July 3, 2025 • 46 mins
What happens when the company you helped grow suddenly shuts down? For Mia Mazel, it sparked the launch of a brand new one, Talento.
Recorded live at TMSA Elevate in Austin, this conversation with Mia explores her journey from grad student to logistics leader, how she navigated the closure of Sworkz, and how Talento is redefining nearshore staffing with a tech-first mindset. She shares how adversity turned into opportunity, why supply chain pricing teams are ripe for transformation, and how blending AI with human expertise creates smarter operations, not job replacements.
Key takeaways:
- Mia launched Talento just 72 hours after her former company shut down, retaining customers and building new processes on the fly.
- Talento provides talent management solutions and AI-powered tools for supply chain companies with a focus on operational simplicity.
- Nearshore teams can do far more than customer service, especially in pricing, sales, and data.
- Mia aims to act as a partner, not just a service provider, offering guidance even when clients aren’t sure where to start.
- Building brand trust means creating a business that can thrive without being dependent on one person.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blythe Milligan (00:00):
Welcome into another episode of everything is
(00:07):
logistics, a podcast where thethinkers in fridge, we are
proudly presented by SPIlogistics, and I'm your host,
Blythe Milligan, and we've gotanother great episode for you
all today. We are live inAustin, Texas at the TMSA
elevate conference. We've gotMia Mazel on the show. Is a long
time they want to get her on theshow. So she just co-founded a
new company called Talento, andwe are going to hear all about
(00:29):
it.
Mia Mazel (00:33):
You just, we were just talking, you just got off
the plane, you just got intotown, and she's sitting down,
she's doing interviews. So it'sback to back. The grind never
stops. That's right. Here weare. But I enjoy it, though it's
the rush of life. So let's, Iguess maybe let's start off
where you started off withlogistics. Because did you come
from a logistics background?
Like, did you fall into it? Likea lot of people, I fell into it
(00:55):
accidentally. Yeah. So I wasstudying human development,
Family Sciences, finishing up mymasters, and then I got a random
phone call to go and move toColumbia and start this new
company. And I'm like, what? Me,why, who, what, when, where.
Why? So? Kind of, in thatprocess, it basically took about
four weeks where they had calledme in November, and by the end
(01:17):
of December, I had said, Youknow what? I want to move like,
I want to try this thing out.
And all I knew is that it took alot of learning. Like it meant
being in the financial role,being in the operational role,
being in sales and marketing andeverything. And I love learning.
So I was like, You know what?
Let's do this thing. So I jumpedon a plane, moved to Columbia,
and then put my Masters on alike, a leave of that, Oh, wow.
(01:39):
Never ended up finishing that,which I mentioned that because I
actually just finished it abouttwo weeks ago. Gonna say I saw
your LinkedIn post that? Yeah,congratulations, by the way,
thank you. So kind of a fullcircle moment, but I really took
like a like a turn out of that,right? I stopped working in
education, and I just jumped inthe logistics in the near
shoring front, and just foollike, dove in. And then after
(01:59):
being in Columbia for one year,I went to Florida for a year,
because that's kind of themiddle ground between Columbia
and all my customers, theseevents, those kinds of things.
And then I've been with themever since, well, kind of in the
industry ever since. And thennow the end of Essex came to
lentil came along, and that'skind of the beginning parts of
how I joined the industry. Andso how did you because I think
(02:20):
that being able to co foundtalento was the key to that from
just based on listening to yourepisode on thinkfreight, he was
talking about, or you guys wereboth talking about how your
willingness to learn, and all ofthose different areas with with
swercs, it played a key role inlike Helping with talento and
getting it off the groundquickly. Tell me about that
(02:42):
transition. I mean, I imaginewas crazy. I've been a part of,
like, a company closing down,and it was absolutely traumatic.
And try the least, but tell usabout it. Well, yeah, such a
trauma.
Unknown (02:58):
Well, no, seriously, on the personal side. It was a lot,
you know, I wasn't expecting itlike I loved what I did or what
I was doing, and I was stable, Iwas comfortable, and I wasn't
expecting anything to change. Sowhen I got that call that it was
just like, hey, like mom and dadaren't finding that middle
ground anymore, kind of thing,you know, we need to choose a
side. Like it was, like, out ofluck for me, you know, I felt
(03:21):
some, you know, tension and someitems, but nothing to the degree
of, like, we're gonnapotentially close this company.
And also, like, December was thebest month we had ever hit in
all of s works too. So it waslike, I'm at my peak. I'm
literally at the peak, and nowwe're gonna fall so emotionally,
it took a huge toll on me, butwhen I also didn't want to make
a decision, just because someoneforced me to make a decision, so
(03:43):
I took that time to reallyunderstand. Like, what is it
that Mia wants? Like, do I wantto go back to what I was doing
and studying? Do I want tocontinue in this industry? Do I
want to, you know, co found acompany, or do I want to be a
teacher? Like, I don't know. Soluckily, during that those three
days, I actually was a threeday, three, three days, I was at
SMC three, the conference in thebeginning of January, and I was
(04:04):
reminded that I absolutely lovewhat I do. I love the people
that I get to interact with. Ilove the things that I get to
do. I love the processes. I lovethe learning. So I said, You
know what? Let's do this thinglike, let's give it a shot. I
had basically almost three yearsat s works, where I got to do it
for somebody else. And I hadstarted, like I mentioned in
marketing and sales, I did theinvoicing, you know, I was doing
the billing. I was paying theteam, the custodians, that were
(04:27):
coming into the office. Youknow, it was just all these
random little things that helpyou learn how to build a company
later. And also I had, I wasvery fortunate to already come
in with trust, the trust fromthe people and the trust from
the customer. So when Essex waskind of closing, they
immediately came over. I didn'thave to, you know, hound
anybody, or, you know, negotiateor try to convince it was just
(04:49):
very easy a phone call, Hey,this is what's going on. Cool. I
believe in your vision. Let's gowith it, Mia. And so it was an
incredibly reassuring moment. SoI took what was really
traumatic, but.
I looked at the positives of it,of how, wow, everybody around me
thinks that I can do it. I thinkthat I can do it. Let's do this.
Yeah, you had to come up withall reevaluate your entire life,
(05:10):
and it's like three days, yes,basically. And in all that,
that's not easy. No, you want tobuild a new company. What are
you gonna name it to let Okay,cool. Let's do it like it was.
It kind of is like a joke whenyou think of it like that. But
it like that, but it was, but itreally did happen just like
that, like, literally, 72 hours.
Wow, it's a what, what ifanything, did you have to, I
imagine you didn't have toreally start over. Maybe it's
(05:32):
just a lot of paperwork that youhave to do, manual, like, admin
stuff. So no. So for the mostpart, operations stayed the
same, but we did have somechange in the administration
side. So for the most part, wedidn't have the same sellers, we
didn't have the same marketingteam. We didn't have the same
recruiters and operational soalthough we had maybe, like the
skeleton and the boots and, youknow, we still had some revenue
(05:54):
because the customers and theoperations are running as
normal, I had to train up allthe new account managers and the
recruiters, and not to learn howto do the process, but how we do
our process, you know, and buildout to lento's new role. So
maybe s works, did it this way,but to lento is going to do it
this way. So in the beginning, Iwas kind of, you know, full on
training all of admin, andsetting up the banks in
(06:15):
Colombia, and setting up thebanks in the US and APA, they
are, and all these things thatlike you don't I didn't have to
touch, but now I didn't touchso, but the fortunate piece was
that I have some really greatteam members, so I was able to
really delegate and, you know,trust in that those people were
going to handle their areas, andI could focus on sales and
marketing and keep making surethat the business is growing, so
(06:37):
then I can continue To bring onmore people and, you know, build
that cycle of growing abusiness. Wow. So you had to
make all of those decisionsfairly quickly, but you also had
the, I guess, the the experienceto know, like, which ones were
working and which ones didn't.
So it was almost like a cleanslate, but you still got some
(06:58):
money in the bank to, like, workwith a little Yeah, yes, and no,
it was like, yes. It was tricky,because, like, for example, we
still have the same CRM, but wenow have a different entity. So
even though you have theworkflow built, if you don't
have the right, I don't know,integrations, or the right cells
formatted, then it doesn'tactually work. So it was like,
you have it, but you reallydon't have it, you know, like, I
(07:19):
wasn't getting the alerts frommy CRM, or when I was getting a
new email, I switched everythingfrom Google to teams and
Microsoft. So it's like, there'sa huge learning curve. One of my
biggest pains is just accessingoutlook, which should be the
easiest thing, and it's one ofthe most complicated. So it's
those little barriers, or thoselittle like hiccups that I
didn't expect are really, like,cumbersome, as opposed to the
(07:41):
bigger ones that I thought,like, oh, I need an HR system
now. Like, that was easy tofind, to vet and to implement,
but once you have it, you know,the little things of like, oh, I
want to send out birthday memosnow, and I can't configure this
system with this system. Likethose little things that you
would think would be so easy arethe biggest and the hardest
ones. So let's talk a little bitabout what talento does, because
(08:02):
I think that you've been able tofocus on what has worked with s
works in the past, and then kindof refine it, moving into
talento and maybe expanding someof the things that you might
have thought about doing before,but maybe didn't have the
bandwidth to do it. So give us,like a baseline of what talento
provides, and then how you kindof think about the future. So
(08:22):
talent management is kind of thebasis of what we were providing
before, for supply chainspecifically, and we're
continuing to provide that. Butnow with talento, we also, in
all this change, startedpartnering with a team of
developers that have beenworking in supply chain and
healthcare for a couple of yearsnow in Columbia. So now we
actually brought them on as likean allied partner that we use
(08:44):
for our customers, in the senseof when you come in and I look
at your problems and your needs,not just looking to see how I
solve it with people or talent.
I'm looking to see if maybe Ican provide you some AI or some
business intelligence as well.
So dashboards, anything to dowith dashboards, and, you know,
making sure that your data andyour information is in a way
that's actionable, that you canactually use it, and crossing
(09:07):
that between multiple platforms,because I know that people
brokerages, for example, havegreen screens and d a t and
their TMS and their CRM and thisand the third, and it's a
million things, so to be able toget that in one place is great,
and then the other piece is AI.
And, you know, everyone talksabout these agents and these
bots and those kinds of things,so we use it in the voice
languaging processing and visionprocessing. So for example,
(09:28):
cleaning up your emails, andlet's say you have an outlook
accounting email, and splittingit up based off the right
individuals, or something like abot on your website, where maybe
it's helping you answerquestions and inbound leads, and
it's not replacing a human butnow, instead of having five
sales reps staff, 24/7 to answeryour website questionnaires, you
have an AI agent and one salesrep that will handle that right.
(09:51):
So it's just kind of looking atthe problem a little bit
differently. Is now what talentois doing, but I do want to
emphasize that we do want tofocus on supply.
