Freight 360

Sales Follow-Ups & Communication | Episode 255

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Ever wondered why some sales follow-ups build lasting client relationships while others fall flat? Join us as we master the art of effective sales follow-ups, exploring empathetic listening, purposeful openings, and parallels to streaming services' relentless ads. We'll also touch on the latest Olympic feats and CH Robinson's anticipated Q2 earnings. Inspired by "Super Communicators," we'll shift conversations from logical to emotional contexts to understand clients' needs and build genuine rapport. Learn advanced strategies like the looping technique for conflict resolution and identifying emotional cues to transform your professional interactions. Stay tuned for updates on our Final Mile segment and the return of the Pick'Em League for football season.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, welcome back to this week's show of Freight 360. We've got a special episode for you today. Nate is actually traveling, so it's going to be Steven and I digging into some sales topics, specifically follow-ups, what to say, some strategies, techniques and things you can use to make more follow-up calls. But before we jump into the content, please make sure you like, share, comment, share us with your colleagues. Any of that engagement is greatly appreciated and if you have any questions, please you can submit them through our website. You can comment on the YouTube page below. We read and try to answer every single one as fast as we can. You can also email us at info at freight360.net with any other questions that we can answer on every week's final mile episode where we cover Q&A. So you know what? Let's just kind of jump into it, stephen. How's your week coming along, man?

Speaker 2:

Oh good, you know logistics, putting out fires every single morning.

Speaker 1:

So that's what keeps it interesting, right yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's how it goes sometimes. But yeah, I mean, everything's good. How about? How's it going down in Florida?

Speaker 1:

It's a little warm, but to be expected this time of year. And, yeah, not much else. Pretty much new outside of work and brokers we're going to jump into now. A little bit of sports. I know we got a little bit of the updates. I followed a little bit of what was going on in the Olympics. I know I think the US is the first country to surpass 3,000 gold medals, which I think happened yesterday. Looks like we've got 27 medals so far 4 gold, 12 silver, 11 bronze, and the US men's gymnastics got its first medal since 08. You got any other highlights? You've been watching much of the Olympics, Stephen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I have Peacock and I've just been letting the gold zone or whatever. I think it's just like a rip off, a red zone for football, but it's cool. It shows a little bit of all the events. Yeah, but one of the events that I didn't know that's in the Olympics the like kayaking event. Have you seen that? I didn't know that was in the olympics, but it's.

Speaker 2:

I'm a kayak fan, I like kayaking so it's, it's a a smaller paddle or a smaller kayak, and then the paddle is just one-sided and they have this created a stream where they they go through the course and it's got some rapids, but on the red columns they have to come back through it backwards and on the kind of like slalom, yeah, so they have to come back through that backwards and then go through straight the green ones and it's been the coolest event.

Speaker 1:

That's wow the two things right, like I redid my peacock to watch some of this.

Speaker 1:

But I was so frustrated because, like the weekend before the olympics started, like I renewed the thing to make it work and, for whatever reason, peacock just like doesn't allow you to increase the subscription to the one without ads.

Speaker 1:

And I was so frustrated because, like I chose it when I, you know, redid it like the premium or whatever it was, because it was, like you know, like a four, a $4 difference and I'm like, you know, I'm going to basically watch it for a month or two and then, if I don't need it, I'll cancel it.

Speaker 1:

But then I started seeing commercials and I was getting so frustrated because, like I don't know, you just don't get used to seeing commercials very much in regular shows, and there was, like this show I was watching and so I have tried on my TV, my desktop, the web app, every single thing to change it from the commercial tier to the one without commercials and it just won't let me. So, like I've tried to cancel it, reinitiate it, and I still can't figure out what to do. And I'm like, I'm so frustrated because it's like, how does a company just like not allow you to spend more money. I'm like I genuinely want to spend more money with you to get the better service, and I literally cannot figure out how to do it.

Speaker 2:

Right. Well, it's like I don't know if you have Prime, but they just shifted to ads and I don't use it all that much to watch, but every now and then when I get on there, I'm like, oh crap, there's ads on here now.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and some of them are like their freebie, with ads, and they'll have decent movies that like I've wanted to watch and I'm like I honestly just won't watch it because of the commercials.

Speaker 1:

Which is funny because I noticed, like when I rarely watch cable, like for golf, when I'm watching something live, I actually enjoy some of the commercials because I feel like I'm like more in touch with like what other people.

Speaker 1:

It's like it feels like communal, like everyone's watching this, so like it feels like I'm somehow tied in to that norm. But when I watch them on an app or my phone or, to your point, prime I feel like they're almost always geared towards me, which makes me feel like I should want to watch them because it should be a better ad for my buying patterns. But I know there's that motive behind it of they're trying to sell me something, so like I want to avoid it. And the reason I'm bringing that up is like that same feeling is what we're going to talk about today, obviously, and like follow-ups and sales calls is like what is kind of the undertone and the tension there. Why are they kind of difficult to make and how do we determine what we're really going to say? But before we kind of jump into the content, I know we had a couple of good news articles you pulled up.

Speaker 2:

One, ch Robinson. What was going on with CH? Yeah, so right before their Q2 earnings report there was an article that came out from Freightwaves where they had sold their European surface transportation operations to looks like cinder technologies over in europe. Um so kind of just going along with the uh, cutting out sales people. Now they're cutting out a division, so it looks. Maybe they're trying to save cash, maybe they're pivoting to a different direction, I'm not really sure, but it'll be interesting to see what CH Robinson does as the year progresses.

Speaker 1:

It is for sure. And the other one was surge transportation rising from the ashes of bankruptcy, it says surge transport successfully emerged from bankruptcy after filing Chapter 11. And basically last year the company reorganized and was confirmed by the US Bankruptcy Court in Jacksonville. Company reorganized and was confirmed by the US Bankruptcy Court in Jacksonville, despite owing some wages, led by president and founder Omar Singh. I know Omar. He's in a networking group with me. I see him pretty regularly. Really good guy, really ambitious, bright guy. Wish him the best. Looks like he's, you know, emerging literally from kind of the ashes, as the article says. Are you familiar with Surge at all or how?

