Unknown:
0:00
LinkedIn presents?
Trey Griggs:
0:54
Too much, although it is a cool visual test standing room only we can say we've had standing room over here, so maybe not I don't know maybe not do that. Well, welcome to the inaugural elevate morning show. I'm Trey Griggs. Your mic on? Sir My God mic is on check one two Mic check in.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:18
And my name is Blythe Brumleve, I was asked to do a co host this show under only one condition. And that's it for any of you who are at last year's event, you know, for sure of what this guy did up on stage with several other TMSA members. And that was a tick tock dance. And I said I will co host the show, but I will not be doing any tick tock dances on the
Trey Griggs:
1:41
way that I will leave that up to who wants to see Blythe and a tick tock. They're not happening yet. Okay, so we're not going to do a tic tac dance. But I did come up with a pretty awesome walk up song for you. And now you're actually sitting. So I mean, you guys judge what do you think?
Blythe Brumleve:
2:09
Now I'm bright red. Thank you for embarrassed.
Trey Griggs:
2:14
By few, you made quite a splash of your own. For those who don't know, Blythe Brumleve. Where have you been living? What rock Are you under? Alright, first of all, if you're not following me on LinkedIn, do it now. Take your time right now and do that on LinkedIn and follow on that. But you made quite a splash in the industry. You started your company Digital dispatch a little while ago, you've been hosting several shows you had Seiberling on freightwaves. And now, as you can see with your wonderful actor, the host of everything is logistics podcast. Again, if you're not listening to that you need to listen to the content is absolutely phenomenal. One topic I know you're interested in talking about is chat GPT and AI like she's geeking out right now. Just the fact that I said the word. I'm like, where do you want to start? Yeah, exactly. So let first of all, how many of you in the audience have started to explore and experiment with chat? GPT and AI? President? Oh, that's more than I would have thought. Yeah, no, that's that's more than I would have thought. How many of you are using it? Like once a week? That? How about multiple times a week? How about every day? Yeah, they're gonna company on your day, every day? Yeah. Every day, it starts to become a part of your entire work like repertoire. You're about talking about what you love so far about Chad GPT. about AI in general. And, and like, what gets you excited about
Blythe Brumleve:
3:30
what gets me excited about it is I think I can speak for a lot of folks in this room is that you're you're working as a one person marketing teams. So you have a lot on your plate, whether you're a founder, whether you are that one person marketing person, whether you have contractors, we're all trying to do more with less. And check up T is one of those tools that has just taken over where it's the fastest app ever in human history to get to 100 million users within such a short period of time. So it really helps to speed up a lot of the monotonous work a lot of the mundane work. It doesn't I would not recommend to just straight copy and paste from chat GBT. But using chat GBT and the tools that kind of bundled into catch up T It's really helps you with ideation, it helps you with research and you got to fact check it. But it gets you to about that 80% level, and then it can be up to you to take the rest of that time to make it to where it's 100%. And you're comfortable enough with publishing that work.
Trey Griggs:
4:30
Yeah, I think for the one person marketing team, or for the sales leaders said, hey, you've been given marketing, right? And would you Who has time for those kinds of things. It's really great for creating some social media posts. If you're trying to get content out there. It's great for ideation because if you want to write a blog or something like that, and you just don't know where to start, and I'm a writer, I love to write but even sometimes you just get writer's block, especially if you're up against a deadline. So there's a lot of uses for it. And it's fun to see people exploring it. What are some things that you've done or some uses that maybe you found that you didn't know write it right away and start using
Blythe Brumleve:
4:59
it so What I found that that's really powerful is taking my own work and submitting it to these large language models and then having it spit back out words that are in my own language. So building these large language models based on your own personal data sets. So while chat GBT right now that that functionality is really hitting the mainstream, I think we're the very near future is going to be your own personal largely in which models where you can take an entire database of your companies FAQs of your companies, blogs, videos, turn those into transcripts, and then take those transcripts of things you've actually said and turn that into content.
Trey Griggs:
5:35
Yeah, cuz you take your transcript of your your podcasts, and you turn that into blog content. Other than that, how do you how are you using it for that?
Blythe Brumleve:
5:42
So I use a tool called swell AI which links directly into chat GBT. So it pulls in the transcripts, it pulls in show notes, it pulls in timestamps, powerful quotes, what the listener will learn from the podcast, this used to take me hours to do, or I would outsource it to someone else. So that was a fee as well. So that combination approach has really helped a ton, as far as you know, just speeding up the work that the mundane work. So then that way, you can really focus on the work that you really need to be focusing on it only you can do.
Trey Griggs:
6:14
Yeah, and AI is only used for, you know, creating social media content or marketing content or those types of things. But the AI tools can be used for a lot of different things. I use fireflies study I from my meeting notes, which then I can pause the action items out of a call because I'd like to be on the call and be really focused and you try to take notes, but sometimes you miss things. It's nice to have that as a backup. For me. There's tools like jasper.ai and Jarrah study, I and several others that are really helpful. So I would just say like, try stuff out, like don't just keep trying stuff out, take some time every day, put in your calendar, half an hour, a day of just exploration, try to figure some stuff out because I guarantee if you're not keeping up with this, you're gonna get left behind
Blythe Brumleve:
6:49
and tragic btw, but also barred as well. I hate the name but Google Google's BARDA program, I keep both of them bookmarked. So that way, when I open up my, you know, website browser in the morning, those are the first two tabs that I see. And so I'm trying to condition myself into using it not just for work, but for everything. I went on a hike, you know, about a month ago, and I've had this weird pain in my knees since then. But I asked Chet, I tried to do a Google search for it. It's very complicated search of how you're going to diagnose a knee problem, but I used ChaCha btw to kind of help me discover stretches that could fix my knee problem. So you can use it for trip planning, you can use it for a lot of different things, not just your work,
Trey Griggs:
7:29
I can't wait for what's to come. I'm so excited for my digital personal assistant someday, where I could say, book, my trip for TMSA 2024, make sure I get in a day early, use my southwest account on my you know, whatever. And it just does it like it's coming folks. It's there's exciting things that are coming down there. There's a lot to learn. But it's really
Blythe Brumleve:
7:47
100% It is a learning process. So I think setting it up as a sort of a bookmarking and creating that daily habit will really help you to understand the capabilities of the tool, not only within your job, but within the rest of your life. Now, as far as you know, with, I think utilizing tools like this can be overwhelming at times, it can be really intimidating to learn these new tool sets. And then you kind of become a little bit overwhelmed. And you're not exactly sure what direction to go into. And I think that that creates, you know, a level of imposter syndrome. And tre you've actually been been, I guess dealing with a little bit of that as you started on your journey. Correct?
