For 3PLs & freight brokerages
The Ultimate Growth Assist
We book qualified lane reviews with the shipping and logistics managers who actually award freight, warmed up before the call and timed to RFP season.
Running freight is the doable part, carriers, tracking, claims, margins are challenges you can figure out. Growth in a 3PL comes down to one thing: getting into the shipper’s routing guide, because freight is awarded in annual RFPs and mini-bids to providers the manager already trusts, and defended between them by whoever performs. That means getting in front of shipping managers before RFP season, and most brokerages still do it with brute-force cold grind.
The market is vast and fragmented, thousands of brokerages chasing the same shippers, which is why volume-dialing has stopped working: every logistics manager’s phone is already ringing. What breaks through is relevance, knowing their lanes, their season, their pain carrier, before the call.
But who's making that happen? Usually the owner, between loads, maybe one salesperson. Referrals and reputation don't scale to every shipper in your market, and the digital brokerages and enterprise 3PLs run whole business-development teams with the backing to fund them. You win on quality and lose on reach. Reach is the part we fix.
Not "leads." Not a list. A confirmed lane review or freight-spend conversation with a decision-maker who controls freight spend at shippers matching your lanes and modes, fits your mode, lane, and volume fit, and is open to a conversation, booked on your calendar, ready for your account exec.
The person who actually signs is one of a few: a shipping or logistics manager, a supply chain director, a plant or DC manager who feels the failures, or the CFO watching the freight line. We find them, reach them, and qualify the meeting to your terms, modes, lanes, volumes, contract timing.
That qualification is the whole point: your selling time goes to lane reviews that can become routing-guide positions and recurring lanes, not tire-kickers and price-shoppers. You spend your day on shippers worth winning.
Programs run $5,250/mo (one dedicated Playmaker) to $14,750/mo (three), on six-month terms, data, technology, and management included. Set that against the math that actually matters in your business: a routing-guide position bills load after load, all year, and grows lane by lane once you’re in. One mid-size shipper won usually pays for the program in a quarter.
In-house appointment setter
~$154K
per person, per year, all-in
Salary, benefits, tools, data, management, and a 3 to 6 month ramp before they're productive. A rep who can't fill the pipeline still costs every penny.
Calling shop / per-seat
~$11K
per seat, per month, typical
Bought lists, auto-dialers, activity reports. You pay for dials whether or not a real buyer ever books a review.
Alleyoop programs
$5,250–$14,750
per month, six-month terms
One flat fee, the team, the data, the technology. Qualified lane reviews on your calendar, live in under 30 days. See the programs →
One connected system, not a phone bank. Technology finds the shippers worth pursuing, marketing warms them before any contact, we catch the ones already shopping, we map everyone who weighs in on the decision, and a real person books the review.
We build the target list, shipping and logistics managers at shippers matching your modes and lanes, prioritized by fit and by whose RFP calendars and carrier failures put freight in play.
The right marketing warms those exact accounts before any outreach, so your name is already familiar when the first call comes.
Our technology flags companies researching freight brokers, 3PL services, or carrier capacity, often before anything goes out to bid.
A freight decision runs through several people, logistics manager, supply chain director, plant ops, finance. We map all of them, not one name on a list.
When a buyer is genuinely interested, a dedicated Playmaker, a real person, has the conversation and books the review on your calendar.
A program is live in under 30 days, with first lane reviews landing in weeks 3 to 4. Contract freight is awarded in annual RFP season and adjusted in mini-bids all year, and the providers invited are the ones the manager already knows. The right time to meet a shipper is the quarter before the bid.
Freight runs on two clocks: the RFP calendar that decides the routing guide, and the daily failures, missed pickups, blown transit times, capacity crunches, that crack it open between bids. We work both: warming shippers ahead of bid season so you’re invited, and catching the failure moments when a manager is finally willing to try someone new on one lane.
And it compounds. The accounts you warmed this year, the buyers you mapped, the relationships you started, they become the pipeline that fills next year without starting cold. Year two of a program is stronger than year one for exactly that reason.
Two things make 3PL sales close to ideal for a real outbound program: routing-guide revenue that recurs load after load, and award moments that follow a visible calendar. The only hard part is being known to enough shippers before the bid, and being there when the incumbent fails. That’s the one thing we do.
Shippers try you on one lane, then hand you more as you perform. Every first meeting is an expansion engine, not a one-off sale.
Bid season timing per shipper is discoverable, and the invite list is set by familiarity. Outbound run a quarter ahead puts you on it.
Every service failure by an incumbent is a live opportunity on a specific lane. Signal-driven timing catches shippers at exactly that moment.
Routing guides are set in annual RFPs and adjusted in mini-bids, and the providers invited are the ones the logistics manager already knows. Getting in means being credibly known the quarter before bid season, and being present when an incumbent fails on a lane, both of which a systematic appointment setting program is built to do.
Expect $5,000-$15,000 per month for a serious program. Alleyoop runs $5,250/mo for one dedicated Playmaker to $14,750/mo for three, on six-month terms with data and technology included. Because the deliverable is qualified meetings, one won account typically covers months of program cost.
Hiring makes sense if you have the management time, patience for a 3-6 month ramp, and budget to absorb turnover at roughly $154K a year all-in for one business-development rep. Outsourcing gets a full system, data, technology, marketing warm-up, and a dedicated caller, working in under 30 days for a third of that cost.
Because everyone cold calls, that’s the problem. Shippers answer relevance: their lanes, their bid timing, their pain carrier. A signal-driven program with marketing warm-up gets the meeting the hundredth cold dial doesn’t.
Every routing guide in your lanes gets rewritten on a calendar, by managers choosing among providers they already know. If no one’s making you known before the bid, you’re quoting spot freight forever.
The assist is ours. The win is yours.