$13B Halloween Supply Chains, China’s Rare-Earth Grip, and Should You Even Start a Podcast?

Episode Transcript
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Blythe Milligan (00:05):
All right, welcome into a very special
edition of everything. Islogistics, presented by SPI
logistics. I'm your host, BlytheMilligan, and we got Grace
Sharkey back with anotherepisode of freight friends.
She's, of course, of order fullfame, former freight waves fame?
Well, I guess kind of not formeryou still work with them
occasionally on stuff. So, yeah,yeah, both, both kinds of fame

(00:29):
for a holiday, I guess a holidayHalloween special edition of the
podcast, we've got our costumeshere. Grace, what are you
dressed at pumpkin?

Grace Sharkey (00:40):
Right? Yeah, you know, I'm just, I'm just the
Great Pumpkin, you know, oh,that is cute. I didn't, I didn't
know that a nice little partystain at some point happened.
That just proves you have a goodlisten, a Michigan Halloween.
You gotta think, How can I staywarm, you know, how can I stay

(01:03):
warm? But spooky? And then, ofcourse, you know, I had to go to
Disney this year for Mickey'snot so spooky Halloween. So, you
know, just some nice littlevibes, yeah. And

Blythe M (01:13):
you have the the candy apple in the background, which I
love. There we go, yes, in thebackground

over here. And I've also had, I always have
these little skulls, you know, Igot some skull. Whoa. There we
go.

Blythe M (01:27):
It lights up. I have a Gandalf staff, in case you are
listening and not watching. Butthis is going to be, there it
goes.

Does it have the pipe that comes out of it? Have
you ever seen that I

have? I used to own it, and I lost it in a move.

So into it his pipe goes into his staff. Yes,
yeah,

that's that's cool that you know that. But I
do have a, I have my my name inElvish on on this little it's
almost like a so common door.
And then what else do I haveevil not evil eye, but kind of
the Evil Eye sour on and I got alittle bracelet that my brother
got me. You know, not all whowonder are lost, famous Tolkien
quote. So yeah, special holidayHalloween edition of the

(02:10):
episode. And because it's theHalloween edition of the
episode, I got a few supplychain facts and logistics facts
for you. So let's quickly runthrough this list, because we
got some more serious topics toget into a little bit later on
in the episode. But first, let'skick it off with Halloween.

(02:31):
We're 13. It's a $13 billionseason with a hard stop sell by
October 31 or eat it by November1. Costumes are about 80% of
them are from China. So if youmissed the port window, it's a
total write off. What I thoughtwas interesting in this deep
research report that I pulled isthat obviously candy and
pumpkins are, you know, one ofthe major like, supply chain

(02:51):
drivers. But in retail, thereason you see so many Halloween
items in the stores early isbecause the retailers are
testing demand. They don't wantto be held with a lot of excess
inventory. So very similar tohow Christmas like, you know,
the common complaint is, why isit August and there's Christmas
stuff in the store? Well, theretailers are testing demand,

(03:12):
and that's how they test demand,is they see what are the items
that are getting bought upquickly, and so then, that way
they can reorder them in timefor that October 31 cut off date
for you know, basicallyeverybody's buying their stuff
by the 31st and then you want tobuy it on sale on the first. A
couple other facts here,pressure points, where tariffs

(03:35):
near 30% of a most commonHalloween items that you're
buying, congestion slowdowns orshutdowns can slow around 15 to
20% so smarter routing helps inthat regard, the big decor, so
the big 12 Foot skeletons andthe inflatables those typically
need that LTL white glove andextra warehouse space, which I

(03:57):
didn't realize. I just kind ofthought they came in a box and
you put it together yourself,but no those big skeletons that
you see everywhere that is a LTLand white glove service that's
bringing those to your doorsteppop ups run on consignment with
around 25,000 seasonal workers.
November 1 kicks off the reverselogistics part of that process.

(04:21):
And then lastly, Midnight flip,which is reefers switch to
Turkeys on that November 1deadline. Warehouse is clear for
Christmas, and rappers flood thewaste food stream, whatever that
means, rappers flood the wastefood stream or the waste stream.
Yeah. Like, like

candy wrappers.
Oh, okay, okay, okay. I like LilWayne. Yeah, there's a W in
front

of that word.
So I was getting a littleconfused on, on what happened.
So I guess they're talkingabout, you know, the pollution
around Halloween, yeah,especially

because it's all the mini packaging. So it's
like, that could actually,that's like a good i. Hot take.
I didn't really ever think aboutthat, but, yeah, like every
instead of, like, getting a fullSnickers, now you're getting
like, three little ones of thesame amount of wrapping paper.

So it's more sustainable to eat larger candy.

Yeah? So the house is actually doing that.
It's not because they're bougieit's because they care about the
planet. It

Unknown (05:19):
makes perfect sense.
This feels like Halloweenedition of girl. Math. No, not.
It's like

these ears. These ears are reversible, so
technically, I bought two pairsof ears for the

Unknown (05:36):
So You really saved, like $30

I saved Exactly.

So instead of spending, what $60 on years, you
only spent 30

with taxes, yeah, about eight instead of $80 I
spent

all right now, before we started hitting to
started recording on thisepisode, you were talking about
a recent visit with a medium,and I wanted I paused you
because I wanted you to save itfor the show. Because
apparently, by the time thisepisode airs, which we're going
to air it around the same timethat this, I guess spooky season
is going to really start. Sotell us about your visit with

(06:13):
the medium and what they saidabout 1124 being like a
spiritual

awakening. Yeah.
So I'm going to preface thiswith, you know, believe in
whatever you want, you know,think I'm go ahead. Think I'm
crazy. You can. I'm going tosound crazy for the next couple
of seconds. Uh, yeah. So there'sa medium I see. She's excellent.
If you're ever interested, shedoes phone calls to reach out to
me. I'll connect you. She's verytough to get on schedule, but it

(06:43):
worth it. And she So, first youstart going into the fact that,
like 2025, has become start. Itwas the start of a, what they
believe, about an 80 yearcollective consciousness
activity. So kind of like withthe AI talk, they talk about
like, you know, either you'regoing to become so into AI that
you kind of stop thinkingyourself, or if you like, really

(07:08):
focus on, like your internalthoughts, like your own
consciousness, your ownintuition, and really channel
that and guide that. Over thenext 80 years, we'll have a
level of people who have reachedwhat they call collective
consciousness. If you're readingthe New Dan Brown book, they
actually get into this too. Sohighly recommend. Yeah, you
probably didn't know Dan Brownhas a new book out. Get it, or
you'll become more of like thisrobotic esque type of person

(07:32):
through through AI. So it'ssomething we kind of can think
about when you're using AI andall that jazz. But so she also
went into, and this happensevery year too, right? We go
into this period. That's thekind of the Halloween Day of the
Dead period between October 30and the end of November 2. So
going into the third that thespiritual veil is lowered,

(07:56):
right? If you are speaking, ifyou're a CoCo fan, because Coco
is my favorite Disney movie. Youknow, that's the period where
you, you lay out everything forthe Day of the Dead. So that,
right, that realm is open, andspirits can come in and out. So
it's, it's lightly, kind ofbased on that same thing. Well,
because we've entered this, likebeginning of collective

(08:19):
consciousness. She there's afrequency that they call the
Schumann restaurants. I'mprobably saying this wrong. I
know I'm saying this wrong, R,E, S, o, n, a, n, C, E, and
basically it's this earthfrequency goes, is going to go
what they call off the chartsstarting tomorrow. So if you're

(08:41):
watching this later, October 30,where the it will reach
unprecedented levels of around700 hertz, which she interpreted
as a trigger for just a masswaking up of spiritual activity.
Across the globe, about 22million people will wake up and
experience this, like differentfrequency, basically tomorrow,

(09:02):
causing just a time period whereyour intuition is likely
correct, right, and if, and ifyou believe in kind of the
spiritual aspect of it, it'sthis, this period where you know
if you if you feel likesomething happened or something
weird happened, that likely youknow your intuition and that
it's something else out there islikely correct. So, yeah, I

(09:25):
think it's, I think it's cool.
The big thing that she wasexplaining is like, what will
happen during this period is,like, your your consciousness
will kind of look back andforward at the same time. So
you, like, you might have these,like deep like thoughts about
your past and growing up andkind of and how you want to

(09:47):
change that, like use thisenergy use that that's 700 hertz
frequency to kind of propelyourself forward in as like a
collective unit. So I. Lovedhearing this. I mean, you know
me, I love all things ghostly,spiritually, etc, and, yeah, so

(10:08):
for all those out there, ifyou're honestly, I'm kind of
upset I don't have a, I didn'thave a paranormal investigation
plan for this period. Maybe I'lldo a last minute demand is high.
Yeah, the demand is high. But Idid do a paranormal
investigation last week, andthey told me that, of course,
they already knew about it, andthey were very excited for the

(10:29):
week to come. So yeah, foreveryone out there, when you're
you know, Trick or treat, or ifyou feel like you know, you got
some visitors in the house, it'sprobably happening.

Okay? So when you say, like, you you spoke to
ghosts, like, how are theyspeaking to you? Or is it just
like you get the thoughts inyour head? Are they writing it
down?

Yes. So like, if you've ever seen a medium,
that's how it's usually, I'mtrying to think of like what,
there's a term for it, but longstory short, a lot of times, so
specifically this media, and Ihave, she's, she's died before
and come back, that's what shelike, developed her spiritual
like activity so she's able to,basically, they, they, the

(11:15):
spirits will talk to you in likeimages or like thoughts, right?
And often times, when, if yousee a medium, they'll kind of
like, say, hey, they're they'repointing this out. And it's not
like pure English. Sometimesit's just like, it'll be very
strong and apparent. Butoftentimes it's like, it comes
through and almost like, yeah,like, quick images or or

(11:39):
sometimes like, think of itlike, if anyone's ever said to
you, think of a color right?
Like you you in your head, youprobably see, like, the color
blue, or, you know, but youdon't actually see the color
blue, right? It's kind of that.
It's that like intuition. It'sthat, that thought process, that
that one would go through. It's,here's actually a really great

(12:02):
example of it. We all again,believe it. You are. We all are
born into what we call like ourAkashic Record. So it's like
your destiny. It's like whatyou're supposed to do when your
soul comes into this body anddecides to to spiritually
continue down this path, whenyou experience deja vu, that's

(12:23):
actually a very good sign. It'syou. It's your Akashic record
saying to you you were supposedto be here in this moment at the
right time. So if you as aperson, have gone a long period
of time without deja vuhappening to you, it likely
means you need to get back ontrack. You're probably not doing
thing. You're probably being abad girl or bad boy. You know,

(12:45):
you gotta center yourself.
Figure out. Listen to yourconsciousness, listen to your
heart, listen to what you'resupposed to be doing. Like, we
all know when we're bad kids,we're being bad kids, you know,
and getting yourself back ontrack. And so that's like,
that's a good way to look at it,right? So when you experience
deja vu, know, like, Oh, this ismy consciousness telling me I'm

(13:11):
doing the things that my Kashukrecord has already set forth for

Unknown (13:13):
me. Have you seen the movie soul,

like Disney?
Yeah. Oh, no, I need to, thoughI really like your kind of
breakdown, yeah, maybe I need tothat.

Well, a lot of what you're saying, it kind of
reminds me of that movie. It's areally beautiful movie, in case
you haven't seen it, like, gowatch it. But I am curious a
little bit more about like this,this time thing, this, why is it
such a specific time? Does ithappen every year? Or this is
just kind of an anomaly, likeonce in every 80 years that this

(13:48):
sort of spiritual awakening ishappening around Halloween?

Yeah, that's a good point. And I it's funny
because I looked that up. Sobasically, where, like this
whole consciousness shift comesfrom, is it is ancient. So I
it's funny. I'm glad you askedthat, because I did pull some of
it. So when you look at theMayan calendar, they bring this

(14:14):
up at the end of 2012 that waslike the whole thing. The Vedic
tradition calendar shows thathumanity also goes through what
they call the golden age. Sothis is more of like a Western
astrology type of situation, soalmost like more of a modern
Mayan Calendar situation. Sobasically, the it's the planets
that represent the cosmic reset.

