Unknown:
0:00
Music.
grace:
0:05
But like, for instance, like, there's been talks a lot about like, how companies like ch Robinson have lock let go. A lot of their more tenured employees have been there for years and years and years. And I think that points to, like, the different way that we're moving freight right, like the more technological focus, more AI automation, and who's going to thrive during those changes, I think, are those who've only been a part of the industry for a couple years, who are younger, right, and are looking to apply that more to their job, who aren't afraid of chat GPT and and see it as a tool instead of something that could take their job. Welcome
Blythe Brumleve:
0:48
into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast where the thinkers and freight we are proudly presented by SPI logistics, and I'm your host. Blythe Milligan, oh, my God, right. This is my second show, producing myself with a new last name. So it's, it's going to take a little while to get used to it, but we're joined alongside Grace shark, great way to fame. And so welcome grace. Back to the show. It's nice to meet you. Blythe Milligan,
Unknown:
1:17
like Elizabeth Mulligan, I can't, I'm not sure. Wow. Crazy. I told you this. How did you not know this? A terrible listener.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:30
We've got a great show for y'all today, because we are going to be back at it. We're going to be talking about icebreaker ships, not icebreaker conversations like Grace may have thought before we hit record on the show, but icebreaker ships, then we're going to get into a TMSA, jets, transportation marketing and sales Association. They release this benchmark survey on all the latest and greatest marketing tools and sales initiatives and budgets of what's going on in the industry. They pulled their audience, and that study is available to members, but we're going to share a few of our takeaways from that study, and then we're gonna get into, of course, what we do on every single show. And let's talk about some of our favorite businesses and freight at the moment, and then end it with source to porch. And that is our logistics of and we pick an item to talk about, or, I guess, an item is probably the correct verbiage here, but pick something to talk about in this section of how a product originates and how it ends up as close to your Porsche as possible, because I think we have a few different stories that will fit that bill a little bit later on. And then we're going to round out the show with an f3 preview. That is the freight waves, future of supply chain conference or no feature of freight festival, that is the November conference that happens in Chattanooga, Tennessee each year. The future of supply chain is the June conference that freightwaves does. So we're gonna do a little preview of that to round out the show. But let's go ahead and get started on icebreaker ships, because this is a very it's one of those things that you hear in shipping, and I don't know that I have the had the full grasp on it, on why people even want to establish this shipping lane. Did you? Did you know about this? I guess shipping lane, or shipping story, before you know, we were doing research for this.
Unknown:
3:21
I guess, no, not in particular. I mean, I know of icebreakers clearly, just like being where I'm from, and have seen them before. But no, not in particular. No, well, I think for the first I want to play this. I want to start off this section with why this sea route is important, because essentially what we have throughout the world is that we have these shipping lanes, these big trade lanes, which are safe passages, or somewhat safe passages, that giant cargo ships, oil tankers, fishing vessels, that they can travel through and end up at their destination in The quickest, most efficient time period, and with this new route that is opening up, largely in part because of the ice melting in the Arctic region. So that's the North Pole. We're not talking about Antarctica, which is the south pole. So the North Pole is where a lot of this ice is melting, and it's starting to open up faster and more efficient shipping lanes. But that brings a whole lot of sort of discussion, geopolitical, natural resources. It brings up a whole lot of discussions. But first, before we get into some of our favorite takeaways about learning about this topic, I want to play this video that will kind of give like a good I think overall, our overarching view of what this is and why it's important. So let's play the clip. This is the North West Passage. It's a sea passage that spans 900 miles and joins the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic archipelago. It may look insignificant, but the truth is, this passage has the potential to change everything. The only problem. Is that it doesn't exist yet. Well, sort of you see, we've known about this passage for centuries, but it's always too COVID in sea ice to be used for regular marine shipping during most of the year. But now this is all potentially changing. Since 1979 the Arctic sea ice has declined by 40% with NASA saying it's currently disappearing at a rate of 13% per decade, put simply, the Arctic sea ice is melting and also being replaced with thinner seasonal ice due to climate change. And this means that eventually, whether it be by 2050, 2100, or somewhere in between, the Northwest Passage will become fully navigable for mega container ships for at least a few months out of the year. The importance and geopolitical ramifications of this cannot be understated. In fact, the reason we've known of this passage for centuries is because of how transformative it would be. Even back then, European explorers, beginning with Christopher Columbus in 1492 searched for a direct trade route from Western Europe to East Asia, but they never found one. It took until 1850 for the first icy northern passage to be discovered, or well technically invented, and until 1906 when it was finally traversed by the legendary role Amundsen. Since that first crossing, there have been at least 320 transits up until 2021 with 38 of them being from 2019 to 2021 showing it's still a pretty challenging passage to traverse. So I'm going to stop it right there, because that's a really good point to I guess, Intro This discussion of what exactly like icebreaker ships are. Now you kind of have a general overview of what's happening in that region and why these ships are starting to be needed. Basically, with icebreakers, there's two types of icebreakers where one has a bow that sticks out much further than, I guess, sort of the top of a traditional ship. Of what you can see, it has an underneath that sort of, you know, can bust through the ice, up to six feet of ice that it could bust through before the actual, I guess, sort of real part of the bow that you see on a traditional ship makes it has to, you know, sort of slosh through it. So there's that method of it. And then there's another method of icebreaker ship that they almost try to go as fast as possible so they can get up on the ice and then come down and crack it that way. And so there's a bunch of different like videos where they can see, like, especially in this region of cargo ships and or mostly like, oil and gas ships that are being caught in this ice up north in the Arctic, and these icebreaker ships have to go through and do one of those two methods in order to carve out a path For those ships to make it through. So I'll stop right there, since we, you know, had the video and explained it a little more, but what, I guess, what are your first thoughts when you know about that, when you learn about this history, when you in the region that you're in, what are sort of your, I guess, favorite takeaways about icebreaker ships? Well, in general, I think it's, it's interesting for just trade domestically, in the US, how much of it is dependent on this as well, let alone what we'll see in the future. I think the stat I pulled for this lane in particular was by 2050 I believe this will be the primary point of transit between Europe and in Asia. So clearly, a huge impact it's going to have on on global trade, let alone what we see just domestically as well. I want to, I'm trying to look at the stat right now. I think it was around, yeah, just in Great Lakes, ice breaking loan supports over 90 million tons of cargo annualized. So imagine what that number is going to look like, especially once it becomes such a mean trade line. I mean, here it's, it's interesting kind of, I wish I would have pulled some solar charts from this, and might be able to send you some later. But Well, theoretically, we don't really have much right for this lane, but it's, you know, one of my favorite things, favorite sonar charts we do at freight waves, is the Panama Canal index. That's not exactly what it's called, what's kind of what we call internally, and it helps you kind of see right the rates between going to LA ports compared to going to someone like Houston based on the availability of going through the Panama Canal at that time, right? So it gives you like this flux of a different option that that's why we see so much investment in Dallas and Houston etcetera, because of that path, because at the Panther canal, of course, was widened, which led for more of that option. So I get really excited, just from like, a data standpoint, to see, like, how that would affect overall, like, what we see on trade lanes right now, even through the United States and and so on. So yeah, I get, I think it's really cool to, like, consider and think, right, like, just because of these icebreak. Dollars, the the global ramifications of it. I think I wonder if you're going to get to it, but, I mean, we have a whole pack, right, based on this lane. It's called the ice pack, and it's between, I believe, the US, Russia, China, uh, it's, I believe, no, sorry, United States, Canada and Finland and so they, yeah, the between the three of us, there's the US Coast Guard has two main icebreakers that they're starting to use as of July of this year to start cutting that ice that you just went over, right? Well, so it's a little complicated in that regard, because we've only had two of icebreaker ships, and they're decades old. So they're meanwhile, like Russia has more than 50, and a few of them are nuclear. One of them in the Arctica, I believe, is the name of the ship, and it's nuclear powered. So yeah, it doesn't have to go back to port. Yeah, we can just patrol. It can traverse. And so what's happening with a lot of this polar or Arctic ice melt is that it's exposing more, you know, shoreline and more land, especially like Canada, for example. And So Russia has essentially, you know, claimed a lot of this, the these passageways and this, these routes. And are like, No, you have to pay a fee. And Canada's like, No, you are there. Because this is all I go talk to NATO, yeah. Like, we're going to friends and, yeah, this and, but, you know, a big, a big issue that we do have outside of this late in particular, is there's not many United States owned cargo carriers right as as part of this. So it's, it's interesting like, Could this be a lane that finally gives the United States an option to to gain some traction on that fact right to to have more carriers under the United States sale? And I think that also could be interesting, right? The political ramifications are something that clearly is going to have to be discussed at some point. But it's, it's almost like, if you've played not war, what's the game? If you haven't played it so long, we're going to different countries now, all of a sudden, there's just a different path for you to take. How much that could change, like, trade relationships, right? Like, maybe talk about Russia. I mean, maybe that is a relationship we grow even more so just knowing that the economic ramifications of of ignoring that relationship, right? So, I mean, it's, it's this, it sounds like we'll probably air after the election, but like, ooh, like, it's crazy to think, like that could be an election topic, right? Are you in freight sales with a book of business looking for a new home, or perhaps you're a freight agent in need of a better partnership? These are the kinds of conversations we're exploring in our podcast interview series called The freight agent trenches, sponsored by SPI logistics. Now I can tell you all day that SPI is one of the most successful logistics firms in North America who helps their agents with back office operations such as admin, finance, it and sales, but I would much rather you hear it directly from SBI freight agents themselves. And what better way to do that than by listening to the experienced freight agents tell their stories behind the how and the why they joined SPI hit the freight agent link in our show notes to listen to these conversations, or if you're ready to make the jump, visit SPI three. Pl.com, well, it's, uh, it's to your your earlier point about the Panama Canal and for cargo companies, or for cargo ship companies carriers, the route from San Francisco to Rotterdam, Netherlands via the Arctic route would take about 7000 nautical miles, while San Fran to Rotterdam via the Panama Canal is about 9000 miles. That's about a 40% difference in nautical miles by taking the Arctic route versus taking the Panama Canal canal route. And you can have more weight if you take the Arctic