Trey Griggs:
8:26
100% 100% Anybody who says they don't have impostor syndrome, at some point in their career is lying. Or they're not trying hard enough, in my opinion, but it's a real thing. Like you guys feel that right? How many of you have woken up in one morning and just like, I can't do this, this is overwhelming, who's going to believe in me? Like who wants to hear from me? Like we've all kind of had that. I've definitely had that. You know. And when I when I started my content journey when I started, you know, creating shows, you wake up some mornings when you go is anybody listening? Like who really cares. By the way, Blythe was my very first guest on my standing out show. So she's a big supporter. I really appreciate that. But you deal with that, you know, and you have to like, how do you approach that? How do you get over that I want to give you a couple of tips that I've I've started doing it's really been helpful. First of all, I've started to embrace imposter syndrome as a good thing. And here's why. If you're feeling impostor syndrome, it means that you're in a new situation, you're in a new room, you're around people that you perceive as being further along than you, you're intimidated. That's the room you want to be in. If you're in a room where you're always comfortable. We feel like you've always got it down, you're in the wrong room. So as you start to feel impostor syndrome, the first thing is to go good. I'm here, this is a good thing. And then the second thing to consider is you have valuable experiences that nobody in that room has and a lot of times we always think about our deficiencies. We don't think about what we bring to the table, right? We don't value it nearly enough our personal experiences, the experiences we've had at work that the fun things we've had, I mean, my family that RV trips for a while, like we learned so much about the country and about history, just do that, that other people don't have. And that could be valuable in a situation or in a conversation in a moment. So I think it's embracing like, this is a positive thing. I'm in the right room, because I feel uncomfortable, or I'm concerned that people won't believe me. And then the second thing is to just really value your experience, you want to keep learning, you want to keep growing. But if you're not experiencing impostor syndrome, I'd encourage you to take a few risks, and put yourself in different situations, because that's where it comes from. And it's ultimately a good thing, even though we have kind of categorized it as this like, thing to stay away from, I think it's actually a really good thing.
Blythe Brumleve:
10:36
Very well said, Now, when you are in these rooms, and you're learning about the things that other people are doing, how do you choose which things to adopt in your own life and your own processes? How do you prioritize those things?
Trey Griggs:
10:49
That's a great question. And I wasn't ready for that it wasn't in the script? It's a really good question. I mean, for me, it's just a matter of trial and error, but also who's giving the advice? You know, so, you know, it's like, they say, like, you don't want to take financial advice from somebody who's broke, like, it's probably not the best thing to do, right? So you got to think about the source of where something is coming from, to see if you really want to, like put a lot of stock into it. But as far as that I think it goes back to what do I need the most being self aware, you know, what are you the most to put in play? Those things are really important,
Blythe Brumleve:
11:19
I think what your capacity to your capacity of what you can realistically handle and what's
Trey Griggs:
11:24
just not enough time in the day to do everything we know that I would also say this, too, is that a lot of times we don't embrace the fact that we don't know anything. And like I said earlier, if you're an entrepreneur in this room, for sure, I know, you know this, you realize pretty quickly that you don't know everything really quickly, right? And so people who are willing to ask the questions that people are willing to say I don't know, are the ones that learn the most and go the farthest. So it's a matter of just being okay with that be okay with saying I don't understand this? Like what, tell me why you do that. You know, when I work with like freight brokerages on consulting for sales and marketing, if I come in just assuming that I know why they're doing everything, I'm not going to be very valuable. But if they do something, I'm like, I don't get that. Like the natural thing is to go, I shouldn't say that. Because I'm a consultant, I should No, no, if you understand, you just simply ask, and that's how you grow. And that's how people appreciate you more to so anyway, so that's probably more that people want to
Blythe Brumleve:
12:15
know. I love that approach. Because I think more people need to be more aware of what to say no to and what to say yes to, which is a very, I guess, kind of a normal thing to hear
Trey Griggs:
12:27
from like a yes, person all the time. Everything seems great. I want to do it all. It doesn't work.
Blythe Brumleve:
12:30
But you can and that's the thing. It's like the time management, the skill management upskilling. What are you going to learn? Are you going to learn these new tools? Or are you going to stay in, you know, the same processes that you've always done? And where do you sort of draw that line I think is really important for every every person in this room just sort of make that decision.
Trey Griggs:
12:48
And I'll end with this is I think it's really a matter of getting control of your calendar, which I've had some people really helped me out. In fact, Nathan Mysterion, my good friend back here, spent three months with me helped me figure figure out my calendar. And I think it took every bit of that three months to do that. But you're getting control of your calendar and saying this is a priority to learn these things. So that could be reading your reading time. It could be podcasts, it could be spending time on social media, it can be learning these new tools, but you prioritize those by putting blocks in your calendar and then sticking to it, which is so hard for me. That's the worst, but those things would be really, really helpful. Okay, if you're, you've probably heard enough from us. We've Okay, on this show, we are bringing up several guests that you can hear from on many topics. And so we're gonna go pretty fast. And the first one to bring up is the founder and CEO of rigs on wheels which is an outsourced driver recruiting service using marketing strategies to reach recruit and retain drivers please welcome to stage Camille Gaines. You by the way, you know that song that we're just playing, that's an awesome song. Great words. Great to walk up some interest. How are you doing? That on me? Good, man, come on. Yeah, right here. Alright, cool. You know, can you uh, we spoke prior to the show, we had a chance to chat and you'd mentioned that you really are an extension of companies recruiting services. You know, it's this outsourced driver recruiting effort that you're doing? And you said something really interesting to me, you're most closely connected with the marketing team, which kind of surprised me, I thought maybe HR, you know, I mean, you're recruiting drivers to become employees to work. But you said you're more closely connected to the marketing team. First of all, talk about why that is but then what marketing? Have you used to reach out to drivers what's been really helpful?
