Nate Cross & Ben Kowalski answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:
- 📦 Are load boards enough? — Can brokers actually find spot market loads directly on load boards, or do they first need to secure customers independently and then post the freight?
- 📞 Cold call math — Out of 80 outbound calls, how many typically answer on the first try? And how many return the call later?
- 🔁 From sales to ops — Has anyone successfully transitioned from a pure sales role into an Account Management or Operations role? What trade-offs have you seen in pay and work/life balance?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back for another Q&A session here.
It's the final mile and we'vegot three questions from the
community today that we will getright into.
But first please take a momentto check out all of our other
content at Freight360.net.
You'll find the Freight BrokerBasics course there for a
educational option for yourselfor your team, and check out the
(00:20):
sponsors in the description orshow notes to help support
Freight360.
All right, Ben, first questionthis came, I think, from it was
a YouTube comment.
So the spot market for loadsisn't necessarily available on
load boards?
Can brokers find loads directlyon those boards?
The only way to secureshipments is to first find
(00:40):
customers or shippersindependently and then post them
to move their freight.
So yeah, I want to.
I want to just kind of first ofall say the load board is not
where you should be going tolook for freight If you are a
freight broker.
The load board is where motorcarriers and freight brokers
will typically connect with oneanother.
Carriers are looking forfreight to move, Brokers are
(01:03):
looking for trucks to haul theircustomers freight.
So if this if this personasking the question is asking
regarding a brokerageperspective the spot market
relates, what that means isthat's like the daily available
freight that customers have thatwasn't contracted out
previously.
All right, and they're going toget that access to that freight
(01:25):
from talking with theircustomers on a daily basis,
sometimes in a form of an emailthat's sent out to the brokers
throughout the day or throughoutthe week.
Now, if this is a carrierasking this question, the spot
load market would likely be whatyou're seeing on the load
boards, or at least the majorityof it, but that's from a
(01:45):
carrier's perspective.
Did I miss anything in there?
Do you want to clarify anything?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, I'll just use kind of like I don't know.
I'll explain it again just froma different perspective to get
everyone to understand.
It's like the spot market areall of the available loads that
brokers have that they put out,usually for the next day or over
the next couple of days, maybea week in advance, right?
They're all the short-termloads that all the brokers all
(02:09):
over the country have that theyare putting out for carriers to
either bid on, take or just workon.
It happens in one or two orthree ways, right?
One is they're going to go to aload board.
A load board is just part ofthe marketplace.
The spot market is all of thoseloads, right?
So DAT is the largestmarketplace of the spot market
(02:31):
loads all being put out bybrokers for carriers to get
Carriers also put up theirtrucks for brokers to see Truck
stop second largest, and thenthere's a bunch of smaller ones.
Second way that happens is youcan just email the loads you
have to a bunch of carriersyou've already worked with and
say, hey, these are what I gotthis week.
Does anybody want them?
That's also where that happens.
Those aren't publicly availablebut they are still considered
(02:52):
spot market loads, right?
And the third would be just aphone call, right?
So they're all just short-termloads that need to be negotiated
between a broker and a carrier.
Shippers don't typicallyparticipate, even though they
technically could, becauseshippers don't have the ability
to vet and onboard a carrier ina short amount of time, get them
set up and then pay them andthen do that, and they also
(03:14):
don't want to go through thatwork.
They're not going to go andonboard a carrier to move one
load.
That is the value that brokersprovide to the shippers, and how
we get that is by literallycreating the spot market.
Without brokers, there is nospot market, there's no load
boards, there's nothing.
There's just carriers workingwith whoever they've been able
to talk to yeah, it's a greatway to explain it all, right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
uh, next question out of the 80 calls you have to
make, how many answer on thefirst call and if they don't
answer, how many call you back?
So we use like the 80 to 100calls a day like metric.
That's kind of where I thinkwhere this is coming from.
So I'll tell you.
I'm curious what your metricsyou would say you would answer
on this, because the last time Iactually tracked it if I were
(03:58):
to see if it was, if I'm lookingat 80 calls, I basically did
like two.
I did it with one of our guys onthe team.
We did I think we did like 240call sessions or something
around that.
So I'll just combine them.
I want to say we probably had adozen to 15 people that we got
on the phone, but those weren'tall the people that we want to
(04:21):
talk to.
A lot of times it was agatekeeper or a, an operator or
something like that.
Out of the 80, we probably hadlike three conversations, one of
which was basically justovercoming objections the whole
time, and the other two were.
You know, we're definitelyworthy of a followup.
(04:42):
So that's, those are themetrics that I can give you from
the last time I tracked it.
