Your company told you what your experience is worth to them. The market has a different number. Most freight forwarding producers never find out how different.
An internal salary band reflects what a company budgets for a seat. It does not reflect what the open market values the person currently sitting in it.
In freight forwarding, compensation is position-specific. Your trade lanes, your vertical knowledge, your book relationships, and your years of closing each carry a distinct market value. Internal bands routinely obscure all four. What the market will actually pay for them is a real, knowable figure ➡️ not an estimate, not a range pulled from a generic survey.
Here is where it matters. A producer who benchmarks only against their own company is making a compensation decision with half the information. When a counteroffer lands on the table or a new role comes into focus, that gap is the moment it costs you most.
And the number moves depending on where you are trying to land. NVOCC, asset-based forwarder, boutique air freight firm: the structures are different, the ceilings are different, and the right benchmark changes with each one.
We know what top producers at each type of company actually earn. That knowledge exists. It is the thing that makes sure you land somewhere that recognizes your value.
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