How to Be Efficient at Selling Logistics

Logistics services move materials into and out of a company. This can involve transportation, packaging, warehousing and security.

When you sell these services, you may confuse your potential customer with too many options. In addition, your customer may not have a clear sense of what kind of savings can be had from each type of service. Develop an organized, methodical approach to your presentations so that you can be more efficient in selling logistics services.

1. Differentiate Between Inbound and Outbound Logistics

Inbound logistics services provide raw materials, products for resale and manufacturing components for companies. This area of logistics may be overlooked for outbound logistics, which covers the transport of finished goods to the marketplace. You will be more efficient in selling logistics services if you explain the benefits of each type of service. Inbound logistics can offer savings, even though the service does not produce a sale the way outbound logistics can. For example, a company may be purchasing raw materials and paying to have those materials shipped by truck to the plant. You may be able to offer purchasing management and trucking for less.

2. Manage Perceived Importance

Your sales will grow once your customers perceive the importance of your logistics services. You must educate your clients about how managed logistics can improve a company’s bottom line. Examine your potential customer’s current distribution processes to find areas where your logistics services can streamline the process and reduce the amount of time between distribution and sales. Use dollar figures to illustrate how much more a company can make by getting goods to market faster. This will make your selling process much more efficient because once your client understands the importance of your service, the buying decision has been made. All that remains is negotiating price.

4. Offer Seller Management

If you can offer to manage the entire logistics process rather than turning it over to a third party, you will sell more efficiently. All a client has to do is contract with your company, and you will not only deliver goods and products, you will manage the entire process and take care of any problems that arise. This relieves your client of responsibility for watching every step of the process.

5. Identify Your Client’s Core Competencies

Before making a sales call to offer logistics services, examine your client’s core competencies. The company may manufacture a superior product, for example. That same client may be losing focus by trying to manage the ordering of components and then shipping finished products to distributors. Emphasize that you can help your client return to core competencies while you take care of peripheral matters. This can make selling much more efficient for you because you not only can demonstrate the real value you offer, you show your client that you know his company.

6. Bundle Services

You can become much more efficient at selling logistics if you bundle services. For example, you can offer purchasing, inbound shipping and inventory management as a bundle that makes sense to the customer. One of the reasons to contract with a logistics service is to avoid having to set up every stage of the process. Bundle services that naturally go together and you will do a much more efficient sales job.

(Source: Inboundlogistics)