June 11, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode, we’ve got another incredible guest, Sean Dehan from Truckstop!
Sean talks about the importance of adapting to challenging market dynamics, longer sales cycles post-COVID, Truckstop’s strategy for building long-term relationships and effective communication, future development plans, and more that you shouldn’t miss!
About Sean Dehan
Sean Dehan is the VP of Corporate Strategy at Truckstop and one of the most trusted load boards in freight for almost 30 years.
Sean is an expert in carrier success, freight fraud prevention, and industry trends. With fraud on the rise and market conditions constantly shifting, he offers a grounded, insightful view of what’s happening behind the scenes — and how brokers and carriers alike can stay ahead.
Connect with Sean
- Website: https://truckstop.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dehansean/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Came back with a bank hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger boss hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I do say that before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because. Because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve.
(00:58):
So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I got a very special guest for you guys here, and I'm going to bring him up in just a second. But I do have to drop my weekly reminder. We have a newsletter, you guys. It drops every Wednesday. And unlike other people who create newsletters, I don't auto sign you up for it. So if I have your email address, I don't sign you up for it. But with that being said, I need you to go to my website, though, and register for it. All right, so if you just go to the Freight Coach.com, it drops every Wednesday. It's all about the industry, you guys. I'm not trying to be a life coach or anything like that.
(01:33):
It's all about freight at the end of the day because that's frankly all I know. But with that being said, you guys, we're going to dive into kind of like what. What's going on in the market here. What. What can we expect? What role will tariffs have to play into things coming up here? And with that being said, I got a very. My. My guest today is the VP of Corporate Strategy at Truck Stop, Mr. Sean Dehan on the show. Sean, thank you so much for taking the time to join me this morning.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
What's up, Chris? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Nah, dude. Absolutely, man. And I am, dude, you know, like, were talking before. I feel like I should have started the show when were talking before the show live. Yeah, yeah, because like, man, you really summarized it the exact same way, how I feel about a lot of this. And, you know, we'll get into that here, man. So like, dude, how'd you get your start in the industry though, Sean? What brought you into transportation?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, love it. And actually I, I wanted to. I wanted to get into this with you because I started in transportation three years ago. You know, my background is kind of a little bit. A little bit kind of pan industry. I didn't really have an industry home in a lot of the work that I did in corporate strategy development, I did consulting. I would do in house corporate strategy work mostly for technology companies. And then I found my way into transportation through someone I knew they were looking for. They were looking for kind of a strategy, a person that knows how to manage strategy, help a company set a strategy and then execute against it. And so I got brought into. I got it brought into Truck Stop three years ago, back in May of 2022.
(03:09):
So I've lived a number of lives actually from a market cycle perspective in that period of time. It's been kind of interesting right there. I got to in May 2022. The market still seemed okay. Like, it still seemed like it was going to continue to grow maybe a little bit or at least come down, but not going to be a huge comedown. And then by the end of 2022, the picture became pretty clear that were sort of the COVID bull days were. We're sort of coming to an end and were going to start seeing some normalization back down to where you might expect things to be based on. Based on the demand curve in the industry. So it's been pretty. It's been pretty interesting.
(03:44):
I feel like, you know, three years in transportation is certainly not enough to become an expert, but these particular three years have given me a really good view of what it takes to operate a transportation business in hard markets. Right. And challenging markets. And I think that's the most important thing as an operator that you can learn is how to operate in these hard markets. Because when the good markets come, you're going to make money if you know how to operate in these ones. And. But I'll say shout out to Chris. When I first got into transportation, I was like a sponge. I was just trying to soak up everything I possibly could and listening to all the podcasts.
(04:16):
And that's one of the cool things about today, the world today is we can get up to speed on a lot of subjects by tapping into experts like yourself and others that I would never have access to otherwise if they weren't podcasting on a regular basis. So I was a regular listener of the Free Coach and still am. And so I think it takes at least three years to become an transportation expert at a minimum because it's taken me three years to get on Free Coach. So I'm excited to be here and I'm going to take that as a huge laurel that I'm going to post on my board there.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So, man, I love that. And no, I did not pay Sean to say that. I had no idea he was going to say that. No, dude, you know, but that is my, that's what I do love. I mean, you're right. This is what I love about this time is like with podcasting and social media, you know, obviously you got to take the good with the bad. But there are people in multiple industries that are operators who are building real companies and doing real, putting best practices out there. Right? Because you know, to kind of tie in what were saying before the show, like, man, I, this is not a exit for me, right? Like, I'm not looking to do any of this for the short term. Like, I love transportation.
(05:24):
I've been in it my whole life and I'm going to be in it my whole life. I'm not, dude, I'm 20 years in at this point, right? Like I'm not going to be doing anything different. I, I wouldn't know how to be in any other way. And you know, so it's like we got to find a way to win. And I feel like that's always got to be everybody's mentality in business. Whether it's a good market, bad, an indifferent market, you got to show up and you got to win. You have to find a way to perform. And you know, you brought up a good point.
(05:50):
I feel like a lot of people do need to rest on the fact like if you're profitable right now, if you are adding customers right now, if you are growing in any way right now, you are a phenot doing a phenomenal job because it is not easy out there at all. This is some of the longest sales cycles I've ever been a part of. And you know, when things change or if they don't change, nobody actually knows. I this point you need to rest on the fact like you are building rock solid processes right now that if it does get better out there in the market, in the foreseeable future and freight volumes increase and you know, there is a need for new providers in people's networks. You're going to dominate during that time.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
How, how have you experienced customer expectations or purchasing, Call it purchasing criteria change over the last couple years as you talk to customers saying sales cycles are longer. Like what are they looking at differently than they maybe didn't look in the past.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So the best way to describe this, Sean, from my seat is this book. Pre Covid, when you'd cold call, you know, places, if you got the decision maker on the phone, you'd have a couple of decent conversations with them, right? But then they would toss you a prove it shipment. There was no long drawn out process or time, right? Like it was like, hey, we've talked a few times. You say you do this here's a, here's your shot. Prove it now that doesn't exist. Like, yeah, you can have a good couple of conversations with somebody on the phone, they'll add you in, you can start bidding on freight. But that prove it shipment doesn't actually materialize for a while.