Speaker 2:

or what kind of played out. Yeah, I know he did a ton of advertising with Freightways, which I think is how most people know Surge, and then of course, the bankruptcy stuff coming out last year. But I did see that some of the people were saying I'm not sure if this was in the article or in the comments from Frey Caviar's post, but they're probably one of the only brokerages to ever come out of a bankruptcy.

Speaker 1:

I think they are.

Speaker 2:

Which I mean is a testament to his drive.

Speaker 1:

And his ethics. I mean to want to turn it around rather than to fold it and start something else. I think shows a hell of a lot of character. Right, it's definitely not the easier of the two paths, for sure. Yeah, I would agree. Hey, man, let's dig into this. You and I have been working on well this week I'm going to be doing a training actually tomorrow and we've been talking a lot about this content as well as like to be honest, this, these, this question comes up the most, I think, and comes up. It's been coming up a lot more recent, and we'll call this like topic, right, like follow-ups, but what we're really going to discuss is like the underlying kind of not necessarily like psychology.

Speaker 1:

We're not going to get into the weeds of, like you know, these biases and these things, but it's a very simple explanation techniques and things that you can do to actually build rapport right. Like we talk in the show a lot about this, like what are the three things that you need a customer to do? Right, Know you like you, trust you. Right, we talk about rapport, like you need to build rapport. Well, let me ask you, I mean, like, what does rapport mean to you steven? Like how would you define that in just layman's terms?

Speaker 2:

uh, one second, sorry. Um, yeah. So for me, like rapport is that is that ability to call them and know that they'll answer, and have that level of trust that you would see with your friends or your family. If there's somebody that you can call and you know that they might not answer right away, but they'll shoot you a text and be like hey, I'll call you right back. That to me is rapport. You've built that trust. They know you and they know that you're calling for something specific, not to just buy it as soon as they enjoy your conversation.

Speaker 1:

And connecting right Conversations right, Like, I think, a lot of the time myself included earlier on in sales was like the one thing that, like I always kind of thought sales was, and I think there's a common belief that, like sales is calling people to convince them to do something they don't want to right, Trying to manipulate somebody, trying to use words or clever techniques to convince somebody to do something. You need to do right, and I will say that like there's some partial truth to that right. Like we're calling companies because we need business at the end of the day, right, we need loads to move. We're calling companies because we need business. At the end of the day, we need loads to move. We want to be able to do more business, we want to grow. However, that's the result. That's not where you start In a sales cycle.

Speaker 1:

Typically, what they say standard sales cycle is you've got to build some rapport. Then you do what's called a needs analysis. You try to understand where they might need some help that you could provide. Then you ask questions to try to understand how those needs might affect that person if they're not met, meaning like, hey, if they can't get a lane covered every week and it's a really difficult lane, you want to be able to ask that person like well, hey, what happens on your side of things when the truck doesn't pick up on time or deliver on time, Not just like where they need help, but what happens after right, To really understand what it means to your prospect and potential customer. What is the effect on you as a human and your company and your department if these things don't get picked up and if you can?

Speaker 2:

get somebody to tell you those things right.

Speaker 1:

if these things don't get picked up and if you can get somebody to tell you those things, the natural conclusion should be that the solution is to work together where you can help them. Where they haven't been able to do this to the degree they've wanted to. That's your sales cycle. But the end is getting what we set out to do, which is that relationship to work together, however long before that ever happens, is where we spend most of our time. How do I initiate a conversation? How do I follow up? I call this company. They told me a little bit. Do I call in three days, five days? Do I call next week? What do I say? How do I talk to them? I just got most of the answers I need. So, like what the hell do I even call back and ask them Right, like, what are some of the things that you do or you've done in your follow ups between or even your initial calls? Like, what are your first few calls? Kind of sound like, what is your approach?

Speaker 2:

So I think one of the biggest mistakes some people make is there's there's a stigma to cold calling, right, and the idea of cold calling is you're cold calling to make a sale, and I think there's an advantage there for people that want to reframe that mindset and, instead of it being a cold call, maybe call it a discovery call, because that's really what you're doing You're trying to discover what the needs are of this individual and their company, because the individual and the company might have separate needs. They come to the same end goal, but one person at the same shipper is going to act and need different things than his counterpart that sits across the aisle from him. So your role is discovering their personality type, what their needs are, how they like to communicate, where's their freight going, what's the requirements for their freight, and you really need to focus on discovery, because that to me seems like a much easier conversation than hey, I'm calling to sell you on this thing, what do you do?

Speaker 1:

Yep, agreed, and I would just go one step further, because I think discovery is the right word. But I would also share with people out there that, like, what is discovery? Discovery is learning something you don't know, okay, well, in a conversation, that is understanding the other person, right? The goal of almost any conversation you have with anybody isn't to get them to think the way you do. It's not to get them to agree with you. It's for both people in a conversation to understand why each of you have the opinions and why they matter to you. Right? It's discovering the understanding right In this conversation, right? So, like initially, when you have one of any conversation, right? Is they have what's called like a quiet negotiation.

Speaker 1:

This is that little dance when you make a cold call, right, and what you're really trying to do first is the practical question, like what is this really about? What do each of us actually want out of this conversation and, really, what kind of logic may we be using to make these decisions together? Right? So there's that little dance and Nate always kind of, you know, gives me grief and kind of laughs at like my opening is almost the same. It's like, hey, I do have drivers in your area they're delivering into there from here. This is where I'm looking to get them back out of.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if this would be a good fit or if it even makes sense to work together down the road, but that's why I was calling you. Why I think that's so effective is one it gives that shipper the prospect. What's in it for them? It also answers that question like what is this phone call about and what are we really talking about? Okay, well, underlying that is also like I might be able to save you some money because I got guys there anyway, so you don't got to deadhead them. That's kind of like the undertone, but it really gets to that very quickly, as in what's this all about? Right, what is kind of your opening? Do you have like a canned opening you kind of use, or do you change them? What's your approach?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So and I kind of want to tie this back we had a comment on one of the youtube videos a few weeks ago and somebody had mentioned that you know they do a bunch of research on their shippers and, um, they could, but you can never find like the equipment or the commodity. But the one thing I would stress is, typically you can find locations, and that's kind of how I open my what I would call discovery calls is in a similar fashion that you're like hey, sir, you know, I know that you have these locations in these areas. I don't quite understand how your freight moves in and out of these areas, or maybe you're just moving from those areas, but these are where I have trucks and this is where we like to go. So I'm just looking to find out more about your operations. How do you guys work? What's your tendering process look like? Granted, I don't vomit all that at the same time. Yeah, that's a little bit of overload, but that's the general string of questions that I'm going to go down.

