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the power of face time

table number two

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 ••• The Power of Face Time ••• 

As technology continues to usurp jobs - yes we have off-shored many.....many jobs, but our own lust for technological advancement is also a major warrior in the elimination of employment - I often get asked about the future of the field sales representative. We call them "field" sales as their primary function is to drive from account to account and establish some type of face time with our clients. This type of activity has its downside for sure - for one - it takes valuable non-renewable resources (gasoline), it adds to the burden of traffic, it generates stress on both the vehicle and the body, it interrupts our client's daily flow of work, and it has a tendency to cause friction with office-bound peers who don't quite understand the process of sales - just to name a few.

Experience has taught me that it is not the company to company relationship that ultimately sways a choice, it is the intrapersonal relationships that are developed between individuals that foster a camaraderie and inherent loyalty that keeps customers returning. Nothing establishes this relationship better than sitting face to face in front of a prospective client. It is there that all the subtle clues are consciously and unconsciously processed - confidence level, eye contact, wardrobe, posture, body language, grooming, professionalism, verbal skills, and so on. Ultimately, if an authentic friendship develops - it is a win-win-win scenario - my favorite.

So, the future of the field sales representative, enhanced by technology - GPS, smartphones, etc - is secure. I see no other method, including video calls, that will replace this valuable form of relationship building. And then of course there is the mother of all face time - client lunches - this in my humble opinion is the most powerful of all. Wanna have lunch?

As the Director of Sales for the Sea Shipping Line (California) group of offices, we employ field sales reps (FSRs) in every major market, sometimes multiples. Our FSRs are responsible for establishing relationships for a defined account base. One of my primary jobs is to place the right rep at the right account, after all sometimes as people we just don't like somebody for whatever reason, and that of course does not bode well to relationship building. To do this properly, there should always be at least two FSRs in every major marketplace to offset this social phenomenon - unfortunately this does require resources that are sometimes not available - so we do our best with what we have. A side note to my competition - it is not the number of calls, it is the quality of those calls that matters most.

I am almost tempted to put a picture of my face here as it is getting harder and harder for me to get around as our account base has grown dramatically over the course of the last eight years. However, I am boycotting pictures of myself for personal reasons - besides pictures and videos just don't cut it. I like the real thing. Our FSRs enjoy face time, and we hope that we can make contact with as many of you as we can. It is very expensive to send out FSRs, but we know that the direct contact is extremely important to building client confidence and loyalty and if we are good at what we do, the return will magically materialize. Our goal is to make sure that your Sea Shipping Line experience is as good as any and better than most. We want your FCLs.

Our intention this year especially has been to congeal our present relationships and foster new relationships with the shipping community. We treasure your support.

Interested in seeing who our agent or partner is at the destination port of discharge? Feel free to click on over to our Global Network - most of our international friends are listed there along with all their relevant details.

Interested in knowing how many cities & countries we service via mostly any point in the United States? We welcome your inquiry! last time I counted we service 552 cities located within 155 countries facilitated by over 38 individual carrier confidential contracts. Click here to download a full list of the ports and points that we service.

Wanna see the carriers we have contracts with? click here. Those liner operators listed with a red * are contract carriers. You can also check scheduling by clicking on the calendar icon .

This is one of the several alligators that live on our golf course. This is the biggest one at 16 feet.

Warmest Regards,
Phil Waterman
Business Development & Asia Trade Manager-Gulf Region
 

 ••• Denver Hosts IAM 2011 Event ••• 

One of the most important segments of our target account base is the Household Goods and Personal Effects community of companies. Although impacted by the severely depressed housing market and sagging world economy, people are still moving around and we appreciate the support garnered from this important slice of our shipping public.

Knowing that the International Association of Movers was having its annual networking event in Denver this year, we decided to send our FSR in the Bay Area, Sergey Goodkovsky, to their 49th annual, attended by at least 1600+ people from all over the world - a truly international turnout. We understand that next year's event will be in Washington, D.C.

Most of the attendees arrange meetings with their overseas partners, agents, or prospective agents to start up or further develop business collaboration. On one of the days a Knowledge Lab was held to discuss issues such as freight payments, automating storage processes, building trust through cultural awareness, etc.
 

Sergey was able to touch base with many of our accounts located throughout our entire sales coverage territory from Vancouver, Canada to New Orleans, Louisiana. The bottom right corner picture is Sergey sandwiched between Tina and Dawn Fontano from Crown Worldwide Moving. Also a thank you to our Denver based clientele for their past, present and future support.