(07:25):
And I think a lot of this, what people need to understand when you're going out there and prospecting business right now, it is, I, I truly feel this way in my heart of hearts. Covid had upended so many people's lives in the freight world, right? Like, there are so many supply chain issues that happened out there. There was so just a drop in capacity. There was freight that was sitting on people's docks and, you know, stuff wasn't moving. And then it calmed down, right? And then service returned to normal levels and they honed in on their network and they are comfortable with the known right now whether maybe they might not be providing the best service out there, but they know what they get and they would rather take the comfort of that than the uncomfort of the unknown and the unproven.
(08:16):
And that's the only thing that I can logically think of at this point because otherwise, like, and it's true, like, I've said this before and I've heard this from other, you know, other experienced people say this, you know, there's very little we can do or say in the prospecting phase, Sean, that most experienced transportation professionals on the shipper side haven't heard before, right? Like, I literally just told this to a prospect yesterday because they're like, what makes you different? And I'm like, to be honest, man, there's going to be nothing I'm going to tell you right now because he's been doing this, he's been in the industry for 25 years. I'm like, there's going to be nothing I'm going to tell you right now that you're going to be like, I've never heard that before.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Here's what we actually will do on a shipment per by shipment basis. Right? This is our communication process. This is our update process. This is how we handle things. We talk to, you know, receivers, we verify all of this information. We're out there operating on your behalf because we are a direct reflection of you to your customers. And that was my response in the moment. It's the truthful, it's my truthful and honest opinion because there isn't going to be anything I'm going to say to an experienced transportation manager that they're going to be like, damn, Chris, I've never heard that before.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, it's going to be what you do, not what you say. Right? And how do you get. How do you get to do it? Is the, is the question. Right? And I. It's still probably. There's so much relationship around and I'm sure you're great at. I'm sure you're great at managing that. But I think it's the same in our, you know, when what's interesting about Truck Stop in particular, unlike a lot of technology companies and other sectors or other industries, you know, Truck Stop is really a successful business when our customers are successful and we benefit from customer success because if customers stay in business, they tend to keep working with Truck Stop because we're at least some part of that success. We're not the whole thing. They got to do more than just us. We're not going to take all the credit.
(10:09):
But, but we're a part, we're a tool in their toolbox for success. We're a tool in their toolbox for consistency. We're a tool in the toolbox for stability. And when they're successful and we're more successful. So we have. You know, Chris, what you'll see so often in a business like Truck Stop, we have customers that have been customers for 15 years on the carrier side, broker side, maybe even longer. And they've never stopped being a Truck Stop customer. There's never a month that they haven't stopped. They've stopped being a Truck Stop customer. And you look at that, and it's really interesting because then you look at all the other customers that we see come in, they hang out with us for three months and then they leave and they come back a year later or whatever it may be.
(10:52):
And everyone sort of has a little bit of a different business model. But the ones that we've found that have been the longest tenure actually do still rely on, on products like Truck Stop. And the reason I bring this up is because, you know, you and I were talking about before the top of the show, it's really important to understand that where we are in the market and that this isn't Truck Stop isn't making plans, that the market is just going to get better. And all of a sudden our business is going to better because our customers, we've got to make plans for the market to not get much better. And how are we going to make, build a better business for our customers, for our employees, for. For the industry? Right.
(11:28):
And so as long as our customers, as long as we can help our customers be successful in any of these markets, whether it's an up market, it's easy to make them successful, quite frankly, in an up market, in a tight capacity market, it's harder to make truckers and brokers successful and they lose capacity market. But that's the name of the game for us. We'll continue to support them and becoming successful in these operator markets. Right. And how we help that come to come to fruition?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
No, absolutely, man. And I feel like, you know, companies like yourself and other technology companies that are out there in the market, they get a bad rap for like I, you know, I scroll through, like, I look at it like Truck Stop is a tool. It's a tool in my toolbox that I use to operate my business. It is not Truck stops fault if a driver falls off of my load. All right? Like, it is a point of reference as a tool. It is something that I utilize. I mean, I've been using you guys for like literally the entirety of my career. And you know, it's like I use it as. Again, it's a tool, it's a crutch. It's one of those things that I use to operate inside of my business, my internal processes. And I do.
(12:33):
I just put a post out this yesterday. Like no piece of technology can fix a bad process. Right? Like that starts at the core of a freight broker's business. Like you have to fix that. And then technology is a tool that you can leverage for explosive growth. And that's the way that a lot of people need to take that, right? And it's like there's from my stance in my standpoint, like, as technology continues to develop out there in the market, you can't just rely on that and expect it to do your job for you. And I feel like there's like a. Just a massive blindness. And this isn't just a transportation thing, right? Like, I see this in every industry. People are like, oh, I bought this service. Why didn't my business improve? I don't know.
(13:15):
Have you ever thought that it's you the operator? Because that's just the way that I approach thing, right? That is how Chris Jolly fundamentally is as a man. I have stopped blaming everybody else for my issues. And I look internally, right? If my business isn't growing, it's not the market's fault, it's not the world's fault, it's Chris Jolly's fault. Right. And I have to get better. But I feel like, you know, with where freight tech is right now, you have never had an easier time to find capacity, to find accurate rates, to find accurate carrier vetting. You have never been at an easier point in time, right?
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah, it should be. You know, this is. And I think we'll see continued development. I mean, with things like AI and you know, agentic AI kind of coming on the scene too, it's going to become easier and easier for the great operators to win, quite frankly, because they'll know. To your point, it's not just technology, it's also people in process and it's relationships and it's being able to bring in customers and be able to build trust. The technology is basically like fuel. It's like you got to build the ship and then you put the fuel in the ship and that's what the great operators are doing. And even on the trucking side, right? The on the capacity side, we see a similar thing, right? Like we're not trying to replace, we're not here building autonomous vehicles, right?
(14:37):
We're trying to make our customers as successful as they possibly can be. And we realize that we are a tool in the toolkit. And we encourage our customers, go get carriers, go get direct customers, go get direct shippers, go find contract freight. Because the more of that you have, then when you use us, you're. You're going to be really successful because you're already building a successful business, a stable business. And that's really good for us. And so to your point, like finding capacity should be as easy as it's ever been. Getting the right rate should be as easy as ever been. So what differentiates one freight business from another?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I mean, from my seat, the thing is, it will always boil. Like, you are literally a communication op. Like, I don't even know how to title it, Sean. But like as a freight broker, your sole job is to communicate. Is to communicate with your customer. Shippers, receivers, carriers, they have to know everything. That is your literal sole job. And I feel like where people get themselves caught up in is. Is they're in a recycling like, mindset where it's like, oh, I'll just get somebody else. I'll just get somebody else. As opposed to, hey, I have this customer that I worked really hard to onboard. Maybe I should take a loss on this load. Maybe I should actually just move it on the day that they need as opposed to telling them something on why this load's not moving today, right?