Chain and not be, you know, okayat everything, but really good
at one thing. And I think thatthat's so important in today's
age where AI can be highly,highly specialized in like the
agents or the bots area, butthen having that person can
(10:14):
almost belike the conductor of the
orchestra, of like the agentorchestra, like your
automations, or just solvingthose different problems and but
I think the first thing that youhave to know is like, what are
your What are your numbers? Whatare you trying to hit? What are
your KPIs? And getting all thatinformation into one so I think
that's the super interestingattack plan, is to have that
dashboard of knowledge and thenhelping them to kind of figure
(10:36):
out where to plug and play withthese different solutions. And
it's like a one stop shop idea,you know, it's pretty inclusive.
Like you don't have to come toMia to ask her about this and
then go to Maya to ask her aboutlike, no Mia can tell you that,
Hey, maybe I can't help you withthis part, but I know Maya can,
you know, and I can do thatvetting for them. And so I
mentioned the word ecosystem alot. I want to be that kind of
(10:59):
partner, or that person that youbelieve in and trust that will
already do that vetting for youand understands the lay of the
field. So again, when you comeand you ask me about a specific
issue, if I can't help you, Ihope that I can guide you to
somebody that can help you,because I can't do everything,
you know, and I'm not going tohave the most renowned AI bots,
because that is not my strength.
(11:22):
You know, the reason that Ibring on that partnership is to
complement what we have goingon, not to replace what we have
going on, absolutely. So how doyou especially being on the
front lines of this from like atalent management standpoint?
How do you see the currentmarket of supply chain roles,
and then, how do you see thatevolving in many ways, in many
(11:43):
ways.
See, I think one of the problemis that supply chain as a whole,
supply chain roles, is very,very broad, right? And so it
depends where we're looking inthat. But one area in specific
that I see a lot of potential isin the pricing department, in
that kind of it's technicallyback office, but people don't
really think of it a backoffice, because it's kind of a
middle ground of like your salesand your finance team. But we've
(12:05):
been working with a lot ofindividuals providing them data
developers, bi or, sorry, PowerBI or Tableau engineers, things
of that nature, where you'resaving tremendous amount of
money. You're finding bilingualtalent, and they come with that
supply chain expertise. So theydon't just know the programming
or the tech, but they alsounderstand the life cycle of a
(12:25):
load, and so it just makes itthat much easier to implement.
So that's an area where I feellike many don't go towards near
shoring or offshoring for thatkind of pricing piece, because
they also don't think thatsometimes we have a limited
mindset where we think, hey,offshoring and back office is
just for customer service orjust answering the phone. And
the reality is, people arepeople, and we're intelligent
(12:46):
everywhere. And so you can finda killer pricing analyst or
pricing engineer in LATAM, justlike you can find one in the US.
So I don't know if that directlyanswered your question, but I
think there's a huge futurethere. Well, I think it kind of
goes back to the conductormindset of if you're running a
business, and especially in theage of AI like, you know, I'm a
writer at heart, but I can useAI to help me create graphics,
(13:08):
and I can use it as a tool tohelp me in other areas where I'm
weak, where it might, you know,I'm not going to not hire a
designer in the future, but Ican at least get them some
concept art that's added out ofmy Brain and into their hands so
they can have something to workwith. Yeah, I think that's kind
of, maybe what you're buildingwith talento is helping these
supply chain roles be able toexpand in other areas, or maybe
(13:31):
see things. Maybe be that likeflashlight in the dark. Yes, and
try it out exactly because AI issuch a big buzzword and it's so
scary, you know, and you canbring on a whole team, and
you're going to need, you know,a QA analyst and a project
manager to even guide it. Thenyou need your developer, then
your full stack. And this ninenow you just hired eight
employees for a project that youonly need for three months. And
so sometimes I think that peopleare a little bit scary. They're
(13:53):
a little scared to even try it,because one, they don't
understand it, and two, theydon't know where to start. So
being able to kind of give themthat, like, Hey, here's a little
window of, like, Look, we're notgoing to give you the most
renowned, you know, the mostsophisticated, AI, but we're
going to dumb it down in a waythat it is so practical and easy
and just like, wow, why didn't Ithink of this before? Why didn't
I do this before? And that'swhat I want them to feel, you
(14:15):
know, like that was so easy,like, I should have done this a
long time ago. I love thatapproach, because I think for
so, like, we just speaking from,like, personal experience, like,
I know I am weak in certainareas, and I know it's like,
Okay, I just need to, like,spend a weekend and watch a
bunch of YouTube videos and justfigure it out for myself. Or I
try to build my own AI agent orsomething. And it to do that, to
(14:37):
build it and to teach it istaking me significantly longer
than to just do the damn thingmyself. And so I think that
that's interesting to havesomebody kind of hold your hand
through that process. So I thinkfor a lot of folks, maybe
they've tried, you know, thechat GPT is that the world, and
maybe tried building an eight anagent, and just failed at it,
and just kept back, went back todoing this. I'm speaking for
(14:57):
myself, but it's true, becauseit's.
It's not easy, you know, andthere is no road map. And I
think also it happens to me, atleast in near shoring or
offshoring, some customers justthey don't want to invest time
in talking with you, becausethey think that you just are
going to give them and produce atask or a project. But the
reality is that we're hiringfull time employees, and so we
(15:17):
are here to be a partner, youknow, and help you manage your
employees. So if you want that,you know, hand holding of like,
let's look at your processes.
You know, let's bring thedevelopers. Let's take a look at
your tech stack. Like, let'srecommend to you where we can
help you. That's where wethrive. But not everybody wants
that. Some people, they knowexactly what they want. I want
five dispatchers tomorrow, youknow, and like, and this is as
clear as day. But someindividuals, and particularly
(15:40):
those small to mid sizedbusinesses, I see that like are
still kind of figuring out theirroadmap, or are trying to
survive, and that's I think,where we come in, because we are
willing to put in that extraeffort, that extra mile, even
though it takes me maybe anextra hour, but now you're 10
times happier, and therelationship is going to last
that much longer, and it's goingto be that much more effective.
(16:00):
And so can you, do you own Doyou start off with from the
talent aspect, or you almoststart off as, like, a
consultancy, yep. So right nowI'm very much shifting my gears,
so almost like, let's have aconversation. Let's consult.
Like, what are your interests?
What are your needs? And then doyou want to talk about your
needs that you've identified, ordo you want to talk about the
(16:20):
needs that I've identified foryou, and then from there, shake
it out and see, but ideally, theproposal is typically, like,
inclusive with both sides, buttalent management will always be
that forefront. You know, whenI'm looking at a customer and
understanding their needs, I'mgoing to think of the labor and
the talent, but I'm now as I'mbecoming more of an expert on
the AI in the tech piece, Idefinitely incorporate that more
(16:41):
and more. And so I'm making surethat some other members of my
team are experts in that space,where maybe I lack because I
don't have the time,unfortunately, to watch a
million YouTube videos, eventhough I would love to. And
although every day I try to getat least 1% better, I'm not as
tech savvy as you know, my team,my partners, and that's why I
bring them onto the calls aswell. And so even just offering
(17:03):
that like, Hey, you can have 15minutes with our developers, and
you can ask them whenever youwant. At least for me, I see a
huge value in just having aconversation, and then I can
take that information and dowhatever I want with it. And I
think too, you hit on animportant note is just having
the conversation. Sometimespeople realize how much
knowledge base and work isinvolved and doing a skill that
(17:24):
they think that they can learnin a weekend on YouTube, like
myself, but then you can takeadvantage of that talent that
not take advantage of them, bututilize that talent in order to
expedite your own success. Oh,yeah, that happens all the time.
I see like in marketing, forexample, where people think
marketing is just designing apretty picture. It's not. And
(17:44):
I'll have so many people, oh,for example, they'll ask me for,
you know, support on theirwebsite, and they're like, Yeah,
but I have a website and itlooks great. And I'm like, All
right, but let's, let's take alook here, you know. And simple
things, right? Simple thingslike keywords, right? Or SEO,
and like, maybe someone willthrow out to you, like SEO as a
buzzword, and they have no ideawhat that means, or how, how do
(18:05):
you even, like, incorporate thatinto your website? And so
they'll come and they'll say,you know, I already have that
done, like, I just want this andI and that's where I get a
little frustrated, but alsowhere I think that it's
important, because I'm verytransparent. And I'll tell them,
hey, look, I know you don't wantto hear this, and I know that
you're asking for this, but if Igive you that right now, you're
gonna fail. You're gonna getnothing out of it, and I'm gonna
(18:26):
fail as well. So we're not gonnado that. So here's your option,
and if you're ready to listen,we could talk about it. And to
be honest, not everyone's readyto listen, but not everyone's
ready to be a customer for us,either, you know, not everyone's
the right match, yeah, and that,I mean, that's a good way, or a
good mindset, especially foryou, like, early on, I feel like
you're able to have theseconversations from a level of
(18:47):
confidence, versus maybesomebody who would be a little
bit more inexperienced, or wouldjust take the business, just for
the sake of taking right? Anddon't get me wrong, I've been
there, done that. You know,we've all been there. I learned
the lesson. What are we sure andspecifically, like, as a younger
girl, like, I was very naive inthe sense, like, Okay, if
somebody doesn't treat me sogreat, like, I still need to,
(19:08):
like, talk to them to go getthat business. And now I'm so
past that mindset, thank God.
And I'm the complete opposite,where I will tell you, like, no,
maybe sometimes a little tooquickly. I'm like, No, go talk
to my friend. And I'm like,wait, wait. No, actually, I can
help you as well. But I thinkthat that's important, you know,
to be honest and clear and notovershoot. But also in those
moments where you want to, like,guinea pig, something out, just
tell them, you know, let themknow. Because some people do
(19:30):
really like that personalized,you know, tailored, kind of like
relationship. And some peoplewould prefer, again, the box
cutter. So teach their own.
Yeah, for sure. And I youbrought it up, especially from
like, the marketing standpoint,how do you, I guess, think about
your marketing from like, apersonal brand standpoint versus
your company brand? Becausethat's something I personally
(19:51):
struggle with, is like, how do iWhere's the line, and is it all
just blurry? It's super blurry.
It's hard. I.
Try. And I think that a businessisn't a business until you can
sell through the business andnot the person you know, the
people like. And I think that'ssomewhere where s works lacked,
because at the end of the day,why was I able to build talento?
(20:11):
Because all the customers hadbeen brought in by myself and
followed me over. And so that'sa failure on the business side,
but a win on mine, right? So Idon't want to lento to be the
same way, where, if I leavetalento, there is no talento.
That's a problem. So it is avery fine line, because I don't
want to lose the traction thatI've built. And I also think
that people buy from people, butI think that I need to have
(20:34):
other individuals on my teamthat are also building their
brand and making sure that asthey build their personal brand,
they're including talento intheir system, like in their
their ecosystem, right? So like,when Thomas is posting about
think fright, and he's postingabout being Thomas, like, you'll
see some posts about talento aswell. And I like it. I prefer it
that way, because I would ratherbe through a genuine person that
(20:56):
you get to know. You get to knowThomas's Thomas, not to lento.