What have you seen when youwork with somebody, or last time
you tracked yours?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I would also say that you should expect almost zero
to call you back, so I wouldn'tleave a voicemail Zero callbacks
, nobody's calling you back,right, I mean?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Let me add one more thing in, too, is that tracking
those metrics is actually aneye-opening thing, because when
you start to realize thatcertain times of the day, when
you get more of the check markon the column of no one, no one
answered that those things helpyou refine your, your techniques
, but go ahead so.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And also there's a technique and this goes through
all sales, but I've always likedit it's when know your numbers,
you can count the misses, andit actually has like a positive
effect, meaning like if mynumbers are, I call a hundred
companies a day and I speak tosay on a good day, five.
And when I say speak to, I wantto clarify to your point like
(05:39):
that is not a gatekeeper thatanswered the phone, an admin or
a secretary that says thatperson's not in, that doesn't
count, it's a decision maker orthe person you need to speak to
about the business you wouldwant to do with them, right?
So it's like if I call 100 andmy numbers were like out of 100,
a good day was five, a horribleday was zero and average was
two to three is really where mynumbers kind of fell right.
(06:00):
A horrible day was zero andaverage was two to three is
really where my numbers kind offell Right.
And then what you could do isyou count the misses because
statistically, every 95 phonecalls I make I'm going to speak
to somebody.
So I know like once I got 50 or60 misses, statistically,
someone's probably going to pickup the phone pretty soon and
that actually has apsychological effect.
Where it's you're moreoptimistic because you know that
(06:22):
eventually you're going to getto somebody the more shots you
take, right.
So it is really good to knowthose numbers and that's the
other thing you pointed out.
For anybody out, there is likewhen and I mean when by the time
of day and the day of the week,at which time you'll reach
certain people, changesdifferent on the industry and
(06:42):
who you're reaching out to.
For instance, I would use thisexample it's like I prospected
bakeries for a period of timeright.
Well, after like a week ofcalling and talking to a whole
lot of gatekeepers or peoplethat weren't, who tendered
freight, I found that like, oh,they keep completely different
hours.
Bakeries tend to open at liketwo in the morning and are done
with their day at noon becausethey got to bake the bread, get
(07:04):
it shipped to the stores beforethe stores open.
So, like the decision makerswere literally on, you could
call them at six in the morningor five, 30, like Eastern
standard, and you would reachthem because nobody else was
calling.
That time of day, again,executives tends to work better,
like they tend to be the firstpeople in.
So if you call before eighto'clock at seven, 15 or seven,
30, sometimes they're the onlyones in the office, so the
(07:26):
highest person sometimes isthere early and late and that's
a good like trick.
And then the other thing is,like you'll notice that like
based on your, if you look atyou work at a big brokerage
you'll notice that, likeeverybody's days of the week are
a little different.
Like folks that ship certaincommodities are really busy
Monday mornings and don't slowdown until Tuesday.
Why?
Because lots of their freightwas supposed to deliver over the
(07:46):
weekend, so all the stuff thatdidn't, there's a ton of work to
do when you show up.
Well, if you call that shipper,you're going to see the same
thing.
Like they're not going toanswer the phone Monday morning
because they're rescheduling,going through everything that
should have happened and didn'thappen over the weekend.
You might reach them Tuesdayafternoon when they slow down.
Some companies don't ship on theweekend and, like you could
reach them at 10 o'clock on aMonday because, like their week,
(08:09):
their orders haven't reallycome in yet and they tend to
just be, honestly, kind of likereading the news, doing some
admin stuff.
So you want to bucket yourleads to be able to like garner
these insights as you're callingto go like man, I've called
every day, monday throughThursday.
No one answered.
Thursday afternoon I reached 15people, between two and four.
Well, there's probably a bit ofinformation that you could use
(08:30):
moving forward that, like out ofthis whole group, these folks
tended to answer all on the sameday, at the same time of the
week.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So let me I'll give you this is unrelated, but it
was just an interesting how tolike when you're making, making
these calls, how to get through,because people are always like
yeah, you know, you know,gatekeeper always stops me.
So, if you remember, I wastelling about like the, the
double brokered loads recentlythey were trying to clean up.
I had four customers that I hadto call, four shippers I had to
call last week and I had to getto the traffic department to
verify if you know, if those, ifthey had loads that were
actually real and you know whothey tended them out to.
(09:07):
So here I am calling as a guyfrom a freight brokerage trying
to get a shipping manager on thephone, right, and I'm like, I'm
like this is going to suckbecause they're going to like
you know that no one's going topass me through, but I, you know
, I, the way we talk about likehaving a sense of urgency or
sounding like it's something'sreally important, dude, I got
through to three of the four andgot a return call after a
(09:30):
voicemail from the fourth um,because I said, you know, I
don't remember exactly what itwas, but it's something along
the lines of like, hey, um, Ijust had a question about some
of your shipments.