(15:59):
Like, take the loss, move on. Capacity tightens up, rates change, things change. You have to operate right? And you have to communicate that, right? If a driver's running behind, tell them, right? Like, I just, for me, I'm just like, you just need to be brutally honest with people about everything. That's what separates a great broker from everybody else. It truly is. And it is as simple as that. And I say that with 100 confidence because most people avoid conflict. Most people. Or perceived conflict, right? Like, oh, I don't want to do this or say this because somebody might get mad. I have just adopted thing. I will rip the band aid off, right? I would rather have you yell at me in the moment, which again, news flash, nobody actually does.
(16:39):
You guys, people really appreciate the truth, especially the older you get just throwing that out there. But again, I feel like that's really our job. Our job is to develop capacity for lanes that our carriers want to run and that our customers need us to run. And that's as complex as we really need to make it. And now there are tools out there at our disposal where we can automate that. We can automate 90% of our day. And you should be looking at that, right? Because again, no matter what, we don't know what's going to happen with tariffs across the board. We don't know what's going to happen with imports in the port of LA and Savannah, and we don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But you have to come up with a solution if you are going to operate in any business. Whether it's in freight or not. Your customers do not care ultimately about any headlines that are out there in the news. They want to make sure their freight is picked up on time and delivered on time. And that is complex as we need to make it.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I think that's so important. I. Communications is, communication is the table stakes. You know, I, I often say to my team and internally at Truck stop, you know, in an operator's market, you can't commit an own goal. And if you're, if you know hockey or soccer or any of those sports, an own goal is when you kick it into your own, you put it into your own goal and you score one for the other team. Right. And not communicating is an own goal. Right. You've got this customer. They're already your customer. Make, make sure that you're giving them the table stakes that you pass the table stakes that you have. Right. They're the most important customer. The prospect that you're going to go get, that's going to cost a lot of work and maybe money. You've got a customer right now.
(18:18):
Make sure, make sure you keep them. And you know, I think one thing that brokers are great at is the communication side. And I don't know how many. Chris, I don't know what your breakdown of like carriers versus brokers on your program, but from a listener's perspective. But when we brokers honestly exist in a lot of cases because carriers aren't great at communicating and brokers have to sort of over communicate to get the communication out of them and to run that kind of interstitial place. And most of the carriers that I know, they're very successful in this business that are doing well right now and have done well over the last two, three years even. They're fantastic communicators. They're the types of people just like you rip the band aid off, tell them now, tell them that it's not going to work.
(19:05):
Tell them, I can't do it for this reason or that reason. They're going to respect that. They're going to appreciate that and they'll know why you can do a load the next time you can do a load. Right. And they just treat it differently. Right? And they treat it like they're truly operating a business with customers, whether it's with the broker or with a shipper. It doesn't matter who the customer that's giving them the freight is. They're treating them and communicating with them in a particularly different way than most of their Peers do.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah. I think when it comes down to it, when you're out there booking freight and stuff, like as a broker it is your job to find those carriers, right? Just like it's your job like you're going to onboard shippers, Sean, at the end of the day that are just not a fit. And, but it is your job to develop the ones that fit into how you like to operate and how you like to communicate and then you adapt, right. Like I have some of my drivers for example, Sean, like they won't answer their phone but they will update me in every way I need, right? Email comes in, boom. Photos of the load, bill of lady, they do all of that.
(20:03):
It's just as a broker you need to be more of a chameleon for how your carriers are going to communicate and your customers are going to communicate, right. Like I got a customer who text me, pick this up, right? Like I don't have, I don't even have a PO most time, I don't even have a PO until like most of these loads are actually picked up in transit. But I've been working with them for three years and they've never missed a payment, right. Then I have other customers who are like clockwork, have a process on how they communicate. They reach out on specific days, they need specific updates. And again, it's my job as a broker to adapt and change to that environment. And you know, I like universal API.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
You know, you sit between and you have to be able to adapt and be, you know, flexible to whatever it is that the two sides of your business are wanting to communicate and share information and data on.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah. And so like how are you guys working with your guys as customers right now on what are the needs that like the driver community is looking for? How, what are they coming to you guys, Sean? And they're like, hey, listen, you know, I'm a small fleet. This is what I want to see in the next couple of years to help maybe automate some things inside of my business to help them stay more organized.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, so we, we hear a couple things from sort of the owner operator in small fleet perspective that the first that we hear most from them is they want to be able to use the kind of load board products as a little bit more of kind of a universal freight management solution. So think about it as they've got all these public loads in there, but they also would like to see all the private loads that they have access to. They want to see Chris's Freight before it gets to the public load boards. Right. And it's not reasonable, it's not feasible for them in a lot of cases to go find Chris's Freight and go to Chris's Freight portal or go to, you know, C.H. Robinson's or J.B. Hans or Schneider's.
(21:59):
They got to go to 10 different portals to go find freight or they've got to have a TMS that's integrated perfectly with all these different TMS is like, it's a, there's a lot of fragmentation. Right. So they've, they continue to ask us to be more consolidated for them so where they can have a single place where they can experience all of the freight. Right. Whether it's what you might call private freight or core carrier freight or ultimately public freight. I think the second thing they ask us a lot for is continued evolution of how they find the freight. So I think of this as how do we help them search and drive to the outcome that they want more efficiently? You know, load boards admittedly have been more like bulletin boards historically. Right.
(22:44):
And in a lot of ways, our customers have told us that's what they want. Right. We don't just bury our head in the sand and not deliver new development for our customers. But it's because our customers said every time we make a change or say, don't make a change, you know, like, stop doing that. Don't recommend me any freight. I want to go scroll through, you know, 1,000 loads to find my perfect piece of freight. Right. But what we're seeing now is, you know, our prospect, the age of our prospects is down by 20 years compared to our average age of our customers. Right. The average age of our customers in their 50s. The average age of our prospects in their 30s.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So our new customers that are coming on, they're looking for a different experience. I think that's really important, especially as you think about your business too. And how is your experience evolving to serve your carriers and to communicate with your carriers? And what they're telling us is I don't want to scroll through a thousand loads to find five that I could potentially haul. And then when I call on four of them, I either can't haul because I'm not qualified to haul it, or it's already been booked or for whatever reason I got off, I was on hold and it couldn't work. Right. And so we're building more and more feature functionality into basically helping the carrier pre qualify a load. Right.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
They don't have to call on loads that they can't win. That's a huge problem if you talk to a broker. I'm sure this is the case for you too, Chris. 80% of calls basically end up in nothing. 20% of calls end up in real serious conversations. And a portion of that 80% is basically just carriers getting pre qualed out. Right. Safety rating is not good enough. Authority tenure is not good. Not, not where it needs to be. There's any number of like basic pre qualifications that they just don't meet. And then the next is like negotiated rate. Like they just don't hit the negotiated rate so they get kind of pre qualed out or filtered out. And so cutting down that level of effort for the carrier. Imagine that, right?
