Happy employees positively affect workplace operations. Statistics show that companies that foster employee happiness outperform their competitors by 20%. It’s no surprise, then, that some companies are taking more active measures to promote positive employee experiences.
As with any successful business, companies in transportation and logistics continue to look at ways to effectively communicate with and engage their workforces. With 45% of TMSA members directly responsible for communications and another 8.5% for HR/driver recruitment, many look at internal communications and engagement strategy to be the glue that holds together the company.
TMSA asks a several marketing and sales executives their perspectives about marketing, sales, and industry issues. This is the fourth and final installment of a 4-part series that provides perspectives from TMSA members on predictions for freight transportation in 2020 – and the impact Marketing and Sales can have on overall business success.
What do you see as the most significant challenges in freight transportation in 2020 – and solutions to them?
Chuck Everett, Director of Business Development, Red Classic Transportation Services: The single biggest challenge will be the continued contraction of capacity. With ELD rules impacting operations, drivers continuing to exit the profession, and the closing of some significant carriers, the coming year will continue to be very challenging across the industry.
By Brian Everett, CEO of TMSA
This is the third installment of a 4-part series that provides perspectives from TMSA members on predictions for freight transportation in 2020 – and the impact digital transformation and CX can have on overall business success.
“Digital Transformation” is a hot topic these days, and a very real challenge in 2020 is going to be determining the right technology to adopt, according to Greg Roberts, Director Business Development, Matson Logistics, a leading provider of ocean transportation and logistics services.
64% of applicants wouldn’t respond to a job posting with a poorly written or confusing job title. And 60% find jargon to be annoying. Writing effective job descriptions is a challenging task, but it has a major impact on the quality of applicants your business receives. Small businesses can be especially susceptible to poorly written job descriptions — with a smaller staff and more at stake per individual performance. So, attracting the right talent is critical to business success.
This is the second installment of a 4-part series that provides perspectives from TMSA members on predictions for freight transportation in 2020 – and the impact Marketing and Sales can have on overall business success.
This is the first installment of a 4-part series that provides perspectives from TMSA members on predictions for freight transportation in 2020 – and the impact Marketing and Sales can have on overall business success.
One of the big challenges is downward pricing pressure on freight transportation while service demands continue to increase, suggests Crystal Lahr, Sales Director for ATS, a Minnesota-based provider of over-the-road highway, maritime, projects and logistics services. Lahr serves on TMSA’s Sales Advisory Council. “Brokerage relies heavily on small to midsize carriers for capacity and the pricing pressure along with rising driver wages, equipment costs, insurance costs, etc. is straining carrier’s business” Lahr says. “Because of that, we anticipate we will continue to see carriers struggling in the marketplace throughout 2020 until there is a pivot in freight rates in a positive direction.”
The summer and holiday months are a busy time of year for many employers. Many companies ramp up their hiring during this time to accommodate the influx of demand from consumers and travelers. As such, hiring managers receive a deluge of applications, and they need to have a strategy in place in order to get through the high volume of resumes in a timely and effective manner, while remaining thorough and without sacrificing standards. This year, for example, UPS estimates that they will bring on an additional 100,000 employees for the holiday season. The challenge becomes, how do you manage a high volume of candidates while maintaining the integrity of your hiring process? How do you think about and frame the conversation of professional development when it’s seasonal work?
A new season of hiring means welcoming lots of new members to the team. Change can be challenging, so it’s important to focus on creating a long-term plan for your new hire’s success within your organization. This helps build an employee development framework for both you and the individual so they can make a smooth transition and feel empowered to take on their new role, while working toward their career goals and meeting organizational needs.
We’ve put together the four necessary points you need to focus on when planning and building out your long-term success plan for your employees.
Misalignment of sales and marketing in costs much more than leaders in transportation and logistics think. According to Jeff Davis, keynote of the TMSA Digital Transformation Conference in Chicago this last Tuesday, it’s estimated that lost sales productivity and wasted marketing budget cost companies at least $1 trillion each year.
