Lightning like Steve McQueen? I'm in the fast lane when the light turns green? And I built tough? Find nothing but grit? Cause I made rugged blood, sweat and spit? Yeah, like a horse I fly? Better put yourself in for a bumpy ride? I like to play hard but I work harder?
And I weather the storm?
Cause I'm built stronger.
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Fray Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30 in 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. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I 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. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I got a very special guest for you guys here today. We are blending the front lines to processes and all of that fun stuff in between you guys. Building out a sales system, building out training, development, all of this stuff. It's so easy to sit there and think like, oh, we have that taken care of. We have that. But it's like, do you. Are. Are you actually preparing your organization for success?
Because not everybody approaches this like me, where I'm the type of guy where I will just run through a wall and then I will figure out that there might have been a softer spot down the way a little bit later, but not everybody has that. And we're going to talk about building up a sales system here today. So I have Mr. Jim Kenny on the show. Jim, thank you so much for joining me here.
Chris, thank you so much for the invite. And to your audience, I'd like to correct something he just said. He doesn't run through walls unless absolutely necessary because he knows there's a benefit. Chris has outstanding processes. Ignore his humility. We've had great conversations. So he. He only runs through that wall because he knows there's gold on the other side. Nice try there, Chris.
All right, you caught me. You caught me there, Jim. And, you know, it's. It's one where I, you know, I. I got to a point with a lot of stuff in my business, Jim, where It was like, all right, it was enough with planning and strategizing. And sometimes it's like you just got to rip the band aid off and go. But you need to do that inside of the confines of like, how to actually start to proceed. Because there, you know, to be a self starter myself, I. I have a hard time kind of conceptualizing that there's people out there who aren't willing just to pick up the phone and have a conversation or take action. And some people need a plan. And I also know that my way isn't the only way.
And there's multiple ways that you need to attack a lot of this stuff out there. So, you know, Jim, before we get into, you know, anything further, like, give us a little bit of a background, introduce yourself, you know, and go from there.
Great. Undergraduate degree in marketing and finance. I actually had not one, but two specific sales classes as an undergraduate. So I'm way older than Chris, you guys. My birthday now begins with a six. So 40 years ago, when I was 21 years old, got out of school and I took. Got a sales job, okay, With Weston Hotels, a management trainee. And my boss walked in. Chris laid the folder on my desk at 7:30, says, Hey, I gotta catch a flight to Kansas City, but here's what I want you to do. Jim. He said, I want you to call these companies. We're going to bring their freight in their convention stuff, okay? For the IP, it's International Petroleum Exposition. So 21 years old, Chris. All I was doing is making an appointment.
I picked up the phone call the senior vice president of a very huge, not to be named even 40 years later, because this embarrasses me, Petroleum Corporation. And I said, hey, this is Jim West Hotels. I'd like to arrange to get your freight in for the convention. And I mean, I got shredded. And she asked me, will we have a rigor available? I'm like, what's a rigor? Her second question, will you have a rigor available? I had no clue. Chris, what do you think happened to me in that conversation?
I think they hung up on you or they laughed.
Oh, because this is important to her. She goes, have you ever done this before, young man? The way she said that she really wanted to say, have you ever done this before? You. No, ma'am. She said, hold on. I was on the hole. I got it here. I can still tell you to this day, four years later, it was Kenny Rogers, the gambler. Of course, they were located in Houston.
Yeah.
Finally this voice comes on and says, jim, my name's Luke Letter. And he goes, what did you do to piss off Carol? I told him, he goes, oh Christ. And he tutored me basically on how to get a flatbed trailer in the convention center with a 22 foot 34,000 pound drilling display. And so that was my first introduction to this industry right there. And so I need to tell your audience like you, there's nothing more valuable than to absolutely screw up guys. And that's how we learn. So very quickly I went back to, oh, sales class. There's a process for doing this stuff. Just because I was calling that guy, this is an appointment to move a truck. And so honestly the next four years I'm like, how do you do this right? Better. What's the procedure to teach the person behind me?