(24:32):
Like now I can call on the freight that I'm going to win, not the freight that I would like to be able to win. Right. And so you got to be realistic about what's out there. We just delivered a feature called the authority filter feature. Pretty simple concept, Chris. If you like to work with carriers have six months of authority tenure or more, you would tell us that and we would post that on your load. And so a carrier can now go in and say who's working with carriers of six month or more authority and it will filter out anything that's basically noise for them under six months authority because they really want to win the freight. So they don't want to get bogged down with all the competitive freight. That's the three months or less.
(25:09):
If they're a three month carrier, they're going to look for three months and less carrier loads. And now they're calling on freight that they can actually win. Right. And that's really important and really valuable. It's been a huge, it's been a huge success for us. You know, a lot of times in software and in technology you deliver a feature and it's like, you know, if you deliver it and you know, it's like a tree falls and no one's around to hear it. Does the make a sound. Sometimes that happens with technology. Deliver a feature and you're like wow, we thought that would be really successful. And other times it surprises you up to the upside. And this one has definitely been a surprise to the upside.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I, I almost think like, and again, I'm not a driver so I'm, my opinion on this might be irrelevant, but I feel like, you know, because I'm out there, we, I like to make outbound calls, right? Like, one of my favorite features of you guys is when like carriers click on your post whether they call in or not, and you know, you can go in there and call them directly. Yeah, it's like I, I like to do that a lot because more times than not they're just browsing around and I've actually found it's a great way to develop capacity. Even if they're like, no, I actually, I run this lane. I'm just not there this day. I'm like, okay, perfect. Then that goes in. Because I like to pre screen all of my drivers from that regard.
(26:14):
Like, hey, why do you want this lane? You know, are you running this lane often? What's the real why behind it? Because if you're down there in that area a lot, like, I want to reach out to you and especially if you haul freight for me, I want to reach out to you. I almost wonder if from a driver's perspective if this might be a feature that you guys already have. But like, hey, you guys have called on this broker and this broker in the past. So if that broker's posting a load in particular, it like goes to the top of their search queue. So it's not just a bunch of unproven people. Right.
(26:43):
Like, I feel like that might be something cool out there where they can go in and be like, hey, you've hauled loads for Chris before and ABC broker before and this broker before. These guys are all posting in that area for you. Call them first.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
What you're going to, what you're going to see over the next two, three, four or five years is you're going to see more personalization of these experiences. Yeah. And things like that, what you just described are exactly what we're talking about. Right. It's like when Chris comes to the load board, Chris's experience should not be like Sean's because Sean and Chris have different businesses and we run things differently. And just because we have different searches that are saved or whatever, it's still, we work with different brokers. Maybe we work in the same lane, maybe we run the same equipment, but we like different days of the week or we like different brokers in those lanes or we have history of those brokers in the lanes.
(27:25):
And maybe Chris, maybe you should learn some of the brokers or meet some of the brokers that I meet that I know and carriers like you evolved for. Right. And so I think those are all types of things. I think that the next kind of 2.0 is really a lot more personalization of the experience. And it's not a many to many, it's kind of a one to many type of experience where you get, where you get more of that personalization. I think it goes for the broker too. Right. As we think about the future being how do we help our brokers get their freight seen? How do we help them get the right carriers for their freight and reduce the friction that comes with it? Reduce the friction with coming to, posting to a load board.
(27:58):
When we solve these, Chris, when we solve these problems for our broker customers, what's really interesting is that they tell us, hey, we'll post freight earlier to the load board. Like we post typically 48 hours out, but we'll post 72 hours out now or post 96 hours out four days out now. Because you're solving these point, these pain points that If I posted 96 hours out and I had to get all these phone calls that from carriers I wouldn't work with, then I just created a bunch of friction and cost for my business and we aren't able to go work on the other freight that we need to work on.
(28:28):
And so these types, those types of things are just helping that out and it's improving the experience of our carrier because anytime we can bring more loads into the network, we improve the experience for our carriers and we've improved their, their opportunity for success.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
No, I agree with that. Right. And I feel like ultimately Sean, that is how you sustain in any freight market. Because at the end of the day there's a lot of freight that moves, that never reaches a load board. Right. Because they've developed those relationships and stuff out there. And you know, the majority of the freight that I move doesn't go out to a load board unless all of our carriers that we've worked with in the past are unavailable. Then we go out and try and develop new capacity. Like literally out of the shipments we had yesterday, probably 70 were booked with pre existing relationships.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Right? You want to do that. You've got the most confidence in them, you've got the most security from them, you've got the, maybe even a better rate from them in some cases than you could get on the open market. I think that makes a ton of sense. And truck stop isn't trying to become 100 of your freight. Right? That's not, we understand where we sit in the market, but we believe we can help you more even on some of the stuff on that 70 you posted, what if one of your core carriers was available for that piece of freight and they were looking at Truck Stop and you could have reached them earlier because we gave you the tooling to reach them in particular on the platform that they wanted to work on.
(29:52):
Particularly for, you know, brokers that aren't, you know, three letter names or you know, top 100 guys that don't have portals that driver volume. Those are, those types of things can be really valuable for the smaller operators now.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I couldn't agree more. Sean, thank you so much for your time. This flew by and I knew it would, man. But like this, I can't believe we're already at the end of the show, but thank you for joining me. How does anybody reach out to you though to find out more about what you have going on?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
My pleasure. Yeah, obviously, you know, we're, we're continually updating our products and features@truck stop.com so you can reach us out, reach out at us@truckstop.com. Truck Stop is very active on all the social media platforms. And when I say very active, I'm sure Chris, you know what I'm talking about. We've got some social media activity for sure. And then me personally, if anyone listening to the show would love for you to connect with me on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, and fortunately LinkedIn has become one of those platforms. It's been pretty important for the freight industry and there's some bright spots in it and there's some negative spots into, in it. But I lean into the bright side. So feel free to connect with me. I would love to, would love to meet anybody in the freight industry that's listening to Freight Coach.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Absolutely, man. I appreciate it, Sean. Thank you so much. That is going to be it for today, you guys. We got guests coming on every day this week and as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show, you guys. And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify. Because if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Came back with a bank Pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey got the foot on the gas Pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger boss Hey.
