August 5, 2025 • 33 mins
Whether you’re building relationships or just booking freight, this episode with the amazing couple from Cowtown Express Logistics, Colby and Raegan Baskin, is full of insights on how to build long-term success in the industry!
Colby and Raegan unpack how they’ve evolved from a family-run straight truck operation to a high-integrity, full truckload freight brokerage focused on open deck freight, why they made the tough but necessary call to exit their 60-truck asset side to protect safety and values, how they scaled their brokerage with a people-first culture, and why their business strategy is all about doing the right thing, even when it’s not the easy thing!
About Colby and Raegan Baskin
Colby and Raegan bring a unique blend of operational expertise and strategic leadership to Cowtown Express Logistics.
Colby, CEO, earned his degree in Supply Chain Management from TCU in 2010. He began his career as a truck driver, gaining valuable hands-on experience before stepping into leadership. He went on to own and operate a fleet of 60 trucks, managing everything from business development to truck maintenance and driver hiring. Today, he leads Cowtown Logistics with a practical, grounded approach. Outside of work, he enjoys working out, cooking for his family, self-development, and learning how to grow a LinkedIn audience to create both personal and professional growth opportunities.
Raegan, COO, graduated from TCU in 2009 with a degree in Biology. She previously served as VP of Training at PhysAssist Scribes, where she led a team that trained over 4,000 medical scribes annually. Now, she focuses on operational growth, team development, and customer success at Cowtown Logistics. Outside the office, she enjoys yoga and spending time with their two children—Vivian (11) and Will (8).
Together, they combine real-world experience with executive vision to drive Cowtown’s continued growth and culture.
Connect with Colby and Raegan
- Website: https://www.cowtownexpress.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colby-baskin-207089118/ / https://www.linkedin.com/in/raeganbaskin/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
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 blame moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them make a bigger.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Balls hey what is up, ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is the free 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.
(00:44):
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.
Professionals, 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, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
Happy Tuesday, everybody.
(01:05):
I got a couple of very special guests on the show today.
You know, talking about the realities of building a business up and, you know, the highs and the lows of it all and, you know, the family nature of this.
And I, I give these two a ton of respect because I do not know if I could work with my wife at the level that they do because she would own me.
At the end of the day, that.
That's the truth.
My wife would own me and the business.
(01:26):
But with that being said, I have Colby and Reagan Baskin on the show today.
You guys, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Absolutely.
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Now, I'm looking forward to it, you know, and hearing about your guys's story out there and, you know, in.
In Cowtown logistics and kind of the evolution of your company.
So kind of, how did this all come to be?
What was the beginning days of Cowtown like?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, I like to start with.
My dad started this in 84 and he started with a map school and a pager.
So if you imagine running a straight truck through Dallas Fort Worth area and getting a call from your customer through a pager, than having to stop at a pay phone to make the call and see what you're picking up.
And that's what it was like back in the day.
And so he did this till about 2010.
(02:10):
I graduated TCU.
He had it built up to around 12 units between cargo vans, box trucks and semis, and just ran the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex area.
And so he had an old rusty flatbed out in the back.
And I was like, man, what is that thing?
That thing looks gnarly.
Let's go run it.
(02:31):
And I was just really intrigued by it.
You know, what all you could do on an open deck, the wide loads you see, the heavy haul stuff, you see, and that's what piqued my interest.
And so we started buying some new ones after we got a hold of some DOT guys and.
And I got a few tickets.
You know, going to Oklahoma for us.
I think I learned every good lesson there.
(02:51):
They pull you in and.
And make sure you have all your rules and regulations done.
So I got a lot of learning done from Oklahoma as well.
And so, yeah, from like 2010 to 2014, we're kind of building out that asset side and had a good, steady couple customers and just let us build with them, which was wonderful.
We got to a point where we had way more freight than we did trucks and wanted to service our customers.
(03:16):
So when Reagan was off on maternity leave with our first daughter, she was able to help create the business plan for Cowtown Logistics, the freight brokerage side that you see today.
And so we did this for 10 years after it was created.
We built both companies up to about 15 million a piece.
And the last couple years, it got really tough on the asset side, so we ended up selling all of our assets.
(03:38):
We had a decent exit.
Everyone was happy.
At the end of the day, it was very cordial, exiting, and it was tough.
I thought it was the end of the world at the time, and really it wasn't.
It was the start of something new.
And.
And I purchased this freight brokerage from my dad a couple of years ago, so.
So we have something to show for it.
We brought our customers over on this side and we really helped manage their freight.
(04:02):
You know, offer the best service we can, stay up for them, be available for them.
And we have some amazing employees here now.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So what was that like, you know, coming to that decision because, you know, like, were kind of talking about a little bit prior to going live, is there's a whole side of entrepreneurship and trucking that never really makes it out to social media.
Right.
Like, and I had a.
An opportunity, like, I'm very good friends with Garrett Bowers Trucking out of Oklahoma, ironically, and, you know, Flatbed family company and stuff.
(04:34):
And he talked about that on the show as well, of, like, Changing the business trajectory of his company and going out there and doing that.
And so what, I mean, what was that like?
You know, because I feel like all of this stuff gets so glorified out there, and you seemingly had a, a very positive experience with it where you said, like, hey, everybody was happy at the end.
(04:55):
You know, so it's like when you're coming to that and you're trying to balance out the numbers, right?
Because like that at the end of the day, dollar in, dollar out for bootstrapped, you know, family run companies, you know, there's not an influx of VC cash.
Words like, hey, we got a couple hundred million that we can just dip into to make things work here.
So what was kind of the nature behind that decision?
And then how did you guys really take that and leverage that into your brokerage?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, you know, one of the biggest decisions for me was that it started peeling into our maintenance and safety.
And at that point it was like, I, I am not going to take that kind of risk on, you know, a driver's life, somebody else out on the road just not being able to afford some parts, and you start cutting corners where you don't need to.
(05:40):
And so when I was talking to my dad and Reagan about it was like, okay, look, we're not going the unsafe route.
We're not going to cut corners.
We're going to, you know, do this with high integrity.
And, and ultimately we just made the decision, hey, it's easier to shut the doors if we're, if we can't do this in a profitable, safe way with the customers and the amount of money they're willing to pay right now, which was okay.
(06:02):
And I think Reagan can add anything to that.
She was in the driver's seat and passenger seat for a lot of this.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Yeah, you mentioned that it's not sexy to.
Is very humbling to shut down a trucking company.
And you said everybody was happy.
I would say that the person that's least happy or the people were our truck drivers.
They were sad to see us go.
We still get phone calls on a weekly basis.
Hey, if you guys decide to open up another trucking company, please call us back.
(06:31):
Which is really great to hear.