And I wound up writing a little systems manual. Is used company wide for how to contact our convention clients who are bringing freight in. Remember were a hotel company, we tried to help them out. Eventually we got smart and decided that we that's without our expertise. And then we dumped it. But I learned a lot of very valuable and extraordinarily painful lessons. Later went back, got an mba. I was working on that and in graduate school, professor asked me to do some analytical work. He goes, you killed this class. I went in, said, hey, here's my data analytics. And as a company again, taking a big product to the market, very large brand name, you guys would all know. He said, this is great. Said, why did you do this? This goes like super. He goes, all right, how long it takes?
Spent about 10 to 12 hours on it. He scribbles his check, hands it to me, I pull it up at my cock pocket, walk down the hallway, Chris, I don't know why I did this. I popped it open, looked at it, I thought, damn. I walked down the hall and I said, okay, why is this large consumer products company paying me this much money? And I know you're marking it up, so what's the deal? Go Jim. Every day information is transferred, whether it's the stock market, the real estate market, okay? And if you understand both sides of the equations, if you can broker and solve that problem, that's where the money is. So I said, okay. The guy wrote me a check for 1500 bucks. Remember, this is mid-1980s. This is stupid money for 10 hours.
I'll take 1500 bucks today, Jim.
I said, so what is X paying you for that? He goes, I'm getting 10 grand for that, but I gotta do this and this. And I said, wow, have you ever thought about getting a PhD program? I said, not till now. Six months later I left Weston Hotels and that's. I've done nothing but either work for three PLs or firms who sell that. And it's all about what's the process to make it quicker, easier, faster, stronger. And that was a very long answer. Sorry about that.
No, it's good context for everything, Jim, because you know, when we're at, we're both going to be presenting at the TIA Capital panel together.
I'm excited to be with you.
And they're, you know, we're doing a sales summit here and you know, we're bringing a lot of this information to attendees about building up a sales system. There's some other topics that we're going over, but like this is something that I'm very passionate about because for me, systems control my day and they control everybody's day. Whether you realize it or not, you're operating inside of a system. And one thing that I've come to identify here over my five brief five years of being, you know, self employed, I want to be abundantly clear. I don't know, I don't have figured out. I'm figuring it out as I go. One thing that has been a major benefit to us is building up a system to move the needle forward in revenue, right? Because we were a cold start operation.
Both of my companies that I founded, Cold Start $0, I had no guaranteed revenue, no guaranteed anything in either of these ventures. So everything that we have done has been scraped and clawed to piece together here. And if there's one thing that I have found is this building up a system to move that needle forward, right. Whether you're calling a shipper for a cold call perspective, an existing customer, there's a system to be followed that's out there. Because as somebody who is on the phone with people every single day, like I said before went live here today, I've already done 25 cold calls today. I have a system in place where I make 45 cold calls every single day. We'll be upping those numbers here.
But like I have found it where for me personally it is way more effective than for me to do 45 cold calls every single day, Monday through Friday, than it is to have one day where I do 100 and then I don't do it for a couple of days and so on and so forth.
Right there. Okay. The data would back you up. So you come of it from one way. Okay. I come out from the other. But we're still trying to get the same goal. So I'm going to actually let you and your partner high five after your show today, all right? The evidence shows the consistent repeatable behavior. We call it vital behaviors. Okay? So the 45 a day, even if you go two days and let's make it 50, so that's 250 calls. You say, oh, I work two and a half days, I may make 300 on those days. Those 250 will be superior to the 300 because it's the repeatable behavior in the correct way. So now let's break it down. The other reason that works for you is not only are you disciplined with the repeatable behavior, okay?
