Learn 5 Skills When Becoming a Goods Forwarding Agent
A goods forwarding agent is organized and handles transport for companies or even an individual. They are also knowns as freight forwarders. The main job role of the freight forwarding industy is to arrange and manage the movements of all the goods from the location to the destination. The agent could be acting as an individual or even as a company.
Here, we are going to see the top 5 skills you need to know when you are becoming a goods forwarding agent. If you want to be a good agent, you need to keep in mind these things. It will help you the most.
(a) Market Analysis
You are acting as a middleman in the entire transaction between the consignor and the consignee. So, you are the one who should know the updates about the market. In some cases, you are responsible for finding the right freight that you can forward. In this case, you should always ensure that you are finding the right person or the company who can handle and manage your goods in the best way possible.
For all of these things, you should first ensure that you know about the market. You can only do successful business if you know about the market. Therefore, market analytics becomes the most important part of your job.
(b) Business Communication
Business communication is yet another important skill that you must have if you want to become a good forwarding agent. Without proper communication, you won’t be able to do anything in the field. Therefore, it is important thing to have these skills. The skill is required to communicate with the sender and the receiver.
You not only need to be better at texting but also at speaking and communicating on calls. Most of the deals will require you to deal via calls or in person. You should know about the technical terms that go along with the communication.
In the logistics business, many technical terms are usually used in contracts. This includes terms like contractor, consignor, consignee, drop and hook, etc. You need to know about all these terms.
If you are dealing in international markets, fluent English is yet another important skill you must possess.
(c) Negotiation
Negotiation is required when you are dealing.
Your commission will depend on the deal you make. In certain cases, you will be given direct payment and you can make the deal in any amount you want. To make more money in the market, you will need to have negotiation skills. As both parties are in the market, they will know about the market rate.
If all the businesses are dealing in the same market rate, no one will make more money. Therefore, for your company to make more money, you must have proper negotiation skills. It doesn’t matter whether you are looking for a job or you are doing it on your own as a single agent, you will need these skills. Negotiation skills are all about finding your unfair advantage and using it to win deals.
For example, if you have been working in certain areas, you will have a great network. Now, you can use this network to negotiate and get better deals. In the same way, you need to find your unfair advantage and use it to your advantage. This brings us to the next point which you need to understand.
(d) Networking
As we mentioned in the previous section, you can use your network as your unfair advantage. So, this is another skill that you need to learn. You need to learn how to network and build connections. It’s not just about building normal connections. Instead, you need to make connections with high-profile founders and managers. In this way, you can get the best out of your deal.
They will also help you in knowing the inside tricks as well as they will help you in making your experience work faster. When you learn from the high-profile people in your industry, you can learn more stuff at a faster rate. You will gain knowledge from their experience. So, it’s always better to network and find like-minded people.
Further, if you are working as an agent, you will sometimes face some big problems., When you have great contacts, you can easily solve these problems. For instance, if in some cases, there are some problems with the fright you are working with, you can easily transfer it to another service provider. You can only find a good service provider at the last moment if you already have working contacts. If you don’t have a proper network it will become harder to find the right service provider to transfer your goods. For all these reasons, it’s important to do networking and creates great contacts who can help you with all these things.
(e) Quality Office Design
For some people, the interior design of the office doesn’t matter.
However, it plays a very important role when you are an agent. For agents, most of the deals will be done directly in the office. The service is provided outside the office. However, the deal is made in the office. Therefore, if you want to succeed and crack more deals, you should always ensure that you have the best quality interior design.
When a person enters into office. In this case, it will be your client entering your office. The first thing they notice will be the interior design. When you have a great interior design, they will trust you more as you will look like a professional.
On the other hand, if the design is not that great, you will look like an amateur and they might not give you the projects that you want. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to invest a little bit in the office interiors and attract more clients with the help of the design.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, It’s always recommended to learn all these skills along with your technical skills and not instead of that. In simple words, you will need technical skills along with all these skills. So, you should always try to be the best at them.
Further, one of the important things that you need to keep in mind is documentation. You should always document properly. Being an agent, you will have to do a lot of contracts and prepare them in such a way that both of the parties benefit along with you. Remember, you are an agent who has to deal with both parties. So, you are the one who has to deal with them. Therefore, don’t forget to learn them.
Rishit Bhatt is a content strategist and a professional writer with a keen interest in technology and tech-enabled businesses. He aims to help businesses integrate tech into their on-premises infrastructure with technical documentation and helpful articles.