A few weeks ago, Luc Gendron, the President of the Purchasing Managers Association of Canada asked me for my thoughts on being a blogger. These are some of the observations that I shared with him.

I have been involved in the logistics and transportation industry for over a quarter century. In this time I have learned a great deal about the business (and I continue to learn some new things every day). Having held executive positions in the industry and having provided consulting services for over five years, I believe that I bring a certain perspective and point of view to my blogs.

I found a willing and encouraging partner in Canadian Transportation & Logistics magazine. With their support, we launched the blog two years ago.

Thought Leadership

As a small businessman, it is a challenge to stand out from the crowd. It is expensive (and not always productive) to advertise extensively in trade publications. It was my belief that writing a blog would raise my profile and the profile of my company. It would demonstrate our knowledge and skills. I believed that, over time, it would be a valuable component of my company’s marketing efforts.

I must admit that when I entered the world of blogging, I didn’t fully appreciate what I was getting into. For a while I tried to write two blogs a week. As my business grew, there was not enough time each week to write two blogs. In fact, this became onerous and almost convinced me to stop. After I pulled back to one blog a week, it became much more manageable.

Some Lessons Learned

After writing a blog for the past two years, this is what I have learned. It is a lot of work. Before entering the world of blogging, one has to make sure that he or she is willing and able to fulfil this commitment. When you start blogging, you create certain expectations among the folks who read your blogs. If you don’t continue to post, your readers will go elsewhere. It is also important to have a passion for writing. While writing is not something everyone likes to do, I enjoy it very much. This helps a great deal.

As a consistent blogger, you find yourself constantly reading, listening and learning about your area of interest. You are always on the alert for material of interest to your readers. This keeps you very tuned in to what is happening in your industry.

Looking at the Big Picture

It was my view that my blog would become boring if I wrote about LTL, truckload and intermodal freight transportation every week. I am not sure that there is that much that would be interesting to say on these topics on a weekly basis. As a result, I chose to broaden the range of topics to discuss. This makes it more stimulating for me and hopefully for those who read the blog.

My intent is not to report on the news story of the week but rather to take a broader view and look at issues that are of interest to transportation professionals. As a result, I have written about effective networking skills, LinkedIn, NASCO and how to keep up to date on what is happening in the industry.

Since I receive readership statistics on each blog, I know which subjects work and which ones do not. I know that I attract a large readership when I write about freight rates and I attract a much smaller readership when I write about demographic trends in our society.

The Rewards of Blogging

Blogging has its rewards. There is no doubt that I have raised my profile and the profile of my company. As a result of the blog (and other activities with which I am involved), I receive an increasing number of requests for speaking engagements and business opportunities. The blog has helped me reconnect with colleagues throughout the industry. I particularly enjoy receiving feedback on the blog, positive or negative (although the preponderance has been positive). What is interesting is that many people are shy to post and prefer to send e mails directly to me rather than post them as comments to the blog.

My hope is that I can now take the blog to a new level and make it more of a discussion group or social network where folks post their opinions on certain topics. This is a direction in which I will attempt to move the blog over the next year.

The readership statistics show me how many people read certain blogs. The most popular blogs have been read by thousands of people all over the world. While writing a blog cannot be translated directly into revenue, it has been an important part of my company’s marketing effort. Many blogs have been converted into articles in Canadian Transportation & Logistics magazine and Motortruck Fleet Executive magazine. These have further raised our profile.

As far as does and don’ts, I would say that the writing should be tight and focused. It is important to write on a variety of subjects to keep the blogs fresh and interesting. This will encourage readers to check in each week. I try to listen to my readers and colleagues and write on topics of interest to them.

How long will I continue to blog? As long as I enjoy it and have something to say. If it becomes a chore, I may have to pass the baton to someone else. It has been an interesting and enjoyable journey.

Are you a blogger? Please click on "Comments" and let me and the readers of this blog know about your experience in the world of blogging.

The current economic downturn is throwing large numbers of transportation professionals on the market. The unemployment rate in Canada and the United States could reach 10% or more before we see a turnaround. As reported in a previous blog, I continue to receive phone calls, e mails and resumes from many high quality job seekers each week. Based on my own experience and the experience of others, here is a list of suggestions for job seekers.