And I don't know, what do you do? You do them from 8:30 to 10:30. Boom, boom, boom. After you do that, okay, that becomes a habit. So here's what we know. Whether you read atomic habits, whatever psychologist will tell you, okay? There's a cue, okay? So the cue is, ding, your butt's in the chair. It's that same time you start calling. And you, of course, you know the sales process, but the routine is you're trying to get the opportunity to quote a freight. That is your goal when you pick up that call. It's not to develop rapport. It's not to make friends with somebody. It's not to see if they need truckload. You are thinking through that tunnel that I am looking through my questions to quote something. So the Q, butt and chair pick up the phone.
The routine is, you know what the end goal is. A quote means you've had a successful sales call. The reward is if you get a quote something you now know you're competing in the game, right? So if you break it down to vital behavior. We know that. And then I'm gonna let you go. Come back to here. The process has six simple steps. Pre call planning, sales call opening, needs assessment, solution development, closing follow up. Your pre call plan is, I'm going to do 45 every day. That is a vital behavior. Your routine is call, opening, needs assessment, solution development. You know how to ask the questions. The reward is when you hang up the phone. Did or I didn't I not achieve it? So you measure your call with a vital behavior.
Either I've qualified this account, there will be an opportunity later to either call now or later, or they don't match my target market. Okay? They are not. In fact, you had a post just the other day about the disclaimer. The truth is, okay, a lot of people that call me or call you and you do, they're not a match for Lady. I referred two people to you in the last three weeks, whether they called you or not, up to the. But the funny thing is, that's what process gets you. Pre cop, landing, sells call opening, needs assessment, solution development. Each of those six steps has a vital behavior that increases the likelihood of a positive outcome. It sounds so simple.
In fact, the CEO once said to me, he goes, I don't mean to insult you, but has anybody ever told you have the unbelievably cool skill of making everything super simple? He goes, because it's not that simple. I said, no, but they'll remember they got to do vital behaviors really well. There's a vital behavior for opening. There's a vital behavior for closing. There's a vital behavior for needs assessment. There's a vital behavior for handling objections. Chris, you are 100% correct. Now, we're coming from different directions, but again, we're looking at what's the process that gets us? What, Kris? What is it you want when you hang up that phone? Tell me what? Why do you want? How do you measure a good call?
Now, a good call is knowing who not to call if they don't fit inside of my target market, or it's yes, this business themselves ships the product or the commodity or the style of freight that I want to move, and I will know that in the future.
How simple is that answer?
It's. But it's the truth, though, Jim.
And I feel like it's the same thing for me, a guy who calls me and I said, you know what? You need to call these ladies at luminary. You need to call Holly or you need to call these guys or I'll introduce them. You need to call Chris or the guy spoke to a couple weeks ago. I'm like, you're a business that doesn't fit into what I do. But this guy, that's his area of expertise column, you know, so everything. But it's still a process, Whether you're talking major account sales, enterprise selling, contractual spot market, a new kid that's 21 years old. Okay? Like, I was trying to make an appointment. The flatbed load, by the way, that needed a rigor that you just.
The difference between how we got here was probably you did hit a few more brick walls before you could break through the gold. And I sat back and said, all right, what research exists or how do I figure this out? And that's it. But other than that, we're still trying to do the same thing, identify the need and figure out, can we or can we not offer that solution. Yeah, that sounds remedial, but that really is the vital outcome.
But it's, I think so many sales reps think that everybody should work with them because they have a pulse, right? Like, oh, I have a pulse. You should work with me. And that's just not the case. Right. Like, you brought up rejections there and objections and everything else under the sun. I will, and I hope a lot of young sales reps or even existing sales reps start taking this approach. I don't want to have to convince somebody to work with me. If they hit me with whatever, hey, we're asset only. We only work with trucking companies. Boom, cool, I'm on to the next one. That is not a battle I want to fight. Every single time I call somebody, I am out there looking for that. Yes, yes, we move full truckload. Yes, we work with brokers.