Oh, here's one of talento salesreps. Like, that's just not how
it works for me, but I do, and Iam investing more and more on
talento's page directly onLinkedIn, and trying to put some
familiar faces on there. Soinstead of me posting on mine
and then talento reposting, I'mhaving talento posts and then
(21:17):
I'll kind of interact for mypersonal No. That makes a ton of
sense, because when I startedcargo Rex in December, we went
public with it in earlyFebruary. It was a very
conscious decision that, like,obviously, the podcast is me,
and it's never if I leave it,the podcast is probably done.
But for cargo Rex, like, it hasto be something that is
independent, where the storiesare about the employee or the
(21:40):
companies that are making wavesin this industry, not, you know
me being the face of it, so it'svery like conscious effort. But
you still gotta use, you know,you're still gonna use your
bread and butter a little bit toget the name out there
initially, and then make thattransition, of course. And I
think the other piece there ispartnerships, right? Like, when
you do partnerships, like,you're not doing it with John
(22:02):
from Papa John's, like, No,you're doing it with that
company. And so there is, like,a profile behind, you know, the
company, like, truck stop does areally good job, I think, on
LinkedIn, with their commenting.
And like, you feel like you'retalking to Mr. Truck Stop, you
know what I mean. And so, like,that's, that's great, because
you want to interact back withthat person, thinking that
there's a human behind it,rather like, you know, just a
(22:23):
robot or a creep, or like theLinkedIn AI generated comments
or something like that. No onewants to talk with them.
LinkedIn blocked me once,thinking that I was aI on my
birthday because I got so manymessages and I was responding,
and they blocked me for a coupleof hours. I had to report that
you had a timeout. Yeah, theydid. They were like, do we think
that you're using AI foroutreaching, and this is against
(22:45):
our rules. I said they werewishing me happy birthday, but
ithappens so well. Related note,
not kind of related note, butwho are? Who's doing a good job
in marketing that you see onLinkedIn? Oh, good question.
Okay, so I think that thebroker, carrier summit does a
great job. And again, loopingback to the partnerships, like
(23:07):
those partnershipsannouncements, I think are
great. Danielle Spinelli, shedoes a great job as well, for
herself, personally and for thebusiness, she does a great job,
I think, at balancing the twosides and then trucks up, as I
just mentioned, I think they doa great job through their
company. Page. I actually don'tknow any of their sellers like I
don't I don't see any likebranding through any of their
(23:27):
reps. And so I think it's aninteresting angle to see how the
company has been able to buildthat relationship, but maybe not
so much the people. So I don'tknow. And also the freedom I
think that they give truck stopto be able to post and be funny
and have that freedom without,you know, kind of feeling like
you're going to get in troubleis going to call you. And I
think a lot of folks with theirpersonal brand, they also feel
(23:49):
that level of fear, becausethey'll start posting, and then
a company representative willcome to them and be like, What
are you trying to leave? Likeyou're trying to get more love
than the company. They have sucha, you know, a backwards mindset
of thinking about these things,right? Or even, like, the post
itself, you know, I've been insituations where there they'll
say, like, oh, this contentdoesn't seem to be professional.
(24:09):
Or maybe that photo, like,there's a selfie, it has nothing
to do with anything. Like, whyare you posting it? And I'm
like, okay, like, you getcomments like that. Oh, I've
been told some things like that,yes, for sure, yeah. So I'm
like, what? Let's take a sip ofthe audacity. Yeah, let's think
about this, you know, like,let's zoom out for a second.
Like, I understand, like,Facebook or LinkedIn is not
Facebook. You know, they're verydifferent things, but there's
(24:30):
boundaries, and LinkedIn rewardsselfies. LinkedIn rewards
selfies. And LinkedIn is analgorithm, so LinkedIn, what it
wants is for you to waste time.
And so I went to a LinkedInworkshop, and I spent three
hours there, and I learned somuch. And so I always repeat
this, and I say, What they wantis you to waste time. So if I go
to your page and I'm wastingtime because I'm watching your
videos, then LinkedIn is goingto reward you and put your
(24:53):
videos on more people's feeds.
But if I go to your video and Ijust swipe right past it because
I didn't feel like looking at ittoday, now it's not going to
show it on.
Rob's feed, and so every singlesecond, like, it's like
Instagram, you just think thatscrolling through means nothing,
no scrolling through, everysingle scroll means something
exactly. Charlie safro calls itthe selfie. The selfie reset
(25:15):
that if she has certain poststhat, like, just don't pop off
for whatever reason, she'll do aselfie, plus a text post,
because people miss the textmatters. You can't just post a
selfie without actual text or apicture of yourself or whatever.
Like selfies, I guess, are maybesubjective, like whatever the
text matters people. ButCharlie's talked about how
(25:36):
she'll do a selfie reset, and itwill reset her feed, and so
whenever she does that, then hernext post, and the next post and
the next post gets way more lovethan the dud, that if you were
to just keep the dud and keeppost, oh, and I'm just gonna
post out of it, it doesn't work,that she's so right though, I
didn't realize it, that that'swhat it was called. But I do
(25:56):
that because I would try to dosome, like, texts or some polls
or something different. And Irealized, like, it weans down.
And then I'm like, Okay, let'sdo some another selfie with
something relevant, you know,and then it picks back up. But
to your point, you know, thereis some pictures that have
absolutely no comments orengagement, and that got me
nothing that, like, sure, therewas 200 likes on that selfie,
(26:16):
but that was worth nothing butthe post next to it that had 50
likes but 10 comments, thatmeans so much more, because
those comments have actual truthin the person behind them, and
there's engagement. And so whatI recommend, as well, is sending
that post with their commentdirectly to that person. So
instead of me, yeah, so insteadof me responding to rob in the
comment on my post, I'm going tosend him my post and respond to
(26:39):
him in our DMS. So now I'mbuilding a direct conversation
with us, a private conversationfor us to continue. So
interesting I would have,because I've heard, you know,
with like, the LinkedInalgorithm scoring that use that
they really value the replies,especially within like the first
couple of hours. The first 30minutes you post are the most
important, the most importanttime. So respond to any comments
(27:00):
in those first 30 minutes, butafter that, don't worry. That,
don't respond to them. Just sendit to them. Whoa. Okay, the
LinkedIn workshop that I did, Itaught me, okay, tell us, what
else you learned. LinkedInmasterclass webinars. So for
every webinar, for the everyspeaker that's on a webinar, you
get 1000 invite credits, and solet's say there's three people
on the webinar. That's 3000 perweek. So if you're gonna, you
(27:22):
know, say that I'm doing awebinar in three weeks from now
with Blythe, then that's now1000 of 1000 credits each. For
three weeks, it's 6000 credits.
And the actual turnaround ishigher, not for the attendees,
but those that didn't attend. Sothey recommend the same thing,
where after the webinar closes,you send that event invites to
(27:43):
them, like as a direct message,and you say, Hey, you didn't get
a chance to make it. Let's catchup so I can share what we
taught, what we talked about,and you missed. And supposedly,
I don't remember the exactnumbers, but the the conversion
is higher for those that didn'tattend than those that actually
and Are these like live videosthrough live webinars on
LinkedIn? Oh, wow, yeah, you canjust do like a live webinar for
however long. And typically, fora lead to convert on LinkedIn,
(28:04):
they say it's 45 minutes theyneed to spend on your profile.
So I recommend a 45 minutewebinar. Whoa. So 45 minute
webinars, and then whoever didit, are you doing anything with
the people that did attend, orthey're getting the content.
Obviously you want to give themthe content. So the idea they
gave us was that you want totalk on the webinar, like
generic but give somethingsecret at the end, you know,
(28:25):
like, maybe one of these tips,like, you give this at the very
end, and you give it on aworksheet or, like a piece of
paper. So it's like, say tillthe end to download that. So it
gives somebody, like, a way forthem to go on a landing page and
for you to get theirinformation, because LinkedIn
will count against you if youtake anybody off of LinkedIn. So
if you have a URL in your post,in your bio, anywhere, they will
(28:47):
count again. If you send a URLin a LinkedIn DM, and I click
that URL, and now I'm off ofLinkedIn, it's going to count
against you. So what are yousupposed to do? What's the point
of using LinkedIn? So the onlyway that you can have them go
off of LinkedIn without flaggingyou, is if you pay for LinkedIn
premium, and you can have aspecial button and it says,
(29:09):
click or see my website, likeunder your name. And when you
click a post, some people willhave a button that says, See my
website. So premium is worth it.
In that regard, it's the onlyway, because I was part of their
podcast Academy, and I so I gotaccess to premium and I was
like, Well, I'm not gonna payfor this after this is over,
like it's not worth it, but nowkind of sounds like it's
probably worth it, it, I don'tcurrently pay for it because I'm
(29:30):
just waiting to pull thattrigger since, like, we've
transitioned, but it is like,you get like, brownie points for
Paying more, and they're gonnacount against you less. It's so
expensive, it's like 100 bucks amonth, it is. And they have a
monopoly, you know, like theyreally have control this
professional world. That's true.
And, I mean, it sounds like anecessary evil too, but you're
(29:52):
also reaching your targetaudience. And if you're spending
all this time, I mean, I spend alot of time, too much time on x,
and I'm not.
Any kind of perks or benefitslike that. See, I don't use X.
I've tried to, like, be aLinkedIn guru and really hone on
there. But there is. The problemis also that these algorithms
change all the time, and it'snothing that they publish. So
it's you needed to keep up,watch your multiple YouTube
(30:15):
videos every weekend and alwaysknow what's what's going on.
It's tricky. How did it? Didthey talk anything about, like,
short form video, about what'sworking well or what's not
working. They did talk a littlebit about short form videos,
saying how that was a trend thatwas popping up. But there's some
conflict with Instagram andfighting LinkedIn on that
formatting, so likely it's notgonna last for a very long time,
(30:36):
is what they were expecting. Andif you see already it's slowed
down the short form video, wow,yeah, for LinkedIn. And now it's
popping off on YouTube. Now thelittle reels, oh, the shorts,
yeah, we get really greatengagement on shorts. But
LinkedIn videos, we've recentlyswitched from a vertical format
to the horizontal format, justto kind of just change it up and
(30:56):
just see, and it's working a lotbetter on x and LinkedIn the
horizontal format versus, Ithink vertical format, maybe
people are just so used toseeing, well, they're just going
through it way too fast. They'rethey are using it like Tiktok.
And the problem is that LinkedInwill go like will count that
against you. So it's not workingfor the people that are actually
posting. What about like repost?
Does that work or play a factorat all? You didn't talk anything
(31:19):
about repost, no. So I reallydon't think it does much.
Hopefully, yeah, Ding me, butthat's essentially what I do.
And so I'm getting like, aLinkedIn masterclass, right?
Well, I mean, if you'rereposting a lot and people are
scrolling past it and notengaging, it's dinging against
you, yeah? But there's manydifferent things. I mean,
different kinds of posts he saidthat don't really do too much.
