Unknown:
0:00
Music.
Blythe Brumleve:
0:05
Welcome into a very special edition of everything is logistics, where we're highlighting some of your favorite marketing and sales podcast episodes in 2024 think of this as a super episode where some of our most popular subject matter experts in the freight space. They're all in one episode, so you don't have to dig around for the good stuff. If you don't know me, my name is Blythe, and our show covers topics for the thinkers in freight to help tell the stories of how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. In this episode, we're going to be featuring four different episodes, first up, a freight sales master class with Molo co founder. The next step we have how freight companies are managing their 2024 sales targets. Number three is freight broker training and content marketing tactics from the folks over at Freight 360 and then lastly, we're going to round it out with hunters, farmers and CRMs evolving the logistics sales model. Now all of these episodes have the most plays in the marketing and sales category for the podcast. So in case you missed it or simply want to refresh as we head into the new year, I got you covered. Each episode will play after each other with a little whoosh sound effect to signify the start of the next episode, and I've also got timestamps in the show notes, in case you would like to skip around. Now with all that said, cheers to 2025 thank you all so much for all of your love and support this year in helping the podcast grow. And I hope you all enjoy this special best of Roundup for my marketing and sales folks, welcome into another episode of everything. Is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. We are proudly presented by SPI logistics, and I am your host, Blythe Brumleve. I am happy to welcome in brand new guest to the show, and that's Stephan Mathis. He is a former co founder of Molo. You've probably heard of them, and now he is a current free agent. So we are going to be talking all about sales, marketing yourself, entrepreneurial journey within the freight broker business, and what the horizon sort of looks like in the future, and some sales and marketing tips for those brokers if you were to get started today. So Stephan, welcome to the show.
Stephan Mathis:
2:19
Yes. Thanks for having me. Been a big fan. I've been watching you from afar, and it's cool to be on episode. So Heck,
Blythe Brumleve:
2:25
yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much. I was actually just listening to to give the audience a little bit of background. We officially met in Nate shoots. He has the ballast group, which is for logistics. Founders, fantastic group. Go check out their website, in case you are a logistic sounder or maybe interested in it, and it's a great community. It's really like a safe space to sort of share our struggles and our wins and achievements and things like that, but mostly struggles. But that's where we met. We got connected. And had to get you on the show. And before you know, I have you on. I was listening to your interview on The Real, I'm sorry, I'm gonna real freight talk podcast, which is a, I don't want to say a fairly new podcast, but kind of is, I think there are about 30 episodes in which is, it was great stuff, great conversation. And during your when you were explaining your background a little bit, I thought it was funny that for the overwhelming majority of us, when we get into freight we are we just do it by happenstance, or we have a family member that's already working in the business, and that was the same for you, right? Yeah? And,
Stephan Mathis:
3:31
I mean, I think that's like some people go to college for this study supply chain or whatnot. For me, I just stumbled into it accidentally, and then my family lineage actually got into it too. My, my younger sister had worked in Molo for a little while, and so did my my cousin, uh, miles, he's at spot freight in Indianapolis. But like, it's just it spirals into, like, you, you didn't know about it before, and then eventually your friends and like, what's this? What? And everyone starts, like, that's cool. Like, I'm into that. Like, I'll try that career out. And yeah, I wasn't expecting to do 13 years in brokerage, but here I am.
Blythe Brumleve:
4:07
And so for Did you join Coyote? So you were part of the initial coyote team, or the early days before UPS acquired them, but did you work at any other freight positions before that, or coyote was your first gig.
Stephan Mathis:
4:23
Coyote was my first one. Before that, I was a valet manager at a country club and parking cars and shaking hands with members. That's what I did. And I got my first interview at Coyote. I think I was 22 maybe 23 and saw the fun vibes of a brokerage and all the energy. And I'm like, this, I could, I could do this, like, let's, let's sell some, some freight. I didn't even know what. The most I knew about a truck was that it had 18 wheels. Like, that was it. I had no idea what a broker was. I thought everything was. Everybody owned their trucks. So, yeah, looking. What did, I guess,
Blythe Brumleve:
5:00
that initial process look like? Like, how you you're going from being a valet manager and you're starting the early days with Coyote, you have no idea about the the industry. So what does that, I guess, sort of that training process look like, to get familiar with the industry in order to be able to sell it effectively.
Stephan Mathis:
5:18
Yeah. So that was in 2011 and at that time, coyote was, was rising star. I think ch was a big, big on the scene back then echo command, there was a few other bigger players that TQL and coyote was, was the hot new startup to work at in Chicago. Everybody wanted to work there. Day one, you get into a classroom, cell training program with 20 other kids that are fresh out of college. And it is information overload of right terms, carrier, customer, everything it was, I felt like I was, yeah, like, almost in, like, a study hall, like every day you You went there eight to five, learning rate terminology and just getting trained to be beyond the four.
Blythe Brumleve:
6:13
So how give us a sense of, like, how big was coyote at that point? You mentioned that it's, you know, it's the startup that everybody wanted to go work for. I remember working in a brokerage, and I was an executive assistant, and when I was tasked with redoing our website, I was sent the coyote website in order to say, just do this. And here I am. I have no idea what I'm doing, but a lot of our early marketing strategy was based off Coyote. Yeah,
Stephan Mathis:
6:39
I don't want to misspeak. I was an entry level employee. I would assume it was free, being a billion dollar company at that point, but, you know, I think they had just gone through a logo change. They switched from Lake Forest to to downtown Chicago in Logan Square. But I remember the year after that, the market took off. And they, they had a hiring spree of like 500 people. So that was like, Whoa, we could actually grow this thing. And and seeing, seeing the opportunities, like, it's exciting when you're part of a company that's like, Wait, this thing's going to take off. Like, that energy you want to be at the part of that. And it makes you feel good that you pick the right place to work, too. And
Blythe Brumleve:
7:21
so when you're you're going through all of this training process. What it for a lot of training programs, I think TQL, in particular, they almost over train you and throw everything at you in order to sort of wash out the weak and keep the strong. At what moment when you're going through this training process, or maybe even work starting to work in the job. Did you say this is something I could actually stick with for a while?
Stephan Mathis:
7:47
Yeah, good question. I actually struggled with the training program, just being honest, because it was a lot of information overload and tests and all. And I'm like, okay, like, I'm not the greatest test taker, but I'm a kind of I can figure things out as I go, when I get in the mix, and that's when I usually do my best work. So, but, man, can you repeat the question? Sure.
Blythe Brumleve:
8:11
So I guess you know, what was that catalyst moment that you were going to say, I'm I'm staying here. I'm made for this,
Stephan Mathis:
8:19
the relationship piece of being a carrier sales rep. Once I hit what's called Hot pod, where you graduate from training. I got through it, but you go through hot pod where you learn how to how to hit the phones and talk to carriers and book freight for about eight weeks. And my relationship, customer service, background, being able to talk to members at the country club. I was a pizza delivery guy back when I was 1819, years old, so just being able to like, be personable with people allowed me my personality to come out on the phone. So it became more natural to like, be doing the work, versus like learning the work, like I learned by doing, which I would say most people probably do. But some people love to, like, see it, read it, and like, remember it. And I'm more of a like, give me the phone. Like, I'll figure this thing out. So I remember talking to carriers and hot pod and like, being able to, like, make relationships really quickly and build trust, and if any, if you work in this industry long enough, you know that you're only as good as your name and and trust and how you treat people. I didn't know that as a 22 year old that I needed that, but that was the attribute, attribute that allowed me to build strong relationships and become an excellent carousels rep. I did refrigerated sales at at coyote for five and a half years. At one point, me and some of the top guys, we still argue about it today, who was, who was running the most reefer freight? I think I had number one for a year or so, but someone else, someone else, will tell me that they were the best rep. But I don't know. I think I had it, had it for a little while. So,
Blythe Brumleve:
9:58
so what does what. One part of the process that I've always been fascinated with is the initial outreach in order to get a customer. Does that look is it just repeated phone calls? You know, pull on their email off, Zoom info, just hoping to sort of break the ice with them. What does that sort of initial contact to building a relationship with a customer look like,
Stephan Mathis:
10:23
Well, I would say I learned most of that at Molo. So Coyote, just to clarify, I did all carrier there. I didn't do any customer exposure at all. I was super raw at Molo when we initially started. I actually was selected to be a part of Molo with my carrier acumen, to be able to help build our carrier network out. But I had a little pit stop between coyote and Molo where I had landed a customer and gotten one onboarded, and so I kind of understood at least the process. And when we got to Molo, I shifted quickly to going straight customer, because we needed a few customers to get launched, right? Like, when you start a brokerage, like, it doesn't matter who's doing the work you're doing. If you don't have a customer to give you loads, like, you're you're not doing anything. So I had a couple relationships to start Molo, and then I we all kind of made a decision like, Hey, we got to divide and conquer from the early, early days. And so I went full blown customer. I didn't know everything perfectly on how to land new shippers, because I never was trained on it right, like I just did carrier sales, which is a lot more learn on the on the go. But what I realized was that if I could mirror my same type of relationship mentality with carriers and make a customer comfortable wanting to work with me and bet on me, it doesn't matter if I don't say it right or email it right, I can get them to trust me as their sales rep, and make them feel comfortable in giving and giving us a shot. And so again, because I wasn't polished in like, the perfect strategy, I was like, I'm going to be relatable and like, let this person get to know me, and I'm going to be vulnerable. I might even say, Hey, I'm new to customer sales. This is a new venture for me, but I took care of my carriers better than anybody. And if they're the ones that are hauling your freight, and if they trusted me, and I ship 600 truckloads a month, all refrigerated, chances are I could probably figure out how to move your freight as a customer sales rep, right, like and so I would always use whatever I could to, you know, whatever tools I had in the test to land the customer. And that was like, you start figuring out what's working, what's not, trial and error. You make dumb mistakes, you say stupid things, but eventually you start getting in a rhythm of like, customers are responding to such and such. They don't like these things. And you do less of what doesn't work and more, what works right. That was my first year and a half, two years at Molo.
Blythe Brumleve:
13:06
So take me, let's, let's back it up a little bit to, I guess, the other catalyst of leaving coyote in order to co found Mola. What does that process look like? Was it, you know, a decision that you came to over time, or was it, you know, sort of, you know, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it next month?
Stephan Mathis:
13:28
No, yeah, good question. I've always been someone that looks at my life or my career as, am I still growing, or have I reached my like, peak, and I can't go any higher here. And so when I got to what I considered the highest level of carrier sales, I was like, I'm not learning anything else more here. I need to go challenge myself to do something else. And so i i left right around the UPS acquisition time one I felt like maybe the company might change and become a little bit more corporate. And I loved the like privately held, like we get to do our own thing here, and I didn't want the changes to affect how I was already doing my job. But two, I was like, if I'm ever gonna better myself and grow, I gotta leave. And so I had a small pit stop at a very small brokerage. I don't even know if they're in business anymore to this day, but it was like, the first time that I've truly bet on myself. It was like, I'm going to take what I've learned and see if I can do something bigger. And by doing taking that leap of faith, I became a free agent, and that's how I found the Molo opportunity, because so Molo was founded by Andrew silver and Matt vogris. They're like friends from Lake Forest. Jeff silver, Andrew silver, everybody kind of knows that the story a little bit. And so, because I was outside the walls of coyote, i. I would, I was, I found the opportunity. Andrew had reached out to me. He was like, I think you would be a good fit to be one of our first few employees on at Molo. Like, would you want to jump on the ship with us? And so I was like, Yeah, I'm in. What do you know? He explained, like, you wanted to make this a thing, a big, a big, you know, big company. We're going to build it out. And I remember being, I remember standing in my kitchen in Chicago, I had an opportunity to work at Amazon freight. I think I was courting Uber freight at the time, and one other company in the suburbs. And then I had, Mo, no, we didn't have a name. It was just, we're going to build a brokerage. You want to be a part of it. I was like, Yeah, I'll do it. And I just jumped on it. So that's how I found Molo. But it was more, I think everything happens for a reason, to be honest. So it's
Blythe Brumleve:
15:50
so when you are entertaining these other offers. I mean, I imagine this is also the days where, like, social media is kind of in its early infancy. How are you building these relationships with some of these outsiders at other brokerages in order to start up a new one. Is it, you know, are you keeping tabs with each other on social media? Is it kind of just word of mouth? Like, what? What does that? I guess early digital networking look like? So
Stephan Mathis:
16:17
there, I think other people relate to this, but like, Coyote had this like vibe of a lot of companies were stealing coyote employees, like they wanted, like, oh man, like they had so much growth. So former coyotes would go to another company, and then they would start hiring more of them. And so this was around 2016 2017 and I think at that point, social media was definitely taken off. It wasn't where it is today, but, you know, recruiters, right? Like they would reach out to you on LinkedIn, or seeing what what you want to do next, or based on your experience, you might be a good fit for x. So some of those offers came there, but some of it was like I saw someone that I knew at coyote who maybe is working at a different company. And I was like, oh, okay, so tell me about that. Why did you go there? Like, do you like it there? Like, you're trying to find your next home. But for me, there was a little bit of, I like the fear of the unknown, and I'm also scared of it. So there's like, jumping and the oh shit moment, like, man. So I decided to risk it all and go to startup. We don't have anything, we don't have a name, we don't have an office, nothing. But this sounds more fun and and I remember saying to myself, like, in three years, if this doesn't work, I can go take one of those other jobs. I have enough experience, so why don't I bet on myself and jump on the unknown. And so that's why I went to Molo.
Blythe Brumleve:
17:44
Yeah, it's definitely the entrepreneurial mindset is strong with you. And so, you know, as you're, you know, looking around the room, I guess, as the Molo is starting to get built, what does, I guess, sort of the team structure look like? You know, I imagine everyone's wearing a ton of hats and doing all of the things. And I guess, how does that start and then evolve from there?
Stephan Mathis:
18:09
Yeah, I mean, picture starting thinking of how to start a company from scratch, like you don't have the systems, you don't have the processes. Nobody knows the right thing to be doing at the right time, but there's a collective sense of like, Hey, we're gonna build this company, and we need, we know kind of like, what you need to do, but you don't know the order of things you need to do it in. You need to get a debt license, you need to get computers desks, you know, you gotta have credit and all the like requirements to get a company running. But yeah, we were wrong. We didn't know everything perfectly. Me, Matt and will, for the first year, were kind of running point on, on Molo. Matt had a really strong business acumen from his days at IBM supply chain. Will and I had worked at coyote together. So we were kind of the more, you know, hustle, the fright type, type guys like, Get get everything, whatever it takes to get that done. And then there were several other really important early Molo employees that that came over and jumped on board. We had Emily Madden was in operations. Ricky cabrato worked in as one of our first carrier sales reps, Blake mcclymonts. He's at artifacts now. He was, I think, point number five or six, and he booked freight and did a bunch of things, wore a ton of hats, but really, there is no right or wrong way to do it. When you're starting from not having a script, you just assemble enough like hustle and bustle type people that we're going to do this thing and we're going to figure it out. And that was most of it. I remember wearing several different hats, answering the phones, cutting com checks at nights, interviewing, buying the supplies for the offices, building tables, hanging TVs, tech guy like you do everything in the beginning. Now, hindsight, you learn you could probably have done it with. Differently and better and more efficient, right? Like you, obviously, you always learn from your mistakes, but part of the hustle and bustle, and that's like, makes that's what makes it fun, like you don't know, and you're just gonna go forward, and as you get successes, then you start, like, rinsing and repeating or figuring out what works what doesn't work. But eventually we got to a point, I think a few months in, we were like, Okay, we kind of have, like, somewhat of a rhythm. We have a few customers. We're moving some freight. We need to divide and conquer, like, who's going to do what? And that's kind of where I we had a discussion. It was like, Hey, we think you could be really good at customer sales. Why don't you go be the first customer sales rep. And so I took that on, and had to learn it, and had to sell a brand that wasn't established in the industry at the time, where there was 18,000 brokerages, and I'm sure a newer brokerage now, or someone has been open for two years, we went through the same process of, like, they don't even know who you are. You're reaching out. They're like, Yeah, we have plenty of carriers. We don't need you. Or you've only been in business for one year. Why would we work with you? Like we've never heard of you, all of that, like we had to fight through that and sell through why we were going to be different, competing against the household names, right? Like, and that's in and of itself, being able to sell when you're not an established brand is very challenging. So I can relate to anyone who's in the early stages of like, how the challenges of and then thinking about the marketing today, it's a down market, so finding a way to get customers to give you some attention, but we, again, we went through all of those phases. Mola wasn't like a perfect company, that we had everything. You know, we ran a script, and it was like zero to$600 million like we we had our mistakes, but we did a lot of things right, I think too.
Blythe Brumleve:
21:56
I mean, clearly, you did a lot of things right, but, but I'm more curious as to how you sort of, it was almost like the brick by brick, you know, comparison of building up those customers. How did you make a customer or, I guess, help a customer trust you when you're relatively unknown?
Stephan Mathis:
22:17
Yeah, great question. So we sold against what customers hate about brokerages. And so we pretty much set up molo's philosophy around everything that people hate about brokerages, and we were going to do the opposite. And so that means, like accepting all our freight, never changing rates, treating our carriers great, you know, always following through on our commitments, whereas, like, at that time, like you could there larger brokerages could kind of get away with some of that stuff if, like, they've been in a network for a long time, for a shipper and they are a household name, like, they could change rates or this or that, and we didn't. We were, like, we have to do things better than everybody and like, do it to an A plus level if we want to compete with these larger brokerages. So we started putting out that type of energy out into the world. Now, granted, is that sustainable forever? No, it's not. It's not sustainable forever to be keeping every single customer in the industry happy at all given times like, you're going to go nuts doing that. But there was a period where shippers were really frustrated with the level of service that they were getting they were getting from from brokerages, and so we were like, Why don't we be that just the anti broker and be the one that does everything by the book? And that type of energy took us to year five, probably, honestly, like, until this day, we still do everything by the book, but now you kind of understand the customers expectations and how they play the game, and like, you have relationships where, you know, shippers want you to come back and change rates. If it's like, you're you're going to be in the like. It's a little bit more different now, whereas before, it was more black and white. So we were able to use that to our advantage, for sure.
Blythe Brumleve:
24:06
And so you have this history of carrier sales, you evolve it into customer sales, and it's just you doing the customer sales initially. When? When was that? That moment when you started to, you know, add more members to the customer sales team, and what did that look like? You had gone through rigorous training over at Coyote, so I guess maybe, what are the lessons that you learned there that you were starting to bring into Molo as you guys were growing?
Stephan Mathis:
24:33
Yeah, and I'll clarify that I wasn't the only customer sales rep. We had others. It was one of those things where everybody sells in the beginning. Yeah, very true. Starting a company from the ground up. Like, if you had access to someone who was at a shipper that could potentially give us freight, like you're on the phone with them, like, if it's your brother's cousin's mom who works at CDW, who could get you a convo with a shipper, you're taking that call and. Your title might not be Customer Sales Manager, but you know, you're you're gonna figure out a way to get that in the hands, to somehow get freight so we all wore that. It wasn't, you know, by me, by me, by any means, but I was like, one of the first ones to say, like, I'm going the enterprise sales, customer route. And I think Andrew had come on after, I think, a year later, and he had a ton of customer sales experience running offices at at Coyote, and, you know, just being exposed to it on a high level there. So that also put it through fuel on the fire too, with his inextensive customer sales background, and so that allowed us to kind of get even more of the brand and culture and push forward to finding our differentiator in the market and getting customers to believe in us.
Blythe Brumleve:
25:52
How do you differentiate yourself in a brokerage market?
Stephan Mathis:
25:58
Man, that's such a good question. It on paper, everybody looks the same, and that's the old adage. That's why it's very challenging for a shipper to decide who is the right broker to use, because what do you measure them by? Typically, what we found was customers would buy into working with us after we had proved ourselves for somebody else, that's just the nature of it. Like, you haul really well for Aldi. And Aldi says, Yeah, you guys are good. And then Aldi says, Hey, craft Molo is good. We use them. And then crafts like, Yeah, you should use them Walmart. And then Walmart's like, yeah. And it's like, we kind of had to sell that way when you're not a household name, like you need someone speaking on your behalf, which that I highly recommend getting recommendations or or word of mouth, or someone saying something good about you, because the reality is, the differentiators are very few and far between. In our industry, everybody says they do the same thing. We pick up all our loads. We deliver them on time. We have all the tech. We have this. We have that. We have. You're like, every shipper at this point has heard all the sales pitch as possible. So like, how do you truly differentiate? And I've been even on the point where, like, I sold customers by saying we're not any different. I'm not going to sell you anything differently than someone else does, but what I'm going to do is like, I'm a really good sales rep. I manage X amount of business. I run 100 million dollars worth of freight, and we were at 96% on time delivery last year. Would you want to work with someone who has that type of track record take shot on like, you can kind of like, just simplify it. Like, yeah, I'm not reinventing the wheel. We are a broker, and we we're between trucks and customers. And do you need someone that gives you good service and you want to work with me? Like, that was kind of at the end, when it was, for me, my sales pitch, but yeah, I would not try to sell the differentiator at this point, because shippers are so bogged down from that, yeah,
Blythe Brumleve:
28:08
I imagine what's a little surprising as you were talking is that, you know, these, these shipper like Aldi, for example, Hey, you know, hate craft. You should, you know, work with them. I would almost think, from a business perspective, that Aldi would want to protect their own transportation solutions and not give that referral to bigger customers that you know, that might want to, you know, steal some of that capacity away, or steal some of that talent away. Was it easy to get? Were for us, it kind of sounds like it was a little bit easy to get those word of mouth referrals from those different customers well,
Stephan Mathis:
28:42
and I don't even know if those were the right names. I was throwing them out, but like, when you are good and you do exactly what you say you will do for a given amount of time, and then other people don't do that, like you set yourself apart. And so we always tried to paint the picture of like, okay, we're not as big as ch or coyote or arrive or any of these other ones that are ahead of us that have way bigger market share, way bigger teams, way better. So how can we compete with them? Well, we can compete by looking making our scorecard look like we're number one or two or three on that, and they're on number eight or nine or whatever. And so any way we could paint the picture that, like, look at this like we are beating other people that you see as like, you give way more freight to. So you're constantly trying to find a way to paint the picture in their eyes that you should be someone that they should be working with, and that, yeah, like, and you can't argue against facts like that. That's a fact like a broker will say, we're good at this, or we we service better than everybody, but maybe showing a scorecard, or your tender acceptance, or those are things that are real, that happened that someone who said. In a logistics manager position might look at and they could be like, Okay, well, that's a real thing that I can now Gage you on. And so we tried using whatever we could, whether it was scorecards or reviews or recommendations or storytelling, which, like I've talked about a lot, and I know some other people have mentioned it, you're not storytelling in this industry. You are like living in the stone age because everybody knows that it won't go perfectly in logistics, there's always going to be hurdles and things you have to overcome. But that's like, literally, what the person on the other side of the phone wants to know about you or how you handled an adverse situation, so that they can put themselves in the shoes of the person who you solved the problem for previously. And they can, like, they can resonate with that. And so again, like, kind of going back to what I started with in the beginning. I didn't have a perfect salesmanship. I didn't go through a customer sales training, where they tell you exactly how to do things. But I did figure out on what people buy on, and they buy on trust. They buy on storytelling, believing in what you're saying, believing in your mission, reviews, recommendations, because those are things that like they can see and like pick up on. Are you going to do what you say you're going to do. And so that conviction you start getting as a sales rep, the longer you sit in the seat, and you actually prove to yourself that you are going to do exactly what you're saying you're doing. And you become more and more confident when you don't take the like easy route of giving freight back or rerating it, or or or failing on loads, or or doing the kind of negative broker, you know, attributes, so that starts to build momentum into, like you have easier conversations with shippers. Yeah,
Blythe Brumleve:
31:54
I think one, one really important thing that you just talked about was the storytelling aspect and and almost explaining the pain points to maybe shipping managers who have no idea, or maybe have a very good idea of what some of them pain points are going to be, and helping them to avoid them. Do you have any you mentioned that storytelling should be a crucial part, or you kind of hinted to it that should be a crucial part in your selling. Do you have any kind of, like, favorite story moments that you told a customer and it worked out for it well for you?
