How to use information about your forwarder customer to sell more

Information is the central element in every negotiation. Whether related to business exchanges or defining agreements, information can affect the decisions that will be made with your forwarder customer and, above all, the success of a negotiation.

For freight forwarders, most negotiations are related to quote requests and shipments, and perhaps because of this, information gathered about a potential partner is even more important.

The strategic networking

As one of the primary variables of negotiation, information is linked to the power of knowing the other person and their needs. In a business exchange, information can affect the evaluation and the decisions that will be taken positively or negatively. 

It is no wonder that an important piece of a good negotiation is the search for relevant information about those involved in the negotiation. In other words, getting to know your freight partner and gathering the necessary information about them and their company can help you get a shipment more easily.

This search should start even before the meeting between the parties involved in the process, because the more information you have about priorities, deadlines, and the other party, the better position you will be in negotiating that shipment.

Here, strategic networking plays an important role. 

Being well-prepared is one of the crucial factors for the success of any freight forwarding company. Therefore, networking also includes the responsibility of understanding where and how the company should develop new partnerships.

Using information to sell more

The development of new technologies and new means of communication in recent years has brought an increasing amount of people into the digital environment, and with them, valuable information that you can use in a business negotiation.

As a freight forwarder, the information about potential freight partners available online can help you get even more sales if used in the right way.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

1. Find the person in charge

This step is very important. Talking to the right person in a company is crucial in the sales process. 

Usually, when you are dealing with a shipping order, you already know which company to go to. But do you know who, within the company, is the best person to assist you with that business? 

The person in charge is the one that will have the power to decide whether or not they will become your forwarder customer, so it is very important to find them and communicate directly with them. 

To do this, you can use Linkedin’s Sales Navigator. This tool allows you to see the company as a whole, i.e. who is that company, who are its employees, and many other valuable insights.

2. Find the contacts

When using Sales Navigator to find a company’s employees, you can go into their profiles to collect their email addresses or other contact information available. 

However, sometimes the information available through this Linkedin tool is personal information about that person, such as their personal email address.

If this happens, I suggest you use other tools to find their corporate email address. FindThatLead, for example, is an excellent alternative that allows you to find corporate email addresses through social media profiles. 

Furthermore, in this tool, you can also find the job title of that person to make sure that they are the right person to help you with a business deal.

3. Stalk the contacts – in a good way!

Of course, the use of the term “stalk” is just a joke to make you understand the importance of finding the person who “sells what you want to buy”.

Stalking the contacts you have found means doing some research and analysis to understand if they offer what you are really looking for before you contact them.

To do this, you can also use tools like Crystal Knows to help you get to know and understand the person you want to contact.

4. Build a winning email

By now you have found companies you would like to work with and their respective people in charge. You have also understood who this person really is, how they work, how they make decisions, what is the best way to talk to them, what you should talk about with them…

Now, you need to strategize how to say what you want to, in order to ensure the best chances of being answered and getting the business. 

As you may know, freight forwarders receive multiple emails per day, each one with different subjects, content, and senders. Therefore, you must draft an email that will stand out in the inbox of your potential freight partner.

You can find some suggestions for building a winning email using Good Sales Emails, for example.

5. Start sending cold emails

In this step, you already have everything you need to contact that company and ensure the best chances of closing a deal. 

Also notice that sending emails to companies that you already have information about, know how, and who to talk to is VERY DIFFERENT than sending several generic bulk emails.

Therefore make sure you send them specific emails.

That’s because by doing your research and gathering the necessary information, you already understand everything that a potential forwarder customer wants and needs, everything the company’s person in charge needs, how you should talk to them, and so on.

Now you will simply present your business opportunity to them.

Need some extra help?

If you’ve made it this far, you already have everything you need to use the information about your forwarder customer available online to sell more. 

However, we know how difficult it can be to start a new process. In the video below, Marina Felício, Parnity’s CMO, explains each one of the steps in detail, gives tips on other tools that can help you, and shows you how to use them. Check it out!