October 5, 2023 • 26 mins
This episode features a conversation with Blythe Brumleve, Bill Priestley, and Kevin Hill about marketing and sales strategies for freight companies to survive 2023 and thrive in 2024. They discuss approaches like focusing on customer needs, picking the right marketing platforms, embracing challenges, and monitoring sales activity and attitude. Listen to gain insights into planning, budgeting, and mindset shifts to drive growth despite economic headwinds.
LINKS:
- Episode: How to Start Incorporating AI In Your Work and Creating ‘Why Buy’ Cold Email Campaigns
- Bill Priestley LinkedIn
- Kevin Hill LinkedIn
WATCH THE FREIGHTWAVES EPISODE HERE
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blythe Brumleve (00:05):
Welcome into another episode of Everything Is
Logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight.
We are proudly presented by SPILogistics and I am your Blythe
Brumleve.
It's conference travel season,so that means I am bringing you
another episode I did forFreight Waves Presents and this
one is a special addition toinclude a long-form long-form
(00:26):
conversation with Freight Waves,behind-the-scenes host and
producer Magic man, BillPriestly, and also Kevin Hill of
Brush Pass Research, and wetalk about the state of
marketing and sales andlogistics and how to prepare
your teams to crush it in 2024.
It's budgeting season, afterall, so hopefully you will find
(00:46):
this one enjoyable andrefreshing and educational and
all of the good things Enjoy.
Bill Priestley (00:54):
Joining us to talk about the blueprints for
surviving 2023 and thriving in2024 are Blythe Brumleve, owner
of Digital Dispatch inJacksonville, Florida, and
Frequent Contributor to FreightWaves Now, and Kevin Hill, owner
of Brush Pass Research inDallas, Texas Metroplex area and
the person who also hired me infull disclosure, which means
I've at least sold him once.
(01:16):
Guys, thanks so much forjoining us here on the program
as we talk about something thatI think is going to be very
important over the course of thenext six, eight months or so in
terms of people getting back ontheir feet and getting through
these tough economic times,especially in the trucking and
transportation industry.
So let me just start off with ageneral question here and just
(01:37):
understand this both from asales and from a marketing
perspective.
Blight you first here.
Should you have the samemarketing and sales approach,
regardless of the freighteconomy, if it's extremely good,
like it was in 2022 or early 22or now, as it is in 2023?
Blythe Brumleve (01:53):
I tend to lean more towards that.
It should be the same approach.
You should be coming at theapproach from a customer first
approach, meaning thatoftentimes the one person
marketing team is sitting in onsales meetings.
If you don't have time to sitin on sales meetings and hear
those direct customerinteractions and interactions
with leads, then you don'treally have a clear compass on
(02:14):
which way to take your contentmarketing plan.
Starting with your contentmarketing plan, you can really
have those insights if you'reparticipating actively in those
sales meetings.
And so I think getting back tobasics and getting back to
building a strong foundation iswhere at the core of any decent
marketing plan.
And if you have a decentmarketing plan, then that can
(02:35):
set the groundwork for growth inthe future.
Bill Priestley (02:38):
Kevin, what do you think?
Do you take the same strategy?
Good times are bad.
Kevin Hill (02:44):
The same ", the same blocking and tackling, if you
will, in the sports analogy.
It's all the same.
It's fast and heavy customerapproach first and then,
depending on the market, youtweak it here and there.
Bad markets are good to set upfor the good markets, good
markets are good to set up forthe bad markets.
(03:05):
So it's really all a cycle andBlight.
Hit it right there, with themarketing people sitting in on
the sales meeting, sellingmarketing, talking to each other
, being complementary to oneanother as well.
Bill Priestley (03:21):
Let's take that ad as one step further in terms
of the relationship betweensales and marketing.
Blight as you look at it.
Let's ask the chicken and theegg question Do you set your
marketing first and let yoursalespeople kind of follow that,
or do the salespeople dictatewhat the marketing should be?
Blythe Brumleve (03:38):
So I actually I know this opinion has evolved a
little bit over the years, butI am of the opinion that if you
have a really strong marketingdepartment, then you don't
necessarily need a ton of entrylevel sales reps.
You should be prioritizing thosecustomer conversations,
listening in on thoseconversations what questions
specifically that they're asking, what verbiage specifically
(03:59):
that they're asking and craftinga content marketing plan based
on those questions with theclients and with the leads, or
with your customers as well.