Came back with a bank hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger boss hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I do say that before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because. Because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve.
(00:58):
So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I got a very special guest for you guys here, and I'm going to bring him up in just a second. But I do have to drop my weekly reminder. We have a newsletter, you guys. It drops every Wednesday. And unlike other people who create newsletters, I don't auto sign you up for it. So if I have your email address, I don't sign you up for it. But with that being said, I need you to go to my website, though, and register for it. All right, so if you just go to the Freight Coach.com, it drops every Wednesday. It's all about the industry, you guys. I'm not trying to be a life coach or anything like that.
(01:33):
It's all about freight at the end of the day because that's frankly all I know. But with that being said, you guys, we're going to dive into kind of like what. What's going on in the market here. What. What can we expect? What role will tariffs have to play into things coming up here? And with that being said, I got a very. My. My guest today is the VP of Corporate Strategy at Truck Stop, Mr. Sean Dehan on the show. Sean, thank you so much for taking the time to join me this morning.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
What's up, Chris? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Nah, dude. Absolutely, man. And I am, dude, you know, like, were talking before. I feel like I should have started the show when were talking before the show live. Yeah, yeah, because like, man, you really summarized it the exact same way, how I feel about a lot of this. And, you know, we'll get into that here, man. So like, dude, how'd you get your start in the industry though, Sean? What brought you into transportation?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, love it. And actually I, I wanted to. I wanted to get into this with you because I started in transportation three years ago. You know, my background is kind of a little bit. A little bit kind of pan industry. I didn't really have an industry home in a lot of the work that I did in corporate strategy development, I did consulting. I would do in house corporate strategy work mostly for technology companies. And then I found my way into transportation through someone I knew they were looking for. They were looking for kind of a strategy, a person that knows how to manage strategy, help a company set a strategy and then execute against it. And so I got brought into. I got it brought into Truck Stop three years ago, back in May of 2022.
(03:09):
So I've lived a number of lives actually from a market cycle perspective in that period of time. It's been kind of interesting right there. I got to in May 2022. The market still seemed okay. Like, it still seemed like it was going to continue to grow maybe a little bit or at least come down, but not going to be a huge comedown. And then by the end of 2022, the picture became pretty clear that were sort of the COVID bull days were. We're sort of coming to an end and were going to start seeing some normalization back down to where you might expect things to be based on. Based on the demand curve in the industry. So it's been pretty. It's been pretty interesting.
(03:44):
I feel like, you know, three years in transportation is certainly not enough to become an expert, but these particular three years have given me a really good view of what it takes to operate a transportation business in hard markets. Right. And challenging markets. And I think that's the most important thing as an operator that you can learn is how to operate in these hard markets. Because when the good markets come, you're going to make money if you know how to operate in these ones. And. But I'll say shout out to Chris. When I first got into transportation, I was like a sponge. I was just trying to soak up everything I possibly could and listening to all the podcasts.
(04:16):
And that's one of the cool things about today, the world today is we can get up to speed on a lot of subjects by tapping into experts like yourself and others that I would never have access to otherwise if they weren't podcasting on a regular basis. So I was a regular listener of the Free Coach and still am. And so I think it takes at least three years to become an transportation expert at a minimum because it's taken me three years to get on Free Coach. So I'm excited to be here and I'm going to take that as a huge laurel that I'm going to post on my board there.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So, man, I love that. And no, I did not pay Sean to say that. I had no idea he was going to say that. No, dude, you know, but that is my, that's what I do love. I mean, you're right. This is what I love about this time is like with podcasting and social media, you know, obviously you got to take the good with the bad. But there are people in multiple industries that are operators who are building real companies and doing real, putting best practices out there. Right? Because you know, to kind of tie in what were saying before the show, like, man, I, this is not a exit for me, right? Like, I'm not looking to do any of this for the short term. Like, I love transportation.
(05:24):
I've been in it my whole life and I'm going to be in it my whole life. I'm not, dude, I'm 20 years in at this point, right? Like I'm not going to be doing anything different. I, I wouldn't know how to be in any other way. And you know, so it's like we got to find a way to win. And I feel like that's always got to be everybody's mentality in business. Whether it's a good market, bad, an indifferent market, you got to show up and you got to win. You have to find a way to perform. And you know, you brought up a good point.
(05:50):
I feel like a lot of people do need to rest on the fact like if you're profitable right now, if you are adding customers right now, if you are growing in any way right now, you are a phenot doing a phenomenal job because it is not easy out there at all. This is some of the longest sales cycles I've ever been a part of. And you know, when things change or if they don't change, nobody actually knows. I this point you need to rest on the fact like you are building rock solid processes right now that if it does get better out there in the market, in the foreseeable future and freight volumes increase and you know, there is a need for new providers in people's networks. You're going to dominate during that time.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
How, how have you experienced customer expectations or purchasing, Call it purchasing criteria change over the last couple years as you talk to customers saying sales cycles are longer. Like what are they looking at differently than they maybe didn't look in the past.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
So the best way to describe this, Sean, from my seat is this book. Pre Covid, when you'd cold call, you know, places, if you got the decision maker on the phone, you'd have a couple of decent conversations with them, right? But then they would toss you a prove it shipment. There was no long drawn out process or time, right? Like it was like, hey, we've talked a few times. You say you do this here's a, here's your shot. Prove it now that doesn't exist. Like, yeah, you can have a good couple of conversations with somebody on the phone, they'll add you in, you can start bidding on freight. But that prove it shipment doesn't actually materialize for a while.
(07:25):
And I think a lot of this, what people need to understand when you're going out there and prospecting business right now, it is, I, I truly feel this way in my heart of hearts. Covid had upended so many people's lives in the freight world, right? Like, there are so many supply chain issues that happened out there. There was so just a drop in capacity. There was freight that was sitting on people's docks and, you know, stuff wasn't moving. And then it calmed down, right? And then service returned to normal levels and they honed in on their network and they are comfortable with the known right now whether maybe they might not be providing the best service out there, but they know what they get and they would rather take the comfort of that than the uncomfort of the unknown and the unproven.