Household Goods along with Automobile shipments are highly specialized commodities that require a certain level of expertise to transport effectively. We are grateful that these companies consider Sea Shipping Line whenever an opportunity presents itself.

October 2006 appeared to be a slow month for industry news. The first article was about our then "new" VOIP phone system. We are in the final throws of dumping this system for something "cloud" based? Technology marches on.

The second section is recreated immediately to the right. Lots of old news there - nothing is relevant now. The ISPM Guidelines are no longer on our website, the Norfolk office is now a distant memory, John Dolan is now working for the competition and replaced by Sergey Goodkovsky who has been solid as our Bay Area Field Sales Representative; and there are currently no job opps at SSL, the Director of Import Sales position never ever materialized.

The most interesting piece was the spotlight on Darin Kessinger, then an operations supervisor, now our General Manager based in Seattle. We were still doing the newsletter trivia in 2006, we will be bringing that back next year due to popular demand (Barry please take note.) I have to figure out how to ask trivia questions that can not be Googled.
 

 ••• Archives: Between the Lines ••• 

All of our newsletters are available on-line via our website. Due to space restrictions and outdated information, we have initiated the process of removing our oldest newsletters. However, it is fascinating to see what was going on just a half decade ago, so take a peek back in time before they disappear forever into the digital twilight zone. Click on the image to the left and revisit Sea Shipping Line circa October 2006.

The Archives: Between the Lines section was created to highlight one of the key articles from our newsletter exactly five (5) years ago. An excerpt from October 2006 - Volume 3, Issue 10 is below. Please be aware some of this may be old news so please do not get confused:

News Around Town | keeping up with the scuttlebutt
 

Newest ISPM 15 Guidelines Available: Frank Rosenberg has asked me to make available via download from our website the latest update on the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures. These rules are the guidelines for regulating wood packaging material in international trade. The download is available by clicking ● here and is in .pdf format.

SSL Norfolk Office Closed: just in case you had any dealings with the Sea Shipping Line Norfolk office, this office has been closed. The duties of this office will be divided between our Red Bank, Chicago and Atlanta offices. Please adjust your records. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

John Dolan Resigns: unfortunately John Dolan, our Field Sales Representative based in our Oakland office and covering the greater Bay Area, Reno and Salt Lake City has resigned. John has taken a position with a carrier in the Los Angeles area. John did a spectacular job for us and we wish him all the best.

Job Opportunities: as per the jobs section of our website, Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc has two (2) job opportunities currently available. Both jobs are in sales - one replaces the position of field sales representative based in our Oakland office. This position replaces the one recently vacated by John Dolan. The other opportunity is for a Director of Import Sales which can be based in either Los Angeles or Oakland and reports directly through to the President of the company. This is a newly created position and represents a keen opportunity for someone with import sales experience.

The last thing we want to be is an interruption to your busy day. If you do not want to receive our newsletter, you can opt-out by clicking on the link at the very bottom-left. This will take you to our opt-out form, enter your email address, and click OPT OUT (no stress). We will remove your address immediately (although reluctantly). We do hope that you stay with us and that our monthly publication is a peaceful sanctuary in your otherwise chaotic day.

Every single booking is important to us. Here's why - our numbers show that our average booking size is now 2.81 teus. A teu is a twenty-foot equivalent unit, so a forty-foot container would be two (2)  teus. So doing the math, our average booking is between 2-3 teus. This logic proves that each booking is valuable and we are grateful for each and every account that graces us with their support. We especially cherish bookings that have multiple containers - would you mind helping us out?

The below is From Sandy Veich at Air-Sea Forwarders complimenting Steve Bugge in our Seattle office operations. Thought you might be able to use it in the newsletter?
Thanks,
Karen Elken - FSR Seattle

From: Sandra Veich
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 10:49 AM
To: Darin Kessinger; Steve Bugge
Cc: Karen Elken; Matt Lehman
Subject: RE: Sea Shipping Line Booking: 158183

Hi Steve,

I wanted to thank you again for your extra effort in finding this routing for me! I was coming up with dead ends and just about ready to tell the customer it was totally impossible to get the containers there before the 20th but you came through and made me look like a superstar!

This is going to be just a few of many containers on this lane so I will make sure you (SSL) gets them all.

We are on schedule to pull the containers this evening and if all goes as planned we will have both containers checked into the port of Long Beach the afternoon of the 26th.

I will have the dox to you on the 22nd.