We have a load that I thinkmight have been double brokered
and wanted to verify with youguys right through.
Like and I'm not telling youguys to lie, but I want you to
(09:50):
think that's.
Those are the kinds of callsthat get through.
So think creatively how youphrase yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Two things that went out of.
That is I used to work inbanking, right, so we had to
make cold calls to businessesand the thing I remember them
telling us very early on is likehow you leave a message is
really important.
You're calling a customer of abank and if you leave a message
like this is Ben from PNC Bank,I need you to call me back, and
you just hang up.
(10:16):
You can be sure that thatperson is calling you right
Because, like, they don't knowwhat's going on.
You're calling from the bank.
They don't know if somebodystole their money, if there's
something wrong with theiraccount.
But here's the thing to yourpoint, when you do that, you get
a huge amount of return callsand they're all pissed off.
Why?
Because they're terrified andthey're calling you because they
think something happened totheir money right.
Same thing in our scenario islike if you aren't selling yet
(10:38):
and you've managed or justbooked loads and you're working
your way into sales, like if youcall a shipper because your
driver has a problem at thatdock, nine times out of 10,
you'll get the same person onthe phone in one phone call that
you call prospecting and can'tget.
It's just your tone of voice IfI pick up the phone and call a
shipper and go hey man, I needto speak to somebody in shipping
(10:59):
, and that scenario would belike look, I got a driver.
I'm not sure if he's at theright dock.
I got a bunch of issues.
Can you just push me through towho I need to talk to?
Boom, gatekeeper, right to thedecision maker.
I call that same company thenext day.
This is Ben from XYZ Logistics.
Can I speak to somebody inshipping?
Who is this?
What do you need?
(11:19):
What is this regarding Clickthing?
Who is this?
What do you need?
What is this regarding Click?
I'm never getting through howyou say.
What you're going and whatyou're going to say are the two
biggest determinants to whetheror not you're going to get
through a gatekeeper.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yep, great point, all right.
Our last one has anyone hadsuccess switching from a more
pure sales role to more of anaccount management or operations
role?
Figure the pay will be less butbetter on the work-life balance
.
This one actually came fromReddit.
I pulled it from the freightbrokers community there.
Okay, I don't.
I don't have an answerspecifically to this question.
(11:51):
Maybe you do.
I just wanted to take a take aminute to talk about what kind
of expectations you should havein these different roles.
So I think that that answer tothat question just really
depends on what those roles meanat the company that you're
working for.
When he says pure sales role tomore of an account management or
(12:11):
operation, so this sounds likeless cold calling and more of
the easy work, right?
Which is why they said, likeyou know, less pay but work-life
balance.
My first thing is like, ifyou're good at sales and it pays
more, why would you stop?
I mean, unless you're burnt out, which they said work-life
(12:33):
balance, but I would say, like Ialways like to be, but someone
else is bringing that businessto the table.
If I'm in operations, I reallydon't have much impact at all,
(12:58):
except for maybe how much I'mgoing to pay a truck.
But I, you know, when you'relooking to move around in your
company, I really think it'sworth having a conversation with
your boss or your leadership orwhoever, periodically about you
know just overall, like whereyou're at, how things are going,
where do you want to be in thefuture and what are those, like
(13:20):
what needs to happen for you toget to that place, whether
that's a paycheck number or arole or a, you know, work life
balance, whatever you know,whatever that looks like.
But I've also seen like thepeople that produce the revenue
tend to kind of be put on apedestal more than like an
operations person at a lot ofcompanies, that they're afforded
(13:42):
more flexibility, they'reafforded more decision making.
You know all that stuff.
So I'm curious what your takewould be like.
Think about if you had a guy inyour company that's like, hey,
instead of being a sales guy,maybe I'll go manage these house
accounts or do operations.
Like what would you?
What are your thoughts on thatconcept?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
So this person is probably working in a brokerage.
That's cradle to the grave,meaning.
Like they've got to sell andrun their own freight and
they're like, hey, if I couldjust run the freight coming in,
I would have a better work lifebalance.
Like could just run the freightcoming in, I would have a
better work-life balance.
Like you're definitely going tomake less money, right, because
you're also creating less valueand also there's a lot of risk
(14:22):
there.
Even if you do negotiate a goodcomp package as an account
manager, a lot of what you maketo your point earlier, nate is
like out of your control If themarket tanks and your customers
just don't ship as much.
Like you're going to make lessmoney If your customers
disappear because someone boughttheir company and they have
their own transportationdepartment and it's all gone.
