Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartMedia Presents CEOs. You should know.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to di iHeartMedia Charleston CEOs. You should know where
we highlight great people doing big things right here in
the Low Country. Now today we have Hampton Thomas, owner
and president of PfP Logistics and PfP a third party
three PO provider that offers staffing solutions to distributors, shipping
and receiving departments across the nation. Hampton, welcome, Thank you,
(00:23):
thanks for having me. It's a pretty important business logistics
and staffing and moving those things off the ships in
a market like Charleston, right.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Sure, sure, a pretty big demand here. That's where we
got started. And then we took the concept of cost
per unit or p S rate staffing and brought it
into other cities that weren't relying on a port city
or the coastal regions.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So you crossed the nation. Correct, What does your team
look like? How many employees?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We're about three hundred in size, including the folks that
are moving freight in the shipping and receiving departments. We
do have a facility in Anchorage, Alaska, so we say
we can go to all fifty states. That was not intentional,
but a customer asked for it, so so we went.
But we're primarily I would say east coast out to
Mississippi up to Tennessee, and then wherever there's a need,
(01:12):
we'll go.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So you I would assume that you get calls with urgency. Right,
we just got more than we thought we had coming
off this ship. We need help. How fast is your
turn typically.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So typically we asked for about a month to do
a startup. We don't like to do temporary or seasonal
if we can avoid it. It's a permanent fixture in
their house, we like to say, so we are extension
of their HR. We typically take the jobs that are
more challenging, higher turnover rate, could be more risk of injury,
so we offer soft cost reduction with the insurance pickups,
(01:46):
but we provide our own management and on site solution
and training to mitigate all those high injuries or risk
of that. And then we take those associates that are
moving considerable amount of freight and we pay them by
the box at the move or by the tire that
they're unloading, or buy a pound of freight, so they're
a little more conscious on how they're doing it, a
(02:06):
little more efficient than say an hourly employee or a
salaried person there.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So essentially performance based correct, absolutely, yep. That's a unique approach.
So you spanning across the country and coming from a
background of entrepreneurialship you get that from your father, correct,
that's correct. So you moved a lot with him and
just starting businesses and here and there, right, yep.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah. So I was born in Austin, Texas. We were
there a short while before we moved to Swally in
the Netherlands for about seven months. My little brother was
born in Chicago right after that.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And then I came back to Charleston, went to Atlanta
and then back to Charleston for high school and after that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So I'm am I hearing this correctly that you actually
worked for your father's competitor at one point, that's right,
all right, in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yep, right after right after college. That was the first
offer I got, and I went to work for them
for a little over a month, just to get back
home for a little while.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I had that conversation go when you announced that to
your dad.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
He was pretty excited to see me in the same industry.
I don't think he was worried that I was going
to steal a bunch of business or be a real
competitor at first. But so it was a lot of
fun to kind of have those conversations where he was
coming up and reminiscent on his start.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So how long did it take before he tried to
get you over to his side?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It wasn't long at all. He actually made a joke
one night at dinner for my older brother to drop
out of medical school to come work for him. He
had an expansion in Alabama and needed somebody to go
out there and run it. So I perked up at
that that I was I was willing to move if
he could match my income and wanted me to come
with him.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So from then you got the knowledge, you worked up,
and then you and a partner decided to go out
on your own. Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
No? So I after a couple of years working for him,
I ended up moving to Atlanta to grow the business.
Atlanta was much easier to travel direct flights with Delta
right there, so that's where I met his former partner.
We worked together for probably two or three years as
he was a mentor, and then he set some goals
for me that I hit, and that gave him the
(04:01):
confidence to buy into the business that I was working
with my father in at that time. I also got
some ownership, and then a year later he and I
put together a package to buy my father down considerably.