Speaker 1:

But you answered it right, Like you laid out with your questions like what is this really about? You answer that for them. This is the topic we're talking about, right? So it starts really in that category right Of the logical or practical Right and and I'm going to segue for a second right To bring in the fact that, like that, most of this content comes from the book that I've referenced before, super communicators by Charles Duhigg, and what we did was, like it was really digging into, like kind of the step-by-step to outline how people can use these techniques and why they actually work. And the thing that I find most interesting right Is and I'll ask you this question right, If you're upset or you feel like you want to get something off your chest for whatever reason, maybe you're excited, maybe it's upset, but, like, who comes to mind? I'm sure there's one or two people at least that come to mind immediately that you would want to have that conversation with.

Speaker 2:

Who comes to your mind? That's my wife. She's the first call on everything. Yeah, starts going south.

Speaker 1:

And that's usually the most calm response. It's our significant other or it's usually a close friend that we've known for a long time. And the topic of the book and of most of this content is super communicators, and I think it really drives this point home, because we are all super communicators. We just aren't doing it in every area of our life. And when you think about this question of like, when you're upset anyone out there, think about who you would call when you call that person, why you do that is because you guys connect and you're able to almost intertwine where you kind of can feel each other and you have the same types of conversations. So we all do this to some degree. We just don't do it in every area of our lives. The ones that practice it more are able to do it in different areas. Like I spend a ton of time, so do you making sales calls and thinking about what I say and what works and what doesn't. So the more you practice it, the more effective you are in other areas. But I do want to point out that, like everybody, are in other areas. But I do want to point out that, like everybody, it is part of human nature and how we're built Like humans. This is what differentiates us from everything else on the planet. It's our ability to communicate. Right, like we can share dreams, visions, thoughts, problems, share everything that happened in our day and I can get you to understand what I went through just making my mouth move with sounds and you can understand what has happened in time. Like that's pretty profound in and of itself, right, but that is really what we're going for, right? Like, well, how do we establish this type of rapport that we have with some people intentionally with other people? Right, and the first thing they talk about is and this is really pretty recent and psychological research. Is that like pretty recent and psychological research? Is that, like, there is not one type of conversation. There are three separate types of conversations, right, you have the logical or practical, you have the emotional and the third is considered societal, and societal is like the broader one, but it's like usually you can think of it as, like, what is your relationship to this situation and the people around you?

Speaker 1:

So the most common one you hear they talk about this in like a lot of marriage research that's just like the obvious topic is one person shares something they're frustrated with. Right, like I might tell my wife that like, hey, this thing that happened to work with this customer. I was so mad they gave me this load, we got the trucks in, we had all this work done and they pulled the load for the last minute for some other reason. And I'm just venting, right Because I just want to get this emotion out, and my wife might be entering into the logical side and she wants to give me a solution. Why? Because she doesn't want to see me suffer. So she might suggest like well, hey, maybe you should fall out with that customer, maybe you should maybe go out to lunch. Whatever the solution is right. And then I feel frustrated because in my gut I almost feel like, well, I don't need a solution right now, I just need you to hear me and feel this with me.

Speaker 1:

It's a perfect example of two people with the best intentions having the wrong types of conversation at the wrong time. I'm talking emotional. She might be giving me practical or vice versa. So one of the techniques they really outline and it's really kind of simple is you want to listen and really try to pay attention to the cues as to what type of conversation we're having. Almost all of them start practical, but then you want to move them to emotion, right, and the reality is because we don't feel much emotion when we talk about practical things. If you and I are talking about shipping lanes, details, where this is picking up, where this goes, what trucks, what needs to go in this volume of this lane, there's not a lot of emotion in it, right, like it's just the facts, right?

Speaker 1:

So when Nate and I have talked about this on the show, like we always say, like my point of view is use curiosity because you're genuine and you're vulnerable. When you actually ask questions you care about, right, it's a good pivot into the emotional asking questions, right. Now, the other thing we'll talk about is, like Nate, we'll use sports as an example. Like hey, I might be calling because I want to talk about shipping, but I'm very quickly going to ask like hey, did they catch that game, you know, sunday night? Did they watch the Olympics last night? Whatever, that is the segue, or the transition from logical into emotional. Right, and emotional is really where rapport happens and how we develop the thing we're trying to get right, because you're not going to get business unless you can get rapport and trust with each other, right. What are some of the things you do to transition, maybe, from logical to emotion, or that come to mind?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so. So one thing I want to highlight is a lot of the people that especially listening to the show, um, or that are new to the industry, or maybe there's someone who's been cradle to grave they got swamped and they lost a big customer and now they're back to cold calling again after five, six years, right? I think a lot of the issue in the beginning with cold calling or discovery calling, right, is that You're always trying to listen, to respond, versus listening to understand. Yes, and the reason we do that in the beginning is because we want to sound good and sound educational. So, instead of listening to what they're saying, you're hearing it, but then you're also thinking what can I say next to impress this person, which just destroys the conversation because you probably missed a key piece or a cue that you can then destroys the conversation, cause you probably missed a key piece or a cue that you can then transition the conversation because you spent all this time trying to figure out how can I sound better.