Stephan Mathis:
32:30
Yes. And so this was probably this story. It's a true story, and it actually was a very challenging situation. And so I onboarded a very large food, food and beverage shipper, let's say, and you know, I sold them for three years to get our shot in right. And like enterprise sales, like you got to be able to to have have some patience, because it might take you a long time to get into a really large shipper, and so I want, I just want to say that really quick. Like, I see a lot of sales reps that don't have the patience to wait that long to get their shot at like, a mammoth customer that could literally be their entire book of business, right? Like, you got to be willing to slowly build traction with them and get them to believe in what you're saying. But, um, so I did that. It took me about three, three and a half years before I finally cracked this the shipper, we got our first awards. We're excited, you know, everyone's like, Yo, we're gonna, you know, we'll be home for blah, blah, blah, like, and then the storms hit in in Texas, and in a matter of a matter of 24 hours, the rates went up 30% and our freight was starting. It happened on a Friday, Monday, our rates all went live, and everything was 30% higher than what we had quoted. And you had just got done selling the customer on, like, we stick to our rates, we service our freight, we're going to be the great partner. Thank you for bringing us on. Like, everything is great, but shippers are smart enough to know that. Like, yeah, you're going to sell me on all these things, and I'm believing what you're saying. That's why I'm taking a chance on you. But my perception of you actually starts all over again the day I send you a first load, and now we start all over again. And now I'm seeing if you're actually going to do what you say you're going to do. And so could have it was the worst timing in history of timing. Probably, I mean, maybe I'm exaggerating, but the storms hit, shippers were shutting down. Rates went up 30% we're getting our contracted freight. We're bleeding cash within the first few weeks, probably 20, $30,000 in the red. But you have to keep servicing the loads right. And so like, any brokerage would already be like, ding, ding, ding. Like, man that stinks. Like, you should do something about that, or, like, go back to the customer and ask for more. Money or tell them. And we looked at it like, wait, no, we're not going to do that. Like, that's what everybody else would do. Why don't we, like, stay the course here, and like, commit to what we said we were going to do, and we'll dig ourselves out of this hole. And we we lived up to our promises, and that catapulted into them needing more help on non contracted freight, right? And so we were, you know, losing money on the contracted but all of the spot and additional support that they needed because the other providers were maybe falling on their face or not picking up the freight. So that's your way to save the day. And so we looked at it like, hey, let's take care of this contracted. We'll crush it on on spot, or, you know, new opportunities, mini bids, whatever they have that it's that's coming through the pipeline. And it it turned into, like, we became the household name that was like, who's the new kid on the block? Like, not struggling when everyone's struggling. And I love these moments where you're like you're hit with a adversity, and now you got to back it up, and so you fight through it. A year later, we probably crack crack their top 10 in as large as brokerages, chipping, I don't know what the numbers were back then, 4050, loads a day by then, which is like unheard of in your first year with a new shipper, right? So it just was one of those stories that, like, I could tell that story to any shipper and they would be like, Man, what would I have done in that moment? Or what? What were my carriers doing to me when that happened? They were doing the stuff that I hated, and you weren't. And you tell that story and it's like, real, they're like, man, so if that's how you guys do business, then I could, I'll find a way to get you in my RFP, or I'll find a way to have you guys review a contract and like, those are, I mean, there's several other stories like that, but if you're a logistics manager, and you can see the pedigree that somebody has and how they're going to handle adversity, of course they're going to be a good partner when it's like sunshine and rainbows outside, like picking up their loads and delivering it when the market's nice. And that's really the the challenge in our industry is that when the going gets tough, only I'm making up a number here, five, 10% of the carriers actually can, can stay the course and get through that challenging timeline and then tell a story to their customer, like, Hey, I'm gonna stick with you through this. This is gonna stink. I might need your help later on, but like, I'm gonna battle through this with you and your customers. Like, remember when you went through the struggle with them and they like, make you whole. Typically, they'll make you whole. Some of them aren't the greatest, and we've all probably had some tough shippers, but for the most part, if you stuck to your guns and took care of them, they'll reciprocate. And so I always had that in my mind, like the long term vision of these shippers, especially in the enterprise game, is not what we're doing for them this cycle or this year, right? If I want to haul for, I don't even know, I didn't even haul for General Mills, or throw up a large logo like I want to be hauling for them now and 10 years from now. So what I do right now, in this year is just a blip on the radar when it comes to, like, a long term partnership with, you know, Brenda, who's been in the VP of logistics for 30 years, if she knows that, I'm going to stay the course and build with her long term. Like, that's someone that they want to do business with with, and you have to, like, establish the type of relationship you want to have with them. So anyways, I'm rambling, but like, you can kind of get the like, the idea you can buy into, like, the type of relationship you want to have with shippers and how you're going to service them through volatility.
Blythe Brumleve:
38:51
And I imagine that landing that big customer, going through those trials and tribulations, only helped to snowball the effect into landing more of those similar type of customers, is that
Stephan Mathis:
39:02
accurate? Yes. And so then you're not talking about differentiators with those customers. You get on the phone with them the obviously you check the boxes, you know, API, EDI, modes of transportation, all the like, basics that they require. But you're really just talking to them about like, the type of provider you are, or the type of mindset you have with partnerships and like, believing in each other and trust and like, I have your back. You have my back. Sometimes I'll need to wave the white flag and need your help. Sometimes you'll need me to lower my rates because the market goes down. This is a win win business. And like, if we stick to our partnership being really strong, like, we can do this for a long time together, and like, more times than not talking to shippers like that, I found that was the easiest way to build relationships, because it was less about the X's and O's, and less about the rate per mile or what load I shipped or region. It was more about. Up the person on the other side of the phone that I respected them, they took a shot on me getting in their network, and I need to live up to the promises. And they also, you know, if I do everything that I said I would, will you grow me right? Like, will you continue to give me more business? And, like, that's a relationship you have. And I started towards the end of my career, being able to do that with several enterprise customers, because it wasn't so much about, like, all the bells and whistles and how great we are and this and that, and all the buzzwords and the decks and this and, like, how creative we we we recreated the wheel here, like we're the techiest. I did. I pick up my loads, I deliver them, and I'm going to do it exactly the way you asked me to. And we're gonna golf a couple times a year, and I'm gonna make sure that I don't make it look bad in meetings. Cool. Can we keep doing that for the next five, six years? Awesome. And you're like, my friend, like, that was like, my style, and it worked. Yeah, I
Blythe Brumleve:
40:56
could definitely see how that works. Is especially because you're being honest with them from the jump, and you're getting the job done at the end of the day. I mean, you mentioned 96% you know, delivery rate. And that's what matters most to a lot of these guys, is that in gals, is that? How can you create less problems for them so they don't have another manager, another, you know, C suite executive breathing down their neck? Because, you know, supply chain prices have increased dramatically again.
Stephan Mathis:
41:24
And I'll say another thing too, which, again, I'm no longer a broker, so I can, like, unload the knowledge of things that I've learned and along the way, you I think people underestimate what perception that everyone on their team has on a customer's perception of you. So what I mean by that is sales rep, or let's say, C suite at a brokerage lands a new logo and they're doing business with them. General consensus is like, Oh, the relationship is with Stephen Mathis and whatever shipper, when the real relationship is the account manager, the accounting team, the operations teams, the load planners, that relationship is like 90% of it, because, if they are, you know, on the same page with the other planner, their their counterparts at the shipper, and everybody inside of that organization speaks highly of X carrier. Their feedback goes up to the top inside of a shipper of like, who their favorite carriers are. And so if they're always like, Yeah, John at operations at Molo is always on top. I love working with them. And then he says that to his VP, who's your favorite carrier, and they always are sick. So I always coach my team that like it's not just me who has a great relationship with my guy who calls me it. You guys all have to have great relationships with everybody you touch, every email you send, every shipping contact that you know that you schedule a load with, or the accounting department, everybody needs to be selling and, like, making a perception that we're the carrier that they should love working with, because they all have a perception or have a bad day when you sent the wrong email, you were in the wrong mindset, and that, like, quickly can escalate, or you didn't handle that problem load the right way, and then they're like, Man Molo is like, kind of stinking now, like everyone's constantly taking a perception of you. And so I always was like, Guys, if we're having our worst day, it doesn't matter. Let's just like, always look like we're buttoned up, even if you're struggling on this thing, perception is reality, and we have to control the narrative of what people think about us. And that's true sales when it comes to a brokerage. Because if you have a defense up where no one can penetrate, like, getting thinking negative about you, because you always like, come through, then, like, why wouldn't you get more business? You'd be hard to unseat at that point.
Blythe Brumleve:
43:57
And so as you're it sounds like you know, in this moment of time, you know you're landing big enterprise customers. You know, things are running like a well oiled machine. How do you get to the point where you're like, I'm ready to leave, I'm ready to take a step back and try something new?
Stephan Mathis:
44:15
Yeah, it was kind of similar to the jump that I had before with
Blythe Brumleve:
44:21
coyote and when they got bought out, yeah, I
Stephan Mathis:
44:24
think I was like, I had accomplished everything that I wanted to as a I started as a, basically a carrier sales acumen, and ended up CO founding a company that got acquired and being our top sales rep at the end, I managed 150 million in phrase spend. And was shipping 6000 truckloads a month. I didn't know where anywhere else. There wasn't anywhere else to go, other than just keep doing more of that. And for me, I like to challenge myself. I like to keep accelerating and learning new things, whether it's about this industry. Another industry, but, but truthfully, I got to a point where I I felt, I felt like I accomplished everything I wanted to inside of of Molo and arc best, and I wanted to exit kind of gracefully and spend time with my family. And I my, I had a baby on the way, and the timing was, was great, because I when I started, when we had started Molo, I was 28 single with a dog, and when I ended, I had a baby on the way, a one year old. I was building a house, and it was like, Man, this is the right time. Like, let me pass the baton on. I've landed enough customers. My my teams all feel really good. My customers love working with with Molo. Let me kind of do like, a farewell and and bow out and like, feel good knowing that we worked really hard and and at the end, yeah, a lot of the customers were congratulatory, like, saying, like, man, it was awesome working with you. We'll keep working with them like, you know, we're cheering you on. We can't wait to see what's next for you. But I wanted to, like exit and focus on family for a little bit before I figured out kind of what I want to tackle next. So
Blythe Brumleve:
46:13
how did you because i i Sometimes, well, not sometimes all the time, I sort of associate, I guess, my self esteem, with my work. And when some work in previous, you know, career moves, when that work has been taken away from me, it's either pissed me off or it's made me really sad. How did you sort of, like, grieve that that process of, you know this is one part of your life, and now you're moving into the next. What did that process look like? Did you have an idea of what you wanted to sort of do next, or was it just embracing, sort of the fear of the unknown? I
Stephan Mathis:
46:55
think it was bracing the fear of the unknown, and it was whatever I tackle next, I will be fine. You're nervous and you're fearful of learning something new or starting from scratch. But I always had this like, hey, everywhere I've ever gone, I I was worried, but then I I made it through the fire. And why would it change if whatever the next thing I put my my mind to so mobile became my identity. It so, like, when you started saying that, it was very challenging, because that was, like, my heart was, I lived it, I breathed it. It was who I was as a person. But I also needed to, like, let go of that, because, like, at times it was unhealthy, like, caring so much about something that, like, you are that person and like, so that's something that I'm excited about whenever I jump on my next endeavor or or on someone another team is, like, also drawing a line between like, work and like, who I am outside of work, because, like, I felt like I was a Molo co founder everywhere I went for like, six years. Yeah, it probably helped me in my sales perspective, but like, hurts you when you only focus on that for you know, so much of your life. So
Blythe Brumleve:
48:07
yeah, for sure, there's definitely life outside of the brokerage walls, and especially like as as the industry is still going through so many changes and evolutions, it feels like it's happening faster than ever. We had a little bit of a boom over the last handful of years with, you know, sort of digital freight companies and digital freight brokerages. That's kind of, maybe was, I don't want to say a flash in the pan, but, you know, some of that is fizzled out, obviously, with the convoy closure and the challenges around that space. But it also forced the industry to adapt more technology, and really forced them to. So if you were to, if you were to plan to start like a Molo 2.0 or a freight brokerage in 2024, what would be those, those table stakes of how you would get a modern day freight brokerage started up from the ground up.
Stephan Mathis:
49:05
I think that I would actually do some some customer feedback before I even, like, started like, ask, find out what customers truly want and what they've their pain points and experience that they've had, what they like what they don't like. And kind of garnt, yeah, get enough of that before you you jump into it. But I'm not someone who wants to rat on the digital broker thing. I think that convoy and some of some of the other brokerages have really pushed the industry forward from a tech perspective and and it's, you know, it didn't fully work out for them at the end, but, like we all had to get more tech efficiency focused. So from that perspective, I think that was a win for them. But, yeah, I think ultimately a brokerage needs to be. Able to be efficiently moving the freight and also manage their costs at the same time, which shippers have no way of knowing if a brokerage is managing their cost effectively internally, they're like you bid the freight and you move it at the rates you you gave. So I think partnering with with companies that allow you to, you know, keep track of your overhead and make sure you're not over leveraging yourself in certain areas. You see the layoffs happening everywhere across the industry. It's, it's terrible to see a lot of that has to do with, you know, some of the companies making a lot of money during the pandemic and over hiring. Some companies have such great talent that have been there for so long that they just can't pay them all anymore. And so those people will go, go and find other smaller companies and help build them out. And when the freight comes back, those companies will will take off and grow. So I think it's like a, typically, a 24 to 36 month cycle where, like it keeps the freight, keeps changing hands. The market will move forward. From a tech perspective, the customer's expectations typically raise, you know, go up, but then there will be a market inflection. Something will happen that'll make it hard to move freight. And then you'll see who the true players are. And then typically, the ones that could go back to just being pure brokers and taking care of the freight and not doing it in a fancy way, will win. And that's why the names at the top of the list of the largest brokerages, or the ones that maybe top 100 haven't changed in years, like it's the same brokerages who are doing really good job and are the household names in the industry, because they can figure out how to weather the storm and keep taking care of their customers. So Kevin
Blythe Brumleve:
51:51
Hill of brush pass research, he dropped some stats recently that said they're at about 33% more freight brokerages today than there were, compared to 2019, and I'm curious, especially with the, I guess, combining the technology aspect of it too. Do you think shippers are overwhelmed with all the freight tech solutions and freight brokerages just in general, or are they welcoming of sort of these new advancements and these new ways of doing business,
Stephan Mathis:
52:26
I don't think they're welcoming of it. I think that it is when they take a chance on someone who has a new way of doing it and it works, then they might be more open to it. But a lot of the shippers, or they just trust what they know. And if this works, I'm not gonna if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's kind of the the old adage. But it eventually will continue to change. If someone is working and doing really well with a new technology or something, then that shipper talks to the next ones like these guys are doing this. We like this about them. You should use them. And then it starts spiraling. And before you know, the brokerage community is like, well, we all have to use this thing now, because the shippers have said, this is the thing. But I don't think that that's out there today. There's a lot of technology that for back end brokerage support or in house, everyone's doing something to help the brokerage better. And I think there's kind of a lacking in technology for the overall space in specifically to the customers and how they make decisions about who and why and what, and who's moving the freight and why. And I think that that there's kind of opportunities in the space, from that perspective, and just the overall experience from brokerage to customer, the industry needs more people working on it. I said this on Nathan shoots podcast, there needs to be people working on the industry, regardless of what's going on in it. Like, the freight is moving fine, but like, who's making it a better place to work in and thinking about, like, solving problems over here while they're not running around moving loads, like, because that's like, you're not fully giving 100% towards the problems when you're spending time moving the loads. And so that's the challenge as a brokerage. If you're moving $500 million worth of freight, how much time do you have to actually go and, like, automate and change something over here? Like someone else needs to do that then for you. And so I think that the industry is ripe for continuous disruption, but not like in the techie convoy, kind of like, mindset of disrupting brokerages, but more disrupting from place of like technology that could advance the experience or efficiency from both the cut the customer all the way through the brokerage. And so that's I'm fascinated by, what the future looks like for for that and. I could see myself trying to tackle a few of the problems that I've seen over over time.
Blythe Brumleve:
55:05
So if you are work, if you are a broker and you're just getting started, maybe you work at a small company, maybe you work at a large company. What kind of advice or tips would you give to those brokers who are struggling to get that new business, and are, you know, not having the emails answered or the phone calls answered, and they're getting ignored. And would that advice be different, large versus small brokerage?
Stephan Mathis:
55:34
Yeah, I think you have to go through that, that challenging period where you you're on the phones, you're hustling and bustling like that's part of being a broker, broker, and you have to kind of cut your teeth on that. But my advice for them would be to find their genuine voice of who they are and think about putting themselves in the shippers shoes of like the type of person that they would want to work with or trust their freight with, and then start mirroring, mirroring your sales pitch on yourself or on them, as if, like you're trying to be the person who's a good sales like, Don't be the person who's blowing them up constantly, like they hate that at this point, like there's enough information out there of, like, what you shouldn't do to, like, piss a shipper off, and if you are still doing those things like you're the broker they hate, let's just be real. And the other, the second piece of that, I would say, yeah, be genuine. Be authentic. Show who you are. Be vulnerable. Because the reality of this industry is it's all about relationships, and it's all about trust, and it doesn't matter you look back 10 years from now or 10 years further, it's always going to be like the experience you had with the person, and you'll rather trust that person than someone new you've never heard of. And so the second part of that, I would say is like building your personal brand, building your own whether it's on your LinkedIn or maybe it's in your emails, when you're reaching out, have something that they can follow along with with you and get to know you as a person. Because a lot of times these these shippers are choosing to work with the person that they they, you know, could see themselves, like having a good relationship with too, which, like, you could be the best broker in the world. But if you stink at like relationships, or you struggle with that part, like, eventually they won't want to work with you, even though, like your company is so good, and so I think it, it benefits everybody to work on their LinkedIn, talking about rate, talking about whatever it is that they do, gaining a following, because whether or not you are getting traction from the customer like you know they're responding to your emails if you follow them or or post on LinkedIn, or maybe they're you connected with them on LinkedIn, they can still, indirectly see your content, and they can make a perception of the type of person that you are. Are you the type of sales rep that I I'd want to do business with, or following your company? And the same, and again, with that, same goes with with the companies, right like you. They should have their own LinkedIn branding and putting the type of energy into the world, how they do business, so that shippers can see that, and kind of, kind of put themselves in the shoes of like, if they were working with you, just important, yeah,
Blythe Brumleve:
58:41
I 100% CO sign that that you should actually be building, you know, that personal brand and using social media as a digital handshake. But I have heard from so many different, you know, brokers and freight marketers that they've lost their job if they start personally branding themselves out on social media because the owners or the C suite, they get scared that, you know the that they're going to be bigger than the company, or they're going to misrepresent the company, so they discourage their employees from actively building out in public, building on social media. So what would you say to some of those companies who are forbidding their employees from building up that brand and that authentic, authenticity and trust.
Stephan Mathis:
59:25
I think all Pub is good pub for the most typically, I think I got that from a movie at some point, or someone made it that quote. But like, your, if your employees enjoy working at your company and they're putting their information out in the world, and like people get to follow them, that's a direct reflection on more exposure to inbound interest in your company, not from just like a shipper perspective or a carrier perspective, but also from like potential employees, right? Like, if I'm a entry level, or, let's say, a mid level, say. Sales rep at a mid size brokerage, and I'm posting on my LinkedIn about sales or what I like to do in my free time, or, you know, challenges or hurdles or things I've done in my career, and other sales reps from other companies see that. You know, John Smith loves working at blah blah blah carrier. They all are looking at that and seeing, like, oh, he really likes his job over there. Like, maybe I would want to work there. It's like a talent pool. I think individual brands, personal brands for employees. It helps and catapults a brand. You know, the company's brand, so I think it's, it's good to keep doing that and pushing them and then, and then, if they're the ones that are saying not to do that, are they doing it themselves? Because they're probably not, which, like, they should be the ones out there. Also, if they're the CEO or C suite or VPS, they need to be putting information out there for other people to catch on and, like, start telling their story. I think everyone has this, like, natural like, pushback against social media because they see so much of it already. And I'm not that type of person or this or that, but like, how do you expect people to learn about you, right, other than just you cold, blowing them up and emails and calls and stuff and like, Does that seem Is that how you would want to find out? You kind of want to, like, indirectly, find out about how, how somebody is, like, you know, maybe they went to a ball game on the weekend. They post a picture about it with one of their old their carriers or their customer, and then you're like, Oh, I know, so and so at that shipper, you know, like, they went to the ball game together. Maybe they are someone I should consider, like, right? Like, you can start to, like, put yourself in the shoes, but you'll never get any of that attention if you're not using the social media to your advantage.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:01:52
Yeah, I definitely co sign there. I think it's very short sighted for a lot of these, you know, I guess sort of company leaders to prohibit their employees from I get it from the sense of, like, you don't want them commenting on, you know, say, we used to have a rule anything that has to do with a sex, politics or religion, just steer clear from everything else is safe. And so as long as you're following those, like, very loose guidelines, then there's really no reason to be that worried about your company or your employees promoting the company, unless they're revealing sort of sensitive information, which hopefully they're not dumb enough to do that. But if they do, that's a situation that you cross that bridge when it happens, but you don't need to worry yourself about things that haven't necessarily happened yet, and for folks who are maybe working in you know, those environments, I would highly encourage you to still build that brand separately, and then that way you can have something to fall back on, or just, I mean, it's much simpler. It's easier said than done, but go work for another company that actually values some of those talents.
