Blythe Milligan:
0:37
Welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast where the thinkers in fridge, we are proudly presented by SPI logistics, and I'm your host, Blythe Milligan, and we've got another great episode for you all today. We are live in Austin, Texas at the TMSA elevate conference. We've got Mia Mazel on the show. Is a long time they want to get her on the show. So she just co-founded a new company called Talento, and we are going to hear all about it.
Mia Mazel:
1:11
You just, we were just talking, you just got off the plane, you just got into town, and she's sitting down, she's doing interviews. So it's back to back. The grind never stops. That's right. Here we are. But I enjoy it, though it's the rush of life. So let's, I guess maybe let's start off where you started off with logistics. Because did you come from a logistics background? Like, did you fall into it? Like a lot of people, I fell into it accidentally. Yeah. So I was studying human development, Family Sciences, finishing up my masters, and then I got a random phone call to go and move to Columbia and start this new company. And I'm like, what? Me, why, who, what, when, where. Why? So? Kind of, in that process, it basically took about four weeks where they had called me in November, and by the end of December, I had said, You know what? I want to move like, I want to try this thing out. And all I knew is that it took a lot of learning. Like it meant being in the financial role, being in the operational role, being in sales and marketing and everything. And I love learning. So I was like, You know what? Let's do this thing. So I jumped on a plane, moved to Columbia, and then put my Masters on a like, a leave of that, Oh, wow. Never ended up finishing that, which I mentioned that because I actually just finished it about two weeks ago. Gonna say I saw your LinkedIn post that? Yeah, congratulations, by the way, thank you. So kind of a full circle moment, but I really took like a like a turn out of that, right? I stopped working in education, and I just jumped in the logistics in the near shoring front, and just fool like, dove in. And then after being in Columbia for one year, I went to Florida for a year, because that's kind of the middle ground between Columbia and all my customers, these events, those kinds of things. And then I've been with them ever since, well, kind of in the industry ever since. And then now the end of Essex came to lentil came along, and that's kind of the beginning parts of how I joined the industry. And so how did you because I think that being able to co found talento was the key to that from just based on listening to your episode on thinkfreight, he was talking about, or you guys were both talking about how your willingness to learn, and all of those different areas with with swercs, it played a key role in like Helping with talento and getting it off the ground quickly. Tell me about that transition. I mean, I imagine was crazy. I've been a part of, like, a company closing down, and it was absolutely traumatic. And try the least, but tell us about it. Well, yeah, such a trauma.
Unknown:
3:35
Well, no, seriously, on the personal side. It was a lot, you know, I wasn't expecting it like I loved what I did or what I was doing, and I was stable, I was comfortable, and I wasn't expecting anything to change. So when I got that call that it was just like, hey, like mom and dad aren't finding that middle ground anymore, kind of thing, you know, we need to choose a side. Like it was, like, out of luck for me, you know, I felt some, you know, tension and some items, but nothing to the degree of, like, we're gonna potentially close this company. And also, like, December was the best month we had ever hit in all of s works too. So it was like, I'm at my peak. I'm literally at the peak, and now we're gonna fall so emotionally, it took a huge toll on me, but when I also didn't want to make a decision, just because someone forced me to make a decision, so I took that time to really understand. Like, what is it that Mia wants? Like, do I want to go back to what I was doing and studying? Do I want to continue in this industry? Do I want to, you know, co found a company, or do I want to be a teacher? Like, I don't know. So luckily, during that those three days, I actually was a three day, three, three days, I was at SMC three, the conference in the beginning of January, and I was reminded that I absolutely love what I do. I love the people that I get to interact with. I love the things that I get to do. I love the processes. I love the learning. So I said, You know what? Let's do this thing like, let's give it a shot. I had basically almost three years at s works, where I got to do it for somebody else. And I had started, like I mentioned in marketing and sales, I did the invoicing, you know, I was doing the billing. I was paying the team, the custodians, that were coming into the office. You know, it was just all these random little things that help you learn how to build a company later. And also I had, I was very fortunate to already come in with trust, the trust from the people and the trust from the customer. So when Essex was kind of closing, they immediately came over. I didn't have to, you know, hound anybody, or, you know, negotiate or try to convince it was just very easy a phone call, Hey, this is what's going on. Cool. I believe in your vision. Let's go with it, Mia. And so it was an incredibly reassuring moment. So I took what was really traumatic, but. I looked at the positives of it, of how, wow, everybody around me thinks that I can do it. I think that I can do it. Let's do this. Yeah, you had to come up with all reevaluate your entire life, and it's like three days, yes, basically. And in all that, that's not easy. No, you want to build a new company. What are you gonna name it to let Okay, cool. Let's do it like it was. It kind of is like a joke when you think of it like that. But it like that, but it was, but it really did happen just like that, like, literally, 72 hours. Wow, it's a what, what if anything, did you have to, I imagine you didn't have to really start over. Maybe it's