In my new book I discuss the idea that a sense of entitlement amongst brokers is a not so great trait. The premise of the idea is that customers owe brokers nothing. At the end of the day the customer (shipping principal) is taking all the risk. The shipowner has a 30 million dollar ship he or she needs to control and the cargo client will have millions of dollars worth of cargo that needs to arrive somewhere safely.
For a broker - having a mindset that the customer owes you nothing is in my opinion a very healthy state of mind - Zen Reference.
This mindset keeps you on your toes and thus the customers wishes always at the top of any agenda. Keeping your customers happy, by concentrating on continuity of original good service, is a skill.
On the other side of the coin - an equally distateful state of mind is the shipping principal that likes to treat brokers and otjher service providers in a less than respectful way. Most principals i know are brokers too - they just dont realise it. There are very few pure shipowners and pure cargo owners. The industry is full of traders and operators who are brokers but ones looking to make a margin.
We all have something to sell!
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Over the next few weeks I will be discussing the idea of the shipbroking ''fixing machine' - The 'star broker' - Think Steve Austin - The bionic shipbroker.
How to go from zero to hero - Should be fun.
Yours
VS
Hey VS, don't understand your Steve Austin quote here. Are you referring to "Stone Cold?" LOL, can't think of any other Steve Austin.
ReplyDeleteIm showing my age (as you are showing yours)
ReplyDeleteSteve Austin is the name from the 6 million dollar man tv series of the 70's..
oh yeh - and stone cold was named after the character in the tv series.
ReplyDelete