Thanks!
Sandy

Sandra Veich
Import / Export Coordinator
Air-Sea Forwarders
Tel: 206-243-9802
 

 ••• Table Number Two ••• 

On Thursday, September 22nd, Sea Shipping Line hosted the only NVOCC table at the Pacific Maritime Association's Annual Steamship Night held in Salon #9 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis. The Marriott was absolutely packed - fully booked, as September/October is usually San Francisco's best weather, and the weather was spectacular. Having the honor of being given Table Number Two, SSL hosted a mixture of staff and close clientele. The event housed a total of 43 tables of 10, some not fully booked, so we estimated a total head count of close to 410. As usual most of the festivities occurred in the outer foyer before dinner which is a networking opportunity extraordinaire. Every year I see the same wonderful faces reminding me of what an amazing industry we work in and how fast time is flying by. You can find more pictures on the Pacific Maritime Association's website.

Left: the famous ssl table number two | Right: salon #9 for dinner

Left: Masami Woehl (logistics analyst-global logistics for Safeway) modeling the raffle donation list | Right: OMG! Rich Eber (Amerasa Rapid Transit) on the right getting lucky to stand next to Masami. Rich, it was so great to see you in your glorious self! The gentleman on the left is Tom Santos - he works the streets for K-Line.

Left: Bill Diggs (Roanoke Trade) - very good friend and one of the funniest people I know. I believe Bill assigns the tables and he took table number one. | Right: Shelly Tse (Freight Line Express Trucking LLC) and Jessica Heikel (Mitsubishi Logistics America). Shelly runs her own trucking company servicing the greater Bay Area. Give her a shout, she will take very good care of your trucking needs.

Left: a shot of the crowd inside the dinner hall - salon #9 | Right: a shot of the dinner crowd from table number two

Dinner was served and it was pretty much the same menu as years past. Conversations always fun. Thank you to everyone who attended table number two as our guests. The jazz band mood-music was very good, but I have finally figured out why dancing after dinner has never worked for this event. Its really simple demographics - there are just not enough girls! As you can see by the above crowd there are just way too many suits - it is about 10-1 men over women...not good odds for dancing courtship. Oh well, there is always the View Room at the top of the Marriott - maybe one of the best views on earth. Finally, thanks to those accounts that took the time to see Sergey and I in our travels around the Bay Area - some notable names - Ming, Bert, Linda, Denise, Scott, Henry, Maria, Rob, Alex, Lyn, Adrena, Raymond, Nelson, Gloria, Chris, Joanne, Paul - you know who you are. Always lots of fun to do the face to face.

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Privacy Policy: Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc respects our client's right to personal privacy. It remains our policy and our commitment not to distribute, sell, rent or in any way make available your name, email address, or other information to any third party. Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc: 520 3rd Street, Suite 207, Oakland, California 94607. Copyright Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc © 2011. All rights reserved. To cancel your free subscription to  our monthly newsletter click OPT-OUT.
 

 ••• In the Author's Opinion ••• 

Employer's Disclaimer: Any views or opinions presented in this newsletter are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Sea Shipping Line. Employees of Sea Shipping Line are expressly required not to make defamatory statements and not to infringe or authorize any infringement of copyright or any other legal right by email communications. Any such communication is contrary to company policy and outside the scope of the employment of the individual concerned. The company will not accept any liability in respect of such communication.

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A body in motion most certainly stays in motion and I plan on keeping my body moving for as long as I can. Exercise is the key, but as we age, sometimes the aches and pains can overwhelm us. Chiropractic, acupuncture and other alternative health modalities are valuable, but as Mr. Egoscue argues, everything is controlled by the muscles. His contention is compelling and I for one buy into it big time, not to mention the fact that his theory is very heartwarming in its simplicity. You can pick this book up on Amazon for around $10 bucks. It is well worth the read, whether you take action or not. I can tell you that just sitting here working on this newsletter plays havoc with my whole musculoskeletal system. Hunched over all day - NOT GOOD!

Through my face to face travels, I can tell you that everyone has posture issues. It is inevitable. We are all bent over our desks staring at computer screens. All of us! This is stressful enough in and of itself. The last thing you need is more stress from your vendors. At Sea Shipping Line, our philosophy is that once you book a shipment with us, we don't want you to have to touch the file for any other reason but to bill your client. Ok, it is hard to be perfect in an imperfect world, but we try our very best to follow this creed.

Appreciation & Gratitude to you for reading and remembering...
Frank Belsito
Director of Marketing & Sales - Sea Shipping Line (California) Inc.

www.seashipping.com