Kameel Gaines:
14:39
Well, we're big on wheels, we have marketing and sales. So when we dealing with the different carriers, we are definitely an extension of their marketing and sales. So we are not branding them, but we will take the jobs and post and doing all of those things. So can everybody hear me okay? So we'll post the jobs, we don't brand them, we brand us. And then when we're talking to the drivers, we're able to figure out and give them choices of which companies or jobs and then submit them in like that almost
Trey Griggs:
15:14
like a like a broker and in some ways, driver recruiting bro. Yeah,
Kameel Gaines:
15:18
definitely. And so you said like, which?
Trey Griggs:
15:22
Like, what? What kind of marketing things are you guys doing to reach reach?
Kameel Gaines:
15:25
So over the last 13 years, and I know people that have a longer tenure know this, but recruiting has changed greatly, right. So we do a lot of digital. So whether it be the job board, the website, blogs, of course, social media, email, campaign and SMS. So we do do them all.
Blythe Brumleve:
15:48
And when we were talking yesterday, you mentioned that the social media tactics that that you guys are using, how you have different are the drivers, I guess, have different languages, depending on the social media? Yeah, depending on what social media channel you use, can you kind of highlight a little bit of the differences of these different social media platforms, and how drivers are interacting? Yes, so
Kameel Gaines:
16:09
my team says that each driver has a different etiquette. On a platform, however, I say, the driver conforms to the environment. So I would have a driver that is on LinkedIn and messages, his behavior on there is different than when he messages in Instagram and definitely different on tick tock, same driver. So everybody kind of conforms to the environment that they're in. So even though it's digital, now in a space with digital is like in the room. They've adapted to that.
Blythe Brumleve:
16:44
How do you adapt your messaging on each of those? Is it kind of consistent? Or do you kind of change up the you know, the, I guess the verbiage and the how you talk to them? Yeah, on the platform,
Kameel Gaines:
16:53
we definitely change the verbiage on each one of them. And then throughout the team, whomever is able to relate better on each platform. That's how we do it. So I don't say this person do this particular platform or something like that. Let's talk about what you're comfortable with first. So we can relate better to the drivers and everybody else.
Trey Griggs:
17:15
You also had talked about diversity when talking to drivers, but you had a slightly different take on it. What does that mean to you, when you think about diversification with your team? And like how you're communicating?
Kameel Gaines:
17:25
Yeah, I'm really big on diversity. So my team is global in four different countries and cleaning United States. So when you look at the demographics of the drivers, they are white, black, Hispanic, and Asian, and we talk about Asian is typically Indian correct. So I want our staff and recruiters from marketing to the sales, which sales is the recruitment staff, right? To reflect that. So even though a driver might call in, of course, he speaks English, but if his native language is Hindi, I have somebody that speaks Hindi, Punjabi, we have that Spanish we have that. So it just, you are able to relate better. We always relate to someone better in our native language,
Trey Griggs:
18:11
you built your team to speak to each driver, yeah, is
Kameel Gaines:
18:15
very important. It's so powerful. It's so vital. Most people
Trey Griggs:
18:20
no matter where they live in the world know if somebody's not a native speaker, their language, and sometimes it's a different conversation, you know, so I love the fact that you do that. But you also say that the best form of marketing is word of mouth. I think we all agree with that. We would all love more word of mouth opportunities. I would I would imagine in that regard. How do you incorporate that? I mean, we know drivers talk, but how do you specifically try to make that happen?
Kameel Gaines:
18:40
So when we have drivers that really talk about their positive experience, or whether they are going on reviews, or what have you, or calling or say something on YouTube and the comments or anything like that we've reached out to them, because we want them to kind of be out partners in it, and utilize them to be able to help market and so if their driver gets hired, then of course, they get a siphon or fee or something like that. Yeah, so a marketing fee to bring it all together, because that's the best person that can actually speak about rigging wheels, is the driver.
Blythe Brumleve:
19:16
And I think you know that I guess the infamous, like ROI question What What does ROI look like to you and your company?
Kameel Gaines:
19:22
Well, of course, there's gonna be revenue. But each platform brings something different, and you don't always know where it's coming from. So you don't do one thing, you do everything. And then the word of mouth, of course, it's the best ROI, you know, because that's a gift that just keeps on giving. So
Trey Griggs:
19:46
you got to build brand equity to get Yeah, definitely.
Blythe Brumleve:
19:49
And what kind of tools do you use, I guess to sort of monitor and manage all of these these tasks and these social media platforms.
Kameel Gaines:
19:55
So when it comes to the social media platform we use social O'Neill's Okay, so we like that majority of us like that. And then when it comes to meetings, talking about your meetings and things like that, we use otter, instead of zoom, because zoom does not work appropriately in all countries, nor does Microsoft Teams. So we use Google meat. And it makes us look better. It looks like a little filter on there. So that's good, too. But we utilize that for our phone systems and things like that. It's going to be RingCentral.
Blythe Brumleve:
20:32
So so those are there, all of them. And then you bring all of those together. And I would imagine that how, what does that management process look like? Are you having regular meetings with your
Kameel Gaines:
20:41
meetings every day, six days a week, because we have people that work on Saturday and Sunday, so it's going to be six days a week, and we have face to face meetings. So we don't have the telephone. So if something is very quick, but other than that, my biggest thing is, even though we're in four different countries, we need to know what's going on with each other's families, everything. So we have birthday parties, and we celebrate different, everybody's cultural, or they're going to school right now two people are going through their finals. So making sure they do well on that, because those things are important because the skills that they're learning, whether it be in their family or at the schools directly affect us.
Blythe Brumleve:
21:26
And I think that that's kind of signals back to the the talk with the bananas earlier how they learned so much about their employees prior to them actually joining, then they keep that up. So it sounds like you're kind of doing a lot of Absolutely.
Kameel Gaines:
21:36
We have baby showers virtually here to India here to Philippines. So it's great.
Blythe Brumleve:
21:43
Well, Camille, thank you so much for joining us on the Elevate morning show. Where Can folks follow more of your work follow you all that good stuff?
