Notes for owners · Sales management
Building a lead list for logistics: manufacturers, traders and e-commerce sellers by lane
How a logistics firm sizes and builds a prospect list by lane, with a fill-in sheet that turns your own capacity and call results into the number of shippers to find.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
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Fill in the sheet below before you collect a single name. A lane list is only worth building once you know how many loads you can add, and that number tells you how many shippers you need. Write down the route, the cargo, your empty space and your own call results. The arithmetic is short, and it stops a list of three hundred names with no purpose.
Sheet one: your lane, in your numbers
Copy these lines into a notebook or sheet and complete each from your own records, not from memory.
Lane: ______ to ______ Cargo: ______
Vehicles you run on this lane in a week: ____
Loads that leave full: ____ Loads that leave part-empty: ____
Return trips that come back empty or light: ____
Loads you could add in a week without refusing anyone: ____ (A)
Loads a typical shipper on this lane sends in a week: ____ (B)
Out of your first ten calls, how many agreed to one trial load: ____ (C, out of 10)
Line A is the honest one. If you could not take another load on the lane next week, stop here and fix capacity, because a reply you cannot serve is a promise you break. Line B comes from your first three conversations; ask. Line C comes only after ten real calls, so use a rough guess of one in five until you have it, and replace it.
The shippers you need to win: A divided by B. The names you need to call: that figure divided by C written as a fraction (two in ten is 0.2). If A is six, B is two and C is two in ten, you need three shippers, and three divided by 0.2 is fifteen names to call. Change your own numbers and the list size changes. Add a margin, since some numbers will be wrong; fifteen to twenty names called properly are worth more than three hundred skimmed.
A worked sheet: a Sambalpur operator
This is an invented case and the figures are illustrative. A two-truck operator in Sambalpur runs to Kolkata and returns light. The lane is Sambalpur to Kolkata, cargo handloom cloth in bales and parcels. The operator could add four loads outbound in a week (A). Line B comes from three phone calls: a weaver's cooperative sends about two lots a week. C is set at one in five and treated as a guess.
Four divided by two gives two shippers, and two divided by 0.2 gives ten names to call. The operator does not need the whole town. The return leg is also worth a look: Kolkata yarn and dye suppliers who send to Sambalpur could fill the light trips, which gives a second, smaller sheet running the other way.
The mistake in week one was starting with a list headed "textile units in Odisha". Nobody on it was tied to the route, and the calls had no subject. The lane line gave each call one. After ten calls, one shipper agrees to a trial load and two ask for rates; the real C is one in ten, so the sheet now asks for twenty names, not ten, and the operator has to find ten more.
Sheet two: one row per shipper and lane
A shipper using two lanes appears twice. Keep the columns plain enough for a new person to fill from a phone call.
| Column | What goes in |
|---|---|
| Shipper, site | Name and the plant or godown, since sites book differently |
| Type | Manufacturer, trader or online seller |
| Cargo and packing | Bales, boxes, loose, heavy, breakable |
| Who books transport | Name and number, confirmed by a call |
| How they ship now | Own vehicle, two transporters, a broker |
| Source and date checked | Where you found the name and when you confirmed it |
| What would make them try one load | Their words, filled in after the call |
Leave a cell blank rather than guess. A blank tells the team to find out, while a guess can turn into a fact in someone's pitch.
Where each type of shipper is found
The three types are found in different places and answer different questions.
Manufacturers sit in industrial estates and cooperatives; ask the gate, your own drivers and the estate association who books transport. Traders cluster in wholesale markets and godown lanes, and the owner decides, so credit terms count as much as rate. Online sellers answer in seller groups and Instagram more than in directories, and their question is pickup consistency; how fulfilment centres win D2C brands covers that buyer.
The three questions for the first call
Keep the call short and write the answers straight into the row. Where do your goods go in a normal week? Who books the vehicle? What would make you try one load with someone new? The first fills the lane and cargo cells, the second fills the booking cell, and the third is the sentence your pitch will be built from. Skip the call if you cannot reach the person who books; a name from the gate that nobody has confirmed stays marked unchecked.
When the lane is not worth working, the sheet shows it. If line A is zero, or you cannot say in one sentence what you do better than the shipper's present arrangement, choose another lane before you spend a day on names.
What to do with the answers
After ten calls, recompute line C. If it is below one in ten, the problem is the offer, not the list: ask three of the refusers what would make them try one load with someone new, and use the answer. Date every row, and remove a shipper who has said no or closed. The routine behind this is in how to build a qualified B2B prospect list, and a follow-up sequence turns rows into conversations.
Start with one lane
Fill sheet one for the lane where you have most spare capacity, and do not collect a name until line A is written. When the list outgrows one person, prospect research and list development is the related service, and logistics sales and marketing covers how each type of shipper buys. If you would like help working from your sheet, tell us what you need.