route, because you're limited. When you go through the Panama Canal, you have to have certain weight restrictions. Yeah. And then there's also this initiative, because I'm sure most people have heard about the, you know, the China Belt and Road Initiative. They have another initiative called the polar Silk Road. And so, if you know your history, you know that Silk Road was this, you know, major, you know, I guess, trade road from the East Asian countries over to over to Europe. And, you know, Western Asian, Asian countries that are, you know, partaking in trade. It was one of the first, I guess, human civilization. I guess not tactics. Maybe tactics is the right word for here. But it was mostly human trade. Was set up in a variety of ways, human trade and commodity trading, which. That up through this Silk Road. And so they're calling this the polar Silk Road. And so it's because of no restrictions. You can get there faster. So it brings up a lot of, I guess, sort of environmental debate too, like, because of global warming, and because of, you know, everything that's going on in the Arctic with this ice melting, you almost have to ask yourself too, like, are we even going to need icebreakers in the next couple decades? Because you have Russia that has more than 50 of these icebreakers. You have China that's building out a ton of icebreakers, and they're doing it to, you know, take advantage of this new trade route that is starting to open up. And they believe that they will, that it's estimated by like 2035 that we're going to have just a huge section of this Northwest Passage route that's going to be completely open for anyone to use. And so now, from a geopolitical standpoint, you have Canada that's like, No, we're going to start charging fees, sort of like Panama or Egypt, you know, they're charging fees to go through the Suez Canal, to go through the Panama Canal. Canada wants to do the same thing, because there's not that much economic activity going on up there, which is another sort of, I guess, a negative aspect of this polar trade route is that there aren't many ports, and that a lot of for the Inuit people that have been there for they're called, like the first, Canada's first peoples, and there's so many like livelihoods that are set up in these northern like regions, and their way of life is melting away before their eyes. And so it brings up, like these conversations of, okay, if you're going to establish these trade routes, and you're going to maybe start building ports along these trade routes, because right now, there are hardly any courts along this trade route like you should be involving these people who are already having their lives impacted. And then also think about it from the lens of if one of like an oil taker goes down in the Arctic like that is devastating to these communities, because you can't even clean up the oil, because it's the ice makes it incredibly difficult to be able to use, you know, sort of modern we had a spill in the the Gulf. What like horizon, Deepwater Horizon, or something like that, I think. But they can use these large sort of nets in the ocean to scoop up all of that oil. You can't do that in the Arctic, because there's you've got freaking floating ice going on up there. So it has, like, all of these different ramifications. And I just thought that was Go ahead until that point, like, I'm thinking about, like, again, funny, or in your election season, but the migration that would need to, like, happen up there to to back a port, you know, like, do I know right now there's a number of really great, like, flatbed trucking jobs in Canada and towards the Arctic, And in Alaska as well, just because it's, you know, they're growing communities and things need to get up there, and it's a tough drive, right? But now it's like, when you sit here and you talk about, like, putting ports in some of these areas too, it's like they don't have, I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen like, the most northern town, but it's like everyone there works for the oil company. And there's, there's kind of a grocery store, you know, it's like, and so think about the job creation needed to, like, support a a true port, community supplies. Like, yeah, there was even just to live, like, putting a grocery store in there. Now you're talking about construction jobs and, like, the just development of that type of infrastructure is, like, just really interesting to kind of consider, right of like, all the moves I would have to make to make sure that this investment, you could say now is really pays off. Well, there, there was another video. It was like a CNBC video that was talking about Arctic shipping, and it was published about a year ago, and there was a gentleman that was on there talking about, he was like a captain. He was talking about, you know, the, I guess, the intricacies of sailing through some of these different issues. But he mentioned that during the time of that recording, that only 300 ships have made it through the Arctic since, wow, it was that the passage has been discovered 300 ships. And so it's so new, it's so fresh, and it's so really, like actively developing or erasing, or kind of, maybe, yeah, like going on at the same time, and it's just, I it's very interesting to sort of watch that geopolitical, strategic chess pieces being made, because that's, it's something that for a lot of our borders and a lot of our, I guess, countries, and the way things have been, you know, this is a new area, much like how we've talked about, you know, sort of the the colonization that's going on with. The Moon. We talked about that in one of our space episodes, yeah. And that is now you could start to see the chess pieces being made by China, by Russia, and then some of the other NATO countries, and, you know, like Finland, Norway, Denmark, all of these huge ports. And what's crazy is that you watch a lot of this stuff, and you forget how close these countries are to each other. I think we're so used to seeing the regular map where it's like the US is on the left, and, you know, Russia and China is on the right, and it looks so far away. But, you know, sorry to the Flat Earthers out there, but with the circulation of globe, you can look at the Arctic and just see how close Canada, Russia, like China, considers them an Arctic country. Like they mentioned that in one of their I'm sure they did it for, you know, economic and political reasons, but they are, they want to be mentioned among some of these Arctic countries, which is also super interesting because their Belt and Road Initiative, which, for folks who may not know, that's China's initiative, to sort of have soft power throughout the rest of the globe by building ports and roads and just like logistics infrastructure in all of these different countries. And they'll do it, and they'll pay for it. But if you don't pay them back in, you know, a set amount of time for these loans, then they get to seize those ports. They seize the that infrastructure, which is happening in some African countries, it's probably going to happen in some South American countries. So it's a very it's an interesting thing to watch play out that will likely be decided in our lifetime, that the art this Arctic ice will largely not exist. In the next 30 years, it's going to be a lot of it's going to be melted away and for the majority of the year. Because right now, it's only a few months out of the year that these icebreakers are largely being used for these routes, but it starts melting away, and you have less need for icebreakers. And you know, I guess maybe the US is playing the log game. And in regards to shipbuilding, much to a grin or chagrin of you know, friend of the show, John Conrad of G captain, if you follow him on X, he's always talking about shipbuilding and China is pretty much kicking our ass in that regard of ship building, and a good portion of their ship building is for icebreakers. So maybe that's a good thing for the US. In the end, there's also a tourism that's kind of taken off for that region too. You have icebreakers, I think, from Norway, that will go into the ice. You can pay, you know, 1000s of dollars and go on this ship, and then you can get off the ship and go just walk around on, like, the different ice sheets. And I watched this video of this family. They, this guy put on a suit that's, like, meant to help you if you fall into, like, prevent, you know, hypothermia, yeah, and he, can they let people wear these suits and jump into the Arctic if you want to? And I thought that was pretty cool, too. So there's some tourism aspect that's going on there as well, but I just that the idea that it's called, like, the polar Silk Road, I think it's crazy and not crazy fascinating, I guess, not like crazy and like, ah, like, you know, I'm going to pull my hair out kind of way. But like you said, in our lifetime, that stat said by 2050 I mean, that's not incredibly far away. Like that could be a main, the main line between, you know, us and and in Europe, that's crazy to kind of consider so again. And just like, I mean, I'd love to, like, have Lauren on the show too, be the maritime professor, Lauren Beagan. And like, the alliances have already changed with carriers. Just like, how would that change carrier alliances, and how would that shape, because global pricing and add the security level to it all too. It gets like, super interesting if you're if you're watching the video version of this, I just pulled up the graphic that shows what what I was referring to, as far as, like, map purposes wise, like how close all of these countries are for this one trade lane area, and you can see like, it's gonna pull like a Sarah Palin, like, I can see Russia in my backyard, which the United States is literally right there, right next to fucking Russia, or freaking Russia. Probably it shouldn't cost like that on the show, but, yeah, close. It's close. But you can see on this map all of the different trade lanes that have been established, the trade routes, and then all of the yellow dots are ports that are currently already existing in this area. And so as this ice melts, more and more, you're going to see more ports pop up, especially on the Russian side. Of things, because this was a major initiative, a major focus of the country, from what I understand, before the Ukraine invasion. And so since then, their supplies and their budgets and their focus have been on that, less on this. And so this, arguably, I guess, depending on which way the war goes in the future, this is going to be a focus again for Russia. Another graphic that I wanted to bring up too is the economic exclusive economic zone. And so this is an area of that same map I just showed you, of which the US has rights to from an economic perspective. And so that's more along the lines of just, I guess, they can drill for, like natural resources, natural gas, oil, things like that. And so that is, yeah, that's another concern, I guess, is the economic zone, and who controls these different areas, and who doesn't? And it sort of brings up the earlier point of, like Canada, like some of this shoreline, or is starting to even emerge for them, and so that's a territory that they have to claim. And you know, very like, it's withintartica at the South Pole, all of the world's nations kind of have a pact. Have an agreement. They have their own little sections of Antarctica, where the Arctic, it's still very much like up in it's it's up for debate, I guess, and where those where those borders are, and where it's being contested. And some countries recognize certain borders, and then other countries don't recognize those borders. And so it's just, I think it's just a really fascinating topic that I'm glad we got to cover in this show. I do wonder, though, is there any difference between some of these Arctic, I guess, icebreakers in I guess, strategy versus the Great Lakes area. Like, is it largely the same? Is it maybe just the Great Lakes shippers kind of all stay within the Great Lakes. Or what is, do, you know, any of, I guess, that routing that goes on up there? Like, are these Chinese companies coming in? Or it doesn't, I don't think so. I know most of them are ran by the US Coast Guard. Um, there's I want to see. I was just looking at the number of them here in the United States. Most of them are used, though, of all the ships, icebreakers at the United States own most of them which I had that number. Where did it come? We only had two. Maybe it's just two. Arctic. We have two that, that was, that was the plan I was gonna make. We only have two that we have 12. Total, only two are functional for the Arctic, where as Russia has 41 in particular, Finland, it looks like 11. Canada has 20. Again, not all of those are for the Arctic, though it sounds like some of that's for, I think, the Hudson Bay up there, and but they're, they're building more out of Canada. And then China has just five. But again, they're so close to Russia to say that they would never work together on that it's, it's silly. So they're, they're building, it looks, it sounds like two more here in the United States, or no, sorry, they're building more. The numbers not on here right now of how many they're looking to build. But yeah, the ones that are in are in the Great Lakes, or just like nowhere near the the type of icebreaker that you would need for that type of ice in particular. But it