Google’s algorithms calculate which transportation and logistics companies are on page 1, according to Nathan Misirian of Autumn Consulting. He was one of the featured speakers at the TMSA Digital Transformation Conference this last Tuesday in Chicago. He said there are five areas to concentrate to strengthen your SEO:
Marketing budgets in transportation and logistics continue to demonstrate a strong presence of digital marketing activities, said Brian Everett, TMSA’s CEO at the TMSA Digital Transformation Conference this last Tuesday. In fact, according to preliminary results of the annual report published by TMSA, digital advertising now makes up 14.5% of the annual marketing budget, website/SEO comprises 12.2% of budgets, content creation and marketing constitutes 12.2%, and Email marketing comprises approximately 5.3% of the marketing budget.
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Transportation and asset-based logistics companies are attracting more female drivers by highlighting women on the job in their paid advertisements and media relations initiatives. One transportation company successfully doing this is NFI Industries, which was featured as a best practice in advertising this week at the Women In Trucking Association's Accelerate! Conference & Expo in Dallas, Texas. The Transportation Marketing & Sales Association was represented as one of the exhibitors.
According to Beth Potratz, President of Drive My Way, relative content through paid advertisements can help people envision themselves working for a particular transportation or logistics company. Potratz, who leads Drive My Way (a recruiting platform matching drivers and owner-operators to over-the-road trucking jobs), facilitated a panel discussion that highlighted advertising best practices of NFI, a New Jersey-based carrier specializing in transportation, warehousing and intermodal services
The average annual turnover rate for salespeople is 20%. Many factors account for that number, but a sizeable amount of voluntary turnover occurs from burnout and lack of motivation. To combat turnover, it’s crucial to put added resources behind your onboarding and development process to ensure your hires maintain the engagement, mental toughness, and willingness to tap into the personality traits that contribute to success in the role. We’ve previously discussed what the different sales jobs entail and which personality traits are best suited to those jobs, but how do you nurture your employees so that they maintain their performance and resist leaving?
Just because a candidate exhibits the right personality traits doesn’t mean they will perfectly adapt to the role without additional coaching and development. Unproductive workers reduce revenue potential by 40%, and another 36% of your team can also experience negative performance trends when affected by negativity from a low-performing or unhappy co-worker. As we’ve previously outlined, it doesn’t always come down to experience. Look for candidates who are adept at navigating the modern sales force.
The office environment can be a challenging place. You have to deal with all kinds of personalities at any given time, you see things that are broken but lack the resources or influence to fix them, and, often, people who don’t understand your work are there to tell you how to do it. But, we all just want to produce good results and receive acknowledgment for our effort. In an ideal world, you are in a role that plays to your strengths and motivations and limits exposure to your weaknesses, and you are partnered with a manager who serves as your advocate. In reality, you’re likely motivated by some aspects of your job and not always by others, and your manager has many other responsibilities that prevent them from being the best coach they can be to their team. In this scenario, the best you can do is do your best. And achieving your best requires a measure of self-management.
Motivation is often a set factor. In other words, you can’t choose what motivates you at work any more than you can choose your height or your family members. You can’t make yourself be outgoing if you’re shy, and you can’t spark competition if trophies don’t interest you. And the external factors that can stand between you and your goals—economic upheaval, competitive threats, disruptive changes, and mergers and acquisitions—aren’t something we can always plan for. You can, however, choose how you conduct yourself.
Do me a favor: take a look at your current customer list and ask yourself, which of these customers can we not afford to lose? Got it? Now, do you know what’s being done to make sure that doesn’t happen? Finally, do you think other leaders in your organization would answer those questions the same way you did? If you answered “no” or were less than confident in any of these, it may be time to create or revise your key accounts strategy. This can lead to:
So how do you get there? Leverage our 5-step model to create a strategy that works for your business.
American Logistics Aid Network Urges Precautions, Preparation For Hurricane Dorian
As Hurricane Dorian heads toward the mainland U.S., the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN), a TMSA Affiliate member, is urging residents of Florida, the Gulf Coast and other parts of the Southeast to start preparing – and advising the logistics community to get ready to help. TMSA members are encouraged to support the efforts of ALAN, which also is a TMSA member.
Outside it’s warm, but muggy, sunny, but hazy and beautiful, but buggy. It’s summer in all its glory, but let’s face it, August is tough. It creates tension while promising relaxation. Even those of us lucky enough to go on vacation can’t escape feeling a little anxious. It’s like we’re 13 again and know school is just around the corner.
In this month, people can behave rashly—even erratically. As slow as August can be, one should never underestimate it. The eighth month is notorious for market swings, changes in work roles and responsibilities, vendor shifts, territory grabs and relationship changes.