Kameel Gaines:
21:50
Well, my favorite platform would be LinkedIn. So definitely on there under Reagan wheels and Camille e games, and then we own everything from Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, all of those places.
Blythe Brumleve:
22:06
What does that Pinterest?
Kameel Gaines:
22:07
I know my team is gonna give me because I've mispronounced everything.
Blythe Brumleve:
22:10
I thought it was a new social.
Trey Griggs:
22:15
Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank
Kameel Gaines:
22:20
you. Thank you.
Trey Griggs:
22:26
All right. Before we bring up our next guest, I love that she talked about you know, having face to face because even though it's virtual, how often you get a meeting where people don't turn the camera on, but they need to like it's a part of the interaction. So I'd encourage you guys to do that. If you're not. Sometimes it's a makeup day sometimes sometimes. But if you leave expectation, hopefully they can get ready in the morning. But it's so important to see each other's face and see how they're responding and your body language because I think that's the biggest thing we've missed from from COVID is not having that on a regular basis.
Blythe Brumleve:
22:55
Exactly. And I think that that's what makes these in person meetings so much more powerful is that you can use the digital connections in order to tie into those real life relationships, almost like a digital handshake. And then you meet folks like PMSA and you can further cement those bonds for in the future. Now for our next guest is the director of learning development and marketing at Reed TMS logistics and she is the new chair of TMSA Diversity Equity and Inclusion Task Force, please give a warm welcome to Eileen dobrowski.
Eileen Dabrowski:
23:42
So, I better clarify no
Trey Griggs:
23:44
more symmetric for some people there. Yeah, I can appreciate that. That's good. Eileen, thank you for joining the show today. We appreciate that. And thank you for volunteering to chair this new di taskforce with TMSA. What led you to start that and you know, what does diversity equity inclusion mean to you?
Eileen Dabrowski:
24:00
The most loaded question you can possibly ask a human. So, first of all, I love TMSA. I connected with Jen a few years ago, I think it's so important. And the reason I love it, people are willing to share here, you get that intimate connection with people that I don't think you get in a conference where there's 10,000 people or you know, 4000 you might need the same six humans. And I thought they were doing the AI and I have to be honest, I was like, Oh, I'll join the committee. And then kind of some people in my life fact checked me and they're like, why aren't you like applying to be the chair? And I was like, Well, I don't know, you know, so I did met the committee and I fell in love. And I think diversity is so much more than what you can see. And I think as humans we make these assumptions based on how a person looks or what we assume them tend to be. And for most of my life, people have tried to fit me into different boxes that are not who I am. I'm Polish and Spanish. Hence, Mark, you know, singing, I'm most all set up, but I didn't think it would be appropriate for this early in the morning. And you know, the other thing that I think people do to me kind of on a regular, because of how I present myself, people ask me all the time, so what does your husband do? And then I sit there and I'm like, do I filter? Do I answer authentically? And if it's safe? And if I feel okay, I'll be like, well, actually, my wife does this. And people are like, What do you mean your wife? And I'm like, I have a wife. And, and people are like, well, you don't look like a gay person. And I'm like, Oh, my God, what does the gay person look like? Right? Like, I didn't know, there was like a club. And I missed the mark there. But I think that it's everybody in this room is diverse. And it's because it's not just what color our skin is, or what language we speak, or what country we're born in. It's how we move through the world, how we were raised, how the people in our life, our spiritual, religious beliefs, if we've traveled if we've not small town, large town, and I think surrounding yourself with people who are different from yourself, is really step number one. So we'll never be done. I think with diversity work, if anybody ever comes to me and is like, Eileen, we've reached inclusivity. I'm gonna be like, did you tell me tell me about that, because I think you're kind of full of it. It should be a constant kind of needle that you're throwing forward. Yeah.
Trey Griggs:
26:45
And just to follow up on that, you know, I think that there's so many different things that go into who we are, I remember when I was a school teacher, I always seemed really attracted to the kids who were from broken homes, because I was from a broken home. You know, my parents divorced when I was seven, I felt like I could appreciate that. So these kids that struggled with things that other kids didn't struggle with, I seemed like I was in tune to that. But it's because of my experience. There's just so many different things that can go into what diversity really is.
Blythe Brumleve:
27:10
And when you when you I guess, prioritize diversity at the company level? How do you take those personal experiences and bring it into a successful transition at the company level from the higher ups to the you know, the in the trenches? Employees? That's it?
Eileen Dabrowski:
27:24
I think it's it's so important. So I came from higher education. So academia, huge global university in the southeast, and then I joined a trucking company. And I was like, oh, man, all the humans. Yeah, totally normal transition there. But I, you know, I saw the, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, all the humans are gonna look the same. I'm gonna be the only woman, there's definitely going to be no people of color, right? All these things. And I love the diversity present in this industry. And I think anybody who doesn't kind of embrace Dei, you're going to fall behind because surrounding yourself with people who are going to challenge you, that healthy conflict that you mentioned, and I don't want people who are just gonna be like, pet me and tell me like, Great job, I want you to tell me when I suck, and when I haven't miss. And the first thing I did when I came into my company, I read the employee handbook, and it sort of pissed me off. Because it was all like very, it was written by, no, I don't mean any offense to this, but by white men. And I was like, there's no inclusive language. They're putting people into box. They're making assumptions right out of the gate. So that was the first thing I did. I was like, Can I be right this? And they were like, What do you mean, I was like, it sucks. Like, we need to do better. And I think diversity and inclusion and equity starts with you kind of acknowledging your own individual, kind of the facets of your diversity. As Trey mentioned, what kind of home did you grew up in? find that common ground because you have to do something called bracketing out your biases. Because we're all bias, we're humans. So it makes us beautiful, but it also is what creates challenges for us. And you have to be real with yourself like what are my triggers? What do I fall into a trap, and kind of do that and then once you get where you are, also get where the other people around you are? And then you I think you can start tackling diversity.