1. Don’t despair.

Acknowledge the feelings of concern, panic or despair that are liable to bombard you from every direction, and be aware that it’s absolutely acceptable to experience such emotions! Realize that the world has seen darker days and that recessions (despite popular belief) could prove themselves healthy. Brace yourself, and take renewed stock of your most valuable assets (your financials, your credentials, your experience, your contacts, your integrity).

2. Understand the realities of the market.

How is the recession affecting the transportation industry? What are the current growth industries or growth opportunities within your industry or others that are resisting the slump? Grab the opportunity that is offered to you at this stage to re-assess your career goals and preferences. This might be just the right time for you to make a career shift into something you have always wanted to do. Seek career coaching if needed as that will help guide you in the right direction.

3. Expand your network

In these difficult times, not all companies advertise their vacant positions online or in the media. The positions available are often sought through search firms or through internal postings. The best way to reach out to these available positions would be through networking with those connected with these openings.

4. Find a fellow job hunting buddy

This can help you in multiple ways. It is good to have someone with whom you can share ideas and leads. Your job hunting buddy can be your cheerleader and disciplinarian. Check in with this person on a daily basis and stay on task.

5. Expand the scope of your job search

Think about the full scope of your skill set and about how you can leverage this. If you have worked in the trucking industry, could you find employment as a Traffic Manager or Dispatcher with a Shipper? If you have spend much of your career in sales or operations, would this be a good time to acquire skills in the other area to round out your portfolio of capabilities?

6. Fine tune your resume

Bring your resume up to date and insert the action “buzzwords” that will be picked up by the resume scanning services. Ask some friends and colleagues to critique it. Make sure to perform a spell check. Keep it short, hard hitting, and focused on your accomplishments. Also, don’t even think about sending out hundreds of resumes in a mass marketing campaign. This will likely be a waste of time and money.

7. Start your Job Search quickly

It is normal to go through a “mourning” period after you lose a job. These feelings of sadness and disappointment are normal and take time to dissipate. Nevertheless, in this difficult economy, it is important to get off the floor and begin your search. There are many people out of work and finding a job will likely take some time. Paint your house, build your new sundeck or take a trip after you find your new job, not before.

8. Craft a Plan

A job search is essentially a sales job. In other words, success comes from using classic sales and marketing techniques. These include selecting your target markets, prospecting, securing appointments, filling your pipeline with solid prospects, obtaining face time with these prospects, presenting your value proposition, handling objections and closing the sale.

9. Make effective use of Social Networks

There are a number of social networks that can be quite helpful. For business professionals, LinkedIn is probably the most popular but there are others (e.g. Deposco, Facebook) that also are widely used. Look at the network of your contacts and ask them if they can arrange introductions to certain people.

10. Join Associations

There are lots of good (and some not so good) associations around. Taking an active role in selected associations can demonstrate your leadership, project management and interpersonal skills. They can also provide you with more contacts and leads.

11. Form a bond with the key Recruiters in your city and industry

These folks can be enormously helpful. While they all work for their clients who pay the bill, good talent is the life blood of every recruiter. Meet these people, have periodic calls and lunches with them and stay in tune with what opportunities are opening up in your segment of the industry.

12. Check out all of the Job Boards

Just as carriers use load boards to find freight, logistics professionals can search a number of job boards (e.g. jobsinlogistics.com, CSCMP etc.) to find some of the positions that are listed.

13. Stay positive and chase away all negative vibes

“If you think something cannot occur in your life, then there’s no way you will take the action required to make that goal a reality! Impossibility thinking manifests itself!” (Robin Sharma)
Refrain from impossibility thinking and shine brightly today! A slowing economy may be just the impetus you needed to redirect your career on a better trajectory!

14. Take advantage of internet based tools

There are some wonderfully helpful tools available on the internet. One of the best is www.net-temps.com. This website produces a wealth of useful information on such topics as how to write an effective resume or how to prepare for a meeting with a prospect. They distribute a newsletter to their subscribers that is filled with very valuable tips.

15. Make Job Hunting your full time job

Get up early each morning and have a plan directed at whom you plan to call and see and what you plan to accomplish each day. It is easy to drift into bad habits when you are unemployed. Job hunting should be your full time job.

16. Don’t be overanxious

Don’t take the first job that comes your way unless you are sure that it is a great fit for you. Make sure that you have a passion for the work and the company. When you are out of work, there is a temptation to take the first position that comes your way to ensure that you receive a steady pay cheque. If the position isn’t tight for you, chances are you will be out looking for work again and that will be a black mark on your resume.