It was tough to make sure that all of our trucks made it home safely, to keep it somewhat under wraps, so that we didn't see any random trailers on the side of the road, as you saw when some of the other big trucking companies went out of business.
So really making sure that we made Every single payroll, something we're really proud of, that every truck driver got paid what they were promised, that all of our vendors were paid as well, that the banks were happy.
(07:02):
So it was a very humbling experience.
But it's one of those things that once you do it's less scary.
I hope to never have to do it again.
But when we meet with business owners who are going through a tough time and stilling some confidence that they can figure this out, that being open and honest with anybody that they're working with is kind of the best model and certainly something that we go guide us every day.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah.
I want to add real quick.
You know, it take.
It took us like 15 years to wind that thing up to 60 and it took three months to wind it down.
So, yeah, it's all doable.
Takes a long time to go up that mountain.
But yeah, I was very surprised how quickly you could unravel that thing.
It was, it was different.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And I think, like, it, you know, a lot of it is that like you're paying for the education at that point, right?
Where it's like you're paying, you know, learning what not to do.
Like, I'm.
Maybe it's just because I'm on the doorstep of 40 at this point.
I think it's almost more valuable to know what not to do than what to do at the end of the day.
Like, you could argue both of them and I see that is, you know, because you're learning every single day in this business or any business there.
(08:03):
You know, you're going to be faced with scenarios that you've experienced before and it didn't act like you were never taught the lesson until the next time you experience it and stuff like that.
And then it's like, I think that's what's needed though, to kind of course correct in those moments because, you know, it also helps you kind of bring that neutral mindset to it because, you know, everybody has highs and lows in business and then you come to realize, like, hey, the highs aren't as high and the lows aren't as low as you think.
(08:30):
And you know, again, I feel like, you know, because like, at least in my business, our number one core value is do the right thing.
Like, and it's a subjective statement, but.
And I'm saying that from me and my co founder standpoint, like, we will come to that conclusion of like, hey, this is what we're going to do here, you know, yes, it's not financially beneficial for us, but it's beneficial for the business long term.
And when you guys made that decision, I mean, you guys clearly had a new vision for the business.
(08:55):
Right.
Like, hey, this is what we're going to do.
And you know, Reagan, from your standpoint, how are you kind of like organizing and balancing all of that out to really be like, hey, this is who we are now and kind of like staking the your name in the ground of like, hey, we're a broker, we're a logistics company now.
We don't have trucks anymore.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, that's a good question, Chris.
So we spent most of our time hiring drivers, firing drivers, disciplining drivers, fixing trucks.
And so how we spend our time now is really getting in front of our customers.
We have daily meetings with our team and defining who we are.
And so for us, it is a honest, high integrity freight broker who is focused on keeping high customer service.
(09:40):
We have very high expectations of our team.
But my goal was to create a business and employ people in a business that I would want to work for.
So I remember one of the times that we had dinner and I asked myself that question.
It was, what is the type of leader that I would want to work for?
What does that look like for our business?
(10:01):
And for me it was the work hard, play hard, treat everybody well.
We don't tolerate much like foul language on the floor.
We talk respectfully to each other at all times.
Like just that good human nature speaking from our hearts and from our heads at all times is the expectation.
And then yet our customers really resonate with that.
(10:23):
Right.
They don't want just somebody who is going to tell them, you know, false stories about breakdowns or that are going to make a whole bunch of money off of their freight.
Right.
So they, we just have real conversations with our customers.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, I think that's one of those things that it's a lot easier said than done.
And it's something that we're, you know, we're trying to kind of mirror that as well because, you know, like, at the end of the day, I think like one of the biggest hurdles that most freight brokers have to overcome is the perception of freight brokers out there in the market.
(10:58):
Right.
And you know, the same thing can be made about real estate agents.
It could be made about a myriad of different professions.
Right.
So there's nothing actually unique about freight brokers.
Right.
And there's a lot of people in the industry who are like, oh, we're div.
No you're not like, there's parallels between a bunch of industries out there.
So it's like you taking that approach, and that's one thing that's very important to me is like, I want to try my absolute best every single day to make sure that people just have a positive interaction with my company, whether they remember it or not.
(11:26):
I will remember it.
And then I'm sure you guys probably feel the same way as the, you know, the founders and leaders of your organization.
Brand perception out there in the market is extremely valuable.
And, you know, at the end of the day, that's where it's like, we want that messaging to come across like, hey, you know, if it's a no, you don't want to work with us, cool.
I'm not going to argue with you.
You know, I'm not going to call.
I'm not going to cause the scene.
(11:47):
It's like, hey, we appreciate the information.
Thank you.
I try and be as cordial as possible in the moment because nobody wins.
Right.
Like, I've been in.
I've been doing this for.
For too long, where it's like, I can go back of every hostile situation I found myself in that didn't necessarily work out in my favor.
And I can blame myself for that, because when you're losing your cool and the blame game goes and the excuse game goes, it's very challenging to build loyalty with customers.
(12:11):
And, and that's one thing.
And I'd love to get your guys's take on this here.
I just believe in brutal transparency.
And, like, this is the situation.
This is where we messed up.
Because I don't ever say the driver or anything else.
It's me.
My customer hired Chris Jolly.
I hired the driver.
So if anything happens, it's a direct representation of me.
I. I just take complete ownership in that moment.
(12:32):
And I found about 99.9% of the issues seemingly are easily worked out when somebody just holds themselves accountable in the moment and stops the blame game.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah.
You know, you have to let your customer know.
That's why you hired you.
Right.
Like you hired me, so that I can work on that carrier's behalf with you.
And that's very important to us.
You know, we're the ones that did the vetting for the carrier.
Hopefully, we built a good relationship with them.
There's going to be loads.
You have to hit the spot market, and you can't get one of these trucking companies back to pick up the load.
(13:02):
I mean, that was one of the big things with owning our own assets is the customers say, hey, I want to see your asset.
I'm like, that's great.
But we moved this load out a day and I had to get under another load to keep my driver moving.
And so that asset's not here anymore.
But our next best solution would be getting a carrier in here that we've used five times, they've shown up on time, and then bringing them through that way, you know, we haven't really had an issue.
(13:27):
I lost a couple customers when we lost our assets because they needed to drop trailers and we couldn't get the rentals done in time to make the switch.
But ultimately there is a space for freight brokers.
You know, there's big capacity fluctuations in a lot of people's freight, whether it's seasonal or daily or weekly.
But there's.
There's times when you need assets, and that's great.
(13:50):
But there's also other times where you need a freight broker.
You know, you can really handle this.
Oh, man.
Here, 10 loads came across today that I need help with.
So I think there's a place for all of us.