(31:39):
Your bio itself doesn't reallychange anything as well. I mean,
there's a lot of differentthings that you can consider,
but you just have to be alwayson top of it. You know, what's
new? What's changing? What aboutoutside of social media? Are
there any other or staying withsocial media for a minute? Are
there any other platforms thatyou're finding like benefit like
people preach on, like Facebookgroups, and I'm like, I would
(32:01):
rather take a drill to mytemple.
Yeah? No, I don't use Facebook.
Nope. I just have no interest.
So it's tough for me to spendany time there. Yeah, I've been
in like, random like groups,like, I think there's one called
like, the logistics war room,and just like spam, yeah, or
(32:21):
clutch is an organization. Idon't know if you've heard of
that. Okay, I don't know muchabout clutch, and I don't want
to speak on it incorrectly, butfrom my understanding, it's
almost like a marketplace, likewhere you go on there and you
look for, hey, I need a staffingsolution. Where do I go to? And
it kind of gives you options.
We've had some some leads comein through clutch was which was
surprising.
(32:42):
Yeah, just random. But no, forus, it's been referrals, like
just word of mouth and justknowing people and referring
through people. I played thelong game, and so some of my
conversations and relationshipsfrom TMSA three years ago are
just now turning around andsigning but they're signing
with, you know, quotes of fiveplus heads, because they have
been talking to me for years andthey're finally ready. So I
(33:04):
think timing is everything. Butmy point with the referrals is
that customer testimonials, thatkind of marketing, which broker
carrier summit does really wellat a couple of other companies
out there, do really goodcustomer testimonials that is
really powerful. Yeah, that knowthat you're the second person
now, and we're because we'redoing a few interviews today.
You're the second person now totalk about the power of
referrals. And in a world, Ithink, where people just
(33:27):
inundated with cold calls andemails, think referrals are a
great way to stand out. Yeah, Imean, it's one of our KPIs, like
for our sales reps, like formyself and for Thomas. If we're
not going to convert justthrough emailing and cold
calling then, but we'reconverting through referrals.
And every single week, I wantyou to reach out to your best
friends and have some meetingswith your best friends and ask
(33:48):
them to give you oneintroduction. That's it. What do
you think is one of the missingpieces of like marketing or
sales advice that a lot offreight companies don't follow?
Hmm, I think that a lot of usare very old school in this
industry, and so they just don'twant to touch Social Media
besides what they're already on,like Facebook, or I also think
(34:12):
it's just that kind of limitedmindset of, Oh, I know what AI
is, or I know what ads are. Andso they think that they know it
all, and they really don't like,yeah, you have a website, but
you don't have a single keywordon your website. So when I go
and I look up Blythe, but yourwebsite doesn't say Blythe
anywhere, I'm never gonna get toyour website, you know. So it's
those little things where Ithink we need to take a second
and listen to all these thingsthat are going on, and we do
(34:34):
need to use AI, like I was oneof those that didn't want to use
AI for months and months andmonths. And now, if you don't
use it, you're gonna, you'regonna fall behind. You know, I I
don't have to use it to design,for example, but if my neighbor
is using it to design, and theyhave 500 designs a day, and I
just chose not to, and I haveone design a day, I'm gonna fall
behind, whether I choose to ornot. It's just a matter of
(34:58):
perspective on with a.
Lot of these roles, especiallywith, like, social media, just
in general, podcasting ingeneral, these roles did not
exist, you know, 1520, yearsago. Like, there's some
obviously, like podcasters thatstarted, like, in the very early
days. Nobody, you know they're,I don't know if they're around
still anymore, but it just jobsevolve, and you have to be able
(35:19):
to evolve with it. And so itkind of goes back to that
saying, of like, you might notget replaced with AI, but
somebody who is using AI willreplace you.
You're just, you know, you'rereplaceable. So how do you make
yourself, like, not replaceable?
And how do you expand yourknowledge set be that conductor
of the orchestra, that's whenthey become controllers. And
it's like, okay, like, I don'twant to learn AI, so I'm not
(35:41):
going to change my CRM, so we'realways going to use an Excel
sheet. And, like, now you're allscrewed. You're all limited to
an Excel sheet, and there is nogrowth until that old guy and
his old friends decide to leave.
But it's, it's unfortunate. Isay, like, that kind of joking,
because it's serious. I see itall the time. Like, especially
with these, you know, like Momand Pop companies, or those that
(36:04):
you know, came into a familycompany and they took over,
like, they're scared of changeand they're scared of what they
don't know. And I get that, youknow, if you don't know what AI
is, you're not going to bring itin. If you don't know, I don't
know how to use HubSpot, thenI'm not going to tell my
employees use HubSpot, becausenow I can't help them, and now
they have more control than Ido, and it's scary to lose
control, but at the same time,you're limiting everything. You
(36:25):
know you're putting a block toit. And unless you release and
you kind of check your own egoand you learn, like, Hey, maybe
I should try to change up whatI'm doing, then that's when you
can maybe see some change. Whatare some of the aha moments that
you've had? Like, using AI?
Like, do you have, like, aprompt or, like a go to, like,
what you do use, like, chatgptprojects, or anything like that?
I love chatgpt. Chatgpt is mybest friend for everything that
(36:49):
I do. I don't know if I wouldsay, I'd have a big aha moment,
except for when it's just whenpeople say AI, and then I kind
of bring it to simpler terms,like, the way that you're using
AI is, like, literally, a robotin Mars. And like, we're just
talking like simple things here.
So like, when I was explainedfor the first time what vision
AI was, they gave me the exampleof looking at a tree, and the
(37:12):
tree had apples on it. And sowith the vision AI, they were
able to see which apples areripe and which apples weren't,
and being able to pool it. Andthat's just simple difference
between the color red and thecolor green, and it's as simple
as that, like it's, if you putin dummy terms like that, it's
very simple. And so I think myaha moments are when I can
explain to a customer, like,your interpretation of AI is
(37:33):
like up here, but what we can doand where we're at today is
like, down here. So let's startthere, and then let's, you know,
baby step it, and then we canstart to see the dream. But
technology isn't something thatjust falls in your lap. It's
very customized, even if you buya pre made chat bot agent or
whatever, it still needs to becustomized into your tech stack.
So it takes a long time, so it'syou got to baby step into it.
(37:56):
Yeah, it's definitely a learningcurve, but it's a new
information era that we're in,and you can learn so many
different things, and it doesn'thave to be specific to the
industry you're working in, orit could just it's just a more
efficient way of searching forinformation, is what I found,
and it's definitely got me fromjust staring at a blank page to
(38:16):
having something to say. Like,the ideation has helped so much
with podcast interviews, like,I'll take all of my I'll listen
to a bunch of differentinterviews, like with this one,
for example, listen to a bunchof interviews. I write down a
bunch of questions, I write downmy overall thoughts, and then I
load it into chatgpt, and I say,poke holes in this like, what am
I missing? And so it's thatextra pair of eyes that, as a
(38:37):
one person business owner, like,it's essential I cannot live
without I agree, that's onereally good point. Though I
always ask it and I say, What amI missing? What am I not seeing
here? Or if I were x person,what would I ask? And I did this
for my thesis specifically. ButI do this sometimes with, like,
some troubling questions that acustomer asks me something very
intensive and maybe a processthat I don't know about. And so
(38:59):
I try to play, like, roleplaying with chat. JBT, like,
what would this person ask me?
And then I have to, like,literally answer back. And I put
the little voice memo on, and Ispeak to her, you know, and she
speaks back to me. She's like,Great job, Mia, you know, you
answered this really great. Iwould answer this differently.
And like, you're learning somuch, it's really crazy. And
when you don't have somebody tolean on, maybe, like, I can't
call my mom and say, Hey, let'stalk about trucking. Like, you
(39:20):
know, she's not gonna get it, soguys gonna hang up, maybe, yeah,
but I can call Chad GBT at anytime of day and be like, let's
talk about trucking, and she'sgonna be so happy.
All right. Well, I think, Ithink that about answers. I
mean, I had a ton of questions,and I think we, oh, good, yeah,
we hit some really good time.
(39:43):
What else do you think isimportant in this hiring market?
Or are people hiring right now?
Like, how are I'm curious as tohow, what the how the
establishment is evolving, givenall the chaos with tariffs and
supply chain disruptions andtrade wars and all that stuff.
Then the tech side of thingsthat's just been injected in the
last five years, all of thosepositions kind of coming
(40:06):
together. Where do you see like,sort of, like staffing evolving
and Talent Management evolving?
Yeah, for us particularly, I seeit growing a lot. I see it
expanding out of, like, ourstereotypical back office
accounting and like operations,I see it growing into, like, the
marketing, the sales, thosepricings, or those kinds of more
financial areas that we didn'tthink about in the past. I think
(40:27):
it's already happening, and I'mseeing it based off the requests
that we're getting. And I thinkthat's really important. Like,
people aren't seeing it anymoreas, like an extra they're seeing
near shoring and offshoring as arequirement to survive, and so,
you know, people aren't comingin with let me just try this out
for a day. It's like, No, I havea legit need like this has been
painful for me. I've beenlooking for options for months
(40:49):
now, and like, now is the timeto do it. So I think that
there's a lot of growth andopportunity there. I also think
that people are going to startto compliment and spread out
their eggs in the sense thatthey're gonna have a partner in
Europe and a partner in Asia anda partner in LATAM, instead of
just having one. And yeah, and Ithink that a lot of that's been
because of what's happened inthe last 10 to 15 years. So many
of us have popped up that youcan't have those limited
(41:13):
contracts that say, Hey, you canonly work with me. And that used
to exist. So it was like, Hey,you have a partner in Colombia.
You can only have one partner inColombia. And it was Colombia,
and it was very limiting, youknow, and now those are becoming
more and more far and few. So Ithink that again, like that egg,
spread your eggs kind of idea,and work with multiple partners,
because they all have differentstrengths, and they can all
(41:34):
complement each otherdifferently. I think that's kind
of the future. So I that meansthat we're going to all have
multiple offices. We're gonnahave multiple multilingual
speakers as well. And hopefully,you know, just be a little bit
more worldwide and respectful toeach other and kinder. That is
such a perfect place to end theconversation, because it was a
very hopeful and we talked, youknow, we talked to covered a lot
of ground in this conversation.
(41:57):
I'm excited for people to hearthis. So where can I send folks.
Where can they follow you?
Obviously, LinkedIn, notFacebook groups. Where can I
send? Yes, so talento, hyphen,io.com, miamizaal on LinkedIn,
or miamizaal on x, or anywhereelse, yeah, or just look up
talento, and that's where youcan find us. Yeah, this is
great. Yeah. Thanks forhaving me. Appreciate it
(42:20):
Absolutely.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of everything is
logistics, where we talk allthings supply chain for the
thinkers in freight, if you likethis episode, there's plenty
more where that came from. Besure to follow or subscribe on
your favorite podcast app so younever miss a conversation. The
(42:41):
show is also available in videoformat over on YouTube, just by
searching everything islogistics. And if you're working
in freight logistics or supplychain marketing, check out my
company, digital dispatch. Wehelp you build smarter websites
and marketing systems thatactually drive results, not just
vanity metrics. Additionally, ifyou're trying to find the right
freight tech tools or partnerswithout getting buried in
(43:03):
buzzwords. Head on over tocargorex.io where we're building
the largest database oflogistics services and
solutions. All the links youneed are in the show notes. I'll
catch you in the Next episodeand go jags.
