1159. #TFCP - How Do I Train A Sales Rep In Freight?!

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 Friday everybody. We're gonna jump right in today. Well, actually, hold on, time out. We're not gonna jump right in. I do just gotta give a couple of announcements out there, you guys. We drop a little weekly newsletter, all right, so if you wanna go to the FreightCoach.com to register for that, we put some cool stuff out there every single week, you guys, you know, it's all industry related.

We talk rates on there, fuel prices, you know, industry knowledge, all of that stuff. We do that on a weekly basis. I won't auto sign you up for it, but yeah, jump into that if you want to get it. It drops every single Wednesday. Today's topic though, because it's going to be a solo show. And every time I do a solo show because, you know, all of my guests that I have, you guys have day jobs and sometimes it just doesn't work where they can come on here. But what we're going to talk about today though is the question that I get asked the absolute most outside, you know, like by far is sales. I need more sales. But also most importantly, how do I train people to sell?

And that's, you know, that's another thing too is, you know, it's a very, it can be complicated, but it's also pretty simple and basic in my opinion out there about what we're doing, you know, so we're going to talk about some Strategies that, you know, you can implement into your business today. And then, you know, and especially if you have limited sales experience in transportation, this is going to be very beneficial for you because this is literally what I do every single day. I have trained a lot of sales reps in my career. It's a passion of mine. There is probably nothing I enjoy more than the training and development aspect of the business. And yeah, and, you know, we. We've done it and this is what we do.

And you know, just a little side note, this is something my business partner, who literally had zero sales experience, let alone zero transportation experience, this is a lot of the stuff of what he did to personally onboard about six new customers here in the last three months. So take everything about what we're going to talk about today from that standpoint. You guys, this is stuff that I do. This is stuff that my business partner, who didn't have any sales experience, this is what he's done. This is what a lot of the stuff that I taught when I was out there doing consulting and working with other companies and everything. But again, this is what we apply today, and this is what literally all of you guys can apply inside of your business. Again, nothing of what I do is proprietary.

I'm a firm believer that ultimately, at the end of the day, the only real differentiating factor that your prospects look for, whether it's going to be if I called them or my man Sony Sharma called them, is who do they like better? That's what I truly feel like at the end of the day. Yeah, you got to know your. And stuff like that. But ultimately, who do they develop a connection with? And I feel like that's what it's going to boil down to. So I want to start with this. This is a very bold statement. I don't think there's any natural sales reps out there. All right? I. I truly don't. I don't think there's any natural people out there for many professions, I feel like there's some people who've got some talent. Right.

But I feel like the most successful individuals are the ones who cultivate that and they are constantly committed to mastering their craft. You know, I. I instantly think of the arguably the greatest football player of all time in Tom Brady. Right. Overlooked. If you know his story. You know what I'm getting at here, because in my opinion, you do not need to be anything other than what others aren't willing to do and that you got to be willing to work for this. You have to be willing to practice this stuff day in and day out. And most people don't. Most people don't want to commit to what it actually takes. And then they just throw their hands up in the air and say it. I suck. I'm done. This isn't for me.

I think most of this stuff, obviously, I'm not going to go play in the NBA, right? Like, I'm barely six feet tall in heels, and, you know, I'm almost 40, so NBA is probably not in the future. But here's one thing that I have that I know is a superpower of mine is my. My work ethic. Right? Right. Like, I will not quit no matter what. I will not quit. I will keep showing up. There are people out there that are more talented than me, that are, you know, better speakers than I am and all of that. But one thing that I have that most people don't. I won't stop. Okay? And I feel like out there, no matter what, that's the greatest skill that you need to hone is.

Is that work ethic and that ability just to keep showing up no matter what. But I'm going to list out. I might have 10 steps that we might go through here, you guys. These are just some basic overviews that I think all of you can apply inside of your business. So we're going to take this approach of, where do I start? It's pretty simple. You guys learn the industry basics. Number one, it is very alarming to me, the amount of people that I know inside of this industry that got their start, and there was no training at all. There was a here's a dry van, Here's a reefer. Here's a flatbed. There's a list of a hundred numbers. Pick up the phone and start dialing. Smile and dial, baby, as they like to say.

I think that is a colossal waste of time at the end of the day. And from my perspective, we need to learn the basics, because the basics is what I think. The fundamentals, the blocking and tackling of transportation. I think ultimately, that is what gets people to want to work with you, because I know this. Ask somebody who cold calls shippers literally every single day. I cold call prospects. I do the work, you guys, But I also did it before the freight boom, the gold rush of 2021 in 2022, and all the chaos that came along with it. I know back in the day, you used to call some people after a couple of conversations, they'd give you a pruvit shipment. All right? That's just my Experience. Now, today's experience doesn't matter, right?