I do, I do think that it is a hurdle whenever they say don't work with freight brokers, but I think it's because they're getting so many calls from so many of them.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
If I go directly and talk with some of the business owners or C suite executives, they're telling us that, you know, we know that they're using brokers.
It's just.
You're exactly right.
There's.
There's not much that sets us apart.
You just have to be way above average and care a lot.
And when they feel that, I think that's where that loyalty begins.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I think we're at a.
And we've been at this point for a while now is this.
You know, there is no need for a change in providers.
Right.
Because there is excess capacity in the market.
People are seemingly servicing their customers, and that's a very challenging hurdle out there.
So it is.
You got to think outside of the box and, like, how can you stand out?
Right.
Because if you're just going to rely on the traditional methods, and most people now are email and DM only, and they're blowing up these guys on LinkedIn and their inboxes and everything else.
(14:56):
Like, a buddy of mine just put out a lengthy post this morning about this, and he's.
He's on the shipper side of things.
And, you know, and I'm.
I've been Very fortunate to build a shipper audience behind the scenes on this show.
They don't want to come on here because of the amount of outreach that they get, but they'll talk about this in DMS and emails and stuff about how, like, you know, a lot of it is.
(15:17):
It's not that they don't want to talk to people, it's just there's so much of it that they can't do their job.
They could literally spend an entire day fielding inbound calls.
So again, as opposed to putting your hands up in the air and saying, nobody's onboarding people, I think, you know, you have to look at it is what do we have to do differently and how are you guys approaching that right now, you know, as the leaders of your organization?
(15:37):
How are you guys approaching that from a new business development perspective?
Is it, are you going out there or are you trying to vertically sell inside of your customers of like, hey, are we not getting all the opportunities that we should or could be?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Reagan's really working on the wallet share piece.
Like, how can we actually go over there, look at their operation and service the customer better?
You know, can we get driver sheets in sooner that has maps on it where it's easier to send them around, where they're not spending a lot of time with their driver on how to strap a load down or something?
Yeah, you're just adding some additional things that takes items or tasks off of their plate.
(16:15):
Has seemed to help and grow wallet share.
Being honest and updating these guys, like just relentlessly on where their loads are seems to help.
And, and the simple stop by and I'm sorry, like, go give them lunch.
Like, go get lunch with the guys if you can fly to them or you can go to them and they're in your neck of the woods.
You know, that seems to go a long way.
(16:36):
I mean, people want to see that you care about them and I think attention is our most valuable resource.
So if, you know, way over money, if you can give those people your attention, they're going to value that and they're going to remember you over somebody else.
Just, you know, the guy asking for loads.
Hey, do you have anything?
I'm free today.
Like, I think you really have to set yourself apart that way.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
How do you recommend, you know, like, you guys are out there, you know, bootstrap and growing and all of that, and you're talking about going out and visiting people.
How do you decipher where to allocate resources in that situation.
Right.
Because if it's coming down to it, like I'm all about that.
Right?
Like I am, like I will put $1,000 on my credit card to risk going flying somewhere, getting a hotel, rental car, getting a couple of base appointments and in doing that I'm all about that.
(17:26):
As opposed to $1,000 on some automation email tool to reach 50,000 people in a day or something like that.
So how are you guys really deciding that?
Is it, you know, or what would you guys recommend?
I mean you guys are fortunate in the sense that you're in dfw.
There is not a shortage of people you got.
You could, you could probably spend a year every day prospecting DFW alone.
(17:48):
But like how do you guys recommend people out there?
Because there's people who listen to the show of all size of business and industry where if they had 1500 bucks or $2000, what would you recommend somebody do to try and develop new business with that?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
You know, I would look at the business and see, you know, what's my potential with them and then like what's my ROI on that trip?
Like if I can go spend a thousand dollars but they have a 5, 10,000 $hp month potential, well, I want to go see if I can gain some of that wallet share through building a relationship.
Opposed to automating emails that go out to that guy every morning saying, you know, looking like the same person that everyone else is out there asking for freight.
(18:32):
I like the LinkedIn strategy.
I think people use it a little bit, you know, they don't use it correctly and the fact that they're out there dming just asking for freight where they need to figure out where they can add value and content first.
Like you're, if you're getting, you know, business owners on shows and asking what's working and what's not.
I mean that's got to be a big value add to a lot of people.
(18:54):
Yeah, I think your LinkedIn content and your posts need to have some kind of value there and you create this engine for people to come to you.
So I think it is a balance of going out there to the right wallet shares to the customers that want to talk to you and have some time and we'll put some time aside because that also is a good indicator to me that they're willing to gain some loyalty with you and spend some time with you.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, I think that's what it shows a little, you know, Again, it's like, how are you standing out in a crowd, you know, and what are you willing to do compared to other people?
And you know, so how are you guys working with your team on the.
Removing the personal emotion to it, right?
Because like, I don't know of anybody else out there in the transportation industry creating content that talks about that in the sense of where I, you know, I try my best to be like, you know, I'm a normal guy as well, right?
(19:45):
Like, I, this stuff affects me too.
Rejection affects me too.
Not achieving goals affects me too.
How are you guys working with your team to really balance out that emotional side of the business?
Because no matter what you do and say, when you're not closing people, you're not even getting through step one.
Because I think that's like a very overlooked thing in business development is understanding where you're actually at with your prospects.
(20:12):
Like, if you've never talked to them before, probably shouldn't begging for business on the very first phone call.
So, you know, with that being said, how are you guys working with your team on that to be like, hey guys, this is normal, you.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Know, aligning the sales funnel.
Like you have your tofu, mofu and bofu, so you have your top of funnel business, your middle of funnel business, and your bottom of funnel business.
And as long as they know where each of these guys are in the bucket, like it's just levering, how do I drive down that funnel?
And so if you have a decent CRM and you're using it at 80% at least, and you can have weekly accountability or action meetings with these guys, it is just showing up every single week to have those conversations with them.
(20:56):
Like we do a monthly sales meeting and we do a weekly accountability one ones with them.
And so we know where these guys are in the funnel, we know what challenges that each of those pieces of the funnel kind of give us.
But until we had some kind of organization skills there of like where people were at, like, we don't know what kind of content to give them.
Like you really have to drive top of the funnel with some pretty generic items in order just to get the attention and the eyes on you, right?
(21:22):
And then middle of the funnel is like kind of more your story and the bottom of the funnel is like, how I can help you.
So when we got that kind of aligned with the sales team and stuff, we knew where the people were at and then we could Start pulling levers.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Reagan, how are you kind of organizing all of this?
Right, because it's, you know, with, you know, you and Colby having those defined roles inside of that organization.
And you know, I want to ask a question after this, but like, how are you kind of rolling a lot of this out internally?