Stephan Mathis:
1:03:00
And yeah, and if you're a sales rep or an employee at one of these companies, you need to do it because that's your personal brand. It's not, doesn't necessarily need to mean like you are who you are outside of that company too. And you might not work there forever, if they get butthurt about that, you can say, like, hey. Like, I might work here for three four years, but like, I want to build my personal brand up and my LinkedIn following maybe I'm working somewhere else in five years. Like, I want there to be a following of people who know who I am. Like, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm an individual, you know, like, and stand up for yourself and have a problem with that. Like, maybe it's not the company to work at.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:03:40
Yeah, that's a real quick way to find out if that company is a good fit for you or not long term. And so as you, you know, sort of shifted into you call yourself a free agent right now, you're not ready to talk about the, you know, the things that you're working on. Of course, I'm sure that will come a little bit later on, but I'm curious as to how you're thinking about marketing yourself right now. You know, I've seen you on a couple different podcasts. Obviously, we're recording one right now. Recording one right now. How do you think about your personal brand right now and what you're building towards?
Stephan Mathis:
1:04:09
Yeah, I think I'm really just putting out my story and building up kind of what the back end of what I've what I've done so far in the industry, building a following of industry peers, getting to connect with people who are doing some cool stuff. And like, being on your podcast, or being in the founders you know, group with Nathan, and getting to hear other people's stories. And like, the more I get out there and be exposed, I'm meeting some really cool people that I didn't even I was, like, sheltered from because I was so focused on just Mola Mola Mola Mola Mola, or customer customer that was in the weeds and I didn't see the world going around me, of like, wow, this like, space is massive, and there's a lot of other stuff going on. So I think it helps to be a kind of a connector, and being in different spaces and and, yeah, that kind of allows you to to open up doors. That could potentially be a new career path or or a potential partner one day, if you have your own company, they they might be a vendor of yours like you just never know. And so I'm really just putting out there the energy. I'm trying to help as many people as I can, connecting. I don't have an ask today, because I'm not actively working, but building a brand of my own, following thing active in the space. And, you know, at some point I'll pop up and do something that I'm inspired by, and hopefully some of the following that I have might be future customers or people that I can help. And that's the way I look at it.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:05:34
And so, you know, I think this is a perfect segue into, you know, the final segment that I like to have with each of our guests that come on the show, it's more of like marketing and sales. Like rapid fire. We're already talking about marketing and sales. So I would love to get into you've already kind of answered, you know, some of the first for people who listen regularly. I do have a certain amount of questions that I asked, but I'm not going to repeat those in case you've already answered them. And that first one is, how do you think about marketing when it comes to you and your company? You've definitely answered that, I think throughout the that, I think, throughout this entire show. But this next one is, what's your favorite social media platform and why
Stephan Mathis:
1:06:11
I'm a big Instagram follower. Really, I don't do a lot of content on there. I don't think in the logistics space. Now, it's growing on there. But know, if a lot of shippers are on Instagram, from that perspective, they're kind of using it more as their way to just be themselves and be away from it. But like, I My favorite would be LinkedIn, by far. LinkedIn is it's the it's the place where you can really, truly connect and network with people and, like, see what's going on, whether it's in the industry or or in internally at companies, what people care about. You can see the following. You can see who you should connect with to be in certain types of groups, or it's wide open. And you can see the, I wouldn't call them influencers, but there's a lot of people doing really well on LinkedIn alone, just monetizing their audience, and that's a whole other part of this too. I wouldn't say necessarily, in the logistics space you need that, but it does behoove you to have a presence on there and be be well known, and be someone that could be in any any room, and someone knows your story. That's a step right? And like, and I think about it too, from a place of, like, if you wanted to have a new job and you were connected with like, 500 of the same people, chances are those people wouldn't be connected with you if you were not a great person, right? Like, they wouldn't, they wouldn't want to be following you or whatnot. So you kind of get like, instant credibility of like, connecting with all these really cool people that I also trust, should probably give this person a chance. Or you could ask that person, what do you think of them, right? Like? So I definitely would say LinkedIn is is massive, and it's gonna keep growing.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:07:55
For sure, it's definitely, I think, a unicorn in the logistics space. I think X is kind of formerly Twitter is, you know, growing a little bit. It's just, it's still there. I just feel, I have a deep fear of, like, what the rest of 2024 is going to do to Twitter itself, and, like, the psyche of a lot of the crazy users of that platform. But it is starting to really grow. From a logistics standpoint, there's a lot of folks that you can connect with on there. But to your point about Instagram, I don't know how many shippers are actively on x. So right now, LinkedIn is really the best bet for a lot of us that are looking to build up your personal brand. And you had mentioned earlier about, you know, being, you know, kind of in the Molo circle, and so you didn't know about some of these other things that are going on within the industry, and you're finding a lot of excitement about learning about them. And so one of our next questions is, what is your favorite SAS tool that you use, or maybe you've seen within the industry that you can't that you would either want to purchase or that you can't live without?
Unknown:
1:09:01
Man, that's a good question.
Stephan Mathis:
1:09:08
I can't think of one right now, and that's partially why I think that I want to go into SAS. I don't want to label one. I think there's some great up and coming. I'll say carrier, sure and highway and good ship, and there's, there's a bunch of companies out there that are doing some good things that we need in the space to tackle a specific problem. But yeah, I'm not, I'm not bullish on any one brand quite yet. I think the space is wide open, and there are challengers that could come in and do something great, that could easily take, take the reins and run with it. And so I our next community is so competitive, it is, like, it's beyond competitive. The tech space is, like, wide open.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:09:56
That's, yeah, that's actually a really good point. I haven't thought about it that way. Yeah.
Stephan Mathis:
1:10:00
There's like 20 companies in the tech space that are trying to do something great, and there's 28,000 brokerages
Blythe Brumleve:
1:10:08
to look for. The opportunity, is what you're saying.
Stephan Mathis:
1:10:10
So where can you compete? Right? What is
Blythe Brumleve:
1:10:14
you might have already answered this question, but what is your favorite freight business that that isn't your own, or, formally, of your own.
Stephan Mathis:
1:10:23
The first one that came to mind was candid, expedite, down in in doubt. I think they're in
Blythe Brumleve:
1:10:29
Dallas, DFW Marty, Dallas, Texas. Nicole Glenn, former guest of this show. Nicole Glenn,
Stephan Mathis:
1:10:34
yeah, she's the real she's a real one. She was the reason I left coyote and got out of and found Molo. She bet on me. She pulled me out of there and said, you you can do bigger things. And I took a chance. So definitely. Nicole Glen, I have a picture wearing a candor expedite shirt from like, four years ago, because she had that phase where she left and went and built her own company. And went through that whole phase, and now she's doing really well. Woman owned company.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:11:01
You know, ladies Leadership Coalition podcast going on. I get inspired
Stephan Mathis:
1:11:05
by people who do good things, big things, in this, this industry, and bet on themselves and like and wear it, you know, where they're hard on their sleep like so she's someone that I look up to and I respect. So I'm rooting for candor, expedite, for sure. Heck, yeah,
Blythe Brumleve:
1:11:19
great. Great choice. All right. Next one on the list is, what is a book or podcast that has changed your perspective on something you used to think?
Stephan Mathis:
1:11:30
I do listen to the ED, my let show quite often. He's a kind of, how do you say it the right way? Like he he's like, self help coach and like bettering yourself, and he's one of the leading influencers in that space. I think he's like, number one coach for just like, pushing yourself to that you can reach a higher potential. He interviews some of the like, the best people that can help you, you know, tackle problems or challenges that you're going through, and like mindset. And I'm a big believer of like, it's like, what you say to yourself when you're internally that actually, like is, is how you live your world. So like, I've been working on my internal voice of like, you can do it. Go do it. And what's the other one? Oh, this book, right here, is really good, be useful, by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, I've heard good things about it. He is just like, I mean, right, wrong or indifferent. He has his flaws, so obviously, disclaimer, but the guy has won at every level and everything he's ever tried, because he never was scared and always went for it 100% effort. And like, I respect that when you, like, don't look back and you just say, I'm gonna do this thing and it's has to work. And like, the guy has lived, like, an unbelievable life of like, every challenging thing that he has attempted to do, he's accomplished. And I think that, like, by the end of the race, when you're on your deathbed, you want to tell a story of, like, Man, I tried everything that I ever wanted to and I like, I'm tired. And I think more people need to go out there and bet on themselves and try really hard things and or the thing that they obsess over. And push themselves. So, yeah,
Blythe Brumleve:
1:13:26
that's a really, I would say that that's a perfect place to end it. And I might, you know, sort of kick myself a little bit here, because I do have one more question, and we typically save this one for the last but it's really, it's kind of challenging to answer, but it sounds easy, but it's also challenging to answer. But what is your favorite supply chain or logistics fact, or or maybe one reason why you love this industry,
Stephan Mathis:
1:13:51
the fact that helped me the most closing shippers, was that 93% of the the trucks on the actual road have less than two I think 93% of the fleets on the road have less than two trucks. And when you think about that, and when a shipper is going to tell you, Oh, I only work with asset based carriers, I'm like, okay, so you only want to work with 7% of the carriers. Then in the industry, got it. I know you. That's a that's false. So let's talk real here. You need brokers to work and how you're afraid, right? Like, and I landed some awesome shippers by like, telling them, like, being working with a broker isn't necessarily about broker versus asset. It's about your your ability to gain access to capacity. And so if you're going to just say you want large assets like you're gonna, okay, great, go after the 7% that everyone else wants them to haul perfectly for you. And that's just not the reality of how the freight moves in this industry. So that would be my, my quote, yeah,
Blythe Brumleve:
1:14:54
that's, that's a really good one. And I think that's going to be a sound bite to start off the episodes. So Stephen, anything that you feel is important to mention that we haven't already talked about.
Stephan Mathis:
1:15:08
I am open to continuing to connect with people who you know are forward thinking, maybe contrarian thinkers. I want to keep learning and networking with people who want to move this industry forward, I will be working on something that's a solo project of my own. So excited for that to get, to gain progress, but just in general, like, Yeah, I'm rooting for the industry to keep moving forward and hoping that the layoffs aren't aren't everyone lands on soft landing and and hopefully the market picks up so that everybody can make a little money.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:15:45
Yeah? That, I think everybody is in agreeance with that. So, so great stuff. Stephen, where can folks follow you? Follow more of your work. Stay connected. So when you do have that big announcement that they can all you know, sort of follow along and cheer along.
Stephan Mathis:
1:16:00
Yeah? So Stephen mathes.com I created just a landing branding page of a little bit of what I did at Molo, and kind of thinking of thinking forward ahead. My LinkedIn page pretty active on there. There's a Calendly link if they want to connect with me and just, you know, meet or discuss anything. I'm kind of open right now because I'm at home with my kids so but, yeah, that's really the spa. Is just my personal website right now.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:16:27
Well, perfect. I think this was a, you know, a freight sales master class for this episode. And I think that's, that's going to be the title of the episode for a lot of you know, folks who may be struggling out there. Hopefully you listen and take a lot of this advice, but Stephan, thank you again for joining the show.
Stephan Mathis:
1:16:45
Yeah, thank you for having me and yeah, be authentic. Don't try to sound like you know everything about everything. Just be yourself. That's half the battle.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:16:55
I'll live on that well. Said.
Unknown:
1:16:59
My name is John monarch. I'm with Charlie pesty. I've been working with him for a while now. I've been in the supply chain industry for well over a decade, ranging from fulfillment to technology. I've been working on marketing teams for my entire career, and now helping Charlie and his team help out supply chain companies in growth and in marketing and PR. So what we've done is we have surveyed a range of people in the industry that are supply chain marketing leaders. Specifically, we've gone to the C level. We've gone to directors and VPs of marketing and asked them, hey, what's the landscape looking like in 2024 what's your budget? Like, what's your focus? Like, what challenges are you facing? And, you know, what? How are you making changes to this, this market, including everything from the nasty freight recession we've all been talking about and reading about, I'm sure, of course, to new technologies, to everything that you know can can come in our way in 2024 and what it's looking like. So we want to go over that report with everyone. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to introduce our panelists here. So we'll, we'll go alphabetically. So we'll start with Blythe. If you can introduce yourself, sure,
Blythe Brumleve:
1:18:07
my name is Blythe Brumleve. I am the host of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. And then I also founded a company called Digital dispatch, where I help companies build a better website in freight.
Unknown:
1:18:20
Great to meet you and Clara, hey, yeah, I'm Clara. I'm a co founder and head of growth at a company called carrier source. We're a review platform for carriers, helping carriers build an online presence, as well as helping brokers and shippers find the best carriers to move their freight. So excited to be here. Glad to have you and Gemma. Hi. I'm Gemma Fiorentino. The CEO of counselor is a software as a service platform dedicated to the financial well being of the employees before Council, my skill have developed in big it, tech company. I work for more than 12 years in Avanade, that is a joint venture of Accenture, Microsoft as marketing director. And then I work in other big IT company in the transportation management and supply chain area. Thank you to be inviting me here. Great to have you and Steve. Hi, I'm Steve Bonadio, the VP of global marketing at tive. Tive provides end to end shipment visibility, real time location and condition tracking and active monitoring of shipments. So if you want to know where your shipments are and analyze what condition they are in, whether it's temperature, light, shock, humidity, and take action in real time to prevent excursions and reduce risk through these really cool, awesome solo 5g devices, then tithe is the place to come. Fantastic to have you and to go over the survey. The way that we structured this was we looked for marketing executives that had decision making ability. 41% actually said that they were on marketing teams of fewer than three people, with the next group up being 29% of respondents saying three. To nine members. So it's interesting that most marketing teams seem to operate pretty lean right now, with the seniority level being almost 50% C level. Executives that were on the survey, directors and VPs, held the next up with close to like 30% after that, and then another 15% were management level. So we wanted to go over, like budgeting approaches, and specifically, a lot of respondents here, if you're following along at home in the survey, it looks like where budget is being allocated specifically is becoming much more performance driven. So it's KPIs, it's it's everything from, you know, what can we squeeze the most dollars out of that are not just branding money. So like to go around the room and kind of see like, what are you seeing when it comes to increases and decreases, and does that match what you expected in the survey? So for instance, we're seeing a significant increase in email marketing. Most companies also responded that their budgets were saying the same or increasing for marketing, but with lead generation and email marketing being the top two focuses for for 2024 so we'll go around alphabetically at first, and if anyone would like to jump in, then go right ahead. We'll start with Blythe
Blythe Brumleve:
1:21:15
Sure. So I think that that is a really interesting takeaway to know that a lot of folks are a lot of marketers in freight are expanding their budgets in 2024 Typically, what happens is that those budgets are being cut. People are being cut. But I think if you tie your marketing budgets directly to lead generation and performance indicators such as email, then it's a much easier sell to the C suite. As far as the worth of the work that the marketing department is doing, it makes it much easier to establish attribution to those different initiatives. And so from that lens, I think it's encouraging that email and lead generation are both being invested in heavily. But I also am a little concerned on how those are being measured, and if it's with the measurement, and if those, if that's a true, I guess, sort of a budget where they should be spending it, it, you know, there's, there's other ways to to have lead generation and to have performance indicators, but I think we're still kind of Stuck in, you know, the the indications of of different performance measures over the last 10 years, instead of where the next few years are going to go, if that makes sense.
Unknown:
1:22:28
I agree. And lead generation is a very broad topic, too, so that's something that it can come from many different sources. So Claire would love your thoughts and and any new trends in, like the tech side that are coming on those, those two especially, yeah, I mean, I was, I was very interested in in the report of the investment in the agility and spending, because that's something that we're definitely thinking about, is like, we're setting our budgets, we're planning our budgets, but then we're also being like, but this is all subject to change, like, month by month, and really taking a bigger look at that more than we ever have before, of Like, okay, maybe March will be way down in budget spend, and then we can fly in April. And just having that ability and that flexibility, um, we are investing more in email marketing, and part of that is, is with the new rules that are coming out with Gmail and Yahoo, starting February 1, 2024 um, that will, that will affect us. So we're just making sure up front that we're ready to go and that we're ready to to prepare for that. So no, it's, it's, it's interesting to see that that money companies are focused on that as well. Would you mind describing what the rules are for anyone not familiar, or anyone who has an email heavy for sure? So Gmail and Yahoo have recently released new guidelines that they will be upping their fight against spam, which is obviously a very good thing. But with that, they're making much stricter rules than has ever been the case before for email marketing people, email marketing resources. So some of the things you have to make sure all your technical stuff is set up exactly how they want it to be which a lot of people have their DKIM and DMARC set up, but maybe not their SPF. So there's just some technical back end on that side. And then you have to keep your spam rates below point 3% which previously it's been like, okay, like point eight to 1% is like, not great, but like, that's it doesn't necessarily shut you down. Whereas now they're saying, if you are consistently above that your emails from your whole domain will be blocked, whether that's a personal email or a marketing mail. So we've been doing a lot of research into that to make sure that we are compliant and that we're that we're with with the times, but it'll be interesting to see how that changes the face of email for everybody. It's definitely a challenge with so many companies using Google G Suite as their back end for their email. So that'll be something to pay attention to. Gemma. I think that the report was really interesting because some specific topic in the market investment in Europe specifically are for digital, for sure, but for example, in. Europe, we have to be to have to implement some specific regulation for the GDPR. EU has implemented a robust regulations to protect individual privacy and control the use of the personal data, and GDPR is one of the key regulations. So a key action is to collaborate with the legal department to be sure to be aligned with the regulations. And it's important to invest in tools to be compliant is a prudent decision. So also in the in the paper, the the investment in the tools are a key point, and, of course, also educate the marketing team in GDPR principles is absolutely another key topics to do, absolutely, and that has to be a challenge, I imagine, for European companies working with American subcontractors or providers, especially because American companies don't necessarily have to follow the same rules and or that. So they're not used to it, and then when they contract with you, all of a sudden, they're bound by GDPR Exactly. That's the point. And also, we have different culture, different data, different nations, you know. So we have a GDPR rules at European level, but then we have different needs at regional level. So you have also to consider these, you know, in the channel that you decide to use in your marketing strategy, you know. But also for legal regulations, of course, too, absolutely. And Steve there, and let me go over the the first two with you, the lead gen and the email side. But also there were, I know your focus has changed pretty significantly to being much more laser targeted as well. Yeah, and that, John, that brings in the whole Account Based Marketing types of things here. You know, it's not surprising to me, whether you call it lead generation, demand gen growth marketing, that even if you look at LinkedIn, there's so many roles still available, and people are hiring for growth marketers. And I think that's a reflection of the massive overspending during the pandemic and in marketing and every other go to market function, and then we get to 2023, and it all becomes about efficient growth and doing more with less, and maximizing your marketing investments. And I see that in any of the CMO and marketing peer groups that I'm in, we're all we're all facing the same, the same headwinds. But it's important to recognize that at the end of the day, it's in our business, and I think a lot of other businesses, it's about marketing and demand gen, lead gen in particular, is about supporting the growth of the company. It's about building quality pipeline that converts into opportunities and close one business which supports bookings growth, arr growth, and ultimately revenue growth. And so I think email can contribute to that. It's a wonderful channel for engaging with your audiences, for nurturing your audiences. But at the end of the day, if you're not able to develop programs, whether email programs, or any other type of program, an ABM program, getting hyper focused on your ICP or ideal customer profile, and then translate that into pipeline, which is turning into closed business for your organization and growth for your organization, you're not going to be successful as a B to B marketer going forward. I agree with that, and does your approach for major enterprise and smaller business, like anyone who wants to use a tie tracker, for instance, let's say it's, you know, an owner, operator, versus XPO logistics, you know, someone. Let's go, like, get two opposite ends of the spectrum here. What's your approach? Like on that? Yeah. So we really have sort of two segments in our go to market, in our ICP. On the one hand, you've got the shippers, and we tend to sell a lot into food and perishables who have temperature and cold chain issues, pharmaceutical similar cold chain high value goods, which you can define in a lot of different ways. They could be luxury goods. They could be electronic semiconductors, automotive parts. So that's one side of it, but a big part of our business is also selling into LSPs, logistics service providers, three PLS, who actually see tithe as a value add and can sell tithe or sell the value of tracking the shipments of their customers, the shippers, the retailers, the Costcos, the Walmarts, the Amazon freshers of the world, who can sell into the value proposition of being able to manage their shipments and have that level of visibility that they here to for haven't had. So we we tend to sell into both of those segments directly to end customers, but also LSPs, who sell down to through their. Their their shippers and customers as well. That makes sense. And it's it's interesting looking at the channels that seem to see the most decrease as well. So it looks like push notifications was a pretty significant drop, which makes sense. I mean, especially in B to B, where it's not like we're sending out phone notifications to customers about, like, 10% off, or whatever, PR and press releases was a drop as well. But I think the press releases can be separated out from that, because I think a lot of people don't really see the value of just blasting a press release out there without actually having the relationship to it. One that was interesting on the increased side was digital video marketing, and it seems like there's a pretty significant increase going on in that. And Would anyone like to speak on that, if you're seeing, you know, behaviors in digital video marketing, or is it something that you're focusing on more now, just anyone who'd like to jump in,
Blythe Brumleve:
1:30:56
I can jump in on that one for I would say, starting in 2020 that's when, you know, everything locked down, and a lot of the conferences initially went virtual. What we saw was sort of this creep up of a lot of folks starting, especially independent creators, starting to create a podcast, starting with video first. And so when they start with video first, it allows your distribution of that content to have a massive advantage, right? So you're thinking of your distribution from email to advertising spend to social media. And so when you start with video first, you're able to pull out interesting moments from that conversation, from that long form conversation, and be able to turn it into digestible clips, digestible bites of information. And so not only does it go to email to social media, but it also transforms into text based posts, pull quotes, blog posts, white papers. It really just lends itself to a variety of different marketing initiatives that you can do from an organic perspective. And then now there was, I would say there was probably about 20 podcasts at the time, both company driven and independent creators. But now I just saw a list the other day that was the top 100 supply chain and logistics podcast and so this is growing dramatically, not necessarily for, you know, maybe like a news based platform or a news based initiative, but more so, ways to connect directly with your customers, to connect directly with them, so you have that long form content, and then you can use the rest of that distribution strategy across all of your channels. So it's really quite remarkable, the amount of growth that we've seen in video marketing. It
Unknown:
1:32:41