You
Welcome into another episode of everything is
(00:07):
logistics, a podcast where thethinkers in fridge, we are
proudly presented by SPIlogistics, and I'm your host,
Blythe Milligan, and we've gotanother great episode for you
all today. We are live inAustin, Texas at the TMSA
elevate conference. We've gotMia Mazel on the show. Is a long
time they want to get her on theshow. So she just co-founded a
new company called Talento, andwe are going to hear all about
(00:29):
it.
Mia Mazel (00:33):
You just, we were just talking, you just got off
the plane, you just got intotown, and she's sitting down,
she's doing interviews. So it'sback to back. The grind never
stops. That's right. Here weare. But I enjoy it, though it's
the rush of life. So let's, Iguess maybe let's start off
where you started off withlogistics. Because did you come
from a logistics background?
Like, did you fall into it? Likea lot of people, I fell into it
(00:55):
accidentally. Yeah. So I wasstudying human development,
Family Sciences, finishing up mymasters, and then I got a random
phone call to go and move toColumbia and start this new
company. And I'm like, what? Me,why, who, what, when, where.
Why? So? Kind of, in thatprocess, it basically took about
four weeks where they had calledme in November, and by the end
(01:17):
of December, I had said, Youknow what? I want to move like,
I want to try this thing out.
And all I knew is that it took alot of learning. Like it meant
being in the financial role,being in the operational role,
being in sales and marketing andeverything. And I love learning.
So I was like, You know what?
Let's do this thing. So I jumpedon a plane, moved to Columbia,
and then put my Masters on alike, a leave of that, Oh, wow.
(01:39):
Never ended up finishing that,which I mentioned that because I
actually just finished it abouttwo weeks ago. Gonna say I saw
your LinkedIn post that? Yeah,congratulations, by the way,
thank you. So kind of a fullcircle moment, but I really took
like a like a turn out of that,right? I stopped working in
education, and I just jumped inthe logistics in the near
shoring front, and just foollike, dove in. And then after
(01:59):
being in Columbia for one year,I went to Florida for a year,
because that's kind of themiddle ground between Columbia
and all my customers, theseevents, those kinds of things.
And then I've been with themever since, well, kind of in the
industry ever since. And thennow the end of Essex came to
lentil came along, and that'skind of the beginning parts of
how I joined the industry. Andso how did you because I think
(02:20):
that being able to co foundtalento was the key to that from
just based on listening to yourepisode on thinkfreight, he was
talking about, or you guys wereboth talking about how your
willingness to learn, and all ofthose different areas with with
swercs, it played a key role inlike Helping with talento and
getting it off the groundquickly. Tell me about that
(02:42):
transition. I mean, I imaginewas crazy. I've been a part of,
like, a company closing down,and it was absolutely traumatic.
And try the least, but tell usabout it. Well, yeah, such a
trauma.
Unknown (02:58):
Well, no, seriously, on the personal side. It was a lot,
you know, I wasn't expecting itlike I loved what I did or what
I was doing, and I was stable, Iwas comfortable, and I wasn't
expecting anything to change. Sowhen I got that call that it was
just like, hey, like mom and dadaren't finding that middle
ground anymore, kind of thing,you know, we need to choose a
side. Like it was, like, out ofluck for me, you know, I felt
(03:21):
some, you know, tension and someitems, but nothing to the degree
of, like, we're gonnapotentially close this company.
And also, like, December was thebest month we had ever hit in
all of s works too. So it waslike, I'm at my peak. I'm
literally at the peak, and nowwe're gonna fall so emotionally,
it took a huge toll on me, butwhen I also didn't want to make
a decision, just because someoneforced me to make a decision, so
(03:43):
I took that time to reallyunderstand. Like, what is it
that Mia wants? Like, do I wantto go back to what I was doing
and studying? Do I want tocontinue in this industry? Do I
want to, you know, co found acompany, or do I want to be a
teacher? Like, I don't know. Soluckily, during that those three
days, I actually was a threeday, three, three days, I was at
SMC three, the conference in thebeginning of January, and I was
(04:04):
reminded that I absolutely lovewhat I do. I love the people
that I get to interact with. Ilove the things that I get to
do. I love the processes. I lovethe learning. So I said, You
know what? Let's do this thinglike, let's give it a shot. I
had basically almost three yearsat s works, where I got to do it
for somebody else. And I hadstarted, like I mentioned in
marketing and sales, I did theinvoicing, you know, I was doing
the billing. I was paying theteam, the custodians, that were
(04:27):
coming into the office. Youknow, it was just all these
random little things that helpyou learn how to build a company
later. And also I had, I wasvery fortunate to already come
in with trust, the trust fromthe people and the trust from
the customer. So when Essex waskind of closing, they
immediately came over. I didn'thave to, you know, hound
anybody, or, you know, negotiateor try to convince it was just
(04:49):
very easy a phone call, Hey,this is what's going on. Cool. I
believe in your vision. Let's gowith it, Mia. And so it was an
incredibly reassuring moment. SoI took what was really
traumatic, but.
I looked at the positives of it,of how, wow, everybody around me
thinks that I can do it. I thinkthat I can do it. Let's do this.
Yeah, you had to come up withall reevaluate your entire life,
(05:10):
and it's like three days, yes,basically. And in all that,
that's not easy. No, you want tobuild a new company. What are
you gonna name it to let Okay,cool. Let's do it like it was.
It kind of is like a joke whenyou think of it like that. But
it like that, but it was, but itreally did happen just like
that, like, literally, 72 hours.
Wow, it's a what, what ifanything, did you have to, I
imagine you didn't have toreally start over. Maybe it's
(05:32):
just a lot of paperwork that youhave to do, manual, like, admin
stuff. So no. So for the mostpart, operations stayed the
same, but we did have somechange in the administration
side. So for the most part, wedidn't have the same sellers, we
didn't have the same marketingteam. We didn't have the same
recruiters and operational soalthough we had maybe, like the
skeleton and the boots and, youknow, we still had some revenue
(05:54):
because the customers and theoperations are running as
normal, I had to train up allthe new account managers and the
recruiters, and not to learn howto do the process, but how we do
our process, you know, and buildout to lento's new role. So
maybe s works, did it this way,but to lento is going to do it
this way. So in the beginning, Iwas kind of, you know, full on
training all of admin, andsetting up the banks in
(06:15):
Colombia, and setting up thebanks in the US and APA, they
are, and all these things thatlike you don't I didn't have to
touch, but now I didn't touchso, but the fortunate piece was
that I have some really greatteam members, so I was able to
really delegate and, you know,trust in that those people were
going to handle their areas, andI could focus on sales and
marketing and keep making surethat the business is growing, so
(06:37):
then I can continue To bring onmore people and, you know, build
that cycle of growing abusiness. Wow. So you had to
make all of those decisionsfairly quickly, but you also had
the, I guess, the the experienceto know, like, which ones were
working and which ones didn't.
So it was almost like a cleanslate, but you still got some
(06:58):
money in the bank to, like, workwith a little Yeah, yes, and no,
it was like, yes. It was tricky,because, like, for example, we
still have the same CRM, but wenow have a different entity. So
even though you have theworkflow built, if you don't
have the right, I don't know,integrations, or the right cells
formatted, then it doesn'tactually work. So it was like,
you have it, but you reallydon't have it, you know, like, I
(07:19):
wasn't getting the alerts frommy CRM, or when I was getting a
new email, I switched everythingfrom Google to teams and
Microsoft. So it's like, there'sa huge learning curve. One of my
biggest pains is just accessingoutlook, which should be the
easiest thing, and it's one ofthe most complicated. So it's
those little barriers, or thoselittle like hiccups that I
didn't expect are really, like,cumbersome, as opposed to the
(07:41):
bigger ones that I thought,like, oh, I need an HR system
now. Like, that was easy tofind, to vet and to implement,
but once you have it, you know,the little things of like, oh, I
want to send out birthday memosnow, and I can't configure this
system with this system. Likethose little things that you
would think would be so easy arethe biggest and the hardest
ones. So let's talk a little bitabout what talento does, because
(08:02):
I think that you've been able tofocus on what has worked with s
works in the past, and then kindof refine it, moving into
talento and maybe expanding someof the things that you might
have thought about doing before,but maybe didn't have the
bandwidth to do it. So give us,like a baseline of what talento
provides, and then how you kindof think about the future. So
(08:22):
talent management is kind of thebasis of what we were providing
before, for supply chainspecifically, and we're
continuing to provide that. Butnow with talento, we also, in
all this change, startedpartnering with a team of
developers that have beenworking in supply chain and
healthcare for a couple of yearsnow in Columbia. So now we
actually brought them on as likean allied partner that we use
(08:44):
for our customers, in the senseof when you come in and I look
at your problems and your needs,not just looking to see how I
solve it with people or talent.
I'm looking to see if maybe Ican provide you some AI or some
business intelligence as well.
So dashboards, anything to dowith dashboards, and, you know,
making sure that your data andyour information is in a way
that's actionable, that you canactually use it, and crossing
(09:07):
that between multiple platforms,because I know that people
brokerages, for example, havegreen screens and d a t and
their TMS and their CRM and thisand the third, and it's a
million things, so to be able toget that in one place is great,
and then the other piece is AI.
And, you know, everyone talksabout these agents and these
bots and those kinds of things,so we use it in the voice
languaging processing and visionprocessing. So for example,
(09:28):
cleaning up your emails, andlet's say you have an outlook
accounting email, and splittingit up based off the right
individuals, or something like abot on your website, where maybe
it's helping you answerquestions and inbound leads, and
it's not replacing a human butnow, instead of having five
sales reps staff, 24/7 to answeryour website questionnaires, you
have an AI agent and one salesrep that will handle that right.
(09:51):
So it's just kind of looking atthe problem a little bit
differently. Is now what talentois doing, but I do want to
emphasize that we do want tofocus on supply.
Chain and not be, you know, okayat everything, but really good
at one thing. And I think thatthat's so important in today's
age where AI can be highly,highly specialized in like the
agents or the bots area, butthen having that person can
(10:14):
almost belike the conductor of the
orchestra, of like the agentorchestra, like your
automations, or just solvingthose different problems and but
I think the first thing that youhave to know is like, what are
your What are your numbers? Whatare you trying to hit? What are
your KPIs? And getting all thatinformation into one so I think
that's the super interestingattack plan, is to have that
dashboard of knowledge and thenhelping them to kind of figure
(10:36):
out where to plug and play withthese different solutions. And
it's like a one stop shop idea,you know, it's pretty inclusive.