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So I naturally have a pretty positive bent, so I consider myself the cheerleader of the team, but in a much more unique way.
So we have our gong rings, which is similar to places like Steam, but we celebrate the wins, which is really important.
Right.
So you had a conversation that you were excited about.
(22:16):
Share with your team.
Let us ring the gong anytime we move a first load with the customer.
So just the excitement of the team is really powerful knowing that everybody is working together.
We have weekly goals, so we used to have monthly goals and they were a little bit more individualized.
Right now we have team goals and it's every single week.
So the clock starts again each week.
It's not this big like I'm trying to hit this goal in the next four weeks.
(22:39):
It is, what can I do on Monday morning and on Tuesday morning to hit this team goal so that everybody benefits, whether it be a monetarily, a group launch, that type of thing.
So I am working closely with our sales team to identify this customer is actually going to better on a different team because this skill set of this individual team lead is expedited or open deck.
(23:02):
This particular team really enjoys finding dedicated freight or drop trailer solutions.
So working closely with the sales team, what does this customer need?
How can we pivot on the ops team?
What can we do better to make sure that our customers are really getting what they need?
And then rallying the troops is just to me the most important part.
(23:24):
Having a place where people want to come to work who know that they're supported is just as important as finding those customers.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, it's.
You know, I like what you said about like kind of focusing on the day there.
I think that's an area that I struggled with for probably the first four years that I was self employed is I was so over consumed about where I wasn't, that I was completely overlooking where I was and what I needed to do.
(23:54):
Right.
Because it's like, you know, you go out there and you see like, oh, big goals, audacious goals, yada, yada.
But like, you can focus on that all you want.
But if that's a 30 year goal, why are you comparing your today's results to that you should be actually be looking at your daily plan.
And that's why it's like for me, I'm more about consistency than I am volume.
Right.
Like I would rather see somebody make 40, 50 cold calls a day every single day for an extended period of time as opposed to make a hundred calls once every other or every three days.
(24:25):
Because I feel like it's that routine, it's that discipline of that system that you need to operate in where it's like, hey, let's move this needle forward day in and day out.
And you do need to focus on the day because you can sit here and look out all the time about where you're not and then you're losing sight about what you need to actually do.
And that's why I am a major proponent of focus on your day.
(24:45):
What are some, just a couple of tasks, three, four, maybe five tasks in a day that you do every day that moves the needle forward and over time, in due time, you will start to see those results.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, we've had mentors and coaches and we have them to this day.
We meet with regularly and we're doing these like three to five year plans, right.
And then every time that weren't getting step closer or the industry would change or something, like it'd be a step away.
And so like they finally recommended like hey, let's take this thing a quarter at a time and we'll just build on itself.
(25:21):
And it really worked.
I mean it is zooming in more.
Forget the three to five year, like kind of know the general direction but like that's not what you want to focus on every day.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, I, I agree.
And having that core established vision for your business.
Right.
Like you know, for us for example.
And I talk about this often but like we are full truckload at the end of the day.
That is what we do, preferably inside of open deck.
But at this point we've gone in, we have some dry van customers that come along with it, but we have that core.
(25:51):
If I call somebody and they're like hey man, we're 80 LTL, I'm like yeah, it's not going to be a fit for me.
And we're, I'm like, my strategy is more like, I don't want to say like over volume shippers, like only RFP style.
But again, I want to find somebody who's got like 30 to 40 monthly full truckloads to be going after because I, I don't want to be chasing the once a month.
(26:12):
And it's not that there's anything wrong with those shippers, but I need volume, I need revenue.
I need to be able to scale and hire.
And there's no growth trajectory with that.
Right.
It's not like there's a, hey, we can get in the door.
You might start out moving once a week, but there's a growth potential that comes along with it.
And I don't want to prospect potential business where my ceiling is already established the very first day.
(26:34):
So it's like, that's kind of the approach and the strategy that we've taken here, and it's really just helped clear it all up.
And that's another thing to go into, like, the rejection of sales.
When you know what you're going after.
It doesn't hurt as much if somebody's like, no, we're not setting you up.
All right, cool.
Onto the next one.
There's 10,000 other people that I can be calling.
I know the value that I can bring.
I know the vision and the mission that I'm on.
(26:55):
So it's like.
It's like that.
Onto the next one for me.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah, that's.
That's such a good point.
I sit down with a big marketing guy.
He's part of ypo here in Fort Worth.
And these guys are great because they're willing to just take an hour with you and show you how their marketing work.
But we sat down and looked at our top 15 customers and really built out what an ideal customer profile looks like.
(27:19):
And so, like, what made those work?
What are we really good at?
And then go find more of those and just rinse and repeat.
Once we kind of nailed that piece down, too, we started getting more traction.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And I'm right there with you.
I think that's a.
That's a very key piece.
Right.
And I'm actually re listening to a book called 10x is easier than 2x, and that's by Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
And they're actually talking just about that, right?
Where it's like, hey, when you're.
If you're looking, it's, you know, that you can also break it down to the, you know, Pareto 8020 principle, that.
That's out there as well.
(27:51):
And it's like, all right, how long would it take you if you know, you're 20% of your customers that provide 80% of your revenue, how long would it take you to find more customers that are like, that 20% and then focus your efforts on that?
Because you.
You could be calling all of these other potential prospects and there's no way that they're going to be that over a three to five year timeline.
(28:14):
Right.
So it's really helping that out and clarifying that.
And I think that if you're able to do that and it'll just help put you on the right trajectory in business.
And again, I feel like it's another way for you to stand out when you're talking to your prospects like, hey, you guys do that?
We don't do that.
I've actually found that has been more beneficial in the sales process by telling somebody what I won't do than it is about what my core service offering is.
(28:37):
It's a wild concept.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah, yeah.
Usually that gut shots like, oh, do you handle LTL Well, I don't.
You know, we're full truckload as well.
It's probably not a good fit.
But what happened in my prospecting, like the process that I'm calling a bunch of LTL guys.
So, you know, it's just refining that whole system too.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah.
And that's the thing is it's building out that systems and this, I mean, I wanted to get to that with you guys, but the show already flew by here.
It's one of those.
I'm gonna have to get you guys back on.
I'd love to have you back on to kind of talk about this because I also wanted to talk about the dynamic of working with your spouse and how do you guys keep those clearly defined roles and keep that separation of work and home and everything else.
(29:22):
Because I know some very successful people who work with their spouse day in and day out and I think there's that trust that kind of comes along with, with doing a lot of that.
But Colby, Reagan, thank you guys so much for taking the time to join me today.
If you guys are hiring or if you guys want to put any of that information out there, put that out there right now so anybody can reach out to you guys.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yes, absolutely.