(14:38):
So Pluto is an Aquarius, whichmeans there should be
transformation throughinnovation and collective
values, which even likepolitically, kind of like you
could say that kind of feelslike that's happening. Neptune
and Saturn are both enteringAries. Shout out to the Aries
girlies. I'm trying to be asserious I can about most other.

(15:01):
First topic of all time. Okay,bye wearing a puppy costume,
which is a renewal ofconsciousness. It's kind of like
a spiritual rebirth. And thenUranus is in Gemini. Don't make
any Uranus jokes, and whichmeans sudden changes in
communication and collectivethought. So we're basically the
plants have, like, shifted tothis, like Ascension period in
humanity, specifically wherewe're going from more of a

(15:21):
materialistic type of society tomore of this, like Unity and
collaboration aspect. And, youknow, it's interesting. Like,
there are, again, it's like, sofunny. I'm reading this Dan
Brown book too. Like, there arestudies that showcase like that,

(15:43):
potentially, like the humanbrain is almost like a radio and
that, and we all know, likewe've read those studies, right,
that we only use like 50% of thepotential of the human brain. So
there are studies out there thatdo showcase the possibility of
like our brains are like, arewe? Is consciousness almost like
a brain, a wave that's out therethat our brain grabs onto, and

(16:05):
as, like a radio, we filterthat, right? Is there? That's
what they always say, mediationor meditation. And like, kind of
like the monks, right? They'reable to, like, open their brains
up more to receive thosefrequencies. But there are like,
studies out there that kind ofpush the thought of, you know,
and I kind of think sometimesthis is even where, like, if we

(16:27):
religious, want to get into it,where prayer comes from. It's
like, are if we all think, if weall like, hope for the same
thing is that actually all of uspicking up on the same
consciousness at the same time.
And I just think, I think thatkind of stuff is fascinating.
Like, there are studies outthere that show, like, basically

(16:54):
some, for instance, like, if youwere to showcase to someone
like, hey, the color, what colorare you thinking of right now,
there are studies that sometimesshow that the human brain
halfway through thatconversation, halfway through
that question, is alreadythinking blue, like they like
they already hear like yourbrain's already picking up on

(17:15):
the the wave of that questionhappening. And so it's kind of,
it's it goes along the lines of,like, when you're like, around
people are like, thosehypnotists and stuff, who say,
yeah, what are you thinking oflike, I think there are tricks a
lot of that stuff. Yeah, youknow me. I hate a magician.

Unknown (17:38):
Don't come here.
Unjustifiably, start

reading right through your line. But no, it's
really interesting saying thatto a wizard right now. Yeah.
Well, you know, Gandalf knows. Imean, that's why Gandalf never
that's why they didn't just flythere down, yeah, well, I mean,
the biggest we all know, Lord ofthe Rings. Why didn't you just
take the eagles to Mordor? Youknow,

that's a whole conversation. You really want to
go down that road, because I canexplain why they didn't. The
species are the Eagles are theirown species, first of all, and
they could have been manipulatedby Sauron. And so the minute
that Gandalf gets on an eaglewith the ring, the Eagles are
going to be manipulated bySauron, and then he has the One
Ring. That's why they couldn'ttake the eagles to Mordor. Okay,

(18:20):
continue.

Well, you know, maybe, maybe they didn't,
because that consciously, Ididn't even bring out the eagles
to begin with.

No, but I really, I'm, I'm not too into,
like, all the astrology stuff. Ithink there's a lot of, like,
confirmation bias wheneveryou're reading some of those
things. I enjoy reading themfrom time to time. I used to
read them in the paper. One ofmy parents, we get the paper as
a kid. So I'm not like,completely, like against I just
don't put a lot of, I guess,faith into it. But what I do

(18:55):
find fascinating is, like, thefrequency angle, because there
are just so many justfrequencies that exist from,
like, a, you know, a sound likeI with YouTube. When I'm in
like, deep writing, I'll go pullup, I think it's like 40 or 44
hertz YouTube videos, and thatjust helps me zone in. And it
could be, it could be a placeboeffect, and, you know, I'm just

(19:16):
putting myself in the rightmindset to write. But what I
also find fascinating is that,you know, I've seen several like
YouTube videos where, like thisguy will hook up these monitors
to different plants and fungiand trees, and he will, you
know, kind of the wind will blowor, you know, kind of put the

(19:36):
plant in distress, and the plantwill give off these different
frequency waves based on whatit's experiencing, and then, and
so that's actually like real youcan go find those videos over on
YouTube where it's called plantfrequency. Can refer to two
things, the sounds that plantsmake, or the use of specific
sound frequencies to affectplant growth. Plants emit

(19:58):
ultrasonic waves. From two, from20 to 100 kilohertz that
increase under stress, whiledifferent audible and ultrasonic
frequencies, which you think, ifI It sounds woo, woo. But you
can literally go to YouTube andfind these videos, and it's a
whole like scientific studyaround it. And then, in addition
to that, there's a lot ofcontroversy around because I
follow, like ancientcivilizations, and, like, did

(20:22):
ancient civilizations existbefore? You know, the one that
we're kind of in now, and I dothat's topic for another show
that I could definitely diveinto. But there's a lot of
theories around, like, how thesebig, like megalithic
constructions were created. Solike the pyramids or structures
in the Central and SouthAmerica, even, you know,
Southeast Asia. How are thesegigantic stones moved and put

(20:45):
into different places? And astrong theory of, I guess, it
that's kind of subjective, but atheory behind it is that ancient
humans were able to usedifferent frequency waves in
order to make because if you putsand on like a plate, for
example, like an even plate, andthen you place certain

(21:06):
frequencies at different hertzthat it will create the same
shape every single time. And ifyou change the frequency, then
the shape will change. It's likeall of these different geometric
patterns. And so that is atheory of how some of these
megalithic constructions werebuilt or constructed, is that
they were using frequencies. AndI even have some, like, personal

(21:29):
experience of like, I don't knowif you've ever heard of like
biofeedback, but biofeedback isbasically, they take a you go
into a clinic. I got it forfree. It was like one of these,
like local influencer deals. SoI went into this clinic, they
and I thought it was all woo,woo. I sit down, they take a DNA
reading of my frequency, andthen from that, they can

(21:53):
analyze, like get, kind of like,a high level view of your health
patterns, where you're weak,where you're strong. And during
that first session, they hadtold me about a medical issue
that I had had, I had never, Ihad not told a soul, and they
they saw it on the DNA frequencyreading. So it's not like a

(22:14):
full, like medical exam thatyou're doing. It's called
biofeedback, yeah. But then thecrazy part is that you can if,
if you maybe feel sick, or youfeel off one of those days, you
can get treated by this machine.
Once it takes the initialblueprint of your DNA, then you
can get treated anywhere in theworld. So she was telling me
this story about how this, youknow, high level executive, was

(22:36):
going from conference toconference, and he was feeling
worn down, and he called her andsaid, I need to do I need to get
a treatment. So she uses hermachine, programs it to him,
send he's across the world,yeah, on a plane, and he treats
him, or she treats him. By thetime he gets off the plane,

(22:56):
energized, no longer sick. And Iwas like, this is complete
garbage. Like, I did not believeit whatsoever. But me myself, I
was supposed to go in for atreatment. It was right before,
I think, my first freight wavesconference, and I was starting
to get sick. And I was like, Oh,my God, this is the worst time I

(23:18):
cannot get sick. I have to demoon stage. I have to do all of
these things, like, I cannot getsick, but you know, when you're
about to get really sick, andthat's what was happening to me.
So I had to call and cancel mybiofeedback appointment, and the
lady was like, Why didn't youtell me that you were feeling
sick? I could have been treatingyou. She's like, I'm going to go
ahead and I'm going to start themachine right now, and I'm going
to treat you. I swear to God,next day, not sick. So, yeah, I
believe it was incredible. Itstill gives me like goosebumps

(23:43):
to think about it, because I wasnot a believer, and I still,
like, as the words are comingout of my mouth, I'm like, this
is total crap, but that's thatwas my experience. And so, yeah,
I fully, like, buy into, like,the frequencies and like, just
the, you know, when you get goodvibes from someone, or when you
get like, kind of weird vibesfrom someone, I think that's
stuff to pay attention to.

Yeah, totally. I mean, that's, that's like, the
the key of all of it, right, islike, just like listening to
yourself a little bit more andrealizing, like, there's that
energy, or those frequencies arecoming from somewhere, from
something. And I think it'scool. I mean, it's like a again,
it can sometimes get in even tothe religion side of things. But

(24:28):
it's like, I You see it in musictoo. There's like, a certain
frequency that most music usedto be tuned, and now it's tuned
to, like, a different level. Andbecause, well, theoretically
can, kind of hook onto yourbrain in a more, I don't want to
say propaganda way, but likethey've done it with music and

(24:53):
yeah, the brain itself. There'sso many frequencies that pass by
us every day, and only it's.
Certain percent that we canactually truly attach to. And I
just, I find it fascinating.

Okay, so it's the 30th at 1124, is that

Eastern Standard?
Yeah. Let me Yeah. Let me seewhen she said it, I'm going

to schedule this to go live at that exact
time. This conversation just forfor folks who don't know like we
record this, and then I scheduleit to go live, usually within a
couple of days, so I can kind ofbe in there in the comments, in
case anybody is asking questionsor anything like that. But I
think we we scheduled thisepisode to drop at that exact
time, and then we'll hopefullyinvite some good spirits to it.

Let's see 1

Unknown (25:45):
and that's Eastern time.

Yes, that would be yes, Eastern Time, yes.

Okay, so for for folks who are listening,
hopefully you're listening rightat that time. But if not, you
know, we'll, we'll check back inon the next episode and see, you
know, maybe, What? What? Somelevel, that'd be crazy. That
would be cool. I don't thinkit's gonna happen, but it's
gonna be cool. Well, only oneway to find out, right? So this

(26:13):
is a logistics show. Sowe get there on time? Well, for
the sake of this episode, thisis typically we cover a few
different topics, and just forthe folks who want to know, sort
of the roadmap of today's show,we're going to get into some
conferences and recaps,especially because Grace has

(26:35):
been all over the place. As faras conferences that are
concerned, I have not so I'manxious to talk about that, see
what sort of her ROI thoughtprocess is, especially being on
the other side of it now withnot, you know, working for a
company that throws events, butmaybe is attending events on the
other side. So we're going toget into a little bit of that,
especially from an ROIperspective. And then we're

(26:56):
going to talk, you know, alittle bit about, not a little
bit. We're going to do a deepdive into rare earth minerals.
There's a lot of talk aroundthese. It has been for a couple
of years, but I wanted to get agreater understanding of this
and why it's so important. Sowe're going to dive into that a
little bit later on, and thenwe're going to get into a

(27:17):
freight marketing topic, whichis what makes for a good
logistics podcast. And thenfinally, we're going to round
out the show with a little bitof our source to porch. So each
of those topics we are going toget into. But first, let's get
into the conference season recapand that again, I am Blythe
Brumleve, Blythe Milligan. Letme start that over. My name is

(27:40):
Blythe Milligan, Grace Sharkeyhere. Everything is logistics,
presented by SBI logistics, andwe're going to talk a little bit
about the conference seasonrecap. So Grace, you have been
all over. So first, tell me howyour approach has changed from
being on the media side ofthings, where you're working for

(28:03):
a company that's, I guess,producing the events, to the
flip side, where you're the oneattending the events, planning
which ones you're going to. Whatdoes that role switch look like
for you from a strategicstandpoint?