has made me wonder with but they aren't like they are, I will say they are Coast Guard run. So there's no like entity that commercial operation, yes, yeah. Mm, hmm. Well, they're technically Navy ran, I guess, if you looked at it that way, I because the reason I asked about that is because my brain goes to, well, China's kind of doing the same thing with Mexico right now, where they're just sending a lot of freight into Mexico and then just trucking it in. Like, would they do the same thing with Canada, and then just truck it in on the other side. So I was just curious about that, which I'm sure would especially that was rail lines. I think the big problem there would be, yes, you have rail lines, but they're like, how covered in snow are they at different there are certain times of the year, I think the infrastructure is nowhere near that of Mexico. So, but like, again, it depends on if you, I'm sure could, if you built a port somewhere between, like Alaska and so, like a Canadian port, right? Like that could be an option depending on the times of the year. But I know, again, I struggled. Trucking. It's really dangerous up there. So I would a lot of times there's just there. Those guys are just driving that ice, right? So again, I would just, if anything, though, I don't think you're wrong. I think again, goes back to my statement on, like, this lane, like, think of the trickling effect of the economy. It could do. I mean, there would need to be more truckers up there. They would a need to be more towns and settle settlements, right for for those people that are helping move any of those goods. So again, I don't think out of the question, especially because if we're losing that much ice, I would assume at some point we're going to see less snow in some of those areas too. So a lot of, a lot of what ifs right. And there's, as I was watching a lot of these videos too, just breaking down, like, what icebreakers are, what, why this Northwest Passage is, is so important, and why it could change things from a geopolitical perspective. And a lot of the videos were showing like these, you know, chips that are coming from China and leaving the East Coast, and they're going all the way up to the Northwest Passage, or they're going all the way through, like, the Panama Canal. I'm like, why don't they just go to LA like, why are you going all the way around? And apparently it's the from what I understand, the Malacca Strait is where a lot of the Chinese ports are located. And if the ships come out of the those areas. That's where there's a lot of geopolitical tension, because of Taiwan, because of Japan, like the Philippines, and that's a lot of contested waters there. And so that's why these other routes where China either goes north or they go through the Panama Canal, that's why it makes much more sense for them to avoid the drama in the Malacca Strait, or the potential of drama in the Malacca Strait, and take these routes to the US instead. So it also has some US implications too. Like, you know, is the Port of LA is Long Beach? Are those going to, you know, be impacted by the Northwest Passage as well? And so lot of these questions we can't answer today, but fascinating discussion, brokering success demands a battle ready strategy. Thai TMS equips freight brokers with the ultimate battle station for conquering a tough market. With Thai, brokers gain access to a comprehensive platform where rate intelligence and quote history converge on a single screen. It's not just a page, it's a strategic command center designed to help brokers win. Thai equips your team with all of the data they need to negotiate with confidence and allows them to communicate directly with carriers and customers from a simple control base, revolutionize the way your brokers perform by giving them a competitive advantage with Thai TMS. For more info, go to Tai software.com backslash battle stations. And we also have a link for you in the show notes to sign up for a demo. You know, I do want to throw out some numbers on here, though, because it is, like, kind of crazy, like, what this would cost when we talk about, like, where is this money going to come from, too? Um, so looks like the Coast Guard has they call a PSC program right now, a polar security cutter program that would aims to acquire four or five new heavy polar icebreakers and an acquisition of a new Arctic security cutter. So a medium polar icebreaker, is that? What you're saying a cutter, like they get through the ice, I guess? Yep, so, like icebreaker that's basically like a heavy duty one and a medium sized one, or a medium effort, I would assume, I mean, and it looks like estimated cost for the big one is I gotta move things over $1.2 billion for the first ship, 921 million for the second ship, and$1.1 billion for the third ship. So again, it's just, it's just so crazy, right? Another, another thing we're going to have to figure out taxpayer wise, right? But it's just the money behind this crazy. There's, like, a whole report, I'm sure you probably have some of the data from that too. There's so many, like, just, it's untouched land too. So it's the minerals, the natural resources, sure, like lithium deposits and things like that, that, you know, wars are being fought all over the the world for and so it's just an unfortunate reality that that's going to be something that they fight over next. And how are they going to pay for it? Well, probably through some of those natural resources, I would imagine, or securities budgets. I'm sure they can justify a lot of things for securing that oil there's, there's oil somewhere, you know, oil? Yeah, I think that does it for for that topic, which was really fun to discuss. So, so thank you guys for for tuning into that as usual. Go check out the YouTube. Version of this show where we have, you know, a ton of visuals that that go along with these topics, but let's go ahead and move into our next topic, Grace Sharkey and Blythe Milligan here with you. For everything is logistics, presented by SPI logistics. We're going to talk about freight marketing, and there was this TMSA benchmarking study that was released. TMSA is a transportation, marketing and sales Association. I'm a board member on that association, just, I guess, full disclosure, but they, every couple of years, they release a benchmarking study, and this year's benchmarking study, I think, is the best one since I've been a part of the TMSA, it's been the best one that I've seen. Because I was really surprised going through some of these numbers. Now, this study is only available in for TMSA members, so that's a membership perk. It's a membership benefit. But we're going to talk about some of our favorite stats from or takeaways from this study. First, I wanted to sort of get it out of the way of like the respondents sort of demographics, so let me see if I can go ahead and bring up the demographics of this study, I always think it's important to show who is answering and why. So here are a couple of the demographics from the study. And so basically the respondents that we had where the majority of participating companies are businesses with less than 500 employees and with more than 5 million in annual revenue. Full breakdown is about 39% of these respondents for this are working for companies that have at least 100 employees. So 100 to 500 which is kind of crazy that it's called a small business. When you have 100 employees, I feel like that's such a large business. But then they the very next demographic is micro enterprises, which is less than 50 employees, and that's about 19% of the sample of respondents. And then for revenue purposes, there are the top number of respondents. It was about 25% of the respondents. Make more than 5 million but less than 100 million. Again, quote, unquote, small businesses here, just so you can get additional breakdowns of it, the type of organization that the respondents were part of. 57% were a three PL freight forwarder, truck broker, carrier, well, actually not a carrier. The next percentage is 13% were motor carriers. Then the percentage after that was consultant sitting at 10% and so on and so forth. So those are just some different demographics. In case you are curious about some of the I guess the specific roles of the people who are participated in this study. Time in current position was two to five years, and so 41% of the respondents have been working in their marketing or sales role between that time frame and 36% of the sample has five to 10 years experience in the industry, which I thought was was very good, and so I I don't know why I assumed a lot of marketers in this industry just come in for like one or two years and then bolt and go to Another industry. But that was cool to see that 36% of the respondents were at least. What is that? In my math is right, 66% of the respondents have at least two years of industry experience, which is good to see. Okay, so first, so I just did a lot of talking. What is your what is your first takeaway that stood out to you. I've got a lot. Let me see. Where should I start here. Also, the one place I thought was interesting to start is the tenure numbers. Let me pull those up too, because I think that's at the very beginning of if you tell me what, what page it was, I'll, yes, I'll scroll to that page. I've, I've got you page right through. I mean, page four. Good old, great. Resignation, perfect. Okay, so we're on page four, the resignation. Oh, there we go. Page five, actually, yeah. So I thought this was interesting, just because I think it also follows a lot of like what we've seen in regards to just what we're reporting at freight waves as well. Like, that's, I was like, Oh, I wish I had this or some articles that we've touched on. But to see that there has been for the medium, right? This like two to five, five to 10 year span, to see that the tenure has has grown, I think is, is awesome, right? I think that we'll get into a little bit later. I think that goes a little bit into the training data that we got back and improvements that we can make on that. But a big part of this study too, and we'll, we'll touch on, I'm sure, during this chat, is the technology aspect of things. So when I see these like 10 to 2020, plus years falling off. I think that's really interesting, is it showcases right, how much our industry, I think, is changing, and how maybe some of these again, I'm just speaking on I'm numbers. I'm seeing, but there's a chance that a lot of these older generations, those have been a part of the industry for that long. Just don't know. How to process the new automated Whoa, watching this. We're going to fix this. Keep talking. I'm sorry. Um, but like, for instance, like, there's been talks a lot about, like, how companies like ch Robinson have lock let go. A lot of their more tenured employees have been there for years and years and years. And I think that points to, like, a different way that we're moving freight, right, like the more technological focus, more AI automation, and who's going to thrive during those changes, I think, are those who've only been a part of the industry for a couple years, who are younger, right, and are looking to apply that more to their job. Who aren't afraid of chat GPT and and see it as a tool instead of something that could take their job. And then potentially, a lot of these organizations right are looking to to grow their footprint in this industry and continue on that technological drive. And if the 1020, plus year individuals can't figure out those pivots, can't, you know, understand that training Well, let's have you retire. Let's get you out of of the situation and spend more time educating training. Are more less tenured individuals. So you see that across the board, if there's if there are layoffs, a lot of times recently, it's been those who are in senior level positions, because, again, I think a lot of our industry has been used to doing things the old fashioned way, and the younger generations are coming in and saying, Why, my God, are we not doing this through automation? I you know, like, why are we calling carriers constantly when there's apps that can easily do this, or text messaging features, etc, and their TMS is and that innovation is starting to showcase, and the 10 year overalls as well. So I just thought that was interesting, because we've seen that when we hear about a lot of the layoffs, we hear about it being more of those who have been at these locate these companies longer, and happy to see that those who haven't are at least staying staying loyal at at companies, staying there for a longer period of time, which probably leads to better success when it comes to adopting more tech over time as well. Yeah, yeah, because it one, as you were talking, a couple of these stats that stood out to me is a lot of these people, especially the where we've seen growth as far as time and current position, yeah, was pre COVID, and so right? Because COVID hit, and then after COVID, they've chosen to stay at that position, whereas, if you have less than two years experience. We're in 2024 you probably started in 2022 when the freight market was booming, and then things get a little tight, and things get rough, cuts start getting made, and maybe you decide this isn't the industry for me, but for a lot of these folks that started right before COVID, or maybe a couple of years before COVID, are sticking around and