So we have an agent model as well.
If you guys are looking for a good home with real support from an executive level team looking to grow your book of business, we would love to talk to you.
And what else?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Any, any W2, any freight broker really, that is on their way up or on their way or stopped and struggling.
I've hopped on quite a few calls the last couple weeks just through LinkedIn and just trying to get through that next blockage with people.
So I'm happy to talk to others as well in the industry, what's working for them, what's not.
And yeah, and the freight agent piece is.
(30:20):
Is always nice to talk to people there, too.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Chris, it's been a blast.
Chris, thank you so much for thinking of us.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
No, I appreciate it.
Thank you guys for taking the time to come out and join me today and talk about your guys's journey in the industry.
And, you know, if that's.
That's going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen, as always, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
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 it as well.
I appreciate you guys.
(30:45):
I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting 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 hate them make a bigger balls 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 blame moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them make a bigger.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Balls hey what is up, ladies and gentlemen?
We are back.
We are live.
It is the free 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.
(00:44):
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.
Professionals, 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, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life.
Happy Tuesday, everybody.
(01:05):
I got a couple of very special guests on the show today.
You know, talking about the realities of building a business up and, you know, the highs and the lows of it all and, you know, the family nature of this.
And I, I give these two a ton of respect because I do not know if I could work with my wife at the level that they do because she would own me.
At the end of the day, that.
That's the truth.
My wife would own me and the business.
(01:26):
But with that being said, I have Colby and Reagan Baskin on the show today.
You guys, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Absolutely.
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Now, I'm looking forward to it, you know, and hearing about your guys's story out there and, you know, in.
In Cowtown logistics and kind of the evolution of your company.
So kind of, how did this all come to be?
What was the beginning days of Cowtown like?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, I like to start with.
My dad started this in 84 and he started with a map school and a pager.
So if you imagine running a straight truck through Dallas Fort Worth area and getting a call from your customer through a pager, than having to stop at a pay phone to make the call and see what you're picking up.
And that's what it was like back in the day.
And so he did this till about 2010.
(02:10):
I graduated TCU.
He had it built up to around 12 units between cargo vans, box trucks and semis, and just ran the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex area.
And so he had an old rusty flatbed out in the back.
And I was like, man, what is that thing?
That thing looks gnarly.
Let's go run it.
(02:31):
And I was just really intrigued by it.
You know, what all you could do on an open deck, the wide loads you see, the heavy haul stuff, you see, and that's what piqued my interest.
And so we started buying some new ones after we got a hold of some DOT guys and.
And I got a few tickets.
You know, going to Oklahoma for us.
I think I learned every good lesson there.
(02:51):
They pull you in and.
And make sure you have all your rules and regulations done.
So I got a lot of learning done from Oklahoma as well.
And so, yeah, from like 2010 to 2014, we're kind of building out that asset side and had a good, steady couple customers and just let us build with them, which was wonderful.
We got to a point where we had way more freight than we did trucks and wanted to service our customers.
(03:16):
So when Reagan was off on maternity leave with our first daughter, she was able to help create the business plan for Cowtown Logistics, the freight brokerage side that you see today.
And so we did this for 10 years after it was created.
We built both companies up to about 15 million a piece.
And the last couple years, it got really tough on the asset side, so we ended up selling all of our assets.
(03:38):
We had a decent exit.
Everyone was happy.
At the end of the day, it was very cordial, exiting, and it was tough.
I thought it was the end of the world at the time, and really it wasn't.
It was the start of something new.
And.
And I purchased this freight brokerage from my dad a couple of years ago, so.
So we have something to show for it.
We brought our customers over on this side and we really helped manage their freight.
(04:02):
You know, offer the best service we can, stay up for them, be available for them.
And we have some amazing employees here now.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So what was that like, you know, coming to that decision because, you know, like, were kind of talking about a little bit prior to going live, is there's a whole side of entrepreneurship and trucking that never really makes it out to social media.
Right.
Like, and I had a.
An opportunity, like, I'm very good friends with Garrett Bowers Trucking out of Oklahoma, ironically, and, you know, Flatbed family company and stuff.
(04:34):
And he talked about that on the show as well, of, like, Changing the business trajectory of his company and going out there and doing that.
And so what, I mean, what was that like?
You know, because I feel like all of this stuff gets so glorified out there, and you seemingly had a, a very positive experience with it where you said, like, hey, everybody was happy at the end.
(04:55):
You know, so it's like when you're coming to that and you're trying to balance out the numbers, right?
Because like that at the end of the day, dollar in, dollar out for bootstrapped, you know, family run companies, you know, there's not an influx of VC cash.
Words like, hey, we got a couple hundred million that we can just dip into to make things work here.
So what was kind of the nature behind that decision?
And then how did you guys really take that and leverage that into your brokerage?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, you know, one of the biggest decisions for me was that it started peeling into our maintenance and safety.
And at that point it was like, I, I am not going to take that kind of risk on, you know, a driver's life, somebody else out on the road just not being able to afford some parts, and you start cutting corners where you don't need to.
(05:40):
And so when I was talking to my dad and Reagan about it was like, okay, look, we're not going the unsafe route.
We're not going to cut corners.
We're going to, you know, do this with high integrity.
And, and ultimately we just made the decision, hey, it's easier to shut the doors if we're, if we can't do this in a profitable, safe way with the customers and the amount of money they're willing to pay right now, which was okay.
(06:02):
And I think Reagan can add anything to that.
She was in the driver's seat and passenger seat for a lot of this.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Yeah, you mentioned that it's not sexy to.
Is very humbling to shut down a trucking company.
And you said everybody was happy.
I would say that the person that's least happy or the people were our truck drivers.
They were sad to see us go.
We still get phone calls on a weekly basis.
Hey, if you guys decide to open up another trucking company, please call us back.
(06:31):
Which is really great to hear.
It was tough to make sure that all of our trucks made it home safely, to keep it somewhat under wraps, so that we didn't see any random trailers on the side of the road, as you saw when some of the other big trucking companies went out of business.
So really making sure that we made Every single payroll, something we're really proud of, that every truck driver got paid what they were promised, that all of our vendors were paid as well, that the banks were happy.
(07:02):
So it was a very humbling experience.
But it's one of those things that once you do it's less scary.
I hope to never have to do it again.
But when we meet with business owners who are going through a tough time and stilling some confidence that they can figure this out, that being open and honest with anybody that they're working with is kind of the best model and certainly something that we go guide us every day.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah.
I want to add real quick.
You know, it take.
It took us like 15 years to wind that thing up to 60 and it took three months to wind it down.
So, yeah, it's all doable.
Takes a long time to go up that mountain.
