Know Your Competition

Welcome back from a holiday full of thankfulness. Be thankful for your competition...they can teach you lots about how to be a successful broker

A new broker has to know the competition. Your competition knows more than you. You’ll be competing against that knowledge, their time in business and their “name” in the business. Even though it may not be easy, there are several ways to get to know your competition without getting the CIA involved. We go into more detail in our course but here’s some basic tactics:

1. Look up freight broker and trucking companies with your search engine. Read their web sites and glean any useful information that you can from the site. Useful information may include: company size, number of trucks, number of agents, years in business, niche markets or specialties, what lanes they run, how many offices they have and where, and if they are both a carrier and a broker.

2. Ask your prospects and your established customers when you call on them who they use or have used in the past. Find out what they liked and disliked about that broker or carrier and how their rates compare. Ask about their service and how they handled problems and if they still use that broker, why or why not.

3. Ask your carriers about the other brokers that they use, who are the big broker players in the industry and how they compare to the smaller brokers. Ask who the carriers prefer to haul for and why. Find out who pays a higher rate and who pays on time. Network in the industry.

4. Hire seasoned agents who have been in the business for several years. They are a wealth of knowledge about the competition as well as the carriers out there.

Don't be afraid to ask a prospect who they currently use, especially if they tell you that they are satisfied with their current broker or carrier. Tell them that is great - that you are new to the business, and would like to ask them why they like that broker. Ask what they’d look for in a new broker if they needed to find another one.

Knowing your competition is essential. As you become aware of who your main competitors are with your prospects and clients, and how they run their operations, it will influence your rate quotes. Your rate quotes will sometimes depend on your current competition for that particular project. Extra services that you provide may be determined by your competition. The ability to work with a particular shipper may be determined by your competition. In this business as in any other sales business, the top sales people always take the extra time and effort to research the competition. The good general always takes the time to know his enemy.

Moving Forward,

Jeff Roach
www.brooketraining.com