I have found that the more direct I am about why I'm calling, I. E. What I always talk about, choose your niche, your ideal customer. We're going to get into that here in a little bit. But again, you do that's what gets us the greatest roi. Our greatest sales line is telling people what we won't do, right. Ltl some of that other that's out there that we just don't touch. So speaking of that, what are the modes of transportation? Primarily as a broker, you're going after ltl full truckload, intermodal drayage. You know, you can put air freight in there if you want. If you're at an airframe company, whatever, insert any topic that it is, you know, what are also, you know, like fuel factor, you know, what are some freight pricing, what are some cost factors that come along with it as well?

Fuel weights, lanes, accessorial fees. Right. So let's start with weights, right? Weight is a very big deal out there in the full truckload space. That's why it's like for me, I don't understand the benefit. And if a shipment is £42,000, tell the driver it's £42,000, right? If it's £42,300, tell them it's £42,300. I don't understand why you wouldn't give that information out there, you know, and then also finding out, you know, the like again, the basics about the industry, like, you know, what's a drive in, what's a reefer, what's a flatbed, what's a step deck, what's an rgn? And then all of the accessorials that kind of come along with that, right? What's a lumper service? What are tarps, why are tarps needed? What are edge protectors, stuff like that. Start at the very basics and then work your way up from there.

Common pain points that our customers go through out there and outside of this, outside of, you know, lack of communication, but, you know, that's what it really boils down to. Communication is going to be everything in this, you know, so delays, you know, the reliability of the service provider that's out there, that's a major pain point. You know, if you're not communicating with your customers or, you know, if you're a broker and you're not communicating with your carriers, that causes issues and we cannot have issues. Right. As one of my really good friends who is a longtime shipper who's been on the show before has had said he's like, you can have a bad day of service, a bad week, hell, you can even have a bad month of service, but you can never have a bad day of communication.

So talking about that, and then also, you guys, regulations inside of the industry so that, you know, do what is the Department of Transportation compliance, what are ELDs, you know, insurance coverages, stuff like that. 100,000 in cargo, 250 in cargo, reefer breakdown, errors and omissions. Start with the basics. And again, you guys, this is just all some general overviews here, but this is stuff that you should be talking to your reps about because, you know, at the end of the day, you can't go out there and have them start making promises on that is just impossible. Because you know what? It could take you six months to onboard a customer, but can take you literally six seconds to lose that customer if you commit to something that you know is not going to happen or it's not legal and everything else.

So step number one in all of this, you guys learn the basics, all right? And again, you don't need to go to a course. You don't need to sign up for any of that shit. Most people who are offering courses have never done this job. All right, I'm going toot my own horn here. You can listen to this show. It's free. It will always be free. There will never be a paid course associated with it. The people who've signed up for my email list, they could probably all vouch that for my newsletter that they only receive the newsletter for me, from me, all right? I. I don't sell that. I wouldn't even know how to sell that if. If it even came out, because I don't know this stuff. But again, you guys start there. If you're looking for some other people to follow.

If you're on the trucking side of things, you gotta follow Adam Wingfield. At the end of the day, he is the voice of the small carrier out there. You also need to follow, you know, a guy, my Chris Brewer. He posts stuff all the time. He, you know, those are just a couple of people. There's plenty of other ones that are out there that are good at this, but I'm just trying to put some people out there that are actually doing the job every single day. Now, number two, what is your ideal customer profile? All right, we had. We had Sarah Black on the show the other day. We were talking about enterprise sales, right? And I Feel like a lot of people go out there and they're like, hey, how do I go after?

You know, I want to go after the largest shippers in North America. I don't want to drop any names on here, but just say a, just say, you know, energy drink cans or you know, some of those large beverages or stuff like that. You can go after that, you know, if you want. But it's a different, longer sales cycle. But again, knowing who you want to go after and what you want to go after is very crucial. Right. I want to stay in the small to mid sized market that's out there because of where my business's current capabilities are. I know there's a lot of stuff that comes in with a lot of those large enterprise shippers. There's a lot of volume commitments and I don't know if I can necessarily do 150 loads a day today if that was the requirement from that.

