Is starting a brokerage worth it ... at my age?

MikeJr said:
Well said,

I found two little things happened that can bring on easy business.
1. Have an on hold message that explains the range of services you provide.
2. Change a tag line at the bottom of your email monthly that says what you do.

I've had shippers and receivers come off hold and say things like, you guys do LTL too? We are so happy with your services on TL and had no idea you did LTL... Or a receiver for our client ask to have someone in sales/pricing contact them because what they heard on hold or read at the bottom on my email is something that they are struggling with at the time.

Anyway, back to work!
Mike
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100%..
 
Tons of useful info on this thread so far thank you everyone.. always nice to hear how others are operating their sales force
 
All good ideas that don't involve hiring and training a new person to send out and knock on doors. Give your existing sales people all the tools they need and then sit back and see what they can do. Look to your existing customer base first for new potential. Where are ALL the locations they are shipping to, not just the ones you are doing for them? What about their inbound, who is taking care of that? As mentioned, be sure they know the entire range of services you offer. If you do just these few things with all of your existing clientele, you'll be amazed at how much new business will appear.
P.S. Hey Mike, why don't we start a sales consulting business? Of course 1% isn't going to cut it. Say more like 3%????lol
 
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Freight Broker said:
Of course... I wouldn't advocate simply dialing blindly.. If you're selling heavy locomotives and your prospect list is "churches in the Greater Hamilton Area" it ain't gonna work.. One has to start with a list that offers some small hope of success without, of course, being too limiting. In my case I look at manufacturers, distributors, and traders. If they need stuff moved then maybe I can help in some way. At least that's a starting point. But I try not to limit myself too much initially.

A month/year to close? Not in my experience.. None of us is offering a unique service.. let's be honest. Thus anyone who is interested in your service is 1) price shopping.. 2) has new business to move.. 3) is looking to replace an under performer. It is up to us to discover the reason. I try to avoid 1) as much as possible.
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Most of what I would have done would have been more integrated solutions except when I first started on the sales end. Not too much spot stuff, so for the most part buyers work on a cycle. So it takes longer to close, but it's more solid in the end. Much better than setting up a customer for one load and then not again.

And the point of integrated solutions IS to be more unique. This is why selling pure brokerage isn't as lucrative as it used to be. Pure brokerage for those who use it is commoditized. Most people don't see that with most of the big brokerages or multi-faceted 3PLs that the brokerage is part of the solution versus being the only part.

As I said, I left the industry because in the end, the salespeople are mostly getting screwed and I had enough of it. Even though I honestly loved doing it.
 
The 60/40 or 50/50 etc rules are really more of an agency based brokerage thing. Working for a larger 3PL, generally once established the amount one would make would equal anywhere between 20 and 30 percent of contribution margin. I never minded it when it allowed me to open bigger doors and land bigger deals. Never liked to micro-manage my business, just wanted to be in the loop.
 
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