Road trip pending

Over the last few days I’ve been working on a strategy to generate additional exposure for my company, it’s part of my job to do so, and have been beating a few ideas around, each with their own merits. I’ve been speaking with one of my clients who has a strong presence on LinkedIn and swears by it as a legitimate way to generate leads. I’m not very social media savvy though and have been reluctant to get involved. I’ve had to put that aside though and it’s been great to have a little support from that client who seems to get a lot of enjoyment from steering me in the right direction.

I generally prefer the more old-school approach of getting in front of people physically, shaking hands and talking face to face though. It’s always returned great dividends and I feel it’s a solid way to build the layers of value one needs to secure new clients and turn them into clients for life. Building good initial rapport and nurturing relationships is key and I’ve always been rather good at it when face to face. It’s with this in mind I’ve decided to do a road trip.

I’ve selected a country region north of the city as we don’t have much work coming in from there currently. I’ll head out to about three hundred kilometres from the office/factory and have compiled a long list of people I’ll need to call on, prioritised them and performed research on their businesses in general and their cold-chain logistics situation.

I have determined who I need to speak with at each business or company and devised strategies for each to place myself well to build rapport and show value right from the outset. This is where understanding their business, how it operates, the strengths and weaknesses of their logistics situation, and their area of operations comes in very handy. Preparation ahead of time will deliver better results as they’ll see I’ve taken the time to understand what’s important to them, what logistical challenges exist requiring risk-mitigation strategies and then I’ll demonstrate solutions that will match their specific needs. It’s been a lot of work.

I’ve begun putting together a run based on the appointments I’ve made and it looks to be a week-long road-trip which I’ll embark upon in a couple of weeks’ time. Of course, with this only being my third week with the company there’s a lot I’ll need to prepare before the meetings, technical stuff, but I tend to work well under pressure so I’ll bring it all together over the next couple weeks and then I’ll be off north to shake some hands and see what relationships I can create.

I know it seems so much easier and comfortable to sit behind my computer and send emails, post on LinkedIn and make phone calls but I’m a hands-on sort of operator and am very good when it comes to rapport-building in a face-to-face scenario; It means I’ll be able to read body language, better understand my potential client and therefore better match our services to their needs. It’s all about adding layers of value and I find it easier to do in person...And I love me a road-trip so...It’s on!