Here's How to Turbo-Charge Your Career in Freight Forwarding
The business of freight forwarding has been around a long time -- centuries in fact! And just like with a lot of “old” industries, there are career challenges associated with it. Sometimes work can be repetitive. It’s hard to predict where the industry is headed. And sometimes it seems like, no matter how you try, it’s difficult to spark change.
Well, we have some good news -- really good news. You’ve picked a great career, and, even on your most frustrating days, there are lots of ways to become energized -- even if you’re feeling a little stuck. In fact, we’d like to talk about why you have abundant opportunities to advance your career, not just financially, but also by embracing a growth mindset. This is more than new-age inspiration. Here are some concrete steps you can take to turbo charge your career in freight forwarding.
- Get Your Head in the Cloud
One of the most frustrating things about our industry is the hodgepodge of technology we employ to complete day-to-day tasks. Finding rates, negotiating, booking … every business handles them differently, usually through some combination of email, spreadsheets, and phone. But there’s a whole new generation of software solutions that can streamline this work, and they mostly work in the cloud.
We all have the sense that we need to embrace this technology, but there are many cloud-based solutions out there. Imagine how your career would benefit if you became the person at your company who has researched the options, understands the costs and benefits, and can make sensible recommendations about which technologies to employ. You’d be pretty valuable and establish the kind of leadership that will help you advance not just at your company, but also in the industry as a whole.
- Never Eat Lunch Alone
That’s the name of a well-known book by Keith Ferrazzi, and it’s not about freight forwarding per se, but it makes an excellent point. By getting to know other people in your industry -- not just within your company -- you have an exponentially greater chance of making great contacts, stumbling into new ideas, and gaining new expertise. There are lots of ways to meet new people: industry meet-ups, conferences, and seminars are some examples. But the trick is not just to exchange business cards. Have detailed conversations and then follow up with personal interactions. That way the relationships are partly professional and partly personal, and we all know: people do business with people they like. And they can’t like you if they don’t meet you.
- Find a Mentor
Even if you’re not a C-Level executive, you’ve probably been at this awhile, and you may feel like you’ve mastered much of what’s required to succeed in freight forwarding. But there’s always more to learn, especially with so much technological change on the way. At our company, CoLoadX, we’ve got decades of freight experience under our belts. And yet, when we wanted to build out a new technology-driven business, we joined Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator and were paired with mentors from all kinds of disciplines, from sales and business-development to product and growth management. Most of these mentors knew nothing about ocean-freight shipping, but they complemented our own subject-matter expertise to unleash a whole new level of productivity and success.
- Be Humble
This is one of the great paradoxes of business (and perhaps of life). Conventional wisdom holds that to succeed, you need to have an enormous ego -- to steamroll past all adversity and never say never. But if you’re convinced you’re always right, you close yourself off to challenging ideas and new points of view. This is a particular trap in our business, where processes are well-established and new ideas can be hard to come by. It takes a healthy dose of humility to open yourself up to the idea that you may not be the world’s foremost expert on a particular topic, or that a traditional approach can’t be improved. But those that do can free their minds to uncover a whole new world of innovation.
- Take a Broader View
As we discussed in our recent blog and infographic, new markets such as China are beginning to dominate our industry, and understanding global trade has become more critical than ever. Even if you work in a modest office park by the port, and even if most of your shipping is domestic, you are part of a global supply chain, and an enormous share of the world’s economy depends on your work. Knowing more about the world you serve can only make you more valuable to your company, your business, and the economy.
At the risk of sounding like an inspirational speaker, we can’t stress enough that your career is what you make of it. We consider it a privilege to be making a difference in an industry that affects nearly every life on the planet. By embracing that worldview, we truly believe you can use your own interests, values, and ambition to turbo-charge your freight forwarding career.
Download your free copy of the "Top 20 Global Freight Ports" infographic today.
By: Petere Pamela on Nov. 8, 2017, 11:10 a.m.