A manufacturer in the Black Country has a consignment of components stuck at Felixstowe. Their usual forwarder has gone quiet, demurrage is starting to bite, and the operations manager needs someone who can sort the customs entry and the haulage up to the Midlands this week. She searches on her phone, looks at the handful of Birmingham forwarders that come up, reads a couple of websites and calls the one that sounds like it knows the job. By lunchtime, the business has gone.
If your forwarding or trading company was not in that shortlist, you lost more than one shipment. Shippers who find a forwarder they trust tend to stay. That is why more owners in the sector are looking at visibility contracts. But a 12-month agreement is a real commitment, and the sales deck will always look good. The answers you get to a few blunt questions tell you far more.
Why the questions matter more than the pitch
Every proposal talks about growth, leads and a stronger online presence. What separates a serious provider from a salesperson is what happens when you push for specifics: what exactly gets delivered, how it is measured, and what they cannot promise. You already run your own business this way. Nobody hands a container to a haulier who cannot say where it will be tomorrow. Your visibility deserves the same scrutiny.
Our general checklist of questions before signing a visibility contract is worth keeping alongside this one. Here we focus on what matters for a forwarder in the West Midlands.
Questions about the outcome
Which enquiries will you help me win?
Forwarders do not live on website visits; they live on bookings. Customs clearance, groupage from the Far East, road freight into Europe, project cargo for a plant upgrade. A good answer talks about your services and the shippers you want. A worrying one talks about traffic in the abstract and never names a buyer.
How will I know it is working?
Insist on measurement you can check yourself. A credible provider lets you follow results in your own Google tools and sends a dated report on a fixed rhythm. If all you get is screenshots they prepared themselves, be careful.
What happens at three months?
A year-long agreement should include a measured review early on. That is when you see whether the trajectory is right. A provider who avoids that checkpoint, or pushes everything to the end of the year, is asking for blind faith.
Questions about the commitment and the money
Why twelve months rather than three?
The honest answer is that visibility builds gradually and then accelerates, and the early months lay the foundations. We set out that reasoning in why a 12-month commitment. The answer that should worry you is simply that it is company policy.
What will the first year cost in total?
Ask for the full figure: setup, monthly fees and anything extra. A low monthly number can hide a heavy onboarding charge or paid add-ons. With Traffic Engine, for instance, the Momentum plan at £1,600 a month plus a £1,300 one-time setup comes to £20,500 for the first year, and that is the whole bill.
What if you fail to deliver?
A provider who believes in their work offers something concrete when what was agreed is not live on time. No delivery commitment at all is a red flag.
Questions about your competitors
The Birmingham forwarding scene is not huge, and shippers compare the same names. So ask directly: do you already work for another forwarder in this area, and how many will you take on? If the answer is as many as possible, your provider will be paid by your rivals to chase the same positions as you. A clear cap per industry and per area protects you.
Answers that should worry you
- A promise of the top spot. Nobody controls what Google or an AI assistant decides. Anyone who says otherwise is either misleading you or does not understand what they sell.
- Vagueness about deliverables. If you cannot say what you receive each month, you can never hold anyone to it.
- Accounts you do not own. Your results should stay visible in your own tools if you ever change provider.
- No grasp of your trade. A provider who cannot tell a customs broker from a haulier will struggle to bring you the right bookings.
If you want to put a figure on what is at stake, read the cost of being invisible for a freight forwarder. The market is different, but the logic carries straight over to the Midlands.
How Traffic Engine answers these questions
Traffic Engine is Kolonell's service for making your business visible when buyers search for what you do, on Google and in AI assistant answers. The answers to the questions above are written down before you sign. You start with a Visibility Audit at £590: where you stand on Google and with AI assistants, how you compare with your sector, the potential and an action plan, delivered within 48 working hours and fully deducted from the setup if you go ahead within 30 days. Monthly plans run from Presence at £940 to Flood at £3,000, on a 12-month commitment with a measured review at three months.
Every week you get a dated report, and you follow results in your own Search Console. If what your plan includes is not live on time, the following month is free. Kolonell commits to delivery and measurement, not to what Google decides. Each industry is capped at 3 seats per area, and an exclusive plan locks the whole vertical while it is still empty. See the offer and check which seats are still open.
Before your next sales meeting
Take these questions into every conversation, including one with us, and write the answers down word for word. The provider who answers plainly, accepts being measured and tells you what they cannot promise is the one worth shortlisting. For a quick benchmark before you talk to anyone, the free website score shows where you stand in seconds.