But yeah, I was very surprised how quickly you could unravel that thing.
It was, it was different.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And I think, like, it, you know, a lot of it is that like you're paying for the education at that point, right?
Where it's like you're paying, you know, learning what not to do.
Like, I'm.
Maybe it's just because I'm on the doorstep of 40 at this point.
I think it's almost more valuable to know what not to do than what to do at the end of the day.
Like, you could argue both of them and I see that is, you know, because you're learning every single day in this business or any business there.
(08:03):
You know, you're going to be faced with scenarios that you've experienced before and it didn't act like you were never taught the lesson until the next time you experience it and stuff like that.
And then it's like, I think that's what's needed though, to kind of course correct in those moments because, you know, it also helps you kind of bring that neutral mindset to it because, you know, everybody has highs and lows in business and then you come to realize, like, hey, the highs aren't as high and the lows aren't as low as you think.
(08:30):
And you know, again, I feel like, you know, because like, at least in my business, our number one core value is do the right thing.
Like, and it's a subjective statement, but.
And I'm saying that from me and my co founder standpoint, like, we will come to that conclusion of like, hey, this is what we're going to do here, you know, yes, it's not financially beneficial for us, but it's beneficial for the business long term.
And when you guys made that decision, I mean, you guys clearly had a new vision for the business.
(08:55):
Right.
Like, hey, this is what we're going to do.
And you know, Reagan, from your standpoint, how are you kind of like organizing and balancing all of that out to really be like, hey, this is who we are now and kind of like staking the your name in the ground of like, hey, we're a broker, we're a logistics company now.
We don't have trucks anymore.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, that's a good question, Chris.
So we spent most of our time hiring drivers, firing drivers, disciplining drivers, fixing trucks.
And so how we spend our time now is really getting in front of our customers.
We have daily meetings with our team and defining who we are.
And so for us, it is a honest, high integrity freight broker who is focused on keeping high customer service.
(09:40):
We have very high expectations of our team.
But my goal was to create a business and employ people in a business that I would want to work for.
So I remember one of the times that we had dinner and I asked myself that question.
It was, what is the type of leader that I would want to work for?
What does that look like for our business?
(10:01):
And for me it was the work hard, play hard, treat everybody well.
We don't tolerate much like foul language on the floor.
We talk respectfully to each other at all times.
Like just that good human nature speaking from our hearts and from our heads at all times is the expectation.
And then yet our customers really resonate with that.
(10:23):
Right.
They don't want just somebody who is going to tell them, you know, false stories about breakdowns or that are going to make a whole bunch of money off of their freight.
Right.
So they, we just have real conversations with our customers.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, I think that's one of those things that it's a lot easier said than done.
And it's something that we're, you know, we're trying to kind of mirror that as well because, you know, like, at the end of the day, I think like one of the biggest hurdles that most freight brokers have to overcome is the perception of freight brokers out there in the market.
(10:58):
Right.
And you know, the same thing can be made about real estate agents.
It could be made about a myriad of different professions.
Right.
So there's nothing actually unique about freight brokers.
Right.
And there's a lot of people in the industry who are like, oh, we're div.
No you're not like, there's parallels between a bunch of industries out there.
So it's like you taking that approach, and that's one thing that's very important to me is like, I want to try my absolute best every single day to make sure that people just have a positive interaction with my company, whether they remember it or not.
(11:26):
I will remember it.
And then I'm sure you guys probably feel the same way as the, you know, the founders and leaders of your organization.
Brand perception out there in the market is extremely valuable.
And, you know, at the end of the day, that's where it's like, we want that messaging to come across like, hey, you know, if it's a no, you don't want to work with us, cool.
I'm not going to argue with you.
You know, I'm not going to call.
I'm not going to cause the scene.
(11:47):
It's like, hey, we appreciate the information.
Thank you.
I try and be as cordial as possible in the moment because nobody wins.
Right.
Like, I've been in.
I've been doing this for.
For too long, where it's like, I can go back of every hostile situation I found myself in that didn't necessarily work out in my favor.
And I can blame myself for that, because when you're losing your cool and the blame game goes and the excuse game goes, it's very challenging to build loyalty with customers.
(12:11):
And, and that's one thing.
And I'd love to get your guys's take on this here.
I just believe in brutal transparency.
And, like, this is the situation.
This is where we messed up.
Because I don't ever say the driver or anything else.
It's me.
My customer hired Chris Jolly.
I hired the driver.
So if anything happens, it's a direct representation of me.
I. I just take complete ownership in that moment.
(12:32):
And I found about 99.9% of the issues seemingly are easily worked out when somebody just holds themselves accountable in the moment and stops the blame game.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Yeah.
You know, you have to let your customer know.
That's why you hired you.
Right.
Like you hired me, so that I can work on that carrier's behalf with you.
And that's very important to us.
You know, we're the ones that did the vetting for the carrier.
Hopefully, we built a good relationship with them.
There's going to be loads.
You have to hit the spot market, and you can't get one of these trucking companies back to pick up the load.
(13:02):
I mean, that was one of the big things with owning our own assets is the customers say, hey, I want to see your asset.
I'm like, that's great.
But we moved this load out a day and I had to get under another load to keep my driver moving.
And so that asset's not here anymore.
But our next best solution would be getting a carrier in here that we've used five times, they've shown up on time, and then bringing them through that way, you know, we haven't really had an issue.
(13:27):
I lost a couple customers when we lost our assets because they needed to drop trailers and we couldn't get the rentals done in time to make the switch.
But ultimately there is a space for freight brokers.
You know, there's big capacity fluctuations in a lot of people's freight, whether it's seasonal or daily or weekly.
But there's.
There's times when you need assets, and that's great.
(13:50):
But there's also other times where you need a freight broker.
You know, you can really handle this.
Oh, man.
Here, 10 loads came across today that I need help with.
So I think there's a place for all of us.
I do, I do think that it is a hurdle whenever they say don't work with freight brokers, but I think it's because they're getting so many calls from so many of them.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
If I go directly and talk with some of the business owners or C suite executives, they're telling us that, you know, we know that they're using brokers.
It's just.
You're exactly right.
There's.
There's not much that sets us apart.
You just have to be way above average and care a lot.
And when they feel that, I think that's where that loyalty begins.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I think we're at a.
And we've been at this point for a while now is this.
You know, there is no need for a change in providers.
Right.
Because there is excess capacity in the market.
People are seemingly servicing their customers, and that's a very challenging hurdle out there.
So it is.
You got to think outside of the box and, like, how can you stand out?
Right.
Because if you're just going to rely on the traditional methods, and most people now are email and DM only, and they're blowing up these guys on LinkedIn and their inboxes and everything else.
(14:56):
Like, a buddy of mine just put out a lengthy post this morning about this, and he's.
