1101. #TFCP - Sales Prospecting Strategies!

And what I mean by that is I will only speak with transportation professionals on this show 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. Welcome back, everybody. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, first and foremost, and I hope you guys all have a happy New Year. Obviously, I didn't go live last week. I've been doing this long enough, you guys, to know that around the holidays, not everybody's wanting to pay attention to freight podcasts.

And a lot of people are just kind of wanting to disconnect and re regroup or whatever the hell it is that you need to do around this time. So, you know, we repurposed some old content. That's the joys of having, you know, a thousand plus episodes out there and just kept some episodes coming in case anybody wanted to get caught up on some topics and everything. And we're going to go live this week, today, tomorrow. We won't be live on Wednesday for New Year's Day because I all know where 99.9% of you guys will be. And then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming this coming Thursday the 2nd. And yeah, so, you know, we will be going through and changing things up a little bit in the new year.

We'll have some exciting announcements to go on out there because, you know, as the time has gone by, I've gotten a lot of data and a lot of information on what works in the show, what doesn't work in the show, what's popular, what's not, and we're going to continue to hone that stuff in. One thing we're going to continue to push though, in the new year is the newsletter that I have. You guys, every single week we release a newsletter on Wednesdays. And then if you just go to my website, thefraycoach.com which is right up here, you can go and register for that again. You guys, it's going to evolve into more industry tactics, strategies, everything essentially that we're doing on the show.

But we want to go out there in the written format because some people might hate the sound of my voice, but they like the flow of the newsletter so they want to just read it on there. And we will be doing that on a weekly bow, on a weekly basis out there. I don't auto sign anybody up. Just like I don't buy downloads, I don't buy subscribers, I don't buy any of that shit because I believe in a meritocracy. I believe that everything is earned. And if you want to pay attention to my content, I. I would love for you to subscribe. The audio only replay is on itunes and Spotify. If you want to watch it over on YouTube and you want to subscribe to it on there, I would appreciate that.

But I'm not going to artificially inflate any of my data because I feel like you're just lying to yourself at that point. And I don't do this to become famous. I do this because I have an absolute love for educating people on the transportation industry through my trials and errors, through my experiences and through my guest experiences. And that's one thing that we're going to never deviate away from. I want to focus on value and I want to focus on creating a platform that individuals can utilize to benefit their business and know that they're learning from people who have actually done the job. Because yes, I have advertisers for the show. I am very fortunate to do that and to have them. But I'm not selling you a course on this show, all right?

I get a DM every, probably every day asking, where's your course? How do I sign up? What's this? I don't have a course. You just listen to the show. You hit up my advertisers. That's how you can support the show and go out there and see their stuff. Because all this information that we talk about on here is applicable to your business. And I want you guys to be able to do that and know that it's coming from people who've actually done the job. One of my biggest motivations for this podcast is to drown out all those fake Internet actors who try and sell people something that have never actually done the work before. I don't know all the answers.

I'm never going to act like I know all the answers, but I'm going to put my best effort out there and just rest assured, you guys, I've been doing this job for a very long time. I've seen multiple market shifts. I've seen up markets, down markets, I've seen broker markets, carrier markets. However you want to spin it, I've been a part of it and I want to put the best information out there so you guys don't find yourself in a situation on you might not know what to do because there is an episode for almost every single topic that you're going to encounter in your daily life as a logistics professional. So today's show is Q A. All right? I was doing this on more of a weekly basis but you know, I, I don't do it every single week. Now.

I'll probably do be doing it on a bi weekly or a monthly basis in 2025. But I got some questions that came through here and I want to answer them for you. And again, this is one of those things. Everything is anonymous, all right? Because I've had people who work for very large organizations, I've had shippers DM me questions before. They just don't want any recogn. They don't want it to be known who that is coming from them. I will never do that. All right? So if you just want to DM me your sales or operations related questions, send them over to me on LinkedIn or you can email me direct just chris@thefraycoach.com and I'll answer them live on the show. It's completely anonymous and we're just here to help with a lot of our information and that's all we will do.

