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Making yourself different from the competition — Put That Coffee Down

Positioning yourself for success

Source: FreightWaves

Standing out is essential to making sales and on this episode of Put That Coffee Down, Kevin Hill talked with co-host Nicole Glenn about ways to make your sales game unique.

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Glenn is the founder and CEO of Candor Expedite and she and Hill explain that it’s how you sell, not what you’re selling, that closes deals. Candor is a niche company dedicated to selling specific “white-glove services” like hot shot, straight track and cargo van service.

With the huge size of the transportation industry, Glenn believes it is more advantageous for companies to fit into a niche sector as opposed to a brokerage trying to handle every aspect of freight. Hill agreed, saying “It’s easy to waste a lot of time and waste a lot of resources” chasing freight outside your wheelhouse.


Finding the initial spot to start selling in can literally turn into a money spot when you build trust with your clients, build a reliable carrier network and can provide consistent service to customers. 

Glenn got Hill set up with the feature guest for this episode, Lee Salz, author of “Sales Differentiation.” Salz is a leading sales consultant and CEO at Sales Architects and teaches salespeople how to stand out from the crowd. 

Salz said most sellers go to a prospective buyer with a sense of arrogance and touting products as “the best to ever exist,” but that is not the way to show they’re different. He said the better differentiators lie in highlighting a seller’s successes and being specific about what they can provide to the client. 

Sales is all about the experience, said Salz, and he equated it to having an incredible experience at a restaurant that makes you want to come back for more. The service itself (equated to the restaurant food) might not be the best, but if a seller can make the sales experience special (a waiter taking great care of you), the sale is likely to land.


The sequel to “Sales Differentiation,” “Sell Different,” is set to come out in September. Salz also authored “Hire Right, Higher Profit.” 

You can find more Put That Coffee Down episodes and recaps for all our live podcasts here.

Kaylee Nix

Kaylee Nix is a meteorologist and reporter for FreightWaves. She joined the company in November of 2020 after spending two years as a broadcast meteorologist for a local television channel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kaylee graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2018 and immediately made the Tennessee Valley her home. Kaylee creates written summaries of FreightWaves live podcasts and cultivates the social media for FreightWaves TV.