just a lot of paperwork that you have to do, manual, like, admin stuff. So no. So for the most part, operations stayed the same, but we did have some change in the administration side. So for the most part, we didn't have the same sellers, we didn't have the same marketing team. We didn't have the same recruiters and operational so although we had maybe, like the skeleton and the boots and, you know, we still had some revenue because the customers and the operations are running as normal, I had to train up all the new account managers and the recruiters, and not to learn how to do the process, but how we do our process, you know, and build out to lento's new role. So maybe s works, did it this way, but to lento is going to do it this way. So in the beginning, I was kind of, you know, full on training all of admin, and setting up the banks in Colombia, and setting up the banks in the US and APA, they are, and all these things that like you don't I didn't have to touch, but now I didn't touch so, but the fortunate piece was that I have some really great team members, so I was able to really delegate and, you know, trust in that those people were going to handle their areas, and I could focus on sales and marketing and keep making sure that the business is growing, so then I can continue To bring on more people and, you know, build that cycle of growing a business. Wow. So you had to make all of those decisions fairly quickly, but you also had the, I guess, the the experience to know, like, which ones were working and which ones didn't. So it was almost like a clean slate, but you still got some money in the bank to, like, work with a little Yeah, yes, and no, it was like, yes. It was tricky, because, like, for example, we still have the same CRM, but we now have a different entity. So even though you have the workflow built, if you don't have the right, I don't know, integrations, or the right cells formatted, then it doesn't actually work. So it was like, you have it, but you really don't have it, you know, like, I wasn't getting the alerts from my CRM, or when I was getting a new email, I switched everything from Google to teams and Microsoft. So it's like, there's a huge learning curve. One of my biggest pains is just accessing outlook, which should be the easiest thing, and it's one of the most complicated. So it's those little barriers, or those little like hiccups that I didn't expect are really, like, cumbersome, as opposed to the bigger ones that I thought, like, oh, I need an HR system now. Like, that was easy to find, to vet and to implement, but once you have it, you know, the little things of like, oh, I want to send out birthday memos now, and I can't configure this system with this system. Like those little things that you would think would be so easy are the biggest and the hardest ones. So let's talk a little bit about what talento does, because I think that you've been able to focus on what has worked with s works in the past, and then kind of refine it, moving into talento and maybe expanding some of the things that you might have thought about doing before, but maybe didn't have the bandwidth to do it. So give us, like a baseline of what talento provides, and then how you kind of think about the future. So talent management is kind of the basis of what we were providing before, for supply chain specifically, and we're continuing to provide that. But now with talento, we also, in all this change, started partnering with a team of developers that have been working in supply chain and healthcare for a couple of years now in Columbia. So now we actually brought them on as like an allied partner that we use for our customers, in the sense of when you come in and I look at your problems and your needs, not just looking to see how I solve it with people or talent. I'm looking to see if maybe I can provide you some AI or some business intelligence as well. So dashboards, anything to do with dashboards, and, you know, making sure that your data and your information is in a way that's actionable, that you can actually use it, and crossing that between multiple platforms, because I know that people brokerages, for example, have green screens and d a t and their TMS and their CRM and this and the third, and it's a million things, so to be able to get that in one place is great, and then the other piece is AI. And, you know, everyone talks about these agents and these bots and those kinds of things, so we use it in the voice languaging processing and vision processing. So for example, cleaning up your emails, and let's say you have an outlook accounting email, and splitting it up based off the right individuals, or something like a bot on your website, where maybe it's helping you answer questions and inbound leads, and it's not replacing a human but now, instead of having five sales reps staff, 24/7 to answer your website questionnaires, you have an AI agent and one sales rep that will handle that right. So it's just kind of looking at the problem a little bit differently. Is now what talento is doing, but I do want to emphasize that we do want to focus on supply. Chain and not be, you know, okay at everything, but really good at one thing. And I think that that's so important in today's age where AI can be highly, highly specialized in like the agents or the bots area, but then having that person can almost be like the conductor of the orchestra, of like the agent orchestra, like your automations, or just solving those different problems and but I think the first thing that you have to know is like, what are your What are your numbers? What are you trying to hit? What are your KPIs? And getting all that information into one so I think that's the super interesting attack plan, is to have that dashboard of knowledge and then helping them to kind of figure out where to plug and play with these different solutions. And it's like a one stop shop idea, you know, it's pretty inclusive. Like you don't have to come to Mia to ask her about this and then go to Maya to ask her about like, no Mia can tell you that, Hey, maybe I can't help you with this part, but I know Maya can, you know, and I can