Yeah, you know.
So it's interesting, greatquestion, because, yeah, I do
come from more of the oppositeside, right of like being a
content creator within an eventthat that, you know, that
platform is putting on. And, youknow, I will say, what's nice is

(28:35):
like when, and I think this ispart of the reason I end up
going into marketing even moreso was, you know, I see what
people one, pay for a lot ofthis stuff. And I think being
more of like in that contentcreating space, when I would
work with people, it's like,Hey, how can we make sure you
get the most out of this, right?
I think when I think of inperson events, and when I see
companies going to them, one,it's about not sitting next to

(28:59):
the table the whole time,getting out there, shaking
hands, right? And getting, Ithink, from, at least from what
I used to do, getting clips,getting articles, getting other
deliverables at the event thatwill also pay off in the long
run too, right? And now that I'min the other side of this,
though, like, from an orderfulstandpoint, there's a few things

(29:21):
that I think are veryinteresting, and I kind of look
at conferences a little bitdifferently now, and and I and I
hope that conference companies,I think those who are very
successful at it, have proventhis. You have to think about
what the outcome is for thepeople that are coming. So a
perfect example is like one who,who are the buyers or decision
makers at that conference thatyou're going to. I think

(29:43):
sometimes, I often see companiesgoing to a conference when the
either the decision makersaren't going to be there, or
even more so the users, likearen't going to physically be
there, right? So to give alittle background on order for
where an E. AI company. And the,actually, the last two
conferences that we went to wereuser group conferences. One was

(30:06):
for NetSuite, and the other onewe went to recently was for
Dynamics, Microsoft, ERPsystems, etc. And what's
fascinating about going to thoseis one, yes, we do, of course,
connect with users, right? Butwe also really focus on what we
call, kind of like partners inour space. So this would be, by

(30:30):
the way, throughout this if you,if you're watching this and you
see me go from dark to light,that's just because I only have
one light on, that's thesunlight. So don't worry about
that. But we work with partners.
So basically, the easiest way toexplain it is almost like
they're technology consultantsthat will work with large
clients for when they aretransitioning from different

(30:52):
systems. ERPs, maybe they'regoing, maybe they acquired a
company, and they're trying tofigure out how to get everyone
on the same platform. We spend alot of time at those user
events, connecting with thoseindividuals, so that when they
meet future clients, or evenactually like, what's really
impressive is a multitude ofthose type of partners that
would come up to us and say,Listen, we're in the middle of

(31:13):
something right now, and the EDIis holding us back from getting
this done, which oftentimeshappens, like you, you find the
perfect system you want to moveto, and then you're like, they
hit you with this giant EDI billor expense, and you didn't even
think about that. And so I can'ttell you how many people went up
to us and, like, we have aproject that's stalled right
now. We need to get this movingASAP. So it's like, a good place

(31:39):
to meet people in that but alsoit's really fun, because it is
physical users of the software,it would be like going, I hope
people don't take this as Shane,but it'd be like going to, like
a, oh, well, actually, it's kindof turned into a big, like,
going to a freight wavesconference, but it's sonar
focused, right? So like everyonethere is, like, the carrier reps

(32:02):
or physically, actually usingsonar every single day. And no
offense, not the CEO who, likebarely touches it. And so it's
cool, because in that setting,right, what we find, at least at
wordful, is that if we canphysically show the technology
working, then we really winpeople over, whereas, like a CEO
or CFO level, they're going towant to learn more about how
quickly the project went, howmuch costs went into it, right?

(32:28):
It's different conversations indifferent places, and so I think
it's smart to think about thebest way to attack the
individuals who will be at thoseconferences when you're trying
to decide which ones to go to.
So there have been ones thathave crossed our our table, I
guess, my table, my desk, that Ihave at home, remote work, so

(32:49):
weird. How do you even talkabout it that go through my
email where I'm like, you know,not that this wouldn't be a good
conference, but we're justaren't going to meet people
there in in the opportunitiesthat are available there, that
are going to hook people. Andit's also just not a place like
I think sometimes conferences.

(33:09):
There's some conferences outthere where, depending on the
company that you are, it mightbe better for you to just
physically go to shake hands, tosee people, to maybe see your
customers, all in one place. Andinstead of, like, spending
$10,000 on a booth, spend $7,000for like, a 30 person dinner in
town where you can get everyonetogether and and if anything,
maybe work on just keeping thosecustomers on board, or vice

(33:33):
versa. You know, maybe it's notthe best place for you to pick
up, like for a booth, but it's agood place to invite 30
partners, right or co host aparty together. So I think what
like being on the spending sideof conferences, right though,
like the side where I'm writingthe check and not receiving the

(33:55):
check, it's opened my mind alittle bit more to like being
strategic on, on what theoutcome is, and just knowing
you're buying triggers, knowingwhere to meet people at those
buying triggers and and knowingthat, like, you know every lead
isn't a good lead, but if youcan go to an event and get 10,
like, really good partners, thatis going to make up for the

(34:16):
cost. So yeah, like for us, Ithink especially with what
orderful is doing, and I'm sureother SaaS companies out there,
I think I actually understandmore the demos better, right,
getting physically, havingpeople see how your technology
works in real time. Like, nextyear, we're going to be doing

(34:37):
more of that, just based off of,like, what we've seen so far,
and also knowing yourcompetitors, right? Like EDI, is
actually hard space to kind ofdemo because it does involve,
like, a lot of, well, not withorder full, but it can involve
mapping and kind of like thisbehind this, like the stuff that

(34:59):
wouldn't be friendly demo wise,I. Actually like what we've seen
is going to some of these eventsand watching some of our
competitors demo, we're like, ohmy god, if we could just demo
like, people would quickly seethe difference of customer
experience between the two,because that demo was miserable,
and our demo is user friendlyand and smooth and fast and
easy. So

wait, so you have like, employees or co
workers that are, like, going tothe competitors and getting the
demo and, like, getting theInsider. It's like, corporate
espionage. I love it.

Oh, they're, yeah, exactly, well, 100% I will
say, and I will actually say,too. Shout out to competitors.
I'm not going to say your nameout there. But like we, Eric did
an excellent panel. Eric, CEO oforderful, yes, yeah, with one of
our really great customers,every man Jack, which, if you

(35:52):
guys know, you know, deodorants,etc, they're growing brand out
there. And we so do it. We did apanel of every man Jack, just
about, you know, a trendingproduct, and how you make sure
that your systems are ready foryou to say yes to every you know
retailer that wants you on theirshelves, and what you need,
infrastructure wise, to makesure that happens. And every man

(36:16):
Jack had a really interestingstory, because not only were
they switching ERPs, they wereswitching EDI providers, and
they come from a they haven'tthey have a board. They have
investors and and the investorit had to be done at a certain
time. All of our competitorssaid it's not going to happen.
We said, definitely we can makethis happen. Like the CFO was

(36:37):
there and he stood up at theend. Was like, I don't have a
question, but I just want tosay, like, I put my job on the
line that this project would bedone, and you guys pulled it
off, like, and so anyways, Iwill say to get into that room.
They scan every badge so youhave leads and stuff. And yeah,
our competitors were in there.
Sneaky. They're sitting in theback, little sneaky guys. But
yeah, no, it's, I mean, maybe,hey, for all those listening,

(37:00):
you can also use theseconferences to do that, right?
Like how your competitors arealso playing that conference.
What are they investing in? Whatparties are they throwing? What?
What is getting people talkingand then, you know, replicate
that, or find a better way to dothat in the future as well.

No, that's super smart. Because there was a
post that I had read recently,and it was, it was a lady that
was, I mean, her company sellslike AI agents, and so I guess
reading between the lines, theywere at a recent conference, and
they had a booth, and hernumbers were like, oh, you know,
127 badge scans. Guess how manyof them were actually qualified
leads. And she was like, three.

(37:44):
She's like, imagine, you knowwhat, how many qualified leads
you could get, you know,automatically, without having to
spend a human and a financialcapital of going to an event.
And it's like, Well, I think youthere was a couple, like,
valuable comments in the thread.
Of Of course, you're probablygoing to say that, but what kind
of pre qualifying were you doingbefore you did the badge skin?

(38:05):
And then also, from the approachof like, Who are you putting at
the booths? Are you puttingsales people that are kind of
going to be a little bitoverwhelming, maybe for the
casual person that's justwalking up and maybe wanting to
learn a little bit more aboutthe company where they made a
suggestion is that you shouldactually have, like your account
managers and your developersthere that can better understand

(38:29):
what you're going through, andthen they can talk from personal
experience of how they'veimplemented or integrated
similar customers. And I thoughtthat was a really interesting
approach, where maybe you couldhave a combo of, you know, some
sales reps that are, you know,great at talking to people. But
if you have a developer or anengineer that is experienced in
the onboarding, like in thetrenches type work, then you

(38:52):
have them there to explainexactly what you know, speaking
to those pain points that maybeyou know, some of the the
orderful folks were speaking to,or some of the the perspective
clients that were coming to yourbooth. And

with those user conferences, that's exactly what
you have to be prepared for. Imean, I'll be honest like you
send me to like, a more like,executive level type of of
conference, I'll be able to talkEDI all day to a point that
they'll understand, right? Butthose user conferences when it's
like, the supply chaincoordinator who literally did

(39:25):
half the mapping for EDI comesup to you and starts asking
these really technicalquestions. I'm like, you want to
talk to my girl, Alexa, youknow, like, and, and that's who
like locks that that that leaddown is someone who's like, this
is how we're going to onboardyou walk them through. It lets
you know what you need to beprepared for. So it's, it's very

(39:47):
smart to think of it that way,like, for example, you know, we
have other events coming downthe pipeline. A great one would
be like, manifest, right? Wherethat one we might not bring as.
Any technical people because,like, likely the supply chain.
EDI specialist for skims, shoutout, Nadia isn't going to be

(40:12):
there, right, but someone likeNadia is who's going to be able
to, like, high level ofconversation. So we likely bring
less technical people to thatmore AES, more the salesy team,
maybe a technical person, justin case, the one off, but yeah,
it's interesting to like, kindof think through that, think
about the messaging that youhave on your setup, right? But

(40:36):
even even down to like, whereyou're putting your booth. I
like, I've found fascinatingtoo. Like one, right? We all
know, like you're if you wantthe good booths, you gotta think
almost a year ahead of time.
That's like, the one thing thatI've been learning that you know
when I'm making budgets, lettingyou know, people know, listen,
if, but if we want a betterbooth the following year, we
have to put that almost intoplanning for this year. But if

(40:58):
you can't get a good booth,like, look for ends of walkways.
Like, think of like, how peopleare maneuvering through a
conference. Look like we werereally smart, because while we
were late on choosing our booth,we did put our booth at the
NetSuite conference, right nextto, like, the drink station,

(41:20):
like, where they're servingcocktails and stuff all night.
So, like, the foot traffic,yeah, we got a lot of foot so,
you know, it all, all of thatcomes together at some point in
time. So it's not, you know, youif you're not going to spend big
bucks be strategic on, like, themessaging that you put on there
and and also, like, just, I justfind I'm the type of person

(41:41):
where I'm, like, I like to walkaround. I like to talk to
people, and naturally, almostcollect leads. Compared, just
like, I hate a sales team thatjust stands at a booth, you
know, like, that's, you have tobe able to walk around. You have
to think. And so, like, forinstance, knowing that we
probably do a little bit morewalking around at the dynamics

(42:01):
conference, where we had asmaller booth in the back. I we
put QR codes on all of oursignage so that if someone
wasn't there to answerquestions, we at least got them
interacting with our website,getting their their information
through different ways, leavingcards, you know, different
things like that, so we couldfollow up later down the line.

(42:23):
But, you know, you almost haveto be realistic in what you
physically can do with theamount of money you're putting
into these and figure out how toget the best return on that as
well.

Yeah, because it really there's a lot of
discussion, because we are inthe midst of, like, the peak
season of conferences, and this,especially from like, the
attendee side, or like, I guess,the media side, which I, you
know, I find myself in, it canbe really overwhelming to decide
which ones to go to and why,because there's so much work.