they're, they're choosing to solve some of these technology, I think, problems, or maybe workflow problems. And just the greater adoption of new solutions, new technology where it's almost like we're moving away from these, I guess, large, bloated systems, into more like niche focuses, where you have some like TMSs, for example, that have been around for forever, and they launch a CRM, and the CRM is a glorified email list, and it sucks, and a marketing or sales person can't really use it, right? Whereas you have somebody like a tie software which shout out to them, sponsor the show, they have a lot of these automation and workflows already built into the system, so you don't necessarily have to re haul your entire software that maybe has been around for a couple decades. You can instead, you know, jump right into getting sort of modernized very quickly, and reducing the amount of clicks that it takes to do a simple task. And so I thought that that was, that was a good nugget to bring up. So thank you for that. Another one of these key insights that I wanted to bring up was the sales goals, or just sales in general, is that fewer companies are reaching their sales goals. And I think that it's kind of let me go ahead and bring up one of these pages that talks about it says in 2022 92% of organizations were were able to achieve more than science 75% of their sales quota. However, this figure has significantly declined in 2024 and with only 45% of organizations reaching the same threshold. So in just two years, it's dropped from 92% achieving their sales 75% of their sales quota to 45% I think that probably has a lot to do with the market, but I think it maybe is a little reassuring to folks in sales out there that you're not alone, that everybody is struggling in this regard. But there's. Thing Really interesting going on with sales folks, too. And let me see if I can bring this up from a sales perspective, but their budgets are also dropping, and they're also not focusing on their current customers, because there's a lot of revenue. Let me see. Budgets are on the rise. Probably shouldn't be searching for this stat right now, but it's one of those things where they are. Companies are hiring for a focus on new customers, but most of the ROI is coming from a demo they rarely target, and that's their current customers. And so what's happening with hiring is that you're probably hiring a lot of like young, cheap talent to go after new customers, when instead you should be focusing on the customers that you currently have, because that is your greatest chance for ROI, according to the study. So I thought that that was interesting from a sales perspective, and that backs it up. It goes into on page nine, right? The of marketing objectives, and you're right, if you're looking you would, you would think, based off of what you just said, that your marketing objective would be focused on more of a customer retention or customer experience, right? But those are actually have decreased in market objectives and the biggest, I guess, all of them have decreased. Except for brand awareness, has gone up just a little bit, but it's nowhere near if anything, more of that objective is still going towards customer acquisition then, and I always found that crazy that it's always like bringing, especially this industry brokerage side, it's always like new customers. What's in your feed, right? What do you have coming up? Where I was like, definitely more of a How can I expand this really great relationship I've already built and start taking over more of their their pie, because that's where you start to flush out the competition. It comes less about price and more just about overall experience. So I think that has been, I don't know, I don't know what I really want to point that too, because part of me all almost wants to say, you know, I think they're hoping for a revenue drive with that, like, how many times I can't tell you how many times I've talked to investors or things like that. And they want to know how many logos, right have been signed on, how many new customer new new, what are new logos? How, where are they? What are they? You know, it's like for for me, it's like, well, you know, how much are you concentrating right on, on the companies you already have on, I think a little bit goes into the investor side of things. Maybe that's because we've seen that happen more in the industry. But I don't hate that marketing objectives are focused on brand awareness, because I do think that's something that people need to focus on. But when you mentioned the stats you just did on kind of the customer loyalty and the focusing on a customer churn to see customer experience was that 15 two years, and 15% down to 7% is like, yeah, and as a journalist, like, I, I'm about to go on like, a tad bit of rant, like I, and I'm, you get this too clear. This is like your life. It's like so many people will reach out to me on articles or even just like their own marketing initiatives. And my favorite thing, even as a journalist, is, like, case studies like and you're not going to do a case study at a new customer, it's going to be a customer that you've had for a long time. So to like see that, I just think those two things, brand awareness and customer experience are like so close to each other in terms of, like, I want to stick with you because of your Think of it like, as an Apple user, like, because of the apple experience, it's tied to the Apple brand. So, like, how are, how is this industry so off on understanding that is like, so crazy to me, right? Well, there, there. I love that you brought that up because there was another factor of Yes, business factors have shifted, and what are the top three factors primarily responsible for your organization losing business from its customer base, and it's the inability to grow or expand as the customer needs dictate, or and that that sits at 45% and that's up by, like, I don't know, 23% from 22 or 2022 and the next one sitting at 41% for 2024 is the inability to meet comprehensive needs. It rarely has been price related. So. Customer. They're not losing business, really because of price. That may have happened to 2022 but shipper needs have probably shifted in that in that time frame as well, where maybe they were looking to cut costs. In 2022 they're always going to be looking to cut transportation costs. But this year, the study is kind of hinting that shippers just want their stuff moved in a reliable way, and they need companies that can be able to fulfill that for them as their business needs change, and for a lot of this lost business, the drivers have been that these carriers, these brokers, are not able to grow with them, not able to solve problems with them. And so I think that that's also a really key insight from this study is that by 2024 the landscape has dramatically shifted. The biggest contribute contributions to lost business are now the inability to grow with customer needs 45% and the inability to meet those needs at 41% and they have surged by 23% and 26% respectively, highlighting a major change of what drives customer retention and satisfaction that comes directly from the study, which, again, is like kind of so crazy to think about in this day and age, because there's so many different ways that a provider can grow with customer needs, right? Like, there's so many ways to partner with here's a great example. Like, how cargo right, like, now it's helping so many different brokerages offer a Mexico a very good Mexico experience. And, like, I see that more and more happening, or think of maybe partnering with someone like pop capacity, who helps you find warehousing capacity on demand, right? Like, there's just maybe I'm like, more mad because people aren't reading my articles and, like, realizing, like, these partners are out there and exist like, like, I maybe they're just like, that's not hitting them. But like these companies are, are there to offer logistics companies a chance to have warehousing capability without having to buy a warehouse in an environment where probably your interest rates aren't in favor of purchasing a large asset like that, right? And so I that's, it's, it's mind boggling. Some of this, these results, because they're, like, pushing against each other. And again, like to say, inability to expand or grow like I can't. If you told me any type of, like, industry operation or service that you needed, last mile service, domain, last mile pickup. There's so many different last mile providers that you could reach out to, um, it just, it kind of makes me laugh that, like you're not able to find your customer need. Because I, there's, I can't think of something a customer call about, and I, I would have to tell them, there's no way we could fulfill that. I mean, LTL services, my carrier. Like, there's so many different ways to go about it now, and that's a that's a great point because, like, are these company are these brokers, and are these sales reps, account reps? Are they even talking to their customers? Like, are they knowing where the customers are trying to go, and then the survey wasn't it, or something about it's going to drive me nuts now. Oh, yes, I think the very next one, right? Does your organization have a formal customer experience or customer service review strategy in place? And yes, a lot, too. 39% is a lot, but that's not going to win you an election. Most of them don't. And yes, an informative strategy exists, business and election, yeah, probably the same. 39% sounds large, right? Compared to like, but it's really not. It's like, especially when you add and even the second one is like, Yes, an informal strategy exists, but it's not sophisticated for Okay, that's a no, that's a very nobody's aligned. No one's communicating. And you're talking about 55% of companies like a formal process to understand customer needs. And if we can put two and two together, where, if your current customers are giving you the largest ROI, and yet you're hiring practices and your process practices are not aligning with those customers, they're going to leave you. And so let's do the math people as we're figuring out our 2025 budgets, especially when it comes to marketing and sales. We got a lot more for you. We're going to go through a lot more stats. But I would start there. I would start with my current customers. I would interview them. I would get their top takeaways. Where are they trying to go in 2025 and then you have your partnerships manager or your partnerships director that could start to make some of those cargo or, you know, carry your partnerships, you know, things like that, LTL partnerships, you can start making those moves so that you don't lose these customers, and you can continue to generate ROI for. On the customer base, and so they don't leave you. And then that probably changes your hiring practices, where you're not hiring kids that are fresh out of college and have no idea about the industry, because we've already shown you the stat that they're leaving within two years anyways. And so put more emphasis on your people and the people who have already chosen to do business with you. And this is like a perfect example of when I talk I know Ryan Schreiber talks about this a lot, like hidden data within your organization, like, in order to answer that question correctly, that Blythe is is bringing up right? Like, these lost opportunities, what's potentially a customer can do like that also means being able to capture right your every email that comes with a an offering like, I can guarantee that your sales reps aren't putting in every especially when they get like, a long list of of lanes and quotes, they're probably not putting that into A system. So maybe looking at some of these email providers like vuma, or some of these like different capabilities that are different technologies that like help manage your email inboxes and actually store that data, so then you can actually pull and see, oh, wow. Like, this is a good I love this. This is, like, where my I, like, really love operations, because then you're able to take that customer, and maybe you're only doing like, 10 loads with them a week, but they're good rip loads. They're easy to manage. They pay on time. That's another thing too, right? You have these customers, right? That do that are like, beautiful on the surface, they're like, ice. Talk about breaking ice. They're like, icebergs, right? Where? Like, the top, you might just think, okay, they're a good customer. But underneath is like, I can't tell you how many times you start to dive into these people and you realize, oh, well, who's handling your inbound, who's handling your outbound, who's handling your vendors that are coming into your systems. How many times a new warehouse pops up? I mean, if this economy does start to turn around here in the next year, people are going to be looking at, you know, building more infrastructure and expanding the the their operations as well. So that's your shippers, right? So, yeah, I again, this is like, in order to to answer that question, it goes back to, I think technology too. It's like, do you even have the systems in place to capture what's being lost, not just to see a lot of times I see like, CRMs, it'll be like, Oh, here. Fill this field out of like, what their yearly spend is, yeah, for sure. But like, do you actually have the lane data and things of that nature