do that vetting for them. And so I mentioned the word ecosystem a lot. I want to be that kind of partner, or that person that you believe in and trust that will already do that vetting for you and understands the lay of the field. So again, when you come and you ask me about a specific issue, if I can't help you, I hope that I can guide you to somebody that can help you, because I can't do everything, you know, and I'm not going to have the most renowned AI bots, because that is not my strength. You know, the reason that I bring on that partnership is to complement what we have going on, not to replace what we have going on, absolutely. So how do you especially being on the front lines of this from like a talent management standpoint? How do you see the current market of supply chain roles, and then, how do you see that evolving in many ways, in many ways. See, I think one of the problem is that supply chain as a whole, supply chain roles, is very, very broad, right? And so it depends where we're looking in that. But one area in specific that I see a lot of potential is in the pricing department, in that kind of it's technically back office, but people don't really think of it a back office, because it's kind of a middle ground of like your sales and your finance team. But we've been working with a lot of individuals providing them data developers, bi or, sorry, Power BI or Tableau engineers, things of that nature, where you're saving tremendous amount of money. You're finding bilingual talent, and they come with that supply chain expertise. So they don't just know the programming or the tech, but they also understand the life cycle of a load, and so it just makes it that much easier to implement. So that's an area where I feel like many don't go towards near shoring or offshoring for that kind of pricing piece, because they also don't think that sometimes we have a limited mindset where we think, hey, offshoring and back office is just for customer service or just answering the phone. And the reality is, people are people, and we're intelligent everywhere. And so you can find a killer pricing analyst or pricing engineer in LATAM, just like you can find one in the US. So I don't know if that directly answered your question, but I think there's a huge future there. Well, I think it kind of goes back to the conductor mindset of if you're running a business, and especially in the age of AI like, you know, I'm a writer at heart, but I can use AI to help me create graphics, and I can use it as a tool to help me in other areas where I'm weak, where it might, you know, I'm not going to not hire a designer in the future, but I can at least get them some concept art that's added out of my Brain and into their hands so they can have something to work with. Yeah, I think that's kind of, maybe what you're building with talento is helping these supply chain roles be able to expand in other areas, or maybe see things. Maybe be that like flashlight in the dark. Yes, and try it out exactly because AI is such a big buzzword and it's so scary, you know, and you can bring on a whole team, and you're going to need, you know, a QA analyst and a project manager to even guide it. Then you need your developer, then your full stack. And this nine now you just hired eight employees for a project that you only need for three months. And so sometimes I think that people are a little bit scary. They're a little scared to even try it, because one, they don't understand it, and two, they don't know where to start. So being able to kind of give them that, like, Hey, here's a little window of, like, Look, we're not going to give you the most renowned, you know, the most sophisticated, AI, but we're going to dumb it down in a way that it is so practical and easy and just like, wow, why didn't I think of this before? Why didn't I do this before? And that's what I want them to feel, you know, like that was so easy, like, I should have done this a long time ago. I love that approach, because I think for so, like, we just speaking from, like, personal experience, like, I know I am weak in certain areas, and I know it's like, Okay, I just need to, like, spend a weekend and watch a bunch of YouTube videos and just figure it out for myself. Or I try to build my own AI agent or something. And it to do that, to build it and to teach it is taking me significantly longer than to just do the damn thing myself. And so I think that that's interesting to have somebody kind of hold your hand through that process. So I think for a lot of folks, maybe they've tried, you know, the chat GPT is that the world, and maybe tried building an eight an agent, and just failed at it, and just kept back, went back to doing this. I'm speaking for myself, but it's true, because it's. It's not easy, you know, and there is no road map. And I think also it happens to me, at least in near shoring or offshoring, some customers just they don't want to invest time in talking with you, because they think that you just are going to give them and produce a task or a project. But the reality is that we're hiring full time employees, and so we are here to be a partner, you know, and help you manage your employees. So if you want that, you know, hand holding of like, let's look at your processes. You know, let's bring the developers. Let's take a look at your tech stack. Like, let's recommend to you where we can help you. That's where we thrive. But not everybody wants that. Some people, they know exactly what they want. I want five dispatchers tomorrow, you know, and like, and this is as clear as day. But some individuals, and particularly those small to mid sized businesses, I see that like are still kind of figuring out their roadmap, or are trying to survive, and that's I think, where we come in, because we are willing to put in that extra effort, that extra mile, even though it takes me maybe an extra hour, but now you're 10 times happier, and the relationship is going to last that much longer, and it's going to be that much more effective. And so can you, do you own Do you start off with from the talent aspect, or you almost start off as, like, a consultancy, yep. So