Associated Mail & Parcel Centers Blog

There is only one positive, productive thing you can do about drop offs. I’m not saying that there is only one thing you can do about them, but only one is positive and productive.

Those drop-off non-customers think that you are here to serve them with free carrier boxes, help with the waybills, customs forms and packaging. They think that your service is something they have coming to them.

“I just want what’s coming to me. I just want my fair share.” – Sally Brown

These drop-offs have ruined your business. These are packages and letters that, it would seem, could be sent through your account, through your store, through your books with profits attached. Some of the business you had has been stolen from you and each drop off is a continuous reminder of how things used to be and how the carriers are using you.

If this is the way you are thinking, you are at the helm of a sinking ship. So please, if you are determined to go down with this ship, at least get the staff into the lifeboats.

What about working on suggestions to present to the carriers on how they can improve their business by make drop-offs more palatable to retail shipping store owners? Maybe if these multi-national corporations knew how kind you are, how much you do for them, they would soon pay you more for these packages. If you think this is a new and productive approach, your time may be better spent trying to change the weather.

The single most extraordinary event that has happened in this regard is that the carriers actually do pay you to take their drop offs – they have not always done that and I am convinced that they, to a great extent, regret that decision.

Maybe your trade group could do something about this – after all, what are you paying dues for anyway? They should negotiate a better deal.

“We have a retail shipping program that includes drop off consideration and we like our program. If we wanted to change the program, we would have done it by now.” – The Carriers

Your trade group has no concessions offer, no guarantees to commit to, no solidarity of cause. Negotiating with nothing on your side of the table is simply begging.

If you are waiting for a national group to take the bull by the horns and tell the carriers the way it is, you are counting too much on somebody else to solve your business conditions. And, if this strategy is followed, it more than likely will lead to the disbanding of the carrier programs – something that could hurt the whole industry.

You could refuse to take them, or start charging for them – inspection fees, taping fees, smiling and saying hello fees. This, of course, would jeopardize your ability to ship through them at all. Not a good plan for a business that relies on the carriers for earnings and profit.

“Crying about how things should be instead of embracing how things are doesn’t do anybody any good” – Gary Vaynerchuk

So now you know the reality of how things are and how they will continue to be for a while, what are you supposed to do about it? What is the productive, positive solution to the drop-off crisis?

You have to embrace the people who bring drop offs into your store. I’m sorry; I’m not kidding. Why? Because drop offs are not going away and the people who bring them in are opportunities. Besides, you will also live a longer, happier, and more prosperous life.

So get to know them, talk to them, become friends with them, meet them for breakfast, give them a stamp. These are your new customers and they are worth a fortune to you..

“Make a sale and you will make a commission; make a friend and you will make a fortune. “ – Jeffery Gitomer

Make friends with them. Get to know, like, and trust each other long before you talk about selling them anything. Give them value (a convenient drop off point) without expectation (do not “sell” to them).

As you get to know each other, what you do to make money will be discovered. You will try to find ways to send business to each other. People do business with people they like.

Welcome to networking.

That’s it – simple enough? The one positive, productive thing you can do about drop offs is to get to know the people who bring them in and give them value without expectation.

I apologize for the Stephen King ending, but there is only one solution to the drop-off condition – profit from it.