Speaker 1:

Correct and the thing is right, like. Why we do this, I think, as humans, is there's fear, so we want to control the situation, to make the fear go away. When we're calling somebody, cause it's uncertain, we don't know what they're going to say, we don't know this person yet, like. So we have this tension in our chest and we try to, like almost interrogate them to your point or ask a bunch of questions, and then we're not even listening to, not not even what they're saying, but for sure not how they're saying. What they're saying, right. So we're not picking up these cues. And that's very obvious to anybody in a conversation. Anytime you've talked to anybody, you can tell without even thinking whether they're paying attention or listening right, based on exactly what you said. Are they listening to understand or listening just to respond right? And the interesting reason I found and I was learning as to why that happens is like it's related to vulnerability.

Speaker 1:

Vulnerability is one of the most powerful things in human nature, because if you're vulnerable, it's usually for one of two reasons You're either in threat and somebody needs to help you or save you, or, if somebody is vulnerable, like they are available to be attacked, so, like for survival, we have this instinct to hear when somebody is connecting with us or not, and when they're listening to respond they're not genuine. And it's very obvious. Just like humans are like the best lie detectors in the world, we can sniff out bullshit because we feel that they're not genuine, they're not being them, they have that motive right. That's really popular in sales and that's why those folks like get a bad rap, because it really does repulse you, it moves you away, it doesn't bring you closer. So tying this back into we start out logical.

Speaker 1:

But you really want to segue into an emotional conversation in some way and everyone's probably out there thinking like what in the world am I going to ask emotional in a prospecting call about freight brokerage or trucking? What am I going to ask them? A prospecting call about freight brokerage or trucking, right? Like what am I going to ask them? Like about their feelings? Like you know when the last time they cried was, and like for sure, like those are extreme examples, but like you don't need to go that far to realize emotion is really right below the surface of logic if you ask what are called deep questions and a deep question is anything that incites your values, your beliefs, your emotions, right your feelings in any way and like this is just a really easy example. But like, let's say, I'm talking to you and we're talking about your shipping lanes. Say, you've outlined a half dozen, you ship out of Memphis, you ship most of your stuff up to the Detroit area, but you've got this new customer in the Southeast and every time they send you an order it's last minute and you have just the most difficult time getting a truck to pick up to get them their load when they need it, right. Okay, that's what you're sharing with me, logically, right? What I'm going to ask is a question that tries to move this into emotion.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to say, oh man, that's got to be rough. I mean, how has that been for you, steven? Right Now, think about that. If I just ask you how that's been right, what are you likely to respond?

Speaker 2:

Like this isn't clearly a real situation, but like what do you think are some of the answers you might give to that question? I'm going to think of the last time. I was frustrated and I'm going to give you that scenario, and one of the things that I think people can pick off of is when you listen to like those talk shows where they're interviewing somebody about a very emotional moment, they always ask you like how did that make you feel, how did, how does? And so they can elicit a response. That's great for television, right, and you can ask the same questions. You're not going to ask somebody on a sales call how does that make you feel? But you may ask them, like you said, how did that impact your day? It's going to elicit that same response without sounding like you're trying to have an emotional conversation, and then you're going to pick out some more details that you need.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Because, like, all I'm really asking you is to describe, like, your experiences. Maybe some of your feelings will come up, but, like I don't even need to use the word feelings, I could just be like, oh man, I'm relating Like that's gotta be frustrating, you know, is that happening a lot? How did it happen the last time? Or what went down, right, and say you share with me? Yeah, they sent me the order on Monday morning. It had to be picked up by noon because it had to deliver Wednesday and they really needed the product. Okay, well, I mean, that sounds really stressful, steven. Like, does that happen often? I get you to tell me a little bit more about it, right? So that is really one simple way that I can get you to start talking about it.

Speaker 1:

But the other point is and they call this like the matching technique, which is what's important again is that we're having the same type of conversation at the same time. If you're still talking about logical and I'm talking about emotional, like there's a disconnect and vice versa, right, so we start on the logic. I'm asking you questions about the situation. I might even say something like you know, does that happen pretty often.

Speaker 1:

When was the last time it happened and how did that play out for you? Right? Or even easier one like it doesn't have to be this very deep sounding question. I could just be like, hey, can you tell me a little bit more about that? Right? Like that alone is going to incite you to tell me more and you're probably going to share to your point your emotions, your frustrations and what it was like to deal with that Right Now. What's important from my point of view is like I don't need to tell you the same thing happened to me. I don't need to lie. All I need to do is match and let you understand that I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 2:

And I can do that to everybody. Oh my God, like I know if I was in that scenario like my tensions and anxiety would be pretty high.

Speaker 1:

And you know, if I know that's going to be happening every week, I mean I can imagine that would make me pretty anxious and pretty worried. And then I can just ask you, like you know, how's that playing out into the future? Have you guys thought about how you're going to solve this? Are you guys still dealing with it in the same way you have Now? Where did I transition that conversation to Right?

Speaker 2:

Right yeah, so you're transitioning to asking them how they're going to figure out the solution Correct?

Speaker 1:

Do they have a solution? Are they thinking about a solution? And you might share with me some different options you thought of, like hey, we're talking to some other carriers, we're working to try to get some capacity lined up, and to the customer, to get the orders a little earlier, but we don't have anything there yet, right? So let's just say that's the response. The third type of conversation that I want to move this to, hopefully, is what they call the social one. Well, social isn't necessarily you and all of society, it's you related to any other people, like in your company.

Speaker 1:

So what I'm usually going to say is, now that I know that this has been frustrating, I know you're working on a solution, but don't have it, I'm going to ask you a question of hey, let me ask you. I mean, if this load doesn't get delivered when they need it, like on Wednesday last week, I'm assuming that's pretty much how this plays out, like you said, I mean, what happens to, like your sales team or the other people in your company? Does the customer call you, do they call your company or the sales rep Like, what happens when these things aren't done the way you need them to right? Does your colleague get upset with you, like what happens inside your organization. Is it just you or other people got to deal with a blowback right Now? What kind of answer do you think I'm going to get from there?