So then I worked with him for about seven or
eight years, and then I closed last January, buying him
out completely.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Wow, that's congratulations, I guess that's that's how does it feel?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It was? It was great to kind of have the
confidence to go out and do it, but also a
little bit scary, you know, to be on your own
without that knowledge there consistently. That's also invested in the
business because I would run most of my ideas by them,
or at least anything considerable. So we've had a lot
of success in sin so it's worked out.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
He had a pretty good consultant helping you, all right,
than he who'd been there.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah. Yeah, both those guys, my father and the mentor,
had run a business very similar to this that they
grew exponentially and then ended up selling it.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Sounds like those jitters went away having three hundred employees.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Now yeah, yeah, we're doing okay.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So you talk a lot about people first, that's right,
and tell us about that mentality because I think that's
important only for recruiting, but when you're working with customers,
the fact that your people first worse works both ways.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Correct absolutely, So the employees we have are typically very
entry level, oftentimes are sourced through a temp agency, are
not seen as a partner or an actual direct hire
a lot of the customers would hire, so they typically
have a chip on their shoulder. They don't feel welcome,
they're not praised as someone at a full time facility
(05:36):
would do, that's benefited or anything like that. So rather
than keeping that same mindset of temporary or day labor,
we spend a lot of time and energy fixing our
culture so that those folks would feel welcome, would be encouraged,
would get a career progression path that they decided to
stay on with us, instead of the end goal being
get hired on by the client. And so I actually
(05:59):
hired the vice president I have now came from. He
was a full time therapy and counselor before so working
with my management team on conflict resolution but also how
to get to know people, how to motivate by people.
One of our head trainers did I think ten to
twelve years as an educator, and so now she takes
(06:22):
the different task we have to perform, consolidates them, and
then almost presents that like a syllabus as if she
were training at a school. And so that's worked out
really well over the past couple of years to give
the tools to folks that otherwise weren't given the attention.
And then there I would say, loyalty and want to
do a good job for you is paid back in
(06:42):
droves I found.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, it seems like that would help with retention a lot,
because you have a lot of different dynamics inside of
their Yeah, the retentions.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, When I first got my start on my own,
we didn't embrace that mentality and I only had probably
one hundred or so positions available. But I sent out
I think twenty two hundred W two's one year and
it just shocked me that I had turned every position
nearly twenty something times in a year. And so we've
as we've scaled up to three hundred plus positions, we've
(07:12):
dropped that down to under one thousand. Now. Some of
these positions are seasonal and we'll have higher turnover just
as a nature of it. But to cut our turnover
by more than I would say three hundred percent was big.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Wow, that's tremendous. Actually, who would you say is the
biggest influence on your leadership?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
You know, I got a lot from both of my
mentors on making decisions, not only just in the business
but personally, well, how I manage cash, you know, how
much to spend, how much to advise. And then my
father was big watching him. He was a he played
football at the Citadel, so fitness was always very important
to him, and both of them encouraged me. At twenty five,
(07:53):
when I had gotten out of shape, doctor told me
I needed to really get back off the couch otherwise
I was going to start going to get some prescriptions
for like blood pressure and things that I wasn't handling appropriately.
So that was a major influence. At both of them said, hey,
you need to go get in the gym.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well, it sounds like a word because I know you
can't see this guy sitting across from me right now,
but he is an absolute beat. Right how long have
you do a CrossFit?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It was actually the next day I went online. I've
read some article about geographically how close the gym is
to your work or house is going to be a
predictor of how long you'll stick with it. And just
so happened that there was a CrossFit gym half a
mile away from the office I was working out at
the time, so I actually was intimidated to join. I
went and watched one class, and then after seeing all
(08:39):
those folks do it, I was like, Okay, I can
do this. So that was about almost eight or nine
years ago, and I've been off and on doing it,
but pretty consistently over the past three It's.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
A discipline, right, It's not like you're going to the
gym or what like. I do walk out to my garage. Sure, right,
It's hard for me to motivate that. But to go
into that scenario where CrossFit is so difficult. It's it works,
we know it works. But the discipline to follow and
continuously go is how do you take that and what
do you take from that into your leadership?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, So for me, there's nobody holding me accountable now
that I own it out right, There's nobody making sure
I clock in on time, or am I getting this
this job done or this spreadsheet in? So I do
it as a self accountability. I'm up at five every morning,
I go to the gym at six to make sure
that's done so I can get to the office even
though I don't have meetings at eight scheduled. So I
(09:31):
think by doing that it sexy sets the example for
the folks that we don't do it because we have to.