Like you don't have to come toMia to ask her about this and
then go to Maya to ask her aboutlike, no Mia can tell you that,
Hey, maybe I can't help you withthis part, but I know Maya can,
you know, and I can do thatvetting for them. And so I
mentioned the word ecosystem alot. I want to be that kind of
(10:59):
partner, or that person that youbelieve in and trust that will
already do that vetting for youand understands the lay of the
field. So again, when you comeand you ask me about a specific
issue, if I can't help you, Ihope that I can guide you to
somebody that can help you,because I can't do everything,
you know, and I'm not going tohave the most renowned AI bots,
because that is not my strength.
(11:22):
You know, the reason that Ibring on that partnership is to
complement what we have goingon, not to replace what we have
going on, absolutely. So how doyou especially being on the
front lines of this from like atalent management standpoint?
How do you see the currentmarket of supply chain roles,
and then, how do you see thatevolving in many ways, in many
(11:43):
ways.
See, I think one of the problemis that supply chain as a whole,
supply chain roles, is very,very broad, right? And so it
depends where we're looking inthat. But one area in specific
that I see a lot of potential isin the pricing department, in
that kind of it's technicallyback office, but people don't
really think of it a backoffice, because it's kind of a
middle ground of like your salesand your finance team. But we've
(12:05):
been working with a lot ofindividuals providing them data
developers, bi or, sorry, PowerBI or Tableau engineers, things
of that nature, where you'resaving tremendous amount of
money. You're finding bilingualtalent, and they come with that
supply chain expertise. So theydon't just know the programming
or the tech, but they alsounderstand the life cycle of a
(12:25):
load, and so it just makes itthat much easier to implement.
So that's an area where I feellike many don't go towards near
shoring or offshoring for thatkind of pricing piece, because
they also don't think thatsometimes we have a limited
mindset where we think, hey,offshoring and back office is
just for customer service orjust answering the phone. And
the reality is, people arepeople, and we're intelligent
(12:46):
everywhere. And so you can finda killer pricing analyst or
pricing engineer in LATAM, justlike you can find one in the US.
So I don't know if that directlyanswered your question, but I
think there's a huge futurethere. Well, I think it kind of
goes back to the conductormindset of if you're running a
business, and especially in theage of AI like, you know, I'm a
writer at heart, but I can useAI to help me create graphics,
(13:08):
and I can use it as a tool tohelp me in other areas where I'm
weak, where it might, you know,I'm not going to not hire a
designer in the future, but Ican at least get them some
concept art that's added out ofmy Brain and into their hands so
they can have something to workwith. Yeah, I think that's kind
of, maybe what you're buildingwith talento is helping these
supply chain roles be able toexpand in other areas, or maybe
(13:31):
see things. Maybe be that likeflashlight in the dark. Yes, and
try it out exactly because AI issuch a big buzzword and it's so
scary, you know, and you canbring on a whole team, and
you're going to need, you know,a QA analyst and a project
manager to even guide it. Thenyou need your developer, then
your full stack. And this ninenow you just hired eight
employees for a project that youonly need for three months. And
so sometimes I think that peopleare a little bit scary. They're
(13:53):
a little scared to even try it,because one, they don't
understand it, and two, theydon't know where to start. So
being able to kind of give themthat, like, Hey, here's a little
window of, like, Look, we're notgoing to give you the most
renowned, you know, the mostsophisticated, AI, but we're
going to dumb it down in a waythat it is so practical and easy
and just like, wow, why didn't Ithink of this before? Why didn't
I do this before? And that'swhat I want them to feel, you
(14:15):
know, like that was so easy,like, I should have done this a
long time ago. I love thatapproach, because I think for
so, like, we just speaking from,like, personal experience, like,
I know I am weak in certainareas, and I know it's like,
Okay, I just need to, like,spend a weekend and watch a
bunch of YouTube videos and justfigure it out for myself. Or I
try to build my own AI agent orsomething. And it to do that, to
(14:37):
build it and to teach it istaking me significantly longer
than to just do the damn thingmyself. And so I think that
that's interesting to havesomebody kind of hold your hand
through that process. So I thinkfor a lot of folks, maybe
they've tried, you know, thechat GPT is that the world, and
maybe tried building an eight anagent, and just failed at it,
and just kept back, went back todoing this. I'm speaking for
(14:57):
myself, but it's true, becauseit's.
It's not easy, you know, andthere is no road map. And I
think also it happens to me, atleast in near shoring or
offshoring, some customers justthey don't want to invest time
in talking with you, becausethey think that you just are
going to give them and produce atask or a project. But the
reality is that we're hiringfull time employees, and so we
(15:17):
are here to be a partner, youknow, and help you manage your
employees. So if you want that,you know, hand holding of like,
let's look at your processes.
You know, let's bring thedevelopers. Let's take a look at
your tech stack. Like, let'srecommend to you where we can
help you. That's where wethrive. But not everybody wants
that. Some people, they knowexactly what they want. I want
five dispatchers tomorrow, youknow, and like, and this is as
clear as day. But someindividuals, and particularly
(15:40):
those small to mid sizedbusinesses, I see that like are
still kind of figuring out theirroadmap, or are trying to
survive, and that's I think,where we come in, because we are
willing to put in that extraeffort, that extra mile, even
though it takes me maybe anextra hour, but now you're 10
times happier, and therelationship is going to last
that much longer, and it's goingto be that much more effective.
(16:00):
And so can you, do you own Doyou start off with from the
talent aspect, or you almoststart off as, like, a
consultancy, yep. So right nowI'm very much shifting my gears,
so almost like, let's have aconversation. Let's consult.
Like, what are your interests?
What are your needs? And then doyou want to talk about your
needs that you've identified, ordo you want to talk about the
(16:20):
needs that I've identified foryou, and then from there, shake
it out and see, but ideally, theproposal is typically, like,
inclusive with both sides, buttalent management will always be
that forefront. You know, whenI'm looking at a customer and
understanding their needs, I'mgoing to think of the labor and
the talent, but I'm now as I'mbecoming more of an expert on
the AI in the tech piece, Idefinitely incorporate that more
(16:41):
and more. And so I'm making surethat some other members of my
team are experts in that space,where maybe I lack because I
don't have the time,unfortunately, to watch a
million YouTube videos, eventhough I would love to. And
although every day I try to getat least 1% better, I'm not as
tech savvy as you know, my team,my partners, and that's why I
bring them onto the calls aswell. And so even just offering
(17:03):
that like, Hey, you can have 15minutes with our developers, and
you can ask them whenever youwant. At least for me, I see a
huge value in just having aconversation, and then I can
take that information and dowhatever I want with it. And I
think too, you hit on animportant note is just having
the conversation. Sometimespeople realize how much
knowledge base and work isinvolved and doing a skill that
(17:24):
they think that they can learnin a weekend on YouTube, like
myself, but then you can takeadvantage of that talent that
not take advantage of them, bututilize that talent in order to
expedite your own success. Oh,yeah, that happens all the time.
I see like in marketing, forexample, where people think
marketing is just designing apretty picture. It's not. And
(17:44):
I'll have so many people, oh,for example, they'll ask me for,
you know, support on theirwebsite, and they're like, Yeah,
but I have a website and itlooks great. And I'm like, All
right, but let's, let's take alook here, you know. And simple
things, right? Simple thingslike keywords, right? Or SEO,
and like, maybe someone willthrow out to you, like SEO as a
buzzword, and they have no ideawhat that means, or how, how do
(18:05):
you even, like, incorporate thatinto your website? And so
they'll come and they'll say,you know, I already have that
done, like, I just want this andI and that's where I get a
little frustrated, but alsowhere I think that it's
important, because I'm verytransparent. And I'll tell them,
hey, look, I know you don't wantto hear this, and I know that
you're asking for this, but if Igive you that right now, you're
gonna fail. You're gonna getnothing out of it, and I'm gonna
(18:26):
fail as well. So we're not gonnado that. So here's your option,
and if you're ready to listen,we could talk about it. And to
be honest, not everyone's readyto listen, but not everyone's
ready to be a customer for us,either, you know, not everyone's
the right match, yeah, and that,I mean, that's a good way, or a
good mindset, especially foryou, like, early on, I feel like
you're able to have theseconversations from a level of
(18:47):
confidence, versus maybesomebody who would be a little
bit more inexperienced, or wouldjust take the business, just for
the sake of taking right? Anddon't get me wrong, I've been
there, done that. You know,we've all been there. I learned
the lesson. What are we sure andspecifically, like, as a younger
girl, like, I was very naive inthe sense, like, Okay, if
somebody doesn't treat me sogreat, like, I still need to,
(19:08):
like, talk to them to go getthat business. And now I'm so
past that mindset, thank God.
And I'm the complete opposite,where I will tell you, like, no,
maybe sometimes a little tooquickly. I'm like, No, go talk
to my friend. And I'm like,wait, wait. No, actually, I can
help you as well. But I thinkthat that's important, you know,
to be honest and clear and notovershoot. But also in those
moments where you want to, like,guinea pig, something out, just
tell them, you know, let themknow. Because some people do
(19:30):
really like that personalized,you know, tailored, kind of like
relationship. And some peoplewould prefer, again, the box
cutter. So teach their own.
Yeah, for sure. And I youbrought it up, especially from
like, the marketing standpoint,how do you, I guess, think about
your marketing from like, apersonal brand standpoint versus
your company brand? Becausethat's something I personally
(19:51):
struggle with, is like, how do iWhere's the line, and is it all
just blurry? It's super blurry.
It's hard. I.
Try. And I think that a businessisn't a business until you can
sell through the business andnot the person you know, the
people like. And I think that'ssomewhere where s works lacked,
because at the end of the day,why was I able to build talento?
(20:11):
Because all the customers hadbeen brought in by myself and
followed me over. And so that'sa failure on the business side,
but a win on mine, right? So Idon't want to lento to be the
same way, where, if I leavetalento, there is no talento.
That's a problem. So it is avery fine line, because I don't
want to lose the traction thatI've built. And I also think
that people buy from people, butI think that I need to have
(20:34):
other individuals on my teamthat are also building their
brand and making sure that asthey build their personal brand,
they're including talento intheir system, like in their
their ecosystem, right? So like,when Thomas is posting about
think fright, and he's postingabout being Thomas, like, you'll
see some posts about talento aswell. And I like it. I prefer it
that way, because I would ratherbe through a genuine person that
(20:56):
you get to know. You get to knowThomas's Thomas, not to lento.
Oh, here's one of talento salesreps. Like, that's just not how
it works for me, but I do, and Iam investing more and more on
talento's page directly onLinkedIn, and trying to put some
familiar faces on there. Soinstead of me posting on mine
and then talento reposting, I'mhaving talento posts and then
(21:17):
I'll kind of interact for mypersonal No. That makes a ton of
sense, because when I startedcargo Rex in December, we went
public with it in earlyFebruary. It was a very
conscious decision that, like,obviously, the podcast is me,
and it's never if I leave it,the podcast is probably done.
