How GEODIS Leaders Are Owning The All With Call Labs

Call Labs Demonstrate Owning The All

Here at GEODIS, we live by several Leadership Principles, one of which is Own the All. Owning the all is a mindset! First and foremost, leaders act for the larger organization of GEODIS, regardless of their personal area of responsibility. In other words, a leader owns all of it, even if they only control only a piece. One way we live out this important principle is through our freight broker sales training methods. Owning the all is at the core of our Call Lab training where we place tenured senior brokers and account executives in a room with new hires to make calls on speakerphone. Upon completion of each call, the leader facilitates a discussion about areas of improvement. Everyone learns from each other’s failures and successes in this type of sales training program, going beyond the average cold call. 

Vince Lombardi once said, “Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work. To perfect a craft, to deliver a winning message that brings results, who better to lean on than on each other.” The input and enthusiasm our Call Lab leaders bring each week is an integral part of developing our freight broker training so that new hires can find success in a challenging market.

Recognizing Accomplishments of GEODIS Top Talent

While each broker on the GEODIS Capacity Solutions team is responsible for generating freight and maintaining a book of business, our whole is greater than the sum of our parts. I’d like to give a huge shout-out to Call Lab leaders like Patrick Hooper, Tim Reeder, Brittian Regehr, Micah Millet, Alex Duvall and Will Medina. It is truly inspiring to see so many successful brokers and future leaders help their peers tackle such topics as: selling with value, getting to the decision maker, breaking the ice, customer profiling, digging in/qualifying and overcoming objections. We believe strongly in setting new team members up for success and offering robust 90-day freight broker training.

Call Lab Reflections From A Senior Sales Representative

Call Labs are one important part of our sales training program and I have asked some of our leaders to comment on an area of our process that is important to them. Micah Millet is a Senior Sales Representative who has been running a successful book of business with Geodis since 2018.  So much of Micah’s success can be attributed to his determination to find ways to make himself, his customers and his business better.  Micah offers expert tips and his Call Labs are fun, insightful and valuable.

"You want to establish legitimacy and communicate the value of how our operation can

help the growth of their company so that there is a mutual interest to work together.

“When qualifying a new customer and establishing a profile, it is imperative to supplement beforehand with research on the specific target market. Educating yourself about the prospective client can be as simple as viewing their website, their location, and asking the right questions over the phone. The best way to introduce yourself as a professional is to familiarize the decision-maker with examples of current businesses we already work with, whether that is in the same industry or the same geographical area. You want to establish legitimacy and communicate the value of how our operation can help the growth of their company so that there is a mutual interest to work together."

"It is also important to find out what expectations they have for our services and continue to be confident that we are somebody whom they will absolutely enjoy working with. Customers WANT to work with people they both like and familiarize themselves with – talking about their family, pets, holidays, sports, and even current events – to really get to know the person. Always remember that being a broker is a relationship-centric endeavor. Be somebody a shipper can trust and rely on to get the job done 24/7.”

Call Lab Reflections From A Top Account Executive

Alex Duvall is an Account Executive that started with Geodis in 2021 and quickly realized his own success due to his tenacity and his willingness to just go for it. This has allowed him to hit financial milestones faster than anyone in GCS history.

“Digging in/qualifying is important to me because it’s a step in the sales process that NEEDS to be performed. It’s one of the most important steps to sales because this is where we learn where there is an opportunity to create value for the customer. The importance of digging in a little more than originally anticipated on the phone with additional questions can provide a huge benefit. This is all about asking more questions to try and find an opportunity when you thought there wasn’t anything left in the tank; exhausting every possible question to find an opportunity is how we maximize service to the customer and grow our business.”

As a member of leadership, it is an absolute privilege for us to have so many great leaders willing to share their knowledge and lift each other up in the process of sales training. We really Own the All each day with these practices that grow top talent in our teams. The successful GEODIS contribution is demonstrated in this final quote by Ryunosuke Satoro: “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean!”