When you think of a high powered, successful sales person what is their number one quality?
Pushy, talkative, obnoxious,forceful, irritating...? The list could go on with annoying qualities we have all seen in a sale person. I was born with an innate ability to sell. I really enjoyed door to door sales of cookies, candles, cleaning products, whatever we were selling in school to raise money. My mom will tell you, I was good at selling from an early age.
I may have some of the above characteristics but I know those are not the characteristics that I aspire to display. I know those are the not the characteristics that make me a good salesman.
The best thing I can do for a customer is help them. To help them I need to understand their business and how I can help that business do even better. As a freight broker I can help my customer get his product to market. That is incredibly important and actually critical. Because, of course, if a product doesn't make it to market it can not sell. If the product doesn't sell then the company profit is zero.
A astronomical number of products are now sold online. That market change has changed distribution points but it has not changed the need for products to moved across the country.
So the job of the freight broker is to figure out the unique supply chain of their customer or potential customer and find the carriers that can service that line.
The more knowlegable a sales person is about a customer's business the more likely they are to get business from that customer.
Businessmen love to talk about their products, marketing and goals with an interested professional who has their best interest at heart. I think about my customer and how I can help them before I talk with them about my business. In other words I put myself in their place, try to think like they would think and anticipate how I can help them maximize their profits by finding the cargo services they need.
Go out and have a great day.
Moving forward,
Jeff Roach
www.transportationtraining.com
Startup Business Failure Rate By Industry
| Industry | Percent Still Operating After 4 Years |
| Finance Insurance and Real Estate | 58 % |
| Education and Health | 56 % |
| Agriculture | 56 % |
| Services | 55 % |
| Wholesale | 54 % |
| Mining | 51 % |
| Manufacturing | 49 % |
| Construction | 47 % |
| Retail | 47 % |
| Transportation, Communication and Utilities | 45 % |
| Information | 37 % |
| Year | Percent Failed |
| Year 1 | 25 % |
| Year 2 | 36 % |
| Year 3 | 44 % |
| Year 4 | 50 % |
| Year 5 | 55 % |
| Year 6 | 60 % |
| Year 7 | 63 % |
| Year 8 | 66 % |
| Year 9 | 69 % |
| Year 10 | 71 % |
| Major Cause | Percentage of Failures | Specific Pitfalls | |
| 1 | Incompetence |
46 %
|
Emotional Pricing |
| Living too high for the business | |||
| Nonpayment of taxes | |||
| No knowledge of pricing | |||
| Lack of planning | |||
| No knowledge of financing | |||
| No experience in record-keeping | |||
| 2 | Unbalanced Experience or Lack of Managerial Experience |
30 %
|
Poor credit granting practices |
| Expansion too rapid | |||
| Inadequate borrowing practices | |||
| 3 | Lack of Experiences in line of goods or services |
11 %
|
Carry inadequate inventory |
| No knowledge of suppliers | |||
| Wasted advertising budget | |||
| 5 | Neglect, fraud, disaster |
1 %
|
| Leading Management Mistakes | |
| 1 | Going into business for the wrong reasons |
| 2 | Advice from family and friends |
| 3 | Being in the wrong place at the wrong time |
| 4 | Entrepreneur gets worn-out and/or underestimated the time requirements |
| 5 | Family pressure on time and money commitments |
| 6 | Pride |
| 7 | Lack of market awareness |
| 8 | The entrepreneure falls in love with the product/business |
| 9 | Lack of financial responsibility and awareness |
| 10 | Lack of a clear focus |
| 11 | Too much money |
| 12 | Optimistic/Realistic/Pessimistic |
