FOUR STEPS TO HELP YOU IDENTIFY WHAT MAKES YOUR BUSINESS UNIQUE

How do you bring value to your shippers?

To begin this exercise, it’s useful to make a list of all the value added benefits you can offer your shippers. This includes the quantitative value (what you do for shippers) and qualitative value (who you are). This is the value you want your salespeople talking about in the marketplace.
Here are some tips for constructing this list:

Brainstorm and write down as many value added benefits as you can. Go for quantity. Later, you can revise and edit. Seek input from different disciplines in your company. Study your shippers in terms of how they think about shipping and what problems they have. What is the sequence of steps shippers go through from the moment they have a load that needs to be shipped to the moment they negotiate the rate and agree to your services? At each step along this path, you have a potential for delivering value. Study your value added benefits and apply it to the different stages. The information gleaned from this exercise can serve as the basis for the VIP List. This stands for “Value in Purchasing”. This tool supports salespeople in the field.

The value proposition is the outcome of your customer experience. It’s the long-range impact of your value added benefits. It is a clear statement of the tangible results shippers experience as a consequence of partnering with you. Getting this value proposition right and communicating it clearly to shippers is the number-one goal for customer messaging.

Do you know the full impact of your value added benefits on the customer? If you can’t list off the 1-10 different ways you create value and are different/better more unique than other broker and trucking companies out there how do you expect shippers to?

These are some examples of value propositions:

Helping shippers look bigger than they are with your services, helping them achieve a goal they set for themselves at the beginning of the year. Helping shippers better serve and satisfy their customers Helping shippers achieve economic gain (greater profitability) Helping shippers differentiate themselves in their market.

Helping shippers excel at what they do offering one-stop shop Amazon or Uber like experience.

The first step in constructing your value proposition is to identify the different segments you serve. You cannot be all things to all people. Those Brokerage or trucking companies that try, end up being nothing special to anyone.

Pick a geographic location, pick a commodity, and be the best most well known for that community in that niche and watch your reputation grow.
Some transportation companies segment shippers using different parameters depending on their purposes: demographics, psychographics, geographic and even SIC classification.
For our purposes in customer messaging, we define a segment as a group of shippers with similar needs— either complex or simple. Shippers with simple needs expect little more than price and availability from suppliers. Shippers with complex needs (e.g. demanding lanes, have demanding projects throughout the year, require expedited shipping, handle hazmat or fragile commodities) demand greater value added benefits from their logistics companies. Before discussing the outcome of your solution, be clear on the segment of shippers you want to target.

For more strategies on marketing your value to shippers, selling to shippers, building relationships with shippers, and generating large lists of quality shipper leads that ship 100’000’s of dollars on their freight every year contact us at freightgenie.com