And so if you have that setup,that infrastructure setup where
maybe you don't have time toattend every meeting, but you
can have some kind of an AI notetaking tool that can attend
every meeting for you and put itin a digestible format of
(04:21):
takeaways and notes that areautomatically sent to you, I
think that that is a brilliantway for freight companies and
small marketing teams all overthe country to start taking
their marketing at a strongfoundational level and kicking
it up a notch.
And so if you come at it fromthat perspective, then you're
coming at it from theperspective of the customer is
already well educated on who youare and the problems that
(04:41):
you're trying to solve for them,based on the marketing that
you're already creating.
And so when they do eventuallyreach out, when they do book a
meeting or when they take thatmeeting with you, then they're
talking to more experiencedaccount representatives not
entry level, more of thedirector level role, where they
can get immediate answers andsign up much more quickly.
And so your closed one ratio isa lot higher because you did
(05:05):
the work on the marketing infirst.
Bill Priestley (05:07):
Kevin, it's also been noted that basically 20%
of brokers will do 80% of therevenue as well.
Do you, if you have a situationlike that, do you let that 20%
say, hey, here's what we need todo marketing wise, or do you
kind of work it so thatmarketing still has a hand in
exactly how the company is goingto be viewed externally before
they get to a salesperson?
Kevin Hill (05:26):
If we're talking about the top 20%, that they
should, that they should design.
You should design yourmarketing system, like Black
says said, to generate inboundleads.
So you're not, so you can skipthat.
The entry level sells.
If you don't have that, though,you know, I think it's just a
natural evolution, right?
You start at ground zero,making cold calls, reaching out
(05:46):
sales, being that the heavy armor the heavy lifter of
everything as you develop yourmarketing program.
But your natural evolution,what you really want to get to,
is that that cold outreach atthe beginning stages of a
company or a cycle or what haveyou, and evolve that into
inbound leads and leading withinbound leads, having a content
(06:09):
marketing structure and justoverall marketing structure that
generates leads.
But you don't start there fromground zero, right From from T
zero.
You don't start with that, soyou build that up over time and
you use cold outreach to do that.
Bill Priestley (06:25):
So let's kind of I want to kind of take a broad
base approach to this, obviouslyin terms of trying to make sure
that we get to a very basicidea of what people should be
doing to survive 2023 and get to2024.
And so why don't we just startin terms of marketing?
Obviously, excuse me, you getto where you have.
(06:47):
You've got to have a strategyin place.
If you had to start over, ifyou had a blank slate, what are
you telling your people?
Started in terms of marketingand how you want to get the word
out and how you're going tosurvive this.
What's necessary for you to dothat?
Blythe Brumleve (07:01):
So what I would do is I would start at the base
level the customer interviewsof what we talked about before
but then I would also lookinternally at the founders and
look at the executive team.
Is there anyone within theexecutive circle, or the founder
, preferably the founder arethey able to be conversational
on camera?
Are they able to do interviewslike this?
Are they able to jump onpodcasts interviews?
(07:23):
Are they able to put togetherthree or four paragraphs that
they could promote regularly onsocial media, focusing on who
the founders are and who theexecutives are that are going to
be there for the long haul?
I think utilizing your internalexecutive team and your internal
leadership team is a quickrecipe for success because it
doesn't involve the marketingdepartment spreading themselves
(07:45):
too thin.
Now, if you do have a marketingdepartment, aka one person
that's handling everything, whatI would do immediately is slim
down everything that's notworking.
If it's not working, say,instagram is pretty tough to.
Unless you're posting memes,it's a pretty tough nut to crack
, and so, from that perspective,I would turn all other social
media profiles if you're activethere, I would turn them more
(08:08):
into informational overviewpages, not posting regularly,
and then I would double down onthe platforms that are working.
So think about LinkedIn is anobvious answer for a lot of
folks within our industry.
But then, if you have time, inaddition to that one platform, I
would start looking into eitherYouTube shorts or I would look
into a community built platformssuch as Discord or Twitter
(08:30):
slash X.
There are growing freightcommunities on those platforms
and so you get a little bit morebang for your organic buck
without having to pay for thatadditional advertising.
Then you can get someadditional exposure and brand
awareness by simply justconversating with people.
It takes a little bit of a timeinvestment, but if you focus on
(08:50):
the time investment piece, thenyou could just focus on one
platform, two platforms max andthen you can really find out
what nuances and what languagesand verbiages are working on
that platform.
Engage your employee leadershipbase in order to post on their
own and be creative, and thenyou can amplify each other based
on those platforms and thatthat strong focus of where
(09:12):
you're going to put your timeand attention for right now,
until you can build on, add morepeople, add more contractors,
freelancers, and then you canexpand to other social media
platforms.