makes sense, and it's funny, because podcasts used to only be audio, and now it seems you must video, or else you're just lost in the, you know, in the pile there. I think there's also we, because we gather reviews for people, and you can write a review on a trucking company, and, you know, then you can use that review to help market your business. And we're getting more and more requests for, do you guys do video reviews? Like, can someone leave a video feedback of my company? And we don't have that yet, but it is something that we've started thinking about. It's like, okay, we're getting requests from that, which is interesting. The other thing that I think, especially in our industry, that that is helping video skyrocket is we are, I think more and more distrustful of one another in in there's so much fraud right now happening that like so putting a face to it, having Okay, I see who you are, I get a better vibe of what you are looking for, who you know, how you interact with me. I think that helps skyrocket it too. Yeah, I would agree with that. Clara, we see that quite a bit. I mean, when we look at our stats for LinkedIn and our CEO here at Taiwan Konomi, when, whenever he, you know, shoots up quick little video on his iPhone and posts it to LinkedIn with, you know, a couple sentences, by far and away, it gets more engagement than any other type of post, no matter how cool that post might be, no matter how relevant that that content me. I think it's that human connection through video that really matters. And what what engages with folks out through, particularly through social channels, it's the tick tock of vacation of B to B basically, no, I agree with that, and it's funny, because user generated content was such a big deal in B to C, E, commerce apps, everything like that. Now it's finally spreading here to where, I mean, a good example of that is like, go ahead, I'm sorry. Sorry. What? What what I can what I can add here, is that with artificial intelligence now is is more easy to produce video content, you know? So also the the technology tools to support us, support our creativity and also preserve our times. To. You content, you know. So that's the point of view of our future work, you know, in terms of marketing initiatives and and activity. I agree. And I think that this leads well into the the next part here, which is going to be the challenges that marketing teams and marketing leadership are facing in 2024 here. So we, I mean, everyone's bracing for, or already braced for, this freight recession and some kind of fear in general, going forward into 2024 especially with uncertainty around the the broader economy globally, uncertainty around conflict around interest rates, and it seems like there's this broader shared sense of urgency around making things KPI driven again, and reducing spending while making it, you know, deliver better. So like 30 or approximately 32% of respondents said that pressure to reduce spending and marketing and PR while also delivering higher sales and pipeline growth. So there's, there's a lot on on marketing teams for that, and then followed by 29% saying that the changing marketing expectations, including the need for direct sales and almost emerging of the marketing and sales team in some ways. So I'd love to go backwards on that. We'd love to start with Steve, on your thoughts on the challenges going forward next year? Yeah, I find it really interesting. John, you know, we talk about growth marketing being a big lever to drive pipeline and bookings, but you know, generally, there's a pendulum. The more you're investing in growth marketing, the less you're investing in PR and brand. I think what we're going to see next year is that pendulum starting to come back into equilibrium as a consequence of the challenge in reaching your audiences, because everyone's trying to reach the same buyers out there. And just an anecdote that some data we saw about a week or two ago when we looked at our top 50 keywords for all the keywords that we feel define what we do and what makes us valuable, the overall global traffic has nothing to do with us, is down by about a third over the last six months. That means fewer people theoretically are in market, or at least searching for the terms that we feel are important to our business. Now, fortunately, our share has stayed the same or even increased a bit, but it's a smaller pie. So as a consequence, what are the results you're getting? Fewer inbounds. Inbounds are generally the best converting leads. Everyone knows that. But how do you augment that? Well, I think that's where the brand discussion starts to come back into play, where you are making a concerted effort to get your message out to the people who you want to hear your message, your target audiences. So I think we're going to see more of that pendulum shifting back, more of an equilibrium there, because you can't do one side of it and not do the other. The downside is that it's very often hard to make a direct correlation between investing in PR and, you know, branded article or byline articles, and all the great things that PR firms generate for you, it's harder to tie that to, you know, ROI and pipeline and opportunities and enclosed one business. So the attribution is going to be a real challenge, I feel, for a lot of marketers and myself included, but I do think that we need to start looking at marketing holistically and creating more of the surround sound effect as we as we go to market, and try to try to target our ICP makes perfect sense. And I'd like to just remind everyone in the audience that if you have any questions, please put them in the Q and A box, and we'd be happy to address them towards the end, and the panelists are able to address them directly as well. Gemma, what are your thoughts on the challenges that you're going to be facing in 2024 as I say before, there are lot of challenges referring our future, the future activities that we have to implement in the marketing environments and tactics. I think, as I already said, GDPR is the key point, and find new tools to create new lead generation. For sure, all the marketing leaders, the key actions that need to be in their mind is how to generate more leads. That for sure, is the most important challenges. Then I would love to add one point from my point of view about the research that is not a challenges, but is a trend that emerged from the research that's also the sustainability trends are really important right now. So in my opinion, the sustainability became a key factor in in the business that she's you're making. So as a challenge, as a marketer, maybe we have. To more work in this direction to find good and good idea around these kind of topics, I will say maybe makes sense. And I would say that I mean sustainability focused partners are going to be the challenge going forward, then, especially for outsourced teams, and making that messaging both drive ROI but also hit the the actual sustainability message. And Clara, what are your thoughts on the challenges going forward? Yeah, one of, one of our biggest challenges this year, and I anticipate it continuing to be next year, is that, because we're so new, we're, you know, we're we've been around three years, but we're still pretty small. There's only seven of us on our team, and so a lot of our efforts are, are convincing people that that were real, and like teaching people who we are. So one of our biggest investments is, is probably partnerships going to be next year, because we want to be able to use, you know, the leverage the audience that our partners have in order to help share with people who we are, tell them about what we do. So it's one of the bigger things that we're definitely going to be focused on. So you're having to do brand building in a time when brand building is much harder, yes, which has been hard, but fun, too. Blythe,
Blythe Brumleve:
1:41:22
so, you know, just going back to your earlier point about, you know, the more investment in lead generation, and I think for a lot of marketing teams, they have been over reliant over the last decade or so on attribution tools, these tools that are telling you that there is a perfect pathway from when someone saw your ad or saw your post on LinkedIn, and then they ultimately became a customer. So there it. There is no straight line to that kind of conversion, especially if they do fill out a lead form, or if they do engage in some kind of a conversation where they they might become in a situation where they're going to be a closed one customer. And so for the easiest fix, I think, for a lot of the audience out there, is that if you're struggling with attribution, it's just a very simple Adding to all of your high intent lead forms on your website. Add How did you hear about us? Make it a required field. Make it a free text field, no drop down, no check boxes, nothing like that. You want to know the the exact source or what was making an impact for that lead in order to make that conversion on that day. It's not going to be a straight line, of course, but it is going to give you some insight into what's working with that particular lead. And so for I think, a lot of marketing and sales teams, once you become aligned on how you're going to be measuring those efforts, then you can start exploring other opportunities. I have been preaching to the high heavens for a lot of marketers out there, to get a note taking tool. I use otter AI, I know that there's several others out there, but having a, you know, just that note taking tool, being able to join your sales meetings and then join those sales meetings and get the takeaways, get the questions, get the verbiage of what's going on with these conversations, and then using that to fuel the rest of your marketing, where you're getting the copy for your website, you're getting the frequently asked questions that are happening on these sales calls. And then you can use that in your marketing throughout all of social media, email, you know, pick your poison as far as what channel you're going to be at, or where you're going to be creating content on and spreading that general brand awareness. And then you tie it back for when that person is ready to buy, because 95% of these buyers are not in an active buying cycle, but when they join that 5% and it's probably less than 5% it's probably anywhere from two to 3% that when they actively join that buying cycle, then they come to your website and they convert there, and then they let you know what was resonating the most. It's a long term play. It's a patient play, but it's the only real way to determine what is making an impact with all of your marketing efforts. Yeah,
Unknown:
1:43:59
that makes sense, and a lot of the tools focus too much on URL based attribution or any kind of weird stuff. It's just, just ask people that's proving
Blythe Brumleve:
1:44:07
their value, not necessarily what, what's making an impact. So, you know, just be cautious for a lot of these tools out there that are, you know, preaching to the high heavens of you know, what value they provide, and they can give you that clear blueprint or that clear, you know, point the X on the treasure map, and that's where you're going to find it. They're trying to prove their value when you really need to take a holistic approach.
Unknown:
1:44:30
That makes perfect sense. And one of the one of the top issues that we've seen everyone running into is talent shortages and high turnover. That was a really hotly discussed topic in the last couple of years, especially, I think mid pandemic, we really saw that picking up in an aggressive way where I mean turnover was just people were taking jobs, quitting in a week, and then moving around and and marketing teams still seem to be experiencing some pretty significant turnover, especially for for. High quality talent that's out there. We wanted to ask everyone in the survey what you know, first off, how are you combating the talent shortages or turnover? And along with that, it's kind of a nice corollary here into outsourcing parts of your marketing responsibility. So the number one thing that teams were looking to outsource was actually public relations. So that was about 30% of respondents said that they were looking to outsource their PR followed by 26% looking at lead generation pipeline management. So now I could see that as being a maybe even everything base level to CRM cleanup and management all the way up to the full flow. And then a distant third was content creation. It seemed like a lot of teams wanted to have that in house was any sort of, like, video and blog content. So Blythe, what are you seeing about how companies are managing the shortages, the turnover and what they're looking to outsource going forward?
Blythe Brumleve:
1:45:57
Yeah, so this is a really, like, hot button issue for me, because I've always been a small, very one person marketing team on I'm on the board of the transportation marketing and sales Association, and the majority of our members are all very small, one person teams, and so they're trying to figure out how to do more with less. And what keeps coming up in the conversation is AI. Now, AI is not an end all be all. It is a tool to get to the destination, I think a little bit faster. I think where a lot of mishaps are happening is, or a lot of confusion is happening is, you know, you have a lot of C suite executives that think that just because you invest in an automation tool or an AI tool that is just, you know, it's magically going to fix all of your marketing, when that's just simply not the case, you have to have a very detailed process of what you're doing and why, and then reverse engineer that goal to figure out where software is going to be playing a role. And so for a lot of teams, they overspend on software. They overspend on these tools that don't necessarily move the needle or make an impact. And so they're coming back to the drawing board and trying to figure out, well, what the hell is actually working? And you don't necessarily know what's working because you don't have a an attribution model set in place. You don't you're not monitoring traffic from several different channels. You know, you're not asking a very simple, basic question that you can have on your website of, how did you hear about us? Your sales team is not asking those simple questions. And if you're not fine tuned in those areas, then you're just going to keep spending money, and you're just going to keep wasting money in areas that don't make a whole lot of sense. Now, for a lot of these small teams, they can use these tools, if you have you know, you can do more with less with these AI tools I mentioned earlier about the note taking apps that can automatically join meetings and provide you takeaways and feedback. But then outside of that, how are you using a lot of these tools to your advantage, to feel like a team of five or six or maybe even 10, when you're only using, you know, one or two in house employees, and so that's where I think that outsourcing, that a lot of you know, just hiring specialized freelancers, I think, is where the move should actually be made. So you can outsource some marketing, of course, but you really want to find the operator in house that kind of knows a lot about just marketing in general, and can be a generalist, and then go out and specifically hire for certain roles, you know, somebody to manage, specifically the PPC ads on for Facebook, or to manage your specific ads on LinkedIn, you have to have somebody that is specialized in that platform, not necessarily someone who knows how to set up your ad account on these different channels, but someone who knows how to set it up and then analyze it, constantly monitor it, be able to hire a graphic designer that can, you know, switch out graphics instantly if they find something that's working, switch out messaging instantly that's that is working. So you have to have somebody that is in house that has an overall skill set, and then have them go and be able to devote budget to the specialized workers and specialized freelancers.
Unknown:
1:48:59
So I'd like to jump around a little bit on that note. And Steve, you're on a larger team here, so your perspective is going to be very different from like a one person marketing, you know, the person is the department. So what are your thoughts on, like, the talent shortages, turnover along with outsourcing? Yeah, you know, fortunately, we we haven't had to deal with any kind of turnover. In fact, we're, we're aggressively hiring going into next year to expand the team because we've got aggressive, aggressive growth targets as a business, so that that that hasn't really impacted time or my team, in particular, when it comes to outsourcing, I'm not sure I like the word outsourcing because we to Blythe point we do hire specialists to feel fill niche needs that we might have, that we are either incapable or just don't have the skill set or the time to manage. You know, I was quite surprised, actually, John, when when I read that only 10% are going to outsource content production. Question. Now, there's lots of different types of content, right? So I guess it depends on the type of content. You know, when I think about thought leadership content, I like to work with thought leaders in the industry to help build that content, and also organizations that have audiences that we might want to reach. So that could be one of the dives, that could be a freight waves, that could be one of the supply chain brains, that could be a Gartner, that could be a forester. You know, the content developed by those folks, not only do they have audiences that we want to reach, but it tends to have a credibility factor. So that's kind of one side to it. But we also have some very strong content partnerships that help us with some of the day to day, our blogging, some of our use cases, case studies, things like that. In those contexts, we don't consider that an outsourced relationship. We consider them very much part of the team. They are on our slack. We are slacking with them day in and day out. They are very much a part of a team, but they're not, you know, full time employees of time. So I think there's different types of relationships with specialists, with industry thought leaders, with content producers, with folks freelancers that can fill specific niches that you might have. It all depends on, ultimately, what you're trying to do, what gaps you have, and how quickly you need to get to market with your content for a campaign or a set of programs, and what have you my advice to the audience is to be flexible in terms of content, and you're going to do some of it in house. You're going to partner with others to do it whatever works for you. But at the end of the day, if that content is not supporting the growth goals of your organization, and you're able to attribute that content at the end of the day to your pipeline generation, to your bookings and ARR growth, then you might want to take a second look at what you're doing. If I can add something I'm agree with Steve, because we have also to keep in mind that with big enterprise company. It's important also the human part of our job, you know. So that's the IE tools can cover, you know, for example, in some area, we need to have credibility, as Steve say, by but also connections, for example, in the PR environments, the human touch and the human collaboration, for me, is is key. That makes sense. And Clara, for a smaller startup team, it seems kind of that going with agencies can often be like almost a requirement just to be more agile, yeah, for sure, and that's exactly what I was gonna say. Like, the agility and budgeting, I think, also speaks to the agility in agencies, agility and outsourcing. Like, set up the expectations of like, here's how long we're gonna run this, or here's how long we're gonna do this, and if it's not working, don't be afraid to take the step back and be like, Okay, that's not working right now for us. Maybe we'll try that again in six months, but setting up those expectations early with your partners, of like, here's what we're going to try, if it works great, if not, then, you know, we we revisit maybe later. And then the other thing I'll say is making sure that you align with your with your partners, with your agencies, that they understand who you are, what your business does, what your business is about. Have like, spend the time investing, invest the time in speaking to them about who you are and what what you what you believe, and what your company believes. Because, especially for the content agencies, like that's that's so critical. You don't want any content to be being put out. That is like, not what you would would align with and would say, so, yeah, and if I could just add, you know, on the agency piece, I mean, over my career, I've hired agencies for just about every marketing function, and one thing for the audience to look out for is finding that strategic partner. Because I think all of us have hired agencies that talk a really good game. And they, you know, for the first 3456, months, they do a really good job, and then, you know, they take the senior people off your account, put the really junior people on your account, and then they start to do a really bad job, and you end up having to to let go of that agency after nine months or a year, because they're just not getting it done so I've worked with wonderful agencies that I've had long term relationships with, but it's important to pick the right agency that aligns to your core values, that aligns to what you're trying to do. That is a true strategic partner in every sense of the word. It makes sense, and it's interesting to look at some of the results in the survey, because what companies are seem to be expecting of agencies is surprisingly across the board. So only 33% expected partners to bring their own technology. And the most surprising one to me was that only 23% of respondents expected partners to function and as an extension of their team. Every time I've been around a. Agencies in, you know, in any space, it seems like, you know, they join the slack there. You're communicating daily. It should be an extension there, because that way, absolutely, like you just said, the messaging, you know, becomes much more clear. They tie in together. It's not, it's not just a transactional relationship. So seeing only 23% say they expected that, I wonder if that's a difference in enterprise mindset versus small and startup. So what we'd like to start doing is we can move towards some of the questions, because there are some really good ones from the audience here. One specifically is, what are the best channels for just regular old freight forwards, forwarders at this point, like 2024 is a challenge for them as well. That's still aggressively B to B. What? What is that looking like? Is everyone, anyone who really like to jump on that one? I can jump in real quick. I think this is a tough answer, but I think it's, it's so it's so specific to your size of company and what you're like, where is your existing audience? But I think leaning into like, white, like Blythe was saying earlier, like, putting that, how did you hear about us? And leading into those things that people do say, like, go where it works and don't spend a bunch of time trying a ton of different things definitely test. But like, if you have something that already works, lean into it. Invest more in it. Keep keep iterating on it. I think that would be my advice for that, if I can add something, it's also to invest. It depends on the business, as Clara said, and the company, of course, but if we are speaking about B to B, email marketing, in my opinion, is the best way to create lead generation. I try different tools, different marketing activities, events and so on. You know, everything can support the lead generation, but email marketing, for me is what really create hot lead generations. So that's my data for for companies that, I mean, I guess. Let's say you're a freight forwarder and you focus on a very specific type of cargo. You should only be going for the data for, you know, if it's what you're familiar with, I would say would be my guess. Are you? I found some specific content using LinkedIn, for example, I think that LinkedIn is an amazing tools to use to create the connections for sure, in B to B. So I will suggest this one, you know, in a direct way also, yeah, and I think, I think to Gemma's point as a freight forwarder, let's say John, you mentioned a freight forwarder that is a very specific, a very specific type of cargo. Create a newsletter, an email newsletter, and bring some interesting perspectives on the different aspects of shipping, that very specific piece of cargo, and best practices. So bring a thought leadership element into that. The second piece, which you know, anyone can do fairly easily, and I think can can hire some quick expertise, whether it's freelance or otherwise, is to experiment with just some very simple Google paper, click, Google page search that you know again, if you're if you're shipping a very specific piece of freight and that can tie back to your website or to your thought leadership content. So it can be content driven or topically driven, that could be driven based on the type of cargo. But you can get started relatively easy. You don't have to spend 1000s and 1000s. You can, you know, bid $500 for a month and see what that gets you, and if it brings any inbounds to your site. But the key point here for I think, any marketer, particularly if you're a small you're a freight forwarder, you've got a very small, or maybe a non existent, marketing group, is to you know, experiment, experiment, experiment, experiment. You don't have to spend a lot of money. AB test. You know, all the things US marketers know how to do, they're not particularly challenging when you think about it, but it's important to always be experimenting. So it's perfect to tie this into one of the next questions, actually, and I'll let you continue on it. Steve, it's so I'd like two perspectives on it. Basically is, one is the GDPR perspective and one is the non GDPR perspective. So, Steve, what it seems like everyone's leaning towards email marketing. How do you get the emails and how do they rank against personal emails and LinkedIn? Yeah, so, I mean, when we look at GDPR, we don't look at it only from, you know, whatever, 28 European Union companies or countries that you need to be compliant across. We're looking at as a global issue. And. Inevitably, you know, if you peel away California, which has its own set of rules, you know, email is going to get more restrictive. We talked earlier on, Clara about some of the new rules with Gmail and Yahoo. So it's it's better to be compliant than not compliant. You know, the first rule for any marketer is never, ever, ever buy a list. If you do, you're going to get in trouble. You're going to get blacklisted because they're going to sell you some junk. And you know, 50 you're going to get a 70% undeliverability rate, a lot of spam complaints, and you could get blacklisted by your your email service provider. The way we like to do it is partnering with the right folks in the industry. So maybe we run some programs with freight waves or supply chain brain or, you know, food dive, if we're going after a perishables audience. And you know, we work to create some great thought leadership content. We promote that content, not only via email, but via multiple channels, social, both organic and paid. We could do a webinar based on that content. We could run ABM programs based on that content, and they're promoting on your behalf, and they're bringing in context of their audience, their subscribership, their readership, people that you know you want to reach and engage with and so they're able to bring those into to you. You mentioned free email addresses, I think the greatest tip I have for any email marketer is unless you're in B to C, and this is a completely different beast, but if you're in B to B, we don't allow free email addresses. We don't email to them. We purge them from our database. They're of no use to us at the end of the day, because you can't match them against an account unless you really want to do the work of trying to work with a company that can do that work for you. But it's not worth the time. We don't allow Gmail or free email addresses to fill out our forms on our website. It's just way too much hassle, and with all these new rules, like with Google and sending emails to gmail.com addresses, you can very quickly find yourself in trouble, so we don't even bother. It's not worth it, that makes sense. And so it's to continue through the questions here, and I'd love to get the opinions of Clara and Blythe on this one, specifically with AI now able to crank out seemingly limitless content. Will content run the risk of becoming irrelevant, low value commodity that's just not taken seriously anymore?
Blythe Brumleve:
2:02:30
The crappy content? Will the good content, if you rise above it, if you actually invest in good writers, founder driven marketing, which is probably the most powerful as far as marketing initiatives are concerned, as you know, executive on the C suite team, or a subject matter expert within the company recording a quick video, establishing that trust, establishing that face to face, that I think the crappy marketing will it, it will be unavoidable, and you will have to stress to the people that you work with And the teams that you have, you know working with you, you have to stress those guidelines of AI. How are you using AI within your content marketing? Have you established what's okay and what's not okay? A lot of companies, and I think there was a study that was just released last week, that a good majority of your employees are already using AI, and that's without any kind of company oversight, any kind of guidelines. And so you really need to think about that from the lens of your employees and your co workers are going to be using AI. And so how are you establishing within not just your company, but the vendors that you work with on how they should be using AI? Because, for example, legal is a very tricky area to sort of combat right now, around the lens of AI, because any kind of a Supreme Court, I think, just ruled recently that any kind of derivatives of images, of content, of writing that you're creating is not copyright protected. And so you need to know from the vendor perspective, from your employee, perspective on who is using these different tools. Now, AI is still at a very baseline level, but it's the today is the worst it's ever going to be. It's only going to continue to get better. So companies need to be thinking about how they're using these tools, how they're allowing their vendors and their internal employees to be using these tools, but because of the commonality of those tools and the ease of them, that it's only going to create more content to sort of wade through the waters of what is actually real, what's you know, a value to get in your social media feeds, in your email, because it's just going to continue to explode. And so if you can invest in a really good writer or a really good subject matter expert or founder driven marketing strategy, that should be your ultimate goal, because that is going to be the content that resonates with people, not a blog post that you post into, you know, chat GPT and ask them to write 5000 words that is going to fall by the wayside. That type of content is going. To be ignored, but there you should be thinking about how you're going to be using these tools in a responsible way so that you can rise above and be the cream that rises to the top.
