody's business out there, all right?
Results matter.
Results are everything.
And I, you know, our company motto is one truck at a time.
That, that is our literal company motto is one truck at a time.
(24:39):
It does not matter that we've done 200 loads for a customer and picked up on time and delivered on time, build it on time.
We're not entitled to that 201st.
And when we get that 201st, we got to make sure our customer is taken care of.
They get everything that they need in that moment to ensure that they're going to give US shipment number 202.
So take that into consideration, you guys, as you're going out there and you're trying to develop business, all right?
(25:05):
And then think about how you're prospecting somebody.
Most people want to go in there and say, we can do everything.
We're the best at everything.
Just give us your freight, let us bid on it.
Where's the freight?
Give us more opportunities, you know, give us something.
How's the weather?
You know, like again?
And you gotta.
Eventually you gotta stop and think, is your process actually working?
Are you getting through and moving along the.
(25:29):
The sales process, or are you getting stuck every single time at the gatekeeper saying you're not interested, they're not interested, not happening.
You're not getting passed back to the decision maker.
Eventually you got to look at how you're prospecting people, what's important.
And again, you guys, operational efficiency is the most important thing.
(25:49):
All right?
Picking up on time, delivering on time, communicating, billing.
You lock those four things in maybe three, I might have combined one there.
You lock that in, you guys, you're gonna have customers for life.
All right?
They should never have to wear you out about an update about where's their truck.
They should never have to wear you out about where's the bills for this one.
Why aren't you invoicing us properly?
(26:10):
These are all things that you can handle pre moving your first shipment with them, and then from there, how do you get a little bit better?
Is everything that we're doing working out for you guys internally?
What do we need to improve upon?
Is there a new billing contact?
Is there a new way you need to get invoiced?
Stay on top of that, you guys, that's part of it, right?
It's not just about cash and commission checks.
(26:31):
All right?
As cool as that is, you know, like at the end of the day, you guys, it's extremely expensive to go out and develop new business.
It's extremely expensive.
It's not like you can just call somebody and they just give you all this freight, right?
It might cost, you know, flights, hotels, rental cars, meals.
It costs.
Costs a lot of money.
Cost time to develop new business.
(26:52):
And you might be overlooking the business that you already have inside of your book of business already.
You just have not become a top provider for them because most people feel entitled out there as a sales rep, I did for a long time.
I stopped as soon as I had to, you know, figure out how to make money 12 months out of the year because I stopped getting a salary when I went into business for myself.
(27:15):
So again, you guys, just a perspective.
So take that for.
Take that and run with that, you guys.
I'm going to put the link for that article that Denim put out, you guys, and it's got a long list.
It's like seven pages, bunch of great data on how you guys can look at it, of how do you get a little bit better in your prospecting, what's actually important to shippers when you're going on out there?
(27:36):
Because you can redirect what you've been saying.
Maybe you've just been relying too much on price and it hasn't really worked out for you.
And then with the information that's inside of that article, you guys use it and run with it, you guys, and go out there and get some business, create some solid partnerships and get after it, you guys.
But that will be it for today.
I got to get back to covering freight.
(27:57):
That's why were a little bit late this morning.
Is I won a last minute load there and used to, you know, use my friends over at Revenova to build that load quick before I jumped on and then I used it earlier today to tender a bunch of freight as well you guys.
So take that for what it's worth because your boy here is slanging with you guys every single day as always.
If you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show you guys.
(28:19):
And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify because if you see value, your network's going to see value as well.
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Came back with a bank Hey O Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back a Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast a Let them all cross if they hate and let them hate them make a bigger boss a.
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