We do it because we want to. We want to
perform at a high level. We want to serve our
customer as well. We want to serve our employees just
as well. And to do that, you have to show up.
You have to be cognizant. You have to be clear
headed and have high energy.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
What would you say if I'm listening now and I've
thought of starting something, going out of my own, getting
into leadership, crawling up, what advice would you give an
inspiring business owner entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, I would say get the groundwork, try to find
a business or a model where you can. I'd go
work for a small business, see what it's like before
you go out and try to do it on your own.
I think if you work for a large company, you
don't get to wear a lot of hats. You don't
get the calls at nine o'clock at night on a
Friday that you have to pick up or Saturday or
(10:20):
whatever it is. And so gaining that experience through one
make sure the lifestyle is going to be right for
you is really important. And I wish I had had
an opportunity to do that, maybe outside of the family
before getting involved. But you know, here I am, and
it worked out.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And I think part of that's taking the first step
too writ acting on it sure get going.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, I don't think you should quit your job and
dive in head first with all your savings on your
first idea. If you you know the read the stats
on a lot of businesses fail. I think that's because
they're they're not done with enough insight or having leadership.
And then find a mentor find a group. After buying
that business out and kind of the relationship with those
(11:01):
two gentlemen, I went and found a group called Vistage,
where it's a bunch of local business owners that meet
once a month and you can share ideas with those folks.
So having a group of peers that you can share
your ideas with is really important too.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I think that is too. When you're here's a wild one.
So around the low Country, we know you're a big crossfitter.
We know that's a big hobby for you. What else
do you do and you enjoy when you're not working?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, love being out on the boat. Actually, a couple
of years ago got a nitch. Really always wanted private flight,
but it was outside of my budget at the time,
and then I realized you can if you knew how
to fly a plane, you can rent one for about
a tenth of the cost of say net jets. So
joined flight school six months later, had my license, and
(11:44):
then bought a plane after that. So I try to
stay current by flying at least once once a week
to every other week doing that, and then spend a
lot of time with family going out shooting guns, riding
motorcycles some of the other cars. I actually have a
fleet of vehicle that I've acquired over the years and
rent those out to weddings and influencers. So I'll drive
(12:06):
my sixty six Bronco down to Folly and sit out there. Well,
you know, some folks take pictures with it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
A couple of proms.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well I had a prom for I've got a the
new C eight Corvette, and some girl had a red
dress that matched it perfectly. So she was sitting in
that had the top down. It was great.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So, where's your favorite place to fly or where? I
guess if where would you love to fly to?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah? So favorite place to go is probably the Bahamas.
That's it's a quick trip two and a half hours
if I stop in Jacksonville. My older brother lives in Greenville,
South Carolina, and that makes that trip much more appealing.
Love to go see him and his two kids and
his wife. They've been a big part of my life
over the years. Saint Simon's was a lot of fun
(12:47):
to go. Went down there for lunch two Thursdays ago
with my cousin.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Just popped down for lunch on the plane.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, it was about forty five minutes there, walked to
a barbecue place across the street and yeah, you're home
about forty five minutes later.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's great. I need different friends, man.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
We'll come up anytime.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
If so, would you rather boat or fly to the Bahamas?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I'd rather fly, brother fly. Yeah, So, my brother and
father love offshore fishing. They've got a big boat. So
they actually took the boat to the Bahamas for about
a month and then I flew in for the last weekend.