right now I'm very much shifting my gears, so almost like, let's have a conversation. Let's consult. Like, what are your interests? What are your needs? And then do you want to talk about your needs that you've identified, or do you want to talk about the needs that I've identified for you, and then from there, shake it out and see, but ideally, the proposal is typically, like, inclusive with both sides, but talent management will always be that forefront. You know, when I'm looking at a customer and understanding their needs, I'm going to think of the labor and the talent, but I'm now as I'm becoming more of an expert on the AI in the tech piece, I definitely incorporate that more and more. And so I'm making sure that some other members of my team are experts in that space, where maybe I lack because I don't have the time, unfortunately, to watch a million YouTube videos, even though I would love to. And although every day I try to get at least 1% better, I'm not as tech savvy as you know, my team, my partners, and that's why I bring them onto the calls as well. And so even just offering that like, Hey, you can have 15 minutes with our developers, and you can ask them whenever you want. At least for me, I see a huge value in just having a conversation, and then I can take that information and do whatever I want with it. And I think too, you hit on an important note is just having the conversation. Sometimes people realize how much knowledge base and work is involved and doing a skill that they think that they can learn in a weekend on YouTube, like myself, but then you can take advantage of that talent that not take advantage of them, but utilize that talent in order to expedite your own success. Oh, yeah, that happens all the time. I see like in marketing, for example, where people think marketing is just designing a pretty picture. It's not. And I'll have so many people, oh, for example, they'll ask me for, you know, support on their website, and they're like, Yeah, but I have a website and it looks great. And I'm like, All right, but let's, let's take a look here, you know. And simple things, right? Simple things like keywords, right? Or SEO, and like, maybe someone will throw out to you, like SEO as a buzzword, and they have no idea what that means, or how, how do you even, like, incorporate that into your website? And so they'll come and they'll say, you know, I already have that done, like, I just want this and I and that's where I get a little frustrated, but also where I think that it's important, because I'm very transparent. And I'll tell them, hey, look, I know you don't want to hear this, and I know that you're asking for this, but if I give you that right now, you're gonna fail. You're gonna get nothing out of it, and I'm gonna fail as well. So we're not gonna do that. So here's your option, and if you're ready to listen, we could talk about it. And to be honest, not everyone's ready to listen, but not everyone's ready to be a customer for us, either, you know, not everyone's the right match, yeah, and that, I mean, that's a good way, or a good mindset, especially for you, like, early on, I feel like you're able to have these conversations from a level of confidence, versus maybe somebody who would be a little bit more inexperienced, or would just take the business, just for the sake of taking right? And don't get me wrong, I've been there, done that. You know, we've all been there. I learned the lesson. What are we sure and specifically, like, as a younger girl, like, I was very naive in the sense, like, Okay, if somebody doesn't treat me so great, like, I still need to, like, talk to them to go get that business. And now I'm so past that mindset, thank God. And I'm the complete opposite, where I will tell you, like, no, maybe sometimes a little too quickly. I'm like, No, go talk to my friend. And I'm like, wait, wait. No, actually, I can help you as well. But I think that that's important, you know, to be honest and clear and not overshoot. But also in those moments where you want to, like, guinea pig, something out, just tell them, you know, let them know. Because some people do really like that personalized, you know, tailored, kind of like relationship. And some people would prefer, again, the box cutter. So teach their own. Yeah, for sure. And I you brought it up, especially from like, the marketing standpoint, how do you, I guess, think about your marketing from like, a personal brand standpoint versus your company brand? Because that's something I personally struggle with, is like, how do i Where's the line, and is it all just blurry? It's super blurry. It's hard. I. Try. And I think that a business isn't a business until you can sell through the business and not the person you know, the people like. And I think that's somewhere where s works lacked, because at the end of the day, why was I able to build talento? Because all the customers had been brought in by myself and followed me over. And so that's a failure on the business side, but a win on mine, right? So I don't want to lento to be the same way, where, if I leave talento, there is no talento. That's a problem. So it is a very fine line, because I don't want to lose the traction that I've built. And I also think that people buy from people, but I think that I need to have other individuals on my team that are also building their brand and making sure that as they build their personal brand, they're including talento in their system, like in their their ecosystem, right? So like, when Thomas is posting about think fright, and he's posting about being Thomas, like, you'll see some posts about talento as well. And I like it. I prefer it that way, because I would rather be through a genuine person that you get to know. You get to know Thomas's Thomas, not to lento. Oh, here's one of talento sales reps. Like, that's just not how it works for me, but I do, and I am investing more and more on talento's page directly on LinkedIn, and trying to put some familiar faces on there. So instead of me posting on mine and then talento reposting, I'm having talento posts and then I'll kind of interact for my personal No. That makes