Unknown:
2:05:11
Or did you have any thoughts on that? I 100% agree with Blythe, and I'll just add two things. AI is getting smarter smarter, but Google is getting smarter, and your content is going to rank lower, like it, or it won't rank at all if you, if you just slap in what Blythe was saying, like 5000 words, write me a blog post like, Google is getting better at tracking that too, so and it doesn't want to raise bad content to the top. So I would caution people on on doing that for sure. And then the other thing is trust, just like in personal relationships, trust in a business, once you lose it, it's very, very hard to get back. So if you're putting out crappy content, crappy content, people are gonna see that. People are gonna people can read AI. Now we understand, like, this is an AI, but you see LinkedIn posts, and it's like, cool, that's AI. This is actually what someone is thinking. And you'll you'll lose people, and it will be very, very hard to get them back and to convince them to come. Yeah, there's a massive credibility guy. I'm not going to mention any names, but mainline publications and journalists, or, you know, chat bots replacing journalists and then pawning that off as real people generating that content, the few things we see in the news about that is dramatically eroding their credibility and brand as as news organizations, or whatever you want to call them. So you really do have to be careful, because it's not a replacement for humans. It can augment and help you with a lot of things that you're trying to do. You know, one thing I was doing a couple of weeks ago is we had a list, and, you know, one of the one of the one of the folks on my team, said, Well, we just have a list of like, 400 company names. We need the domain names. And I just for for fun, I just dumped it into chat. GPT, I dumped a list of account names. I said, can you generate all the domain names for this? It did it in like, 10 seconds. I'm like, wow. Okay, that's a really good, useful thing for a marketer. You throw a list of name, account names and chat BTT, and it gives you all the domain names. That's a cool use case. But replacing, you know, humans who are writing real pros. No, another real cool way to use chat GPT is to analyze the competitions. Did you try intelligence? Yeah, yeah. It's, it's incredible also to understand how our competitors communicate, for example, that's, that's interesting to find a way to be different from our competitor, for example, I think that's if we use the AI in this way. It's very supportive for our board. That makes sense. I'd like to jump on another question here, and that's sponsoring events going to be useful in 2024 you think, and now everything from, you know, large booths and parties all the way down to just attending the event in a lean team, what I'd like to go around, kind of the room on that without naming any specific event names or anything. But if you get value from it, or you're seeing that, you know, having an enormous booth is actually a value to you, versus just kind of being a lean team. So I'd like to start with Steve on that one. Yeah, I do think, I think after the pandemic, people were very excited to get back together and start traveling again. And I do think events have a role in any kind of marketing portfolio. Events certainly should not be the totality of your demand generation strategy. And I see quite a few companies who think that investing in events and they're very expensive. The cost per lead is always very expensive, 500,000 even more you know, per lead. You know, events have a place in your portfolio, along with your content marketing and your your your digital marketing, your social marketing, your ABM marketing. All you know, they all play a role in our business. Events play a pretty significant role in terms of the percentage of pipeline they generate, but you gotta really have a great team that can maximize your investment in events, that can go they're hungry, to walk the floor, to meet folks, to have interesting conversations, you need to be able to track the outcome of those events, because if you're spending 1020, $50,000 for a booth and to sponsor various activities at an event. You need to be able to show ROI on that so managing, you know, all of that, post, pre, pre, pre event, reaching out to folks to try to get meetings at the event, post event follow up. Yeah, really gotta have it all buttoned up, but I do think events will continue to be a part of any B to B marketing portfolio. We're human. We want human connections. We want to get in touch. We want to escape our our homes for a couple of nights and do something a little different, maybe get a nice dinner and meet some interesting new folks and see some interesting new companies and technologies that's never going. Change. Maybe we'll do fewer in the future, but I think events are always going to be part of a B to B marketing portfolio. Gemma, what are your thoughts? I completely agree. I think that events still are a good channel to create connections, you know, and also increase our brand visibility, because also, it's important also to continue to invest in brand visibility too, and be different from our competitions. So that's my point. But I'm yeah, the competition, the competition piece, is interesting, because if there's specific events that you go to every year that are like, key for your industry, and John, I respect your wish not to list any names here, and all your competitors are there, and you're not there for one year, you're people are going to notice, like, where's Ty why aren't they at this event? They've been here every year. All their competitors are there. What's going on a tithe, it raises questions. So there are brand implications to not being at, you know, key industry events. So you got to be a little careful totally. If I cannot just one thing here is maybe to be present if you decide to allocate the budget in a different way, maybe with us. More booths, for example, but be present. That's my advice. Clara from the startup side of things. It's a events are a big cost when you're a new company. Yeah, for sure. And we so we've identified a couple events every year. We're like, we really believe in what this event is saying, or we really are behind this mission. We, we want to have a booth presence there. We want to sponsor in this way, because we, we want people to know that this is this is our value, and this is what we believe into but from just attending, I think, as a small company, has been huge for us. We've made so many connections. A quick anecdote, we were like, in line behind someone at the bar. And the bar was like, alright, like, close now. And so everyone in line was like, No. And we got to talking, and it was someone, it was a company that we've been trying to connect with for the whole year, and it was, he was a C suite, you know, rep at that, at that company. So it, I think it's so critical. And then I think going around to every booth has been huge for us, like we attend the conferences, and then we stop at every booth that could, in any way, maybe be a potential partner, someone that we want to learn from. And that's been huge. We've made so many connections. So I would definitely recommend small teams like invest in attending, you know, two or three events, as many as you can, and getting your sales reps or your your leadership there to have some of those conversations. But I don't think at a at the small stage, a booth is necessary, or can get you the ROI you'll want. And Blythe,
Blythe Brumleve:
2:12:51
I would it's really interesting to hear it from the enterprise level to the startup level. And I think what frustrates me the most is when I see an SMB or a startup that will invest 1000s of dollars into booth space, 1000s and 1000s of dollars into booth space, but they won't have video marketing. They won't have a video podcast that to connect directly with their customers. I think the importance of live events cannot be understated simply because of the conversations that you can have from booth to booth to booth, or even at the lunch table, different networking events and things like that. That is where to me, with all the events that I go to, that is where I have the most bang for my buck. But I think for a lot of the SMBs and startups, if you're going to be dropping 50 grand at a conference, think of what you could do if you invested that into a content marketing plan, where you start off with a video podcast and you have the opportunity to have a keynote speech on LinkedIn every single day and reach that massive audience. So just think about it from that lens too, that you can play in both areas, but where you should be putting your priority, especially in the initial stages, or if you're working on a small budget, then you really need to be investing and creating that feedback loop with your customers by creating content, sitting in on sales meetings, and reiterating from there and remaining agile with your spend. But I would agree with Clara that attending the conferences there's really, I don't know what kind of value you can put on it, as far as, like, from $1 percentage or from$1 perspective, but it is worth it to attend these conferences that make sense for your audience.
Unknown:
2:14:30
Just one more thing to add on that I think also apply to speak a lot of conferences you don't need to sponsor in order to speak, people are looking for speakers. So if you have something that you want to talk about, like, we've had a couple conferences where we've been able to speak without, without investing any more money in it, just because, you know, they're looking for speakers. So shoot your shot. Yeah, absolutely
Blythe Brumleve:
2:14:52
welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast where the thinkers in freight we are proudly presented by SPI logistics and I. I'm your host, Blythe Brumleve, today we've got an awesome show for you. We've got two guests that are joining us from the freight 360 podcast, and also the creators of the freight broker basics course, and that is Nate cross and Ben Kowalski. So we're going to be talking all about freight broker training, content marketing, and how to fit it all in to your daily jobs and managing it all you know within reasonable expectations. So you know, Nate and Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks,
Nate Cross:
2:15:29
Blythe, it's good to be here.
Unknown:
2:15:31
Yeah, pleasure to be here.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:15:32
I now, this is Ben, you've been on the show before, Nate, this is your first time on the show. And I don't you know typically do like, you know, two guests on a show at a time. But I'm hoping that I can, you know, ask all these, both of these questions to both of you, or all of these questions to to both of you. And I would like to know originally, how did you guys meet? How did you guys start working together? It's actually
Unknown:
2:15:55
an interesting story. Nate, you want to go,
Nate Cross:
2:15:57
yeah, it is a good story. Um, so what about 10 years ago? I think, give or take, 2016 around that time, I was working on another brokerage actually tried to recruit Ben to leave his brokerage and come work for mine. Didn't happen, but we stayed in touch over the years, and then I had started a podcast in 2019 called the midnight freight broker. And I left the company I was at, went to the company I'm with now, and COVID hit. A lot of people started consuming content differently. Podcasts got big. Luckily, I already had one. Ben came on a couple of times, just as another expert in the industry. And I feel like it was more so Ben being like, hey, what? Let's do something with this. Let's, like, actually make it into, like, a legit thing where we, you know, do it continuously. So we rebranded to freight 360 in 2020, right? Probably summertime of 2020, and started doing the show, and we've been doing it every week ever since, and it's evolved way beyond that ever since, to include other types of like, you know, video content, blogs, etc. But that's kind of the origin story is, tried to recruit Ben, stayed in touch, and then we've just joined forces. I
Unknown:
2:17:19
think What's always interesting about that, right? Where I really like that story is because what we teach people how to prospect, how to and again, what is prospecting? It's just calling people you've never met and just trying to connect, to be able to get to know them, make friends, make acquaintances, right? Like, I've always viewed it very similar to, like, what you do is like a politician, like, that's all you're really doing, trying to connect with people, talk, get them to know like and trust you, right? And like that one or two conversations we had a long time ago, right? Goes to show how effective Nate was at that, right? Because that's what I picked up on, and I still to this day, remember like being on the phone with him and making a mental note, like, yeah, it's not gonna work now, but he hustles. He knows his shit, pardon my French, but like, understands how to connect and how to do this quickly. And I'm like, I could tell he's good at what he does. Like, I didn't need to really ask him many questions, because he conveyed that confidence so quickly that, like, we just connected real quick. I remember putting a note in my phone and just, like, keep just made a mental note. Like, keep in touch with him at some point down the line, like there's probably going to be an opportunity to work together. And I just kept that in the back of my mind. And then when I left the big box brokerage to kind of wait up my non compete, I went into consulting specifically, and then noticed Nate's show was going and I was like, I really want to be back involved in logistics, and I kind of had to wait out a little bit of time frame. So it was a perfect opportunity to get exposure, be tied back into the market for, you know, my like, wait out period, if you will. And again, Nate and I just kind of looked at it and saw what we could do with it, and just kind of started building it. And, you know, consistently moving ahead week after week, doing the things we'll talk about in this episode, content and whatnot, and all the things that go along with that.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:19:02
Now, do you remember sort of those early light bulb moments? Was it? What was it COVID? Or was it, you know, the conversations that you were having initially that said, I need to not only start the podcast, but keep it going. So,
Nate Cross:
2:19:16
yeah, I'll answer that. So I was doing it when I left the company I was with before I ended up just doing it by myself at home during the COVID shutdown. And I I would be like, alright, I can how much content can I get through talking by myself on a podcast once a week? And then when Ben had reached out and was like, hey, you know what? You know? What do you think about me coming out, and we'll do an episode on, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it was. I was like, hell yeah. I was like, somebody to join me, so I'm not just talking alone this whole time. So we did, and I was like, Hey, let's do it again next week. And then eventually, was like, you just want to do this whole thing together and keep it going. And as soon, as soon as we started doing it together. And Ben, I think it was probably you. First time podcasting. Within a couple weeks, you got more comfortable, you know, finding your voice in the podcast space versus, you know, cold calling. It's very different ways of communicating. But eventually we got really good at it. The content got really robust and good, and it was much more like long form, instead of like a 20 minute podcast. We bang out like 4550 minutes. And you know, now we've had episodes that go well over an hour, if we've got a good guest and just really good content, or we'll do like a two or three part series on something. So I think when him and I started doing it together, the light bulb came out, like, went out of my head. Like, definitely got to do this as a group, instead of just having someone on as a guest periodically, because I think the two of us together, this synergy. It's like that whole, you know, what you can do together is that synergy, right? What do you do together is, you know, greater than the output of your individual, you know what I'm talking about, right? But like, if you
Unknown:
2:20:55
want to go far, go together, if you want to go fast, go alone, right? And I also think it's the dynamic, right? Like we have very different personalities, and they, I think, is much more detail oriented and focuses on things in a way that I'm I just don't have that propensity, like my personality, I think is different in that way, right? So why I think it always worked early on and got better was because we have very different perspectives on the same job. Nate primarily manages lots of agents and a lot of the clerical back end and a lot of the very like procedural, standard operating procedures that I follow and teach. But like Nate, lives in that world. I lived in the world of customer relationships, negotiating like the moving of the freight Nate had a much different perspective on the same position, so we were able to talk through one topic from different points of view. So it wasn't we're never competing for each other, right? Like four for attention, because they're very different perspectives that complement each other, which is, I think, why it worked very early on, and why it's continued to work.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:22:01
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I do a monthly show called freight friends with with Grace Sharkey. And being able to play off of each other takes a little bit of time, but now I feel like we've hit a really good groove where I know where her strengths are and she knows where my strengths are. We kind of complement, you know, each other when it comes to the the weaknesses aspect. But I, I'm curious. I said, How? How long did it take you to sort of figure out what strengths each of you should because a podcast is a lot of work in addition to your full time job. So how did you sort of balance out those initial responsibilities of who's going to take care of what?
Nate Cross:
2:22:39
Um, well, I mean, even to the to this day, the the podcast, because, remember, I was running the podcast for like, six or nine months before Ben came on and we rebranded. So I got really, really good at, like, very quickly, being able to record, edit and release with, like, very minimal work, or you do all of it. So now, when Ben came on, like, I just kind of kept, kept doing that, and it's extremely even to this point, like, from getting it recorded, processed, edited, put out an audio and video, any kind of After Effects thumbnail, it's like an hour at most. So it's, it's like very little amount of additional work for me to do that. And I like, I based on when we record each week, I have a I kind of work those little things in during my downtime at my regular job, whereas Ben, I think as far as like other stuff that we do, Ben has been very good with, like relationship development with folks that we get involved with, whether it's affiliate or sponsorship or just connections that can get us boosted to the next level, kind of leveraging someone else's network to try and get us more viewership and all that stuff. So we, we've kind of just naturally gone into the areas that we I think ranks in not to say that one of us doesn't film for the other one either, because that always happens too, but it just kind of naturally went in that direction.
Unknown:
2:24:09
Yeah, and I think again, to just add, like, early on, I Well, I listened to a lot of podcasts. So like, I really enjoy the medium. I spend probably at least, I'm guessing, 15 to probably 30 hours a week, right, listening to some audio content, either a book or a podcast. So a lot of the big names that most people are familiar with, like, you know, Tim Ferriss, Huberman podcast, those groups, Peter Attia. But also, I don't know if anyone like, or if you've heard of like, my first million like, I followed that newsletter from when it started listen to the podcast, so I tracked what was working for them, and when Nate and I hooked up, like, I didn't want to say like I had a road map, but I had their road map, and a lot of that was, well, this is working. We are in a niche. We can own this niche. Let's just do what is working for other people, right? So early on, he focused a lot on the audio. I did a lot of deep dives into. YouTube, what was functioning, research, what works, what doesn't work, a lot of those things. And I kind of spent a lot of my time on the video side as we got that off the ground. He spent a lot of time on that side of things. And that was really our first year until we were able to leverage some larger relationships with Da T and things. And they came back to us for the course. And then it was, it became more narrow. I guess the focus, like we worked with Lean at the time and our strategy was really we want to be the educational source for the industry, for every fundamental thing you need to learn in your first year to three years, right? Because that's really what we felt was missing, whether we're working with a new agent or somebody that you just coming into the industry, like, we just see what they're running into all day. So to create the content, it was like a flywheel, right? Like, I'm working with a client, or Nate was working with an agent, they're running into the same problems, and then Nate and I would get together, like, what do you run into this week? Well, everybody's having an issue with this. There's our topic, because it's already top of mind. And I also felt like the best thing about this, and what I like most the podcast, as well as like coaching or consulting, is that like you don't, I feel like the best way to improve in anything is to teach it right, no matter what that is. So for me to have to work to articulate things better, to be better understood by different people with different learning experiences. This show gave me a very good, you know, repetitive every single week to practice changing the way I say things right like I think everybody, when you do something for a long time, you forget what people know and don't know and when you learned what. So we're constantly being able to be grounded back at the beginner level or intermediate and sometimes experience level, where they're running into where their issues are. That's really where a lot of our content comes from, is just kind of boots on the ground experience things that we run into on a daily or weekly basis. And the industry kind of works the same for the most part. So what he's running into, I'm running into, usually, whether it's a tight market or a loose market, and that's really why we haven't had to spend a ton of time developing, like, you know, an outline for what we're going to talk about, like we're really going to talk about whatever that issue is people are running into, because we're running into it as well.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:27:12
And so it sounds like that this is almost like market research for you guys, or your own experiences market research. Then you're conveying that through your podcast, and then it's turning into additional opportunities where you can almost study yourself as an athlete, study other creators, other broadcasters, and how they approach it, and then use that same insight to your point Ben to then reframe How you speak to your prospects, is that accurate? Absolutely
Unknown:
2:27:43
right? And again, to the to the same point of, like, COVID, right, to what was happening at the same time was like, everybody goes home and I mean, I'll just speak for myself, like I spent my entire professional life in sales floors, like, surrounded with that energy, that culture, like, there is a difference to doing any type of sales in that environment versus in your home, right? So for me, I felt a huge absence of that when it was gone, and this was a great way for him and I to stay connected with lots of people in the industry, very frequently, both as you know, a show, but also people reaching back out to us, telling us what they're running into, hey, what you talked about like we're running into this. So it was also a great way for us to kind of intentionally create as close as we could to the environment that we used to be in, even though we're no longer in it, which I thought was, like a huge benefit. I'll
Nate Cross:
2:28:35
add to that too. I think it was like Mark Cuban saying, like, you don't get rich without a little bit of luck in there, but there was a bit of luck on the timing of all of it, because you think about people that are leaving the bullpen, right, they're leaving that sales office environment for an extended period of time. They don't get that mentorship or advisement or training or guidance that they would get from a peer or a supervisor in person. So they're, they're gonna, they started relying on content, on YouTube and on podcast and all that stuff. So we just happened to be, we already had, kind of the runway launched, and then as our content just kept being, you know, we did more and more and more content. We just had, we had people that had ears that wanted to listen to us because they weren't getting it anywhere else and they needed it. So there's also this thing in the freight world, where a lot of companies have literally seen this argued in depositions before that I've taken place, and they say our training material is proprietary. And it's like, how it's like, basic sales stuff, like, how is it proprietary? So anyway, everyone holds their training, like, close to the chest, and freight brokerage saying that it's some secret sauce, and we're like, well, it's not really like a lot of these basic principles are all the same. So our goal was like, let's just have transparent education that's accessible to everybody in our industry, and we'll continue to add content to that. The reality is, you know, for every you know, 1000 people that listen to your content, how many people add. Actually take action and follow what you tell them to do. It's like, probably less than 1% so it's not like we're giving away the farm or anything, but, you know, at least we've the timing was good, and we were able to create an environment where, to this day, people use our content to train their new employees. It's and it's amazing to see that we've been able to get to that
Blythe Brumleve:
2:30:17
level. That's awesome. Let's actually dive a little bit deeper into the freight broker basics, course, what was the, I guess, the the moment that you decided, okay, this is something that we should actually tackle. Was it, you know, working with dad, or was it seeing some of the numbers for from YouTube? What was that? How did you make that, that logical next step? So,
Nate Cross:
2:30:37
yeah, it was actually we had been in contact with D, a T for a while, build a pretty good relationship. And they kind of had the idea. They're like, you know, we have all these people getting into freight brokerages. Remember, you know, the post COVID shutdowns, everybody was trying to get into trucking and brokerage because there were so much freight to move and a lot of just chaos. They're like, you know, we have all these people asking for education, and we don't have a solution for them. And they're like, do you, you know, do you guys think that you could put something together and we can kind of CO, you know, code, spearhead this thing? And so there was kind of their idea. And like, you know, I've seen a bunch of courses that have been out there for years, and the reality is, they're either outdated or created and taught by someone that's either not still in the industry or never was in the industry, so the credibility is lacking. So it's kind of a mix of, there just wasn't a lot out there, and dat had a need, and we had a good relationship and rapport with them that were like, Yeah, let's do it. But remember, we both have full time jobs, so it wasn't like we could just stop working for three weeks and bang out the content. It took us, what, like, six months to get everything, yeah, like, full took a very long, very, very long time to do it.