In an ideal world, that's a perfect outcome. But if I'm calling somebody and they're like, hey, listen, we're not adding anybody right now. Take us off your list, whatever that is. I'm not going to call them back the next day or the next week because that is taking valuable time and resources away from me. Finding somebody who actually fits inside of my business model and what I'm trying to achieve. But I see a lot of individuals, Jim, they, they hit that wall and then they're like, no, I'm going to convince this person to work with me. I need this person to work with me.
That, that again, that's a huge mistake. So let's say that I work for brokerage and they do a lot of frozen food product. They, they. 85% of their business is frozen food. The other 15% is dry, flat. Right? But if you're 85% of your thousand loads a month you move is refurbished, you call this shipper and you say, hey, good morning. This is Jim Kenny, TI Logistics. Hey, congrats on the new contract you guys got with Sprouts. Do you need some additional reefer capacity for that contract out of Tupelo to Tempe? And the guy says, no, we've got that covered right now.
Okay?
So you have two options. Okay? We don't need any new capacity. So what we know when you get an objection is, okay, the only person who can remove that is the prospect. You are 100% correct. There's nothing you can do. So what I should do is, okay, Acknowledge. You heard. I said, congratulations. How does it feel to have a lane or your system dialed in and you don't need additional capacity? Guy goes, it feels really good, but you know, I said, what's going to change when summer, what will happen summer hits? He goes, he might be. I said, well, listen, hey, I run about 30 to 40 trucks a quarter in that lane.
I'm going to leave you alone, but when would be a time you would like me to call based on your experience, when it does get tight and if they legitimately don't need you, I want to talk to you. They're going to step on you if they want. They say, hey, so what I find is here's what we know about the vital behavior objection handling. Acknowledge it and ask an intelligent question back that will determine whether or not. Okay, the it's legitimate or not. So the guy says, listen, Jim, we've got more capacity than we need. But I say, excellent. Okay, you move on. But what if you ask that same thing and say, hey, Chris, listen, that is great. How does it feel to have that system dialed in where you don't need any new capacity right now?
You must be a rock star at your job. Make up answer, Chris. How does it feel to have everything dialed in so beautifully?
I mean, it feels good. This is something that we've been working on for a while.
Congrats. Listen, one piece of information, okay, before I called you, we write about 30 to 40 reefers in that lane, a quarter if you need it. And things were to change, could I check back with you? And when should I do that? Make up answer?
Yeah, yeah, that'll work out. You can call us, you know, end of the year.
Okay. So at that case, I'm managing my file. Okay. My hot leads. So a new kid needs to learn the habit, the vital behavior follow up. Okay. You know how to qualify so well, Chris, we're talking about fundamentals. So the difference here between your example and mine is the young kid doesn't know how to make that decision. So he knows he has to do the two vital behaviors of acknowledge that heard what the guy said because that's professional etiquette.
Yeah.
One of the biggest things is. And you do that because I've seen you do role plays on stage and talk about it on your show. But those are the kinds of things we'll talk about at tia. Vital behaviors that move you forward. So an objection handling has two vital behaviors. Acknowledge it. Ask a professional question that determines whether or not that account is truly has Opportunity. Good example. Okay, guy called me, same thing. I said, I don't think you're ready for this yet. What I'm hearing is this situation. I think that's your problem. Here's who to call. It's very potty goes. I never thought of that. I said, well, if you can resolve this issue, this compensation structure and something else, then I'd be glad to. Sometimes, like you talked about you is the. Is the seller needs to walk away.
This is not a good match for me. Like you said, saying no is just as important as qualifying or opening. How important does the average 22 year old think that rapport development is?
I think that in my professional opinion there is too much emphasis on being somebody's friend first than there is with actually identifying. Is this a business I want to work with?
Time out. Stop right there. And of course you get an A plus because you learn that. Here's what we know. Do you know rapport development actually is the fourth most important thing when you call somebody?
I can see that.
