How to hack an industry? I’m working in logistics/international forwarding and I’m searching for an idea on how to build a side-hustle.

[Joker_P5R]

Hi guys,



I want to have your advice/confrontation about an hyper-specific and very particular industry: logistics / freight forwarding.

I’ve been working into this industry for 16 years and I’d like to create something about it as a side hustle.

First and faster idea is to build an informative blog. This is an industry with A LOT of information needed and updated to stay up to date about every news, every regulation, legislative decree and so on.

Basically, a tool that allow me to make a good lead generation machine.

(In this topic, I ask @Andy Black for his precious answer...)

But I’m afraid this is a “weak idea”.

And, being deeply inside, I have a feeling not to seeing all industry potential, because I’m limited by my knowledge.

What I’d like to understand by you, as outsiders, is a full range of ideas of what I could do to build a side hustle that can be useful for B2B and B2C business in logistics.


Thanks to those who will want to answer

 

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[Andy Black]

Hi guys,



I want to have your advice/confrontation about an hyper-specific and very particular industry: logistics / freight forwarding.

I’ve been working into this industry for 16 years and I’d like to create something about it as a side hustle.

First and faster idea is to build an informative blog. This is an industry with A LOT of information needed and updated to stay up to date about every news, every regulation, legislative decree and so on.

Basically, a tool that allow me to make a good lead generation machine.

(In this topic, I ask @Andy Black for his precious answer...)

But I’m afraid this is a “weak idea”.

And, being deeply inside, I have a feeling not to seeing all industry potential, because I’m limited by my knowledge.

What I’d like to understand by you, as outsiders, is a full range of ideas of what I could do to build a side hustle that can be useful for B2B and B2C business in logistics.


Thanks to those who will want to answer

Who would buy the leads? Can you provide a paid service to them?

 

[Joker_P5R]

Who would buy the leads? Can you provide a paid service to them?

Thanks Andy

I'm currently an employer of a freight forwarder company.
I'd always have the control of the leads because, at the beginning, I would turn to them to manage them.

Then, once the lead list will grow in the future, I should make a personal portfolio of customers, becoming an high paid employer or a consultant.

In Italy is not allowed to send contact lists like US, we have a very rigorous privacy law.

But I dunno, I think this is so weak as idea. I cant' understand how to make it more structured to build a real "lead generation machine" for the industry. To become such like a broker for the logistics industry.

That's why I asked for help

 

[Joker_P5R]

@Andy Black, any comment?

 

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[Andy Black]

@Andy Black, any comment?

What I meant was... if you've found businesses that may pay for leads, can you provide a paid service to them initially?

 

[Joker_P5R]

What I meant was... if you've found businesses that may pay for leads, can you provide a paid service to them initially?

Honestly, I didn't think about it.
Or I cannot figure out how to do it.

That's the main obstacle I'm facing. Because I'm influenced and "blinded" by operating in the industry.
What I mean is: even if I got leads from my website/blog, once I send it to a forwarder, the lead will not be mine anymore and will be followed up by the forwarder/logistic company I shared the contact with.

I can sell the leads but this is a one-time sale, not a repeating service.

I'm really struggling on figuring out how to built a good service in this industry...

 

[Joker_P5R]

@Andy Black, do you have any hint for me?

 

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[Andy Black]

@Andy Black, do you have any hint for me?

If you get a lead then ring them back and see if you can help them get what they're looking for? Be the person who rings around suppliers to get the best deal for them. If you get a steady stream of leads things will start falling into place. Take it from there.

 

[Robdavis]

Hi guys,



I want to have your advice/confrontation about an hyper-specific and very particular industry: logistics / freight forwarding.

I’ve been working into this industry for 16 years and I’d like to create something about it as a side hustle.

First and faster idea is to build an informative blog. This is an industry with A LOT of information needed and updated to stay up to date about every news, every regulation, legislative decree and so on.

Basically, a tool that allow me to make a good lead generation machine.

(In this topic, I ask @Andy Black for his precious answer...)

But I’m afraid this is a “weak idea”.

And, being deeply inside, I have a feeling not to seeing all industry potential, because I’m limited by my knowledge.