(42:55):
Like manifest, for example, ittakes weeks of work ahead of
time, which I you know,especially for someone like in
your role, I'm sure you'reworking on manifest, like,
months and months in advance,but like, for a full like, focus
for me is weeks in advance, fora conference like manifest, and
then figuring out, like, ablueprint of the people that I

(43:16):
want to talk to, and why? Yes?
Because the networking can bereally intense, and it can be
really draining, and so you haveto kind of be intentional about
where you're spending your timeand your energy and focus.
Melanie Patterson, who is withintegrity transport group, she
actually had a really good videoon this, and she mentioned it in

(43:37):
the caption. She said,conferences will test your
focus. You can come backinspired or distracted. And she
said, the difference isintention. You can get caught up
in socializing instead ofnetworking, fashion shows
instead of partnerships,thirsting for happy hour vibes
instead of thirsting forknowledge. And a few things that
I do to move with intention aremap out the connections my
business needs a week prior,study the room and execute with

(43:59):
a firm handshake, and then whenthe party starts, I'm already in
execution mode. It's just mesome room service and a laptop
full of scheduled emails to sendto leads for the win. And I
thought that is such a perfectapproach from like a business
owner perspective of how to bestvalue or manage your time so
that you are it, you're going toplay a ton of catch up when you

(44:25):
get back. And this is somethingthat I've I've had to work on in
the past, is, you know, I getback from events and I'm so
exhausted just from peopling somuch, and my inbox is just
overwhelming, and it takes along time to play catch up, but
then by the time that I want tosend those follow up emails.
It's a couple weeks later, and Iprobably missed the boat in that

(44:49):
regard. And so what I've I lovethat intentional approach of,
like, not going out, like, superlate. We'll see if I'll listen
to that my own advice. You know,here in Vegas is, you know, a
little challenging to do, but.
But I do think that you knowhaving something to say, or even
like a scheduled email templatethat you can quickly send after
the fact using your notes app inorder to document who you're

(45:11):
going to send that templatedemail out to, just to you know,
hey, it was great meeting you.
Hopefully we can connect in thefuture. Something super short
and sweet, because you got toalso consider that those folks
that those folks that you wereconnecting with, their email
inboxes are going to beoverloaded too. So when do you
respond? I think it was. It wasLars, friend of the show with
trans flow. He mentioned thatwith his emails that he
strategically sends them dayslater, after a conference, not

(45:34):
immediately after, because heknows that those inboxes are
going to be completely filled.
So it's usually like three tofour days after an event is when
he'll send a follow up. So allthe talks sort of surrounding
around, you know, whatconferences you should go to?
Should I? Brad perling had agreat post the other day on how,
you know, conferences shouldactually be moved to one day

(45:56):
events instead of three dayevents. I kind of like the the
middle of, like a two, two and ahalf day event. Because I do
agree that, like, the last dayof most events is is challenging
to keep people there, becausehis post was more around, like
people have already checked outby the third day. So just cut
off the third day and just makeit more impactful into one full

(46:18):
day. And keep in mind, of like,how you want to facilitate those
high level conversations, but toyour earlier point, I think it
really, really makes an impactwhen you can have an idea of who
the actual attendees are goingto be at the conference, and
then how you can sort of deployyour staff to best suit those
needs. Are you going to spendmore sales people? Are you going

(46:39):
to send media people? Are yougoing to, you know, send those
engineers that can answer thosedev questions. I think, you
know, a strategic approach isprobably in the best plan for
most companies when thinkingabout how you're going to tackle
which conferences to go to andwhy. Because there's never been
more conferences than what we'reexperiencing now, I think at

(47:01):
least a dozen this month alone.
So you really have to bestrategic when deciding where to
go and why,

yeah, and, and I would say that people putting on
the conferences like, just be aparent and smart about that.
There's, there's a conferencethat that's out there, that, for
example, they truly understandthe importance of shippers
showing up to it, and sotherefore they ask the shippers

(47:32):
to use the app makeappointments. Sometimes they'll
offer them, you know, freeopportunities to go to event.
But they understand, okay, ifthe shippers are setting
meetings and we're gonna, we'regonna get more logistics
providers, more carriers to theevent, etc. So think about that.
Think about what the outcome isthat most of those people that

(47:52):
are gonna spend that money want,right? A shipper, likely outside
of like Food Shippers, they'reprobably don't have a budget for
events, right? Because it'slike, okay, most shippers aren't
sitting around saying, like, oh,I should go to a conference to
find my next three PL, right?
Because they're like, these guysare my email box or my phone.

(48:13):
They're

actively hiding their badge at like, I know one
shipper in particular that wasin charge of, like, forestry
products.

I call you this light is power today. It's just
doing whatever it wants. Fine.
You're

just listening.
Grace has, she's tried to set upa spooky light for, you know,
this is, we're recording thisaround Halloween. So she tried
to set up a spooky light off tothe side. That's kind of like
purple. I

don't even have it connected to Wi Fi right now?

Well, we did open the show with a, you know,
enhanced spiritual activitiesare starting to happen. So maybe
this is what we areexperiencing, especially as I
bring up sort of a very similartopic in regards to conferences,
because there's a lot of, youknow, I've seen a little bit of
a debate around, sort of the payto play mindset.

Unknown (49:02):
People are just doing their best when it comes to
putting on conferences. They'rejust trying to get, you know,
the best editorial up on stagewhen you got to balance the
business side of it, of course,too. Because these events, I
don't know if you've ever beento, like a cheap conference I
have and where they like, don'tserve food.

There's way too many talks going on. Have you
ever been to a conference thatlike, doesn't serve like food?
Which conference food is not thebest? So you might think like,
oh, I'll just go get some food,you know, and around the hotel.
Well, guess what? Everybody isdoing that, yeah, and it's an
insane line, and everybody isjust kind of stressed because
food isn't provided. Yeah, sothere's, there's lots of costs

(49:46):
that go into putting on events.
So you do have to balance thepeople that are paying to be
there. Everybody's essentiallypaying to be there. But there's
a lot of, I guess, sort ofdebate around, like, the plate
pay to play mindset, but you cando both, because these. Events
are super expensive, and thenyou also want to make sure that
you're covering your costs andpaying the people who are
putting on the event as well. Soanother sort of relevant debate

(50:11):
is around like pay to playawards. And you had a take that
you wanted to share around thepay to play award. So, so let's,
let's hear

it. Yeah, I told Blythe before we started this,
this is going to be my favoritemarketing trend, because people
listen. We'll just say the, youknow, we're going to say the
freight tech awards came outthis past week. And we'll get
into, I think, who's on thathere in a second. I was actually
surprised to see a few peoplenot on there. I assume they
didn't pay to play. But I willsay, like, if you would have

(50:42):
asked me five years ago, pay toplay 30, we always make fun of
the Forbes 30, under 30, right?
Like, that's also pay to play.
If you didn't know it is. Ifirst I'd say, like, dumb,
stupid, doesn't make sense.

But just to give people, I guess, a
background on what pay to playis so typically, especially when
it comes to like Forbes or evenlike traditional print mags,
when you say pay to play, you'retraditionally an advertiser
that's already supporting thatpublication totally and so. But
what we're referring to,especially with, you know,
specific to like the freighttech Awards, where that is, you

(51:21):
pay to submit your company, yes,and then a panel of judges goes
through a judging process. Youhave to pay, you have to pay for
software, first of all, to allowthe judges to be able to vote on
those different materials. It's,I don't know if you've ever been
a judge, but I have before inlike, some B to B marketing
awards, and it's a lot of timethat is required for you to look

(51:44):
through everything provide adetailed response. It takes a
lot of hours, and I wasn'tgetting paid for but I didn't
get, you know, sometimes they'dthrow you like a gift card or
something, but that stuff takestime and money. So I somewhat
get the charge a, you know, a$500 fee in order to submit to
the awards, because themarketing you're going to get
afterwards is going to justifythat expense. So I'm sorry, go

(52:06):
ahead, no,

and I think that's exactly my point. My my
caddy point would be, I'd loveto go through your your PNL, and
see what you've spent othermoney on. Because, for instance,
I think paying $500 for afreight waves award, knowing
that we've probably spent a lotmore money on golf, is kind of

(52:28):
thrilling to me, but yes to thenow, the non caddy side of me
would say, yeah. I mean, firstof all, third party validation
of any type is going to be bigfor your company, no matter what
those B to B awards are big forthat. It's proof that you're
legit. It's proof that peopleknow who you are. You're right,
because Blythe just said it.

(52:50):
Oftentimes it goes to, I cantell you right now, I don't know
everyone that judges theFreightways events, the
Freightways ones through theconsulting company, but they're
reaching out to people that I'mguarantee you follow and watch
on LinkedIn, etc. They're peoplethat you know. There's tons that
you don't, but they are peoplethat you know, right? So it's,
it's a third party evaluationthrough peers in some way, and

(53:11):
studies have shown that industryawards show 30, about average of
37% increase in inbound customerinquiries because of that
recognition. So a lot of that'sthe top of funnel leads that
you're probably looking for inthat too. Now award winning, of
course, is going to boost anyawareness, I think, especially

(53:32):
in the AI age of llms and thosesearch engines, chat, gpts of
it, all that stuff does countagain. We don't know the perfect
formula yet for any of thatstuff, but those do come up
often when, when you'researching who's the best out
there, right? If you say who'sthe top EDI provider, oftentimes

(53:56):
it's going to, depending on ifyou're using deep research or
not, it's going to pullliterally top 10 List, etc. Of
course, we all know when we goon websites and we see those
badges on their sites, it alsoincreases the chance of you
reaching out. There have beenstudies that show it can
actually increase conversionrates into double digits. So I
think that's huge. 42% just acouple of studies I looked into

(54:22):
the stress badges on sites canincrease conversions up to 42%
especially for newer, lessestablished brands, right? So
we're like, sure, is CH Robinsonmaking that list and then seeing
a 42% probably not, but thesestartups who've raised millions
of dollars to spend on stuffanyways, that stuff really does

(54:42):
matter to them in the thick ofit all. So, of course,
credibility is a big one, but Ithink what matters is, you know,
it's an easy press pickup. It'san easy thing to link back to on
your site, something simple tobring there. Was an award
actually, so this actuallywasn't. We didn't pay for this

(55:03):
at all. It's just because thework that we do at NetSuite, but
to kind of showcase the value atSweet world this year, orderful
got the Partner of the YearAward for our EDI work. We've
built a native connector that'sreally helped out a lot of
NetSuite customers and and forNetSuite, the reason they love
that is because now, when peopleare switching over to NetSuite,

(55:26):
they don't have to worry aboutthis headache of EDI. Well,
there's recently an award that Iapplied for that this award fell
perfectly into what that retailaward was asking for, and we
work with a lot of retailersthrough that NetSuite work. So
this, it was a perfect way forme to kind of put a cherry on
top of a Sunday for thatapplication. And that also was

(55:48):
for award that's not, you know,pay for either, either. So, oh,
there it goes. Yeah, I see you.
I see you queen, you know, overthere changing my lights on and
off. We'll just do it in thedark. So, yeah, I just think, I
think on the sarcastic side,I've seen people spend, you know

(56:11):
what, we're if I turn this off,

Unknown (56:15):
the light is starting to malfunction a bit.

