Once upon a time there lived a forwarder who was acknowledged as a very good designer of the shipping process. The name of the forwarder was Sef and he has owned a small company working alone from home. His company was SSF – Small Size Forwarder – do you remember). What helped Sef in his daily work was his integrated CRM/OMS where Sef entered all necessary information for his suspects, prospects and customers.
One day Sef found that company ABC is a company that has international customers which means that they export their products and most probably use forwarding services. After fast research and several cold calls Sef has found the name of the person responsible for the logistics operations – Lamia and her phone number. Being pretty clever and professionally sound person Sef has entered the whole information about ABC and Lamia as a lead in his CRM system.
Afterwards, Sef called Lamia and asked her whether he can send a short presentation of his company and after receiving her positive answer he just pushed a button at his computer and his CRM tool has delivered to Lamia the presentation. This was a short, straightforward presentation which only by its style, wording and formating has convinced Lamia that on the other side there is a reliable professional who might do the job. Sef of course called her after a while just to find whether she has received the presentation and whether she is still interested. And the answer was positive again. Lamia told him that now Sef’s company is in her list of the freight forwarders to whom she turns when she makes rate requests. Sef was content. Another step has been made. With this answer ABC company is no longer suspect in Sef’s CRM, now ABC became a prospect which need special attention and approach.
Only a week later Sef has received a call from Lamia. She inquired him whether he can arrange a special delivery of a machine which is crated in 1 wooden case with dimensions 230 cm/300 cm / 225 cm and weighted 4330 kilos. This machine should have been pick-up in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and delivered to Port-Au-Prince in Haiti. And the delivery must be done within 15 days.
Sef, found the deal very challenging because ocean transportation was not the case due to long transit time and there are no wide-bodied aircrafts moving from Bulgaria and landing at Haiti. But that is why Sef was acknowledged as a designer of the supply pipeline. He realized that if the freight is trucked down to Brussels from where loaded to a freighter to Cincinati from where trucked down to Miami where staffed in a container and shipped on the way to Port-Au-Prince it is possible to make the requested tranzit time. Once the routing was ready, Sef calculated all possible cost which would accrue during the shipping process having a long correspondence and phone calls with his colleagues in Brussels, Cincinati and Miami. At the end being ready with the cost and proposal – Sef has keyed all necessary info into his CRM, converting the lead to an opportunity and generating a quotation right from the system. And again with just a push of a button he has sent the quotation to Lamia.
Once Lamia received the quotation she was impressed from two things – firstly Sef was the only one that has provided a solution to her exact requirements. Secondly the proposal was affordable and within the budged she has planned for the movement of this freight. After short thought she decided to move with Sef and placed to him an order.
Receiving the order Sef immediately registered it in his order processing system by simply converting the quotation to sales order at his CRM. This automatically has also changed the status of ABC from prospect to a customer.
This forwarders tale have described the marketing process of generating the lead, which has been converted to an opportunity and triggered the sales process of converting the opportunity through quotation to sales order.
How Sef has processed and managed this order you will find in our next post.
Any comments are welcome.
Any leads are more welcome.
Any sales orders are much more welcome.