17. Secure positions on a temporary, interim or consulting basis

As companies downsize, there are opportunities to fill positions on a temporary basis. In fact, you may be able to land multiple assignments working one day a week for one company and another day a week for someone else. This can give you visibility into that company and provide your employers with visibility into your skills and work ethic. Of course, it is also helpful to be able to earn money while you undertake your job search.

18. Volunteer

This can provide you will some useful skills and contacts and allow you to make effective use of your time as you continue your search.

19. Celebrate the small victories along the way

When you land a job interview, give yourself a pat on the back. Set weekly goals for calls, meetings and interviews and celebrate the victories along the way.

20. Prepare yourself for your new job

Despite what you may think, companies are hiring people. You will find a new job. When you do get hired, take some time to recharge your batteries and do some preparation to hit the ground running on day one.

Good luck!

This week a group of carrier executives came together for the first Transportation Company Workshop, sponsored by Dan Goodwill & Associates and Motortruck Fleet Executive. During one of the breakout sessions, one of the executives made the observation that it is very difficult being a transportation sales person at this point in time. Shippers are placing significant pressure on motor carrier sales people to reduce rates. RFP’s and reverse auctions are being sent to carriers, including carriers that never handled the freight for that shipper before. The bids are often used as leverage to “grind down” the incumbents’ rates.

In order to grow the revenues in their territories, sales reps are trying to reach new prospects but are having enormous difficulty getting past the receptionist or gatekeeper to make their appointments. The mood among many carrier sales people is one of frustration and dejection. This begged the question, what can trucking company executives do to support their sales reps on the front lines.

Here are some of the suggestions from the roundtable discussion. One senior manager argued that trucking company leaders should get out on the front lines. They should be making calls with their reps to show support. While this is certainly one of the responsibilities of the VP Sales or other sales leaders, the rest of the executive should step up and make calls. This will show empathy but also communicate the message that the reps are not being “thrown to the wolves.” The leadership team is willing and able to “get in the trenches” to help their sales team bring freight on board.

Another idea is to provide sales training. There are many sales people in the industry that are “home grown” and have come up through the ranks, starting as a driver or customer service rep and working their way up the sales organization. Some of these reps have had a record of success even though they have never had formal sales training. While spending money on sales training may appear out of step with the push to reduce costs, this may be a wise investment in the future. It sends the message to the sales troops that they are valued members of the company and the company wants to provide them with all the tools necessary to be successful.

Since many shippers no longer have receptionists, a sales rep is often confronted with a telephone and an employee list when entering a lobby to make a cold call. Even in companies that have receptionists, it is challenging to get past these folks to meet those individuals that make the carrier selection decisions. One of the attendees outlined the success they are having with telemarketing. Their (modestly paid) telephone sales people are tasked with making 100 telephone calls a day and assigning the appointments secured to their team of street reps. This frees up the street reps to maximize face time with current customers and prospects.

With cold calling being such a futile exercise, one executive suggested that carriers should be helping their sales teams improve their networking skills. Being an active networker in the local chamber of commerce, Rotary Club, industry associations and other events can build new and useful bonds that can ultimately be turned into sales prospects. In a previous blog, I discussed some of the key aspects of networking and highlighted a consultant in the Ontario market that is helping transport companies and other industries upgrade their networking skills.

Another business leader has tasked his sales team with obtaining referrals and additional business opportunities from their current customers. Since a trucking company’s sales and management team has a rapport with its major customers, these folks can identify other lanes of traffic that could potentially be made available to the company as well as highlight other business opportunities with their vendors and customers.

In addition to the suggestions made by the assembled group, there are other options worth considering. They include finding ways to add more value (e.g. cross-docking, local warehousing etc.) in order to make your service offerings less of a commodity, creating a brokerage operation to capture freight that moves on lanes not served by your asset based business, or migrating from a freight brokerage to a 3PL service, thereby creating an even more differentiated value proposition. Clearly there are a number of initiatives that trucking company executives can undertake to help support their sales teams in their efforts to add revenue.