Unknown:
2:31:49
I would say, like, yeah, it was definitely six to eight months. And it was very much like, I could imagine what it would be like to write a book. I mean, we had to outline it. We went through every course we could find, audit it. Bought every one that was available went through every single one we could find, wrote down what they all had, what we felt they were mostly missing, and where we felt we could improve. So we had everything that everyone else's course. And then we're like, what is missing from all of them? And it was mostly sales stuff, and a lot of like, what you really do day to day? Like, it was all like, high overview, like, Oh, you'll call a shipper, get a load, and you book a truck, and then Nate and then Nate and I are looking at each other, like, if you gave this to me, like I couldn't do that, like that's not enough information. Like, there's so many steps in between here. So again, a lot of this was just me and him writing it out, coming up with the topics, sharing it back and forth, and then sending it to other people we know in the industry to audit it for us and say, Hey, what are else? What else are we missing? So, you know, dat was a great resource. A lot of other folks that we've worked with, Kevin Hill and other people in the industry that have been able to lend a hand and look at it and give us, you know, their thoughts to build this out, like, really, as robust as we could, so that if we were going to put our name on this right and spend this time, we wanted to make sure it was at least comprehensive, and it did what we said it was going to do, like Teach you literally how to broker freight, not teach you what a freight broker does, teach you how to do it. And those are very different things that I think, what separates our course from other courses? Oh, that's super
Blythe Brumleve:
2:33:13
interesting. Yeah, I would imagine for a lot of those people who are making those courses, they don't have that first hand knowledge that you guys are already have and working with industry experts, because I've actually, you know, been, I had you on on the on my previous podcast, and we were talking about courses that were or I brought it up, so I'll put my name on to that. But I there. Some of them were straight up scams. There was one woman in particular that reached out to me that she took a freight broker course with the promise at the end of the course that she would be able to join as an agent under that MC and operate and they just left her high and dry. They they never offered. She paid 1000s of dollars for this course that she didn't really have, hoping that it would lead to a job. And then it turns out it was just, she just took some, you know, YouTube videos and watched those, and that was the extent of her training. So it was one of those things where it's like, wow, how often is, you know, some of these scammy tactics being played out within our industry. And I think it's, it's probably a fairly high number, yeah,
Nate Cross:
2:34:19
yeah. I think you're right. Like, I remember when we went through, like Ben said, we went through and audited the existing courses you have to do. You have to know your competition is right. So we went and figured out what's out there. And I remember reading one of the like lessons that this guy's course had, and it it was so outdated that it said that the surety bond requirement was $10,000 when it had been$75,000 for like, seven years at that point. So, like, it was outdated by almost a decade. And I didn't, you know, I didn't even bother going through the rest of the he had, like, a big section on, like regulations and like governing bodies. And I'm like, that stuff changes like, so fast, and I think that's a pivot. But, like. You know, Tia, right? They're a great partner of ours as well. And Ben and I, along with Chris jolly, we teach their new broker training now, their new broker coaching sessions. So what we did is, when Ann Reinke came in, we got to meet her very early on in her time with Tia, they had a big push on, like, hey, we want, like, this education piece to be tight knit, iron clad and, like, legitimate. So they had us go through and audit their existing course and then become the instructors for it. So we created with, again, with Chris jolly, a new curriculum which has a get since then evolved a second time to stay up with the, you know, with the times and and make sure it's as robust as possible. But it goes to show that, you know, someone is reputable as as Tia and d a t they're going to want to make sure they've got relevant, good content out there where just any Joe Schmoe could be like, Oh yeah, freight broker, course, come give me $2,000 and I'll guarantee you, you can make six figures a year, and it's like, well, no, you know the content is what it is, but the way that you, the way that you actually teach it, present it, and keep it up to date, is going to be a big game changer as well. And Ben, we talk about it a lot with people, is like, set expectations, right? You can't just watch a video and expect stuff's going to happen, right? You've got to take the actual information there, go and apply it. And more likely than not, you probably have to consume that content upwards of 10 to 15 times over a period of a year or so for it to really sink in. And you have to put the reps in for it to become comfortable as well. So there is a lot of junk courses out there. I think ours is obviously, you know, we created it in conjugate with D, A, T, I think it's great. Tias, very reputable organization, and we help teach, teach that as well. But outside of that, I I've yet to come across like a really good, stellar, like, commercially available training program that's not like internal to a company. So lot, a lot of scam options out there. And
Blythe Brumleve:
2:37:01
I'm curious, why don't you think that more companies create their own internal course? I mean, just thinking of it from a logistics standpoint, it would be much more efficient to create a course, you know, once or twice, once every few years, and have your new employees take that, versus just, you know, trusting that somebody within the company is going to train them, right? Is there any reason why most companies, or do most companies, have their own internal training around just the basics of a freight broker? Yes,
Nate Cross:
2:37:30
go ahead, Ben, because you mean, you worked at a big box. So given, I was going to
Unknown:
2:37:33
say, like, the bigger companies definitely have a more standardized version, and do have, I would say, like, kind of close to this, like, you know, I worked at TQL, I've gone through theirs. Like, they have a robust and again, I went through that eight, nine years ago, and it was pretty good then, right? And again, and comparable to any of the courses that are just available, like, theirs was much better, right? And I, you know, had a vivid memory of that when we wrote ours as to, like, Oh, these bigger companies are doing this a little bit differently, right? And what they focus on. And again, they need somebody to do the job, because if they put someone through the course and they can't do it, they got no benefit. They just spent a whole bunch of time for nothing. So they have an invested interest in the outcome in a way that people selling a course, I don't think do. And again, I've had the opportunity to work with all of the larger brokerages and go through a lot of their training, and like again, in that I would say there's a difference. And again, there's a reason why they have longer non competes, and why they protect the employees that they are training to do this. It costs a lot of money for these bigger companies to do that, for sure. But when you get off of the very big, large cap brokerages, most of the small caps, for sure, don't do this because it just takes a lot of time. Right? Again, Nate and I have jobs where I'm brokering or Nate's running brokerage. It took us eight months to do this, two of us, right? And I remember, like, like, mostly 12 hour days. Like eight hours at my normal job, three, four hours work on this after work. Like, there aren't a lot of managers or owners of smaller brokerages that have that additional bandwidth or time because they've got free to move in customers to deal with right the middle sized companies. I think you see a little bit of it. But again, there tends to be so many more urgent things that hit their to do list every day that this just always ends up getting moved down. And when I talk to owners that use our course for this purpose, which is another reason, like, that's why they get access to it, why it renews every year, because they use this to train their employees, because it's a great starting point. And I've always says, like, okay, you can spend six to eight months to do this yourself, use ours, and then add the other stuff that we miss, that you want your team to know. And at least you don't have to start from zero, right? Like you can get the fundamentals, use something that is readily available at a pretty low cost point, and then add anything you want to do on top of it. And I think that's why the mid sized companies and smaller companies don't really often build this from the ground up. And again, even when they build it, you. You gotta update it, right? The same thing that Nate and I are saying. So like some of the other companies I know that have done this, they did it four or five years ago. They're like, Yeah, it really needs updated. How we vet carriers changed all the frauds, changed things. And it's like, well, who's got the time to go do this? So then it just always again, moves down the priority list until maybe they don't. I think
Nate Cross:
2:40:19
so, like when I got so I worked for a trucking company before I got into brokerage. When I got into brokerage, I had to learn the three PL side of it, and I went to a company that, at the time, was like 40 or $50 million a year, and they actually had, like a a corporate trainer, right? A guy whose sole job was to train new people and keep our content up to date. But even that, like he himself, couldn't do, like, train everybody and keep this stuff up to date. There was outdated stuff. I think the like, the training manual that I had when I started was like, 10 or 12 years old, and I was like, oh gosh. And they would tell me, like, oh yeah. This has changed since this was written, but it just takes a lot of work, and the vast majority of brokerages are smaller than that, so they don't, they're not going to have the manpower, the cash flow to pay somebody to be like your education person. So I think that that's why the majority of brokerages don't have their own internal training. Because they just, they don't have the time, they don't have the money. They're just kind of bootstrapping it and doing it that way, whereas, like Ben said, TQL, CH Robinson echoes right there, they're massive. They have big, standardized training curriculum, and they likely have a large amount of people that are either in charge of teaching or creating or both, when it comes to their educational content. And they value that. They keep it close to the chest, and they consider it proprietary. And
Blythe Brumleve:
2:41:43
so when you are, when you're thinking about this course and thinking about updating it throughout the year or throughout the years, what are some of those, I guess, big problems that new freight brokers are facing now that that is more up to date, as far as, like, a training perspective, versus even just a few years ago.
Nate Cross:
2:42:04
Well, I mean, I think the the problems tend to be somewhat similar. To give you, like a specific example, we've done a lot of content lately on fraud, right? Because fraud didn't exist in the caliber that it does today. If you go back 10 years, like double brokering was a thing. We talk about it in our course, but we had to create a lot of additional content afterward about identifying fraudulent, illegal brokerage activity, double brokers, identity theft, all that stuff, because the issues and a lot of the solutions and tools now didn't exist five years ago. So that that's a that's a prime example. Another one, though that is was around before, but it's changed. Is market fluctuation. So you know, we would tend to see ebb and flow of the market, let's say, every 18 to 24 months, whereas we've seen this elongated market cycle that started over four years ago and still hasn't come full circle yet, right? Like we went from when post pandemic, when it boomed and like, about four years ago, and then about two years later, it dipped off. It still hasn't come back full circle. So a lot of it is, you know, it's just we taught it we, you know, there's content out there about market fluctuation on how to handle it, but it's more so on a smaller level than what we're seeing now. So we've had a lot of content on, hey, this elongated market downturn. Here's how you can prospect. You know, effectively in this market, it's not going anywhere quickly. It'll change eventually. It always does, but we're gonna be here for a little while, so you have to adjust to make content and that already. I think that's
Unknown:
2:43:37
that's a really big one. I'll just elaborate a little more on right is most of the folks that came into our industry and the big wave during COVID, right? If you think about it, there's always a the different market cycles. I just look at very simply, right? When you have a peak of a market, it's very hard to find trucks and rates are very high, right? And the bottom of a market, trucks are easy to find and rates are low, right? So when it's hard to find trucks, service Trumps rate most of the time, because shippers still need to move things, and it's important they get there so they don't have the ability to pay any less than they want to. You gotta pay what it costs, because that's what a truck is going to cost. And the market we're in now, it's price over service, at least for the time being right. So what we've seen are lots of folks that came in and the peak of the market during the pandemic, which also lasted the longest peak market ever, right? They're used to picking up a phone, and any shipper that answered was like, hey, we'll onboard you. If you can get us a truck, we'll work with you. That was the bar, because everybody needed trucks, and a shipper that might have traditionally only worked with a handful of brokers would on board 20 or 30, because they just couldn't get the capacity. So anybody that could, they were willing to right? So again, you end up with habits from folks that came in that like anybody I call will do business with me. It's all great if you can find a carrier. Now, we're in the exact opposite of like shivers. Don't have a lot of urgent needs. You have to find a way to add value. You that isn't as obvious as I can find you a truck, right? Maybe it's service, maybe it's how they invoice, maybe it's how you communicate, like, whatever nuance is important to that shipper, you have to uncover those in this market now that is a world of difference from the way it operated when a lot of folks came into it. So a lot of our clients and a lot of people coming to us are like, like, we were killing it. Everybody was doing great. We had 15 sales people. Now we're down to six, and nobody can seem to bring in a customer. And then when we are asking more questions, we're finding like they're approaching their prospects as if it's the same market with the same expectations of, if I call somebody and they don't work with me, I go to the next one. Well, in this market, you've got to talk to a ship, or maybe six to 12 times over two or three months before, they'll give you a shot to work with their freight, as opposed to three years ago, one phone call, they're going to send you lanes to quote, so it's a completely different environment, like I look at as like, the context of the sport you're playing in, right? There's like, different rules. You're playing a different sport. Like that might have been like traditional NFL, and this is, like, arena, you know, football, where, like, it's a different sport because it's got a different size field, and you've got to do different things to be able to succeed. So I would say, like that are larger shifts. And, you
Nate Cross:
2:46:12
know, it's funny, too. Ben, you mentioned all that out of all the courses that we looked at before we created our our outline and our curriculum, I didn't see a single one that ever talked about market fluctuation, even like the predictable stuff, like, for example, produce, right? Produce has cyclical to cyclical nature, depending on what you're moving, when you're moving it and where it's moving out of hurricane season, right? You guys both live in Florida, like that. Every single year comes September, right? It's, it's hurricane season. It's extremely predictable. The severity of it might change, but, you know, it's coming every single year, and we, I didn't see that content anywhere in any of those courses before, whereas now, with with our content and what we teach for the TIA, we talk about market fluctuations. We talk about selling in a hot market versus a cold market, and then in that transitioning phase from one, one side to the other. So, yeah, it's, it's crazy, for sure. I
Blythe Brumleve:
2:47:07
was gonna say, when you're teaching at at Tia, I would imagine that you're, you're, you're teaching a variety. Are they live courses, or is it, you know, the same course, maybe just repackaged for them? So
Nate Cross:
2:47:18
that's live they have, like, a web based learning and then they go through coaching sessions with us. So there's, I think, what do we have, 12 total coachings sessions, and we Ben and I do half of them
Unknown:
2:47:31
correct. So they we, it's like a, it's a structured curriculum that happened. I think we're doing trimesters now, right? Nate, like we used to be quarterly. Now we're in. I think we do it like
Nate Cross:
2:47:40
quarterly. Now, because it's 12, okay, quarterly, it's 12. Yeah, you still, yeah. The
Unknown:
2:47:45
class comes in, it goes for a full quarter. There's an outline curriculum that we worked with them and Chris jolly, you know, to outline, what are the things you need to know to be able to really operate in the industry now, so there's a set list of topics, and then every week, either Chris or us. I think it's every week, right? Nate, every week, yeah, yeah, they're sitting in a class, and it's either us or him teaching it, and then we have our topics, and we get to allow them to ask questions. So it's a very engaged type of coaching, right? Like, I call it like the Socratic method, like, so we're asking questions to engage them, not lecturing them, as if, like, you need to learn this, read this. It's more like, what are you experiencing? And getting them to share so that we can take the lesson and articulate in a way that is relevant to where they're at and their journey, right, which I think is also different, right? I have a, I think Nate and I both have this right, like, it's like first principle understandings. I think lots of companies and lots of training go like, just do this, because you're supposed to, right, like, book a load, pay the least amount of money, and that's it. And NATO and I approach this more from like, okay, but like, why and what are the things that play into that negotiation, right? Like, the shipper, rate, the weight of the load, right, for instance. And like, how those things affect what you're doing, so that people get a foundational understanding of the industry, not just a whole lot of tasks that they need to execute every day. Because to me, like that's not teaching somebody how to fish, that's just getting somebody to follow directions. We want people to learn and understand to be able to do this themselves, which I think is also very different.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:49:23
Do you find that it because, if I'm reading between the lines, it sounds like a lot of the I guess the the troubles or or challenges that brokers are experiencing right now is the same, whether you're new or experienced? Yes, yep, very much. Equations affect it. You know, everybody, no matter. Everybody, no matter
Unknown:
2:49:43
their status, they're all still working the same market, right? So they're running into the same playing field, to keep the analogy right, like everybody's still playing the same field, right? I think what is different in your experience level is just the problems you face, right? If you're running a book of business, and you personally got eight people on your team, and you're moving 200 loads of. Week, like, your issues are usually more like, how do you create the space to prospect more right to be able to do those things for somebody newer? It's more usually accountability and making sure they're doing enough of the right things to get them where they want to go when they expect to get there, right? So I would say, fundamentally, they are doing the same things, but there's usually a different impediment to them being able to execute that thing is what differentiates them.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:50:26
I'm curious as to what does because I used to work at a, you know, an asset based brokerage, but that was years ago, and I do wonder, what does the, I guess, a typical day look like for a freight broker from the moment they get into the office to win, they know it's okay to leave. What does that process look like for them? Is it mostly software dominated now? Is it pounding the phones? Is it both?
Nate Cross:
2:50:49
I think it really depends on a couple things. Number one, how you know, where are you in your journey? Are you brand new, or are you have you been there for three years or five years? And the other part is, what you know? What is your role? Are you running your own brokerage? Are you just a sales rep? Are you a cradle to grave broker that does sales and operations? Are you just a carry wrap? It really depends, and it's fine. We just did an episode that came out like, what five days ago or four days ago on what is the average like day or week of a freight broker? And we talked through it, no, day is the same, but it's there's a lot of like consistency that involves putting out fires in the morning, talking with customers, prospecting, booking trucks in the afternoon, putting out fires as they come up, and setting up your stuff for the next day. That's that's kind of like your super watered down generalization of it. But depending on where you are, if you're brand new, you're going to spend way more time prospecting and following up and generating leads versus booking trucks putting out fires, because you don't have any fires to put out if you're brand new, whereas if you've been doing it for 10 years, you're very likely not the one putting out all the fires. You got someone else doing that, you might just be working on building relationships with existing customers, trying to find some new big whales and fish out there. It just really depends, but it's a lot of it is repetitive and cyclical, but at the same time, no day is exactly the same, because you never know what's going to come your way.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:52:12
What are some of those fires look like that you're putting out every day? Truck
Nate Cross:
2:52:16
shows up late, truck breaks down. You get scammed on something bad weather. Ben, I mean, there's a million, I would
Unknown:
2:52:25
say a lot of, I think, yeah, you're more common ones too, right? And Nate touched on, it's like a lot of, it's just covering trucks or recovering loads, right? Because if your customer is very price sensitive, right, you then have less money to work with to pay the carriers, right? You do what you can to be able to pay them as much as you can to make it work. But again, if I've got only a certain amount of money to work with, and that's on the lower end for this load, there's a very high likelihood this carrier is going to find a better load before my load picks up, which increases the amount of times I've got to put another truck on the same load. So that is one of the larger fires in this type of market that everyone runs into, it's just rebooking the same loads. Like I was talking with a client actually, right before this, they track this metric, and they want it to be like, closer to, like, eight to one, and they're seeing it like five to one, meaning, like, for every five booked loads of the truck picks up one recovery, right? And they're seeing they want that closer to eight. So those are some of the things they're trying to track, because this is one of the more common fires that one in fraud, because it takes you longer to vet a care now to make sure they are who they are is another one. And again, just unexpected things, meaning like you spend all of your time to be able to create the demand for yourself and your services. That's all prospecting is right, and then once you're effective at it, now you got to keep doing that thing, but be able to adjust as your customer has a need, because your shippers, by definition, to use a brokerage, it's usually an unexpected load they need help with. Either their truck didn't show up or they got an additional shipment that they didn't expect in the middle of the day. So that email comes to you at 230 in the afternoon. Maybe you plan to prospect, but it makes no sense to not capitalize on the opportunities that take you forever to get. So you've got to be able to pivot jump to that, be responsive and resilient to your customer, let them know you're always on top of it, and then you got to be able to pivot right back to prospecting, because that's a big issue with Most brokers, is, like, it's not easy for any human to switch tasks constantly. Like, multitasking is a huge efficiency killer in most professions, but inherent to the way our job functions. Like, you have to be able to be good at it and you but you have to be able to switch back to right, like you can't just be hitting at the loudest thing that is most urgent and never the most important. And to your question earlier, like experienced brokers, this is where they need the most help, because they're always jumping at the most urgent thing. So what they end up doing is never getting to process. Act, because you're never going to have somebody walk over to you or call you and yell at you and go, did you make your prospecting calls? Like, that's you, right? So like, those are the things that always get pushed down the to do list or to tomorrow day after day, and the more experienced brokers end up in a position they don't want to be in. They lose a big customer or something because they weren't doing that consistently, right? So again, like it's creating that space or the habits and showing them how to improve on these things so that they can get to the thing that's most important to their business, not just what's most important to the customer when the customer needs it, right? And I'd say, like, that is the big difference on like fires between early on and like later on in your career.
Blythe Brumleve:
2:55:41
Are there any AI tools that have sort of entered into, you know, maybe it's a TMS or, you know, just an independent tool that can be plugged into a TMS or, you know, WMS, or pick your software that you've seen that looks really promising to help brokers manage some of those, I guess, sort of low value tasks.
Nate Cross:
2:56:02
The thing that comes to mind for me Ben is levity. I mean, so levity is a company that so T low is the co founder. He's been on our podcast before, and I believe freight caviar as well, but they've been around for a handful years, and I think they're, they're kind of taking like the hey, we're not changing the game and bringing something new. We're going to, like, you just said, some of those, you know, low efficiency tasks. We're going to help you automate those so, like, it'll it'll read your email, be able to go run a rate through D, a T or green screen or whatever, build a load in your TMS for you, things like that. But outside of them, I feel like AI is a huge opportunity right now in our in our industry, and I think it being that the AI boom really started, what, like, a year and a half ago, I want to say, like, when, really, when, when chat GPT became like, open for anybody to use. That's when it like, just kind of went nuts. I haven't seen it, like, fully I haven't seen anyone just come in and be like, boom, here's an awesome product. It's gonna change the way we do everything. I think it's slowly starting to evolve in there. Like I've definitely seen with D, a T, some of their, like, predictive rates that they rolled out last year, that that's a pretty cool tool. I'm not sure if that would be considered AI or not, but I don't know. Ben, what do you got? You're like, more in tune with the AI stuff than me.
Unknown:
2:57:24
Yeah, I think there's a lot levity. Is a really cool product that helps you really, it's, it goes back to what we were saying earlier, like the fire, right? If I'm prospecting and my customer needs something, I need my customer to realize or to believe that I am always on top of it, right? But I also have this other thing to do. What I really liked about levity is like, if you've got customers that tend to send requests like throughout the day, and you want to get them a quick, quick response and almost buy yourself time to work on it, levity is great because it integrates with the TMS and your emails, so it can respond to your customer while you're prospecting, and then you can jump on it after. So it works really well for customers that have, like, very consistent messages in some ways, like, I just think of like lumber as an example, they'll send out load lists every day, a few times a day, on lanes they need help. Levity is a great tool because it will respond to my customer and the way I want it to without me having to stop what I'm doing, buys me time to finish what I'm doing than to work on that. And again, there's more functionality beyond that, but that is another tool that, again, helps us not have to be as reactive, and allows us to be a little more intentional, which I really like about it. A few other products that are out there, I know that they're being worked on, and we're keeping an eye on, or definitely don't want to announce them, but like, I've seen a couple of tools that are working on, like negotiating, like chat bots that will negotiate rates on behalf of carrier teams. I've seen those improve a little bit. There's one company in that space that's doing pretty well with that, and I think you're going to see some tools and things on the care capacity and rate side, like Nate mentioned, that are going to be, I mean, exponentially better than what we have, probably within one to three years from where we're at now, just seeing kind of what they're working on, and where some of these things are so really excited and to be honest, like, also very scared. Like, I think about it a lot, because I think this is going to shift a lot of industries in a way that we just nobody knows and nobody can expect or predict, and I don't know what that's going to look like. So there's a fear a little bit, but I'm like, Well, I'd rather move towards the fear and be on the front edge of it, because there will be winners and there will be losers, and I at least want to give myself my team and the people I work with as many of these advantages to be in the group with the highest likelihood of succeeding. Because I think just like when the internet came along 30 some, 35 years ago, right early adopters had huge wins right over the ones that waited to get on board. And that could be the that could be the difference between your business being around and not being around three to five years from now. So to me, like it's very important. I don't think it's necessarily impacting day to day so significantly right now, but I read something. I don't know there's Elon or somebody put it out. It was a chart showing, like, the exponential improvement in AI technology. And it's like a factor of 10 or 100 on top of what tech improves every year. I can't remember the ratio that tech improves every year. Like, there's that, there's that number that they came out, like the 60s, that it gets this much better every year.
Nate Cross:
3:00:34
Is it a double every year? Right? Is it like, yeah, I don't know. I'm not, like, a tech nerd, but,
Unknown:
3:00:41
but anyway, AI, yeah, to that point is supposed to be like a factor of, like, 10 or 100 compared to that and how quickly it's improving year over year. So, I mean, I would be surprised if it didn't have significant changes to our industry somewhere in the next three to five years.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:00:55
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly, and I it feels, I, you know, with it, with chat GPT, just storming on onto the scene and just using it. I use it now every day, every day within and I find a new way to use it all the time. The app is fantastic. I'm using it more than than Google search now, and I'm a, you know, it's able to give me, you know, very like, uh, nuance. And, you know, Nuance at times. Of course, it still has hallucinations, but it's able to give me a much more clearer answer. And I'm able to take, you know, for example, like a podcast, a transcript, and upload it to it and say, you know, what are some of, you know, the Give me 10 or 15 of the most powerful quotes from this conversation, and it's able to spit those out in seconds. And so a part of it is like, wow, this is really, this is really powerful. But then on the flip side, it's one of those things where it's like, is this going to be able to replace me one day? Like, I, you know, there is that level of fear that's involved as well, but I'm, I'm right there with you, Ben, I think that you, you have to experiment with these tools, even if they are a little scary because, and this is a quote that I heard recently that I fully believe, is that, you know, AI won't necessarily replace your job, but a person using AI will, and I think that it's going to just have, it's, it's had a massive impact on just my small marketing team and with the content We're able to distribute and create, and I hope that I'm not as replaceable. But I think, you know, it's an interesting sort of argument and or an interesting internal debate around your own ego, around it, am I actually, you know, better than AI? Can I? Can I be better than AI? And I think that that's maybe a good thing to sort of pursue, is to to try to be that better version of yourself. For
Unknown:
3:02:42
sure. Moore's Law doubles every one and a half years. There
Nate Cross:
3:02:46
it is. Oh, nice, nicely done. So I'll add in too on the AI piece, the like, meeting assistants like, so the ones that plug into like, your zoom meetings, your teams meetings, and they get like because you were mentioning Blythe like, the transcript and be able to do stuff, the ones that will like, give you Ben I the one that you use all the time.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:03:05
There's otter, there's fathom,
Unknown:
3:03:07
yeah, right.