Or if you want to drop them in the chat on the live stream. I will answer them. I don't always see the comments because LinkedIn does not show them on the streaming platform that I use, at least consistently. So with that being said, let's jump into some Q A and this one is I would love to hear your thoughts on outreach and finding the balance between staying relevant and being annoying with your prospects. This is a great question and this has multiple answers. If you ask any sales rep, you could ask a hundred sales reps and you're going to get a hundred different responses. This is something that I personally apply. All right? When I'm out there cold calling, you're going to get a myriad of different responses that come with that, right?

You're going to hear, we're good right now, and it's okay to keep following up. You're going to hear, hey, we're. We're making changes. Reach out to us in December, whatever that is. And I always boil it down to as simple as of this. I listen to whatever the prospect says. If the prospect tells me, say Janine is her name and it's September, and Janine says, hey, Chris, we're not adding anybody right now. We take a look at our network in December. Why don't you call me back in December? Some people are going to say, oh, I'm going to call her back. I'm not. I am literally going to take a note, and I am going to call Janine back in December and I'm going to say, hey, Janine, this is Chris Jolly.

We spoke back in December, in September, and you told me to reach out to you back then. And I'm just calling just to kind of reintroduce myself and, you know, essentially listen to what you had said. This is who we are. This is what we do. And I want to follow what the prospect says, because I am just convinced of this. All right? And here is a very real example of what, of this exact scenario. I had reached out to somebody, it was June of 2024, and they had said, hey, Chris, we're not adding anybody or making literally any changes. We reassess our network at the end of the year. If you reach out to us in December, that would be a great time for us to. To talk. So I listened to what they said.

I reached out to him in December of this year, and guess what? Hey, Chris, thank you for following up. We would love to discuss our transportation with you for 2025. We've added your information into our system. Let's touch base after the new year. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right? I think that I would have talked myself out of that opportunity if I would have kept following up with them. In the meantime, I used the exact email outreach that I had been communicating with them on. I just followed up with that because I truly feel like every time you reach out, you're going to be lumped into one of two categories. The fucking absolutely never under any circumstances category, or the yeah, we'll consider you when you follow back up with us.

If you Follow back up with us in a way that is what they're really asking for. I truly feel that every prospect and customer will tell you exactly how to prospect them if you take the time to actually listen to them. Some people are going to say follow up all the time. I don't agree with that at all. This is just a personal preference of mine because like, I actually don't, like, I don't want to be known as that pesky sales rep. Right. I believe in long term brand equity that I'm going out there where I want people, anytime they hear my name or anybody's name from the company, from my company, I want them to think of quality. All right?

And I truly feel like if you go out there and they tell you, hey, we're not adding anybody till December and you call them in two weeks or the next week or whatever it is, I think it's just you're doing too much. I truly do. I feel like you're doing too much and you're going to talk yourself out of way more opportunities than if you think about this in the long term. And I get it. If you got a boss who's pushing down your throat, you got to add people, you got to add people. I get it. But I feel like you will be doing yourself a disservice by becoming annoying. And I feel like that's what it boils down to because I know how I feel when I'm getting sold to.

And I want you to put yourself in that situation because we've all been sold to, right? Whether it was a door to door salesman, walking around at the mall, going to a store, whatever it is you're getting sold to and you know you're getting sold to and how do you want to, to be on the other end of that, right? I look at it, there's a lot of examples. I know every. So in Arizona, where I live, ton of solar salesmen that come by your house weekly minimum. And I've told a couple of them, I'm like, hey, listen, we just invested some money into our backyard. We're not looking to make any changes. There's a couple of companies who are like, hey man, that's great. I'm glad you're making home improvements. We're in the area often.

Are you okay if we stop by, you know, in a couple of months? I'm like, yeah, that's not bad. I mean, I won't be making any changes, but that's fine, right? I'm a sales rep. I respect the hustle, but the people who continue to try and sell, I have all their cards in a pile of a company of who I will never buy from. And if I feel that way as a consumer, I can only imagine how somebody else would feel if they were the decision maker at a large transportation company or at a, you know, whatever that looks like. So, again, I think, like, there's a lot of cues out there that we can pay attention to.

