GlobalTranz. Guidelines of Sales Engagement. May 9, 2017 v2.0. globaltranz.com. GlobalTranz

Transcription

1 GlobalTranz Guidelines of Sales Engagement May 9, 2017 v2.0

2 1. Introduction The purpose of this document is to provide the general guidelines under which the various sales channels of GlobalTranz work together, avoid conflict, escalate issues, and resolve problems. It is, of course, the goal of all GlobalTranz sales channels to maximize the amount of revenue and, more importantly, the amount of profit realized from the movement of freight on the GlobalTranz platform. That said, it is important that pursuit of this goal be characterized by all parties always acting in good faith, with ethics and transparency. It is unacceptable for any party within the GlobalTranz community to tolerate inappropriate, harmful, financially irresponsible or unethical behavior independent of the contents this document. Members of GlobalTranz s sales channels are expected to act ethically, conduct business in a professional manner, and respect the interests of others within the GlobalTranz ecosystem. Channel conflict is inherent in any organization that goes to market with multiple channels. This is particularly the case when there are not exclusive territories and verticals. Conflict is often the simple result of individuals within the channels working hard to find business to achieve their goals. The guidelines in this document are designed to prevent and resolve conflicts. The application of these guidelines will be driven by fairness and, as necessary judgement. Not all situations are black and white. Rare is the occasion when conflict is the result of nefarious thinking and actions. In cases where conflicts are the result of intentionally bad behavior, disciplinary action will be taken to rectify the situation. It is, of course, impossible to identify and cover all eventualities that may occur during the conduct business. This will be a living document and these guidelines will be updated and improved to reflect real encounters. 2. Training and Know-How It is expected that all users of the GlobalTranz platform have taken the requisite training and have spent the necessary time to understand how to use the platform s various technologies, how to navigate GlobalTranz as an organization, and understand the company s general policies and procedures. GlobalTranz will provide training and access to resources to facilitate gaining this knowledge. All sales resources will be required to attest that they have completed the requisite activities required for proficiency on the GlobalTranz platform. All parties understand that lack of know-how is not an excuse for misusing the GlobalTranz platform. Attached is a Sales resource Onboarding document that provides information on navigating the various back office functions with GlobalTranz. 2

3 3. Shipper Customer Account Assignment a) Respect for account assignment - Independent of channel; whether it be a direct GlobalTranz sales, agency or other partner channel (referred to within this document as a sales resource), assignment of shipper accounts and the ability to work on a shipper account without interference from another GlobalTranz party is of utmost important. Many GlobalTranz agents, sub agents, and direct sales personnel brought with them to GlobalTranz or have developed while at GlobalTranz long term relationships with specific shipper accounts. These relationships represent a significant investment in time and money by the parties involved. Sometimes, these relationships are broad and exist across the shipper account and other times they are with specific divisions or geographies. In all cases, these relationships must be respected by others in the GlobalTranz sales channels provided the relationships are active, are generating revenue, or there are specific activities are being carried out to develop the account. b) Maintaining account ownership - Once an account has been entered into Command Center, that account remains the account of the party that entered the account provided the account has generated shipping revenue within the previous 90 days. It is understood that there could be various reasons why an account has not shipped within the previous 90 days. Primary among these reasons are that the shipper is seasonal or the account is be developed (e.g. the sales resource, independent of channel, is working on a significant RFP response, CSP or other proposal/value proposition). In the case of a seasonal shipper, Command Center logic should recognize that the shipper is seasonal and automatically denote the account as seasonal. If, for some reason, Command Center does not recognize the account as seasonal, the sales resource must arrange with Agent Support for the account to be manually denoted as seasonal. This will protect the account for the sales resource. In the case where a larger scale account is being developed but hasn t shipped with the previous 90 days, the sales resource can signify the account as a big fish 1. In these account development cases, the sales resource must be able to demonstrate the 1 A big fish defined as an account that will generate at least $1 million in annual revenue. In the case of big fish, sales resources have 270 days in which to get the account shipping. Designation of big fish must be done in conjunction with the VP of Direct Sales for GlobalTranz s direct channel and with Agent Development for the Agent channel. 3