Like you don't really have anyability to fix that or to bring
(14:45):
more in.
So like you're the first guythat's either going to get let
go or moved into another adminrole.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
that's going to pay even less.
We saw this in COVID man.
The first layoffs were thenon-revenue producers.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And the other thing too is like I think there's more
flexibility in sales, but itreally depends on the definition
of the role and the company youwork for.
Like I know outside sales folksthat make decent money in
freight and they travel a lot.
Maybe there's not work-lifebalance, but they have
flexibility in their schedule.
I know folks that work in somecompanies where sales and
freight brokerages just bring onaccounts and then handing them
(15:19):
off to customers.
They do well and haveflexibility in what and how when
they're working right.
Account managers tend to haveless flexibility Monday through
Friday, because you got to bethere when the freight's moving,
yeah, and somebody's got to bethere, which means if you are
taking time to come and go fromthe office, the company's paying
(15:41):
somebody below you to make surethat freight's getting booked.
And then at a certain pointit's like what value are you
adding?
And like.
The last point I always want tosay is like, think about it
simply as like to take any moneyout of a company, you've got to
create value for that company.
Like, how much value are youcreating for that company?
Because as things get more andmore automated, there's going to
be a point at which, liketaking information out of one
(16:04):
screen and putting it intoanother isn't creating a whole
lot of value and can beoutsourced.
So maybe it's because you gotgood relationships and you
manage accounts very well andyou're good at problem solving
and you understand lots ofdifferent equipment types and
how and what to do, Like thatcreates a lot of value or it
prevents a lot of problems,which one way or the other
preventing a bad thing andcreating more good things both
(16:24):
create value right, Just ondifferent sides.
So, like, the more value youcreate, the more money you can
take out of the company.
And again, whether your salaryplus commission like to me that
is the simplest way you want tothink about it it's like, okay,
what am I really doing thathelps this company either make
more money or spend less money,or both, and how can I do more
of those things in a way thatgives me that balance in my life
(16:47):
?
And there's again, if that roledoesn't exist in your company
now, there are lots of othercompanies that may have that
role defined differently, withdifferent responsibilities,
different hours and differentexpectations.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, it makes me think of we talked with Trey
Greggs a couple of years agoabout like how man this was
probably like three or fouryears ago I was at my old house
but like we were talking abouthow like as leaders, you can't
assume that all of your teammembers like value things
equally, like one might valuethe pay and other might value
(17:21):
the flexibility more.
One might value the work fromhome, time off.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Some people want more security and less commission,
someone, way more upside andless security on the salary.
And also the important,important thing is, this does
not stay the same over thecourse of your career.
In my 20s, I want way morecommission, less security.
If you have a family, maybe youneed a little more security and
more benefits and a little lesscommission.
Bit more flexibility, where youused to be able to work 12, 14
(17:52):
hours three weeks in a row andthen take a day off, where, like
, these things don't stay thesame indefinitely either.
And I think having theseconversations, both as an
employee with your boss and yourboss to your employees, is
super important.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, I remember I had, uh, um, I worked with a
girl years ago that like when itcame time for her review, she
went in and like didn't want torace.
She just like wanted more timeoff.
She's like she's like, yeah,I'm going to, I'm going to ask
for another week off and like atthe end of the day the boss was
like that's all she wanted.
Like she could ask for that sixmonths ago.
(18:26):
Like we're all about givingpeople time off, that they want
it, that they want it, Whereasme I went to the same boss at
one point and tried to get themto change me from W-2 to 1099
and put me straight commission,because I wanted the earning
potential.
So everyone's different.
Like I wanted to.
You know, hey, I don't want tobe forced to sit here for eight
(18:48):
hours a day and be limited tothis.
I want to be able to workwhenever I want and be able to
write my own paycheck based onmy my efforts.
So same with me.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And one of the main reasons that entrepreneurship
and running my own businesseslike appeals to me is I want
every decision I have I want tobe responsible for and I want it
to have an impact on how muchmoney I bring in good and bad
Right.
I want to be in a place where,like, I can create the
flexibility where, like therewas nothing that pissed me off
more in my entire career of,like, banking hours.
(19:21):
You just got to be here eightto five, no matter what good or
bad, like just punching in andpunching out, and no matter how
hard you worked or little, thatnever changed.
I'm, like I want to be able towork harder, faster and smarter,
to be able to get more done andthen benefit from it, either
having more money or being ableto go.
Hey, I'm leaving two hoursearly to go see my kid at
whatever, but like I did twotimes the amount of work the
(19:43):
average person does in thisamount of time.
Like I want to be able to takethe benefits for improving.