Not the first, not the second. So here's really how you're being judged, Chris. When they answer the phone, the first thing is they're looking for, okay, is this guy professional? It's as simple as saying, good morning, Jim, this is Chris Jolly. Then boom. Okay, second thing, after getting that free, you have to demonstrate credibility. And you do that in the tone, the quality. So if you're professional and you're credible with your opening, then you develop trust. And then you're going to have multiple conversations. Rapport actually comes much later. Okay, you are judged on your professional tone. So if I call you, let's say you're Indiana popcorn, okay. And I see you just introduced a kosher, which is something they have, by the way, a popcorn. Okay, I said, good morning, Chris. This is Jim Kenny with TI Logistics.
Hey, how well is that kosher popcorn sold that you guys introduced in the second half in 2024? Geez, the guy is. Told me his name, his firm. He knows something about me. He's asked an intelligent question. Yep, that's professional credit. You know, you want to determine whether he needs movement from. I think they're mouking into Southern California. Okay, but that's way better than me calling, hey, how's it going? Can you believe the chief Squirreled out again and won or hey, they don't care about you.
They don't know you.
In fact, rapport development, there's a ton of cool research on this in academic journals about. Okay, they would much rather meet A professional, Chris Jolly.
Okay.
They'll be your friend later when you've moved a thousand loads for them and perform miracles. Chris, you're exactly correct. Yet what if I told you I get sales training manuals to review? Oh, my God. They will spend pages or videos on rapport development. They're wasting their time. That's not the vital behavior. The vital behavior in an opening is not reported development. It's two things, okay? One, differentiate yourself and two, start the conversation. So if I say, hey, morning, Chris. Jim with TI Logistics, congrats on the new kosher popcorn. How well is that selling? You answered. It's doing really well. That's why I've called. We've got about 40 trucks a month in that area. We want to know, would you need some of those down into the Texas market?
Yeah.
So I've differentiated and I've started the conversation by asking that question. That's all an opening. But the vital behavior of selling is really. Well, here's what we both know. It sounds simple, right, Kris?
Ever.
But being disciplined to the processes, how difficult is that for people? Chris? So here's what I'm going to interview you now, Chris, and all the people you've talked to. How difficult do you find it for people to stick to vital behaviors?
I think it is the most difficult thing because there's so much emotion tied to a lot of it, right? Like, anybody can do a job when they're motivated to want to pick up the phone, but it's very challenging to show up every single day with a smile on your face, walking into a situation where there's a 99% rejection rate that comes along with it. But that is where for. For me personally, it's about kind of like I've almost gamified it. Like I was saying, like the post I put out there yesterday, a recent revelation of, like, hey, every call is a win. It's a win that, hey, don't call us ever again because we're. We don't have the freight that you need or it's a win. Yes. We move, you know, pipe on flatbeds, full truckloads, whatever that is. Insert that there.
And then I've also you know, kind of gamified it in the sense now of, like, I'm selling to a business, right? So, like, even if the person who answers the phone rejects me, if that company manufactures pipe, the reality is that pipe company will be around exponentially longer than the person who picked up the phone. I have seen people shuffle jobs so many times. I've prospected companies where individual leaves in the prospecting phase. So once I removed that human element. Again, back to the rapport aspect of what you're talking about. I am selling to a business. I am business to business selling here. I am not selling to Jim the transportation manager. Because the reality is more times than.
Not, Jim is not maybe in two months or.
Exactly.
But Chris, everything you just described, again, we come at this two different ways. But always laugh and get together. We're always focused on the same goal.
Right.
Described process.
Yeah.
Pre qualifying sales company needs to set some solution development because. So I'm describing them the academic terms of what the sales process. Okay, but you're describing the behaviors within that. Again, we're. It's like a Lyndon McCartney. Right. Lyrics in melody. But it comes together. But we're still talking about the cell process. And you've described vital behaviors in the Chris Jolly way. And I'm hearing them in the Jim Kinney way. But that's why you are successful. And that's where young people struggle is they don't have good vital behaviors and they don't understand why my opening is not working or why I'm not developing reports. And they're like, well, you're doing it wrong.