to say, Oh, wow, this is like, clearly a customer that we're missing out on, potentially missing out on more freight from. So I think the iceberg analogy is very fitting for this episode, because you have no idea what kind of opportunities or chaos just sit right below the water and you are missing them. And so, alright, any last because I want to move into a little bit on the marketing side of things. Thank you. I think you hit most of them the other one, and that kind of actually just goes back to my last statement was there was one on data government. Governance is becoming a bigger focus. What is data governance? Yeah, so data governance is like the ability to know, it's the culture behind collecting and managing your data. So for instance, let's say that you, you have a TMS system and your I'll actually kind of bring up an example from my old position. So we would pull data often, and there's two ways for our reps to put in a load. Let's say it was a load. They got a dedicated load to them, right? They're not fighting anyone for it. There was a way to enter that in as kind of like a sale, potentially, you could say. But there was also another way, a faster way, to get loads on the load board that should be used for spot freight, freight that you technically haven't won yet, but you're trying to win it, right? So those are two different situations. Now, at the time, we had a problem with reps only using the spot, even if they know they had the load, they would use the Spot function because it would post to the load board faster, like that was just in their mind, how do I get my freight to a little bit faster, but not realizing by doing that, I don't know what air dedicated freight numbers are right, because you're entering them into so data governance is like being able to watch over an operation and say, Okay, now that data is wrong because it's not being put in right, or maybe the way that we're pulling. It or entering field numbers isn't correct. Like, another problem could be like, for instance, let's say that you an expected delivery date is just the 30th, and it delivered on the 31st you, as a dispatcher, didn't hear from the driver, though, until the first of the next month. So you just don't really care about it. You just put in, like the first well, now if I was your pull data on that lane, it looks like it takes an extra day to to deliver on that lane, right? And so it's like building a culture that understands, like, how data is being entered into the ripple effects of it, yes, exactly, knowing, like, what you can pull and what you can't pull and how all the systems work together, and building a lot of times that, like, integration that you're into, like Tableau, right? And pulling into knowing, like, what those fields should come back as. So it's kind of like that overall operations of things that makes sense, yeah, and I think that that's, that's probably something that happens so much at organizations all, they probably pull something and go, this cannot be right. And it can't it probably, you're right. It cannot be right. But it's because, you know, I you put it under a different, let's say, a lot of times, right? You'll have a customer who you invoice their parent company, right? So it's like, you might pull that and it says, Oh, we've never done loads for Kroger, but like, Kroger wants has you bill like some other third party. So it's like, okay, well, that's not Kroger's numbers. It's this one's right? So it's like, I'm sure it happens a lot, and that's where people, a lot of times, get nervous about, like, data initiatives, because they pull things having very little, I think, chattels. And actually, I posted this on LinkedIn today, like, if you're, like, if you think you're a data company, and like, you don't have, oh, and your data analyst doesn't know Sq, s, CQ is, or whatever, which, Cl, yes, QL, yes, then you don't have a data analyst like that kind of stuff, right? It's like the data governance and building that culture and building the infrastructure to actually be able to set up integrations appropriately pull information, so that a CEO is getting the right report every time. So yeah, and I think that this is like the perfect time of year to start thinking about these initiatives and how you want to clean up some of these acts and streamline some of your processes, and why, and make sure you communicate that to your entire team. Because I imagine you probably have a lot of brokers out there that just want to do things the fastest and the easiest way possible, not thinking about the all of those ripple effects that you just listed. So I think that that's that's a good place to end on. Well, not end, but to shift the, I guess, the conversation from like the sales focus to the marketing focus of this study. Because I know you're going to like this next chart I bring up, and it's talking about how many tools are being utilized for marketing automation. And one of your favorites is at the top of the list. I know near the top of the list. So we got chat GPT sitting at 64% of adoption rates and Canvas percent, which I don't know if you saw it, but they aren't going to be raising prices as much as they told everyone. So thank you, Canva. We love a CEO, especially a female CEO that listens to their customers, and they make an announcement and it goes terribly, and she reverses it all. So we, we love to see it. So what rounds out? I guess so that I'll talk about the I guess the top four, the top five of this list, because chat GPT is far and away the most favorite when it comes to tools being used, Canvas second at 46 or 42% HubSpot is at 33% Zapier is at 24% and then Adobe Photoshop rounds out the top five with 24% but the very next one after that is Gemini, which is very shocking to see Gemini so new and so kind of questionable, but I is, I think that's just because it's an offering within the Google business suite. True. Yeah. So that's, it's like, it's, you know, I'm, I have the poor version of Chachi PT, so when I saw, like, 3.5 Yeah, so sorry, you reached your max and Geminis my backup. So, yeah, goodness gracious. I, I'm just going to use this opportunity to tell people to pay the $20 for check. Do it? It is. It's cheaper than Canva. That's for sure. You know, I will say I got into, like, a really interesting conversation. I won't say with who we say. I want to expose people, but I dig into a very interesting conversation about AI and some of these tools. And, like, I think, listen to Blythe pants. Million dollars, whatever. But I am very excited to see, because the fact that, right, I can, like, be like, okay, screw you. I'll just head to Gemini. As more of these tools come out. I mean, this stuff's just going to get cheaper and cheaper, yep, and it's going to get cheap fast. And so we're going to, we're going to investment point. Maybe think about that investors, for all of you invested in AI stuff, the fact that you're just fighting for the who's going to have the lowest price over time, but on the opposite side of it, for all of us purchasing it over time, this stuff is going to become just even more, even better of an ROI, I think, than than we see right now. So I'm working on a new product right now that I'm going to be publicly launching in the early part of 2025 and the amount of time that using chat, GPT, the version like for.io which is like the latest version that they have for the paid plans, it is lightning fast. The responses that I'm getting are so incredibly helpful. I had plans to hire sort of a VA, like virtual assistant for myself in 2025 or maybe even just like an additional marketing or sales person to help out with the variety of tasks that I feel like I'm starting to get to a point where I just don't have time in my day to do them, or some of them, a desire in my day to do them. But chat GPT has helped tremendously with a lot of just really that second pair of eyes, that second, you know, piece of information that I'm looking to bounce ideas off of, you know, at 11pm at night, when no one else is really up, and I'm thinking about different ideas, and I just, yeah, yeah, true. I'll probably just go to chat to me, to you too, when you ask me about it. So, but I will bring up one stat, especially because, as we're talking about AI, that going back to the study, which, again, thank you to transportation, marketing and sales Association, TMSA, you can go over to TMSA today.org sign up, become a member, and you can get access to this same report as well. But when we're talking about AI. There's no really rules around AI usage, which is a security concern and a privacy concern for a lot speaking of data governance, because 44% of companies that are already using AI do not have formalized rules in place to govern its use. This lack of regulation exposes these businesses to significant risks, including potential legal disputes, data breaches and ethical challenges. Formal AI governance frameworks can help protect an organization while maximizing the benefits that AI can offer. So that is crazy. 44% have no rules around it whatsoever. So I think I told you about this too at the TIA tech conference, whatever I'm gonna throw names out there. Sorry to expose you. Said it on stage, whatever happy robot got asked that right? Happy robot? For everyone out there is a really cool system. It's done a really great job of like, replicating a a brokerage phone call, back down to, like, the verbiage it uses the background noise. How it I was gonna say manipulates, but it's kind of getting to my thought. How it like barters between the carrier and the the company on load rates, etc. It's really intelligent. But even one of the questions I was asked at the conference for the Shark Tank thing was, well, at some point where you have to tell people that this is a robot, and even they said, probably within the next year. So like, is that? What's that going to look like? And, I mean, I even had questions, like, is it always going to be a man that answers the phone? Is there? There's at some point where it's like, let me go ask my boss if that rate will work. Like, that's a lie. You're not asking your boss, you know. Like, and to your point, like, I kind of want to know that, like I that makes me feel like kind of ick knowing like you're making up a negotiation that isn't real, you know, in an industry that thrives off of negotiation, and so I think there will be a lot of the ethics side of especially the communication tools and back and forth. And, I mean, even Amazon, like, I'm trying to think, if they tell you it's a robot, it's some I want to say that they do, but we should have Mike on this show and ask him, actually, about that stuff. Now I think about it, yes, like, what they're doing at COVID, and Mike, over at COVID, former guest of the show as well. I think we actually just is speaking as weird. You said that because I we have been going back through some of our content that we recorded in the last or in 2024, and just starting to add it to, if, especially if it's evergreen, add it to, like a republishing schedule, just to remind folks, you know, a lot of the people that been on the show, but we literally sent out a tweet today about COVID, if so. I. Be curious to know if they're still focused on the logistics industry, because I know that they had a couple different industry focuses. They're more focused on the retail and E commerce experience, right? So like, where's my product at? When can the the more of that situation, but still like it, what? What's the value of that product? And how do you develop that product? If there is a law that comes up and says, hey, you need to tell people, like, this is a robot. Like, I think, I definitely think that will happen, especially how quickly the happy road. I think it was. Juan was like, yeah, like, that's going to happen, for sure. So, sorry, fruit fly, he's been bugging me. If you've been watching the video version of this show, he's been buzzing in front of my face the entire time, but he's buzzing no more because now he's that's better than a cat sitting outside your door right now, just whining. So if you've noticed me muting my voice or what's when I was because this thing won't stop yelling. But Okay, let's move on to a couple more of these stats, as we are running up against the clock here, and we had a couple more topics to get to. So on one of these, there was another stat I wanted to bring up. And I thought budgets are on the rise, but outsourcing is increasing versus hiring in house. So that was another one from you know what? And I will say, I understand the bias of of us too right now telling you to outsource, outsource things away. Yes, I understand that, but I totally think that, and especially in this industry, if we're talking marketing in particular, too, like, outsource it, like you're I love the marketing people out there and and maybe you have someone in house that's, like, helping a little bit with it, but like, in terms of how you're selling the brand awareness you guys are all obsessed with, apparently, the customer service you're not obsessed with, like people like Blythe would be telling you to become more obsessed with that because of their experience. So that's where daddy comes from. Think, yes, outsource it. At least partner with someone. There will be some value of it, especially even if it's done guiding your own team in, somewhat like get the expertise. But also marketing is is