Any sense what's happening. But we'll let that
happen. We'll just not look atthis natural light. We're
killing it. But one, I justthink of what I see companies
spend money on. I'm like,Listen, I don't think this is
like, this is a drop in thebucket for the outcome it could
potentially give to you. Andtwo, it is big. I mean,

(56:41):
especially the freight techstuff, there's a reason why big
companies make sure that they'reon that because they understand
the return it brings to them. Soif you ask someone not in Mark,
if you ask a sales guy how hefeels about these awards, like
ask a marketer, ask someone inSEO work, does SEO work like
they will understand truly whatthese awards all bring to the

(57:05):
table at the end of the day.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's easy to kind of
look at it and kind of scoff atit. I do think that there's
maybe a different approach thatyou could take, especially when
it comes to like, just frompersonal experience, I don't
want to submit I, I feel andmaybe I should change this, but

(57:30):
I feel uncomfortable withsubmitting myself or my company.
Well, maybe not even my company.
But, you know, like, for like a,like a women in logistics or
women in supply chain awardslike, typically, you have to
submit yourself. Yes, and I getthe sentiment around like nobody

(57:51):
is going to submit you, but atthe same time, like I feel like
it would be much more. I wouldappreciate it so much more if
somebody else submitted meinstead of me submitting myself,
if that makes sense. And that'swhere I kind of, especially
from, like a company standpoint,it's like, well, if somebody is

(58:12):
a big fan of ours, shouldn'tthey submit on our behalf? And I
would say, frankly, they it justdoesn't happen, especially with
talking with other publicationsand other events that that put
on very similar style, othercompanies are not going to
submit you. Other people are notgoing to submit you. You have to
be your biggest fan, and youhave to be, to quote the late
great Barbara Walters, if you'renot proud of your work, why

(58:34):
should anybody else be proud ofyour work? And so totally kind
of thinking from that lens, likeI personally do need to submit
myself to more of these thingsin order to get those, you know,
earned trust badges is what Ilike to call your trust moments
that you can put in all of thedifferent marketing and, you
know, things like that. And soas a company, I need to sort of

(58:57):
mature in that regard where it'snot just about, you know,
creating content like this toprove our trust moment or to
prove our trust value, but it'sin addition to getting those
widely recognized industry, youknow, awards and, you know,
things like the recognition andthings like that, that I need to
start collecting those. And justhaven't done it. I haven't

(59:19):
prioritized it. But you know,2026 we're going to be making
some content changes so thatthat's, that's one of the, the
bigger ones for me. And as yousort of round out, you know that
this conversation, you know, asfar as like 2026 are you
spending more time onconferences and events or in
awards? It sounds like you guysare going to be investing

(59:39):
significantly more, or maybesome other companies are going
to be pulling back? Yeah,

I would say we are definitely doing more, one
like most, one being becausethere's someone here to actually
run events appropriately now,job security, let's hope so. But
two, also. Because of theinvestments we made in our
technology, right? Like, bebecause of certain things that

(01:00:07):
we're building for certainplatforms. Like, why would we
build that if we're not going toshow up and then promote it, you
know, too. So there's, like, alot of that aspect. I also think
that we're getting bigger andwe're for us personally, we're
growing very, very quickly, andwith that, growth becomes new

(01:00:28):
applications, new tools that wecan offer individuals. So again,
why make that investment if wedon't get out there and actually
showcase that? I also truly feelthat in the world of AI, and
we're starting to see this more,that's why we're like, we almost
send people more for in personmeetings. I think the emails are

(01:00:51):
I think because people are usingmore AI tools for emails, people
are starting to, I don't want tosay ignore, but take emails
less, I guess, more lightly intheir in their strength?

Blythe Milligan (01:01:03):
Well, there's more filters too to weed out.
You know, a lot of thesedifferent emails. Not everything
gets caught, but, I mean, I'llprobably get 600 spam emails in
a day, and that's a light day,or that's a light inbox,
compared to maybe some brokersand shoppers out there. So

Grace Sharkey (01:01:18):
it's like, I think what you're going to
actually see is an influx ofpeople going to these in person
events, but being very yet beingstrategic with the money that
they put into them, butunderstanding that you know what
this might be, a customer this,I mean, especially in the SaaS
world, depending on what you doand like, what that I mean, if

(01:01:39):
we're talking about a big,million dollar contract. None of
that's happening over emails,right? Yeah. So like getting in
front of the people and beingable to say, well, if this
opportunity lets us get in frontof five customers, four
prospects that are just close tosigning and the ability to
generate more pipeline, whywouldn't we do that? So I think

(01:02:01):
yourself with one customer 100%and again, it depends on what
you're doing, because there aredifferent SaaS platforms where
you know, if your average dealis $1,000 then like, you have to
think of it differently. Butyeah, if your average deal is
$50,000 and you can spend 10,000and pick up one customer, then

(01:02:21):
you're you're golden, right?

This is why it's so important for like the
marketing folks out there, andeven like content creators and
people like that, to reallyunderstand the cost that goes
into some of these not justevents, but just the the ROI
that you could potentially getfrom going to these events, not
just with the connections thatyou're making, but maybe the

(01:02:46):
content that you're creatingwhile there, and that you can
justify future investments on,if you can make those
connections that turn intobusiness deals later on, because
in the age of AI, it's going tobe so challenging to sort of cut
through the noise on socialmedia and email, of course, and
all of these different onlinechannels that going to

(01:03:07):
conferences in person, you'regoing to have to be strategic,
and you're going to have to doit whether it's a national or a
global conference, or more of aregional one, which I think
there's a lot of exciting thingsthat are happening around the
regional events too. The onlyconference that I've been to
since like June is the Floridasupply chain Summit, and that's
because it was in Jacksonville.

(01:03:28):
So it didn't require a lot oftraveling, obviously, not a lot
of traveling. It was 10 minutedrive for me, which was
fantastic. But the regionalconferences, I think, are really
making headways. And so while itdoes feel challenging to see so
many different new events comingonto the scene, it's up to you
to sort of filter through thatnoise and to find out where your

(01:03:51):
customers are going, where yourpartners are going, and then
make that educated decision, notjust from the marketing lens,
but also from a connectionbusiness lens, and then, you
know, have the same approach toawards as well. And maybe awards
are even a little bit easier tosubmit yourself to and submit
your company too, because itdoesn't require going to a
conference in order to do so. Soeven though it's, you know, a

(01:04:14):
lot of I think negativeconnotation is put around pay to
play, but this is all abusiness. You have to choose
where to invest, not only yourmoney, but your time as well.
And if there's a lot of benefitsto it, maybe you just haven't
seen them yet, and you're onlyseeing the dollar sign, or
you're only seeing, you know,oh, that company, like, paid a
bunch of money in order to be upon stage. Well, events cost a

(01:04:36):
lot of money, just, I think,like the venue cost is somewhere
around 70 to $100,000 for someof these venues, and like the
bigger places like Vegas orOrlando, you have to consider
those amounts, and you have tobe able to make up for those
amounts, especially for an eventthat's probably a year in
advance. And it's so there's alot of. It's a lot of financial

(01:04:59):
background that I think peopleare missing when they talk about
pay to play, going toconferences, and then what kind
of ROI you're going to get outof it? So, yeah, understand your
finances, people.

Unknown (01:05:12):
Jesus. All right, let's move into our next topic, and
that is a deep dive into rareearth. Blythe Milligan here,
Grace Sharkey, everything islogistics podcast presented by
SPI logistics. And on theseregular episodes that we like to
do, this is only you know, partof the conversation. And so part

(01:05:32):
of that conversation, I like todo these, or I like to pitch to
you, and then you just kind of,you never say no, you just say
yes. So we've done, like atugboats. We've done barges,
we've done

icebreakers, we've done, you know, South
American logistics, like we'vedone all of these different sort
of deep dives into a differentparts of the logistics process
that we find fascinating. Andone of the ones that I am just
entrenched with right now israre earths. And we're going to
be talking about the mineralsthat no one thinks about until
the supply chain breaks, andthat is rare earths, where the

(01:06:06):
stuff inside of EV motors,fighter jets, smartphones, wind
turbines and your kids, iPad allplay a role. You've likely heard
the phrase that semiconductorsare in everything. Well, guess
what's used to makesemiconductors? And that's rare
earths. And so just kind of, Iwanted to give a glimpse of what

(01:06:27):
you'll find inside of differentdevices of rare earths, where
it's technically called a rareearth. But the the common myth
around this is that they're notrare. The All of these elements
are not necessarily rare. Itthey're the reason they have
that name is because previouslythey were mined at a rare rate.

(01:06:47):
So it was called rarity, andthat's where the the the name
sort of comes from. So if you'relooking at the screen right now,
it is basically a bunch ofdifferent applications, and the
rare earth minerals that go intoeach of those, each of these
different devices, from acordless power tool, grill or
not grill, but a cordless powertools, optics, light bulbs,

(01:07:07):
hybrid vehicles, headphones,magnets, rechargeable batteries,
smartphones, obviously, cars,defense projects there. There's
so much that goes into rareearths and that power just
everyday parts of society, andit's starting to get to and not
starting. It has been a pointwhere the US is now vulnerable,

(01:07:32):
and we likely have beenvulnerable for a couple decades
now, and the country that owns,sort of the overwhelming
majority, more than 90% of thisprocess of rare earths, because
if I could take a step back,there's the mining part of it.
So you have to where are thedeposits of all of these
different minerals all over theworld? So when you find these

(01:07:53):
different deposits, then it getsinto a mining process which
takes these elements out of theearth. It essentially grinds
them into a powder type form,and then from the powder, you
have to go through hundreds andhundreds of processing, because
essentially, when you pull rareearths out of the earth, they're
all kind of the same, or most ofthem are all kind of the same.

(01:08:15):
And so the processing and therefining is where the
complications are at where thethe overwhelming majority of
time and money and environmentaldisasters are kind of centered
around, is refining thosedifferent rare earths into the
elements of what you want touse. And so it grinds them into

(01:08:35):
like this powder type substance.
That powder is put into bags,and then that bag, those bags
are shipped all over the world,but mostly they are kept in
China for the continued refiningprocess. And so it's toxic. It's
the hardest part. China controls91% of this process of to mine
and extract them. And so just tokind of a you know, high level

(01:08:57):
overview here, 900 pounds ofrare earths are used in one jet.
A naval destroyer uses 5000pounds. A submarine uses 9000
pounds. And it's not just indefense, but technology too. And
this process, or any kind ofbottleneck can apply, can affect

(01:09:20):
any part of the supply chainprocess. So typically, right
now, what happens in the UnitedStates is that we have some
mining capabilities, but we usedto have a lot more. And with the
way that process worked is thatwe would mine them, and then we
would ship them over to Chinafor the refining and processing,
and then they would ship themback. And so think about any
kind of like customs delay, Portdelay, any kind of issue in that

(01:09:46):
process calls causes a break inthat supply chain. I think that
was about it, as far as like thehigh level notes that I had, but
it affects everything, eventechnology, the current
manufacturing capability. Isthat, you know, we're all trying
to, sort of, you know, bring itback to the United States. We
have about 50 billion inmanufacturing capabilities that
we're currently spending withmanufacturing in the United

(01:10:07):
States. But all of that processcan be dramatically impacted by
increasing demand andgeopolitics, and obviously the
ongoing sort of trade slashtariff war with China, and
there's all these differentimplications to a process that
is already complex and alreadyoverwhelmingly controlled by
geopolitical rival. And so yeah,I'm going to pause there,

(01:10:32):
because I need a break. But

I want to, oh, sorry, are we doing? Go ahead.
So I do want to add to that,because it's I got to learn
about a lot of this while I wasat freight waves, and I one of
my biggest, like hits articlesjust over time, was on how a
semiconductor is made. Andwhat's fascinating is so most of

(01:10:58):
my conductors, of the bigchemical is silicon, that that
is in there, and it's the mostto talk about the rare part.
Silicon is actually one of themost common substances on the
planet, in particular, but someof the most purest silicon comes
from silicon, whatever you wantto call it, you know, Michigan
accent, we're going to call itsilicon. Silicon is one of the

(01:11:21):
most purest forms of it is foundactually in a town called Spruce
Pine North Carolina. Theyactually have the capability to
with all the billions ofmicrochips that we need every
year. They have the amount ofsilicon there for decades of

(01:11:42):
material. And we're talking, Ithink, in about a year, it takes
about over 66 million pounds ofit to make the billions of
microchips that we consume andneed every year. But what the
kicker is, because this waslike, back during, I looked this
up during the whole chips actthing, right? Because I was
like, well, where's the issue,and 100% it's all IP related,

(01:12:03):
right? So it's not so muchabout, like, where the material
is. But the problem is, is thatthe process that you talked
about is intellectual property,that's IP that's owned mostly in
Taiwan or China. And so that'swhy you're right. That's why
we're kind of, like, stuck inthis situation, because we don't
own the process. No one in theUnited States owns the process

(01:12:26):
of making the wafers themselvesfor all these chips. And so when
we talk about like, the hiccupsthat that come with the supply
chain, it's not about like, it'snot about like the chocolate
issues that we see currently,it's not like when you talk
about supply and demand, it'sit's the issue is the supply of
intellectual property and thefact that most of it's owned by

(01:12:49):
overseas entities as well. Andwe, we could get into it at some
maybe a different episode, butwe gladly gave way our rights to
ever own that so like that, kindof stuck in a rock and a hard
place. That's also why we can'tjust, you know, f you to Asia,
because it's not, doesn't helpany situation at all. But it is

(01:13:10):
fascinating because, like, wephysically could make them here,
we just don't own the property.
So like, let's say, if we wantedto, like, we're going to have to
pay a percentage point likelyright to what's the term to use
that intellectual property? Ican't the terms missing my mind
right

definition or, yeah, yeah, export controls with
specific to certain processesthat which actually China cut
off. I think in 2023 they cutoff the export controls of some
of their manufacturing andprocessing processes. Yeah, they
controlled. They locked it down.