But again, everybody teachtheir own on what is the most
important to them in thesescenarios.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Great questions, though, as always, continue to
send them our way and we'llanswer them as we can.
Final thoughts Ben.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And until next time go Bills.
Welcome back for another Q&A session here.
It's the final mile and we'vegot three questions from the
community today that we will getright into.
But first please take a momentto check out all of our other
content at Freight360.net.
You'll find the Freight BrokerBasics course there for a
educational option for yourselfor your team, and check out the
(00:20):
sponsors in the description orshow notes to help support
Freight360.
All right, Ben, first questionthis came, I think, from it was
a YouTube comment.
So the spot market for loadsisn't necessarily available on
load boards?
Can brokers find loads directlyon those boards?
The only way to secureshipments is to first find
(00:40):
customers or shippersindependently and then post them
to move their freight.
So yeah, I want to.
I want to just kind of first ofall say the load board is not
where you should be going tolook for freight If you are a
freight broker.
The load board is where motorcarriers and freight brokers
will typically connect with oneanother.
Carriers are looking forfreight to move, Brokers are
(01:03):
looking for trucks to haul theircustomers freight.
So if this if this personasking the question is asking
regarding a brokerageperspective the spot market
relates, what that means isthat's like the daily available
freight that customers have thatwasn't contracted out
previously.
All right, and they're going toget that access to that freight
(01:25):
from talking with theircustomers on a daily basis,
sometimes in a form of an emailthat's sent out to the brokers
throughout the day or throughoutthe week.
Now, if this is a carrierasking this question, the spot
load market would likely be whatyou're seeing on the load
boards, or at least the majorityof it, but that's from a
(01:45):
carrier's perspective.
Did I miss anything in there?
Do you want to clarify anything?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, I'll just use kind of like I don't know.
I'll explain it again just froma different perspective to get
everyone to understand.
It's like the spot market areall of the available loads that
brokers have that they put out,usually for the next day or over
the next couple of days, maybea week in advance, right?
They're all the short-termloads that all the brokers all
(02:09):
over the country have that theyare putting out for carriers to
either bid on, take or just workon.
It happens in one or two orthree ways, right?
One is they're going to go to aload board.
A load board is just part ofthe marketplace.
The spot market is all of thoseloads, right?
So DAT is the largestmarketplace of the spot market
(02:31):
loads all being put out bybrokers for carriers to get
Carriers also put up theirtrucks for brokers to see Truck
stop second largest, and thenthere's a bunch of smaller ones.
Second way that happens is youcan just email the loads you
have to a bunch of carriersyou've already worked with and
say, hey, these are what I gotthis week.
Does anybody want them?
That's also where that happens.
Those aren't publicly availablebut they are still considered
(02:52):
spot market loads, right?
And the third would be just aphone call, right?
So they're all just short-termloads that need to be negotiated
between a broker and a carrier.
Shippers don't typicallyparticipate, even though they
technically could, becauseshippers don't have the ability
to vet and onboard a carrier ina short amount of time, get them
set up and then pay them andthen do that, and they also
(03:14):
don't want to go through thatwork.
They're not going to go andonboard a carrier to move one
load.
That is the value that brokersprovide to the shippers, and how
we get that is by literallycreating the spot market.
Without brokers, there is nospot market, there's no load
boards, there's nothing.
There's just carriers workingwith whoever they've been able
to talk to yeah, it's a greatway to explain it all, right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
uh, next question out of the 80 calls you have to
make, how many answer on thefirst call and if they don't
answer, how many call you back?
So we use like the 80 to 100calls a day like metric.
That's kind of where I thinkwhere this is coming from.
So I'll tell you.
I'm curious what your metricsyou would say you would answer
on this, because the last time Iactually tracked it if I were
(03:58):
to see if it was, if I'm lookingat 80 calls, I basically did
like two.
I did it with one of our guys onthe team.
We did I think we did like 240call sessions or something
around that.
So I'll just combine them.
I want to say we probably had adozen to 15 people that we got
on the phone, but those weren'tall the people that we want to
(04:21):
talk to.
A lot of times it was agatekeeper or a, an operator or
something like that.
Out of the 80, we probably hadlike three conversations, one of
which was basically justovercoming objections the whole
time, and the other two were.
You know, we're definitelyworthy of a followup.
(04:42):
So that's, those are themetrics that I can give you from
the last time I tracked it.