Blythe Brumleve:
29:17
And so with a lot of your, with your role within the TMSA with this dei initiative, how do you foresee you know, helping other companies members within the organization or the association be able to take those next steps. So
Eileen Dabrowski:
29:30
I'm so pumped and I actually want to give a little like shameless plug. Well, the DEI cast force, please stand up. If you're a member, that task force. Yes. I'm putting you on the spot. Yes. Okay. So and we only have one member of our task force who couldn't be here So Patrick is listening in. But I think diversity needs to be all of us working together. We are in the middle of building you out a TMSA resource kit specific to dei And what we're starting with are all the tools that we use in our lives. And we're compiling a list that is going to be accessible for all TSA members down the line. This is going to be kind of an evolving growing. But the task force is fantastic. Feel free to connect with any of us on LinkedIn connect with me on LinkedIn. I take phone calls all the time, hey, listen, can you help me figure out how I can embrace di at work, I will take that call all the time, even if you know I, because it's not competing. We will be a better industry a better organization if we work together. And we challenge each other to grow. So I'll help anybody, anytime. If you're trying to embrace the AI, for yourself or at work.
Trey Griggs:
30:46
Wiley, thank you so much for being on the show today. We appreciate that. And if you want to get involved with the taskforce or learn more, whatever, I'm sure Eileen would again take any of those phone calls or emails as you're using round applause for Eileen.
Eileen Dabrowski:
30:58
Thanks for having me. Yes.
Blythe Brumleve:
31:01
Are you in freight sales with a book of business looking for a new home, or perhaps your 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 is 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. In our industry, we talk we talk about what works and what doesn't. And carton clouds easy to use warehouse and transport management software sure has people talking carton clouds WMS and TMS is designed for growing three pls giving you the tools you need to compete with the major players with flexible pricing, no lock in contracts and expert local support. They've helped nearly 500 logistics companies worldwide with hundreds of five star customer reviews want to check it out for yourself. Everything is logistics listeners can get 50% off your first three months with garden cloud, head on over to the carton cloud.com website into the show notes for more information. Now let's talk for our next block alternative content avenues for marketing and sales professionals. Now in the past five years, we have seen a lot of new initiatives coming into the the for re obviously we have social media platforms, we're seeing other tools such as LinkedIn newsletters, video series, Twitter threads, and all of those different companies are really getting their teams involved. It's not just a sort of maybe a one person initiative anymore. It's really coming at the you know, it's kind of to piggyback off the AI that a lot of these initiatives have to be started at the top.
Trey Griggs:
33:05
Yeah, and there's several companies out there several brands that have really done a good job of, of building out their brand through consistency through creativity through different avenues. Some of those that just kind of came to mind for me was like our friends over at freight Vana. Ces recruiting. Yeah, remember, rocket shipping is doing some really cool stuff. Edge logistics has this thing called Barbie Fridays. Um, if you guys have seen this or not anybody seen Barbie Fridays? Nobody in here seen Barbie Fridays. Write it down right now. So if you go to tick tock or maybe Instagram or wherever, there's this guy at edge logistics named David Farr, because it's really cool. Barczyk this guy is just he's read so many Wikipedia pages. He can if you if you pick up a person that's born between 19 129 that has a Wikipedia page, okay? He'll take 13 questions or less yes or no questions, and he'll pick the person who has done it on my show twice. He does it every Friday. It's fantastic. But you know, that has nothing to do with transportation. But that has helped to build their brand. Because it connects with human beings. At the end of the day. We're human beings. So far be Fridays, you guys are all gonna watch that on Friday, or go find the ones on tick tock YouTube shorts, whatever. But edge Logistics is doing that. And so make sure you make sure you check that out. But there's just a lot of just like creative ways to really start to build your brand. Yeah, it
Blythe Brumleve:
34:18
doesn't necessarily have to be what lanes or commodities, you're shipping. I mean, you can really take a creative approach, because it's not just, I mean, the Yes, of course, everyone wants to tie things into ROI and directly with revenue, that is the most important thing. But then there's also the secondary importance of, you know, making those connections with potential employees that could be working for your company. And I think that that's a really great example of what's going on in the industry that doesn't necessarily have to do with the industry, if that
Trey Griggs:
34:45
makes sense. Yeah, exactly. I mean, when you think about your content you create, it shouldn't all be about your business or the problems that you saw. Those are important things to talk about. But that's just a small slice of what connects with people and so getting to know your team members, what what little tricks do they have, you know, what are they good? That what can they do can really enhance your brand. And as you build and promote your people to build their personal brands, it ultimately builds your company. The only companies that don't want to do that are the companies that don't trust people, or who are afraid that their people are going to overshadow their company. But as you can see in Savannah, bananas, they promote. In fact, I was talking to one of the attendees here, who at the game went up to one of the players, the savannah Bennett players and asked for an autograph. And he said, Why did you ask me? And she said, because I've seen your stuff on Tik Tok. There was a connection there a human connection that does not overshadow the savannah bananas, but actually made it a more personal interaction, right? And so like, I just encourage people to embrace that.
Blythe Brumleve:
35:42
And a lot of those personal reactions or relationships can actually happen through different mediums not just social media, but Well, I social media is a big component of that. But podcasting and live content is also a really big portion of that. And that's something that we have a little bit of experience with but if for other folks who may not be aware there's several other people who are creating podcasts within this space. Joe Lynch is somewhere in the audience. I think he does. He's the host of logistics of logistics podcast. Then we have Sarah Barnes Humphrey, of course, Chris jolly Paul with great caviar, Matthew Leffler, gray Sharkey, Lauren vegan and then you know, of course, we you know, we have our podcast,
Trey Griggs:
36:21
you didn't want to say Paul's last name.
Blythe Brumleve:
36:22
I looked at it. And for anyone who hasn't seen Paul's last name, it's he's polish.
Trey Griggs:
36:29
Jared. He got a lot of letters on there. It's got a lot of stuff. That's true. Yeah, and he was well, I mean, with your with everything with this week's podcast, you've done a great job, but it's not even just some of us people. But we're starting to see companies building podcasts and I love that I'm gonna give you just a couple that you can reference so three PL live a TMS they've got a three PL systems has a show called Three PL live it's really good. transfix has the take on podcast, which is awesome baby technology as tire tracks. PDQ America guys are great trucking for millennials, podcasts are awesome route East Texas, they're just such good guys. Cargo chief has there's good freight to IT Free vana has on the range, because they all love golf in their place. And so they've got that. And there's just there's many others.
