The fundamental freight broker skills that lead to success in freight sales are the same skills that lead to success in life. Recently Alex Lieberman, the CEO of Morning Brew, one of the most successful media start-ups on the scene now, tweeted his initial list of the skills every professional should master.
If you’re in sales you will increase your earning power exponentially by mastering the skills on Alex’s list. All of the following freight broker skills are difficult to master, some take quite a bit of trial and error, and others are just down right scary at first. The payoff at the end is worth it though if you want to be a successful freight broker.
Communication skills are the key in a sales career. Those who can persuade others to take action to improve their status quo have always been and will always be the winners. Whether it’s blogs, emails or website copy, the better you are at communicating your ideas, the more sales you will make.
The ability to reach out and contact someone you don’t know is a key to both sales and success in life. It’s all about knocking – and if needed – kicking the door in on new opportunities. The better you are at writing cold emails or picking up the phone and making cold calls the better your odds are at closing new deals.
Speaking to one prospect at a time is time-consuming and inefficient. Speaking to hundreds or thousands of prospects at once is efficient and scalable. Those who learn the art of public speaking and use it effectively will always be more successful than those who never conquer this basic human fear. If you really want to reach prospects, force yourself to climb those stairs and stand on that stage. Like anything in life, the more you practice this skill within these freight broker skills, the easier it becomes.
It doesn’t matter if you like using slides during a presentation or not. Sometimes your sales pitch requires a prop or two. The most popular prop is a slide deck. There are way too many stale PowerPoint presentations circulating in the freight world right now. Learn the lean mean deck-building freight broker skills from Steve Ferrera from Ocean Audit to create a pitch deck that drives revenue.
One of the biggest mistakes freight salespeople make is expecting to drive sales immediately by jumping on social media. The value of social media isn’t about pitching your services directly. It’s all about using virtual tools to expand your network. How do you build a network with social media? The key is to add as much value as possible for free. Sharing your knowledge through your posts and adding to the conversation on others will demonstrate your expertise. Once your opinions and analysis are trusted, the inbound leads will start to appear.
Freight sales is all about making tough calls and a vital skill to master among these freight broker skills. Can I be profitable at this rate? Should I lower these freight rates to preserve this relationship? How should I explain what went wrong to my customer? Learning the skill of making decisions based on imperfect information is the key. The best method for making better decisions is to focus on how your decisions will drive value for your customers.
Alex’s list of skills doesn’t include math skills, but it is well worth mentioning here. You have to know your numbers to be successful in sales. All you need to do is watch one episode of Shark Tank to realize any successful business or salesperson knows his/her key performance metrics and the profitability of each transaction. If you don’t have a handle on your numbers, then you will forever be banished to the world of the average sales person and should prioritize adding math to your freight broker skills.
FreightWaves SONAR provides the fastest freight market data in the world across all major modes of traffic. SONAR can guide those seeking to be a successful freight broker or can be used in executing these freight broker skills to build a stronger freight broker book of business. The SONAR platform is the only freight forecasting and analytics platform that offers real-time freight market intelligence driven off actual freight contract tenders.
SONAR contains proprietary data that comes from actual load tenders, electronic logging devices and transportation management systems, along with dozens of third-party global freight and logistics-related index providers like TCA Benchmarking, Freightos, ACT, Drewry and DTN.
Whether you’re working from the office or from home, SONAR can provide you the data and intelligence you need to stay ahead of your competitors.
Find out more about FreightWaves SONAR for brokers.
You can find more information on freight brokerage and carrier sales tips on the popular FreightWaves sales show, Put That Coffee Down.