Right. Could I build up into that? Absolutely. That's the plan long term. But at the end of the day, you guys, I got to go after what I want. And you know, growing up in the industry and working for a large broker early on we worked with a lot of the large enterprise shippers that were out there and I've done that. And I've also worked for the small to mid sized market. I like working with the small to midsize market a lot more out there. So you know, again, we do open deck and heavy haul here. That is our ideal customer profile. Yes, we do some full truckload drive in but it's mainly building materials and plastics and stuff like that. I don't go into food, beverage, anything like that. Reefer freight. I don't touch any of that stuff.

Like I had mentioned when I'm cold calling people, we don't do LTL either. So I make sure everybody knows that because LTL is a big component of it. And if they want to go after and if that, if they're going after ltl, that's for them and I just don't want that. Right. So for me, who is your ideal customer profile? Go after that and stick with that as you're building. Right. Again, this is how do we train sales reps out there so we're repeatable, scalable actions that come along with it. So you know, another one that's common is you know, people like using sales scripts. I personally don't like using a script. Do I have one? Yes, I've practiced it. I've ingrained it into my Outreach. I just don't read off of it.

Of the, if a shipper responds with this, say that I, I don't do any of that because I like free flowing conversations. At the end of the day, that's where I like to sit. So again, write some stuff down and practice it. Right? I mean again, being able to clearly articulate yourself in an introduction on a phone call, it's pretty crucial out there if you want to kind of make your way down. Because you're going to go out there and you're going to speak to the gatekeeper more times than not and then you're going to speak to the actual transportation manager in due time and you have, you know, and again, when you have your ideal customer profile associated with that, you can ask some key qualifying questions out there as you're going. Right? A big one. Hi, my name is Chris.

I was hoping to speak with somebody who handles your transportation or logistics, please. Then you get them on the phone. You had to name, put out my name, my company name, why I'm calling. Hey, we specialize in full truckload transportation. I was reaching out today to introduce ourselves. We don't do any ltl. It looks like your product might be LTL or possibly small pack parcel. If that's the case, we're just not going to be a fit. I throw that out there instantly when I'm talking to somebody because I'm looking for ways to show them I'm a little bit different. Again, these are just some of the strategies that work for us as we're going out there. You know, when we get objections for whatever reason, I try and end the call at that of like kind of around there, right? Like here.

A common objection you're going to get as a broker is we don't work with brokers. We are asset only. Hey, I completely understand that. Thank you so much for your time today. Have a great day. I do that on the first call because I've been doing this long enough to know that more times than not they're just trying to get you off the phone the first time you're talking to them. They got a job to do and they're not sitting around and waiting for you to call them. So I do that, I take that note and then I call them back. Whether it's in three weeks, five weeks, whatever it is, they don't remember you. Like just, it might be an ego hit to you, but nobody remembers you after you call them.

So I'm going to call them again and then If I get told the exact same response, that hey, listen, we're 100% asset only or 100% customer routed, or we're 100% this and it doesn't fit into what I do, I'm not going to continue to call them because again, I need revenue, you guys, I don't need hypothetical. Just because this company has 15 locations nationwide and they, I think they're going to be great. If they tell you no, you got to find a yes. And I feel like a lot of sales reps get hung up too much on the nose that they think that they can somehow convince these people to change their operations. Because trust me, you guys, there's a lot of people out there that will work with brokers, right? So you got to go out there and you got to find it.

So number another step, you know, how do you prospect? You know, like what are some lead generation strategies, right? Like what is prospecting? You know, again, you've identified your ideal customer profile and everything else. How do you get leads? I personally use a company called Seamless for our leads. There are a lot of good lead generation software that is out there. I'm going to be having some of those guys come on my show here, coming up to kind of talk about that. Because lead generation software is very beneficial if you can afford it. If you can't, you know what's really good? Google. All right, Google is a phenomenal tool for this and it's free, okay? So you can go out there and you can Google concrete or bricks. Dallas, Texas, and voila, 15 companies pop up right there. Okay?

So it's a good strategy that you can go out. If you can afford LinkedIn sales navigator, that's a really good one that you can use. Or if you can afford the Premium subscription on LinkedIn, you can get a little bit more information on there. And again, you can just go in, you can search company names on LinkedIn, you can type logistics or transportation or supply chain into LinkedIn at, on the company's profile under the people's tab and it'll pop people up on there, all right? Some people will reach out, they'll connect, do social selling through that. I am maybe just some old school in me where I have found a very higher ROI in cold calling in site visits. All right, that is the biggest ROI that we've gotten from a freight perspective for the customers that we are going after.