But for cargo Rex, like, it hasto be something that is
independent, where the storiesare about the employee or the
(21:40):
companies that are making wavesin this industry, not, you know
me being the face of it, so it'svery like conscious effort. But
you still gotta use, you know,you're still gonna use your
bread and butter a little bit toget the name out there
initially, and then make thattransition, of course. And I
think the other piece there ispartnerships, right? Like, when
you do partnerships, like,you're not doing it with John
(22:02):
from Papa John's, like, No,you're doing it with that
company. And so there is, like,a profile behind, you know, the
company, like, truck stop does areally good job, I think, on
LinkedIn, with their commenting.
And like, you feel like you'retalking to Mr. Truck Stop, you
know what I mean. And so, like,that's, that's great, because
you want to interact back withthat person, thinking that
there's a human behind it,rather like, you know, just a
(22:23):
robot or a creep, or like theLinkedIn AI generated comments
or something like that. No onewants to talk with them.
LinkedIn blocked me once,thinking that I was aI on my
birthday because I got so manymessages and I was responding,
and they blocked me for a coupleof hours. I had to report that
you had a timeout. Yeah, theydid. They were like, do we think
that you're using AI foroutreaching, and this is against
(22:45):
our rules. I said they werewishing me happy birthday, but
ithappens so well. Related note,
not kind of related note, butwho are? Who's doing a good job
in marketing that you see onLinkedIn? Oh, good question.
Okay, so I think that thebroker, carrier summit does a
great job. And again, loopingback to the partnerships, like
(23:07):
those partnershipsannouncements, I think are
great. Danielle Spinelli, shedoes a great job as well, for
herself, personally and for thebusiness, she does a great job,
I think, at balancing the twosides and then trucks up, as I
just mentioned, I think they doa great job through their
company. Page. I actually don'tknow any of their sellers like I
don't I don't see any likebranding through any of their
(23:27):
reps. And so I think it's aninteresting angle to see how the
company has been able to buildthat relationship, but maybe not
so much the people. So I don'tknow. And also the freedom I
think that they give truck stopto be able to post and be funny
and have that freedom without,you know, kind of feeling like
you're going to get in troubleis going to call you. And I
think a lot of folks with theirpersonal brand, they also feel
(23:49):
that level of fear, becausethey'll start posting, and then
a company representative willcome to them and be like, What
are you trying to leave? Likeyou're trying to get more love
than the company. They have sucha, you know, a backwards mindset
of thinking about these things,right? Or even, like, the post
itself, you know, I've been insituations where there they'll
say, like, oh, this contentdoesn't seem to be professional.
(24:09):
Or maybe that photo, like,there's a selfie, it has nothing
to do with anything. Like, whyare you posting it? And I'm
like, okay, like, you getcomments like that. Oh, I've
been told some things like that,yes, for sure, yeah. So I'm
like, what? Let's take a sip ofthe audacity. Yeah, let's think
about this, you know, like,let's zoom out for a second.
Like, I understand, like,Facebook or LinkedIn is not
Facebook. You know, they're verydifferent things, but there's
(24:30):
boundaries, and LinkedIn rewardsselfies. LinkedIn rewards
selfies. And LinkedIn is analgorithm, so LinkedIn, what it
wants is for you to waste time.
And so I went to a LinkedInworkshop, and I spent three
hours there, and I learned somuch. And so I always repeat
this, and I say, What they wantis you to waste time. So if I go
to your page and I'm wastingtime because I'm watching your
videos, then LinkedIn is goingto reward you and put your
(24:53):
videos on more people's feeds.
But if I go to your video and Ijust swipe right past it because
I didn't feel like looking at ittoday, now it's not going to
show it on.
Rob's feed, and so every singlesecond, like, it's like
Instagram, you just think thatscrolling through means nothing,
no scrolling through, everysingle scroll means something
exactly. Charlie safro calls itthe selfie. The selfie reset
(25:15):
that if she has certain poststhat, like, just don't pop off
for whatever reason, she'll do aselfie, plus a text post,
because people miss the textmatters. You can't just post a
selfie without actual text or apicture of yourself or whatever.
Like selfies, I guess, are maybesubjective, like whatever the
text matters people. ButCharlie's talked about how
(25:36):
she'll do a selfie reset, and itwill reset her feed, and so
whenever she does that, then hernext post, and the next post and
the next post gets way more lovethan the dud, that if you were
to just keep the dud and keeppost, oh, and I'm just gonna
post out of it, it doesn't work,that she's so right though, I
didn't realize it, that that'swhat it was called. But I do
(25:56):
that because I would try to dosome, like, texts or some polls
or something different. And Irealized, like, it weans down.
And then I'm like, Okay, let'sdo some another selfie with
something relevant, you know,and then it picks back up. But
to your point, you know, thereis some pictures that have
absolutely no comments orengagement, and that got me
nothing that, like, sure, therewas 200 likes on that selfie,
(26:16):
but that was worth nothing butthe post next to it that had 50
likes but 10 comments, thatmeans so much more, because
those comments have actual truthin the person behind them, and
there's engagement. And so whatI recommend, as well, is sending
that post with their commentdirectly to that person. So
instead of me, yeah, so insteadof me responding to rob in the
comment on my post, I'm going tosend him my post and respond to
(26:39):
him in our DMS. So now I'mbuilding a direct conversation
with us, a private conversationfor us to continue. So
interesting I would have,because I've heard, you know,
with like, the LinkedInalgorithm scoring that use that
they really value the replies,especially within like the first
couple of hours. The first 30minutes you post are the most
important, the most importanttime. So respond to any comments
(27:00):
in those first 30 minutes, butafter that, don't worry. That,
don't respond to them. Just sendit to them. Whoa. Okay, the
LinkedIn workshop that I did, Itaught me, okay, tell us, what
else you learned. LinkedInmasterclass webinars. So for
every webinar, for the everyspeaker that's on a webinar, you
get 1000 invite credits, and solet's say there's three people
on the webinar. That's 3000 perweek. So if you're gonna, you
(27:22):
know, say that I'm doing awebinar in three weeks from now
with Blythe, then that's now1000 of 1000 credits each. For
three weeks, it's 6000 credits.
And the actual turnaround ishigher, not for the attendees,
but those that didn't attend. Sothey recommend the same thing,
where after the webinar closes,you send that event invites to
(27:43):
them, like as a direct message,and you say, Hey, you didn't get
a chance to make it. Let's catchup so I can share what we
taught, what we talked about,and you missed. And supposedly,
I don't remember the exactnumbers, but the the conversion
is higher for those that didn'tattend than those that actually
and Are these like live videosthrough live webinars on
LinkedIn? Oh, wow, yeah, you canjust do like a live webinar for
however long. And typically, fora lead to convert on LinkedIn,
(28:04):
they say it's 45 minutes theyneed to spend on your profile.
So I recommend a 45 minutewebinar. Whoa. So 45 minute
webinars, and then whoever didit, are you doing anything with
the people that did attend, orthey're getting the content.
Obviously you want to give themthe content. So the idea they
gave us was that you want totalk on the webinar, like
generic but give somethingsecret at the end, you know,
(28:25):
like, maybe one of these tips,like, you give this at the very
end, and you give it on aworksheet or, like a piece of
paper. So it's like, say tillthe end to download that. So it
gives somebody, like, a way forthem to go on a landing page and
for you to get theirinformation, because LinkedIn
will count against you if youtake anybody off of LinkedIn. So
if you have a URL in your post,in your bio, anywhere, they will
(28:47):
count again. If you send a URLin a LinkedIn DM, and I click
that URL, and now I'm off ofLinkedIn, it's going to count
against you. So what are yousupposed to do? What's the point
of using LinkedIn? So the onlyway that you can have them go
off of LinkedIn without flaggingyou, is if you pay for LinkedIn
premium, and you can have aspecial button and it says,
(29:09):
click or see my website, likeunder your name. And when you
click a post, some people willhave a button that says, See my
website. So premium is worth it.
In that regard, it's the onlyway, because I was part of their
podcast Academy, and I so I gotaccess to premium and I was
like, Well, I'm not gonna payfor this after this is over,
like it's not worth it, but nowkind of sounds like it's
probably worth it, it, I don'tcurrently pay for it because I'm
(29:30):
just waiting to pull thattrigger since, like, we've
transitioned, but it is like,you get like, brownie points for
Paying more, and they're gonnacount against you less. It's so
expensive, it's like 100 bucks amonth, it is. And they have a
monopoly, you know, like theyreally have control this
professional world. That's true.
And, I mean, it sounds like anecessary evil too, but you're
(29:52):
also reaching your targetaudience. And if you're spending
all this time, I mean, I spend alot of time, too much time on x,
and I'm not.
Any kind of perks or benefitslike that. See, I don't use X.
I've tried to, like, be aLinkedIn guru and really hone on
there. But there is. The problemis also that these algorithms
change all the time, and it'snothing that they publish. So
it's you needed to keep up,watch your multiple YouTube
(30:15):
videos every weekend and alwaysknow what's what's going on.
It's tricky. How did it? Didthey talk anything about, like,
short form video, about what'sworking well or what's not
working. They did talk a littlebit about short form videos,
saying how that was a trend thatwas popping up. But there's some
conflict with Instagram andfighting LinkedIn on that
formatting, so likely it's notgonna last for a very long time,
(30:36):
is what they were expecting. Andif you see already it's slowed
down the short form video, wow,yeah, for LinkedIn. And now it's
popping off on YouTube. Now thelittle reels, oh, the shorts,
yeah, we get really greatengagement on shorts. But
LinkedIn videos, we've recentlyswitched from a vertical format
to the horizontal format, justto kind of just change it up and
(30:56):
just see, and it's working a lotbetter on x and LinkedIn the
horizontal format versus, Ithink vertical format, maybe
people are just so used toseeing, well, they're just going
through it way too fast. They'rethey are using it like Tiktok.
And the problem is that LinkedInwill go like will count that
against you. So it's not workingfor the people that are actually
posting. What about like repost?
Does that work or play a factorat all? You didn't talk anything
(31:19):
about repost, no. So I reallydon't think it does much.
Hopefully, yeah, Ding me, butthat's essentially what I do.
And so I'm getting like, aLinkedIn masterclass, right?
Well, I mean, if you'rereposting a lot and people are
scrolling past it and notengaging, it's dinging against
you, yeah? But there's manydifferent things. I mean,
different kinds of posts he saidthat don't really do too much.
(31:39):
Your bio itself doesn't reallychange anything as well. I mean,
there's a lot of differentthings that you can consider,
but you just have to be alwayson top of it. You know, what's
new? What's changing? What aboutoutside of social media? Are
there any other or staying withsocial media for a minute? Are
there any other platforms thatyou're finding like benefit like
people preach on, like Facebookgroups, and I'm like, I would
(32:01):
rather take a drill to mytemple.
Yeah? No, I don't use Facebook.
Nope. I just have no interest.