Speaker 2:

You're going to get a couple answers. You're going to get how it happens, but if you pick out the details, you're going to learn the structure of their organization. Who does that person report to? Are you actually talking to the person that's going to onboard you? You're going to be able to pick those kind of details out of that response because he's going to lay out well, the customer calls this person who might be on sales or he might be in transportation, and then that person gets to meet you. However, that response comes, or they come straight to them. Now you know you're probably talking to a decision maker or someone who can make that decision.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Right, because the thing about discovery, like you said earlier, is I'm not just trying to discover where I can help. I also need to discover and understand who are the decision makers that actually need to approve me to work with you, right? Who are the decision makers that actually need to approve me to work with you, right? So, by asking and transitioning this from a lane conversation to understanding where you might need help, I ask a deeper question to try to get you to tell me a little bit more, and also because I do want to understand it's not because I'm trying to manipulate you.

Speaker 1:

I genuinely care. That's what makes it come across and helps me build a rapport. Like I do want to know what happens and I also I also want to know, like, how does that affect the other people in your department? Like does your customer call and scream at your boss and then he comes over and yells at you. Does he say, if this truck doesn't pick up on time, like you're getting docked. Like you're not going to get a bonus.

Speaker 1:

Like I would like to know what are the results if you can't solve this right and how that affects who? I might also need to meet at your company to build some rapport with, to get onboarded right, so you can learn a ton even in one conversation. Like this whole conversation might've lasted four minutes and I can take all the way through this, from logic all the way to understanding how your company operates, and then I'm gonna get out of the phone call and, if I've done it right, you and I have at least connected and meshed a little bit when we are talking about, like, the emotions related to the situations and there's going to be a little bit of rapport, starting to establish there Right, right and not to like jump too far ahead.

Speaker 2:

But one thing to point out, especially with the nature of our industry that this conversation very likely could get interrupted. This conversation very likely could get interrupted, and this may happen over two or three conversations. So while you're listening to understand and respond accordingly, you also need to be making good notes For sure, because that's going to become very important in the follow-up. Should this be a whole conversation or should it get interrupted? You're going to have to work back into the conversation. You're not going to just be able to pick up where you left off, but you know how to get them back to where they were to get those answers.

Speaker 1:

And I think that's a really good segue, right? Because when people say, like well, what should I say in my second and third phone call? My question is always like well, what did you say in the first call? And I think this is another way to even look at the situation. If I had a visual representation because that's kind of like how I think I'm, like if I got to talk to somebody 12 times over two or three months to be able to get business with them, right, like that's really just probably like a 45 minuteminute conversation chopped up into 12 different parts. It's really one long arc of a very long conversation that just has a lot of stops in the middle, right?

Speaker 1:

So to your point, like your follow-up and your second call and your third call needs to in some way relate to the first one, because it's almost as if, like, there's a story happening where you're learning about each other over this period of time.

Speaker 1:

They shouldn't be very disjointed, otherwise it feels weird that you're calling them asking about some random thing. Right, you need to be able to pick up where you left to be able to start the follow up. That's why notes to your point are so important, like anything anybody says about what they care about, what is important to them. Do they have family, their interests All of those emotional things are the most important things in my notes. Of course I write down the details of the lanes and things, but that kind of goes without saying what really matters to me for my follow-up. What makes it easier for me is to remember the actual conversation we were having as best I can and to try to pick it up from there and move that forward to gain more rapport. Right, like it really is just one long conversation that happens over a bunch of short periods of time, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and while we're here, the other thing I wanted to point out was all these little details that you're picking up with the corporate structure, or who reports to who, and all these decision makers and all these responses is you can kind of pick up how they do things and how they prefer to do things. And those are also very important for if you were to land business with this company, exactly Because the last thing you want to do is, when you finally get a lane, ask them something they've already answered in the first call, especially if it's important to them that they've shared with you emotionally and vulnerably and they feel like you didn't hear them.

Speaker 1:

That is like the worst feeling they can have when you're starting a relationship, working with them.

Speaker 2:

Right, and there's a 50, 50 shot that they forget just because of the nature of the industry. But I don't. That's not a position I want to be in. I want to impress them.

Speaker 1:

And again like just some high level things for members who are going through this right, like three types of conversations logical, emotional, societal. They almost all start at logical and then you want to look like in my head I vision like a hallway where doors open and if somebody opens the door to emotional topic or something they care about, I immediately want to walk through it right and go oh yeah, so you had your kid's t-ball game last night. Oh, your kid's birthday party was over the weekend. Oh, your team lost last night. How did the game play out? Right? Like I might not have seen the game.

Speaker 1:

I'm asking questions a little bit deeper on the topic you shared because I do care about what's important to you, and the thing I thought was really interesting was like some of the research as to why this really works Right and it's our brains literally start to mesh Like if we are doing this correctly and I'm hearing you and I'm matching you and sharing to you how I feel and can relate to what you are genuinely Right Our pupils literally start dilating at the same rate. Our breathing rate starts to line up. In fact, if we both were in an MRI, our brain scans would start to look very similar Like. This is literally how human beings have connected and survived for millions of years. We just kind of lose track of it in some ways because we don't do this and practice this that much. The people we practice it the most with. We do it without thinking because it is instinctual, and what I want everyone to kind of remember as we're going through this is you do this in some area of your life and I want you to think about where you do this now and realize you can do the same thing in other places. You just need to almost get out of your own way, right, and like being again curious is a really good shortcut to being genuine, because you ask a question you really want to know the answer to. You can't really fake that.

Speaker 1:

Also, people that are effective at this. They say, like ask 10 times more questions than somebody. That isn't a super communicator, right, and they don't have to be huge questions. It could just be hey, tell me more about that. Oh, that's interesting. What made you share that?

Speaker 2:

Like they can be very short questions that most people don't even realize they're being asked, but what they're important to do is it initiates you to tell me more about what you care about, because you're the expert on what you care about.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to debate one of the things. Um, especially for the people that are listening, that are married out there, like one of the biggest conversations, arguments that we had in the beginning of the marriage and our relationship was kind of what you said in the beginning is she would be telling me this issue that's going on and I'm I'm naturally the fixer. So, like, as I'm listening, I'm trying to think of solutions and I'm responding with solutions and then the conversation just spirals even more out of control. So, to your point, you've experienced this before and, as you're listening to it, you may not feel like you've experienced it, but if you look at it through that window, you've definitely had these conversations, you've had these issues. You just maybe didn't put a phrase or a term to it and now that you can, you can go back and look at OK, why did I do it this way? And you start A-B testing your conversations and your discovery calls, because now you're more aware of how you're talking and how people are responding to you.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that's the thing that, like I, I've I've never really had the vocabulary, the words to describe this, but what I always used to try to verbalize it as is like it's almost like a dance, because the reality is is like when two people are just starting to connect, like it is an experiment. I don't really know how you want to have this conversation or what you want to share, so some of these things will work and some won't. But what's important is that you keep testing to see, by asking questions, what that person wants to share, or if they move away or engage more in the topic. Right, they're not all going to work. What's important is that you keep trying to do this and you improve on it as you go.