(08:16):
And that's the only thing that I can logically think of at this point because otherwise, like, and it's true, like, I've said this before and I've heard this from other, you know, other experienced people say this, you know, there's very little we can do or say in the prospecting phase, Sean, that most experienced transportation professionals on the shipper side haven't heard before, right? Like, I literally just told this to a prospect yesterday because they're like, what makes you different? And I'm like, to be honest, man, there's going to be nothing I'm going to tell you right now because he's been doing this, he's been in the industry for 25 years. I'm like, there's going to be nothing I'm going to tell you right now that you're going to be like, I've never heard that before.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Here's what we actually will do on a shipment per by shipment basis. Right? This is our communication process. This is our update process. This is how we handle things. We talk to, you know, receivers, we verify all of this information. We're out there operating on your behalf because we are a direct reflection of you to your customers. And that was my response in the moment. It's the truthful, it's my truthful and honest opinion because there isn't going to be anything I'm going to say to an experienced transportation manager that they're going to be like, damn, Chris, I've never heard that before.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, it's going to be what you do, not what you say. Right? And how do you get. How do you get to do it? Is the, is the question. Right? And I. It's still probably. There's so much relationship around and I'm sure you're great at. I'm sure you're great at managing that. But I think it's the same in our, you know, when what's interesting about Truck Stop in particular, unlike a lot of technology companies and other sectors or other industries, you know, Truck Stop is really a successful business when our customers are successful and we benefit from customer success because if customers stay in business, they tend to keep working with Truck Stop because we're at least some part of that success. We're not the whole thing. They got to do more than just us. We're not going to take all the credit.
(10:09):
But, but we're a part, we're a tool in their toolbox for success. We're a tool in their toolbox for consistency. We're a tool in the toolbox for stability. And when they're successful and we're more successful. So we have. You know, Chris, what you'll see so often in a business like Truck Stop, we have customers that have been customers for 15 years on the carrier side, broker side, maybe even longer. And they've never stopped being a Truck Stop customer. There's never a month that they haven't stopped. They've stopped being a Truck Stop customer. And you look at that, and it's really interesting because then you look at all the other customers that we see come in, they hang out with us for three months and then they leave and they come back a year later or whatever it may be.
(10:52):
And everyone sort of has a little bit of a different business model. But the ones that we've found that have been the longest tenure actually do still rely on, on products like Truck Stop. And the reason I bring this up is because, you know, you and I were talking about before the top of the show, it's really important to understand that where we are in the market and that this isn't Truck Stop isn't making plans, that the market is just going to get better. And all of a sudden our business is going to better because our customers, we've got to make plans for the market to not get much better. And how are we going to make, build a better business for our customers, for our employees, for. For the industry? Right.
(11:28):
And so as long as our customers, as long as we can help our customers be successful in any of these markets, whether it's an up market, it's easy to make them successful, quite frankly, in an up market, in a tight capacity market, it's harder to make truckers and brokers successful and they lose capacity market. But that's the name of the game for us. We'll continue to support them and becoming successful in these operator markets. Right. And how we help that come to come to fruition?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
No, absolutely, man. And I feel like, you know, companies like yourself and other technology companies that are out there in the market, they get a bad rap for like I, you know, I scroll through, like, I look at it like Truck Stop is a tool. It's a tool in my toolbox that I use to operate my business. It is not Truck stops fault if a driver falls off of my load. All right? Like, it is a point of reference as a tool. It is something that I utilize. I mean, I've been using you guys for like literally the entirety of my career. And you know, it's like I use it as. Again, it's a tool, it's a crutch. It's one of those things that I use to operate inside of my business, my internal processes. And I do.
(12:33):
I just put a post out this yesterday. Like no piece of technology can fix a bad process. Right? Like that starts at the core of a freight broker's business. Like you have to fix that. And then technology is a tool that you can leverage for explosive growth. And that's the way that a lot of people need to take that, right? And it's like there's from my stance in my standpoint, like, as technology continues to develop out there in the market, you can't just rely on that and expect it to do your job for you. And I feel like there's like a. Just a massive blindness. And this isn't just a transportation thing, right? Like, I see this in every industry. People are like, oh, I bought this service. Why didn't my business improve? I don't know.
(13:15):
Have you ever thought that it's you the operator? Because that's just the way that I approach thing, right? That is how Chris Jolly fundamentally is as a man. I have stopped blaming everybody else for my issues. And I look internally, right? If my business isn't growing, it's not the market's fault, it's not the world's fault, it's Chris Jolly's fault. Right. And I have to get better. But I feel like, you know, with where freight tech is right now, you have never had an easier time to find capacity, to find accurate rates, to find accurate carrier vetting. You have never been at an easier point in time, right?
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah, it should be. You know, this is. And I think we'll see continued development. I mean, with things like AI and you know, agentic AI kind of coming on the scene too, it's going to become easier and easier for the great operators to win, quite frankly, because they'll know. To your point, it's not just technology, it's also people in process and it's relationships and it's being able to bring in customers and be able to build trust. The technology is basically like fuel. It's like you got to build the ship and then you put the fuel in the ship and that's what the great operators are doing. And even on the trucking side, right? The on the capacity side, we see a similar thing, right? Like we're not trying to replace, we're not here building autonomous vehicles, right?
(14:37):
We're trying to make our customers as successful as they possibly can be. And we realize that we are a tool in the toolkit. And we encourage our customers, go get carriers, go get direct customers, go get direct shippers, go find contract freight. Because the more of that you have, then when you use us, you're. You're going to be really successful because you're already building a successful business, a stable business. And that's really good for us. And so to your point, like finding capacity should be as easy as it's ever been. Getting the right rate should be as easy as ever been. So what differentiates one freight business from another?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I mean, from my seat, the thing is, it will always boil. Like, you are literally a communication op. Like, I don't even know how to title it, Sean. But like as a freight broker, your sole job is to communicate. Is to communicate with your customer. Shippers, receivers, carriers, they have to know everything. That is your literal sole job. And I feel like where people get themselves caught up in is. Is they're in a recycling like, mindset where it's like, oh, I'll just get somebody else. I'll just get somebody else. As opposed to, hey, I have this customer that I worked really hard to onboard. Maybe I should take a loss on this load. Maybe I should actually just move it on the day that they need as opposed to telling them something on why this load's not moving today, right?