(01:13:52):
And so then, because they sawthat the United States
recognized that this was anissue, this is a bipartisan
thing that both sides, God canactually agree on. And so they
started to shut this down duringthe Biden administration. And
then so China started toretroactively protect some of
that processing where, I thinkit's like one of the rare earths

(01:14:13):
that's the most important. Andas far as like semiconductor
performance is the processing is97% controlled by China, yeah.
And they have spent, and thisstarted, I think it was in the
60s, Rarity, oh, I'm trying tofind, like, this really great
quote because, oh, well, it wasthe the former, I don't want to

(01:14:34):
say like emperor, but the formerleader of China back in the 60s
said something to the effect oflike, Saudi Arabia has oil,
China has rare earths, and sothey strategically invested into
the processing of it to wherethey're decades ahead, as far as
like people, knowledge,technology, they're decades
ahead of anywhere else in theworld. And this was strategic

(01:14:55):
and sort of state sponsored,because that's how. China, they
pick a few different industrywinners, and they put the whole
government support behind it,and so that's why they have led
in this for decades, and even tothe point where we have a
mountain pass. And I don't knowif you saw this on maybe some of

(01:15:18):
your research, but there's amine that is in the United
States that it was sold off toanother business, and then China
was part of that process, andthen they just shut it down
because they didn't want them tocontinue innovating on the
processing power of it. And Igot this research from Groth
that said the US mountain pastmine dominated global rare earth
production from the 1950s to the1980s peaking at 70% of the

(01:15:41):
world's supply after its 1949discovery as the largest known
deposit, owned initially byMolly Diem Corporation of
America, I definitelymispronounced that. It thrived
until the 1990s whenenvironmental regulations cheap
Chinese competition and the UStech sharing, like tours for
Chinese executives in the 1960sled to China's monopoly now at

(01:16:05):
80 to 90% the mine in the UnitedStates closed in 2002 but was
revived by MP materials in 2017with bipartisan us support via
contracts under Trump and Bidenadmins to build domestic supply.
And China's recent export curveson key elements. And so they're

(01:16:27):
ramping this stuff up now backin the United States, also with
a very similar China approach,where the US is doing like a
public private partnerships,which is, I think, one of the
first investments from thegovernment side of things into
the private sector since WorldWar Two. And so this is like a
strategic thing that UnitedStates needs to do in order to
protect especially some of our,you know, defense capabilities,

(01:16:48):
missiles and jets and thingslike that. It was in 2022 there
was the new F 35 jet that wassupposed to be launched by the
military. And then they thedefense. Department of Defense
figured out that there was avery small like Chinese made
magnet that was in the fuelingprocess, and they had to
completely halt the productionof the F 35 that was extremely

(01:17:12):
embarrassing for the UnitedStates, like Department of
Defense. And so they had to kindof go back to the drawing board.
And so this company, MP mineralsis trying to bring that back,
and they're having some successwith it to where they're
bringing it back, but it's goingto be more expensive because
they don't have the decades of,you know, research behind it on

(01:17:33):
how to do this. But on the flipside, they could maybe approach
it in new ways. And I'll getinto some of maybe the newer
ways of how we can attack thissort of rare earth processing.
But I do think that it is veryinteresting that the US has kind
of taken like the Chinaapproach, where you pick a
couple strategic winners, andthen you put the coal government

(01:17:57):
support, not the wholegovernment support, but you put
that strategic investment behindit, because, you know how
strategic it can be. And China,on another thread to pull,
hasn't necessarily had to worryabout the environmental impacts
of some of their mining, becausethat is a big reason why we
haven't, us as the United Statesand also Europe, haven't been
able to compete, is because wefollow basic, you know, sort of

(01:18:19):
environmental regulations andtrying not to put radioactive
material into the ground or intothe groundwater. As you know,
some of the byproducts of miningthese things and processing them
is that they create a lot ofbad, toxic materials. And you
can either dump themresponsibly, or you can do what
China historically has done, andjust dump them wherever, where
entire towns now in China areinaccessible. The water is

(01:18:43):
poisoned because of thesepractices. But that's how they
were able to compete on a globalscale, is because they could cut
everyone else out of theprocess, because they didn't
have to worry about theenvironmental regulations, and
they could cut those costs by upto 50% and so for the United
States trying to compete, youhave to kind of think about,
well, how can we compete in thismodern day environment while

(01:19:06):
also protecting the environment?
So I'll pause there, and you letme know. What other what kind of
other takeaways do you haveabout this whole rare earths
dilemma that we find ourselvesin?

Well, I just think it's fascinating, the
understanding the process part,right? Like understanding our
role in it, the intellectualproperty aspect out of it, and
figuring out, you know, justrealizing in the future, like
the competitive advantage thathas. And I think it goes back to
just the globalization of ofeverything, right, and making

(01:19:43):
sure that you you fullyunderstand, you know, just
supply chain wise, what can andcannot be done at the end of the
day.

Yeah, and I think we've talked before on
this show about the the companycalled Hadrian, which is aiming
to. Bring manufacturing back tothe United States, but doing it
in an intentional way, whereit's not necessarily bringing
back, like, you know, the tshirt Mills, or, you know, the
way we used to manufacture, youknow, during the Industrial

(01:20:14):
Revolution. If you're going tobring manufacturing back, what
does that look like? And Hadrianis really focusing on, like, the
source of the source of thesource, where they're really
focusing in on, like the tools,for example, to make the machine
the tool that makes the machinethat makes the product. And
that's where they're, like,hyper focused. And they're using
AI and technology and workingwith these industry veterans

(01:20:37):
that have been involved in thismanufacturing process for, you
know, decades, mostly theirentire lives. But if they pass
away, we don't want to lose thatintrinsic knowledge. And so
they've been working with sothey have a system where they
have these engineers workdirectly with these subject
matter experts that have beenworking on this for their entire

(01:20:57):
life. And they'll do one of thecoolest things I think they do,
is they take scans of themachine that builds the machine,
and when they take those scans,they can monitor the levels of
the tooling making the machine,and they can identify when that
tool is going to go out ofcommission, how much of a shelf

(01:21:19):
life does it still have so thenthat way, when that machine
breaks down, you don't have awhole chain reaction of now you
can't make the parts that makethe machine that makes the parts
that go into like the sourceproducts and all of these
different items all over theworld. And so the the Hadrian
approach has been that. And sowith MP minerals or materials,

(01:21:40):
what they're doing is they'retrying to play the catch up game
too, but they're trying to beintentional about how they bring
some of this back. And it'scalled a mind to magnet
production, which we've talkedabout, you know, the magnets
before, but I had no idea howimportant like magnets are in
the entire like tech process, insemiconductor process where

(01:22:03):
these, all of these rare earths,are used to make these really
like high impact magnets thatare resistant to heat, and all
of these different sort of otherchain magnets are so cool, but
it's called this mine to magnetproduction, and where it's not
affordable yet as far as theProcessing is concerned, because
remember, China has like acouple decade lead on us as far

(01:22:24):
as the processing knowledge andtechnology, but this new,
updated process gives us accessto the process to protect
sensitive defense equipment. Andso by 2027 The goal is to have a
China free supply chain for thedefense sector, because of that
issue that happened with the Oh,is it f 35 or F 25 I'm sorry

(01:22:45):
that the naval people willcorrect me, I'm sure. But it's,
it's visibility into the sourceproducts has become vital. And
so you start with the Hadrianmodel. You start with, like an
aerospace type of manufacturingwhere it's highly needed, and
it's highly specified, where,like, the fraction of a hair is

(01:23:07):
what matters on a good productor a bad product. And so MP
materials is trying to attack itin that same way. There's also a
diversification that's going onright now with the current
administration. They're tryingto diversify the global
processing so just recently, Ithink even this week, agreements
have been reached as far asprocessing for rare earths with

(01:23:27):
Australia also. Japan is comingon soon, Saudi Arabia as well.
There's still a focus onrecycling. So there's still that
environmental impact of what wehave to think about. And there's
a couple really cool things thatare happening, because Apple
recently signed an agreementwith MP materials where they

(01:23:48):
have so much just excessinventory, not excess inventory,
but they have a lot of likereturns and a lot of computer
spare parts. And there's partsin their computers currently
that exists that they're notrecycling these at all, but they
have a huge stockpile of all ofthem. And so what can they do is
they can develop a recyclingprogram with MP materials, so

(01:24:11):
they can take those materialsout of those used products and
then turn them into newproducts. And so you don't have
to worry about, you know, thebyproducts of mining, or the
byproducts of processing.
Because it's already beenprocessed, you just have to
recycle it out of the machine.
There's also this really coolthing, well, I guess it's not
cool, but it's it's cool thatthey're finding a use for it.

(01:24:31):
It's called coal fly ash, andit's a byproduct of getting oil.
And apparently, all around theUnited States, we have these
landfills that are filled withthis whole coal fly ash, yeah,
and so we're able. We have about45,000 tons of it, and it
doesn't require any new miningpermits. It recycles a waste
byproduct. And so with all ofthis said, if all of this goes

(01:24:56):
right, and we can hit thesegoals by 2027 China's dominance
could drop from controllingaround 90% to around 70% so that
requires all of these things togo through on both sides of the
political aisle, multipleadministrations working
together, which God help us all.

(01:25:16):
Hopefully that can happen, butit really takes a national
effort in order to recognizethis major gap in our supply
chain that is going to affectevery part of electronics, how
we communicate, how we movearound, transportation,
everything is impacted by RareEarth. So I felt that it was
really important for us to divedeep into this part of the

(01:25:37):
supply chain, that it's reallylike a hidden part of the supply
chain that you hear this phrasekind of thrown around. I even
asked my husband, like, what doyou know about rare earths? He's
like, I don't know. It's a levelof education that, you know, we
get to, you know, hopefully usea show like this to help educate

(01:25:58):
ourselves and educate

other people.
Totally, yeah, it's a fun one.
Any

last takeaways?
Or I kind of went, Yeah, allright, let's get into our next
segment. And this, this is goingto be a little bit of a fun one,

(01:26:23):
and that is what makes for agood logistics podcast. Blythe
Milligan here with grace.
Sharkey, this is everything islogistics. We were probably
presented by SPI logistics, andthis was inspired by a
conversation fellow podcasterAndrew silver posted up on
LinkedIn. I think I believe itwas last week, kind of, if I'm
going to paraphrase what hesaid, is basically companies

(01:26:44):
that are starting a podcast,maybe putting a lot of money
behind it. Are they essentiallygoing to stick with it, or is
this just extra money that thesecompanies have kind of lying
around and they are, they'rebored and they want to start a
podcast. That's basically, kindof the gist of it. Do you think
I just Yeah, totally. So that'ssort of the the summary of the

(01:27:06):
conversation, and it was alively debate going on in the
comments, which yours truly did,did participate as a as a fellow
logistics podcaster, but let methink how I want to start this
conversation, because you veryexperienced over at freight
waves with hosting severaldifferent shows. I think you are
on the verge of creating one inhouse with orderful. Is that

accurate? Yeah, we have, I think, three episodes
out right now, technically, andtwo more recorded that will be
coming out over the next coupleweeks. We they come out
basically, like around biweekly, we try to do a couple of
months, and ours focuses alittle bit more on, like our
part, we talked about earlier,like our partners, those like

(01:27:51):
consultants that we work with,or even customers. The next, the
next, actually two episodes,will be actual customers that
we're doing the EDI fordirectly. And it's funny because
they, I won't say, I definitelywouldn't say, they generate a
ton of like pipeline, like leadsto bring back. There are certain

(01:28:15):
ways I think that we're puttingit out there that I'll adjust to
kind of bring those in a littlebit more, but we almost use them
more as like kind of collateralfor other posts, clips, etc, and
also just to even like includeon our YouTube page, to kind of
bring in maybe a little bit moreof like search engine SEO type

(01:28:38):
of stuff as well. Yeah,

and I think that there, it's important to
note from two different lenses,because in Silver's post, he was
talking about it as both acompany owner or former company
owner, but now he's doing apodcast, as you know, kind of
like exploring, like his owncuriosity. And I think that that