That's kind of enough deep sea fishing for me. Oh yeah, yeah,
we'll trade off the toys. I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love it. So what community partnerships are you know,
things around the community are you particularly passionate about?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yees? So, I love working with folks that weren't given
an opportunity, that maybe didn't come up with the educational
background or the experience. So I've worked with Big Brothers,
Big Sisters. I'm a part of Big a mentor where
I've got a eleven year old lunch buddy over at
chikor elementary school and I go and sit with him
for you know, we'll have lunch and then if he's
(13:51):
behaved well for the week, we'll go play basketball and
kind of talk about life stuff. That's great, it's in
a fifteen minutes. And then there's a prison rehabilitation program
a part of called Turn nine, and it's individuals that
don't have job experience, but we don't want to see
them go back to that lifestyle they were participating in
before that got them into the prison cycle. So it's
(14:13):
a T shirt print shop where they have a job
Monday through Friday. But there's also an education piece. So
every morning they've got about an hour an hour and
a half class occasionally I've taught. I've taught there. I've
worked with some of those individuals one on one as
a mentor. And then that group is renting a warehouse
and trying to expand into a logistics group as well,
(14:34):
so I've worked with the owner there to try to
advise on how to start a logistics business.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
That's awesome. That's some great things, especially their prison rehabilitation,
because I think they need a second chance sometimes other chances.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and we work with some of those folks too.
They come on after they finish that I think it's
thirteen or fourteen week program and then we'll hire them on.
We've got one as a lead for us. And it's
a shame because they are highly driven, motivated individuals. They
just they don't know what to do to make the
level of income to have that opportunity. And that program
has been one of the most passionate I've had.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Well Hampton, you know, just doing what you do in
a city like Charleston with support city and some of
the staffing solutions that you provide. You know, it's amazing
to hear what you came from to now having three
hundred employees. It's still finding time to do CrossFit, fly planes,
and shoot guns, which is awesome. If somebody, if I'm
looking for a job, or if I'm somebody who needs
help or may in the future, how do we get
(15:29):
in contact with you?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, so you can go to our website, PfP logistics
dot com. We've also got all the social media's PfP
Logistics Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and I've got a great team
that allows me to do all these other hobbies because
they're they're a lot better at their jobs than I
would be, so first mentality, right, but I prefer them
doing them then getting me involved. I mostly do sales
(15:52):
at this point.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I heard that. Yeah, well, Hampton Thomas from PfP Logistics,
thanks a lot for joining us on the iHeartRadio Charleston CEOs.
You should know, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
For having me.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio CEOs you should know, heard
every Tuesday and Saturday morning right here on this iHeartRadio station.
iHeartMedia Presents CEOs. You should know.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to di iHeartMedia Charleston CEOs. You should know where
we highlight great people doing big things right here in
the Low Country. Now today we have Hampton Thomas, owner
and president of PfP Logistics and PfP a third party
three PO provider that offers staffing solutions to distributors, shipping
and receiving departments across the nation. Hampton, welcome, Thank you,
(00:23):
thanks for having me. It's a pretty important business logistics
and staffing and moving those things off the ships in
a market like Charleston, right.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Sure, sure, a pretty big demand here. That's where we
got started. And then we took the concept of cost
per unit or p S rate staffing and brought it
into other cities that weren't relying on a port city
or the coastal regions.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
So you crossed the nation. Correct, What does your team
look like? How many employees?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We're about three hundred in size, including the folks that
are moving freight in the shipping and receiving departments. We
do have a facility in Anchorage, Alaska, so we say
we can go to all fifty states. That was not intentional,
but a customer asked for it, so so we went.
But we're primarily I would say east coast out to
Mississippi up to Tennessee, and then wherever there's a need,
(01:12):
we'll go.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So you I would assume that you get calls with urgency. Right,
we just got more than we thought we had coming
off this ship. We need help. How fast is your
turn typically.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So typically we asked for about a month to do
a startup. We don't like to do temporary or seasonal
if we can avoid it. It's a permanent fixture in
their house, we like to say, so we are extension
of their HR. We typically take the jobs that are
more challenging, higher turnover rate, could be more risk of injury,
so we offer soft cost reduction with the insurance pickups,
(01:46):
but we provide our own management and on site solution
and training to mitigate all those high injuries or risk
of that. And then we take those associates that are
moving considerable amount of freight and we pay them by
the box at the move or by the tire that
they're unloading, or buy a pound of freight, so they're
a little more conscious on how they're doing it, a
(02:06):
little more efficient than say an hourly employee or a
salaried person there.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So essentially performance based correct, absolutely, yep. That's a unique approach.