Blythe Brumleve:
37:12
And what I guess we got a few minutes here. So maybe we can kind of you know, piggyback of you know, maybe our content plans because you have a water bottle up here. But it's not just your only water bottle because you have several
Trey Griggs:
37:26
kind of addicted to shows. I don't know why I do all these shows. I just come with ideas. And I start this is a great thing about being entrepreneur, you just do stuff, right. So you will see what happens.
Blythe Brumleve:
37:34
And why the three shows, you know, most companies have or most people have trouble starting one show, but you have three,
Trey Griggs:
37:41
it's an addiction. It's not good. It's not healthy, but it's very fun. So my buddy Hayden, alright, one do workout podcast. So we do that. So that's iron mine. So if you want to give your salesperson like you take care your body is really important, helps you focus a lot better. So that's at 6am on Monday mornings, that's fun. This one was because I wanted to have more of like a daily one on one show. So I did daily last year, only twice a week, this year, your first guest, but this is to talk to executives about sales, marketing and leadership. Because I feel at the end of the day, that's what a company really is. Everybody in your company is in sales and marketing, whether you like it or not everybody in your company is in sales and marketing, every interaction you have with a vendor with a customer with anybody, they are building the brand of your company. And leadership is really important. So I want to talk to you about that. And then this one is just our party podcasts on Fridays at noon, there's 10 of us on the show, we talk about all kinds of fun stuff, we have a special guest, I just get these kinds of fun ideas, I just started the edge I have it for I don't know water bottle with me and and bring it but that was showcasing the latest and logistics technology, just like an open sales demo, you don't have to give a an email to see it. It's just like, let's see what's coming along. Let's see what's moving the needle. So it's just, uh, I just come up with these ideas.
Blythe Brumleve:
38:40
And it's also its niche. It's one of those things where you, you know, they always say the riches are in the niches. But the audience growth is also there too. Because the you know, a lot of us are in this room or, you know, maybe have bosses or executives that are obsessed with the vanity metrics, they're not obsessed with the right metrics. And so when you have a podcast, when you're creating content, you are developing and honing in on that audience and hopes that you can help them with something in the future, either the show provides value or maybe down the line, then your your product or your service could provide them value or you can shed light on other companies and other businesses that are doing
Trey Griggs:
39:15
Yeah, I mean, I you know, my whole goal of building a network is twofold is I want every guest that comes on our show to be able to really kind of knock it out of the park, and they get the free content of the show afterwards. I want them to have it and take it and use and all that kind of things. But the other side of it too is that I want to build a network so that I know who to connect people with, you know, it's one of my favorite things to do in life is hey, oh, you have that problem. I know this person has that solution. Let me get you guys together. And to me, that's the real value of it is trying to put a network together and to do that. And so it's just been I still can't believe I get to do it. In fact, I'll tell you a funny story back in. I guess a year ago, I got my first sponsor for the show. And I told my wife, I was like, Hey, I got a I got a sponsor for my podcast. She goes what? I said, Yeah, she was people are paying you. I said, yeah, they're paying me to talk. She goes What's about time? That was a response to that. So I can't believe I get paid to talk. But no, it's a lot of fun. And sponsors actually make it valuable because I choose to not charge anybody to be on my show, I want it to be authentic. I want I want people to be on my show, because they've got a story to tell, and it's valuable. And so, you know, I've sought out sponsors, and that's been a really valuable thing for us as content creators to be able to do that
Blythe Brumleve:
40:18
100% I mean, if any true content creator, you or marketer, anyone in this room, you know that if you put out one piece of content, there was a lot of research that went into creating that piece of content. And that's the work that you don't see. And I think for, for a lot of creators in this room. And in this space, you are researching so much more than you are actually creating the content and the end result.
Trey Griggs:
40:43
I think if anybody's watched your podcast versus mine, they know you do a lot more research than I do, which is amazing in that regard. But in regards to that, you know, our next guest is a company that is taking this unique approach to it, of building their brand and they're doing that in a unique way. So please welcome to the show the vice president sales and marketing Prescott logistics Mike McCulloch. You didn't give me a walk up song. So I had to pick
Mike Mikulik:
41:23
one. That was not the song. I was expecting. Motivate It was late
Trey Griggs:
41:27
last night, I was just figuring something out. It's the way it works. Mice from beautiful British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia is a wonderful place out there. And you've taken a different approach when it comes to you know how you're building your brand. You started, what about a year ago, you decide to take a different approach. Some things weren't working. And you decided to sponsor Chris jolly show for a coffee with a free coach. You know, what, what do you what were you doing prior to that that really led to that decision? Because we're starting to see companies doing more of this?
Mike Mikulik:
41:54
Well, the shorter answer, we weren't doing anything. But I'll be honest with you, we came to the show, we knew we wanted to get into podcasting. We outsourced all our marketing prior to the TMSA. And it worked for a little bit and we told them, we want to want to build a podcast, they're like, great, we can do that for you. We'll charge you for it too. So they came up with this host that was going to host our show, he was probably about 75% into the grave already. He was at old. And we did a run through with it. And it was GARBAGE. In fact, I think I sent it to a few people that are in attendance here. And it was horrible. So we came to the TMSA. Just think, Alright, we got to, we need to find new creative approaches for marketing. And we brought our VP of Finance with it. Because you know, he's got to release all the cash flow books. And we're like, if we're going to spend money on marketing, let's bring him anyways, we we met with Chris and all sudden we're talking about what we wanted to do. We wanted to we're an agent based network. So we wanted to try to attract more agents. I didn't think anybody understands what a freight agent did, and the journey and the pains they went through and wanted to share that experience. So we thought, You know what, Chris, let's partner up. And we did. But the kicker out of the whole thing. And this is when we really realized that what we were doing by sponsoring podcasts was working because he had the followers, you're entrenched into our business, you understand our culture was when Chris called me about three months after we were working with him. And he goes, Mike, I want to talk to you. And you will serious because Chris is in a really serious guy. And he goes, Mikey goes, I want to build an agency with you. And that was like, wow, we actually sold the podcast, or that's when we actually knew that having our agents on the show, sharing their journeys, their challenges, how they worked through, it was actually working. And from there, you and I connected life back in December, and you were starting euros, and we believed in you like let's do it. And just a few months ago did the same thing with Trey. So I believe in the journey.