Yeah.
The funny thing. Do you know that there are over two dozen studies on personality and self success and here's what they show. It is uncorrelated. It does not exist. A correlation is if you're 6 foot 7, you got a 6 foot 9 wingspan, you have a 40 inch vertical leap, you're going to play in the NBA. Okay.
Yeah.
That's physical talent with skill in selling. It is a learned skill. Personality has shown to have zero impact on your. It is a learned skill of vital behaviors. And that's what you're describing, Chris, right there.
It's, you know, I, I always thought that there was a better way to attack a lot of this. Right. And you know, and even like going down to the process and following what it is, you know, like we've documented everything. Like we have a. You know, we have processes for sales and everything else. And this is where I feel like a lot of organizations miss the mark on is because there is no training actually out there. And then furthermore, there's no willingness to let the reps fail. There is like we need results. We need you to turn revenue right away. You have 60 days or you're out of the job. That's the vibe that's in a lot of organizations that are out there as a. Because I feel like. And I'd love to get.
If there's any data on this, Jim, how, like, how is confidence, like, from the rep? How long does it actually take them to develop it? Right? Because I, I even go through this throughout my day. Like, there's some days where my first couple of calls are atrocious. Like, I almost want to record myself and like, just post them out there, be like, hey, if you guys want a quick laugh, this is how bad these ones sounded today. But I feel like it takes a little bit. It, it takes some rejection at a high level for you to realize, like, no one's going to reach through the phone and punch you in the face. So, like, why even, like, hesitate?
But you went through the school of car knocks. You learned how to do your opening. You learned how to ask the right questions to qualify the account. You learned how to assess their need, and you learned how to. To close the deal. Okay, Chris, you went through it a different way. I went through a different way. But the truth is, okay, the vital behavior is what they don't get. And the quicker you learn the vital behavior, the quicker the confidence comes from. Additionally, okay, don't focus on call numbers, okay? Have them focus. That's an input variable. You do the input variable because you know what to do. But the sooner you get them focused on the output variable, which is a quote, lane load, think about where that takes them.
That really, there's some great evidence on the psychology of how you put the metric in front of them. Calls and call time are input variables. As soon as you can get that young kid thinking about output. Hey, I got seven quotes this week, okay? I got 13 quotes this week. I moved nine loads. I moved 11 loads. I made 13% margin. I made 13 and a half percent margin. The sooner you get them focused on productive successful metrics has an impact on the likelihood of that young kid staying in the job. I got a ton of data on that I've collected and correlated it.
I love it.
Does that make sense?
No, that. That makes perfect sense. And this is why people need to come.
But you still have to dial a damn phone. Let's.
There we go. That, that is a perfect spot to end it. You just gotta dial the damn phone at the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen. And I think this is why people, though, they need to come out to the TIA Capital Ideas Conference, stick around for the sales summit and everything. You're going to learn more. Jim's going to get more in depth on this, but how does anybody reach out to you to find out more about what you going on, what you have going on?
Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I really weird. I don't do a lot of social media at all. If somebody wants to discuss, I'll be glad to. So as a sole practitioner for 40 years. So you can reach me on my LinkedIn profile. Okay. James Kenney, professor emeritus of marketing and or reach out through TIA Education. Either way, they will find me. Chris, thank you so much for having me on. And as always, it's great for us to visit. And ladies and gentlemen, ignore his humility. He doesn't run through walls that don't have rewards on the other side. He knows what's on the other side.
I appreciate that. And if for some reason you guys can't find Jim on social media, just DM me, I will gladly put you guys in direct contact with him. But that's going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. As always, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. If you're feeling very ambitious, which you should be after this one, rank the show on itunes and Spotify. Because if you saw value, that's how 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. Now that.