He's on the shipper side of things.
And, you know, and I'm.
I've been Very fortunate to build a shipper audience behind the scenes on this show.
They don't want to come on here because of the amount of outreach that they get, but they'll talk about this in DMS and emails and stuff about how, like, you know, a lot of it is.
(15:17):
It's not that they don't want to talk to people, it's just there's so much of it that they can't do their job.
They could literally spend an entire day fielding inbound calls.
So again, as opposed to putting your hands up in the air and saying, nobody's onboarding people, I think, you know, you have to look at it is what do we have to do differently and how are you guys approaching that right now, you know, as the leaders of your organization?
(15:37):
How are you guys approaching that from a new business development perspective?
Is it, are you going out there or are you trying to vertically sell inside of your customers of like, hey, are we not getting all the opportunities that we should or could be?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Reagan's really working on the wallet share piece.
Like, how can we actually go over there, look at their operation and service the customer better?
You know, can we get driver sheets in sooner that has maps on it where it's easier to send them around, where they're not spending a lot of time with their driver on how to strap a load down or something?
Yeah, you're just adding some additional things that takes items or tasks off of their plate.
(16:15):
Has seemed to help and grow wallet share.
Being honest and updating these guys, like just relentlessly on where their loads are seems to help.
And, and the simple stop by and I'm sorry, like, go give them lunch.
Like, go get lunch with the guys if you can fly to them or you can go to them and they're in your neck of the woods.
You know, that seems to go a long way.
(16:36):
I mean, people want to see that you care about them and I think attention is our most valuable resource.
So if, you know, way over money, if you can give those people your attention, they're going to value that and they're going to remember you over somebody else.
Just, you know, the guy asking for loads.
Hey, do you have anything?
I'm free today.
Like, I think you really have to set yourself apart that way.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
How do you recommend, you know, like, you guys are out there, you know, bootstrap and growing and all of that, and you're talking about going out and visiting people.
How do you decipher where to allocate resources in that situation.
Right.
Because if it's coming down to it, like I'm all about that.
Right?
Like I am, like I will put $1,000 on my credit card to risk going flying somewhere, getting a hotel, rental car, getting a couple of base appointments and in doing that I'm all about that.
(17:26):
As opposed to $1,000 on some automation email tool to reach 50,000 people in a day or something like that.
So how are you guys really deciding that?
Is it, you know, or what would you guys recommend?
I mean you guys are fortunate in the sense that you're in dfw.
There is not a shortage of people you got.
You could, you could probably spend a year every day prospecting DFW alone.
(17:48):
But like how do you guys recommend people out there?
Because there's people who listen to the show of all size of business and industry where if they had 1500 bucks or $2000, what would you recommend somebody do to try and develop new business with that?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
You know, I would look at the business and see, you know, what's my potential with them and then like what's my ROI on that trip?
Like if I can go spend a thousand dollars but they have a 5, 10,000 $hp month potential, well, I want to go see if I can gain some of that wallet share through building a relationship.
Opposed to automating emails that go out to that guy every morning saying, you know, looking like the same person that everyone else is out there asking for freight.
(18:32):
I like the LinkedIn strategy.
I think people use it a little bit, you know, they don't use it correctly and the fact that they're out there dming just asking for freight where they need to figure out where they can add value and content first.
Like you're, if you're getting, you know, business owners on shows and asking what's working and what's not.
I mean that's got to be a big value add to a lot of people.
(18:54):
Yeah, I think your LinkedIn content and your posts need to have some kind of value there and you create this engine for people to come to you.
So I think it is a balance of going out there to the right wallet shares to the customers that want to talk to you and have some time and we'll put some time aside because that also is a good indicator to me that they're willing to gain some loyalty with you and spend some time with you.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, I think that's what it shows a little, you know, Again, it's like, how are you standing out in a crowd, you know, and what are you willing to do compared to other people?
And you know, so how are you guys working with your team on the.
Removing the personal emotion to it, right?
Because like, I don't know of anybody else out there in the transportation industry creating content that talks about that in the sense of where I, you know, I try my best to be like, you know, I'm a normal guy as well, right?
(19:45):
Like, I, this stuff affects me too.
Rejection affects me too.
Not achieving goals affects me too.
How are you guys working with your team to really balance out that emotional side of the business?
Because no matter what you do and say, when you're not closing people, you're not even getting through step one.
Because I think that's like a very overlooked thing in business development is understanding where you're actually at with your prospects.
(20:12):
Like, if you've never talked to them before, probably shouldn't begging for business on the very first phone call.
So, you know, with that being said, how are you guys working with your team on that to be like, hey guys, this is normal, you.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Know, aligning the sales funnel.
Like you have your tofu, mofu and bofu, so you have your top of funnel business, your middle of funnel business, and your bottom of funnel business.
And as long as they know where each of these guys are in the bucket, like it's just levering, how do I drive down that funnel?
And so if you have a decent CRM and you're using it at 80% at least, and you can have weekly accountability or action meetings with these guys, it is just showing up every single week to have those conversations with them.
(20:56):
Like we do a monthly sales meeting and we do a weekly accountability one ones with them.
And so we know where these guys are in the funnel, we know what challenges that each of those pieces of the funnel kind of give us.
But until we had some kind of organization skills there of like where people were at, like, we don't know what kind of content to give them.
Like you really have to drive top of the funnel with some pretty generic items in order just to get the attention and the eyes on you, right?
(21:22):
And then middle of the funnel is like kind of more your story and the bottom of the funnel is like, how I can help you.
So when we got that kind of aligned with the sales team and stuff, we knew where the people were at and then we could Start pulling levers.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Reagan, how are you kind of organizing all of this?
Right, because it's, you know, with, you know, you and Colby having those defined roles inside of that organization.
And you know, I want to ask a question after this, but like, how are you kind of rolling a lot of this out internally?
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So I naturally have a pretty positive bent, so I consider myself the cheerleader of the team, but in a much more unique way.
So we have our gong rings, which is similar to places like Steam, but we celebrate the wins, which is really important.
Right.
So you had a conversation that you were excited about.
(22:16):
Share with your team.
Let us ring the gong anytime we move a first load with the customer.
So just the excitement of the team is really powerful knowing that everybody is working together.
We have weekly goals, so we used to have monthly goals and they were a little bit more individualized.
Right now we have team goals and it's every single week.
So the clock starts again each week.
It's not this big like I'm trying to hit this goal in the next four weeks.
(22:39):
It is, what can I do on Monday morning and on Tuesday morning to hit this team goal so that everybody benefits, whether it be a monetarily, a group launch, that type of thing.
So I am working closely with our sales team to identify this customer is actually going to better on a different team because this skill set of this individual team lead is expedited or open deck.