What have you seen when youwork with somebody, or last time
you tracked yours?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I would also say that you should expect almost zero
to call you back, so I wouldn'tleave a voicemail Zero callbacks
, nobody's calling you back,right, I mean?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Let me add one more thing in, too, is that tracking
those metrics is actually aneye-opening thing, because when
you start to realize thatcertain times of the day, when
you get more of the check markon the column of no one, no one
answered that those things helpyou refine your, your techniques
, but go ahead so.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And also there's a technique and this goes through
all sales, but I've always likedit it's when know your numbers,
you can count the misses, andit actually has like a positive
effect, meaning like if mynumbers are, I call a hundred
companies a day and I speak tosay on a good day, five.
And when I say speak to, I wantto clarify to your point like
(05:39):
that is not a gatekeeper thatanswered the phone, an admin or
a secretary that says thatperson's not in, that doesn't
count, it's a decision maker orthe person you need to speak to
about the business you wouldwant to do with them, right?
So it's like if I call 100 andmy numbers were like out of 100,
a good day was five, a horribleday was zero and average was
two to three is really where mynumbers kind of fell right.
(06:00):
A horrible day was zero andaverage was two to three is
really where my numbers kind offell Right.
And then what you could do isyou count the misses because
statistically, every 95 phonecalls I make I'm going to speak
to somebody.
So I know like once I got 50 or60 misses, statistically,
someone's probably going to pickup the phone pretty soon and
that actually has apsychological effect.
Where it's you're moreoptimistic because you know that
(06:22):
eventually you're going to getto somebody the more shots you
take, right.
So it is really good to knowthose numbers and that's the
other thing you pointed out.
For anybody out, there is likewhen and I mean when by the time
of day and the day of the week,at which time you'll reach
certain people, changesdifferent on the industry and
(06:42):
who you're reaching out to.
For instance, I would use thisexample it's like I prospected
bakeries for a period of timeright.
Well, after like a week ofcalling and talking to a whole
lot of gatekeepers or peoplethat weren't, who tendered
freight, I found that like, oh,they keep completely different
hours.
Bakeries tend to open at liketwo in the morning and are done
with their day at noon becausethey got to bake the bread, get
(07:04):
it shipped to the stores beforethe stores open.
So, like the decision makerswere literally on, you could
call them at six in the morningor five, 30, like Eastern
standard, and you would reachthem because nobody else was
calling.
That time of day, again,executives tends to work better,
like they tend to be the firstpeople in.
So if you call before eighto'clock at seven, 15 or seven,
30, sometimes they're the onlyones in the office, so the
(07:26):
highest person sometimes isthere early and late and that's
a good like trick.
And then the other thing is,like you'll notice that like
based on your, if you look atyou work at a big brokerage
you'll notice that, likeeverybody's days of the week are
a little different.
Like folks that ship certaincommodities are really busy
Monday mornings and don't slowdown until Tuesday.
Why?
Because lots of their freightwas supposed to deliver over the
(07:46):
weekend, so all the stuff thatdidn't, there's a ton of work to
do when you show up.
Well, if you call that shipper,you're going to see the same
thing.
Like they're not going toanswer the phone Monday morning
because they're rescheduling,going through everything that
should have happened and didn'thappen over the weekend.
You might reach them Tuesdayafternoon when they slow down.
Some companies don't ship on theweekend and, like you could
reach them at 10 o'clock on aMonday because, like their week,
(08:09):
their orders haven't reallycome in yet and they tend to
just be, honestly, kind of likereading the news, doing some
admin stuff.
So you want to bucket yourleads to be able to like garner
these insights as you're callingto go like man, I've called
every day, monday throughThursday.
No one answered.
Thursday afternoon I reached 15people, between two and four.
Well, there's probably a bit ofinformation that you could use
(08:30):
moving forward that, like out ofthis whole group, these folks
tended to answer all on the sameday, at the same time of the
week.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So let me I'll give you this is unrelated, but it
was just an interesting how tolike when you're making, making
these calls, how to get through,because people are always like
yeah, you know, you know,gatekeeper always stops me.
So, if you remember, I wastelling about like the, the
double brokered loads recentlythey were trying to clean up.
I had four customers that I hadto call, four shippers I had to
call last week and I had to getto the traffic department to
verify if you know, if those, ifthey had loads that were
actually real and you know whothey tended them out to.
(09:07):
So here I am calling as a guyfrom a freight brokerage trying
to get a shipping manager on thephone, right, and I'm like, I'm
like this is going to suckbecause they're going to like
you know that no one's going topass me through, but I, you know
, I, the way we talk about likehaving a sense of urgency or
sounding like it's something'sreally important, dude, I got
through to three of the four andgot a return call after a
(09:30):
voicemail from the fourth um,because I said, you know, I
don't remember exactly what itwas, but it's something along
the lines of like, hey, um, Ijust had a question about some
of your shipments.