Speaker 1:

Right example, I wrote out actually for this, like in shipping. So like, say, I'm talking to a customer, right, like, hey, I know you spend a lot of time talking with carriers. Do you really enjoy that or does it kind of feel like a chore sometimes? Right, like that doesn't sound like a super deep question, but I mean, how would you share? I mean, you have that job. You spend a lot of time talking with carriers. Does it feel enjoyable, or does it kind of feel like a chore from time to time, steven.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean a little bit of both.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes you get the right guy or girl and the conversation is nice, but nine times out of 10, it feels like a chore actually, when I'm talking, like almost feel terrifying or like make me worried because, like when things maybe aren't running smoothly with a shipment or it's delayed and I'm worried about how that's going to affect my customer, like I genuinely feel fear in my chest about having to have that conversation with them. Right, and I can share that with you and I've shared my emotions, I've shared how I felt and I was vulnerable, without being like mushy or cheesy or feeling out of context. Like it's true, like everybody feels that and it should be really relatable to every broker, because this is the most common complaint we get from shippers. Their biggest fear is that when something goes wrong, we're going to be scared and not tell them the truth and we're going to leave them in a worse position. All they want us to be is open and transparent, even when things go wrong. That's their biggest hurdle that you've got to get over to work with them as a customer. They're scared. You're going to do the same thing that most of their brokers do. Hey, I got a truck. I got a truck until they don't, and then it's crickets. No one answers their phone or responds to emails and then the shipper's stuck there waiting for a truck that never shows. That's their fear, right. So being able to relate to that and get them to understand that, like we go through this too, it happens to us, the same it does as our shippers. That's why I always felt like cradle to grave.

Speaker 1:

Brokers have an advantage because we feel and experience the exact same problems. Logically, right In trucking trucks that break down, don't show up, they're stuck at a receiver just the things that normally go wrong. When you can help connect with a customer or prospect that we really do go through the same things and sometimes many more times a day, that's a very relatable thing to talk about. That helps you connect with that person, that human, to understand each other. That is what rapport is. When you hear us say like you need rapport before you get business, these are the things you can do to establish that rapport Right. It's not just some vague topic that doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 2:

This is our brains aligning on something we both care about and we're sharing it with each other, right, right, and I think one of the one of the things that you should be trying to do it's not always possible is communicating that to your carriers as well, because if they understand that you're going to communicate when issues are coming up or happen, they're more likely to communicate back to you that same thing, and then that's what puts you ahead and that's what puts you ahead, so that way, you don't come to work in the morning and a receiver is emailing you and your customer at the same time about an issue that the driver should have communicated to you and you got ahead of. But now you got to backpedal and try to figure out what this issue is and convey it to your customer in real time, who also knows about it. You should have been the one telling them also knows about it.

Speaker 1:

You should have been the one telling them Correct, right? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through, right, like they've got like four, four rules for a meaningful conversation, and then we're going to talk about a technique to use in conflict that is really effective. Right, so four rules for a meaningful conversation. Right, so, number one figure out what kind of conversation is happening and, more importantly, look for clues for what they want to talk about. Right, the best way to do this is to ask deep questions about backgrounds, beliefs, values and experiences. Right, they're going to give you hints about whether they're in a practical mindset, an emotional mindset or a social state of mind, and the important thing is to match the type of conversation. If we're talking practical, we're both talking practical. If we transition to emotional, make sure both people transition.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes you might transition and might need to go back to logical because you know it just didn't move in that fast direction, like it is somewhat of a dance, but listening will give you lots of clues, right? The example they use in the book was, like four hedge fund people go into a meeting to talk about a budget and they're like, yeah, we really need to outline this budget because we just don't know what we're going to spend this year. And the other person sits down and goes yeah, I'm really worried about getting this budget done. I'm excited to get this because, like I'm worried, we might have layoffs. Okay, which one was talking logical and which one had an emotional mindset? Right, right, the first one, yeah the layoffs.

Speaker 1:

Right, I'm worried. When people use words like worried, concerned, emotional words. You know their desires to have the emotional type of conversation. It starts logical, but you know kind of where they're at. So those are the cues you're going to pick up right? The second step is you want to nudge the conversation again from practical or logical into emotional right, and that's just asking you know how they feel, or acknowledging what they've told you and to share something about how you feel. Right, things like inside our brain.

Speaker 1:

When somebody shares something vulnerable, like we said, we can't help but pay attention and vice versa, right, even if we don't like each other attention and vice versa right, even if we don't like each other. We'll connect right Because if you share what's important to me and why, and I can share with you, we are going to have an actual, meaningful conversation. I might not agree with you at the end, but we're going to understand each other, we're going to have some rapport and there's going to be a relationship formed. Right Makes sense. Three you're going to figure out what each person wants from this conversation. Do they have a problem they want to solve or do they want to vent? Right? Is this formal, is this casual, like how are we going to talk? Can I interrupt you? Are we going to talk very formally, like feeling out how this person feels comfortable talking, and then, like you just ask a question and then you can remain quiet. Right, pay attention, right To the rules about how we're having this conversation right. They're, like you said, lots of little experiments where you're testing A, b. Some are going to work, some aren't. What's important is that you keep trying to match and find out where we're at in this right.

