Vetting

I am not sure when this word became part of the jargon in the transportation world or in business in general but I have always like the sound of it for some reason. Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Vetting.

Vetting is a service that Trinity Logistics provides to our customers to make sure the carriers we use to transport their freight are the very best we can find.  We go to great pains to determine their worthiness to carry our customers freight.  It is a process that requires the greatest of diligence since not only our customers but Trinity has a lot riding on the outcome.

I know how seriously we take this carrier vetting process but I have often wondered how diligent we are about "vetting" the people that provide our freight.  How much do we know about those to whom we are so dependent.  Oh sure, there are the normal processes such as Dun and Bradstreet or the Better Business Bureau which would tell us about their financial and ethical strengths and weaknesses.  But what about the people within the company on whom we are depending upon every day?  How much do we know about them and what makes them tick?

As individuals who work for Trinity, we say we highly value relationships and we eagerly reach out for those relationships.  We say we genuinely like people and we like to do business with friends so we make every effort to become friends with our customers.  Are we really practicing what we preach?

Everyone is busy.  We are busy serving hundreds of customers every day and our customers are busy serving their customers every day.  We should never too busy to take time to really find out about the folks with whom we are dealing every day in so many ways.  We should ask questions about family, sports and many other “personal” things because we really and genuinely want to get to know them and understand them better.  We should know a lot about our customers because we take the time to engage them not for any gain but because it is a lot more pleasant to do business with friends than it is with strangers. We should friend them on Facebook, connect with them on Linked-In, Tweet with them, share You Tubes of our family just to get to know each other better.

I also often wonder if our customers are really “vetting” us.  Really finding out about what makes us tick so they better understand the person on the other end of the phone, fax or keyboard.  I really hope they are because what they will find are some really great people who have done and are doing some really great & interesting things in their home, community, and work place. They will find people who are serious about their reputation and standing in the transportation industry and whose only purpose here is to serve them with the excellence they deserve. This will very rarely happen unless you "put yourself out there" first.  Someone has to take the initiative and that someone is likely going to have to be you.

I sincerely hope that we all  take some time from working “in” our businesses each day and start working “on” our relationships just as hard.  You make friends with your customers, providers or vendors or whatever we call one another and I think you will see the wisdom of when it comes to building relationships it works just as well on both sides of the fence.

When all other things are equal (and sometimes when they are not) people like doing business with people they like.

I am "vetting" on you to be better in 2013 than you were in 2012,

Dan