Bill Priestley (09:22):
Hopefully you can figure out what those
platforms are fairly quicklythere as well.
Kevin, starting from the groundup, or at least starting from
where you are in terms of thesales team that you've gotten
and how you kind of work thatforward, do you take a position
of all right, do we need toeducate, Do we need to train, Do
we need to get better?
Or do you take these if you'rejust starting right now and
(09:44):
trying to enlist a new outlook,a new philosophy, if you will,
or do you take the Glenn Gary,Glenn Ross method and say, hey,
first place gets the car, secondplace gets the knives, third
place gets the door?
Kevin Hill (09:56):
Well, you don't really want to totally take that
attitude but at least at thetime to win.
That attitude is taken in a lotof ways, but I think I think in
the core of it right now, toset yourself up and make it
through these growing times, youhave to embrace the nose, you
have to embrace the silence, youhave to embrace starting from
scratch in a lot of ways,because a lot of your messaging
(10:17):
that you go out like I talked alot about the platforms you need
to pick out your platforms.
You need to pick out yourmessaging too and I'll talk a
little bit about the content isyour core values, your core
business, your core strengths,your core message that you
really want to, that you tellyour sales team.
You need to take it outpublicly and don't expect a lot
of activity from it at start.
Blythe Brumleve (10:41):
I think what you know for blogging stats and
we talked about all the time.
It takes a long time to get apodcast up and running to reach
that scale, but once it does, itpays off in an exponential way.
So it's the same with thingwith your messaging and your
phone calls, your outboundmarketing your inbound marketing
(11:03):
.
Bill Priestley (11:03):
It's going to be slow right now, but this is the
time to really build out thatcontent library build out that
messaging find out who you are,because the market is going to
turn and I have no cluewhatsoever.
Blythe Brumleve (11:14):
but it will turn and once it does, you want
to be out there.
You want to be a known quantityin the market you know, to
front of your customers, yourcentral customers, your buyers,
you want to be a known quantitybecause a lot of the sales
process is all about credibility.
Kevin Hill (11:31):
And if you can get the credibility and get up to
that scale where you're crediblebefore you even talk to that
prospect, the sales become somuch easier.
And when there's an upswing,when there's a need that arises,
it is like shooting you know,shooting fish in a barrel.
I think I messed up thatanalogy, but or that metaphor,
(11:55):
but it really is.
It makes everything so mucheasier.
So now's the time to actuallyGet out there, pick your
platforms, pick your content andrun full steam ahead.
Bill Priestley (12:06):
Bladeless back up a little bit.
Just talk a little bit aboutthe structure of how things go
here.
I know this could be reallynerve-wracking for marketing
people, especially having beenone for a while and knowing this
myself from personal experience.
But in terms of how you want toset this up between sales and
marketing, do you have themunder the same umbrella?
If you're safe for instance,you're the CEO or an operations
(12:28):
person do you have them underthe same umbrella and that
person calls the shots to whatmarketing does and to what sales
does, or do you have them asmore independent entities?
Blythe Brumleve (12:37):
I think it needs to be a little bit of a
separation of church and state,but it also needs to be a
collaborative effort.
You don't want to havemarketing completely on an
island, separate from sales,because that's the way they're
going to operate.
They're going to operateindependently and not work
together.
If they're working together, ifmarketing is doing the job of
sitting in on those meetings andproving to be a helpful
(12:59):
resource for sales, then that'sa tremendous opportunity for the
sales to have a two-wayrelationship with the marketing
department to say, hey, thismessaging or this ebook or this
video is working really wellwith my leads and with my
audience.
I'm closing more than Itypically was with any other
content that's been created.
Let's go create three moreversions of that same type of
(13:22):
content and keep building onthat.
I think that they need tooperate independently but they
need to be collaborativetogether because otherwise
marketing is not going to beable to create the content
that's going to be drivingrevenue.
In today's world, marketingneeds to understand what's
driving revenue.
Otherwise, you can't justifythe things that you're doing,
(13:44):
you can't justify the numbersthat you're reaching and you
can't justify the goals of thecontent that you're creating If
you have a boss that's coming toyou and saying why aren't we
getting leads from this landingpage or from this ebook, then
you need to be able to explainclearly as to why and how you're
going to be able to fix it orwhat the original goal of that
piece of content was.
(14:04):
If it wasn't to generate leads,it was just to generate brand
awareness or to generate emailsignups, then that's a totally
different metric for marketingsuccess versus someone that's
going to book a call becausethey're ready to buy right now.
The reality is that most peopleare not ready to buy.