Speaker 1:

And then four is to take the conversation out of ourselves and make it relate to other people. And the easiest in our industry is just, like how do these situations affect your department? Or maybe, like the other people in your company, do you get blowback in sales when loads don't get delivered on time? Do the customers call you directly? Like there's always blowback when things don't go right across the supply chain. We want to understand how that's happening, not just to you that I'm talking to, but the people around you. And like, as you pointed out, it really gives you more understanding, even as, like, who are the decision makers? Who's the person calling the shots? Who needs to approve me, even if I get you to say yes, you might need your boss to approve it. I need to know that so that I can help understand what still needs to be done in order for us to actually do business Right.

Speaker 1:

The last thing I wanted to cover just briefly is like it's a technique that's taught Harvard Yale I did a YouTube video on this like a few months ago, and it's just called looping for understanding and it's very, very simple and it works very, very well in conflict. So, like to your point, if a truck has an issue and there's conflict, there's always conflict in our industry, whether it's with a shipper or a carrier, right, things don't go right all the time. This technique really helps bring both people talking to understand each other, as opposed to just fighting, right, and it's really simple, right. All you do is you ask a question. Step one hey, what's going on here? Tell me a little bit about what happened. The second is whatever you say to me, I repeat back to you in my own words If I'm hearing you right, stephen, your truck's caught in traffic. You don't think you'll make it to the pickup on time. It was really unexpected and you think you'll be about an hour late. That's second step, right, because I'm to your point. I just showed you that I'm listening to understand, not listening to respond. I didn't tell you. I showed you by repeating back in my own words what you said to me, that I understood you. And then the third piece and this is the one everyone forgets is you ask if I got that right? And I just go hey, steven, did I get that right, like that's what you guys are kind of running into? Right, that simple thing will allow you to work through conflict Again, asking what's the issue?

Speaker 1:

Hey, can you explain to me what's really going on here? Whatever they say, repeat back to them in your own words. If I heard you right, you've tendered this load out four times. Mary and all the other four carriers have fell out on you yesterday and you don't have anyone to pick it up. Did I get that right?

Speaker 1:

Again, that is really going to help you bring people closer together, especially when there's conflict and you're trying to work towards a solution where you both understand each other. You can't ever solve a problem between two people if both people are trying to solve different problems. Right, and to your point, if I can't discover what you understand and what problem you're trying to solve, I'm trying to solve something that you might not give a shit about, right, like you might just want to tell me because you want to get it off your chest. And I'm trying to solve something that you might not give a shit about, right, Like you might just want to tell me because you want to get it off your chest and I'm offering you solutions and it's just frustrating you, right?

Speaker 2:

Right and just to highlight, like you know, it also depends on what is the mindset of the person. When they answered the call, Like today, they may have 100% answered your call on accident and they don't want to have this conversation right now. So when you, when you loop back to them, they may be frustrated. It may not work all the time. It's going to help and there's a good chance that if you get them on the phone again, they may or may not apologize, but the conversation is going to be much different because of the mindset that they were in at the at that very moment.

Speaker 1:

For sure, it's one thing we can't control right what is happening on that person's office when we call them? What happened before them? Are they dealing with a problem? Did they have a good day, a bad day? Whatever emotion they're going to bring to that situation, we've got to be able to first understand before we're going to determine what to do. Like if somebody just found out something horrible happened at their company and they're super worried and you called them out of the blue and they sound frustrated, the last thing you should do is just start talking and interrogating them. Right, you've got to kind of meet them where they're at emotionally first to at least assess the situation before you start barraging them with questions. Hey, how many full truckloads do you move? You guys do LTL? Do you guys ship to Memphis? I wanted to see if I can get some van loads and this person's like I just I don't even know who. This is Right. Like they are not even in the conversation yet and we're 10 steps down the road, right, it's.

Speaker 1:

I think listening is probably almost more important than what we say a lot of times, because if you really focus on the listening, you're instinctively probably going to respond more correctly than if you had the prepared response to begin with. Right, right, the um. I just kind of lost my train of thought. There was one other thing I was going to kind of wrap up with, but again, for everyone out there, I think the big takeaways are oh, I remember what it was is um, you know, the most common training you see in freight brokers across the country, make a bunch of calls, you'll figure it out. And I always used to laugh and I always used to be really frustrated at first because my MO, how I do things, is I want to understand them before I do them. That's just kind of the way I work. I don't do well doing tasks. If you say, just do this and you don't tell me why, it almost hurts my soul. I almost can't do do it and I like want to revolt Like I can feel it in my chest. But if you tell me why we're doing it, I absolutely will enjoy doing it. But I need to understand. Not everybody's like that.

Speaker 1:

And the thing that was hitting me was like even reading this and learning some of this stuff, was it like it's not just learning it that's going to help you do it. You have to practice it Like it's not just learning it that's going to help you do it. You have to practice it Like it's not one or the other. We provide this information to help you do this faster.

Speaker 1:

I think it's important to share because it's what I needed, honestly, and it's what interests me to understand how these things work, to improve them. But, to be honest, why I think this content stuff resonates with me so much is because, like I've made tens of thousands of calls and I've practiced this so many times that when people are telling you why these things work, like it really resonates. So I do want to share this to anyone out there that, like you can't just improve this skill by reading a book or listening to content. You've got to take this and then you've got to put it into practice, make phone calls, but you don't even just need to practice in your sales calls. Like you could practice this with everybody you talk to.

Speaker 1:

If you're at your kid's gymnastics event or you're at a picnic or you're at the community pool, anywhere you are where you're meeting and running into other people, start trying to match this. Just even listen before you try Like, hey, are we having a logical conversation or emotional one? Try to ask another question, right? Try to repeat back, when they tell you something, what you heard and ask them if you got it right. The more you do this in your day-to-day life one, you'll find you have much better conversations with everyone around you, which makes life better.

Speaker 1:

As human beings, like we want to connect with each other, so like you'll get that added benefit of just being a happier and more, I think, well-balanced person.