So it's tough for me to spendany time there. Yeah, I've been
in like, random like groups,like, I think there's one called
like, the logistics war room,and just like spam, yeah, or
(32:21):
clutch is an organization. Idon't know if you've heard of
that. Okay, I don't know muchabout clutch, and I don't want
to speak on it incorrectly, butfrom my understanding, it's
almost like a marketplace, likewhere you go on there and you
look for, hey, I need a staffingsolution. Where do I go to? And
it kind of gives you options.
We've had some some leads comein through clutch was which was
surprising.
(32:42):
Yeah, just random. But no, forus, it's been referrals, like
just word of mouth and justknowing people and referring
through people. I played thelong game, and so some of my
conversations and relationshipsfrom TMSA three years ago are
just now turning around andsigning but they're signing
with, you know, quotes of fiveplus heads, because they have
been talking to me for years andthey're finally ready. So I
(33:04):
think timing is everything. Butmy point with the referrals is
that customer testimonials, thatkind of marketing, which broker
carrier summit does really wellat a couple of other companies
out there, do really goodcustomer testimonials that is
really powerful. Yeah, that knowthat you're the second person
now, and we're because we'redoing a few interviews today.
You're the second person now totalk about the power of
referrals. And in a world, Ithink, where people just
(33:27):
inundated with cold calls andemails, think referrals are a
great way to stand out. Yeah, Imean, it's one of our KPIs, like
for our sales reps, like formyself and for Thomas. If we're
not going to convert justthrough emailing and cold
calling then, but we'reconverting through referrals.
And every single week, I wantyou to reach out to your best
friends and have some meetingswith your best friends and ask
(33:48):
them to give you oneintroduction. That's it. What do
you think is one of the missingpieces of like marketing or
sales advice that a lot offreight companies don't follow?
Hmm, I think that a lot of usare very old school in this
industry, and so they just don'twant to touch Social Media
besides what they're already on,like Facebook, or I also think
(34:12):
it's just that kind of limitedmindset of, Oh, I know what AI
is, or I know what ads are. Andso they think that they know it
all, and they really don't like,yeah, you have a website, but
you don't have a single keywordon your website. So when I go
and I look up Blythe, but yourwebsite doesn't say Blythe
anywhere, I'm never gonna get toyour website, you know. So it's
those little things where Ithink we need to take a second
and listen to all these thingsthat are going on, and we do
(34:34):
need to use AI, like I was oneof those that didn't want to use
AI for months and months andmonths. And now, if you don't
use it, you're gonna, you'regonna fall behind. You know, I I
don't have to use it to design,for example, but if my neighbor
is using it to design, and theyhave 500 designs a day, and I
just chose not to, and I haveone design a day, I'm gonna fall
behind, whether I choose to ornot. It's just a matter of
(34:58):
perspective on with a.
Lot of these roles, especiallywith, like, social media, just
in general, podcasting ingeneral, these roles did not
exist, you know, 1520, yearsago. Like, there's some
obviously, like podcasters thatstarted, like, in the very early
days. Nobody, you know they're,I don't know if they're around
still anymore, but it just jobsevolve, and you have to be able
(35:19):
to evolve with it. And so itkind of goes back to that
saying, of like, you might notget replaced with AI, but
somebody who is using AI willreplace you.
You're just, you know, you'rereplaceable. So how do you make
yourself, like, not replaceable?
And how do you expand yourknowledge set be that conductor
of the orchestra, that's whenthey become controllers. And
it's like, okay, like, I don'twant to learn AI, so I'm not
(35:41):
going to change my CRM, so we'realways going to use an Excel
sheet. And, like, now you're allscrewed. You're all limited to
an Excel sheet, and there is nogrowth until that old guy and
his old friends decide to leave.
But it's, it's unfortunate. Isay, like, that kind of joking,
because it's serious. I see itall the time. Like, especially
with these, you know, like Momand Pop companies, or those that
(36:04):
you know, came into a familycompany and they took over,
like, they're scared of changeand they're scared of what they
don't know. And I get that, youknow, if you don't know what AI
is, you're not going to bring itin. If you don't know, I don't
know how to use HubSpot, thenI'm not going to tell my
employees use HubSpot, becausenow I can't help them, and now
they have more control than Ido, and it's scary to lose
control, but at the same time,you're limiting everything. You
(36:25):
know you're putting a block toit. And unless you release and
you kind of check your own egoand you learn, like, Hey, maybe
I should try to change up whatI'm doing, then that's when you
can maybe see some change. Whatare some of the aha moments that
you've had? Like, using AI?
Like, do you have, like, aprompt or, like a go to, like,
what you do use, like, chatgptprojects, or anything like that?
I love chatgpt. Chatgpt is mybest friend for everything that
(36:49):
I do. I don't know if I wouldsay, I'd have a big aha moment,
except for when it's just whenpeople say AI, and then I kind
of bring it to simpler terms,like, the way that you're using
AI is, like, literally, a robotin Mars. And like, we're just
talking like simple things here.
So like, when I was explainedfor the first time what vision
AI was, they gave me the exampleof looking at a tree, and the
(37:12):
tree had apples on it. And sowith the vision AI, they were
able to see which apples areripe and which apples weren't,
and being able to pool it. Andthat's just simple difference
between the color red and thecolor green, and it's as simple
as that, like it's, if you putin dummy terms like that, it's
very simple. And so I think myaha moments are when I can
explain to a customer, like,your interpretation of AI is
(37:33):
like up here, but what we can doand where we're at today is
like, down here. So let's startthere, and then let's, you know,
baby step it, and then we canstart to see the dream. But
technology isn't something thatjust falls in your lap. It's
very customized, even if you buya pre made chat bot agent or
whatever, it still needs to becustomized into your tech stack.
So it takes a long time, so it'syou got to baby step into it.
(37:56):
Yeah, it's definitely a learningcurve, but it's a new
information era that we're in,and you can learn so many
different things, and it doesn'thave to be specific to the
industry you're working in, orit could just it's just a more
efficient way of searching forinformation, is what I found,
and it's definitely got me fromjust staring at a blank page to
(38:16):
having something to say. Like,the ideation has helped so much
with podcast interviews, like,I'll take all of my I'll listen
to a bunch of differentinterviews, like with this one,
for example, listen to a bunchof interviews. I write down a
bunch of questions, I write downmy overall thoughts, and then I
load it into chatgpt, and I say,poke holes in this like, what am
I missing? And so it's thatextra pair of eyes that, as a
(38:37):
one person business owner, like,it's essential I cannot live
without I agree, that's onereally good point. Though I
always ask it and I say, What amI missing? What am I not seeing
here? Or if I were x person,what would I ask? And I did this
for my thesis specifically. ButI do this sometimes with, like,
some troubling questions that acustomer asks me something very
intensive and maybe a processthat I don't know about. And so
(38:59):
I try to play, like, roleplaying with chat. JBT, like,
what would this person ask me?
And then I have to, like,literally answer back. And I put
the little voice memo on, and Ispeak to her, you know, and she
speaks back to me. She's like,Great job, Mia, you know, you
answered this really great. Iwould answer this differently.
And like, you're learning somuch, it's really crazy. And
when you don't have somebody tolean on, maybe, like, I can't
call my mom and say, Hey, let'stalk about trucking. Like, you
(39:20):
know, she's not gonna get it, soguys gonna hang up, maybe, yeah,
but I can call Chad GBT at anytime of day and be like, let's
talk about trucking, and she'sgonna be so happy.
All right. Well, I think, Ithink that about answers. I
mean, I had a ton of questions,and I think we, oh, good, yeah,
we hit some really good time.
(39:43):
What else do you think isimportant in this hiring market?
Or are people hiring right now?
Like, how are I'm curious as tohow, what the how the
establishment is evolving, givenall the chaos with tariffs and
supply chain disruptions andtrade wars and all that stuff.
Then the tech side of thingsthat's just been injected in the
last five years, all of thosepositions kind of coming
(40:06):
together. Where do you see like,sort of, like staffing evolving
and Talent Management evolving?
Yeah, for us particularly, I seeit growing a lot. I see it
expanding out of, like, ourstereotypical back office
accounting and like operations,I see it growing into, like, the
marketing, the sales, thosepricings, or those kinds of more
financial areas that we didn'tthink about in the past. I think
(40:27):
it's already happening, and I'mseeing it based off the requests
that we're getting. And I thinkthat's really important. Like,
people aren't seeing it anymoreas, like an extra they're seeing
near shoring and offshoring as arequirement to survive, and so,
you know, people aren't comingin with let me just try this out
for a day. It's like, No, I havea legit need like this has been
painful for me. I've beenlooking for options for months
(40:49):
now, and like, now is the timeto do it. So I think that
there's a lot of growth andopportunity there. I also think
that people are going to startto compliment and spread out
their eggs in the sense thatthey're gonna have a partner in
Europe and a partner in Asia anda partner in LATAM, instead of
just having one. And yeah, and Ithink that a lot of that's been
because of what's happened inthe last 10 to 15 years. So many
of us have popped up that youcan't have those limited
(41:13):
contracts that say, Hey, you canonly work with me. And that used
to exist. So it was like, Hey,you have a partner in Colombia.
You can only have one partner inColombia. And it was Colombia,
and it was very limiting, youknow, and now those are becoming
more and more far and few. So Ithink that again, like that egg,
spread your eggs kind of idea,and work with multiple partners,
because they all have differentstrengths, and they can all
(41:34):
complement each otherdifferently. I think that's kind
of the future. So I that meansthat we're going to all have
multiple offices. We're gonnahave multiple multilingual
speakers as well. And hopefully,you know, just be a little bit
more worldwide and respectful toeach other and kinder. That is
such a perfect place to end theconversation, because it was a
very hopeful and we talked, youknow, we talked to covered a lot
of ground in this conversation.
(41:57):
I'm excited for people to hearthis. So where can I send folks.
Where can they follow you?
Obviously, LinkedIn, notFacebook groups. Where can I
send? Yes, so talento, hyphen,io.com, miamizaal on LinkedIn,
or miamizaal on x, or anywhereelse, yeah, or just look up
talento, and that's where youcan find us. Yeah, this is
great. Yeah. Thanks forhaving me. Appreciate it
(42:20):
Absolutely.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of everything is
logistics, where we talk allthings supply chain for the
thinkers in freight, if you likethis episode, there's plenty
more where that came from. Besure to follow or subscribe on
your favorite podcast app so younever miss a conversation. The
(42:41):
show is also available in videoformat over on YouTube, just by
searching everything islogistics. And if you're working
in freight logistics or supplychain marketing, check out my
company, digital dispatch. Wehelp you build smarter websites
and marketing systems thatactually drive results, not just
vanity metrics. Additionally, ifyou're trying to find the right
freight tech tools or partnerswithout getting buried in
(43:03):
buzzwords. Head on over tocargorex.io where we're building
the largest database oflogistics services and
solutions. All the links youneed are in the show notes. I'll
catch you in the Next episodeand go jags.
You
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