Yearly, america exports billions of {dollars} price of forest merchandise — all the pieces from the uncooked timber utilized in development 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 option to the warehouses and cabinets of their native retailers. However these questions hold Steve Zambo, founding father of Ally World 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 around the globe, AGL discovered itself dealing with a pandemic crossroads.

That is the story of how Zambo and his group at AGL not solely weathered essentially the most economically disruptive occasion in current 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 transport of frequent on a regular basis items throughout even brief distances requires subtle stock and fleet administration methods, which makes exporting specialised cargo comparable to timber that rather more difficult. 

Shortly after AGL was established in 2013, the US forest merchandise trade skilled a interval of sustained development. Between 2016 and 2018, complete US forest product exports elevated from about $37.7 billion to about $40.9 billion, and AGL grew together with the remainder of the trade.

That development, in addition to just about all the pieces 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 include the unfold of the virus, worldwide commerce, together with a lot of the import/export trade, floor to a halt. 

Nearly 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 prospects in North America wouldn’t solely develop our alternative, but in addition present a layer of stability for our enterprise shifting ahead.”

That call was simply step one. If AGL was to efficiently make the transition and survive, the gross sales group must establish new potential prospects, in addition to providers past AGL’s core experience.

“Not solely have been we trying to prospect into corporations situated in america, however we additionally determined to start out exploring new alternatives for serving industries exterior of forest merchandise,” Zambo says.

Zambo and his group 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 compelled 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 conventional method, leveraging current relationships and pitching to prospects in face-to-face eventualities. Now, with ZoomInfo, we’re in a position to 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 popular patrons and best-fit prospects. Zambo’s gross sales group might now analyze earlier offers together with missed alternatives, to establish areas of enchancment and maximize the impression of their go-to-market motions. 

Zambo’s group wasn’t simply reaching extra leads, they have been participating stronger leads with higher data, leading to bigger offers and better revenues.

“ZoomInfo has given us a greater understanding of who we ought to be focusing on, serving to us additional residence in on the important thing attributes that make up our preferrred buyer profile,” Zambo says. “This has been extremely useful as we proceed tapping into new areas of our complete addressable market.”

Extra Shipments, Extra Income

It didn’t take lengthy to see the impression of the brand new data-driven go-to-market technique on AGL’s backside line. 

After the primary 12 months since turning into a ZoomInfo buyer, AGL’s home income was $800,000. In its second yr, 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 all the yr. To this point this yr, we’ve completed 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 regularly build up the verticals that we assist.” 

Few industries have skilled as a lot disruption lately because the logistics sector. The pandemic revealed fragility in international provide chains in methods which might be nonetheless being felt, from sharp will increase in the price of transport items abroad to heightened shopper demand for paper merchandise comparable to bathroom paper. 

However startups within the logistics sector had been arduous at work innovating beneath difficult circumstances 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 fashioned 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 actually be an ally. It’s not simply transactional. We actually care about what [our customers] are doing.”