(15:59):
Like, take the loss, move on. Capacity tightens up, rates change, things change. You have to operate right? And you have to communicate that, right? If a driver's running behind, tell them, right? Like, I just, for me, I'm just like, you just need to be brutally honest with people about everything. That's what separates a great broker from everybody else. It truly is. And it is as simple as that. And I say that with 100 confidence because most people avoid conflict. Most people. Or perceived conflict, right? Like, oh, I don't want to do this or say this because somebody might get mad. I have just adopted thing. I will rip the band aid off, right? I would rather have you yell at me in the moment, which again, news flash, nobody actually does.
(16:39):
You guys, people really appreciate the truth, especially the older you get just throwing that out there. But again, I feel like that's really our job. Our job is to develop capacity for lanes that our carriers want to run and that our customers need us to run. And that's as complex as we really need to make it. And now there are tools out there at our disposal where we can automate that. We can automate 90% of our day. And you should be looking at that, right? Because again, no matter what, we don't know what's going to happen with tariffs across the board. We don't know what's going to happen with imports in the port of LA and Savannah, and we don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But you have to come up with a solution if you are going to operate in any business. Whether it's in freight or not. Your customers do not care ultimately about any headlines that are out there in the news. They want to make sure their freight is picked up on time and delivered on time. And that is complex as we need to make it.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I think that's so important. I. Communications is, communication is the table stakes. You know, I, I often say to my team and internally at Truck stop, you know, in an operator's market, you can't commit an own goal. And if you're, if you know hockey or soccer or any of those sports, an own goal is when you kick it into your own, you put it into your own goal and you score one for the other team. Right. And not communicating is an own goal. Right. You've got this customer. They're already your customer. Make, make sure that you're giving them the table stakes that you pass the table stakes that you have. Right. They're the most important customer. The prospect that you're going to go get, that's going to cost a lot of work and maybe money. You've got a customer right now.
(18:18):
Make sure, make sure you keep them. And you know, I think one thing that brokers are great at is the communication side. And I don't know how many. Chris, I don't know what your breakdown of like carriers versus brokers on your program, but from a listener's perspective. But when we brokers honestly exist in a lot of cases because carriers aren't great at communicating and brokers have to sort of over communicate to get the communication out of them and to run that kind of interstitial place. And most of the carriers that I know, they're very successful in this business that are doing well right now and have done well over the last two, three years even. They're fantastic communicators. They're the types of people just like you rip the band aid off, tell them now, tell them that it's not going to work.
(19:05):
Tell them, I can't do it for this reason or that reason. They're going to respect that. They're going to appreciate that and they'll know why you can do a load the next time you can do a load. Right. And they just treat it differently. Right? And they treat it like they're truly operating a business with customers, whether it's with the broker or with a shipper. It doesn't matter who the customer that's giving them the freight is. They're treating them and communicating with them in a particularly different way than most of their Peers do.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah. I think when it comes down to it, when you're out there booking freight and stuff, like as a broker it is your job to find those carriers, right? Just like it's your job like you're going to onboard shippers, Sean, at the end of the day that are just not a fit. And, but it is your job to develop the ones that fit into how you like to operate and how you like to communicate and then you adapt, right. Like I have some of my drivers for example, Sean, like they won't answer their phone but they will update me in every way I need, right? Email comes in, boom. Photos of the load, bill of lady, they do all of that.
(20:03):
It's just as a broker you need to be more of a chameleon for how your carriers are going to communicate and your customers are going to communicate, right. Like I got a customer who text me, pick this up, right? Like I don't have, I don't even have a PO most time, I don't even have a PO until like most of these loads are actually picked up in transit. But I've been working with them for three years and they've never missed a payment, right. Then I have other customers who are like clockwork, have a process on how they communicate. They reach out on specific days, they need specific updates. And again, it's my job as a broker to adapt and change to that environment. And you know, I like universal API.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
You know, you sit between and you have to be able to adapt and be, you know, flexible to whatever it is that the two sides of your business are wanting to communicate and share information and data on.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah. And so like how are you guys working with your guys as customers right now on what are the needs that like the driver community is looking for? How, what are they coming to you guys, Sean? And they're like, hey, listen, you know, I'm a small fleet. This is what I want to see in the next couple of years to help maybe automate some things inside of my business to help them stay more organized.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, so we, we hear a couple things from sort of the owner operator in small fleet perspective that the first that we hear most from them is they want to be able to use the kind of load board products as a little bit more of kind of a universal freight management solution. So think about it as they've got all these public loads in there, but they also would like to see all the private loads that they have access to. They want to see Chris's Freight before it gets to the public load boards. Right. And it's not reasonable, it's not feasible for them in a lot of cases to go find Chris's Freight and go to Chris's Freight portal or go to, you know, C.H. Robinson's or J.B. Hans or Schneider's.
(21:59):
They got to go to 10 different portals to go find freight or they've got to have a TMS that's integrated perfectly with all these different TMS is like, it's a, there's a lot of fragmentation. Right. So they've, they continue to ask us to be more consolidated for them so where they can have a single place where they can experience all of the freight. Right. Whether it's what you might call private freight or core carrier freight or ultimately public freight. I think the second thing they ask us a lot for is continued evolution of how they find the freight. So I think of this as how do we help them search and drive to the outcome that they want more efficiently? You know, load boards admittedly have been more like bulletin boards historically. Right.
(22:44):
And in a lot of ways, our customers have told us that's what they want. Right. We don't just bury our head in the sand and not deliver new development for our customers. But it's because our customers said every time we make a change or say, don't make a change, you know, like, stop doing that. Don't recommend me any freight. I want to go scroll through, you know, 1,000 loads to find my perfect piece of freight. Right. But what we're seeing now is, you know, our prospect, the age of our prospects is down by 20 years compared to our average age of our customers. Right. The average age of our customers in their 50s. The average age of our prospects in their 30s.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So our new customers that are coming on, they're looking for a different experience. I think that's really important, especially as you think about your business too. And how is your experience evolving to serve your carriers and to communicate with your carriers? And what they're telling us is I don't want to scroll through a thousand loads to find five that I could potentially haul. And then when I call on four of them, I either can't haul because I'm not qualified to haul it, or it's already been booked or for whatever reason I got off, I was on hold and it couldn't work. Right. And so we're building more and more feature functionality into basically helping the carrier pre qualify a load. Right.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
They don't have to call on loads that they can't win. That's a huge problem if you talk to a broker. I'm sure this is the case for you too, Chris. 80% of calls basically end up in nothing. 20% of calls end up in real serious conversations. And a portion of that 80% is basically just carriers getting pre qualed out. Right. Safety rating is not good enough. Authority tenure is not good. Not, not where it needs to be. There's any number of like basic pre qualifications that they just don't meet. And then the next is like negotiated rate. Like they just don't hit the negotiated rate so they get kind of pre qualed out or filtered out. And so cutting down that level of effort for the carrier. Imagine that, right?