Nate Cross:
3:03:09
So otter like, Well, Ben and I will be in a meeting and like, it'll spit out bullet points to do list and you know, all the action items, full transcript, if you want it. It's really cool, even so with the podcast too, which is cool is we upload our like, edit the audio real quick, throw it up on buzz, sprout, and then like, it'll create chapters. It'll give a description. If you want help, you give a title. It's really, really cool how it's how it's gone in the content space, freight brokers, though, and I'm Ben, I'm, I'm gonna full heartedly agree with you on this. I think the negotiation piece is gonna be really interesting to see how that pans out in the coming years. I saw an Instagram club the other day that claimed it was like a AI voice talking to a driver or a dispatcher on the phone trying to who was calling in about a rate or about an available load, but the capacity thing. And, you know, we won't say too much about it, but I can. I'm with you one to three years. I think you're going to see some big, big new players in that space who people have probably never even heard of right now. No, and
Unknown:
3:04:14
they're using that now like again. I want to go on a tangent, but I know they're using AI chat bots to make what we would have called robo calls back in the day. So like, telemarketers that have very structured scripts where this objection gets this response, like they're using that right now for, like fundraising and things like, they record the best salespeople, all the responses, all the objections, and it literally just executes based on what it's hearing. So it's using the human voice of like the better salespeople, and it's just literally able to have this conversation because they're very repetitive. They tend to have the same patterns. So it's definitely being used in other sales industries. For short, now I think ours is a little more nuanced, and I think it's going to be a steeper hill to climb. Input. We'll see what the future holds for sure. Well, we
Blythe Brumleve:
3:05:03
just talked about what you know, sort of the the typical day looks like for a freight broker. Do you? How do you think AI impacts that at all? Do you? I'm imagining that it's going to help with a variety of those functions. But does it fundamentally change what you're doing throughout the day?
Nate Cross:
3:05:17
I don't, I don't think it fundamentally changes. I think a lot of the mundane tasks will be made more efficient, and it'll create a lot more time and opportunity for relationship building business development, probably to run like a leaner admin support team, so you can grow without having to hire as many extra bodies. I think it'll kind of assist companies and brokers in that way. But I think fundamentally, we're still going to be, you know, we're logisticians. We solve logistics problems for our customers, until the way that freight is transported changes drastically. I don't see that or massive regulation overall. I don't see the average conceptual fundamental tasks that we do changing too much. Ben, what do you what do you think?
Unknown:
3:06:03
I think it's more to what you had said earlier, right? Like, it's more of the person with the tool, not instead of the person. So again, like Nate's example, the way I look is I'm like, hey, if I normally would need to hire six or eight people to cover my loads for me to sell, right, maybe I only need two or three, right? Same thing in like, coding like, again, I know that some of the tools that are out there with AI that assist code like coders, like, I've read reports that say, like, you know, a B grade coder can now operate like an A grade coder with the tool, because it's helping them find their errors faster and giving them suggestions so they're learning quicker. They get feedback faster, right? I think you could, you'll probably see something similar to that as it becomes adopted within our industry. Again, whether it's negotiating check calls or whatever the tedious, manual task that normally is, to be honest, like entry level people mostly fill these positions in our industry, right? So I think you'll probably just see a lesser need for those people, and also those people don't tend to stay very long either, like they'll come in, they tend to turn over within a year and go somewhere else. So I don't see it as necessarily replacing people. I just see it as becoming more effective and more efficient in some ways, to allow us to do more with less resources. I've seen the same thing in warehouses, right? Like I wrote a report, because a lot of this robotics and things and AI are being used in warehousing within our industries, right, whether it's stocking shelves, you know, staging a truck with pallets to get it ready before that truck arrives. I was, there was a there was a really good article. It was a good podcast, someone who's being interviewed that owns like, a large portfolio warehouse. And he goes, Listen like, we have 100% turnover in our warehouses. He's like, not like hyperbole, not like almost 100 meaning every year. He's like, I've been in this industry for 20 years. He goes, we don't have one employee in five of our warehouses that has been there longer than a year. Nobody wants the job. People take it until they don't need it anymore. They can find something better, and they leave. So we have huge cost of training people for jobs that nobody really wants anyway. He's like, you know, everyone's yelling at me, saying, I want robotics to replace people, but, like, if I could get people, I wouldn't have wanted the robotics. He's like, I'm trying to solve a problem that is created from the fact that nobody really wants this job to begin with. Now, I think that could be a slippery slope, and who knows where that leads to, but at the very least, I think early on, that's what it's likely to play out. But who knows. Yeah,
Blythe Brumleve:
3:08:33
it's one of those. I think it's something, you know, there's a lot of fuss that's made about warehouse robotics and how it's replacing jobs, but and also, you know, with autonomous trucks as well. And I think for a lot of folks, they, they've slowly come to the realization that you were worried about the wrong careers that were going to be replaced very soon, because it's very challenging to replace those, those, you know, the almost the blue collar workforce. It's more of the white collar workforce that is going to be impacted much more quickly than the than the in house workers. And even then, to your point about warehouse robotics, it's something like more than 90% of all the warehouses across the country use no form of robotics whatsoever. And there's a real issue like Amazon is actually really, genuinely worried that they are going to run out of people to hire for their warehouses, because they have so much churn, and so it's just, it's a fascinating, just sort of debate around, you know, AI, and how you define AI, and how it fits into each of the these different roles. But you know, I'm just a big fan of you, especially for small business owners or small teams, being able to these tools feel like a great equalizer versus some of the bigger companies that have the budget for, you know, a 20 person marketing team or a 20 person, 50 person sales team, where you can use some of these tools and really almost put your workforce on steroids. Oh, go ahead, I was gonna
Unknown:
3:09:58
say to that point right to. Like, circle back on something we had said, either in the green room or early on, right? Like, how are we using these tools now to create more time or space? Right? And again, like, I think we're all on the same page, at least. I know we've talked about this offline. It's like we're not using AI to create our content by any means, right? I think there's a whole we could talk for hour on what's happening to the environment and the SEO with just content that's generated through AI tools, really, they're just regurgitating other things. That's all it does, right? So, like, it's not expanding, it's not creating Novel Thoughts, it's just regurgitating things. And again, like, whole other side topic. But what we use this for, right? Is, like, I think it's incredibly valuable for me to kind of get started when I'm by myself sometimes, right? Like, you're kind of at this space where it's like, they call it writer's block, where you're like, I got a couple ideas. I don't really know how to get the momentum. And I'll just be like, hey, suggest an intro, or, like, write me a script on this. And I'll look at I'm like, yeah, like, that doesn't feel right. But I'm like, this little piece right here seems like a good starting point, and then you can just start writing and again, like, it's not to replace, at least I don't view it as a way to replace what I'm doing I'm like this just is a person that I can use when I need to, that can help me also spell check, that can help me look at my grammar, that I'll sometimes throw a whole script In for YouTube or whatever, and go, like, edit this and suggest another format, and I'll see what it takes out. And go, Oh, yeah. Like, this didn't really make a lot of sense there. That was, like, a tangent. We can move that. So I think it does help us get better at the things we're doing. I hope there's more of that and less of people just outsourcing it directly and going, whatever looks good enough send it big unintended consequences. AI
Nate Cross:
3:11:44
is definitely at a place right now too, where you can spot if something was purely written by AI, and the images too, like, you know, that's an AI generated image. So like, for example, I have never in my life, ever used the word Delve. And if you ever ask chat GPT to write something, it's gonna say, let's delve into and I'm like, I would never talk like that, right? And but I've gotten newsletters, and I've seen emails where I'm like, that's 100% chat GPT. It's not even like GPT four. It's 3.5 the free one, because they won't even pay 20 bucks a month. They're sending this crap out so but as stuff evolves down the road, it's probably gonna be hard to identify what's what. And I do think, like for these people that just write mass email, um, email blast to shippers like it could get to a point where you could say, like, hey, write me 100 unique, you know, emails that cover these 10 bullet points, and, you know, make it right. But anyway, maybe something like that could help somebody create an email campaign for like, on a marketing side, but I don't know. I'm curious to see where it goes. I think that the human being, there's, there's a thirst for human connection, and I think that true business development happens through that channel, communication versus, you know, AI to try and win something over.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:13:06
I think it was Paul Graham, who's a VC investor type. He tweeted out a graph the other day or a couple weeks ago. I think that that tracked the word Delve, and the massive amount of increase of that word being used is right.
Nate Cross:
3:13:24
It's like a GPT like favorite. It is
Blythe Brumleve:
3:13:27
the correlation with like, when GPT launched versus that word being used. It's like up and dramatically to the right. So to yours point, it really is. It's one of those things where you have to it's still a human is required during most of the marketing process. I am curious, because we have talked about prospecting a lot during this conversation, and if you were to, you know, advise a new freight broker on balancing the skills that they need to learn with some of these AI tools, what would be some of those suggestions that that you would take when it comes to prospecting,
Unknown:
3:14:07
on the tools, to what aspect of prospecting, I guess, like lead generation, or like in general, I
Blythe Brumleve:
3:14:15
guess maybe I'll pose the question this way, how would you if you were to hire a new freight broker right now, what would be the most important aspects of of prospecting that you would teach them?
Nate Cross:
3:14:26
I would say the we Ben and I we, we have pretty consistent message on this, and it's number one is to break up lead generation, which is, you know, identifying who these leads are, and then prospecting, which is the actual act of reaching out, whether it's call, email, in person, visit your follow ups. But I would say it would be to really hone in on those two things, find a very effective or efficient way to get a lot of leads quickly with very little work, and then make a lot of phone. Calls. The reality is, you know, if somebody's brand new and has never made a cold call, they're gonna suck at it at first. You know, way more likely than not. And it takes, I would say it probably takes, two to 300 calls before you even, like, find your own voice and feel comfortable doing it, because every time you every time before then you're like, This feels so awkward. I just can't wait to get off the phone. The person on the other end of the phone, you know, they hate me. They just they they're so mad that I'm calling them. It's like, no, that's not the reality of, like, make 100 calls or 200 calls, you'll rise it like, it's really not that bad. 90% of the time they don't pick up the phone anyway. But I would say it's yeah. So to recap, that efficiently, get a ton of leads easily with minimal effort, and then just go through the repetitions of reaching out, figuring out what your opening is, how you're going to run through your questions of prospecting, identifying the right questions to ask at the right time and what to say in response to a certain objection. Those are probably your biggest ones. I think that the number one reason that brokers don't succeed in the sales side is they're not make they're not putting the activity in. It's a numbers game. And if they just if you're not making the calls, number one, it's less opportunity to talk to people, and number two, it's less opportunity for you to refine your skills to effectively communicate. So that would, that would be my answer on that one, if
Blythe Brumleve:
3:16:19
most of the I guess that the people that they're calling aren't picking up the phone. How are they getting better at cold calling? So
Nate Cross:
3:16:27
I would say that if someone doesn't answer the phone, there's another way to get a hold of them, because you might have the wrong number. It might be a phone tree. It might be you have their voicemail. There's crafty ways to get yourself to the right person. And I've you know, I'm not going to endorse any one of them, but I'll tell you ways that people will do that is they'll be like, Alright, I'm going to call the accounting team or the accounting department and ask to be rerouted this person because I had the wrong extension. Or I'm going to call the sales team, become Buddy Buddy with them, and then ask to be transferred. Or I'm going to call their boss and who doesn't have time for me, and the boss is gonna say, Hey, call this person back. There's all kinds of ways to do it. But in like, I did a cold calling blitz about two months ago with one of the guys in our brokerage. And we went through, I want to say it was like 50 phone calls in one hour. And I think we had six. We actually talked to like six or seven people. And out of those six or seven people, only one or two of them was actually a, you know, shipping manager, or in the freight department that would act like a traffic manager that would actually tender loads out. The other ones were like operators or, you know, someone that's just screening phone calls, like your gatekeeper, stuff like that. But the vast majority, no one answered. It's just that simple. So it's why we say, like, you 100 calls a day. Yeah, you're gonna spend two to three hours 100 calls a day, and you're gonna have a very, very few amount of good conversations. But it's a numbers game that, what was your stat? Like, over 1000 phone calls before you got your first customer?
Unknown:
3:17:54
Something like, there's like, 2200 something like that. I was in a market similar to this, like, whatever, 2016 and again. Like the other thing too, is it's anecdotal, but I've never seen anybody put in exactly what Nate said, consistent effort, making the calls and doing in a way where they're hitting a consistent number, even if it's 60 or 80, right, and maybe not hitting that 100. I've never seen anybody do that day in and day out for a period of at least, at least five or six months and not end up with customers and succeed in the industry. Every single person I've ever seen not make it didn't make it for one reason. And, like, we always had a joke and management, and this is true in like all sales. Like, if you were looking at your under performers and results by money, you could almost always directly correlate it back with the activity on their phone, the guy making the least, or the gal making the least made the least amount of calls. The person making the most always makes the most calls, right? And, yeah, there's nuance and subjectivity to how and what they're saying what we work on in coaching and things. But the reality is, is, like, if that's not true, the rest doesn't matter, right? Like, I could teach you to be the best basketball shooter in the world, but if you don't take shots, that doesn't do you any good either, right? Like, if you're not going to put yourself in the place where you're everybody's uncomfortable, you're picking up the phone and calling somebody that didn't expect your phone call. Like you're taught your entire life to avoid being rude and that like that isn't per that isn't acceptable, and it frustrates you when people do it. So to make somebody do this intentionally is emotional. That hurdle is the hardest thing to get them through. But if you can get them through it and do it consistently, that's by far the biggest fail, or win fork in the road, if you
Blythe Brumleve:
3:19:34
will. And so once you because, because I am curious, like, once you get the person on the phone, what is your advice to keeping them on the phone and listening to you?
Unknown:
3:19:44
Here's the way I kind of break down. That approach is that, like whatever you should say, it needs to get to very quickly. What's in it for the person you're calling, not what's in it for you. Most people call and announce who they are and why they're calling and what they can do the person you just called and interrupted to. Doesn't care about any of that. They don't even care who you are, yet they want to know if it was important enough for them to pay attention to because they're still doing whatever it was they were when you called them, right? So you need to get very quickly to what's in it for them, whether it's you shipped to a location close to them. You've got other trucks that deliver in their area. You've got customers that are in the same niche, whatever that is of value that you're leading with, better be concise and matter to that person enough that they at least stop doing what they're doing right and then pay attention to you. That's one first step right, and then from there, right, like, you can pivot in a different way, is based on what you say, but also right. Like, right after that, you're gonna expect an objection, like, Hey, we're good. We don't need any help. Thanks for calling. So then the next step is I usually they call it like going for no and it's you literally do that. I would say, like, hey, look, you know, to be honest, like I wasn't expecting to work together. In fact, hell, I don't even know if would be a fit to work together if you had a load. I was calling because I thought it might make sense to have a quick chat again. This is why I called and then go into it, right? Because whatever that is, they're never paying attention to you anyway, until you at least get that thing first, right? And then if you've got that, then you can at least move towards either a personal thing, like, hey, it's Monday. How was your weekend? How's your day shaping up? Getting them to just get into the flow of a conversation. It's at the end of the week, maybe I'm going to go to personal go to personal, like, hey, Thursday, one morning out the door, how's your week shaping up? Got any plans for the weekend? Right? I'm trying to talk to them the same way I would anybody that would be a friend or a colleague you would see in person, right? And it's just getting people to understand. Like, if you get somebody to talk to you, actually an effective prospecting call is like, no statements. There's a statement or two at the beginning of what's in it for you, the rest is me just asking you enough questions to keep you talking about what you care about. That's how I get you to like and trust me, is that people it's like, what is everybody that the sweetest sound to everybody is their own name, and everybody likes to teach and talk about things they know. I want to ask just enough questions to get this person I'm calling to be interested and to want to talk to me. A question does that. So it's really the questions far more than the statements or anything you do that gets that person to connect with you.
Nate Cross:
3:22:16
I want to add into and we talk about a lot in our content is, I'm a I'm like, anti script. I know some people are very like, here's a script read off of it, and that's great if you're brand new and you don't know what else to say. I get it, but I've always gone I've done this myself, and I still do this myself. Is if there's something new that you're trying to sell on or call on. Have some sort of bullet points to give you an idea of the the things you want to hit on, but don't have it literally written out verbatim. And then have a list of prospecting questions to ask that you can kind of plug in as they're appropriate. And also bullet points on objections like Ben you just mentioned, you know, the conversation should sound it should be easy, right? You ask the question, they gave you an answer, and then you ask the next question, but if you use a script, your next statement might be extremely way off from what their response was when you know when you from whatever you had asked before. I always think about a prospecting call is like the Goosebumps books, if you guys never read those when you're younger. Was like, Alright, if you want to open this door, skip to page 47 right? Like, you should have a bunch of options in front of you. So instead of a script, when I was early on, I had, like, an Excel sheet or printed out on a Word document, just the big items that I wanted to hit on, right? And eventually, like, you just you don't need you don't need it anymore. It's all up here in your head, and you just can naturally open up a conversation. And like you Ben, I always try to open a conversation by just immediately releasing any tension in there, right, whether it's a joke, like I always, you know, football season, I'll make a joke about how my bills sucked on Sunday, or whatever it was, or, you know, in Buffalo, it's June, of course, we have a blizzard right now. You know, you say something just to relieve the tension and pressure, because you might get a little chuckle out of them. And now you're, you know, you're less nervous or intimidated on the phone, so break the ice, ask questions, build rapport, and I like to keep them short and sweet and have a reason to fall back up.
Unknown:
3:24:23
And I'd like one more thing to this too. And it was, I think Noah Kagan was this was in his recent book, he talked about this, and you've probably heard this at some point, right? Have you ever heard of the coffee challenge that they've ever they've ever heard that? So basically, right? Like the initial part of a phone call is really just the this little dance that all people do when they meet anybody anywhere, to determine, does this person have the same values as me? Right? You run to somebody at the grocery store, the cashier, wherever, right? That's why you have these tedious conversations about like, weather or whatever, right? You're just trying to gage this person's feeling and whether or not. You proceed, right? That's all this really is. And one of my favorite things to do with newer, newer sales people, or even brokers, right? Is like, I'll ask them to do this and practice this in their day to day lives, because it helps them with this muscle, right? It's one of the reasons why I think, like bartenders and servers tend to be very good in sales, because they're just doing this all day, connecting with new people, making small talk, and getting there very quickly. So the coffee challenge is really just to go when next time you buy coffee, you have to ask them for a discount, which, no matter what it is, you just, Hey, can I get 25% off this cup of coffee? Which is a really awkward thing to ask, and they're going to feel awkward, but it puts you intentionally in this space you're in, in prospecting that allows you to practice this in another setting. And it's literally the same thing you do on the phone, but you have more information because you can see the person, you can read them, hear what their body language or see what their body language is telling you. So I think those are other great ways to improve on this very specific skill set of connecting with people you've never talked to before.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:26:01
And then what does the, I guess, the the follow up process look like, which I know can be super intensive, but just, you know, sort of a quick overview of what that process looks like. You've done the hard work of getting the leads, calling them, getting them on the phone, have a conversation with them. Does email play a role? Does LinkedIn play a role? I or maybe a combination of all
Nate Cross:
3:26:22
of those things. I would say all the above. I think it depends on how the conversation goes, but I am personally a huge fan of communicating across multiple different platforms, but more importantly, communicate the way that your prospect wants to be communicated with. So by all means, throw. It, throw a LinkedIn request, send a thank you email or a follow up email, if they if they're open, to give you your cell phone number or their cell phone number. I love that, because then you can shoot a text like, Hey, you got a quick second. I got a question for you, right? But I think that the takeaway is, when you're following up, have a reason to follow up. Don't, don't call and just say, I just wanted to touch base, right? Like, that's the dumbest follow up, because you just, you're wasting their time. But a good reason is, hey, you mentioned this to me on the phone last week, Jim, I looked into it and blah, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know, something like that. You've got an actual reason to follow up that's adding value to them. Like Ben said, handful a bit ago was you want to quickly get to a point where there's something in it for them, not for you. And that's the a good follow up is going to have something in it for them, yeah,
Unknown:
3:27:29
for sure. So, and I think as you get better at this, right, like you tend to leave the last conversation in a way that you can pick up the follow up in a way that they're not going to remember most of your last conversation, right? They're going to remember how they felt when they talked to you, right? Did they want to avoid you, or do they want to engage? And then it's mostly like Nate said, have something prepared. Do not ever call and be like, hey, just following up. You got any freight for me? Like, nobody wants that call. It doesn't add any value to anybody's life. So you would need a specific reason, and you have to work to craft these unlike some calls. So that's why your notes in your CRM are incredibly important, because all of the money is in the follow up. You're not going to get any business unless you can follow up with them at least a half a dozen times or more, and your ability to connect with them in the future is related to how you left the last one right and what you're going to ask them when you connect back with them again, for sure. All
Blythe Brumleve:
3:28:23
right, I know we got to wrap up so you know what? One quick question just to sort of, you know, round out the entire conversation. You guys are your experienced agents, brokers, you know, creators within the freight industry. What advice would you give to other folks within the industry on how to balance marketing yourself, your personal brand, in addition to managing a full time job.