Mexico has been making front page news recently for all the wrong reasons. As a major drug producing and transit country, it is the main foreign supplier of marijuana and a major supplier of methamphetamine to the United States. Although Mexico accounts for only a small share of worldwide heroin production, it supplies a large share of heroin consumed in the United States. An estimated 90% of cocaine entering the United States transits Mexico. In the United States, wholesale illicit drug sale earnings estimates range from $13.6 billion to $48.4 billion annually. From January 2000 through September 2006, the Mexican government arrested over 79,000 people on charges related to drug trafficking. Some 8,000 people have died in Mexico the past two years, as drug gangs fight for territory amid government crackdowns.

Although Mexican drug cartels, or drug trafficking organizations, have existed for quite some time, they have become more powerful since the demise of Colombia's cartels in the 1990s. Mexican drug cartels now dominate the wholesale illicit drug market in the United States. Arrests of key cartel leaders, have led to increasing drug violence as cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States.

Closure of the cocaine trafficking route through Florida also pushed cocaine traffic to Mexico, increasing the role of Mexican cartels in cocaine trafficking. The National Drug Intelligence Center now considers Mexican drug cartels as dominating the U.S. illicit drug market. According to the Center, Mexican cartels "use their well-established overland transportation networks to transport cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin – Mexican and increasingly South American – to drug markets throughout the country."

As a result of their dominance of the U.S. illicit drug market, Mexican cartels are the leading wholesale launderers of drug money from the United States. Mexican and Colombian trafficking organizations annually smuggle an estimated $8.3 to $24.9 billion in drug proceeds into Mexico for laundering. In addition to money, stockpiles captured by Mexican soldiers show that warring traffickers are now obtaining military-grade weaponry such as grenades, launchers, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank rockets.

Against a backdrop of kidnappings, murders and police battles with drug cartels, Mexican industry has been going in a different direction. The 41% drop in the peso against the U.S. dollar has made Mexico an even cheaper place to manufacture. Factory workers in Juarez can be hired for $1.50 an hour. A quiet transformation has been taking place south of the U.S. border.

Sound fiscal and monetary policies after the 1994 financial crash have made Mexico a more stable macroeconomic environment. Local governments have been collaborating with universities and private industry to upgrade their workforces, parts supply networks, research and development programs and infrastructure. Mexico has become a magnet for factories that go beyond assembly work.

Mexico stands to benefit from a number of developments that are working in its favour. Canadian and American companies are revisiting their reliance on Asian manufacturing and are reconsidering their “near-shoring” options. Mexican goods can reach U.S. and Canadian cities in a matter of days rather than a month from China, a big issue as importers seek to reduce inventory costs and lead times. As the economic turnaround begins to unfold, rising Chinese costs and concerns over increasing fuel and transportation costs are becoming important considerations. Mexico looks better than China when it comes to technology theft, quality control and delays due to miscommunication. NAFTA and similar free-trade deals with Japan, Europe, and most of Latin America give Mexico duty-free access to more markets than any other country.

However, as the conduit for the movement of goods between Canada, the United States and Mexico, trucking companies need to be particularly vigilant. A government-funded intelligence group is warning U.S. trucking companies working in Mexico or near the border to establish special security procedures in light of the surge in drug-related violence along the key commercial corridor.

The Highway Information Sharing Analysis Center, which is financed by the Department of Homeland Security and run out of the Transportation Security Administration, issued an advisory warning drivers and trucking companies that they could be exposed to violence from Mexico's drug wars. "Truck drivers carry a risk as they are involved in operations that might interest these criminals," the warning said, adding that drivers should "maintain situational awareness at all times and be extremely conscious of your environment." The center urged trucking companies to set up internal reporting procedures so their drivers can maintain regular contact while in risky areas. It also advised firms to establish special distress signals. Center director Don Rondeau said transportation-industry representatives had sought advice on how to protect drivers and trucks.

Mexico has a way to go to solve its drug traffic issues. Fortunately, attacks on foreign staff and factories have been rare in the border towns along the drug-trafficking routes. A recent survey of 136 U.S. manufacturers by Boston supply-chain consulting firm AMR Research indicates that the companies intending to expand in Mexico outnumber those planning to cut back by 5 to 1. In China, the ratio is 2 to 1. Mexico is becoming a key manufacturing centre in aerospace, automotive, computer equipment, consumer electronics, home appliances, information technology, light manufacturing, machinery, medical devices, microelectronics, pharmaceuticals and telecom equipment. If Mexico can address its drug related issues as the economy recovers, it may become a preferred supply chain location compared to India, China and other countries.