a ton of sense, because when I started cargo Rex in December, we went public with it in early February. It was a very conscious decision that, like, obviously, the podcast is me, and it's never if I leave it, the podcast is probably done. But for cargo Rex, like, it has to be something that is independent, where the stories are about the employee or the companies that are making waves in this industry, not, you know me being the face of it, so it's very like conscious effort. But you still gotta use, you know, you're still gonna use your bread and butter a little bit to get the name out there initially, and then make that transition, of course. And I think the other piece there is partnerships, right? Like, when you do partnerships, like, you're not doing it with John from Papa John's, like, No, you're doing it with that company. And so there is, like, a profile behind, you know, the company, like, truck stop does a really good job, I think, on LinkedIn, with their commenting. And like, you feel like you're talking to Mr. Truck Stop, you know what I mean. And so, like, that's, that's great, because you want to interact back with that person, thinking that there's a human behind it, rather like, you know, just a robot or a creep, or like the LinkedIn AI generated comments or something like that. No one wants to talk with them. LinkedIn blocked me once, thinking that I was aI on my birthday because I got so many messages and I was responding, and they blocked me for a couple of hours. I had to report that you had a timeout. Yeah, they did. They were like, do we think that you're using AI for outreaching, and this is against our rules. I said they were wishing me happy birthday, but it happens so well. Related note, not kind of related note, but who are? Who's doing a good job in marketing that you see on LinkedIn? Oh, good question. Okay, so I think that the broker, carrier summit does a great job. And again, looping back to the partnerships, like those partnerships announcements, I think are great. Danielle Spinelli, she does a great job as well, for herself, personally and for the business, she does a great job, I think, at balancing the two sides and then trucks up, as I just mentioned, I think they do a great job through their company. Page. I actually don't know any of their sellers like I don't I don't see any like branding through any of their reps. And so I think it's an interesting angle to see how the company has been able to build that relationship, but maybe not so much the people. So I don't know. And also the freedom I think that they give truck stop to be able to post and be funny and have that freedom without, you know, kind of feeling like you're going to get in trouble is going to call you. And I think a lot of folks with their personal brand, they also feel that level of fear, because they'll start posting, and then a company representative will come to them and be like, What are you trying to leave? Like you're trying to get more love than the company. They have such a, you know, a backwards mindset of thinking about these things, right? Or even, like, the post itself, you know, I've been in situations where there they'll say, like, oh, this content doesn't seem to be professional. Or maybe that photo, like, there's a selfie, it has nothing to do with anything. Like, why are you posting it? And I'm like, okay, like, you get comments like that. Oh, I've been told some things like that, yes, for sure, yeah. So I'm like, what? Let's take a sip of the audacity. Yeah, let's think about this, you know, like, let's zoom out for a second. Like, I understand, like, Facebook or LinkedIn is not Facebook. You know, they're very different things, but there's boundaries, and LinkedIn rewards selfies. LinkedIn rewards selfies. And LinkedIn is an algorithm, so LinkedIn, what it wants is for you to waste time. And so I went to a LinkedIn workshop, and I spent three hours there, and I learned so much. And so I always repeat this, and I say, What they want is you to waste time. So if I go to your page and I'm wasting time because I'm watching your videos, then LinkedIn is going to reward you and put your videos on more people's feeds. But if I go to your video and I just swipe right past it because I didn't feel like looking at it today, now it's not going to show it on. Rob's feed, and so every single second, like, it's like Instagram, you just think that scrolling through means nothing, no scrolling through, every single scroll means something exactly. Charlie safro calls it the selfie. The selfie reset that if she has certain posts that, like, just don't pop off for whatever reason, she'll do a selfie, plus a text post, because people miss the text matters. You can't just post a selfie without actual text or a picture of yourself or whatever. Like selfies, I guess, are maybe subjective, like whatever the text matters people. But Charlie's talked about how she'll do a selfie reset, and it will reset her feed, and so whenever she does that, then her next post, and the next post and the next post gets way more love than the dud, that if you were to just keep the dud and keep post, oh, and I'm just gonna post out of it, it doesn't work, that she's so right though, I didn't realize it, that that's what it was called. But I do that because I would try to do some, like, texts or some polls or something different. And I realized, like, it weans down. And then I'm like, Okay, let's do some another selfie with something relevant, you know, and then it picks back up. But to your point, you know, there is some pictures that have absolutely no comments or engagement, and that got me nothing that, like, sure, there was 200 likes on that selfie, but that was worth nothing but the post next to it that had 50 likes but 10 comments, that means so much more, because those comments have actual truth in the person behind them, and there's engagement. And so what I recommend, as well, is sending that post with their comment directly to that person. So instead of me, yeah, so instead of me responding to rob in the comment on my post, I'm going to send him my post and respond to him in our DMS. So now I'm building a