We have a load that I thinkmight have been double brokered
and wanted to verify with youguys right through.
Like and I'm not telling youguys to lie, but I want you to
(09:50):
think that's.
Those are the kinds of callsthat get through.
So think creatively how youphrase yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Two things that went out of.
That is I used to work inbanking, right, so we had to
make cold calls to businessesand the thing I remember them
telling us very early on is likehow you leave a message is
really important.
You're calling a customer of abank and if you leave a message
like this is Ben from PNC Bank,I need you to call me back, and
you just hang up.
(10:16):
You can be sure that thatperson is calling you right
Because, like, they don't knowwhat's going on.
You're calling from the bank.
They don't know if somebodystole their money, if there's
something wrong with theiraccount.
But here's the thing to yourpoint, when you do that, you get
a huge amount of return callsand they're all pissed off.
Why?
Because they're terrified andthey're calling you because they
think something happened totheir money right.
Same thing in our scenario islike if you aren't selling yet
(10:38):
and you've managed or justbooked loads and you're working
your way into sales, like if youcall a shipper because your
driver has a problem at thatdock, nine times out of 10,
you'll get the same person onthe phone in one phone call that
you call prospecting and can'tget.
It's just your tone of voice IfI pick up the phone and call a
shipper and go hey man, I needto speak to somebody in shipping
(10:59):
, and that scenario would belike look, I got a driver.
I'm not sure if he's at theright dock.
I got a bunch of issues.
Can you just push me through towho I need to talk to?
Boom, gatekeeper, right to thedecision maker.
I call that same company thenext day.
This is Ben from XYZ Logistics.
Can I speak to somebody inshipping?
Who is this?
What do you need?
(11:19):
What is this regarding Clickthing?
Who is this?
What do you need?
What is this regarding Click?
I'm never getting through howyou say.
What you're going and whatyou're going to say are the two
biggest determinants to whetheror not you're going to get
through a gatekeeper.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yep, great point, all right.
Our last one has anyone hadsuccess switching from a more
pure sales role to more of anaccount management or operations
role?
Figure the pay will be less butbetter on the work-life balance
.
This one actually came fromReddit.
I pulled it from the freightbrokers community there.
Okay, I don't.
I don't have an answerspecifically to this question.
(11:51):
Maybe you do.
I just wanted to take a take aminute to talk about what kind
of expectations you should havein these different roles.
So I think that that answer tothat question just really
depends on what those roles meanat the company that you're
working for.
When he says pure sales role tomore of an account management or
(12:11):
operation, so this sounds likeless cold calling and more of
the easy work, right?
Which is why they said, likeyou know, less pay but work-life
balance.
My first thing is like, ifyou're good at sales and it pays
more, why would you stop?
I mean, unless you're burnt out, which they said work-life
(12:33):
balance, but I would say, like Ialways like to be, but someone
else is bringing that businessto the table.
If I'm in operations, I reallydon't have much impact at all,
(12:58):
except for maybe how much I'mgoing to pay a truck.
But I, you know, when you'relooking to move around in your
company, I really think it'sworth having a conversation with
your boss or your leadership orwhoever, periodically about you
know just overall, like whereyou're at, how things are going,
where do you want to be in thefuture and what are those, like
(13:20):
what needs to happen for you toget to that place, whether
that's a paycheck number or arole or a, you know, work life
balance, whatever you know,whatever that looks like.
But I've also seen like thepeople that produce the revenue
tend to kind of be put on apedestal more than like an
operations person at a lot ofcompanies, that they're afforded
(13:42):
more flexibility, they'reafforded more decision making.
You know all that stuff.
So I'm curious what your takewould be like.
Think about if you had a guy inyour company that's like, hey,
instead of being a sales guy,maybe I'll go manage these house
accounts or do operations.
Like what would you?
What are your thoughts on thatconcept?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
So this person is probably working in a brokerage.
That's cradle to the grave,meaning.
Like they've got to sell andrun their own freight and
they're like, hey, if I couldjust run the freight coming in,
I would have a better work lifebalance.
Like could just run the freightcoming in, I would have a
better work-life balance.
Like you're definitely going tomake less money, right, because
you're also creating less valueand also there's a lot of risk
(14:22):
there.
Even if you do negotiate a goodcomp package as an account
manager, a lot of what you maketo your point earlier, nate is
like out of your control If themarket tanks and your customers
just don't ship as much.
Like you're going to make lessmoney If your customers
disappear because someone boughttheir company and they have
their own transportationdepartment and it's all gone.
Like you don't really have anyability to fix that or to bring
(14:45):
more in.
So like you're the first guythat's either going to get let
go or moved into another adminrole.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
that's going to pay even less.