(24:32):
Like now I can call on the freight that I'm going to win, not the freight that I would like to be able to win. Right. And so you got to be realistic about what's out there. We just delivered a feature called the authority filter feature. Pretty simple concept, Chris. If you like to work with carriers have six months of authority tenure or more, you would tell us that and we would post that on your load. And so a carrier can now go in and say who's working with carriers of six month or more authority and it will filter out anything that's basically noise for them under six months authority because they really want to win the freight. So they don't want to get bogged down with all the competitive freight. That's the three months or less.
(25:09):
If they're a three month carrier, they're going to look for three months and less carrier loads. And now they're calling on freight that they can actually win. Right. And that's really important and really valuable. It's been a huge, it's been a huge success for us. You know, a lot of times in software and in technology you deliver a feature and it's like, you know, if you deliver it and you know, it's like a tree falls and no one's around to hear it. Does the make a sound. Sometimes that happens with technology. Deliver a feature and you're like wow, we thought that would be really successful. And other times it surprises you up to the upside. And this one has definitely been a surprise to the upside.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I, I almost think like, and again, I'm not a driver so I'm, my opinion on this might be irrelevant, but I feel like, you know, because I'm out there, we, I like to make outbound calls, right? Like, one of my favorite features of you guys is when like carriers click on your post whether they call in or not, and you know, you can go in there and call them directly. Yeah, it's like I, I like to do that a lot because more times than not they're just browsing around and I've actually found it's a great way to develop capacity. Even if they're like, no, I actually, I run this lane. I'm just not there this day. I'm like, okay, perfect. Then that goes in. Because I like to pre screen all of my drivers from that regard.
(26:14):
Like, hey, why do you want this lane? You know, are you running this lane often? What's the real why behind it? Because if you're down there in that area a lot, like, I want to reach out to you and especially if you haul freight for me, I want to reach out to you. I almost wonder if from a driver's perspective if this might be a feature that you guys already have. But like, hey, you guys have called on this broker and this broker in the past. So if that broker's posting a load in particular, it like goes to the top of their search queue. So it's not just a bunch of unproven people. Right.
(26:43):
Like, I feel like that might be something cool out there where they can go in and be like, hey, you've hauled loads for Chris before and ABC broker before and this broker before. These guys are all posting in that area for you. Call them first.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
What you're going to, what you're going to see over the next two, three, four or five years is you're going to see more personalization of these experiences. Yeah. And things like that, what you just described are exactly what we're talking about. Right. It's like when Chris comes to the load board, Chris's experience should not be like Sean's because Sean and Chris have different businesses and we run things differently. And just because we have different searches that are saved or whatever, it's still, we work with different brokers. Maybe we work in the same lane, maybe we run the same equipment, but we like different days of the week or we like different brokers in those lanes or we have history of those brokers in the lanes.
(27:25):
And maybe Chris, maybe you should learn some of the brokers or meet some of the brokers that I meet that I know and carriers like you evolved for. Right. And so I think those are all types of things. I think that the next kind of 2.0 is really a lot more personalization of the experience. And it's not a many to many, it's kind of a one to many type of experience where you get, where you get more of that personalization. I think it goes for the broker too. Right. As we think about the future being how do we help our brokers get their freight seen? How do we help them get the right carriers for their freight and reduce the friction that comes with it? Reduce the friction with coming to, posting to a load board.
(27:58):
When we solve these, Chris, when we solve these problems for our broker customers, what's really interesting is that they tell us, hey, we'll post freight earlier to the load board. Like we post typically 48 hours out, but we'll post 72 hours out now or post 96 hours out four days out now. Because you're solving these point, these pain points that If I posted 96 hours out and I had to get all these phone calls that from carriers I wouldn't work with, then I just created a bunch of friction and cost for my business and we aren't able to go work on the other freight that we need to work on.
(28:28):
And so these types, those types of things are just helping that out and it's improving the experience of our carrier because anytime we can bring more loads into the network, we improve the experience for our carriers and we've improved their, their opportunity for success.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
No, I agree with that. Right. And I feel like ultimately Sean, that is how you sustain in any freight market. Because at the end of the day there's a lot of freight that moves, that never reaches a load board. Right. Because they've developed those relationships and stuff out there. And you know, the majority of the freight that I move doesn't go out to a load board unless all of our carriers that we've worked with in the past are unavailable. Then we go out and try and develop new capacity. Like literally out of the shipments we had yesterday, probably 70 were booked with pre existing relationships.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Right? You want to do that. You've got the most confidence in them, you've got the most security from them, you've got the, maybe even a better rate from them in some cases than you could get on the open market. I think that makes a ton of sense. And truck stop isn't trying to become 100 of your freight. Right? That's not, we understand where we sit in the market, but we believe we can help you more even on some of the stuff on that 70 you posted, what if one of your core carriers was available for that piece of freight and they were looking at Truck Stop and you could have reached them earlier because we gave you the tooling to reach them in particular on the platform that they wanted to work on.
(29:52):
Particularly for, you know, brokers that aren't, you know, three letter names or you know, top 100 guys that don't have portals that driver volume. Those are, those types of things can be really valuable for the smaller operators now.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I couldn't agree more. Sean, thank you so much for your time. This flew by and I knew it would, man. But like this, I can't believe we're already at the end of the show, but thank you for joining me. How does anybody reach out to you though to find out more about what you have going on?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
My pleasure. Yeah, obviously, you know, we're, we're continually updating our products and features@truck stop.com so you can reach us out, reach out at us@truckstop.com. Truck Stop is very active on all the social media platforms. And when I say very active, I'm sure Chris, you know what I'm talking about. We've got some social media activity for sure. And then me personally, if anyone listening to the show would love for you to connect with me on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, and fortunately LinkedIn has become one of those platforms. It's been pretty important for the freight industry and there's some bright spots in it and there's some negative spots into, in it. But I lean into the bright side. So feel free to connect with me. I would love to, would love to meet anybody in the freight industry that's listening to Freight Coach.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Absolutely, man. I appreciate it, Sean. Thank you so much. That is going to be it for today, you guys. We got guests coming on every day this week and as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show, you guys. And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify. Because if you saw value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Came back with a bank Pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey got the foot on the gas Pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger boss Hey.
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