direct conversation with us, a private conversation for us to continue. So interesting I would have, because I've heard, you know, with like, the LinkedIn algorithm scoring that use that they really value the replies, especially within like the first couple of hours. The first 30 minutes you post are the most important, the most important time. So respond to any comments in those first 30 minutes, but after that, don't worry. That, don't respond to them. Just send it to them. Whoa. Okay, the LinkedIn workshop that I did, I taught me, okay, tell us, what else you learned. LinkedIn masterclass webinars. So for every webinar, for the every speaker that's on a webinar, you get 1000 invite credits, and so let's say there's three people on the webinar. That's 3000 per week. So if you're gonna, you know, say that I'm doing a webinar in three weeks from now with Blythe, then that's now 1000 of 1000 credits each. For three weeks, it's 6000 credits. And the actual turnaround is higher, not for the attendees, but those that didn't attend. So they recommend the same thing, where after the webinar closes, you send that event invites to them, like as a direct message, and you say, Hey, you didn't get a chance to make it. Let's catch up so I can share what we taught, what we talked about, and you missed. And supposedly, I don't remember the exact numbers, but the the conversion is higher for those that didn't attend than those that actually and Are these like live videos through live webinars on LinkedIn? Oh, wow, yeah, you can just do like a live webinar for however long. And typically, for a lead to convert on LinkedIn, they say it's 45 minutes they need to spend on your profile. So I recommend a 45 minute webinar. Whoa. So 45 minute webinars, and then whoever did it, are you doing anything with the people that did attend, or they're getting the content. Obviously you want to give them the content. So the idea they gave us was that you want to talk on the webinar, like generic but give something secret at the end, you know, like, maybe one of these tips, like, you give this at the very end, and you give it on a worksheet or, like a piece of paper. So it's like, say till the end to download that. So it gives somebody, like, a way for them to go on a landing page and for you to get their information, because LinkedIn will count against you if you take anybody off of LinkedIn. So if you have a URL in your post, in your bio, anywhere, they will count again. If you send a URL in a LinkedIn DM, and I click that URL, and now I'm off of LinkedIn, it's going to count against you. So what are you supposed to do? What's the point of using LinkedIn? So the only way that you can have them go off of LinkedIn without flagging you, is if you pay for LinkedIn premium, and you can have a special button and it says, click or see my website, like under your name. And when you click a post, some people will have a button that says, See my website. So premium is worth it. In that regard, it's the only way, because I was part of their podcast Academy, and I so I got access to premium and I was like, Well, I'm not gonna pay for this after this is over, like it's not worth it, but now kind of sounds like it's probably worth it, it, I don't currently pay for it because I'm just waiting to pull that trigger since, like, we've transitioned, but it is like, you get like, brownie points for Paying more, and they're gonna count against you less. It's so expensive, it's like 100 bucks a month, it is. And they have a monopoly, you know, like they really have control this professional world. That's true. And, I mean, it sounds like a necessary evil too, but you're also reaching your target audience. And if you're spending all this time, I mean, I spend a lot of time, too much time on x, and I'm not. Any kind of perks or benefits like that. See, I don't use X. I've tried to, like, be a LinkedIn guru and really hone on there. But there is. The problem is also that these algorithms change all the time, and it's nothing that they publish. So it's you needed to keep up, watch your multiple YouTube videos every weekend and always know what's what's going on. It's tricky. How did it? Did they talk anything about, like, short form video, about what's working well or what's not working. They did talk a little bit about short form videos, saying how that was a trend that was popping up. But there's some conflict with Instagram and fighting LinkedIn on that formatting, so likely it's not gonna last for a very long time, is what they were expecting. And if you see already it's slowed down the short form video, wow, yeah, for LinkedIn. And now it's popping off on YouTube. Now the little reels, oh, the shorts, yeah, we get really great engagement on shorts. But LinkedIn videos, we've recently switched from a vertical format to the horizontal format, just to kind of just change it up and just see, and it's working a lot better on x and LinkedIn the horizontal format versus, I think vertical format, maybe people are just so used to seeing, well, they're just going through it way too fast. They're they are using it like Tiktok. And the problem is that LinkedIn will go like will count that against you. So it's not working for the people that are actually posting. What about like repost? Does that work or play a factor at all? You didn't talk anything about repost, no. So I really don't think it does much. Hopefully, yeah, Ding me, but that's essentially what I do. And so I'm getting like, a LinkedIn masterclass, right? Well, I mean, if you're reposting a lot and people are scrolling past it and not engaging, it's dinging against you, yeah? But there's many different things. I mean, different kinds of posts he said that don't really do too much. Your bio itself doesn't really change anything as well. I mean, there's a lot of different things that you can consider, but you just have to be always on top of it. You know, what's new? What's changing? What about outside of social media? Are there any other or staying with social media for a minute? Are there any other platforms that you're finding like benefit like people preach on, like Facebook groups, and I'm