We saw this in COVID man.
The first layoffs were thenon-revenue producers.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And the other thing too is like I think there's more
flexibility in sales, but itreally depends on the definition
of the role and the company youwork for.
Like I know outside sales folksthat make decent money in
freight and they travel a lot.
Maybe there's not work-lifebalance, but they have
flexibility in their schedule.
I know folks that work in somecompanies where sales and
freight brokerages just bring onaccounts and then handing them
(15:19):
off to customers.
They do well and haveflexibility in what and how when
they're working right.
Account managers tend to haveless flexibility Monday through
Friday, because you got to bethere when the freight's moving,
yeah, and somebody's got to bethere, which means if you are
taking time to come and go fromthe office, the company's paying
(15:41):
somebody below you to make surethat freight's getting booked.
And then at a certain pointit's like what value are you
adding?
And like.
The last point I always want tosay is like, think about it
simply as like to take any moneyout of a company, you've got to
create value for that company.
Like, how much value are youcreating for that company?
Because as things get more andmore automated, there's going to
be a point at which, liketaking information out of one
(16:04):
screen and putting it intoanother isn't creating a whole
lot of value and can beoutsourced.
So maybe it's because you gotgood relationships and you
manage accounts very well andyou're good at problem solving
and you understand lots ofdifferent equipment types and
how and what to do, Like thatcreates a lot of value or it
prevents a lot of problems,which one way or the other
preventing a bad thing andcreating more good things both
(16:24):
create value right, Just ondifferent sides.
So, like, the more value youcreate, the more money you can
take out of the company.
And again, whether your salaryplus commission like to me that
is the simplest way you want tothink about it it's like, okay,
what am I really doing thathelps this company either make
more money or spend less money,or both, and how can I do more
of those things in a way thatgives me that balance in my life
(16:47):
?
And there's again, if that roledoesn't exist in your company
now, there are lots of othercompanies that may have that
role defined differently, withdifferent responsibilities,
different hours and differentexpectations.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, it makes me think of we talked with Trey
Greggs a couple of years agoabout like how man this was
probably like three or fouryears ago I was at my old house
but like we were talking abouthow like as leaders, you can't
assume that all of your teammembers like value things
equally, like one might valuethe pay and other might value
(17:21):
the flexibility more.
One might value the work fromhome, time off.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Some people want more security and less commission,
someone, way more upside andless security on the salary.
And also the important,important thing is, this does
not stay the same over thecourse of your career.
In my 20s, I want way morecommission, less security.
If you have a family, maybe youneed a little more security and
more benefits and a little lesscommission.
Bit more flexibility, where youused to be able to work 12, 14
(17:52):
hours three weeks in a row andthen take a day off, where, like
, these things don't stay thesame indefinitely either.
And I think having theseconversations, both as an
employee with your boss and yourboss to your employees, is
super important.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, I remember I had, uh, um, I worked with a
girl years ago that like when itcame time for her review, she
went in and like didn't want torace.
She just like wanted more timeoff.
She's like she's like, yeah,I'm going to, I'm going to ask
for another week off and like atthe end of the day the boss was
like that's all she wanted.
Like she could ask for that sixmonths ago.
(18:26):
Like we're all about givingpeople time off, that they want
it, that they want it, Whereasme I went to the same boss at
one point and tried to get themto change me from W-2 to 1099
and put me straight commission,because I wanted the earning
potential.
So everyone's different.
Like I wanted to.
You know, hey, I don't want tobe forced to sit here for eight
(18:48):
hours a day and be limited tothis.
I want to be able to workwhenever I want and be able to
write my own paycheck based onmy my efforts.
So same with me.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And one of the main reasons that entrepreneurship
and running my own businesseslike appeals to me is I want
every decision I have I want tobe responsible for and I want it
to have an impact on how muchmoney I bring in good and bad
Right.
I want to be in a place where,like, I can create the
flexibility where, like therewas nothing that pissed me off
more in my entire career of,like, banking hours.
(19:21):
You just got to be here eightto five, no matter what good or
bad, like just punching in andpunching out, and no matter how
hard you worked or little, thatnever changed.
I'm, like I want to be able towork harder, faster and smarter,
to be able to get more done andthen benefit from it, either
having more money or being ableto go.
Hey, I'm leaving two hoursearly to go see my kid at
whatever, but like I did twotimes the amount of work the
(19:43):
average person does in thisamount of time.
Like I want to be able to takethe benefits for improving.
But again, everybody teachtheir own on what is the most
important to them in thesescenarios.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Great questions, though, as always, continue to
send them our way and we'llanswer them as we can.
Final thoughts Ben.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And until next time go Bills.
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