You know, from my perspective, getting out there, you know, attending events, that's one thing I've been to some shipper, you know, like manufacturing conferences that are out there and you know, again, can you land business from there? Yes. I'm not going to sit here and say that you can't. But I also think that more times than not, most of the people who go to these conferences, manufacturing conferences, are those companies, sales reps. So maybe sometimes they organize the freight, but at the end of the day, those guys are there to sell and probably not be sold to. Again, just my personal preference not saying it's not going to work out for you.

So, you know, again, another big thing about prospecting, you guys, when it comes down to it, with cold calling and stuff like that, the best practice is just by going out there and doing it. Like I was saying earlier, for example, nobody's going to remember you. All right? Like, I would be shocked if you somebody's day up that much to where they're going to write your name down and remember you every single time you call after that. Right. I promise you. Not saying you're not special as a person, but you're not that special out there where everybody just remembers literally everything that you do. So, you know, going out there and practicing that. I've, I've talked about this in the past. Follow and build a process that works inside of your day to day. All right?

I am a firm believer that you need to start by just, you know, choosing amount of calls in a day and stick to that for an extended period of time. That might be 30 days, for example. All right, so say I am going to make 25 cold calls every single day for the next 30 days. And you do that day in, day out. No matter what, you're not going to feel like it some days. You're going to get hung up on 25 times some days. But you need to do it day in and day out. If you hit 30 calls in one day, guess what next day, 25 calls.

All right, do not give yourself any, oh, I did this much today, I'm gonna do little yesterday because, and I say this, you guys, because there are days where you are going to feel very motivated to do your job. And you might knock out like 80 calls that day. And then the next day you come in, maybe you got in a fight with your significant other, you know, your dog puked on your floor before you were walking out the door, whatever. You know, stuff happens, you're pissed off, you come in and then you give yourself a reason to not do it. And those are what kills more dreams than not. To me, it is about following a system day in and day out that you are going to do no matter what. Okay? And then here's one thing. Here's a very simple thing.

25 calls a day for 30 days. Track how long it takes you to do those 25 calls for those 30 days. If it takes you four hours a day when you start, and by the time you're done after those 30 days, you're getting it done in two hours, I believe in an AD5, then the next 30 days, do 30 cold calls a day and then track that and then see, and then you're increasing your output every single day. This takes time, all right? This is because things are going to happen, you know, like throughout the day, you're going to get busy, you're going to do some other stuff, and you're going to find a reason to not do it at certain. At certain points.

But I feel like if you stick to small digestible bites and small incremental increases to your output, you're going to stick to that. You're going to ingrain that into your daily habits and you're going to do it no matter what. So here's another thing, too, and another thing that you can do inside of your organization. Role playing, live. Live training, right? Like, I am a. This is for me personally, I learn from people who've done what I'm looking to do, right? Like, I try and surround myself, like in business, for example, I try and surround myself by business owners who've built the companies that I'm trying to build right now. And, you know, so it's like I'm learning from them. So same thing with, inside of sales.

And now this is where I'm gonna go inside of what we've done, you know, with my business partner who was never a sales rep at all. He never sold anything. He was an engineer. And now he is onboarding multiple shippers a month inside of our brokerage right now based on a lot of this, you guys. And a lot of it is role playing, you guys. It's practicing what we're doing. And I know I already kind of mentioned that a little bit in there, but practice that stuff. Another thing, show it, right? If you're training an individual out there and you're afraid as the trainer to pick up the phone and make a cold call in front of your people, how can you expect your people to do it every single day if you're not willing to do it?

That's my personal preference, right Inside of my organization, I'm never going to be afraid to jump on the phone and make a sales call. Because at the end of the day that's like, that's my job as a business owner, right? I am the only one who's going to sell my company, no matter what, day in and day out, because it's my company, right? So what we like to do is role play a lot of that, go over, practice some of those objections because you're going to get hit with some of those objections. And the way that I see it is your ability to navigate through that conversation is what earns you the business long term. Because I have had multiple calls here over the past couple of weeks.

Where it started with where asset only and it ended with, you know what, man, why don't you give me your email? Let's stay in contact. You know, things happen, you know, the year, things happen throughout the year. That's a major win in a sales call, right? And it was all because I stuck with what we did, right? Like, hey, we're full truckload. We don't do ltl. We do open deck. Your product is what we haul. Like, that's all we do at the end of the day. And then you hit them with some facts throughout there, you navigate through those objections and before you know it, you never know, they might be cool with you following up or they might say at the end, hey, we're asset only. We're not going to set you up no matter what. That's fine too.

