In the bustling world of trucking sales, success is not just about closing deals; it's about understanding the intricacies of the industry, fostering strong relationships, and solving challenges. At the heart of this success lies a strategic approach that empowers salespeople to excel in their roles while delivering value to both their company and customers. In this article, we'll delve into the key components of effective trucking sales and how sales managers can leverage them to lead their teams to drive growth and build lasting partnerships.
Trucking Salespeople
Trucking salespeople thrive at the intersection of the needs of their own company as well as the customer, trying to simultaneously solve the problems of both. To accomplish this, the best trucking salespeople are fundamentally great listeners and problem-solvers. Given their skill, role and expense, their primary focus should be on hunting new business: efficiently working the sales cycle, generating leads and closing opportunities. It's crucial to recognize that their role shouldn't involve day-to-day customer service tasks unless necessary as an escalation option. Free them to do what only they can do best.
Equipping Salespeople for Success
To thrive in the competitive landscape of trucking sales, sales professionals must be equipped with the right tools. This includes defining the markets and lanes your company serves, being transparent about your company strengths and limitations, and communicating a clear sales process. Providing them with essential resources such as CRM systems, professional presentations, and social media support empowers them to engage effectively with clients and prospects.
Working the Sales Cycle: From Leads to Referrals
Leads: In the initial stage of the sales cycle, salespeople focus on generating potential business opportunities through various channels such as referrals, networking, and leveraging satellite imagery for valuable insights. Capture all leads in your CRM system including at least basic company information, contact information and key lanes. Assign leads to salespeople based on decision maker geography to minimize travel costs.
Qualification: Once leads are identified, thorough qualification is crucial. Sales professionals must ask critical questions to assess the viability of each opportunity, considering factors such as lanes, equipment requirements, volume, credit and determining who the decision-maker is within the organization. A wise sales mentor once counseled me to ask three questions when qualifying opportunities: (1) Is it real? (2) Is it worth it? (3) Can we win? (4) Who is the decision maker?
Value Proposition: Crafting a compelling value proposition is essential to convince shippers to share their lanes, volumes, and requirements. This involves understanding their challenges, whether it's related to capacity, service, cost, or visibility, and effectively communicating why your company is their best option. The goal of the Value Proposition stage is to convince shippers that it is worth their time and effort to evaluate your solution.
Pricing: Pricing strategies should involve collaboration with operations to ensure alignment with capacity commitments and operational capabilities. It's important to involve operations in any capacity commitments proactively. As a key organizational check and balance, consider a dedicated pricing person or team instead of salespeople pricing their own business.
Address Challenges: This stage requires adept problem-solving skills, with a focus on understanding and overcoming the barriers to securing a deal. Salespeople need to keep the focus on the decision-maker and identify the factors that may be hindering them from saying "yes," whether it's related to price, capacity, service, trust, commitments, or equipment. If opportunities are taking months, make sure you are really working with the decision maker.
Contracting: Meticulous attention to detail is crucial during the contracting stage. Salespeople must double-check pricing and commitments, ensure operations agrees to any capacity commitments before contracting, and facilitate the review, negotiation, and execution of legal agreements. Additionally, establishing credit, setting up new customers as a bill-to customer, and entering rates and commitments are important steps in this phase.
Startup: Once the deal is closed, a seamless startup process is essential. This involves handing off the customer from sales to customer service, introducing teams in a startup meeting, documenting and sharing customer procedures in a customer wiki, and planning the first moves to ensure a smooth transition and effective onboarding.
Referrals: Leveraging successful relationships to secure referrals and expand business opportunities is crucial for continued growth. Salespeople should close the sales cycle effectively, asking for referrals to other divisions of the company, customers, or suppliers, and using data from new business to call on shippers and receivers with whom they do not already do business, maximizing opportunities for growth and minimizing deadhead opportunities.
In trucking sales, it's crucial to recognize when a potential customer isn't the right fit and swiftly close the opportunity, freeing up resources to focus on more promising leads. Time is of the essence; lingering opportunities drain valuable company resources from winnable deals. Roughly 1 out of 10 opportunities will turn into freight onboard, so perseverance is key. Sales is inherently a numbers game—continuously generating leads and efficiently working the sales cycle will yield results, even during the most challenging times.
Holding Salespeople Accountable and Rewarding Success
Setting clear expectations and holding salespeople accountable is essential for driving results. Establish quantitative goals such as leads and opportunities generated per week, pricing requests per week, and opportunities won per month. Weekly sales team meetings offer an opportunity to review opportunities, discuss challenges, and provide support when needed. Rewarding success through bonuses and incentives based on the amount of new business brought onboard reinforces a culture of excellence and encourages proactive sales behavior.
In conclusion, empowering salespeople with the right tools, guiding them through a comprehensive sales cycle, and holding them accountable while rewarding their successes, sales managers can steer their teams towards sustained growth and enduring partnerships. With a focus on efficiency, perseverance, and a commitment to continuous improvement, trucking sales organizations can thrive even in the most competitive landscapes.
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