so susceptible to this as well, you have to document your processes. And I know that that's difficult for creative folks to do, but document your processes so you know what you want to focus on, what you want to do, and then you can do the monotonous stuff, and you can outsource that, because according to the study, it says one of the key reasons for this balance between in house and outsource marketing is the staffing structure within many organizations, with 51% of the companies reporting that they only have one full time response employee responsible for multiple marketing functions, The demand for external support is becoming increasingly apparent. Outsourcing offers a way to bridge that gap and enabling organizations to handle essential tasks like content creation, SEO, digital advertising, things like that. However, the continued reliance on in house team highlights the importance of internal expertise and the trust of organizations that people place, or that the businesses place in their own people to steer that brand strategy, customer engagement and overall marketing direction. So it sounds like you have for a majority of well, 51% of companies that have one full time employee that's managing multiple marketing activities, which for a lot of these executives that may or may not be listening to the show, like graphic designer is one job. An illustrator is another job. Those two jobs are not the same. A photographer is not the same as a videographer. A copywriter is not the same as a digital ads expert. Just because someone knows how to set up digital ads doesn't mean they know how to run those ads efficiently. Creating content is just a whole other beast. Are you doing video? Are you doing case studies? Are you just doing texts? Are you doing blogs? Why the hell are you doing blogs? Are you focused on SEO? All of these are individual roles that a lot of organizations have placed on the shoulders, and it's happened to me that you place it on the back of one person, usually somebody that's an administrative receptionist or an executive assistant role that they have to do all of those other functionalities, and in addition to run entire marketing department that should have positions for each one of those skill sets that I just laid out for you. So this is where AI is really going to come into play to help a lot of these folks. And then if you document your processes, this is where outsourcing can also help as well. I also think that there's a lot of unrealistic expectations that are put on these folks, to be everywhere and all of the things all at once, to be on seven different social media channels and manage them all effectively. And build a website and do all of these, stop putting so much pressure on your one employee, which does look like they're getting more budget, but I hope that they're not pulling their hair out in the process, because anytime you get more budget, then you're probably expected to do more with with less people. And when you get to a certain level, especially, you know, it's not abnormal for $100 million company to have one person that does marketing like it is not abnormal. And if you have $100 million in revenue, just think about your poor marketing person's, you know, just job responsibilities. And the next time you ask them, that's probably why they're obsessed with brand awareness and less obsessed with customer they have no damn time. So true, they there's no time to do the customer interviews when you're asking them to be the SEO and the content specialists and the social media specialists and all of these other SEO Oh, and let's start a podcast too, while we're at it, yeah? Oh, yeah. That's like, because you know how this, you know what? I think we should start a podcast. What are your thoughts on that, after, after just cutting your budget on, like, a white paper. Oh, but none of the executives want to be on the podcast, by the way. Yeah, so, oh, good luck. Oh, just the one executive who's like, blatantly, like, bigots and like likes to walk around and and make sure, like the women feel comfortable, like that's but you might have more things to worry about if that's if it's always like the one person in your organization you're like, don't want to have a stage. Who wants a stage, you know, I love it. We feel for you. We feel for you. Solo marketers in logistics. Now, there are a few more stats here that I thought were interesting. Which a couple of these? I think we could really go down a rabbit hole on which one of them is, LinkedIn drops from 100% participation in 2022 to 77% it was still far and away, the number one used social media. Oh, page 29 so on page 29 of the study, so LinkedIn usage drops. All of the social media channels also dropped adoption, with the exception of Tiktok, which grew a little over the same time period from 2022 is 23% adoption rate to present day, it's 28% so Tiktok is a lot more difficult to create content for which, I think is why you're seeing us just kind of a small rise in adoption for that platform. But every when every other platform is is dropping another stat first, I guess, any, any, any thoughts on the social media usage, which I've I'm starting to hear more complaints about LinkedIn, like, it's just annoying, which, I guess it's always has been a little annoying. But it does feel like we, we've passed the peak of LinkedIn. I have noticed, like LinkedIn is also, like, changing some of their algorithm stuff like, I've, like, recently noticed I've been getting like, more backdated things in my timeline. It used to be like Saturdays and Sundays. It'd be like anything random from the past, like 10 days. But now I've noticed that even more so. So it kind of reminds me, remember, on Instagram went from like, we're showing you everything in chronological order to like, trust us. Yeah, trust us. We know what you want to see. And I feels a little like that. So maybe that's the drop off. I can't tell it. I mean, I I think Instagram, here we go. I think Instagram is underused, um, it should be. It's so cringe. It's not cringing, you know, it's, it's the things that make it to Instagram weeks and months later, after tick tock, it wouldn't be a problem anymore. Oh, but tick tock actually makes me happy. Like, I just it's because I laugh or I cry, like happy stories. And then eventually, a month later, like, I start getting DMS from people who are like, you would like this, because it finally made its way over to Instagram, and they said it to me, and I'm like, thanks. I saw this even, like, I think because when we brought up the Tiktok part, I think the problem is, like, Tiktok is like, truly video, right? The least that these are we allowed to swear, the least that these motherfuckers can do is take a picture, you know, and make a caption and get it up. So that's what. That's where my thing is, like, if you are, like, posting images on LinkedIn and Twitter, like, at least, get an Instagram account and start doing that too. Like, unless Instagram just chooses to change their algorithm for the seventh time this month, they also just said that they the Instagram. Adam Morrissey, I think is the Instagram lead or in. Great head of Instagram, he just said that they're going, if for videos that don't get good interactions, they're going to give them lower quality. So your your Instagram videos is, you don't get a lot of love, then they're just going to drop the quality rate from maybe like 720 to like 380 pixels. And so, yeah, they're just going to be like blurry, and they said it's just they're so I feel like I got to do a tap dance every time I get on Instagram, and it just become a platform. One of the bigger reasons I love Tiktok is because I don't follow any of my friends or family like I it's just the content that I selfishly want to see on Facebook, on Instagram, it just feels like it's my entire family and friends on there, and I have to like mentally prepare myself to go on there to just what are they doing today that I don't care about like for sure, I guess I'm Looking at it from a perspective of like, because you're right. I think Tiktok and just the video aspect might be underwhelming, um, but it is also like crazy to see how high Tiktok is and how low YouTube is. Like, just, yeah, both of those posts should go on. Both of those like, YouTube was way down on the list for folks who, who may not know, and they didn't actually capture this information in 2022 so we don't have really have a barometer of like is, Are people using it more or less, but if you're, if you're trying stuff, so yeah, yeah, they and they should, because YouTube just announced that, because used to Be that shorts had to be 59 seconds or less in order to be categorized as a short and show up in the shorts feed and YouTube now it's three minutes or less. And so I think that that's a really great switch, personally for me, because a lot of our clips are very good when they're like a minute and a half, but they're not so good if they're less than a minute. So selfishly, I'm happy about this. But for folks who are looking for an if you're starting a marketing role at a three PL or a carrier and you are just focused on like Google SEO tactics from like 10 years ago, you are going to fail if you took that same strategy and applied it to YouTube, you will succeed like it is, I guess I should obviously caveats depending on the type of content you're making. Does it suck like is it actually helpful for you? There's a lot of caveats there, but largely that statement is true that YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet. They're showing it with higher priority as far as search results are concerned. So if you are trying to initiate a content marketing plan, look at YouTube like the YouTube search algorithm is very good. Unless you're Joe Rogan and Trump, then that's not going to show up. But anything else which had to make I mean, we are recording this a few days before, you know, no, I think, I think YouTube is, like one of the biggest platforms out there. I mean, I in terms of just fighting cable in general, our generation is like YouTube forward. YouTube TV is such a good experience. Like I am, I'm a YouTube household. Like, I watch regular YouTube. I pay for, like, the pre me version a month or something. I do not have cable, but I do have YouTube TV, cable. Or, yeah, I do sure have cable. It's partly because there was an internet speed I needed for Sirius XM, so it kind of came with a package. But, yeah, I just love my cable. You know, one of the bigger things I've talked about is that cable has missed the mark in their own marketing of just the ease of turning on the TV and having a bunch of things to instantly flip to with streaming, you have to be so dedicated to what you're watching, there's no flipping, there's no, you know, just sort of browsing. So I think cable has really missed that opportunity of a lifetime to just market the simplicity of cable versus having six different streaming platforms. Though, I do think that YouTube, while we're on this discussion, is in the best position to succeed, versus like a Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu, because they don't have to pay for their creators. YouTube doesn't. Yeah, Netflix and Hulu and Disney, plus, they all have to pay massive fees for content that is uploaded to their platforms. Now there's a certain danger with that, because you can't necessarily control all the all of the content that's being uploaded. But I think that that's where easily, like YouTube is, is winning. So the last one here, as we round out that this TMSA benchmarking study, which I think both of us will will find this interesting, but the drop in trade show event. As far as a budget is concerned, 2022 19% were budgeting for trade show and events. That is down to 7% in 2024 and I think it kind of goes back. I don't know if we discussed this theory like on air, but the we had talked about, maybe people are burnt out from too many events after COVID, and that's what we're seeing in this massive drop off from 19% to 7% Well, there is so I love the survey this, this, I want to, I want to make sure I'm reading this chart right, because it kind of it tried to say that trade shows, or showing a 46% still showcasing 46% of respondents said that trade shows did provide a significant ROI. But the chart is, the question in the chart is, which of the following areas, does your marketing organization track results, or ROI? Yes, and that is key. Do you see where I'm saying? It's like I have a different question. So I don't know if that 46% of ROI is accurate, but it is interesting to see that it is something that's being watched closely. And then the statement you just made as well, that we're seeing less of it. So for trade show providers out there, those of us join events, clearly even going back to the brand awareness, like being really, really focused on what people are going to get out of it, and maybe even as a selling point, like providing a true ROI for in some way for people ahead of time, like what they could do and what that could mean for the business, might help, because they are watching their budgets in that area, which I think that chart is trying to say. But clearly, if the results are people are spending less well. They might not feel like they're getting the true value out of it then, and this might be slightly related to this part about the trade shows, because in another part of