Steve Seca says, got to be in the picture, but not always touching base or checking in every day, but follow up with the relevant cadence for a specific prospect. Ask. You said listen to the prospect and yeah, that. I mean, I'm right there with you, man. You do. You really have to play it carefully because I feel like you can talk yourself out of way more opportunities than you think by. By just not paying attention and putting your needs first. Because you know what? They might not need you at all this year. I was talking to a buddy of mine on, I think it was Friday, this last Friday. And, you know, were talking about business development. This is a guy who runs a very successful freight brokerage. He's been in business for a very long time. And he had said it.

He was like, yeah, there's a couple of people that I'm prospecting that said we are literally not taking on any new vendors of anything, from the people we buy our coffee from to the people we buy our paper from or any of that stuff. No, we are not making any changes at all. And again, people you guys like, are going to be watching their costs, are going to be doing any of that stuff. So that's a very constant thing. And I think, like, your customers, your prospects are always going to tell you everything that you need to hear. It's just. Do you want to hear it in that moment? And there is another part of this question because this individual sent me a few questions, so I'm going to answer them all today.

And then it says, how do I provide value and not just sell? Every time you reach out, I look at it as. You know, this is. This is a. So a great. A great book for. For this. And I was just talking about this last week. Is. Is the. The. Hold on. It's Jordan Belfort's book. I have the. The name right here for you. And I would definitely read this book. It is the Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort. He explains this in that book. And again, I'm not associated with it. I don't get any Credit for. For this. But I would buy this book, especially if you're in freight sales. It. It is a. The straight line system is exact. The exact system a lot of us need to implement inside of our businesses.

And you know, the talks about, you know, adding value, I look at it as. Every single time I reach out to somebody, I just need to get a yes. Okay. And a lot of it is going to boil down to. So, like, I'm very niche specific in what I reach out for and what I do. We do full truckload, primarily open deck, and that's like 99% of the freight that we move. And that's what I prospect on. But I try and get ahead of a lot of those things and I try and ask specifics about their freight to kind of separate myself from. I'm trying to separate myself from everybody else when I'm calling them. Right. So again, if I'm going in there and I only got 15 seconds of their time, because that's really all you do. First call. Hey, here's.

Here's who we are. This is what we do. This is what we specialize in. I just love an opportunity to speak with you. Boom. Okay, cool. That's the first call. Not interested. All right, second call. How do I get a little bit out of them? I only do full truckload, so I'm going to ask them about that. Hey, this is Chris. We talked a couple of weeks ago. We specialize in full truckload transportation. That's all we do. Is that something you guys do? And I want to hear that from them. Yeah, I can go to their website and get a pretty good idea, but I've called a few companies a few times and it turns out they just manufacture components of the bigger picture and they actually only do ltl and they only do parcel or whatever that looks like.

So again, you can sit there and spend a lot of time prospecting thinking that they have freight that they actually don't have. That is why I always love to rely on cold calling. Websites can be deceiving, ladies and gentlemen. So that's what I do. And again, I'm trying to look for that. Yes. And then the next time I follow up with them. Because again, I think like, we. We have this situation in our head made up that these guys are just going to give us 20 minutes of their time every time we call, and that's just not the case. I want to be clear, concise, to the point. Here's who I am, here's why I'm calling. And Then on the follow up, hey, again, here's who I am. This is why I'm calling.

And when you're talking about your specialization, there is very intricate details of specific commodities inside of open deck that I'm going to specifically ask them about when I follow up with them. Hey, with your guys's freight, does it do X or does it do Y? Do you load it this way? Does it offload this way? And that is another way for you to sound like, hey, this individual knows what they're talking about. You know, my man Cody here, they do produce, they do reefer. So they're. That you can break it down of the intricacies. Intricacies, excuse me, inside of any niche that you do to go out there and separate yourself. So you're not going in there and just trying to. Because, like, they know every single call.