(01:29:01):
is what makes for the best host.
Because if you have a podcasthost that is genuinely curious
in the topic that they'retalking to other people about,
or they're just overall talkingabout, it's a much different
conversation than maybe the thecompany internal approach when
you're starting a show. So Ithink when you're starting an

(01:29:21):
internal show, you kind of hitthe nail on the head that it's
not, you're not going to launchan episode and, like, sit back
and like, wait for all of theleads to come. Because, frankly,
they're probably not going tocome from a single conversation.
There is no straight line fromlistener to customer in the
podcast world, it's it's allover the place. As a listener,

(01:29:42):
you want to listen to severaldifferent conversations with
both subject matter experts andthen also from different
customers or just interestingstories. And so if you are going
to do a podcast, whether youwork internally or. Or maybe
you're doing it from a marketinglens, or maybe you want to do it

(01:30:05):
as a hobby. There's alldifferent kinds of sort of, like
the ROI, to think about. And Ithink that you're coming at it
from the smart approach wheresome other companies might not
have, I guess that focused goalof, why are we even doing a
show, because some of theseshows, especially in logistics
that have popped up, it justlooks like maybe you have some

(01:30:26):
extra spare time and a podcastis fun and a podcast looks cool,
so why not spend a lot of timeand energy on creating it in
house, but then in a few months,when you have to justify that
budget, or that time that'sbeing spent on that. How are you

(01:30:46):
going to communicate the value?
And so I'm curious from like aninternal company lens, how are
you communicating the value ofstarting an internal podcast?
Like, why is this a valuablething that you need to spend
your time doing? You

know, it's interesting too, because I think
when I first started, it waslike something that leadership
wanted to, like, dive right awayon. And I actually was like, you
know, let's, let's think aboutlike, first, like, who we how we
want to attack this, right?
Because I think even just makingepisodes, to make episodes is

(01:31:18):
totally off base and shortsighted, yeah, and it's tough,
because I think when people hearthe word podcast too, they
automatically are, like, theyexpect a certain calendar with
that, right? So like, hey,podcasts, I expect to as a
listener, I want to you shouldhave a new episode every week,

(01:31:39):
and I expect that from you. Andso it's interesting, like, even
though, technically, like, wecall it a podcast, like,
theoretically, we use it as justopportunities to make some high
quality conversational contentthat we can share with our with
our customers, etc. And so Ithink that's what's interesting

(01:31:59):
to me with the whole I do thinkthat we're in this, like,
podcast fever right now, wherepeople want to to make these,
make these with, like, highlevel individuals, but again,
aren't thinking totally through,like, how well one, the amount
of money that you're puttinginto it, right? I think changes

(01:32:21):
the conversation, whereas, like,maybe a couple 100 bucks an
episode is something that we'relooking at more here. I think
there's others that are veryclearly spending big bucks on
cameras, multiple camera angles,which I think is crazy for a
podcast. I mean, I know people,celebrities that have max two

(01:32:44):
cameras, but have the sponsorsto to do that. That's another
thing too. Is like, you know,understanding your sponsor,
like, if is there, if there's anopportunity to have sponsors,
right?

Well, what's the ROI like that? That's what
you have to ask yourself beforeyou even start upon and your ROI
may look different. It maychange. Now, I remember when I
first started my ROI was, oh,imagine if I could get a Jaguars
player on the show, like thatwas my ROI. Or then it evolved
into, okay, well, starting thedigital dispatch podcast, which
is what this turned into witheverything, is logistics. It's I

(01:33:22):
can talk to my customers, and Ican gain a deeper understanding
of the struggles that they'regoing through, and I can talk to
my prospects to understand whatis driving them to make certain
buying decisions. And so itshifts, and it now it's, it's
more sponsor focused, but it'sonly sponsors that make the most
sense for my brand. Like Itotally I remember one time

(01:33:45):
there was this company thatreached out and they sell dolls
for truckers. So you can imaginewhat kind of dolls these are.
Yes, that is not a good brandfit for me. Like they were gonna
throw a lot of cash at me inorder to promote this product,
I'm not going to do that. And soas a podcast host, you kind of
have to weigh the pros and consof the companies you're going to

(01:34:08):
work with, because they could bepromoting something or doing
things on the side that couldmake some branding or create
some brand damage for you, evenif you have nothing to do with
it. But then being affiliatedwith you, you're also affiliated
with whatever negative orpositive connotation that that
company is part of, and evenwith some like sponsorship deals

(01:34:30):
that I've done where we have thesubject matter experts on the
show. But what is so impactfulis when they allow their
customers, or SPI is a greatexample where they allow their
freight agents to come on andtalk about their experience.
Yeah, that those shows getsignificantly more user or

(01:34:51):
listener engagement than asubject matter expert. And so
what my kind of theory is thatvisitors and listeners are
entering through those costs.
Customer conversations, wherethe customers are giving that
firsthand knowledge, but thenthey go back and they want to
listen to the leadership. And sothat's what kind of the the
loose funnel looks like on howI'm interpreting it and how I'm

(01:35:12):
seeing it in my own data. And sothat your ROI can evolve and it
can change. But if you're juststarting off with, like, Hey, I
got an extra 100 grand to spendon a podcast. I think we're
going to start it internally andget 17 different camera angles
and expensive graphics and videolike all of that stuff is I, you

(01:35:33):
know, it's important. It's anice to have. But if you don't
have a dynamic host, that ispart of your company,
strategically, part of yourcompany, because I have seen
too, where someone will becomethe face of that company, and
then they leave, and they takeall of that awareness with them.
Yeah, that's another thing to beconcerned about as well.

Yeah. And you know what's interesting, like
talking about, what you'respeaking on, I think is huge, is
too I mean, there's, there's onethat I think, you know, we're, I
can't speak for Andrew, but onein particular, I think he was
pointing out where the concern Ihave with some of them is like,
how, how is your customerlearning about your product

(01:36:19):
through all this? Is your hopethat, like, you just get a high
level individual and then theysay, Oh, well, I'm sitting here
listening. I wonder what thiscompany does, like talk kind of
to, like full circle back towhat we're talking about.
Beginning like, you could get130 leads and then only find
three are actual customers. AndI think where you're shooting

(01:36:42):
yourself in the flow, in thatrespect, is how many of those
watchers now are just watchingbecause of this high level
individual that you brought onthat has absolute, actually,
absolutely nothing to do withyour product. And that's where I
find it interesting, is like,especially if you're dumping a
lot of money into it, you're nottalking about your product at

(01:37:02):
all. You're not posting it whereyou would meet the people who
would be interested in yourproduct. Then you know, where,
how are you finding decisionmakers? How are you what are
your buying triggers and and howdo you like get this rolling
without any just based. I mean,it feels like it's just, it's

(01:37:25):
for clout,

Unknown (01:37:26):
right? Yeah, it's like a vanity it almost feels like a
vanity project, where you're nothaving the business goals in
mind. And so I think that's sortof the thing I wanted to lean on
with this discussion, isespecially as companies are
considering their marketingbudgets for 2026 and beyond?
Should you start a podcast?

(01:37:47):
Well, I think you should alwaysbe talking to your customers,
and if they're willing to comeon camera and talk about their
buying experience with you, Iwould maybe consider asking them
to go on somebody else's show,because I do think that there is
a little bit of a, well, thecustomer, the customer is only
going on the show because youasked them to go, and then are
they going to sort of sheltertheir opinion, or what they

(01:38:08):
really think, because they're onthat particular company's
podcast? And so there may besort of that perception, even
though you try really hard froma company lens to to have it,
you know, come directly from andnot sort of mince words about
what the customer is saying, butto your point, you can
absolutely use those as likeshort clips testimonials. Your

(01:38:30):
sales team can use those toanswer common questions,
especially like FAQs. And thisis exactly what this customer
did in order to, you know, sellthis a little bit more, and so
they can use that clip in orderto, you know, send it in an
email or send it in apresentation. And so it just
removes that, like, I think,barrier of awkwardness, or maybe

(01:38:59):
barrier of information, andmakes it presentable in a way
that it feels less intimidatingto do the discovery process of
what potential problem am Iexperiencing, and then does this
company solve it? And you cananswer those questions with the
content you're creating. And soI think I would just caution
other logistics companies outthere that, yes, it does feel

(01:39:19):
like everybody has a podcast,but the overwhelming reality is,
is that nine, more than 90% ofall podcasts never make it past
10 episodes. So you might hearabout a lot of different
podcasts, but the overwhelmingmajority of them are not going
to make it past 10 episodes. Andso if you want to start one
internally or support anotherpodcaster that's already doing

(01:39:41):
it then that that's your ownprerogative, but I would think
about it from the lens of, whatis my audience actually going to
care about when it comes tothese conversations? And that's,
that's where you make thecontent. That's, that's the kind
of content you should be reverseengineering from there with the
nice graph. Graphics with thegreat copy, and you know, one or

(01:40:06):
two camera angles, and you knowthings like that, where you know
this, this can be very expensiveto undertake. And then when you
only get, you know, 25 plays onan episode, those marketing
managers are going to have to beanswering that question of, why
did we just spend $100,000 onthis podcast and only are
getting, you know, 50 downloads,and then you probably put into a
situation, not calling anybodyout, but you're going to be put
into a situation where you haveto buy views, you have to buy

(01:40:29):
downloads. Those are very easyand very cheap to do. Yeah, and
you know, there are definitelysome companies out there that
are using that. I don't, all ofmy numbers are AIB certified.
That's International Associationof Broadcasters. I think that's

(01:40:51):
the acronym, but, yeah, I don'tdo that on my end, but I can
tell you, you know, there's onlya select amount of clips and
shows that get a high listenerbase, but that's, yeah, because
the audience that we're talkingto, you know, logistics is not
mainstream. Supply chain is notnecessarily mainstream, and so
you have to make content thatcan go deep, but also appeal to
the different silos that existwithin this industry. Because

(01:41:14):
even though you work inlogistics, I, you know, working
at a trucking company, I had noidea how the warehousing process
worked. I had no idea how themaritime process worked until I
started talking to these people.
And so you have to understand itfrom your audience's lens too,
that they might not know allthis lingo and this industry
jargon, or who these, you know,influencers that you're having

(01:41:36):
on you know, you have to bereally conscious about why
you're starting to show and thenreverse engineer of what your
customers care about, becausethen your ROI can evolve from
there.

And I think there's a few out there where
I've I've honestly said tomyself, and I kind of understand
where they're coming from, whereI've said I've said myself, why
isn't that person justsponsoring a more popular
podcast, right? And I think whatthey do is they see the bill and
they think, Oh, I can just makethis myself, but not

(01:42:09):
understanding the audiencereach, that those individuals
have made the work that goesinto it. And I think just the
upside of just a sponsoring apodcast that's doing success by
itself. I also, and again, I'mnot Andrew silver, not trying to
speak for him on this, but Ithink maybe they see what

(01:42:30):
Andrew's done and think, oh,like, we should hop on that ride
too. Understand Andrew, and he'stalked about this numerous times
on his LinkedIn. Like part ofthis is because, I think what he
can even contractually do rightnow in his career, so like, when
he can start getting back outthere and doing things outside

(01:42:51):
of, I think just what he'sallowed to do right now with
Melo. Will he keep doing it? Youknow, we don't know. And and so,
again, not speaking for him, butthey're like, he is doing this
because he has free time in hislife to do this, and it's a way
for him to keep, you know,building his network. And like,
there's actual reasoning behindsomeone like Andrew doing this

(01:43:14):
that's that is helpful andfruitful for him. I think what
happens is people say, Oh, Icould be like Andrew silver if I
start a podcast, not realizing,like, no, every situation is
different, and that's he's notjust doing it for clout, like at
the end of the day,

Unknown (01:43:31):
yeah, and I think too, he comes at it from a deeply
curious list to where he wantsto understand, he has long form
conversations with these people.
And so you can tell in the work,you can always tell creatively
in the work, if somebody caresabout what they're doing,
whether it's what they'rewriting about or what they're
posting about, you can tell ifthey care. And I hope that comes

(01:43:58):
across in my content. I know itdefinitely comes across in
yours, and also Andrew silvers,there's, you know, definitely a
ton of other podcasts. Chrisjolly is one that he genuinely
enjoys,

like, like that.
Well, it's, it's, it helps hisbusiness now, and I will say
it's been, again, our, I'm doingone too, but that's not our
business. But like, if someoneis doing a podcast at a plus
level of work, my secondquestion is, why isn't that a

(01:44:29):
plus level of work going to yourproduct? Do you know? I mean,
are you a podcast company, orare you an AI company? You know,
and so that's like, again, theamount of investment I see in
some of these. I'm like, boy,your users better be thrilled
with whatever you're delivering,

especially from like the if you launch a show
and you don't have customers,you're not spending that budget
on under deeply understandingyour customer. Dollars. Yeah,
it's going to get chopped plainas

day, as the kids say, it's chopped already. It's
not

Unknown (01:45:07):
making it to the 2027, budget. Let's just put it that
way. So I think that that is,well, let's leave it here for
especially in the age of AI likewe are going to, frankly, just
see more podcasts. We're goingto see more podcasts in this
industry. Your quality, even ifyou genuinely love what you do,

(01:45:30):
you're it's probably going tohave to improve where before I
would say my strategy was morelike, Can I add one

thing? Yeah, I've noticed this trend on Instagram.
And I'm wondering if you'veexperienced too, and if you're
going to do a podcast, do this.
Have you found recently the fakecommercials that are podcasts I
have, you know, I'm talkingabout

Unknown (01:45:53):
where they're doing, they're they set it up in an
environment like this, yes.