like, I would rather take a drill to my temple. Yeah? No, I don't use Facebook. Nope. I just have no interest. So it's tough for me to spend any time there. Yeah, I've been in like, random like groups, like, I think there's one called like, the logistics war room, and just like spam, yeah, or clutch is an organization. I don't know if you've heard of that. Okay, I don't know much about clutch, and I don't want to speak on it incorrectly, but from my understanding, it's almost like a marketplace, like where you go on there and you look for, hey, I need a staffing solution. Where do I go to? And it kind of gives you options. We've had some some leads come in through clutch was which was surprising. Yeah, just random. But no, for us, it's been referrals, like just word of mouth and just knowing people and referring through people. I played the long game, and so some of my conversations and relationships from TMSA three years ago are just now turning around and signing but they're signing with, you know, quotes of five plus heads, because they have been talking to me for years and they're finally ready. So I think timing is everything. But my point with the referrals is that customer testimonials, that kind of marketing, which broker carrier summit does really well at a couple of other companies out there, do really good customer testimonials that is really powerful. Yeah, that know that you're the second person now, and we're because we're doing a few interviews today. You're the second person now to talk about the power of referrals. And in a world, I think, where people just inundated with cold calls and emails, think referrals are a great way to stand out. Yeah, I mean, it's one of our KPIs, like for our sales reps, like for myself and for Thomas. If we're not going to convert just through emailing and cold calling then, but we're converting through referrals. And every single week, I want you to reach out to your best friends and have some meetings with your best friends and ask them to give you one introduction. That's it. What do you think is one of the missing pieces of like marketing or sales advice that a lot of freight companies don't follow? Hmm, I think that a lot of us are very old school in this industry, and so they just don't want to touch Social Media besides what they're already on, like Facebook, or I also think it's just that kind of limited mindset of, Oh, I know what AI is, or I know what ads are. And so they think that they know it all, and they really don't like, yeah, you have a website, but you don't have a single keyword on your website. So when I go and I look up Blythe, but your website doesn't say Blythe anywhere, I'm never gonna get to your website, you know. So it's those little things where I think we need to take a second and listen to all these things that are going on, and we do need to use AI, like I was one of those that didn't want to use AI for months and months and months. And now, if you don't use it, you're gonna, you're gonna fall behind. You know, I I don't have to use it to design, for example, but if my neighbor is using it to design, and they have 500 designs a day, and I just chose not to, and I have one design a day, I'm gonna fall behind, whether I choose to or not. It's just a matter of perspective on with a. Lot of these roles, especially with, like, social media, just in general, podcasting in general, these roles did not exist, you know, 1520, years ago. Like, there's some obviously, like podcasters that started, like, in the very early days. Nobody, you know they're, I don't know if they're around still anymore, but it just jobs evolve, and you have to be able to evolve with it. And so it kind of goes back to that saying, of like, you might not get replaced with AI, but somebody who is using AI will replace you. You're just, you know, you're replaceable. So how do you make yourself, like, not replaceable? And how do you expand your knowledge set be that conductor of the orchestra, that's when they become controllers. And it's like, okay, like, I don't want to learn AI, so I'm not going to change my CRM, so we're always going to use an Excel sheet. And, like, now you're all screwed. You're all limited to an Excel sheet, and there is no growth until that old guy and his old friends decide to leave. But it's, it's unfortunate. I say, like, that kind of joking, because it's serious. I see it all the time. Like, especially with these, you know, like Mom and Pop companies, or those that you know, came into a family company and they took over, like, they're scared of change and they're scared of what they don't know. And I get that, you know, if you don't know what AI is, you're not going to bring it in. If you don't know, I don't know how to use HubSpot, then I'm not going to tell my employees use HubSpot, because now I can't help them, and now they have more control than I do, and it's scary to lose control, but at the same time, you're limiting everything. You know you're putting a block to it. And unless you release and you kind of check your own ego and you learn, like, Hey, maybe I should try to change up what I'm doing, then that's when you can maybe see some change. What are some of the aha moments that you've had? Like, using AI? Like, do you have, like, a prompt or, like a go to, like, what you do use, like, chatgpt projects, or anything like that? I love chatgpt. Chatgpt is my best friend for everything that I do. I don't know if I would say, I'd have a big aha moment, except for when it's just when people say AI, and then I kind of bring it to simpler terms, like, the way that you're using AI is, like, literally, a robot in Mars. And like, we're just talking like simple things here. So like, when I was explained for the first time what vision AI was, they gave me the example of looking at a tree, and the tree had apples on it. And so with the vision AI, they were able to see which apples are ripe and which apples weren't, and being able to pool it. And that's just simple difference between the color red and the color green, and it's as simple as that, like it's, if you put in dummy terms like that, it's very simple. And so I think my aha