Even though I'm calling to try and add value, as you had said, in here, it's a sales call. No matter what, they know you're trying to get something out of them, that's fine. So it's just like, that's the elephant in the room, and that's okay with that. You don't. Like, everybody knows why you're calling. You're not, like, you're. You don't develop rapport with somebody in the prospecting phase, right? Like, very rarely are you going to become BFFs with your prospect and go play golf or, you know, go out and meet each other's families and like that, right? So I personally like to keep it all business on the front end and then focus on building the relationship on the back end. Cody, this pen right here will make you a millionaire if you apply it properly. So you should buy it from me.

And then another part of this one is calling cell phones. I don't do it unless it's an existing customer who explicitly gives me permission to call their cell phone. I do not do it at all. At all. I will call their desk phone, I will email them. I will do anything but call their cell phone while they're a prospect until they say, hey, Chris, it's cool if you text me, okay? And that is exactly what I want you to. Because, like, again, there's. There's boundaries, all right? Like, I hate when people call my cell phone to sell me something, okay?

And granted, it is one of those situations where I get it, but, like, if I don't know you and you call my cell phone and, like, it's not an introduction and it's just straight into a pitch, I'm going to hang up the phone on you because I feel like that is one of those things where it's like, I don't know, I don't do it. I know some people, again, you ask a hundred sales reps, they're all going to tell you a different thing. I'm not going to do it. I believe in calling the office and then getting that permission from somebody because I feel like a cell phone is a, is a personal thing for a lot of people and I try and dilute that to having those clear lanes of it.

So that is, that's kind of my way of really going out there. And there was a lot of good questions that came through on from this individual and that's why I took the time to answer all three of them. And you know, I'm, you know, as a lot of us are going into the new year here and a lot of you are sitting there thinking about where do I go? And I, I think that, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot. I thought about this a lot last week. Is, is, it's great to have those long term visions and this is a book if you guys are, you know, because let's call it what it is, a lot of people aren't doing this week. All right, I, I get it. People aren't making decisions, they're doing inventory, all of that stuff.

So however you choose to spend this week is completely up to you. But if you want a really good book to read outside of the Way of the Wolf, where I, I, I would start there, but this book right here, I just finished this morning. It's called B 2.0. Jim Collins and Bill Lazier. I think I got it for like 30 bucks at Barnes and Noble. This is probably the greatest comprehensive business book I think I've ever read. This is one of those ones that are very applicable to every single stage in business that you are going to come in. And I would highly, highly recommend this one.

This is one that I'm going to read again and I'm going to take notes inside of it because I like to read books the first time and I don't like marking them up with highlights and everything. But that's just my opinion on it. But it talks about having those big long term goals, right? And everybody's going to have every goal imaginable going into 2025. But you really need to level with yourself on where are you actually. All right, because yeah, my big Long term goal is to build the largest transportation company in North American history. That fundamentally changes everything. And that's what I'm going to do. But it's not going to happen in two years. It's not going to happen in five years. That's like my life's work that I'm laying out there.

And I got to go and bring it and scale it all the way back to where am I today and what is the next digestible bite. I think that's why a lot of people fail in fitness. That's why people, a lot of people fail in a lot of things is they try and take too big a bites. They rely on motivation. Motivation is bullshit. I'm going to be the first one to say it. Discipline is everything. And you know, a lot of it comes down to my word that I am doubling down on for 2025 is going to be consistency, all right? And consistency can be really good or it can be really bad. I was consistently an alcoholic for a very long time. I had no fucking problem drinking every single day. And how I'm channeling that, though, is where the applicability.

I don't even know if that's a word. I went to public school, forgive me, is where it's going to come in, right? Where it's like, I am going to consistently hit my sales calls every single day in 2025. I will not miss a day that I set out to make those dials. And again, maybe, you know, wherever you are, again, just be honest with yourself, like I've laid this out there. If you're not even making five cold calls a day right now and you want to start making cold calls, don't have one or two days where you're making 75, all right? Because you're gonna eventually quit, you're gonna eventually get burned out because you're going to realize it doesn't matter if you make five calls or 75 calls, you still get told no every time.