Nate Cross:
3:28:49
Ooh, that's a tricky one. I think for some people, they is marketing such a broad term I would just, I would say, if you're trying to do like marketing, as far as like on like a social platform or website, I would say like create, just start creating content, whether it's blogs or posts. It kind of just shows up like, kind of highlights who you are as a person, and gives a little bit of like the human touch versus like, for example, LinkedIn, right? Some people, all they do is share articles on there. But then there's a handful, more than a handful. Now, people in my feed that like, they tell personal stories, and it's like, I want to read this stuff, and if I ever needed X, Y and Z, I'm going to that dude, because I feel, I feel like I kind of know him, and I've never spoken to him. So I would say, like, have some kind of, like, authenticity in how you're sharing information or posting things. But, you know, I don't know, I would add a good answer for you, no,
Unknown:
3:29:49
and I think that's really, I think what you touched on, right is like one is it should be authentic to you, because, like, we were talking about with any of the llms or chat gpts or whatever. Right, like they all kind of sound the same, which means, even if it is an effective email or post, right, like there's no way for the person reading it to know anything about you other than the information, so it's nothing to do with you, so there's a very low likelihood you connect with them. So I think authentic content is valuable. And I think other marketing, right, we're talking like emails and just whatever that is, the message when I'm crafting them like is, if I had their job, would I be irritated somebody sent this? Or would I appreciate it? And if I would appreciate it, then I know I've got a closer message, right? And the only thing I would add is, like, with marketing emails specifically, is less is more people put, like, these diatribes and these, like, long essays and like, I'll ask anybody I have a client, like, open your email. I'm like, how far into this email would you read before you clicked out of it, if it wasn't somebody you knew, right? Like, oh, a sentence or two, right? So again, how it's even, like, spaced and how short it is, I think matters a lot, as well as your subject lines like it needs to hit home, be short to the point and valuable. If it hits those three things, you're adding value and you're helping them connect with you in a way that builds a stronger relationship. Because that's the goal at the end of the day, right? It's not being everything to everybody and just posting everywhere that you can do anything that anybody needs, because nobody wants a generalist and anybody they hire, like, if you hire an attorney, you want somebody that is really good at the thing you're hiring them for. If you're hiring a doctor, you want to know the doctor that's really good at what's wrong with you, not the one that can do everything. Same thing in our industry, right? Like, stick to your strong suits. Try to be specific in a way that shows you can help this person or this industry or this type of shipper with this thing, not that you can do everything they've ever needed. Everybody tells them that that doesn't differentiate you. So those are the, I guess, the like, I don't know, like, kind of first principle things I think, like the content that I either send to shippers, put on LinkedIn or even YouTube content for that matter, right? Like, if it's not hitting those things, it's just noise. Well,
Blythe Brumleve:
3:32:10
that is a perfect place to wrap this conversation. Tons of insight, tons of great advice and tips for folks out there, especially who are working in the freight broker role and and beyond, just in general, of learning how to market yourself and create content and balance it all, I think we're all trying to figure out how to get a little bit more balance between all of those different things. So So Nate and Ben, where can folks follow you? Follow more of your work. You know, get a copy of the the freight broker basics. Course,
Nate Cross:
3:32:38
yeah, easiest way is our website, freight three sixty.net, you'll see around the homepage. You can sign up for our, our twice a week newsletter, which has free content and industry news. It's got our, our, our course link on there, you can see the curriculum. You can even see the first lesson for free, just to kind of preview what it's what it's all about, and how it's taught, essentially how it's, you know, put out there. And you also find there all of our blogs, videos, podcasts. It's out there. We're on YouTube. If you just look, fray 360 up, we're on Spotify, Apple podcasts. You name it. Our podcast is out there. Just Google, freight 360 you'll find us
Blythe Brumleve:
3:33:19
awesome. And I will make sure to put links to all of those things in the show notes, just to make it easy for folks. But Nate and Ben really appreciate your time and your insight and perspective on this episode. I hope folks will find a lot I think they will. I know that they'll find a lot of value in this episode. So thank you again.
Nate Cross:
3:33:35
Thanks, Blythe,
Unknown:
3:33:36
thanks for having us.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:33:38
Holly. We're here at TMSA, yeah, but Bourbon Street often in the background here. It's a little bit quiet today versus the previous two days, but we're here for TMSA is elevate conference, transportation, marketing and sales associate for folks don't know. Tell everybody about you, about your role, how you got into you're the co founder and partner over at luminaries, and you provide sales training to logistics companies, and I get that right? Yeah, that's a perfect
Unknown:
3:34:07
summary. Yes, yeah, yeah. So we've luminaries have been up and running for about seven years, but my partner and I both come from logistics, so that's kind of why we weren't intending to, like, specialize in logistics. But we know logistics. We love logistics, and there aren't a lot of people who know what we know and also know this dynamic and challenging industry. So we we do sales development and strategy development, process improvement all like within the sales space for logistics companies,
Blythe Brumleve:
3:34:36
that's interesting. Oh, I definitely want to touch on the the process side of things, because I'm such a process nerd. But you spent, I think I saw on your LinkedIn, football nine years, or close to 10 years at ch Robinson.
Unknown:
3:34:48
Yeah. I think I was like a mom 13 years, but
Blythe Brumleve:
3:34:52
yeah, a strong decade. Yeah. So what did you have a sales role at ch Robinson? Is that? I mean, obviously, that's where you got your feet wet. As far as the. Industry partner. Did you start in logistics prior to that? No, that was my first
Unknown:
3:35:03
logistics experience. I never intended to work in logistics, like many, many people in our industry, like my happenstance, but I had a bunch of different roles there. I was started in, like, in learning and development for actually, the global forwarding part of the organization. I worked at the sourcing, produce side for a while I went into more of, like a general HR talent development kind of space. In my last couple of years, I was supporting the commercial strategy, development and execution, um, so lots of different roles, but in all of them, I always had, like a sales angle to it. I led the sales curriculum there for a couple of years. So all everything that they did from a sales learning standpoint I was a part of. So I love sales people. Like, I connect to sales people. I identify as a salesperson. So that was why, like, we really kind of went down that angle. And it's just such an important part of organizational success that we really wanted to lean into, like, the commercial growth area.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:35:59
So what was the light bulb moment for you to say that you to say that you wanted to start your own company?
Unknown:
3:36:04
You know, I don't know if I if I have one. I remember being, like, young 20 something, like, barely in my career, and I knew I wanted to be a consultant, because I have, like, entrepreneurial parents, you know, I wanted to, like, own my own business, and have that kind of challenge in front of me, but I just, I'm the kind of person that likes lots of different challenges. I get bored painfully quickly, you know, kind of a thing. So doing lots of different things and helping lots of different companies, like meet lots of different challenges, was very appealing to me. So I think we've, I picked the name luminaries consulting, like, 15 years before we started the company, we all know, mainly my partner and I, for nine years before we opened our doors. So it was a long time coming, and we were really excited to get up and running. It's been really fun ever since. And
Blythe Brumleve:
3:36:52
so when, when you start luminaries, what was sort of the first education? Did you start off with training, or did you start off with creating educational materials. What was sort of that, that that first thing that you did? Yeah,
Unknown:
3:37:04
we, I mean, we spent a lot of time doing, like, the groundwork of business up and running, probably more than we actually needed to, you know, like the website and the incorporation materials and, like all of those kind of things. But we definitely started with, like, the talent development side. So let's build some sales curriculum. Let's build some learning that we can then bring to customers so we're ready. We did most of our stuff custom for folks, like, right out of the gate, because everybody's needs are pretty unique. And then we learned really quickly that, like, there's a lot of consistent needs out there, and people want to, like, get something deployed really quick if they want to come to somebody who has the answers, rather than, like, coming up with them themselves. So we kind of flipped our model a couple of times in that process. But yeah, talent development is kind of where we start with people.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:37:53
Where would you say that for I mean, obviously sales has evolved, just in general over the last decade, but especially since COVID, with these sort of hybrid models of work from home, you know, work in the office. So what does sort of the I guess, the modern sales team look like inside of a logistics company?
Unknown:
3:38:14
It looks like so many different things, and it kind of depends on the company, what their commercial strategy is like, how much new customer acquisition versus current customer growth, and what that balance looks like, which which industries you're selling into or specializing in. It all looks different, but they're like some trends that have evolved for sure. I think there's, over the last maybe decade plus, people have kind of been more delineating between sales and account management, which is typically recommended, I think, but then, you know, over the last five years, then the rise of the SDR kind of came, and then there's kind of different marketing engagement that's been happening over the last couple of years. So all of those things tend to evolve. But Logistics is, I find, like in most things, a lot of things in terms of adoption, usually not like the forefront of innovation for all of these things. So you'll see kind of sales practices evolve in like SAS selling, you know, for example, or something like that. And then a couple years later it gets into logistics. But there's just been a lot of kind of changes like that.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:39:22
So when you when a company decides that they want to work with you, what is sort of the first things that you help them look at, help them achieve? Is it gathering data? Is it meeting with different, you know, sort of team members? What does that look
Unknown:
3:39:37
like? Yeah, it depends on in which way we're working with them. We do, sometimes little projects for people. Sometimes we have, like, really big partnerships. But usually, if we're trying to tackle big stuff, we start with really, kind of getting our arms around your current state, so figuring out, kind of all of the different things that are a part of their commercial strategy that are working or maybe not working, and what that strategy. Looks like, like where they want to go long term, that might be different than there is today, and then kind of building a land to bridge. So I want to
Blythe Brumleve:
3:40:07
get into a little bit, because we just got done with the shippers panel, and they were really like nailing home some great ideas for sales and marketing teams. And one of the things that really stood out to me was a statement of hunters versus gatherers, and that is the second time that we're actually what you just mentioned is the third time that I've heard this role. You want to have the head hunters, and then you want to have the account management side of things. Do you find that most logistics companies, or a lot of logistics companies that you work with, do they have that sort of framework, or is it still very much like pound the phones. Here's a bunch of cold leads and good luck.
Unknown:
3:40:46
Yeah, there's, it's all over the board, right? I think that it's personally, I think it's a healthy practice to have some delineation between your true sales people, like your hunters, and your farmers, the ones that are cultivating and growing the existing customers, depending on what your commercial strategy is, what kind of customers you're going after, that might look different if you're trying to sell transactional business, if that's where you're winning, you might have more of a hybrid role that's selling small deals and keeping those because they're small and you need to grow them. If you're selling bigger kind of contractual business, you're looking for partnerships. It is, I haven't seen it done successfully yet. I don't think where someone can truly go and like, hunt and build those big relationships and still have time to cultivate and grow. It's just like a little bit of an unfair expectation to put on one person. So it depends. There's not one answer to it. But I would say, in general, where you run into problems is where your commercial strategy does not match the structure that you have. Those just things just need to be
Blythe Brumleve:
3:41:47
synced up. Yeah, it definitely sounds like two totally different skill sets, where someone is actively going out there trying to get new business versus, you know, the keeping the customers happy or expanding the business. And that's more of, I guess, where the account manager, the gatherers and farmers, as you say, would really fit in? Yeah, a lot of different
Unknown:
3:42:05
skill sets, but it's also even different kind of expectations that those girls have. I mean, think about doing something like this. We're at Elevate for a couple of days. If you're a salesperson, if you're a big outside sales person, you're probably going to some industry conferences for your customer. You're gone for three days choosing lining and dining your prospects. If you are managing accounts at that same time, stuff's falling apart during those three days, one of those balls is gonna get dropped, and you don't want either of them too. So it's just been a healthier for everyone, if you can get a little bit of a different like delineation there,
Blythe Brumleve:
3:42:39
yeah, especially with like delegation, I think that's what I struggle with the most when it comes to my own sales, is that it's very much inbound. But then if you're not ready to sign on, sort of the it's probably a really good segue into the follow up, because the follow up for me is probably the most challenging, just from a time perspective. So I'm curious as to how you're, you're helping some of these companies handle the follow up process, because that is probably my biggest struggle. It's like, either you're ready to side or I'm moving on without you right that, and I know that's not the right mindset to have, like, some they need, you know, a little bit of coaching. They need a little bit of reassurance that they're making the right decision. So how do you, how do you, I guess, develop a strong follow up process in your sales? Yeah,
Unknown:
3:43:26
well, we're entrepreneurs, so it's different because we're wearing like, 100 hats, like, you're a business owner, you're selling deals, you're managing those customers, right? So it's a different kind of deal. Usually, if you have a little bit more role code, you're, like, inside of an organization, then you're just the salesperson, or, you know, something like that, then that's like a lot of the process work that will work with people. So if you have a really clear sales process, that's first step, right? If you have your CRM integrated to your sales process, that's another good step. If you're using that CRM like actually leveraging it to remind you to follow up with prospects, maybe even to automate some of those things. That's another great step. So it just kind of depends on where people are. But if you know all the sales processes, I think need to be accustomed to the organization fit to your strategy, and then you know you have some of those disciplines or those rigors created in general. But then I also think you need to think about what does that customer you need in terms of follow up. If you're having a conversation and you're like, No, we're not ready right now, but maybe at the end of next quarter, let's have another conversation. So that's just not going to be the same follow up process that you have with somebody else that's like, call me next week, you know. So you just have to kind of customize those and then have the internal discipline, like, remember to follow up on that even things like Google Tasks are super helpful for reminders
Blythe Brumleve:
3:44:44
there. I think that that was when I worked in house in marketing for an asset based brokerage. It was the biggest hurdle to try to get the sales guys to use a damn CRM like they just are used to just flying by the seat of their pants. I mean, I. Will say, and maybe, you know, to straw man, it a little bit on their side of things. This, this was kind of like newer technology. This is like 15 years ago. So it was newer technology. They didn't care. They didn't want to work inside any of this kind of stuff. And so, from, from, I guess, from that lens, from the people who have been in the game for a long time, versus the people who are just entering the game. What are some of those, I guess, dynamics of how maybe you help the older generation who doesn't want to adopt tech, versus the newer generation who's maybe a little bit more gung ho about adopting that
Unknown:
3:45:33
tech, right? Right? I mean, there are drawbacks to both of those, like ends of that spectrum, right? A lot of times we'll work with with newer sales people who will be so tech forward, like they will, they will, you know, do all the follow ups and all the automation and reminders, but they're so scared to pick up the phone, you know, so some of those basic things, or then you have the people that are kind of more traditional, they want to talk to people on the phone, but then they're not taking advantage of Some of those, like tech and kind of advanced things. That's why we really believe in kind of, like lifelong learning and constant evolution. David Hopkins is just talking about this inside, in, inside of Elevate there. But you really just have to always be a consummate learner, because these things are evolving. Like, think, think of how AI has evolved just within the last year. I mean, I can't even speak to this. I know you're much more, much more versed there, but you have to stay on top of these things and figure out which different pieces you can kind of incorporate into your own strategy to make you the best person wherever you are and that's comfortable.
Blythe Brumleve:
3:46:34
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, so what are, what are maybe some successes that you're seeing with all the evolution that that's been going on? What are some, I guess, you know, sort of modern suggestions, or you know, playbooks that you could recommend for companies to take if they know that they have a problem with their sales and that, you know, this time of the year, this time in the market, I should say, when we're kind of in a down market, people are starting really wanting to ramp their sales up again. So what would that, I guess, sort of approach, look like for and I would imagine it depends on the scale of the business as well.
Unknown:
3:47:59
Yeah, it depends on the scale of the business, and also kind of, again, they're like commercial strategy, or who they're selling to, or what those people are looking for from them. But I think a lot of times where we see initial like opportunities to make some quick wins is like getting really clear on what your sales strategy is. I mean, it is it that sounds so painfully obvious, right? But if you go ask a random sales person, for them to tell you, like Joel salesperson on the desk, what's your organization's sales strategy? Who are you trying to sell to? What are you trying to achieve? It's unlikely that you're probably going to get the same answer that that sales leader will give you, so that, like, clarity and alignment and the sales strategy, I think, is really important, and then the process and all of the execution to kind of follow up with that, you have to make it as easy as possible for your salespeople to do their job. You know, so clarity and strategy and clarity and process execution, what that looks like, what those expectations are, I think are really easy, quick wins,
Blythe Brumleve:
3:48:56
what is sort of a, I guess, a sample process that sales teams should be implementing. Is it like a hard like, you know, what the definition of, you know, an MQL versus SQL? Is that part of the process, or is it, you know, everybody is, you know, just sort of unknown until they fill out a form on the website. What does, I guess, sort of a good sales process look like, you
Unknown:
3:49:21
know, I think it can be all different levels of like, granularity. Like, if you're getting to MQLs and SQL, that's a pretty granular sales process. I mean, I think at a high level, you need to figure out, at minimum. Again, this is going to sound like super obvious, but what is a prospect to us? At what point do they become a customer? When we're prospecting with somebody like, what's the next step? What does our discovery look like? We're trying to get a face to face meeting. Are we trying to get a quote? Are we trying to get in their RFP cycle? All of that's going to depend on what your commercial strategy looks like, but just kind of those big buckets like that is a great first start. Make sure that's connected to your CRM and make sure people. Know how to move prospects through each gate of that, because what that gives you is like a shared language. And as you talk to people, and this is where this person is in the in the cycle, I can't get this prospect to move into the discovery phase. They won't open up to me. How can I do that? So you can talk about it to each other, but it also will give you kind of you can create playbooks from that you can give them the skills and the tools based on those things. It's just a really important first step for folks
Blythe Brumleve:
3:50:28
with with COVID. There was a, you know, a sort of a big adoption of E learning and, you know, diving into, you know, membership and courses and things like that, since it has kind of fallen off just a tad. So I'm wondering, like, what is sort of, I guess, from a training perspective, where are you seeing some of the, I guess, the biggest, you know, sort of light bulb moments for sales team. Is it in person? Training is in E learning? Is it, you know, maybe a combination of the two. Like, what, how did, how are the salespeople upping their game in logistics?
Unknown:
3:51:02
Yeah, well, first I'll say, whatever you're doing, like do something like do some development, and you're moving in the right direction. But definitely, you know when, when COVID hit, everything went virtual. And some people really adopted that. And that was new for folks. People learn how to do it really quickly. We went from doing almost exclusively in person to everything virtual, we had to learn how to do it really well, and it absolutely can be just as effective to do it virtually. Some parts are more enjoyable to do in person, but so there, there's virtual versus in person, and there's also live versus, like not live, right? And what we tend to do is, like a blend of those things. I think after after COVID, like, started to wrap up right then people are kind of, you know how people revenge traveled after it. People like revenge planned in person, development sessions after that too. So then all of a sudden, in person was back. But really virtual hasn't gone away. We do a lot of the blended learning, is what we call it, where maybe there'll be kind of an E Learning course that people can take on their own time. That's a beautiful thing, because it lets you learn at your own pace. It doesn't pull your entire sales team off the floor at the same time. You know, that kind of a thing. But then we'll get together, live, either virtually or in person to do the practice, the application, the coaching, it's really hard to do those things not live, so you can do them really well in, like a zoom environment or something like that. But the real time practice, the feedback from a manager or from a facilitator, a coach like myself, is so critical. So whether that's going to blend it and then, like, live virtual or e learning, and then, like, live in person, whatever that looks like for your team, I think can be really effective. A lot of times, teams that are co located, they want to do everything live in person, because that makes sense. Or if you have your team all around many states or the country or the world, you're going to do more stuff virtually, because then you don't have all of the travel and entertainment expenses, so it all can work, as long as you're working with somebody who knows how to do it. Well, are you
Blythe Brumleve:
3:53:07
training people on site, like in person, too? Yeah, we do. Oh, wow,
Unknown:
3:53:11
yeah. Actually, a lot of our work we do that. We don't have our own offices and facilities. We're going to our clients all at the time. So sometimes that's kind of like custom work we'll do with them. Sometimes it's a part of their sales kickoff that they're having will do something, but, yeah, a lot of stuff that we do on site at customers. Oh, that's
Blythe Brumleve:
3:53:28
super interesting, because I imagine that it opens the door to do more, like live training and instant feedback. And it's so much more, you know, that that kind of training maybe is a little bit better suited for live versus than, you know, virtual,
Unknown:
3:53:41
right, right? It's definitely there's a different energy level that comes with getting together and doing some things. There's, you know, the visibility of others, approaches, the ability to practice, the ability to get feedback that can happen virtual or in person, but the energy in the room is kind of hard to replicate in a virtual environment, and then you have all of like, the downtime interactions, right? Like even downtime at these conferences, when your team is together, they're having dinner together, they're talking in the hallways, they're like, learning and building their network and kind of experiencing different examples of what people are doing. And that's also hard
Blythe Brumleve:
3:54:18
to replicate, yeah, because I would think that that environment creates much more. So if you have sort of the E learning, it says the table stakes for the conversation or for the training, and then you have the in person training, where you can start making those more, you know, connections and more you know, light bulb moments and getting that instant feedback, instead of trying, you know, trying it out on the phone and failing miserably, at least, you can get some of that instant feedback and be able to apply it immediately, right? That's
Unknown:
3:54:44
what we always say to people. Like, sometimes these things are really uncomfortable. You know, doing like a role play in front of your teammates is sometimes a lot scarier than actually doing it in front of a customer, right? Like, we get it. That's always the pressure that people say. But let's try something new in this and. Environment, rather than burning a bridge in front of a customer, like, let's, let's try it here in what is, although it might not always feel like it is a safe environment. And then we'll figure out how to apply that to your customer when you get out in the real world. One
Blythe Brumleve:
3:55:13
of the other phrases that I've heard a lot is, you know, you just hear a lot in general, with with marketing and sales, but today, specifically with, the kickoff at the concert or conference a concert too? Yeah, we believe a little bit of music going on here in New Orle. So what about KPIs? Like, what does, I guess, sort of a baseline level of KPIs look like for modern logistics
Unknown:
3:55:36
sales team? No, that is so all over the board. We we work with some like, we're working with the client right now on their kind of customer facing KPIs, for example, we would bring those into Business Review conversations or something like that. So what are you measuring? What does your customer want you to measure about their business to show that you're doing a good job? But if you're talking about, like, internal sales KPIs, like, how do we know if our sales team is being successful? Is that where you're kind of going, Yeah, that can be all over the board too. I was just talking with somebody this morning that kind of figuring out some of that stuff. And my coaching in that moment was, like, if you're thinking about, kind of what to measure or like, what to tie goals and compensation, to start with the outcomes, what kind of outcomes are you looking for? What kind of results do you want from your sales team? That's what you should ultimately measure. That's the things that you're managing at the end of the day, managing too. And then if you're having a problem in one of those outcomes, then you start stepping back to what are the opportunities that are in their pipeline? Are they getting? Like, are you set up to get the results that you want, or do we need to start fixing your pipeline? And then, what are the activities that are leading to those opportunities? Are you not doing enough outbound calling? Are you not having enough of XYZ kind of conversation? You're not are your emails off? Like, what are those activities look like that are leading to the opportunities you can kind of step back down that train. But what I often see with sales managers who are trying to get more like, I need to start managing our sales team more. I need to start coaching them more as they start to get really gung ho on managing the activities, which I mean, if I'm coaching you and your goal is selling a million dollars a month, and you're selling a million dollars a month, do I really care how many calls it takes you to get to that million bucks? Like.