moments are when I can explain to a customer, like, your interpretation of AI is like up here, but what we can do and where we're at today is like, down here. So let's start there, and then let's, you know, baby step it, and then we can start to see the dream. But technology isn't something that just falls in your lap. It's very customized, even if you buy a pre made chat bot agent or whatever, it still needs to be customized into your tech stack. So it takes a long time, so it's you got to baby step into it. Yeah, it's definitely a learning curve, but it's a new information era that we're in, and you can learn so many different things, and it doesn't have to be specific to the industry you're working in, or it could just it's just a more efficient way of searching for information, is what I found, and it's definitely got me from just staring at a blank page to having something to say. Like, the ideation has helped so much with podcast interviews, like, I'll take all of my I'll listen to a bunch of different interviews, like with this one, for example, listen to a bunch of interviews. I write down a bunch of questions, I write down my overall thoughts, and then I load it into chatgpt, and I say, poke holes in this like, what am I missing? And so it's that extra pair of eyes that, as a one person business owner, like, it's essential I cannot live without I agree, that's one really good point. Though I always ask it and I say, What am I missing? What am I not seeing here? Or if I were x person, what would I ask? And I did this for my thesis specifically. But I do this sometimes with, like, some troubling questions that a customer asks me something very intensive and maybe a process that I don't know about. And so I try to play, like, role playing with chat. JBT, like, what would this person ask me? And then I have to, like, literally answer back. And I put the little voice memo on, and I speak to her, you know, and she speaks back to me. She's like, Great job, Mia, you know, you answered this really great. I would answer this differently. And like, you're learning so much, it's really crazy. And when you don't have somebody to lean on, maybe, like, I can't call my mom and say, Hey, let's talk about trucking. Like, you know, she's not gonna get it, so guys gonna hang up, maybe, yeah, but I can call Chad GBT at any time of day and be like, let's talk about trucking, and she's gonna be so happy. All right. Well, I think, I think that about answers. I mean, I had a ton of questions, and I think we, oh, good, yeah, we hit some really good time. What else do you think is important in this hiring market? Or are people hiring right now? Like, how are I'm curious as to how, what the how the establishment is evolving, given all the chaos with tariffs and supply chain disruptions and trade wars and all that stuff. Then the tech side of things that's just been injected in the last five years, all of those positions kind of coming together. Where do you see like, sort of, like staffing evolving and Talent Management evolving? Yeah, for us particularly, I see it growing a lot. I see it expanding out of, like, our stereotypical back office accounting and like operations, I see it growing into, like, the marketing, the sales, those pricings, or those kinds of more financial areas that we didn't think about in the past. I think it's already happening, and I'm seeing it based off the requests that we're getting. And I think that's really important. Like, people aren't seeing it anymore as, like an extra they're seeing near shoring and offshoring as a requirement to survive, and so, you know, people aren't coming in with let me just try this out for a day. It's like, No, I have a legit need like this has been painful for me. I've been looking for options for months now, and like, now is the time to do it. So I think that there's a lot of growth and opportunity there. I also think that people are going to start to compliment and spread out their eggs in the sense that they're gonna have a partner in Europe and a partner in Asia and a partner in LATAM, instead of just having one. And yeah, and I think that a lot of that's been because of what's happened in the last 10 to 15 years. So many of us have popped up that you can't have those limited contracts that say, Hey, you can only work with me. And that used to exist. So it was like, Hey, you have a partner in Colombia. You can only have one partner in Colombia. And it was Colombia, and it was very limiting, you know, and now those are becoming more and more far and few. So I think that again, like that egg, spread your eggs kind of idea, and work with multiple partners, because they all have different strengths, and they can all complement each other differently. I think that's kind of the future. So I that means that we're going to all have multiple offices. We're gonna have multiple multilingual speakers as well. And hopefully, you know, just be a little bit more worldwide and respectful to each other and kinder. That is such a perfect place to end the conversation, because it was a very hopeful and we talked, you know, we talked to covered a lot of ground in this conversation. I'm excited for people to hear this. So where can I send folks. Where can they follow you? Obviously, LinkedIn, not Facebook groups. Where can I send? Yes, so talento, hyphen, io.com, miamizaal on LinkedIn, or miamizaal on x, or anywhere else, yeah, or just look up talento, and that's where you can find us. Yeah, this is great. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it Absolutely. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of everything is logistics, where we talk all things supply chain for the thinkers in freight, if you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube, just by searching everything is logistics. And if you're working in freight logistics or supply chain marketing, check out my company, digital dispatch. We help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzzwords. Head on over to cargorex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions. All the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the Next episode and go jags. You