Only about 5% of your audienceis ever really in a buying,
(14:24):
active buying cycle, but youneed to be creating that
messaging for the 95% that aregoing to eventually hopefully
become ready to buy in thefuture.
Bill Priestley (14:34):
Kevin, we've got a chart here that used last
week on freight waves.
Now, in terms of the number ofbrokerages that are out there,
we're getting a little bitactive at this particular point,
maybe not depending on howsmall they are, how big they are
, how they are moving as thatnumber continues to increase.
Obviously this becomes muchmore as I mentioned in the
opening a street fight betweenpeople in terms of trying to get
(14:57):
the freight that they need topass, to get into red numbers,
essentially, or to get intoblack numbers, essentially.
As you look at it from a salesperspective, how important is it
to make sure that you've gotthe right people and not
necessarily again going to thatGlingary-Gunross method of
attrition, if you will, andlosing who's not being effective
(15:17):
?
But how critical do you need tobe of your salespeople to make
sure that they are doing whatthey need to be doing to survive
in this kind of an economy?
Kevin Hill (15:25):
Oh, it's essential.
It's essential to haveyourselves people on the same
page, having that positiveattitude, because there's a lot
of no's out there I just said ita lot of silence as well.
But to be able to embrace thatand think long term, think to
the next turn on the cycle andembrace the gap to there.
And I won't say don't worryabout the short term, but don't
(15:49):
put all your eggs in that shortterm basket, because that is
going to trip you up.
Right, because there's a lot ofactivity that sells people do.
That is based on future salesand that's what marketing does
mostly bring in future sales.
So there should be a lot ofconcentration about that.
It's a good time to trainWhenever you have this downtime
(16:12):
or this slow time in the markettraining, training, training and
really just your sales process,your automation.
How do you get all the manualtasks that take time away from
your sales people being on thephone, being in front of
customers?
How do you automate as much ofthat as possible?
(16:32):
And that's what you want to bethinking about right now.
And it's all setting the termsbeing solid in the short term
here in the down cycle, butbuilding up to attack the market
once it turns again, becausethat rise, a lot of most
(16:52):
brokerages, most salespeoplewill miss most of that rise and
they'll be just hitting theirstride when it peaks and all of
a sudden it goes back down again.
You want to capture that riseup because that's where the
profits are.
Bill Priestley (17:05):
Blav, if you're the marketing person, again
let's say we're started, we'reon a new strategy, we're moving
forward.
What are the metrics that youwant to look at in terms of if
this is working or not?
Blythe Brumleve (17:16):
So I would be looking at so specifically when
it comes to your website,because that's where that's a
property that you own.
It's one of the threeproperties you're ever going to
own, between your podcast andyour email list, and also your
website.
So all of your social traffic,all of your marketing traffic,
should be generated back to, orshould be focused on generating
traffic back to your website.
And so, if they're on thewebsite, you want to be looking
(17:38):
at the landing page metrics,those key metrics.
Is the visits to this pagegoing up or down?
How is that trending thisquarter versus the previous
quarter?
You don't really want to lookat month over month because
there's a lot of variations thatcan affect that.
Holiday travel, summer travelall of these things can
negatively and impact thosenumbers.
So looking at it on a quarterversus quarter basis is really
(18:00):
where you get a lot of thoseeye-opening insights, and then
you can compare the half yearversus the previous year once
you start collecting thatinsight.
So if you're looking at thetraffic, is it trending up or
down?
Are the lead form fills?
Are they trending up or down?
What kind of insight are yougetting from those lead form
fills?
Are you asking people?
How did you hear about us?
It's this thing that I justpreach to the high heavens.
(18:22):
You make it a field on all ofyour high intent converting
forms.
You ask people how they heardabout you.
You make it a free text field,no dropdown, no text or check
boxes, and you just let peoplefreely tell you how they heard
about you and then you can takethose answers and you can funnel
them through Kevin mentionedusing different automation tools
(18:43):
.
There's also AI that can comeinto play with these, as you can
export all of those differentdata points and then you can use
AI to analyze where's themajority of these leads coming
from.
Are they coming from anadvertisement?
Are they coming from a webinar?
Are they coming from a guestappearance?
Are they coming from a singlesocial media post?
Are they coming from a podcast?
(19:03):
All of those things you can tellfrom that kind of data which a
lot of marketing attributionsoftware cannot tell you.
They're going to tell you thatsomebody came from Google search
, when in reality a lot of folksjust go to Google, type in your
name and then arrive on yourwebsite.
So a lot of leads will getunjustifiably attributed to
Google search when they shouldhave been attributed to
(19:23):
something else.