Blythe Brumleve:
43:44
And so when you make that transition from not doing your own internal podcast to sponsoring other podcasts, what does that what does it ROI? I keep feeling I keep bringing up ROI. But what does that ROI looked like for SBI?
Mike Mikulik:
43:55
Well, we've definitely we've definitely increased our agents coming on board just because they're hearing their stories. But we're also doing is we're converting a lot of salespeople that were on salary and commission. And they were scared to make the change just because going on your own betting on yourself is it's that mindset, right? That's that's a complete mindset and a shift are basically our eyes. We've got better qualified agents that come on board, they actually know more about our culture. And they've been listening to our agents share their journey and their story. And they're already sold. Like they basically they know more about the company than ever did before. And they're ready to join. So I don't have to do the selling, the podcasts are doing the solid
Blythe Brumleve:
44:34
for us now marketing at its finest. Absolutely.
Trey Griggs:
44:37
And you know, I think that we're seeing people starting podcasts, by the way, I think we should have more podcasts and more shows like sometimes people might say, well, it's crowded space. It's not like there's just not a lot of us. And there's a lot of great ideas that are out there. And each of you have a unique story or a unique position to do that to offer that. So I'd encourage you to explore this, you know, and there's ways to kind of go about doing that. I would make sure that you can be consistent So if that's once a month or once a month, if it's once a week, which I think is ideal, then do once a week, if you can commit more to that, then do that. But make sure you can be consistent with what you're doing. Or you might say, gosh, you know, this is just too much for us, you can go down a different path. So what advice would you have for the audience that might be thinking about starting a podcast or might be thinking about sponsoring and trying to figure that out?
Mike Mikulik:
45:19
When it comes to sponsoring, like I said, this was something completely new for us, we didn't know how this was going to turn out. But the one thing we did really well was like, as we started finding, here are the podcasts that we're going to sponsor is getting them entrenched into our business, like understanding our culture, understanding, you know, hard back office support our team works, that's huge, because you guys are the influence, you're talking about it all the time. And then the other thing we did, which I think was successful is playthrough, came to our agent conference in two months ago and spoke there and you got to meet our agents and collaborate with them. And we did a bunch of podcasts. That's huge. I think the big thing is get the company entrenched, and it's got to be the right fit. I mean, it's got to be the right fit for you. And it's got to be the right fit for us. But if you find someone that you have a connection with, and you feel like you know what I can, I can bring value to them, and you can bring value to them, do it.
Trey Griggs:
46:05
I mean, shared values and a great product or service, whatever, is really important in that regard.
Mike Mikulik:
46:10
Yeah. And even for us, like putting our agents out on social media and exposing them to the complete to the market for the people to go after it's a it was a gamble. But one thing we realized is that, you know, what if we are if we believe in what we have as a product, and the service we give them, and the stickiness factor is there at their agents, they won't leave, they're proud of sharing their experience.
Trey Griggs:
46:30
Yeah, cuz at the end of the day, I mean, that's, that's a customer testimonial. I mean, they're your customer, you're serving them, and they're out there, telling the story, which I think that a Client Testimonial, customer testimonial is gotta be the most powerful marketing deliverable outside of word of mouth. And so putting them out there was a risk, because you do see a lot of poaching of agencies, that happens a lot. But in your mind, it was worth it. Absolutely. And so
Blythe Brumleve:
46:51
if you're taking care of your employees, I imagine that they're going to be your best megaphone, that going back to the you know, the bananas keynote earlier, that's really what he honed in on is that, you know, learning your employees, engaging with them, and then using different mediums to convey that message. And that connection can really have that positive ROI. And in the very near future, and then ongoing as well.
Mike Mikulik:
47:13
We've been doing it for exactly a year, we left the TSA and we had a whole new marketing strategy that we went with, we had a few drinks, we did it, we made some good decisions. But it worked. And looking back a year ago, it was the best thing we did. We'll continue to be creative, creative, new ways to try to find ways to try to drive more agents into our business.
Trey Griggs:
47:31
Yeah, and it's not just podcasts are some great, really great newsletters out there you have a newsletter, Paul Bernardo has lost he has a really great newsletter with actual news, I think he does a good job with that, and a few memes to make you laugh. He does a combination of both. But there's many things that you can partner your brand, with another brand, an influencer, or a company that will boost your brand and put you in different rooms, different places that you've been to for. So I think it's really powerful to consider that and consider some of these alternative ways of marketing and building your brand.
Blythe Brumleve:
47:57
And with those alternative ways also recognize that it might feel like a crowded market. But 90% of all podcasts never make it past 10 episodes, the overwhelming majority of podcasts are dormant, there's something like 600,000 podcasts, but only about 22,000 of them are actually active. So the competition is not that large in the grand scheme of things. And going back to the earlier points where if you're sharing your perspective, no one else can check your PT can't replace that, you know, all these automated tools and you know, other strategies, nobody can replace you and your perspective. And I think that that's why you know that the stories that we tell with the freight agents, everything that they go through from an emotional journey of taking that leap, and then the challenges of what they're dealing with every single day, I think is what really resonates with a lot of folks.
Mike Mikulik:
48:45
Absolutely. I mean, they have a great story too. And they've had some challenges. I mean, it's not all rosy being afraid agent. It's It's hard work. And you know, the big thing was taking that risk to bet on yourself. The journey is a great everyone loves the story. Everybody has a story. Everybody loves to hear a good story. Yeah, and
Trey Griggs:
49:01
I firmly believe that our stories were not meant just for us. Our Stories truly are meant to share and to to help others so that's my encouragement to you guys. If you're thinking about it, you have questions, I'd be happy to field your questions. Pleiss probably better at this honestly than then I would be but she has way more better research her facts are great. But if you have questions, let us know but I definitely consider it because the stories are really important. Mike thanks so much for joining us and thank you for sponsoring this and I really appreciate
Blythe Brumleve:
49:31
it all right we're almost done with this Yeah, I thought we were going to we had too much to play for the show. I'm used to one guest a show but we had several guests which is amazing. They all brought great value and then now we can kind of have
Trey Griggs:
49:46
we have one more coming on just a minute but I when I said when I said this when I sent the script she's like this is way too much we can we can't get through all this but here we are. We're about to do it. Alright, so go I want to welcome all right
Blythe Brumleve:
49:56
next guest we got David Hawkins. He's the Vice Chair submit of Sales and Marketing at momentum transportation and award winning landstar agent and current TMSA succession cheer pass TMSA president and longtime supporter so let's welcome David to the stage
Trey Griggs:
50:23
so I don't know if you like nirvana or not, but again, so that's what happens if I asked you for a walk up song, give me one because you just never know what you're gonna get.