4 activities that are being executed on to develop the account. This means, if asked for, demonstrable proof of account development activities must be provided. This proof can be in the form of call logs, meeting notes, presentations, RFP responses and other similar artifacts. It is the responsibility of the sales resource to make sure the account is coded correctly in Command Center. In all other cases, if an account has not shipped within the previous 90 days, the account will be moved into Shipper Center (see Shipper Center section below) and is available for other sales resources to sell to. If another sales resource is successful in getting the account to start shipping or embarks on a specific/documented plan to develop the account, the account will be transferred to that sales resource. c) Executing Account Transfers All account transfers should first be tried with Shipper Center. If the account does not appear in Shipper Center, then Agent Support should be contacted for manual transfer of the account. Direct Sales to Direct Sales transfers can be done by a Senior Manager of Sales or the VP of Direct Sales. d) Bad debt on transferred accounts Bad debt on any account that is transferred from one sales resource to another sales resource, however that transfer occurs and independent of whether the new sales resource is direct or indirect, transfers along with the account. Commissions or splits (including claw backs related thereto) on any transferred account with bad debt stay with the owner of the account at the time the revenue associated with the bad debt occurred. e) Credit on new accounts or transferred accounts All accounts are subject to GlobalTranz s credit policies and established credit limits. In no case, other than when an Agent decides to take specific responsibility for the credit risk of customer (Rep Liability 2 ), is any sales resource allowed to sell anything or move any freight for any customer outside the credit terms established by the GlobalTranz Credit department. In cases where an account is transferred from one sales resource to another, new credit must be established for the transferred account. f) Letters from customers to poach accounts It is inappropriate for any sale resource to encourage a customer to request that their account be transferred to that sales resource from their existing sales resource. It is further inappropriate to set any customer up as a sales resource (e.g. sub agent). 2 Rep Liability means the Agent agrees to take legal responsibility, and assume full liability, for any payments not received by Customers and any child accounts of Customer, which have not been deemed fully credit worthy by GTZ. Child account for the purposes of Rep Liability shall mean any affiliation of Customer, whether it is a parent company, subsidiary, division, or any type of affiliate linked to Customer. 4

5 g) Brand enforcement In certain situations, indirect sales resources do not appropriately represent their affiliation with GlobalTranz. In some of these instances, the shipper account does not realize they are working with, although indirectly, GlobalTranz. That shipper may subsequently be contacted and sold by another indirect or direct sales resource. It is the responsibility of all indirect sales resources to make sure their shipper customers know of their affiliation with GlobalTranz. Indirect sales resource must reference GlobalTranz branding on their correspondence related to business done on the GlobalTranz platform. h) Accounts of new sales resources - New agents, direct sales and partner sales resources will often bring a book of business with them when they join GlobalTranz. These books of business generally represent shipper customers the new sales resource has been working with prior to coming to GlobalTranz. When these new resources join, GlobalTranz will endeavor to compare the accounts in their book of business with the existing accounts to identify potential conflicts. When a conflict is discovered, GlobalTranz will analyze the relationships that both parties have with the account. Assuming the existing sales resource (direct or indirect) has a strong relationship with account, is actively generating revenue from the account, and is attempting to grow the account; the account will remain exclusively assigned to the existing sales resource and the new sales resource will not be allowed to sell to the account. i) Account exclusivity and split accounts Not all accounts should or can be exclusive. This is particularly true with large accounts (national or multi-national) where divisions of the account operate independently. Certain accounts can logically be split between multiple sales resources. This split can be by division, geography, mode or another logical divider. The acid test for whether a split makes sense is driven by the ability of the sales resource to cover the account in its entirety. A split makes sense when all parties can maximize the revenue opportunity for their portion of the account and the account can overall be better served by GlobalTranz. In these situations, related GlobalTranz management will engage the parties between which the account will be split in discussion about how best to manage each component of the split. In cases where an account is split and multiple parties are providing services in the same mode, the parties will agree and coordinate to make sure margins for the mode are the same. In no case should any sales resource benefit from hanging around the hoop. Sales resources must be demonstrably working on an account for the account to remain assigned. 5

