Which Truck Would YOU Want?

Selling Internally

Are you in carrier sales and trying to increase your booked loads?  If so, one thing to work on is more effectively selling your capacity to internal team members.

Selling internally is something brokers often forget about, but it’s a great way to increase your bookings AND improve your reputation at your brokerage.

What does it mean?

Let’s look at an example.

Broker 1 vs. Broker 2

Say two carrier sales reps each have options for a load that needs to be covered.  The trucks are a little over your max spend, so before locking down the truck each rep presents their option to the manager (or, whoever is making the take decisions).

The conversations go as follows:

Broker 1: “Hey, I have a truck that can take this load for $1,000.  Do you want it?”

Broker 2: “Hey, I have a truck that can take this load for $1,000.  The driver will be unloading 10 miles away in Springfield, OH.  They have a 7am appointment and should arrive at our shipper before 10am.  I work with this carrier all the time and will have driver info in the load by noon the day before pick.  Do you want me to lock this guy down?”

The question is this – which truck would YOU want?

Broker 2 Covers the Load

Most of you would take Broker 2’s truck.  Both options might be an equally good fit for the load, but we just don’t know!  Broker 1 didn’t give us any information to help make our decision and that hurts their chances of booking this load.

Looking at Broker 1’s option, we have a rate and nothing else.  From a manager’s perspective, this prompts a handful of other questions before they can make an educated decision:

• Will they make the pick on time?
• When/where is the driver going to be empty?
• Are we set up with this carrier?

Broker 2 anticipates these questions and includes all relevant information as part of their option.  They make their manager’s job easier, they look like they know what they’re doing and it’s an easy decision to take their truck.

Broker 2 is SELLING internal team members on his/her capacity and is booking more freight as a result.

Sync Logistics Training

If you found this interesting, check out what we’re building at Sync Logistics Training.  We cover this topic and more in our coursework on Carrier Sales.

Reach out to nick@synclogisticstraining.com for more information.