this benchmarking study, they say sales travel and entertainment budgets are also shown to be cut from 15 to 8% although overall sales budgets increase during this same time period, just less is being allocated to travel and entertainment. And so I think that that's interesting from a sales versus marketing perspective, because for a lot of marketers, and you can kind of see in this next page that, you know, I don't necessarily want to go through all of it, that's the incentive of going and becoming a TSA members, that you can see the rest of this, the rest of these data points, but marketers tend to only track, from a marketing perspective, the things that they do or the things that they're going to do on if they can track it. So trade shows are very easily tracked, like you can count the number of people that come up to your booth, the number of sales demos you go on, or that you are participating in at the booth, how many dinners did you have with potential customers? Like those are easily like you can write those down and give that as a report to an executive. You can kind of see on the next page. Search Ads stand out and digital marketing metrics, search ads for folks who don't know are the least likely to indicate overall performance of the company. And the reason why is we've talked about this enough on everything is logistics and various different episodes, but the way that marketing is measured as successful is how many people come to the website, convert and then turn into a lead, or see an advertisement on social media, and then they go, what do they do? They they don't want to click on the ad because they privacy, you know, things like that. They don't want to click on the ad. So what do they do? They open up Google, they do a search for your company, then they go to your website, then they make a conversion, they fill out a lead form, they sign up for a demo, and then what does Google Analytics tell you? Oh, hey, they found you through search. And so what do you? What is you? Quote, unquote, responsible marketer? You see these data points and you're like, I'm going to go spend way more money on search, not knowing that the people were why they searched the beginning, they're just Googling your company and then coming back to the site and making a conversion that way. That does not mean that the search ad or Google search was the reason you got that customer. And so for a lot of marketers out there, like I It says it in this study that search ads stand out at digital marketing metrics, and that is just a philosophical issue that I have for marketing departments, how they measure ROI, how they're reporting this to their executive team. And I would implore everyone to look into this. That. What would happen if you just shut off the search ads? Everybody's looking to save a little money, everybody's looking to save some time, save some budget, shut off your search ads and see if your conversion metrics change. And I would promise you that if you're doing the right things in all of your content marketing and you just shut off the search ads, then you're still going to see the same amount of people, the same amount of folks that are coming to your site and making a conversion, because what are they doing? They're googling your company. They're not clicking on your social media ad on LinkedIn that you're probably playing paying a premium for to begin with. And then you're going to also do Google search ads that just make your brand names show up at the top when, if you have decent, organic SEO, which you do one time, you don't have to do this long sort of$5,000 a month on SEO, you do it well one time, you optimize your static pages on your site. And then from that lens, you can cut off the search ads, and you can have a real indication of how people are finding you online, how they're hearing about you, and then that helps to formulate the rest of your marketing budget on where you should be spending more time if I doubt this is happening, but like x, if you're get if your CEO is on x and he is, you know, talking a lot about your company and promoting it and things like that, wouldn't you want to Know that in a marketing report? Yes, of course you would want to know, because then you would tell your executive, hey, go do more storytelling on that platform, because we are getting a ton of leads from that initiative. So it just helps overall. I know search ads are so easy to track and it's so easy to justify. Oh, look, we just did a brand new website rebuild, and it's sending us, you know, 20 leads a month, when, in reality, it's, you know, maybe two or three folks that are on LinkedIn consistently talking about your company, and someone your potential customers, just go and google your company, and instead that's showing up as a credit to Google search, so that that's my rant. Sorry, it was a little long winded. No, it's fair. I mean, I can't, like even my favorite restaurants. Like, clearly, I know, like, it's probably blah, blah, blah.com but I still google it like every time to go order, because I'm it's just like, second nature at this point. So you like, clearly, freight waves.com [email protected] but even myself, I'll google gray Sharkey freight waves to find my article. Yes, exactly. So it's just, it's just helping to try to make my goal and my endless mission in life is just to help marketers understand this data better. And when you play, when I see search ads as being like the top ROI, it just drives me crazy, because I know we have so much work left to still do if you're looking for any kind of I guess, podcast on more information on how to track like real ROI and what what you your expectations should even be around ROI, I would look up the revenue vitals podcast. It's by the marketing agency. The founder is called Chris Walker. I've been listening to him since 2020 and it has completely changed my marketing initiatives, my marketing life, like how I think about ROI and what is reasonable and what isn't and what you can track and what you really can't track, and just trying to get those valuable, what he calls signals of where your marketing is working the best. And you're not going to get that from like a LinkedIn ads report or a Google search ads report. Their goal is to get you to spend more money with them, so they are going to over inflate their importance to your marketing budget. So I just want, just want everybody to be smarter about these kind of things, like, just, alright that. I think that's about it for this one for the TMSA benchmarking study. So let's go ahead and, I guess, cap off any, any, any last, I guess, final takeaways from from that discussion? No, I think actually, looking at my list, we hit everything. So yeah, that's, that's a good round up. Yeah, well, I will say one thing that I did want to as much as you know, when we're talking about ROI, 10% of folks do not attribute ROI or think that direct mail doesn't have a great ROI benefits. Lot of folks, you're sleeping on direct mail. How exciting is it to get something in the mail that is not sort of spammy or spam related? Someone sends you a gift package? Someone, oh, yes, okay, yes, yes, okay, I see. I'm like, Are you going to send me a postcard about your freight tech, because I do not want that postcard, but you the My point is that you would read it. You would read it. I will live in a company that recently just sent me a hat out of nowhere, and it made me look them up and see what they're about. I also wonder how to get my home address. Not going to ask that question, because I'm afraid. The answer, but it did make me look them up. So don't, if you're watching this, don't send me stuff in the mail like that. So unless it's like, no, I'll take, I'll take. You know, I've recently gotten rid of some yetis, so I'm room for more Yannis, so God no. But if you're thinking about direct mail I did pull up, I'm going to link to it in the show notes in case, in case you want to check out some more stats. But the direct mail industry is not dead. It's projected to reach a market value of 73 billion by 2026, and it just, I mean, the response rates are insane. So direct mail has an average engagement rate of 95% direct mail response rates are five to nine times higher than any other advertising channel. Direct Mail also has a higher open rate of 80 to 90% compared to emails, which is around 20 to 30% so I think a lot of folks are sleeping on direct mail because they're worried it's a bill. I would apologize. I owe an apology to my father. Those stats are incredible, and he is like on the mail every single I check my mail once a week, which for me currently on call for jury duty, got real close, but I want to make sure I'm writing a note right now to make sure I include that in the show notes. So y'all can I think it's a justice for direct mail, because I That's hilarious. Just we need justice, all right. Well, let's so we have about 15 minutes left. I'm gonna, I'm gonna call an audible here. Yeah, do we want to skip our favorite freight businesses. Or do you have something you want to you want to mention, how will I'll do a favorite freight business, and then you do the source support. Because, okay, perfect. Yeah, that works, great. So the only reason I want to bring this up is because I think it's just a really interesting technology in particular, it's not I will tie a business to it that I think I brought up before, but it's recently come out. I want to say at the end of August the it's something it sounds like was a big deal and chatted about at the broker carrier summit as well, which out to that team over there didn't get a chance to go to but hopefully in the future. But the FMCSA right is changing the way that they are going to be, of course, keeping track of of carriers, etcetera. So one of the big steps though, that I think is really interesting, just like again, I always like to look at the technology we use in our everyday lives, the security of that, and why aren't we using it right in this industry, and that is facial recognition. So part of what the FMC is CSA is going to be adding to verification is over time, facial recognition software as well. So being able to tie drivers to the companies that they're actually working for and owners right to the companies that they're starting as well, along with one of the big ones, this is going to have on site locations that you have to go to, so like, you have to be the human that you're representing, like the human that runs the company, and the human right that's on the other side of facial recognition. And I think maybe our generation knows this a lot more. It's something I've been like pushing my mom to add on her phone because she doesn't get it. But there's a lot of we talk about fraud in this industry. Facial recognition does a lot to avoid some of the big problems that we have. It's one of the biggest reasons, or biggest proponents, behind moving to a more digital type of payment system across the globe, because you actually do have a much, much, much lower chance of having your identity stolen when your banking systems, etcetera, are backed up by a facial recognition software as well. Of course, the data breaches is another one that you're going to able to avoid. A lot more. There's a lot of of course work I think the FMCSA is have to do, and a lot of, probably investment in technology. There is a company I think they're working with that's going to be contracting that piece of verification with them, but it made me think about a company I think I might have brought up last time, but just when we're talking about fraud. You know, there's a different, a ton of different fraud companies, fraud prevention companies out there. Highway is a great one. Carrier sure is another one. We're starting to see companies like even clearly, probably working with highway. Triumph, of course, is watching that too. And the list goes on. But there is one in particular, verified carrier that does use facial recognition for and offers this to brokers and carriers alike to vet carriers, right? So being able to say, Listen, these based off facial recognitions, based off the driver's licenses that we have. On file. This driver does drive for this, this carrier, and I just think it's one of the easiest ways that we can prevent, clearly, fraud in this industry is, is something of that technology at that level. So that was, that's basically just my, my favorite business for today. I thought, I thought it was really cool to read about that. Which company is it? So the company that they're working with actually, let me see, because I think it's, oh, you're speaking of, is more like an initiative, rather than like a specific company that's doing it. So the FMCSA, so verified carrier, is doing it already, but the FMCSA is going to be working with. Let me see, I swear to God that I took a photo of it, but they're going to be working with a special company to offer that, to provide that offering as well. I guess the obvious sort of elephant in the room is drivers are already inundated with all of the tech and all of the in cab cameras and tracking tools and big government. They're already all you know, furious about that. How does this? I would be interested to know how they plan to approach that. I guess stereotype or concern, 80,000% agree with that. And I think that goes back to again. And I, I think, I think drivers are becoming more open to some of these standards, especially