And then you're going to hit that eventual wall where you're like, damn, why is that? Why am I even doing this? But if you do five calls a day, say, you know, hypothetical example, you guys here, hypothetical, you do five calls a day every day for two straight weeks, what you'll see is you're developing that consistency and discipline of doing it no matter what, all right? Because there's going to be good days, there's going to be bad days. But the fact of the matter is you got to push your emotions down and you got to show up and put in the work. Okay. And from my perspective, you will be way more effective in the long term, because, again, this is a lifetime journey for Chris Jolly. All right? This is a lifetime journey. I'm not looking to exit. I'm not looking for investment.

I'm looking to build the best company that I possibly can over the course of my life. And I know that it takes a bunch of small incremental bumps and changes throughout time that make this happen. We set these big goals, but then we focus on where we're not, as opposed to what is our next step. And that is something that I am going to very much focus on in 2025. What's that next step? All right, what's that next step in my journey? Is it 50 loads a day or 100 loads a day? Or maybe it's just five cold calls a day, every day for an extended period of time. You just need to start, and then what you'll realize is maybe those five calls took you two hours because you had a bunch of anxiety.

You were shaking, and you made those calls, and it took you two hours. But then after a couple weeks, you're getting it done in, like, maybe it's getting done in an hour, right? And then eventually you shorten that up where you're rocking those five calls, and you realize nobody's actually reaching through the phone and punching me in the face, and maybe I should add five more calls on. And then slowly, over time, when you're consistently showing up every single day and you're getting those incremental bumps of improvement, that's where the real. That's where the real magic lies o, you know, throughout time. So I, you know, from. From my opinion, as you're going in and trying to set these goals, have those big, audacious, massive goals, but focus on the next step.

Where's that little bit of improvement that you need to make to get to that next level? Because if you sit there and think, why am I not here yet? Because if you're on social media, everybody's a billionaire. Everybody on LinkedIn right now is the most successful freight broker of all time that has 87 streams of income that has all of it figured out, which, let's be Honest, you guys, 99.9 of the people are full of shit and lying in some capacity. Very few people openly admit to how long it takes and how hard it actually is to do it day in and day out. And I. I think that, you know, and then again, ultimately, nobody else's Business is your business.

You know, you can sit there and see a bunch of shit, but, like, at the end of the day, you got to focus on you. You got to focus on your results, your P and L, and your progress. Because just like nobody who's listening to this or watching this is going to come and do my work for me, I am equally not going to go and do your work for you, because I got my own right? And I think, like, as long as you're honest with yourself about where you are, and then you commit to consistently showing up and trying to better yourself every single day, and it's not easy. Again, this is very simple. It's just not easy. And, you know, again, Andy Frisella talks about this all the time. Ed Mylett talks about this stuff all the time on their content.

There are great resources out there, you guys, and they're free. Free podcast as well. Go and listen to that stuff, what you consume and everything, and you'll realize that, like, you're not as far away as you think you are. You're just a couple of small tweaks. That's really what it is. You're a couple of small tweaks. Because I will take the individual who shows up every single day and puts in the work over the individual who can do it for a couple of times and then stop for a few days, and then do it for a couple of more times and then stop for a few days. You need to show up day in and day out and put in the work. It takes a lot longer than you think. There is no instant rewards. Nobody's got it all figured out. You're not lost.

You just need to focus on you. Be honest with yourself, on where you are and what you need to do, and then just keep inching that needle forward. But that's going to be it for today, you guys. I'm going to do like a year in review show tomorrow. We're going to break down some. Some headlines. And again, if. If you guys have any other questions you guys want answered, DM them over to me. You guys, again, everything is anonymous. All right, I understand some of you don't want that, and that's fine. I'll say your name if you want me to. That's cool. But. But if you don't, that's fine as well. I believe in anonymity and send that over to me. But that's going to be it for today. You guys subscribe and share to the show, all right?

If you get value in what you hear, go out there, you guys. If you guys could do me a solid and subscribe on itunes or Spotify or if you could rank the show on there, that's what really helps get the word out to. To other individuals, is. Is those rankings and everything. So if you guys could do that would be awesome. But I'll be back tomorrow. As always, you guys, I appreciate you guys. I love you guys, and we'll be talking to you soon.