David Hoppens:
50:35
I like the we are on fire for blind early.
Trey Griggs:
50:38
That's a good one. I know, I was great. I took care of
David Hoppens:
50:41
sorry to do the headache. Jen, thank you conceal the thank you for having me. This is fun. This is exciting for me. I've never done anything like this. And to be part of this audience is just great just to see so many people out there and energetic about the TMSA. So, but I know you have questions.
Trey Griggs:
51:00
Well, this is our first morning show, too. So we're all in this together. So it's kind of like goes. Well, thank you for joining us today. And I'm curious to know, as a past president TMSA. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on you know, the state of TMSA. And what you really love about this organization?
David Hoppens:
51:13
Yeah, well, it's so such an exciting time for TMSA. And I have been around a little while and seen some ups and downs. And as we came out of what I'll call the COVID Pause, it was a challenging time for companies and organizations. And my goodness, we have been so fortunate to attract so many exciting, vibrant new members, sponsors, new leaders, you too are two great examples. Blythe is on our board. And we've been fortunate to attract many other new leaders, including Jen who came running to my assistants, Jen has been just an incredible new leader to kind of really generate the next vector of growth for TMSA. Why do I come I told the story to someone I met at breakfast, and that's part of it. You meet new people, you hear stories, you learn something almost from every conversation. Well, last night, I met someone didn't know this was a thing. But I knew there were social media influencers, but for truck drivers. And this was actually a former landstar Driver, are you in the room. And now but so that's exciting. landstar. For a lot of companies out here, drivers are our lifeblood, someone who can speak to a driver at that level and attract them. They're always in their truck. They're listening to podcasts or social media. So this was an exciting connection, met someone at breakfast and TMSA. The reason I arrived at TMSA is I got my first big marketing VP role. And the company was this hodgepodge of brands and websites, it was a mess. And I finally convinced the CEO that we should integrate into one brand, one message one website, then I like the dog who caught the car, I was like, Oh my God, I don't know how to do this live. I mean, I'm a Marketing graduate and all that. But so so one of my team found that TMSA found a wet a white paper about integrating brands and transportation on our website. That of course led us to coming to the conferences. Now 15 years later, it's still paying dividends for me.
Blythe Brumleve:
53:21
And now what with all of your time at the at the TMSA with your you know, leadership roles within landstar? How are you choosing I guess what to prioritize as we go through sort of the evolution of you know, tech and tools and strategies? How are you prioritizing what to do budget wise and how to allocate budget?
David Hoppens:
53:39
Wow, yeah. And that's a big challenge. Now, always in transportation, I mean, national market forces, the economists that I see regularly, and our own CEO says, just you can kind of put your clock and set your watch, we're gonna go up for two years, and then we're gonna go down, or we're gonna go up for two years, and we're gonna go down. So how do you budget and plan around that? How do you make your individual company recession proof? So for us, I guess one, a bit of a tip that I learned the hard way is when times are good. You've got to make sure your C suite understands marketing. I think that's a bit of the past. Right? You know, that was 1520 years ago, but I there's still some CEOs that don't get it right. Why don't we just hire more salespeople? Well, yeah, that could help too. So when times are good, make sure your CEO, CEO or Chief Commercial Officer, whoever is making the decisions, sees what your outbound lead generation campaign is doing. Specifically, which customers how much are they making now? The money you spend going to conferences, which leads which customers how much money? The blog content? Oh my gosh, this is great, but okay, Now we're getting more people to our website. So I know this might be common sense for a lot of folks. But I learned that so now the best practice I've learned the hard way, again, is when you're in a recession or approaching the best companies either maintain or add to their marketing budget. So you can certainly shifted around COVID No one went to conferences, right. Okay, so outbound lead generation digital was big. Now, we personally are shifting back to conferences and personal contact. And that's working really well for us currently.
Blythe Brumleve:
55:35
And then how I guess, do you choose what tool to use next? Are there any tools or strategies or tactics that you want to try? But you're it's on the backburner for now?
David Hoppens:
55:46
Well, that's exactly why I'm here. And my team is here, because I don't you know, for me, I don't really know the answer to that question until I come and start to hear what other great companies are doing and hear the speakers. So honestly, my team is here to figure out what in our 2024 budget, what do we want to grow? What do we want to reduce? And a lot of that will happen here, and a couple other conferences we go to throughout the year.
Trey Griggs:
56:12
Yeah. And I like the fact that you said that, you know, when times are good, you know, CEOs need to understand what marketing is actually doing. I think when times are good, we tend to think that we can just coast. But I think what we've seen and we'll see it again, is when the market goes down, everybody gets exposed. It's like when the tide goes out, you see his naked, you see what's been going on, right? It's like that with with this as well. If you're not positioning yourself for the bad times with sales and marketing during the good times, then you're going to be behind when those bad times hit you, David, thank you for joining us this morning and give us a little update on the market and for being such a champion of TMSA. We appreciate that.
David Hoppens:
56:45
Thank you both for what you do.
Blythe Brumleve:
56:52
I hope you enjoyed this episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show, sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everything is logistics.com. And in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let y'all know about another company I operate. And that's digital dispatch where we help you build a better website. Now a lot of the times we hand this task of building a new website, or refreshing a current one off to a co workers child, a neighbor down the street or stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually build the dang website. Well, that doesn't happen at Digital dispatch. We've been building online since 2009. But we're also early adopters of AI automation, and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as $1,500 along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month plus some bonus great marketing and sales content. Similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digital dispatch.io Just check out the pricing page once you arrive, and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go Jags