if it's going to help them provide like legitimacy, right in this industry. But how many of us use facial recognitions on our phone? Like, why is a technology okay for you personally to use, but bad for something that pays your bills? You know, every week? Like, I think over time, that that argument will start to die down, especially in a situation where it's like, companies are going to want to know who's behind that wheel and who's driving. Insurance companies are going to want to know who's behind that wheel and who's driving. That's the only way you're going to get your insurance rates down over time. It's the only way we can fight for insurance rates, I think, to go down over over time too. So for me, it's more of like, I wanted to bring this up in this podcast, because I want people listening, especially carriers out there listening, like, start looking at this technology now as your friend and see down the line how far it gets your company overall, right? Cuz there are going to be people that fight against it, but those are going to be the people that also lose the lane from Walmart. You know it's there's going to be repercussions at once the federal government, the agency that says you can even drive here and or set up a carrier authority in this industry starts using it too. It's, it's going to trickle into other pieces of this industry as well. So I've always been the type of person it kind of reminds me of, like, you know, Brittany over at a trailer transport, right? Like she's always been instead of saying, like, no, let's avoid that. Instead the opposite, like, let's lead with innovation. Do that like, you know how talk about brand awareness, like building a carrier, your carrier entity, up, and saying, listen and we, we hire really great drivers, so much so that we use even to provide legitimacy facial recognition, so that you know that driver for sure is behind that wheel. Like that's a really great sell, compared to, you know, having to say, No, we don't want to do it just because of of of fear. That's, you know, in in my eyes, as you actually start to research facial recognition is it can be one of the best ways for you to provide that legitimacy to legitimacy, and avoid your identity being stolen at the same time. So I just think again a new wave of technology that carriers might have to get used to seeing, and why not own it now and and connect with the companies that are using it instead of avoiding it and waiting for the day that you have to to show your face, right? And sometimes, a lot, there are economic benefits as more money in your pocket, if you would. Yes, that's, that's kind of my point. It's like, you know, when a market drivers were, like, things aren't going great, like, I would hate for you to lose a big lane that's run your business just because you were on top of this, like, technology that's gonna that's coming down the, you know, eventually, by regulators. So and if Walmart's gonna do it, that means Target's gonna do it. That means Amazon's likely gonna do it, Costco, you know, all of these major retailers. It's just a trickle effect. And if you want to choose sort of a line in the sand as far as privacy is concerned, or just, I guess, your personal ethics or your personal morals of what you're willing to accept or what you're willing to give up, then that's that. That's your own choice. I commend anybody who is. To stand up for, you know, a certain thing that they feel passionate about, especially if they stand to lose money from it. But there is that other side of the coin where there's some coin to be made from adopting some of this new technology. And I do to kind of take your argument. I do see it because, for example, right? You see it in the airports now, right? They do use facial recognition. Now, when you are going through TSA, you can tell them, No, they can't use that software, and they have to let they still have to let you through. They'll probably pat you down a little bit more. But the other side of that coin is like, well, it's there to stop terrorists. It's there to to find bad people. So, you know, it's, it can just goes into like the good old like, kind of group thought of it as like, as long as enough people do put into the system, it should help save, save lives or save businesses in this example. But I wouldn't be surprised to if there is an additional step, if that's something that you're not used to doing, but I do think it will help protect your businesses as well. Yeah, I mean, and that's it's for a lot of businesses, it's about survival right now, at least until the market picks up, especially after the election, we'll have a more clear, you know idea of what the economy is going to look like for the next handful of years. And so if you can get, while the getting is good, like, you know, choose your choose your battles, I guess is probably the best way to put it. Okay, so we're going to move into the last segment of source to porch. And I want to, I'm going to do a quick one when it comes to this one, because I've really wanted to talk about this state of Florida was hit by two hurricanes in the span of about 30 days. Don't throw a wedding or try to have a bachelorette party during that time frame, unless you want to just stress yourself out to the max, which is exactly what happened to me. Thank God nothing happened. But I did want to talk about sort of the logistics that is around disaster preparedness. We've talked about disaster logistics on the show before. I can definitely add, you know, links to those conversations. But with respect to hurricanes, I find it very fascinating how a lot of the logistics efforts, especially in the state of Florida, take place before the storm ever hits. And so for folks who may not be aware when a storm is sort of barreling down on Florida, and it looks like we're going to get, you know, the probably two or three that the state gets every single hurricane season. What we do in the state is we have staging equipment. So for a lot of folks who may not know, Florida is obviously surrounded by water, but we also have a lot of water in and around the state, not just around the coastline, and so there, that means lot of bridges. And so for a lot of these bridges, if it the wind speeds get up to a certain amount of sustained or gusts, they'll shut down the bridges. And so what's key for a lot of getting power back on quickly after a storm hits, is staging this equipment all throughout the state. I am willing to bet that, you know, the state of Florida does. We don't do many things well, but we do prepare for hurricanes, and we party for hurricanes better than any other state in the country. And I just wanted to show one of these quick videos of a lot of this staging equipment that is going on. So it's fuel trucks, it's, you know, electrical workers, like linemen, things like that, that they are setting up. There's a police escort, if you're watching the video right now, it's a police escort of oil and gas or, you know, fuel trucks that are being giving that police escort to evacuation routes ahead of when Hurricane Milton was coming through. And so in the video, Floridians will see FHP, which is Florida Highway Patrol, utilizing the right lane on highways to bypass traffic and escort fuel carriers from sea ports to gas stations. And so for that's just the fuel aspect. When I used to live at the beaches, it was a big thing for our beach area, especially near the bridges that we lived at, that we would have like, six electrical trucks that are parked at the beaches, and so they're ready to go. And so they don't necessarily have to worry about, you know, having, you know, wind speeds that are too high for a big electrical truck to drive over that bridge. Or, you know, just wait that extra time to be to allow themselves to drive over that bridge. Instead, they already have the equipment in that area. It's staged in that area so they can address like, power outages like that, and I will say over the last sort of, unless you're severely like direct impact, where it's, you know, it's, you got a lot more things to worry about than staging equipment, but fuel and electrical is one of the first things that are needed immediately after a disaster. So I thought that that logistics out. Aspect was really important. Also, there's a couple other I mean, I can't talk about like, hurricane damage right now without talking about hurricane Helene and just the devastation it's still wreaking on eastern Tennessee and Western Carolina. It is one of those. It's so devastating they are still finding bodies. They are still trying to get to towns that are completely like the roads are washed away. One of the things that we've saw immediately after Hurricane Helene and all those effects went into place, or I guess the devastating effects took place in Western Carolina, was a lot of these bridges and roads were completely wiped off the map. People were stranded. They have to do helicopter like land ins in order to deliver supplies, like diabetic supplies, baby supplies, things like that. And it got so bad to the point where there were certain towns that had to use mules, mules, as in donkeys. And I don't know if like it is, it is. So it's like, yes, it's really, I'm going to bring up this if you're, if you're watching, hopefully you're watching. But this is just, it's so incredible because it's mules that are navigating North Carolina's and passable roads to bring supplies to communities cut off by hurricane Helene. And you can see from a lot of these different photos, they got supplies, these little donkeys, that they have supplies, and they're literally going up through the mountains, and that's exactly what they do. So they're called Mountain mule packers, and their packing courses cover the techniques of packing supply pack animals using horses, mules and donkeys. Techniques can be adapted for many other types of pack animals as well. They have a lead pack instructor that has over 30 years of experience and packing in an outfitter style guide in the mountains of California. And so these guys came into the Carolinas in order to, you know, get supplies to where they are needed most. So I thought that that was just, you might hear a lot about sort of the helicopter drop offs and, you know, trucks and, you know, warehouses being used for disaster relief, but this was a new one for me. So it's not just the staging of equipment before the hurricane gets there. It's the, I guess, creativeness of the human species to come up with ways to help their neighbors, and I thought that's a probably a really good place to end on this note with, there's still a lot of devastation going on in that area. I'm going to link to the LinkedIn newsletter that we dropped a couple of weeks ago that listed a ton of charities and organizations that are coordinating supplies and the logistics of those supplies into that surrounding area. So if you want to check that out, if you want to donate time or money, those resources will be in the show notes. But I think that about does it for this episode, we were supposed to get done right at 2pm because we both have meetings, so I'm trying to wrap this up as soon as possible. Again, links in the show notes. Any freight waves? Oh, we didn't even do the freight waves. We'll do it next time. But everyone go to live.freightways.com f3 is coming up next month. It's going to be a good old time. If you are interested in ticket packages, reach out to me directly. G Sharkey at freight waves com, uh, shoot me a message on any social media sites and I will get you linked up with the right people at three. We're going to make sure we put that in the show notes as well, so folks can can make sure that they attend that show if they're able to. If you're not one of those companies that had your budget slash, hopefully you got some promo video or something. Oh, yeah, you can also get, like, money off too, I think if you connect with us as well. Yeah, so yes, she's got a discount code. We're gonna put it in the show notes to take advantage of it, and then we will recap f3 on the next time that we have our episode of freight friends. But until then, thank you so much grace. We'll put a link to all of your work in the show notes. But yeah, thanks again. Great show you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show. Sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everything is logistics.com and in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let you all know about another company I operate, and that's digital dispatch, where we help you build a better website. Now, a lot of the times, we hand this task of building a new website or refreshing a current one off to a co worker's child, a neighbor down the street or a stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually build the dang website? Well, that doesn't happen at Digital dispatch. We've been building online since 2009 but we're also early adopters of AI automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place, to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees. Fees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as$1,500 along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus freight marketing and sales content similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digital dispatch.io, just check out the pricing page once you arrive, and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go jags. You