So you spanning across the country and coming from a
background of entrepreneurialship you get that from your father, correct,
that's correct. So you moved a lot with him and
just starting businesses and here and there, right, yep.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah. So I was born in Austin, Texas. We were
there a short while before we moved to Swally in
the Netherlands for about seven months. My little brother was
born in Chicago right after that.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And then I came back to Charleston, went to Atlanta
and then back to Charleston for high school and after that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So I'm am I hearing this correctly that you actually
worked for your father's competitor at one point, that's right,
all right, in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yep, right after right after college. That was the first
offer I got, and I went to work for them
for a little over a month, just to get back
home for a little while.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I had that conversation go when you announced that to
your dad.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
He was pretty excited to see me in the same industry.
I don't think he was worried that I was going
to steal a bunch of business or be a real
competitor at first. But so it was a lot of
fun to kind of have those conversations where he was
coming up and reminiscent on his start.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So how long did it take before he tried to
get you over to his side?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It wasn't long at all. He actually made a joke
one night at dinner for my older brother to drop
out of medical school to come work for him. He
had an expansion in Alabama and needed somebody to go
out there and run it. So I perked up at
that that I was I was willing to move if
he could match my income and wanted me to come
with him.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So from then you got the knowledge, you worked up,
and then you and a partner decided to go out
on your own. Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
No? So I after a couple of years working for him,
I ended up moving to Atlanta to grow the business.
Atlanta was much easier to travel direct flights with Delta
right there, so that's where I met his former partner.
We worked together for probably two or three years as
he was a mentor, and then he set some goals
for me that I hit, and that gave him the
(04:01):
confidence to buy into the business that I was working
with my father in at that time. I also got
some ownership, and then a year later he and I
put together a package to buy my father down considerably.
So then I worked with him for about seven or
eight years, and then I closed last January, buying him
out completely.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Wow, that's congratulations, I guess that's that's how does it feel?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It was? It was great to kind of have the
confidence to go out and do it, but also a
little bit scary, you know, to be on your own
without that knowledge there consistently. That's also invested in the
business because I would run most of my ideas by them,
or at least anything considerable. So we've had a lot
of success in sin so it's worked out.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
He had a pretty good consultant helping you, all right,
than he who'd been there.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah. Yeah, both those guys, my father and the mentor,
had run a business very similar to this that they
grew exponentially and then ended up selling it.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Sounds like those jitters went away having three hundred employees.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Now yeah, yeah, we're doing okay.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So you talk a lot about people first, that's right,
and tell us about that mentality because I think that's
important only for recruiting, but when you're working with customers,
the fact that your people first worse works both ways.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Correct absolutely, So the employees we have are typically very
entry level, oftentimes are sourced through a temp agency, are
not seen as a partner or an actual direct hire
a lot of the customers would hire, so they typically
have a chip on their shoulder. They don't feel welcome,
they're not praised as someone at a full time facility
(05:36):
would do, that's benefited or anything like that. So rather
than keeping that same mindset of temporary or day labor,
we spend a lot of time and energy fixing our
culture so that those folks would feel welcome, would be encouraged,
would get a career progression path that they decided to
stay on with us, instead of the end goal being
get hired on by the client. And so I actually
(05:59):
hired the vice president I have now came from. He
was a full time therapy and counselor before so working
with my management team on conflict resolution but also how
to get to know people, how to motivate by people.
One of our head trainers did I think ten to
twelve years as an educator, and so now she takes
(06:22):
the different task we have to perform, consolidates them, and
then almost presents that like a syllabus as if she
were training at a school. And so that's worked out
really well over the past couple of years to give
the tools to folks that otherwise weren't given the attention.