(23:02):
This particular team really enjoys finding dedicated freight or drop trailer solutions.
So working closely with the sales team, what does this customer need?
How can we pivot on the ops team?
What can we do better to make sure that our customers are really getting what they need?
And then rallying the troops is just to me the most important part.
(23:24):
Having a place where people want to come to work who know that they're supported is just as important as finding those customers.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, it's.
You know, I like what you said about like kind of focusing on the day there.
I think that's an area that I struggled with for probably the first four years that I was self employed is I was so over consumed about where I wasn't, that I was completely overlooking where I was and what I needed to do.
(23:54):
Right.
Because it's like, you know, you go out there and you see like, oh, big goals, audacious goals, yada, yada.
But like, you can focus on that all you want.
But if that's a 30 year goal, why are you comparing your today's results to that you should be actually be looking at your daily plan.
And that's why it's like for me, I'm more about consistency than I am volume.
Right.
Like I would rather see somebody make 40, 50 cold calls a day every single day for an extended period of time as opposed to make a hundred calls once every other or every three days.
(24:25):
Because I feel like it's that routine, it's that discipline of that system that you need to operate in where it's like, hey, let's move this needle forward day in and day out.
And you do need to focus on the day because you can sit here and look out all the time about where you're not and then you're losing sight about what you need to actually do.
And that's why I am a major proponent of focus on your day.
(24:45):
What are some, just a couple of tasks, three, four, maybe five tasks in a day that you do every day that moves the needle forward and over time, in due time, you will start to see those results.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, we've had mentors and coaches and we have them to this day.
We meet with regularly and we're doing these like three to five year plans, right.
And then every time that weren't getting step closer or the industry would change or something, like it'd be a step away.
And so like they finally recommended like hey, let's take this thing a quarter at a time and we'll just build on itself.
(25:21):
And it really worked.
I mean it is zooming in more.
Forget the three to five year, like kind of know the general direction but like that's not what you want to focus on every day.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, I, I agree.
And having that core established vision for your business.
Right.
Like you know, for us for example.
And I talk about this often but like we are full truckload at the end of the day.
That is what we do, preferably inside of open deck.
But at this point we've gone in, we have some dry van customers that come along with it, but we have that core.
(25:51):
If I call somebody and they're like hey man, we're 80 LTL, I'm like yeah, it's not going to be a fit for me.
And we're, I'm like, my strategy is more like, I don't want to say like over volume shippers, like only RFP style.
But again, I want to find somebody who's got like 30 to 40 monthly full truckloads to be going after because I, I don't want to be chasing the once a month.
(26:12):
And it's not that there's anything wrong with those shippers, but I need volume, I need revenue.
I need to be able to scale and hire.
And there's no growth trajectory with that.
Right.
It's not like there's a, hey, we can get in the door.
You might start out moving once a week, but there's a growth potential that comes along with it.
And I don't want to prospect potential business where my ceiling is already established the very first day.
(26:34):
So it's like, that's kind of the approach and the strategy that we've taken here, and it's really just helped clear it all up.
And that's another thing to go into, like, the rejection of sales.
When you know what you're going after.
It doesn't hurt as much if somebody's like, no, we're not setting you up.
All right, cool.
Onto the next one.
There's 10,000 other people that I can be calling.
I know the value that I can bring.
I know the vision and the mission that I'm on.
(26:55):
So it's like.
It's like that.
Onto the next one for me.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah, that's.
That's such a good point.
I sit down with a big marketing guy.
He's part of ypo here in Fort Worth.
And these guys are great because they're willing to just take an hour with you and show you how their marketing work.
But we sat down and looked at our top 15 customers and really built out what an ideal customer profile looks like.
(27:19):
And so, like, what made those work?
What are we really good at?
And then go find more of those and just rinse and repeat.
Once we kind of nailed that piece down, too, we started getting more traction.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And I'm right there with you.
I think that's a.
That's a very key piece.
Right.
And I'm actually re listening to a book called 10x is easier than 2x, and that's by Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
And they're actually talking just about that, right?
Where it's like, hey, when you're.
If you're looking, it's, you know, that you can also break it down to the, you know, Pareto 8020 principle, that.
That's out there as well.
(27:51):
And it's like, all right, how long would it take you if you know, you're 20% of your customers that provide 80% of your revenue, how long would it take you to find more customers that are like, that 20% and then focus your efforts on that?
Because you.
You could be calling all of these other potential prospects and there's no way that they're going to be that over a three to five year timeline.
(28:14):
Right.
So it's really helping that out and clarifying that.
And I think that if you're able to do that and it'll just help put you on the right trajectory in business.
And again, I feel like it's another way for you to stand out when you're talking to your prospects like, hey, you guys do that?
We don't do that.
I've actually found that has been more beneficial in the sales process by telling somebody what I won't do than it is about what my core service offering is.
(28:37):
It's a wild concept.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah, yeah.
Usually that gut shots like, oh, do you handle LTL Well, I don't.
You know, we're full truckload as well.
It's probably not a good fit.
But what happened in my prospecting, like the process that I'm calling a bunch of LTL guys.
So, you know, it's just refining that whole system too.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah.
And that's the thing is it's building out that systems and this, I mean, I wanted to get to that with you guys, but the show already flew by here.
It's one of those.
I'm gonna have to get you guys back on.
I'd love to have you back on to kind of talk about this because I also wanted to talk about the dynamic of working with your spouse and how do you guys keep those clearly defined roles and keep that separation of work and home and everything else.
(29:22):
Because I know some very successful people who work with their spouse day in and day out and I think there's that trust that kind of comes along with, with doing a lot of that.
But Colby, Reagan, thank you guys so much for taking the time to join me today.
If you guys are hiring or if you guys want to put any of that information out there, put that out there right now so anybody can reach out to you guys.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yes, absolutely.
So we have an agent model as well.
If you guys are looking for a good home with real support from an executive level team looking to grow your book of business, we would love to talk to you.
And what else?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Any, any W2, any freight broker really, that is on their way up or on their way or stopped and struggling.
I've hopped on quite a few calls the last couple weeks just through LinkedIn and just trying to get through that next blockage with people.
So I'm happy to talk to others as well in the industry, what's working for them, what's not.
And yeah, and the freight agent piece is.
(30:20):
Is always nice to talk to people there, too.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Chris, it's been a blast.
Chris, thank you so much for thinking of us.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
No, I appreciate it.
Thank you guys for taking the time to come out and join me today and talk about your guys's journey in the industry.
And, you know, if that's.
That's going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen, as always, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
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 it as well.
I appreciate you guys.
(30:45):
I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting 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 hate them make a bigger balls hey.
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