What I’d like to understand by you, as outsiders, is a full range of ideas of what I could do to build a side hustle that can be useful for B2B and B2C business in logistics.


Thanks to those who will want to answer

I know nothing about freight forwarding or logistics. So I'll ask some questions. What sucks about your industry? What goes wrong frequently? What is a customers' biggest complaint? What knowledge is really useful to have in your industry or operations, but is difficult to get hold of?

 

[Joker_P5R]

I know nothing about freight forwarding or logistics. So I'll ask some questions. What sucks about your industry? What goes wrong frequently? What is a customers' biggest complaint? What knowledge is really useful to have in your industry or operations, but is difficult to get hold of?

Dear @Robdavis,

there are smart questions...
Biggest complaint is about vessel/aircraft delays, custom operations delays or inspections, documentary problems.
But all these operations are made by third parties: vessel/aircraft are managed by Ocean Lines and airlines, custom is... custom, documentary problems are often handled by banks.

My idea about an informative blog is about how to solve all these problems.

About the useful knowledge on my industry, this is not a vertical and deep knowledge, this industry need more multitasking skills but not deep. You must be able to do several different operations but it's not essential that you go deep in one of them.

You can imagine a forwarder like an "architect" of transport & logistic.

I can't put myself in the shoes of a customer. I'm deeply involved in operations so I cannot see problems from a different perspective

 

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[Andy Black]

I can't put myself in the shoes of a customer. I'm deeply involved in operations so I cannot see problems from a different perspective

I gave you one way to do this a couple of posts up.

 

[Robdavis]

Dear @Robdavis,

there are smart questions...
Biggest complaint is about vessel/aircraft delays, custom operations delays or inspections, documentary problems.
But all these operations are made by third parties: vessel/aircraft are managed by Ocean Lines and airlines, custom is... custom, documentary problems are often handled by banks.

My idea about an informative blog is about how to solve all these problems.

About the useful knowledge on my industry, this is not a vertical and deep knowledge, this industry need more multitasking skills but not deep. You must be able to do several different operations but it's not essential that you go deep in one of them.

You can imagine a forwarder like an "architect" of transport & logistic.

I can't put myself in the shoes of a customer. I'm deeply involved in operations so I cannot see problems from a different perspective

o.k.
Is there anything you could do to help any of these organisations that have problems to fix them? I think that would add value.
Alternatively could you add value closer to the destination by highlighting problems as they occur? So allowing customers to attempt to mitigate the impact of the problems.
With respect to documentary problems could you offer something like a document checking service? So someone would scan their document to your service and the service would rapidly check the document for compliance in seconds or minutes. So it wouldn't act on the contents of the document but it would perform a rapid sense-check to aim to eliminate document errors.
The industry needing more multitasking skills opens up training opportunities particularly if you can create industry specific training in the different skill areas.
It sounds to me like you are starting to get to ideas where you can add a lot of value.

 

[Robdavis]

I gave you one way to do this a couple of posts up.

I like your posts on this topic. It seems to me like Joker P5R has lots of possibilities that he can do.

 

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[Joker_P5R]

If you get a lead then ring them back and see if you can help them get what they're looking for? Be the person who rings around suppliers to get the best deal for them. If you get a steady stream of leads things will start falling into place. Take it from there.

That's what I had in my mind when I talk about informative blog.
Being into operations, employed in freight forwarding agent, I cannot call every single customer to check. I'm not allowed to do that.

What I have in mind is to "operate in shadows" and be able to attract prospects through the blog, give them a lot of infos to build trust, and ask them what they are looking for to be more focused on the service to be provided.

To reply to @Robdavis, about your quote:

With respect to documentary problems could you offer something like a document checking service? So someone would scan their document to your service and the service would rapidly check the document for compliance in seconds or minutes.

A document scanning service assumes to build a software to mechanize the process.
At the moment I should do that only manually and that's a huge work that assumes replies in days, rather than in minutes.

Alternatively, I can write a guideline post to help customers to check the right information on each document to be valid for import/export. That's just an idea... But I still have in my mind that blog may be a too weak idea... I don't know what to think...