6 j) Interpretation of account uniqueness At the moment, GlobalTranz defines account uniqueness by the account s bill to address. Variations of an account s name does not establish uniqueness. k) Use of house accounts Historically, GlobalTranz has facilitated the use of so-called house accounts to allow certain agencies to assume a customer type relationship with GlobalTranz. In these instances, the agency takes the credit risk for business done through the house account. This practice has been banned except for very unique situations (e.g. a completed managed or outside transportation solution). In historical situations where these house accounts exist, it is not acceptable for an agent to do business with customers who are customers of other sales resources (direct or indirect). House Accounts will be subject to review by GlobalTranz management to make sure the customers under those accounts are being properly handled, have appropriate margin, do not violate any of GlobalTranz s carrier partner rules and are not violating these guidelines. 4. Shipper Center a) Purpose of Shipper - The intent of ShipperCenter is to provide a tool for sales resources (direct and indirect) to discover new potential customers (leads), vetting the value of that lead and actively pursuing the lead as a prospective customer (Prospect), with the intent to convert them into an active customer. ShipperCenter is easy to use, adds value to the prospecting process, prevents prospecting of other sales resource s prospects, and adds useful data to our existing lead pool. b) How accounts become leads in Shipper Center Accounts in Command Center become leads in Shipper Center as follows: v They have not Dispatched a shipment it at least 90 days v They are not a Big Fish v They are not a Seasonal Customer v They do not have a CSP on file v They were not recently manually transferred to another agency within 45 days v They are not on Credit Hold v They are a unique account in our system. Not a duplicate 6

7 c) Once a lead is taken, there is an initial exclusive lead protection of 45 days from the date of transfer of the lead into the sales resource s name regardless of activity. d) Agency usage of Shipper Center v All agencies have the option to "OPT OUT" of the ShipperCenter program, which will prevent the agency from seeing any leads, and prevent their own accounts from becoming leads. v Those who are participating in the ShipperCenter program have some rules around the claiming and retaining of leads. Ø The number of "leads" you can take into your name as "prospects" is determined by the specific agency agreement or a fixed number by individual direct sales resource. Ø The number of "prospects" you can throw back to the lead pool is limited. This prevents robots from skimming our account base. Ø A sales rep can keep a "prospect" in their name as long as they like, but they have to continue to renew their interest by clicking the extend timer button. The timer is set to 45 days for a standard prospect or 270 days for a "big fish". Ø Once an account dispatches a shipment, the account becomes their customer and is no longer occupying a prospect slot. 5. Escalation and Communication a) Escalation overview Channel conflict is an inherent problem within any multichannel sales organization. When conflicts arise that are unable to be settled by the parties involved, GlobalTranz management will get involved and settle the conflict. In all cases, these resolutions will involve the application of reason, reflect the reality of the situation and be fair judgement. GlobalTranz s resolution to any conflict is final. b) Agent channel Conflicts arising from the agent channel are escalated to Agent Support. Agent Support will take the lead and will work with the other party (whether it be another party in the indirect channel or direct channel). If Agent Development is unable to resolve the conflict, the issue will be escalated to the GlobalTranz CEO. Agents should avoid escalating conflicts directly to other agents or to GlobalTranz s 7

8 Direct Channel. The Agent Development group is in place to assist in resolving issues and allowing agents to stay focused on driving business. c) Direct channel Conflicts arising from the direct channel are escalated to the sales resources individual Sales Manager or VP of Direct Sales as designated by the VP of Direct Sales. The Sales manager or VP of Direct Sales will work with the other party (whether it be another party in the direct channel or with Agent Development if the other party is an Agent). If VP of Direct Sales is unable to resolve the conflict, the issue will be escalated to the GlobalTranz CEO. Direct Sales resources should avoid escalating conflicts directly to other Direct Sales resources or specific Agents. Direct Sales Management are in place to assist in resolving issues and allowing direct sales resources to stay focused on driving business. About GlobalTranz GlobalTranz is a technology-driven freight brokerage company specializing in LTL, full truckload, third-party logistics and expedited shipping services. GlobalTranz is leading the market in innovative logistics technology that optimizes the efficiency of freight movement and matches shipper demand and carrier capacity in near real-time. Leveraging its extensive freight agent network, GlobalTranz has emerged as a fast-growing market leader with a customer base of over 25,000 shippers. In 2016, Transport Topics ranked GlobalTranz as the 12th largest freight brokerage firm in the U.S. For more information, visit www. and follow us on LinkedIn and 8