The biggest project I am working on at my internship is my final project! My intern group and I were split into two teams to each complete the project. We’ll be presenting it for roughly 20 minutes to our intern trainers and some of the C-level executives at the company. The final project encompasses everything we have learned from the entire internship. The main things I’ll be discussing in it are my mentorship and the experience I’ve had shadowing my mentor, information about the different technologies I’ve used and how I’ve come to enjoy (or not enjoy) using them, and finally, the skills that are necessary to become a great carrier sales rep. 

Since the first thing I’ll cover is my mentorship, let’s talk about it! Echo, the company I work for, paired every single intern with a mentor. My mentor is named Kennedy; she’s worked at Echo for almost a year and has been super successful in the logistics industry. When I started working with Kennedy at the beginning of the summer, I mostly shadowed her by watching what she was doing and asking questions. Now, in the mornings for the first two hours of the day, I cover all of the loads Kennedy has booked. I track them all and make sure that they’re going to be on time. When there is an issue with a driver or a load, I’ve learned how to escalate the issue and how to find the right person to contact. 

The next thing I’ll be talking about for my final project is the different technologies that the company uses. The first piece of technology is Stats. Stats is meant to look up carriers to find information on them. Additionally, I can search for different “lanes” (trips going from a specific point A to a specific point B). By searching for the lane history, I can see trips different carriers have done before. If a carrier has done a specific lane before, I can use that information to find a similar lane for them and see if they’d be interested in it. 

Another piece of technology that I use is called Clutch. Clutch is the open board that shows all of the loads that need to be moved. Without Clutch, I have nothing to sell. There are probably about 100 different filters I can use on Clutch. I can filter for the weight of the load, where it’s coming from, where it’s going, what time the pick-up and drop off appointments are, etc. At the beginning of the internship, it was difficult to go through the filters while I was on the phone with carriers. Now, with a few weeks of work, I’m able to go through all the filters and offer multiple different loads when I’m speaking to someone. 

Finally, I’ll be talking about what makes a good carrier sales representative. The first thing that makes you successful in carrier sales is to not be discouraged when people say “no.” I make about 50-60 phone calls per day, and I hear a “no” from practically every person I talk to. Sounds discouraging, but the more calls you make a day, and the more people you talk to, the more “yes’s” you’ll hear! Another thing that makes a great carrier sales rep is being organized. After you book a load, you must track the entire progression of the transit, starting even before the load gets picked up, until it’s delivered. If you don’t properly check on the load, you could lose it, which will cost you money, and cause a ton of frustration. There are a lot of things that go into being a good carrier sales rep, however these are two huge aspects of it.