That's also a win because knowing who not to go after is just as important as knowing who to go after. So again, practice a lot of this stuff, you guys. I would even go as far as practicing getting hung up on. Have somebody inside of your office, maybe you got some multiple offices across there, have them call and practice getting hung up on. I get hung up on a few times a week. It's just part of it. Right. But again, you can't let that stop you from making another call or another point of contact or anything else. You can't. Because that's going to happen. You're going to catch people at the wrong time.

You know, again, they're not just sitting there and waiting for us, but you as the sales rep have to be able to push through those situations and continue throughout your day. So, you know, another thing, Data is what were talking about. I want. This is another key step out there. I am not the biggest KPI fan at all. I feel like a lot of people over KPI, their sales reps about everything. I feel like just keep it basic, keep it simple, you know. And again, if Your number is 50 calls in a day, or 55 or 60 calls in a day, that's the main KPI that you need to be tracking. Are they making 60 dials in a day every single day? I think KPI and Against Talk time, I don't know.

You can make an argument for either side of it, but at the end of the day, I feel like if they're, if you've built that sale that individual up where they have a system to follow, they're not going to fall into the traps of finding that, you know, those numbers that you can just call that you know that nobody's going to answer. I feel like if they feel like they got the support of the team in the organization, they're going to go through and they're going to make those dials no matter what, because eventually they're going to start having some good conversations. Eventually that confidence in themselves is going to come through. So I think keep it very basic. If it's, if you're going out there. And again, I feel like some very easy steps for people to follow.

If it's 50 calls in a day, make sure they hit 50 calls in a day, no matter what. I don't care if it takes them all eight hours of the day to make those 50 calls, but just do that, right? Follow that. Keep it simple. The more complex and the, you know, the, the more experience, the rep or everything else, you can add some other ones on there, but I'm talking very basic. Where do I start? How do I get going? If you're an individual, for example, that's very key, right? Holding yourself to that. Because at the end of the day, when you're starting out anything, whether it's a book, a business, or a business on your own, there's a lot of internal noise that you're going to battle. And there's really only a couple of key ways that you can show progress.

And that is if you, you know, put out a couple of key tasks for you to accomplish in a day. And you do that every single day. At least you know, you're moving the needle forward. But again, keep it simple out there, you guys. And then, you know, maybe you're like me, you got a business partner out there, and you guys are out there putting in the work together. I text my business partner throughout the day. I'll say 35 dials, right? My number is 55. I make 55 cold calls a day. So when I hit 35 or 30 or whatever it is, I'll just text him that, right? And then when I finish it, I'm gonna text him that. And again, it's just that accountability, all right? Because I don't want to let him down, he doesn't want to let me down.

So we just keep each other and hold each other accountable throughout the day. And then on top of it, you guys, you know, in kind of final thoughts, there's probably about five key points here for you guys to utilize inside of your business. You know, again, I would say at the end of the day, you guys start with the basics, all right? Focus on the basics. Learn the blocking and tackling of transportation, especially if you are a broker. Learn that. Learn hours of service, learn weights, learn commodities, trailer types, all of that stuff. Learn that until you cannot forget that. Because I truly feel at the end of the day, that is going to be the greatest separator out there when you are prospecting is do you actually know what the hell you are talking about or are you just blowing smoke?

And I feel like if you know the basics of the industry, you are going to. To succeed. And then another thing, too. What's working for you early on, it's a constant refinement, right? Like I was saying, hey, once you make 25 calls in a day, every day for a certain amount of time, and then you've noticed that it took you for four hours, now you're doing it in two. Add on a little bit at that, right? Referring, refine it. Increase your outreach, do stuff like that. And I feel like, you know, at the end of the day, you guys, you just got to start. You just got to start. Anything that you just heard on this show is irrelevant. If you don't refine and like, do it, do the actual work. Excuse me, all of what I said is irrelevant.

But if you actually go out there and you said it right, hey, I'm going to make 25 calls every single day for the next 30 days, no matter what. And then you do that and you practice your pitch. Hi, my name is Chris Jolly. I'm the founder of Freight Coach Logistics. We are a broker, but we just specialize in full truckload transportation. Insert anything that you want there. Practice that, Go through that day in and day out. Eventually the tides are going to start to turn in your favor with that. So that is going to be it for today, you guys. That are some key points of a little bit of a process that you can follow inside of your organization. And if you've never done sales before, or maybe you're training sales reps or you're about to train some sales reps.

Start with those things on there, you guys. But that is going to be it for today. We got more guests coming on next week out here, you guys. But as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show, you guys, share it out there to your network because if you saw value, your network is going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys, and we'll be talking to you soon.