Speaker 1:

But you'll be far more effective when you're actually trying to go make sales calls and try to do this, because I think why we're mostly in our own way is because we're scared, right. Like that's mostly true in almost everything in life. Like if it's hard it's because it's important to you and you're scared, right. But before I make my calls, every time I literally take a beat like two or three seconds or maybe 30 seconds, take a couple of deep breaths and I literally visualize meeting people in a room. I go this is all I'm doing, it's just a phone, I'm just going to meet some people and trying to make some friends. And when you take the pressure off yourself of trying to get loads and get a result from every call and you realize the first goal is to just connect with people. The pressure gets less and you can be more of yourself. The more you are of yourself, the more you'll hear these cues, the more genuine you'll be and the more likely you are to actually connect with the people you're trying to connect with. Right.

Speaker 2:

And just, and maybe this should have been at the beginning of the conversation. But one of the things that I constantly think about is this is a sales role, it's a sales job, and a lot of people that come into it either know nothing about sales or they came from another sales industry. And the majority of sales industries that I've seen have inbound warm leads that you're calling on, and so the first thing you're going to say is hi, I'm so-and-so with so-and warm leads that you're calling on, and so the first thing you're going to say is hi, I'm so-and-so with so-and-so company and we're calling about this. And, as someone who's not in a sales role have probably experienced those calls because they went to a website. They got their information. So when they call you, they give you their company information so that you recognize it.

Speaker 2:

But the people you're calling as a freight broker have no idea who you are. They're not looking for you. And if they are looking for you, from my experience, if I have an inbound lead, it's probably fraud or not real Correct. So that urge to just vomit what your company is, what you do, what you can provide, we have the cheapest rates. They hear that all day long. Yes, because that's what people who are nervous they have a prepared thing that they just need to get out of the way so they can feel a little more comfortable. And if you could stray away from that and lean into the discovery, you'll have a much better experience and I would agree too.

Speaker 1:

Right, like that's why, like, I don't think a full script is the best way to go.

Speaker 1:

But one of the things they also talk about in this book is that if you have just a few questions prepared, you're far more likely to have a better conversation, and most of the people in the studies didn't even use the questions they had prepared. It's just like a confidence. So, like they did this with people going into large rooms, they said just write down three questions you would ask anybody you meet and put them in your pocket. Like, 99% of the people never asked the questions in their pocket, but they all ended up connecting with more people because that fear was gone. They're like, hey, if I needed to, I knew I had the question. That's why, like the questions we talk about, like I think you should write them and have them on your desk, like some general questions you intend to ask, because just having them in front of you doesn't mean you need to use it, but it will help bring the anxiety down. And the anxiety is like well, what if I don't know what to say? What if I don't know what to ask? What if I don't know what the answer is to the question right. Having those there is going to help you be more effective at this and always remember if you're worried about not having an answer to a question.

Speaker 1:

My first mentor, when I went to banking like a long time ago, told me this he goes Ben, lots of people will eventually ask you questions you have no idea what the answer is to. He's like I'm going to give you the thing you can say to all of them, and everyone appreciates this. You say that's a great question. I don't want to give you the wrong answer and mislead you. Let me check before and I'll get back to you to make sure I'm correct. Everyone appreciates that you won, understood and listened, and I didn't even realize he did that until just now. He repeated the question back and then he said, yeah, that's a great question. So they know you understood the question. And then you tell them like, hey, I don't want to give you any wrong information. Let me go and confirm this and I'll get back to you.

Speaker 1:

Any question anyone asks you if you're new to sales, new to freight brokerage, and you're worried about them asking you something you don't know, you can always just use that canned response. So I would write that on your notes underneath two or three questions that you can use in most of your calls, and then write that one below it. Hey, that's a great question. If I understood you right, this is what you needed. Okay, great, well, I don't want to give you or mislead you or give you the wrong answer. Let me go and confirm this and get back to you. And the other great part is that is also an opportunity, because if I don't know the answer and I tell you I got to get back to you Now, I have a reason to call you next week or three days from now.

Speaker 1:

Right, I've literally built in my follow-up. Right, so, to put a bow on this, right, like to make follow-ups or even some of your first calls. Right, like your second and third call should be closer to a continuum of your last call. You're not going to repeat the same things, but you kind of want to piggyback on what was said, to say the thing the next time. Right, it shouldn't be very disjointed.

Speaker 1:

That's why your notes are really important as to what you said and how the conversation went, because that's what my follow-up and what I'm gonna talk about is going to be based on. Right, they're not arbitrary and that's why we can't give you a script that you can use in calls one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Right, they are a function of the one before it, but if you use these techniques, you're going to have far more effectiveness and likelihood that you connect with the people you're talking to and you're going to end up with more people that actually enjoy talking to you which, by the way, makes making sales calls a hell of a lot easier when you actually enjoy the conversations you're having along the way, not just interrogating people trying to convince them to give you loads.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean, right, and the one thing I always think about, and especially in a previous life. I have a very extensive medical background from being in the military and I always relate analogies back to the medical field. So, like in calls and connecting with people, everybody's different. There's not one way to treat a thing, there's usually four or five. So like, if you have an infection, I can give one person penicillin, but the next person might have an ounce of penicillin, so I can't treat them the same way. And the same thing goes with your, your followups or your calls. Every person is different. They're going to have different values, different views, they're going to work in different industries, they're going to come from different backgrounds. So you need to understand and listen and tailor your approach to what you're hearing, versus just powering through and giving everybody the same treatment.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, agreed. Well, and they usually ask me final thoughts. But like the last, I had a quote kind of prep to wrap this one up and it came up this morning in newsletter. I thought it was really a group it is seek first to understand, then to be understood. Stephen Covey quote right, and again I think this really puts a bow on it. Like first try to understand what they're talking about, what's important to them, before you ever try to get them to understand what's important to you. Right, anything you want to wrap with.

Speaker 2:

I mean, we got some interesting things coming up. So, for those who this might be their first episode, we have a final mile that comes out every Tuesday. This is going to come out this Friday. And then last year we did a Pick'Em League. I know we're talking about that now, but football season's around the corner, so I'm sure that's something that we'll be getting out to everybody. So keep an eye on that. And then Nate usually ends with Go Bills but I'm from Cincinnati, so until next time Go Bengals.

Speaker 1:

And whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

People on this episode

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Benjamin Kowalski

Co-host
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Nate Cross

Co-host