And it feels like like that's if you're going to
do fancy camera work, do that,yeah, make the fake ads that
make it feel like a podcast.
Don't just have Paul from freecaviar on a taste caviar because
you're bored. Like, whoops,okay, I said it. But like, they
know, they called me out onLinkedIn. But like, that's like,

(01:46:22):
what's funny to me is like, doif you're going to do that, then
do it the AI, fake way thatpeople are doing that, that get
people to sit on it a fewminutes more, and then all of a
sudden you're like, oh my god,I'm just seeing an ad. Like,
that's going to have a betterROI than being like, let's have
caviar.

Unknown (01:46:42):
Well, I think, too, you're kind of hinting around
the fact that, you know, I'veseen Alvis recently did a
podcast, or started their owninternal podcast, which Ava,
love her. She's now with a newcompany, but she was hosting
that show, and they're the clipsfrom those conversations are
then being used as ads. So theythey interviewed their

(01:47:02):
customers, yeah, and then theytook, like, the dynamic clips
from those conversations, andthen they use them as
advertising. And so that, to me,is like the perfect blueprint to
follow if you're thinking aboutimplementing a podcast strategy
into your your marketing budgetfor 2026 and beyond, is like,
follow the blueprints of thecompanies that are they don't.

(01:47:25):
They're not going to throw$100,000 behind a show, yeah,
but maybe you throw $10,000behind a show and you have, you
pick up or you, I've also saidthis for years, find local media
talent, because local mediatalent knows how to do all of
the things that you need to getdone for a podcast, and they
know how to speak to it from aneditorial lens. They know how to

(01:47:47):
edit they know how to distributeit. They know how to conduct the
interview. And so you're, you'recovering a lot of those costs
into one person, and then fromthere, you could put an
advertising but you can promotethe show first, organically,
promote the clips, organically.
See what resonates with people,see what resonates with your
customers, send it to yourcustomers and get feedback as

(01:48:07):
well. And then from there, youcan figure out where to put the
money behind the podcast clipsto generate more awareness about
your brand and about yourcompany, and do it in a very
cost effective way that stillmoves the needle from an ROI
perspective, because there's, Idon't want to say like the
podcast market is too crowded,but our attention spans are

(01:48:29):
shorter. Our attention span, ourattention is limited to only a
few hours in the day. So if youwant to be one of those shows
that somebody listens to thatthey have that valuable time
frame, and lifting it on the wayto work on the way home, you
have to think about how torespect their time and respect
your customer's time first, andyou'll see much more benefits

(01:48:51):
from that. Down the line, you'llget a renewed budget. And this
is all free advice, so take itand run with it, and then from
there, if you have a successfulproduct or a successful show
that is the product, then youcan start to branch out into
more, you know, the funinterviews and, you know,
talking to maybe, you know, someof the the bigger personalities
in the industry that have a morewider appeal. But first, just

(01:49:15):
start with your customers.
Understand your customers first,and then work from there.
Totally love it. Okay. Endingout the show,

we got about five minutes to hit these
topics. I don't know. Do youhave anything that you want to
share as far as source to porch?
Because I can make mine quick.

No, I can hold no, I'm good. You can make yours
quick. Yes, okay, good, alright,

Unknown (01:49:41):
let's get into our our final topic, and that is source
to porch Blythe Milligan here,Grace Sharkey, everything is
logistics for to buy SBIlogistics. And my source to
porch story for this week is orfor this month is Lake with I am
not pronouncing that right, butthe cookware line you. What a,
you know,

cast iron, enamel, cast iron, like, a very,
very like, like hand, I don'twant to say like, hand me down
products, but cookware that'senough, that's investable, that
you would keep this and youwould hand it down to your
children. Like that kind ofcookware. Well, we covered
earlier in the show a lot aroundthe different manufacturing

(01:50:23):
process. Well, manufacturingprocess also affects the
cookware industry, because Iwant to show you how these this
cookware is made, and then I'llget into some of the importance
around it. So let me play thisquick video from the Wall Street
Journal on how lake withscience, iconic cast iron is
made

Unknown (01:50:44):
Jose's factory, where it's iconic dutch oven is made.
First, a giant magnet lifts up amix of iron and steel and moves
it to a cauldron where it'smelted down to a very bright
liquid that's poured into sandmolds, which will form the shape
of the product. Once they'recooled, the cast iron moves
along this conveyor belt toshake off any excess sand. All

(01:51:05):
along the way, workers arechecking for any bumps or
inconsistencies that could causehot spots when you're cooking
with it. At home, any pot with aflaw is taken off the line,
melted down, and the processstarts all over again. When the
cast iron is ready, it's sprayedwith an initial primer coat of
enamel, and then the rim iswiped clean with a sponge. It
may look simple, but it can takeup to two months to train for

(01:51:26):
this job. If you apply too muchpressure, you could ruin the
enamel coating, and you have tokeep pace with the production
line. Once the pots are sprayedwith their second coat, they're
put in a giant oven that turnsthe sort of dusty, matte coating
into the colored glass enamelyou'll find in the store.

Okay, so that's how they're made. So I figured
that would be a good part toinclude in this process of how
they're actually made. But whatI think is incredibly
fascinating, and I don't thinkthat it's made its way over to
reels yet, so you probablyhaven't seen this. This is more
of like a tough thing, but it'scalled their factory to table
events and how they handleexcess inventory. And so

(01:52:05):
essentially, the way it works isthat they have all of this
excess inventory, and they selltickets to events all over the
country. In order to get insideof the event, you have to pay a
ticket. You pay for a ticket,and then once you're inside, or
even ahead of time, you can alsohave access to what's called a
mystery box. And so with theircookware, what they've done is

(01:52:25):
that you pay to get in, so youget access to all of this, like,
sort of seasonal, or like rare,to find different pots and pans
and cookware, and they're allheavily discounted. But then the
Mystery Box angle is you pay,they get, like, 150 bucks, but
you have no idea what's going tobe inside of this box. And so
what happens is that there's alot of people that are only

(01:52:46):
going to this event just to getthe mystery box, because the
mystery boxes can be incrediblyvaluable. And so there's like
this secondary economy that ispopping up outside of the events
in the parking lots where peopleget their mystery boxes. They go
into the parking lot, and peoplejust start opening up their
boxes to kind of see what theyhave. They're recording it.

(01:53:07):
They're posting it to Tiktok.
It's incredibly viral typecontent. But then the secondary
economy is popping up to wherepeople are buying and trading
the mystery box items in theparking lot of where the events
are taking place. So it createsthis level of like viral
marketing for this excessinventory that lake Poisson is
getting the marketing benefitsout of it, and they're also

(01:53:30):
selling off a lot of this extrainventory. So remarkably it, or
it's done remarkably well, untilrecently, where they had an
event in Cleveland. I think itwas Cleveland, and the mystery
boxes were not good. Like peoplepaid like $150 and they got,
like, a single dish, or like abutter dish, like, they were not

(01:53:52):
impressive. And it had thecomplete opposite effect, where
all of these people who were solike rabid fans for this brand
now, and this, these tickets tothese factory to or it's factory
to farm events or factory totable events are selling out all
across the country. Really. Theyhave global events as well. And
so it created this, likenegative feedback, where lake
was to shut down the comments ona lot of their social media

(01:54:15):
posts because it went so bad.
And then so you have this. Theydid recently have another event.
Much they got back to form, andso they don't necessarily have
to worry about this, as youknow, the internet let them
know, but it was a sort of dramaand like a PR disaster around
it. And so I'd been planning oncovering this topic for a little

(01:54:39):
bit, but friend of the show, JenMorris with ship happens, she
actually had an email newsletterthat went out recently that
talked about this, that talkedabout sort of the advertising
side of things, and talked aboutit from, you know, getting rid
of, like, excess inventory. Andshe had a few different
takeaways, which I thought werereally fascinating, because if
you think about it, from, like,the lens of like, a. Burberry,

(01:55:00):
the company, when they haveexcess inventory, they they fry
it, they burn it up, they shredit, they cut it up, because they
don't want the pores to haveaccess to their inventory. They
want to keep that luxury image.
And so one of Jen's takeaways inher article, and I'll link to it
in the show notes, of course,but by rethinking how excess
stock is handled. They preservetheir luxury image, they reduced

(01:55:23):
warehousing and transport costs,they collected direct consumer
data, and they turnedliquidation into engagement and
content. And I thought that thatis a perfect summary for this
sort of source to porch segmentwhere we can figure out it sort
of ties into the rare earthsthat are needed to make this
type of cookware. This type ofcookware is, if you've never

(01:55:43):
used it before, it is one ofthose things where it makes a
dramatic impact, like my soupsand broths and sauces that I
make, I use it in that type ofcookware, and it makes a
dramatic difference, but they'reable to take a lot of their
excess inventory, or even, likespecial items, rare items, and
create sort of a fanaticalenvironment around it that

(01:56:05):
creates social media awareness,brand awareness gets rid of that
excess inventory and still, likeJen says, maintains their their
luxury image. So I thought thatthat was an interesting take on,
sort of the the Mystery Boxeconomy, and how that's, that's
sort of the thrill of the huntfrom a retail perspective, I
think is a very smart play whereyou have, you know, like TJ Maxx

(01:56:31):
or a marshals, where it's thatthrill of the hunt is what Lake
wasat has captured here. And Ijust thought that that was an
interesting story to share. Sohopefully you enjoyed that,

too. Love a mystery box.

Who doesn't love a mystery box? Okay? All
right, Grace, I know you have torun out. So that does it for
this source to porch segment. Soany final thoughts, anything you
want to leave the audience with,where to find you find more of
your work.

Head over to orderful.com if you're looking
to speak to an EDI expert. Checkout our LinkedIn page to figure
out what events will be at Next.
We'll be at Trimble next.
Trimble insights that cat wasabout to knock over the glass
water and, yeah, that's it. Iappreciate it.

Blythe, awesome. Well, it was another
great show. So we'll see younext month, and we'll do a
little, maybe more holidaythemed issues. Yeah? Like what
we have here? Yeah, there yougo.

Blythe Brumleve (01:57:26):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of
everything is logistics, wherewe talk all things supply chain
for the thinkers in freight, ifyou like this episode, there's
plenty more where that camefrom. Be sure to follow or
subscribe on your favoritepodcast app so you never miss a
conversation. The show is alsoavailable in video format over
on YouTube, just by searchingeverything as logistics. And if

(01:57:47):
you're working in freightlogistics or supply chain
marketing, check out. Mycompany, digital dispatch. We
help you build smarter websitesand marketing systems that
actually drive results, not justvanity metrics. Additionally, if
you're trying to find the rightfreight tech tools or partners
without getting buried in buzzwords. Head on over to
cargorex.io where we're buildingthe largest database of

(01:58:08):
logistics services andsolutions. All the links you
need are in the show notes. I'llcatch you in the next Episode
and go jags. You you

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