And then there I would say, loyalty and want to
do a good job for you is paid back in
(06:42):
droves I found.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, it seems like that would help with retention a lot,
because you have a lot of different dynamics inside of
their Yeah, the retentions.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, When I first got my start on my own,
we didn't embrace that mentality and I only had probably
one hundred or so positions available. But I sent out
I think twenty two hundred W two's one year and
it just shocked me that I had turned every position
nearly twenty something times in a year. And so we've
as we've scaled up to three hundred plus positions, we've
(07:12):
dropped that down to under one thousand. Now. Some of
these positions are seasonal and we'll have higher turnover just
as a nature of it. But to cut our turnover
by more than I would say three hundred percent was big.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Wow, that's tremendous. Actually, who would you say is the
biggest influence on your leadership?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
You know, I got a lot from both of my
mentors on making decisions, not only just in the business
but personally, well, how I manage cash, you know, how
much to spend, how much to advise. And then my
father was big watching him. He was a he played
football at the Citadel, so fitness was always very important
to him, and both of them encouraged me. At twenty five,
(07:53):
when I had gotten out of shape, doctor told me
I needed to really get back off the couch otherwise
I was going to start going to get some prescriptions
for like blood pressure and things that I wasn't handling appropriately.
So that was a major influence. At both of them said, hey,
you need to go get in the gym.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well, it sounds like a word because I know you
can't see this guy sitting across from me right now,
but he is an absolute beat. Right how long have
you do a CrossFit?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It was actually the next day I went online. I've
read some article about geographically how close the gym is
to your work or house is going to be a
predictor of how long you'll stick with it. And just
so happened that there was a CrossFit gym half a
mile away from the office I was working out at
the time, so I actually was intimidated to join. I
went and watched one class, and then after seeing all
(08:39):
those folks do it, I was like, Okay, I can
do this. So that was about almost eight or nine
years ago, and I've been off and on doing it,
but pretty consistently over the past three It's.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
A discipline, right, It's not like you're going to the
gym or what like. I do walk out to my garage. Sure, right,
It's hard for me to motivate that. But to go
into that scenario where CrossFit is so difficult. It's it works,
we know it works. But the discipline to follow and
continuously go is how do you take that and what
do you take from that into your leadership?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, So for me, there's nobody holding me accountable now
that I own it out right, There's nobody making sure
I clock in on time, or am I getting this
this job done or this spreadsheet in? So I do
it as a self accountability. I'm up at five every morning,
I go to the gym at six to make sure
that's done so I can get to the office even
though I don't have meetings at eight scheduled. So I
(09:31):
think by doing that it sexy sets the example for
the folks that we don't do it because we have to.
We do it because we want to. We want to
perform at a high level. We want to serve our
customer as well. We want to serve our employees just
as well. And to do that, you have to show up.
You have to be cognizant. You have to be clear
headed and have high energy.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
What would you say if I'm listening now and I've
thought of starting something, going out of my own, getting
into leadership, crawling up, what advice would you give an
inspiring business owner entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, I would say get the groundwork, try to find
a business or a model where you can. I'd go
work for a small business, see what it's like before
you go out and try to do it on your own.
I think if you work for a large company, you
don't get to wear a lot of hats. You don't
get the calls at nine o'clock at night on a
Friday that you have to pick up or Saturday or
(10:20):
whatever it is. And so gaining that experience through one
make sure the lifestyle is going to be right for
you is really important. And I wish I had had
an opportunity to do that, maybe outside of the family
before getting involved. But you know, here I am, and
it worked out.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And I think part of that's taking the first step
too writ acting on it sure get going.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, I don't think you should quit your job and
dive in head first with all your savings on your
first idea. If you you know the read the stats
on a lot of businesses fail. I think that's because
they're they're not done with enough insight or having leadership.
And then find a mentor find a group. After buying
that business out and kind of the relationship with those
(11:01):
two gentlemen, I went and found a group called Vistage,
where it's a bunch of local business owners that meet
once a month and you can share ideas with those folks.
So having a group of peers that you can share
your ideas with is really important too.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I think that is too. When you're here's a wild one.
So around the low Country, we know you're a big crossfitter.
