# Pre-Call Brief: Logistics/3PL

**Vertical:** Freight, warehousing, customs brokers
**Last updated:** 2026-07-22
**Oction Labs**

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## 1. Target Buyer Profile

| Attribute | Specification |
|-----------|---------------|
| **Organization size** | 30-500 staff |
| **Job titles** | Owner/President, VP Operations, Director of CS or Pricing |
| **Decision authority** | Owner/President signs; VP Operations drives evaluation |
| **Sub-verticals** | 3PLs, freight brokerages, regional trucking fleets, warehousing operators, customs brokers |

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## 2. Primary Pain Points

1. **Dispatchers and CS reps burn hours chasing shipment status, carrier contracts, and rate sheets** scattered across email, TMS exports, and binders.
2. **Every "where's my freight" question interrupts someone senior** — ops managers can't focus on optimization.
3. **Rate sheets and carrier contracts are the competitive crown jewels** — margins live in them; staff use the wrong rates.
4. **Key pricing/ops veteran leaves** — years of carrier relationships and rate knowledge walk out.

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## 3. Bleed Calculation Example

Discovery hypothesis — confirm live with prospect.

*Build the bleed live: How many dispatchers/CS reps? How many hours per week on status-chasing and document hunting? What is the loaded wage? What do customer SLA penalties from slow answers cost?*

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## 4. Key Questions to Ask

1. "How do your CS reps answer questions like 'what's our detention rate with carrier X'?"
2. "Who gets interrupted when the dispatcher can't find a contract clause?"
3. "What happens when your senior pricing or ops person leaves?"
4. "Have you merged operations with another brokerage? How do staff know which rates to use?"

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## 5. Proof Points to Share

- **74% correct retrieval** with grounding vs ~5-10% without
- **0% fabrication** on trap questions in our measured test set
- **Cited answers** — every response references the specific contract clause or rate sheet
- **Sovereign deployment** — rate sheets and carrier contracts never leave your network
- **Custom integration available** — TMS/WMS exports ingested on schedule ($250/hour)

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## 6. Objections Likely to Hear

| Objection | Response |
|-----------|----------|
| "We already have a TMS." | "We don't replace the TMS. We make everything around it findable — contracts, SOPs, claims history." |
| "Our contracts are confidential." | "They stay in your network. Nothing goes to a third-party model vendor." |
| "We have too many systems." | "We pull from them, not add to them. TMS exports, rate sheets, contract PDFs — we ingest and make queryable." |

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## 7. Relevant Case/Example

A 75-person 3PL has carrier contracts, rate agreements, and SOPs in shared drives and email threads. A CS rep asks, "What is our detention rate with carrier X and when does it start?" The system returns the specific contract clause with the rate sheet cited — in 10 seconds instead of 20 minutes interrupting the pricing manager.

*Illustrative scenario. Not a client result.*

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## 8. Recommended Pricing Tier

| Organization Profile | Tier | Pricing |
|---------------------|------|---------|
| Single-office brokerage or warehouse | Standard | $25,000 initial + $10,000/month |
| Multi-terminal or multi-warehouse network | Enterprise | $200,000 initial + $20,000/month |

Add-ons to mention: Custom integration ($250/hour) for TMS/WMS data feeds; legacy data digitization ($5,000/TB) for paper-era contracts.

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## 9. Talk Track Opening

"Your CS reps are interrupting ops managers with contract and rate questions. We install a private system that answers from your own carrier agreements and SOPs — rate sheets never leave your network, every answer cites its source. Can I ask how your team finds contract terms today?"

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## 10. Competitors in This Space

- **Traditional:** TMS vendors (McLeod, TMW), document management, internal wikis
- **Logistics tech:** Project44, FourKites — emphasize knowledge retrieval vs tracking
- **Generic AI:** Public tools — emphasize the contract confidentiality and rate sheet security gap

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*eight agents. one organism.*