Maybe I'm just overthinking... and lead to procrastination...

 

[svekk1]

I don't have any background or knowledge in the logistic industry, but you mentioned that it is an information heavy industry.

Is that information structured (like in tables) or unstructured (long text out of which useful data has to be extracted). How is this information used? By who, for what?

If you have to look for unstructured data from different sources, frequently, you can build a data brokerage software company that has all this kind of data in one place in forms of tables, updated that can save time.

 

[Andy Black]

That's what I had in my mind when I talk about informative blog.
Being into operations, employed in freight forwarding agent, I cannot call every single customer to check. I'm not allowed to do that.

What I have in mind is to "operate in shadows" and be able to attract prospects through the blog, give them a lot of infos to build trust, and ask them what they are looking for to be more focused on the service to be provided.

To reply to @Robdavis, about your quote:



A document scanning service assumes to build a software to mechanize the process.
At the moment I should do that only manually and that's a huge work that assumes replies in days, rather than in minutes.

Alternatively, I can write a guideline post to help customers to check the right information on each document to be valid for import/export. That's just an idea... But I still have in my mind that blog may be a too weak idea... I don't know what to think...

Maybe I'm just overthinking... and lead to procrastination...

What I don't like about a blog as your first stab at a side-business is you're writing to the abyss hoping people find your content and that it helps them.

My preference would be to find communities or groups of people who need help and help them there and then, then start creating content from those interactions.

Some threads that spring to mind (hope they're helpful... I'm not sure):

• HOT! - MARKETING - How to use forums (and Facebook groups)
• HOT! - MINDSET - Stop Building Stuff
• GOLD! - HOT! - Who have you helped?

 

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[Joker_P5R]

What I don't like about a blog as your first stab at a side-business is you're writing to the abyss hoping people find your content and that it helps them.

My preference would be to find communities or groups of people who need help and help them there and then, then start creating content from those interactions.

Some threads that spring to mind (hope they're helpful... I'm not sure):

• HOT! - MARKETING - How to use forums (and Facebook groups)
• HOT! - MINDSET - Stop Building Stuff
• GOLD! - HOT! - Who have you helped?

@Andy Black that's exactly why I'm thinking that blog is a weak idea.
To write in an abyss of word hoping that someone will read my content, or pay a lot of ads always hoping that someone clicks on my ad and discover my blog.

I considered your idea to work into forums and groups. The problems is that forums are mostly created and populated by other freight forwarders.

This is a very niche industry, 99% B2B, where information are mostly appreciated by the people that already works in logistic/forwarding, basically competitors.

The main question, for common customer is: "Why the shipment is not arrived yet?"
Think about yourself, have you ever think about the process behind the delivery of your amazon box? Nope, I think.

Since this is not my own company, I can't sell such kind of a "package of services" that the company I'm working for can sell to customers.

I do not have control on this, I only have control on information I can give, that are always valid, hoping that customer trust me and ask to have a quote for his shipment.

I'm basically an "outsurced marketing office" of the company I'm working for...

 

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black that's exactly why I'm thinking that blog is a weak idea.
To write in an abyss of word hoping that someone will read my content, or pay a lot of ads always hoping that someone clicks on my ad and discover my blog.

I considered your idea to work into forums and groups. The problems is that forums are mostly created and populated by other freight forwarders.

This is a very niche industry, 99% B2B, where information are mostly appreciated by the people that already works in logistic/forwarding, basically competitors.

The main question, for common customer is: "Why the shipment is not arrived yet?"
Think about yourself, have you ever think about the process behind the delivery of your amazon box? Nope, I think.

Since this is not my own company, I can't sell such kind of a "package of services" that the company I'm working for can sell to customers.

I do not have control on this, I only have control on information I can give, that are always valid, hoping that customer trust me and ask to have a quote for his shipment.

I'm basically an "outsurced marketing office" of the company I'm working for...

I'm not saying to totally discount a blog or website. Maybe do the keyword research and find out what has search volume and then what shows up on Google. Is there demand with poor supply? Maybe there's then an opportunity. @MTF has a progress thread on the inside where he's starting content sites from scratch. I'm sure there's other threads in the forum related.