We know that's a big hobby for you. What else
do you do and you enjoy when you're not working?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, love being out on the boat. Actually, a couple
of years ago got a nitch. Really always wanted private flight,
but it was outside of my budget at the time,
and then I realized you can if you knew how
to fly a plane, you can rent one for about
a tenth of the cost of say net jets. So
joined flight school six months later, had my license, and
(11:44):
then bought a plane after that. So I try to
stay current by flying at least once once a week
to every other week doing that, and then spend a
lot of time with family going out shooting guns, riding
motorcycles some of the other cars. I actually have a
fleet of vehicle that I've acquired over the years and
rent those out to weddings and influencers. So I'll drive
(12:06):
my sixty six Bronco down to Folly and sit out there. Well,
you know, some folks take pictures with it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
A couple of proms.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well I had a prom for I've got a the
new C eight Corvette, and some girl had a red
dress that matched it perfectly. So she was sitting in
that had the top down. It was great.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So, where's your favorite place to fly or where? I
guess if where would you love to fly to?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah? So favorite place to go is probably the Bahamas.
That's it's a quick trip two and a half hours
if I stop in Jacksonville. My older brother lives in Greenville,
South Carolina, and that makes that trip much more appealing.
Love to go see him and his two kids and
his wife. They've been a big part of my life
over the years. Saint Simon's was a lot of fun
(12:47):
to go. Went down there for lunch two Thursdays ago
with my cousin.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Just popped down for lunch on the plane.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, it was about forty five minutes there, walked to
a barbecue place across the street and yeah, you're home
about forty five minutes later.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's great. I need different friends, man.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
We'll come up anytime.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
If so, would you rather boat or fly to the Bahamas?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I'd rather fly, brother fly. Yeah, So, my brother and
father love offshore fishing. They've got a big boat. So
they actually took the boat to the Bahamas for about
a month and then I flew in for the last weekend.
That's kind of enough deep sea fishing for me. Oh yeah, yeah,
we'll trade off the toys. I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love it. So what community partnerships are you know,
things around the community are you particularly passionate about?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yees? So, I love working with folks that weren't given
an opportunity, that maybe didn't come up with the educational
background or the experience. So I've worked with Big Brothers,
Big Sisters. I'm a part of Big a mentor where
I've got a eleven year old lunch buddy over at
chikor elementary school and I go and sit with him
for you know, we'll have lunch and then if he's
(13:51):
behaved well for the week, we'll go play basketball and
kind of talk about life stuff. That's great, it's in
a fifteen minutes. And then there's a prison rehabilitation program
a part of called Turn nine, and it's individuals that
don't have job experience, but we don't want to see
them go back to that lifestyle they were participating in
before that got them into the prison cycle. So it's
(14:13):
a T shirt print shop where they have a job
Monday through Friday. But there's also an education piece. So
every morning they've got about an hour an hour and
a half class occasionally I've taught. I've taught there. I've
worked with some of those individuals one on one as
a mentor. And then that group is renting a warehouse
and trying to expand into a logistics group as well,
(14:34):
so I've worked with the owner there to try to
advise on how to start a logistics business.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
That's awesome. That's some great things, especially their prison rehabilitation,
because I think they need a second chance sometimes other chances.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and we work with some of those folks too.
They come on after they finish that I think it's
thirteen or fourteen week program and then we'll hire them on.
We've got one as a lead for us. And it's
a shame because they are highly driven, motivated individuals. They
just they don't know what to do to make the
level of income to have that opportunity. And that program
has been one of the most passionate I've had.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Well Hampton, you know, just doing what you do in
a city like Charleston with support city and some of
the staffing solutions that you provide. You know, it's amazing
to hear what you came from to now having three
hundred employees. It's still finding time to do CrossFit, fly planes,
and shoot guns, which is awesome. If somebody, if I'm
looking for a job, or if I'm somebody who needs
help or may in the future, how do we get
(15:29):
in contact with you?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, so you can go to our website, PfP logistics
dot com. We've also got all the social media's PfP
Logistics Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and I've got a great team
that allows me to do all these other hobbies because
they're they're a lot better at their jobs than I
would be, so first mentality, right, but I prefer them
doing them then getting me involved. I mostly do sales
(15:52):
at this point.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I heard that. Yeah, well, Hampton Thomas from PfP Logistics,
thanks a lot for joining us on the iHeartRadio Charleston CEOs.
You should know, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
For having me.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio CEOs you should know, heard
every Tuesday and Saturday morning right here on this iHeartRadio station.
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