Yearly, america exports billions of {dollars} value of forest merchandise — every thing from the uncooked timber utilized in building to the reams of paper utilized in workplaces everywhere in the world.
Most individuals don’t give a lot thought to how all these containers of copy paper make their technique to the warehouses and cabinets of their native retailers. However these questions hold Steve Zambo, founding father of Ally International Logistics (AGL), up at night time.
Based in 2013, AGL started as an exporter of products for producers within the forest merchandise sector. In 2020, like most companies all over the world, AGL discovered itself going through a pandemic crossroads.
That is the story of how Zambo and his workforce at AGL not solely weathered essentially the most economically disruptive occasion in latest reminiscence, however grew their enterprise and elevated income by 275% in simply three years.
Regular Progress, Unprecedented Change
Logistics is among the many most advanced of industries. Coordinating the delivery of widespread on a regular basis items throughout even quick distances requires refined stock and fleet administration techniques, which makes exporting specialised cargo equivalent to timber that rather more difficult.
Shortly after AGL was established in 2013, the US forest merchandise business skilled a interval of sustained development. Between 2016 and 2018, whole US forest product exports elevated from about $37.7 billion to about $40.9 billion, and AGL grew together with the remainder of the business.
That development, in addition to just about every thing else on this planet, was stopped in its tracks by the emergence of COVID-19. Because the world entered varied levels of lockdown measures in an try and comprise the unfold of the virus, worldwide commerce, together with a lot of the import/export business, floor to a halt.
Virtually in a single day, AGL’s enterprise was confronted with perilous uncertainty. In an try and mitigate the worst impacts of the pandemic, AGL determined to diversify its enterprise operations to incorporate a brand new, home arm.
“COVID was the catalyst for creating a brand new income stream. If we have been going to outlive, we would wish to diversify our enterprise,” Zambo says. “That is once we determined that launching a home division to serve clients in North America wouldn’t solely broaden our alternative, but in addition present a layer of stability for our enterprise transferring ahead.”
That call was simply step one. If AGL was to efficiently make the transition and survive, the gross sales workforce must establish new potential clients, in addition to providers past AGL’s core experience.
“Not solely have been we seeking to prospect into corporations situated in america, however we additionally determined to begin exploring new alternatives for serving industries outdoors of forest merchandise,” Zambo says.
Zambo and his workforce at AGL wanted a accomplice to assist them navigate this era of intense uncertainty.
That’s when Zambo found ZoomInfo.
New Alternatives, New Methods to Promote
Like many industries previous to the pandemic, enterprise within the import/export sector was largely pushed by in-person relationships.
Earlier than COVID, conferences and commerce occasions have been essential to AGL’s networking efforts. The sudden introduction of journey restrictions and limits on in-person occasions pressured Zambo to rethink how AGL would establish new markets and shut new enterprise.
“We didn’t have a proper prospecting technique,” Zambo says. “We operated in a standard method, leveraging current relationships and pitching to prospects in face-to-face situations. Now, with ZoomInfo, we’re capable of simply establish key prospects in new markets and export their particulars instantly into our CRM for our gross sales reps to start prospecting.”
Utilizing ZoomInfo, AGL refined its prospecting to proactively goal corporations that had demonstrated sturdy shopping for intent, and aligned carefully with the profiles of AGL’s most well-liked patrons and best-fit prospects. Zambo’s gross sales workforce might now analyze earlier offers together with missed alternatives, to establish areas of enchancment and maximize the affect of their go-to-market motions.
Zambo’s workforce wasn’t simply reaching extra leads, they have been participating stronger leads with higher info, leading to bigger offers and better revenues.
“ZoomInfo has given us a greater understanding of who we needs to be focusing on, serving to us additional house in on the important thing attributes that make up our splendid buyer profile,” Zambo says. “This has been extremely useful as we proceed tapping into new areas of our whole addressable market.”
Extra Shipments, Extra Income
It didn’t take lengthy to see the affect of the brand new data-driven go-to-market technique on AGL’s backside line.
After the primary 12 months since changing into a ZoomInfo buyer, AGL’s home income was $800,000. In its second 12 months, AGL achieved revenues of $8 million — a tenfold enhance. Zambo says AGL anticipates exceeding $12 million of home income in 2023.
“ZoomInfo helps us faucet into new markets and construct a closeable pipeline at scale,” Zambo says. “In 2020, we did 959 shipments in the complete 12 months. To this point this 12 months, we’ve carried out 3,300 shipments and are on observe to cross 4,000. We’re additionally now the [second-largest] forest merchandise exporter in america, and are frequently increase the verticals that we help.”
Few industries have skilled as a lot disruption lately because the logistics sector. The pandemic revealed fragility in world provide chains in methods which can be nonetheless being felt, from sharp will increase in the price of delivery items abroad to heightened shopper demand for paper merchandise equivalent to bathroom paper.
However startups within the logistics sector had been laborious at work innovating beneath difficult situations even earlier than the pandemic. Fast developments in automated trucking applied sciences, elevated demand for seamless real-time stock and fleet administration applied sciences, and ongoing environmental and geopolitical pressures are all reworking the logistics sector, creating issues in addition to alternative.
With ZoomInfo, AGL isn’t simply sourcing new enterprise extra successfully and shutting bigger offers. It’s fulfilling its mission to function a trusted ally to its companions navigating a interval of immense change — a promise that has been central to AGL’s philosophy from the very starting.
“After I shaped the corporate, I named it ‘Ally’ as a result of we needed to be greater than only a logistics firm,” Zambo says. “We needed to really be an ally. It’s not simply transactional. We actually care about what [our customers] are doing.”
