16 WESTERN PALLET
2020 Season Sponsor
2020 Season Sponsor
While national program leads generally have a longer sales cycle - up to 13 weeks, Merritt anticipates that the local program will generate warm leads with a shorter turnaround - more like six weeks. "PSP opportunities are warm leads made up of small, medium and large opportunities," he said. "These are buyers seeking quotes most likely due to service failures, price increases, or quality issues. As a result, the cycle time is considerably shorter than prospecting cold leads."
Additionally, bid packages are thoroughly vetted by FALM staff before being sent to PSP members. "Leads come with specs, volume, accurate species information, and photos. FALM asks many of the upfront questions so that all the PSP participants have to do is bid." He said that junk leads are filtered by FALM and excluded.
PSP members have the option to bid on each lead relevant to their local market. FALM may at times also send the opportunity to non-member companies to ensure competitiveness, but members are always allowed to rebid if a non-member operation has the winning quotation. Another benefit, First Alliance always pays in standard 30-day net terms, so participants do not need to worry about lengthy 45-60 day terms requested by some customers.
As a broker, FALM operates with a national network of about 225 companies. The goal of the PSP program is to shorten that list to between 100 to 115 select partners across the country. Merritt believes such a structure will be "more manageable," while generating warm, short sales cycle leads for program members. Merritt envisions the program becoming like a club. He anticipates members from various markets participating in scheduled calls and broadening their connections with pallet people in other regions.
This program is especially timely, given the disruptions to traditional selling resulting from COVID-19. "People add us as an extension of their sales and marketing teams," Merritt concluded. "Why not spend $1,000 and buy yourself an extra 10 or 12 quotes a year. All you need to do is get one, maybe two, and you have easily covered your cost. And you can build off of that year after year."
To find out more about the fully guaranteed Preferred Supplier Program from First Alliance Logistics Management, call (888) 995-6318
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