So that's the reason for askinghow did you hear about us?
So you really want to look atthose key landing pages.
Are they trending up or down asfar as visits?
And then also on the form fillsare they trending up or down on
those form fills?
And those are your key impactpages and as long as you're
looking at that, then that cantell you the story of where you
shouldn't be investing more time, whether it's on the landing
(19:44):
page itself or whether it's onsocial media campaigns or email
campaigns that you might beworking on.
Bill Priestley (19:49):
Kevin, is it a mistake, if you're taking that
particular perspective?
Is it a mistake to measuresales growth as a function of
how well your marketing is, oris that sales growth basically
dependent mostly upon theeffectiveness of your
salespeople?
Kevin Hill (20:06):
I think it's mostly effective on the marketing and
your messaging out there andless on the sales team itself.
I think that's where I wouldland on that you have to have an
effective sales team and thatthey have to be doing their XOs
and their processes.
But I think marketing has a lotto do with that and the overall
(20:30):
messaging of the organization.
Bill Priestley (20:33):
Gotcha, we've got just a few minutes left here
.
So, blythe, if you were to putit out in terms of how you want
to set this up and what is maybeone or two things that
everybody or every broker needsto be concerned about in terms
of how they're going to market,how they're going to get out
there, what do they have to do,what is definitely on that
checklist to be successful in2023, to get to 2024?
Blythe Brumleve (20:57):
Immediately, I would sign up for a tool like
otterai.
It's a meeting note-taking toolthat automatically joins all of
the meetings that you arescheduled to.
It automatically takes notes soyou can focus on the meeting at
hand and then get those notesafterwards.
Those notes are shared witheverybody who is on the call and
you have that database that youcan then look up in the future
to find different content ideas,find different social media
(21:20):
ideas, and then I don't havetime to really get into it too
much, but develop what's calleda why buy?
Campaign, where you're talkingabout what the problem of the
current state is, what is thefuture state and some
pseudo-controversial opinionsthat you have and how your
company solves those things.
I've written about this before.
I'd be happy to share it withyou guys, but that's where I
would start, because it's startswith the foundational insight
(21:41):
at gathering and then also fromthe lens of okay, this is how
we're going to develop ourmessaging from a sales and
marketing perspective in orderto go after the customers that
we really want to target.
Bill Priestley (21:52):
Kevin, looking at that, what is one thing that,
as a sales manager, or as theCEO, looking at the sales team,
what is one thing that youdefinitely want to see happen in
terms of either if it'straining or if it's quotas, or
what is it that you want to seein terms of getting this thing
going to make sure it'ssuccessful?
Kevin Hill (22:09):
I will borrow a line from Brent Orsiga that he said
on Put that Coffee Down yearsago activity and attitude.
You want to monitor activityand attitude because those are
only two things that you canreally control.
You can't control the marketcycles.
You can't control buying.
You want to, as Bly said, findyour why buy and what works
(22:30):
right now, but it's all aboutactivity and attitude.
You can have the training, youcan have everything else out
there, but in the sales force,activity and attitude.
Keep it upbeat, keep it flowing.
Make sure that your salespeoplehave the activity and attitude
and things will pay off.
Bill Priestley (22:50):
Moving now from 2023 and the doldrums of 2023
into, hopefully, a land ofprosperity in mid-2024 and
beyond.
Hopefully there is well-blithedas you look at that.
Again, we've said, kind of keepit the same in terms of how you
use your marketing and salesphilosophies to move into a
better economy.
But are there any minutechanges that you absolutely look
(23:12):
at in terms of I know you'realways in a constant state of
evaluation what's working,what's not working, but in terms
of when things start going, doyou change any little nuance
just because it is a bettereconomy?
Blythe Brumleve (23:25):
So I think when it is a better economy, that's
when you the groundwork of theorganic posting so the non paid
posting or the non paid contentthat you've been working on you
can look back on and see okay,this performed really well for
an organic perspective.
Now that the economy is hummingalong a little bit, it's
looking, it has signs ofimprovement, Then you can
(23:45):
justify more budget, to takethat budget and then invest in
advertising because you've laidthe groundwork.
You're listening to yourcustomers, you're listening to
your leads, you've developedthat messaging, you've developed
your Y buys and then you cantest and you can see okay, all
of these things have workedreally well for an organic
perspective.
Now I have justification to goto the executive team and to be
able to ask for an advertisingbudget that I can go to a
(24:08):
specialized agency, aspecialized freelancer that is
experienced in social mediaadvertising, and then you can
take some of that organiccontent that you've created and
you could put a little juicebehind it with some paid
advertisements, because it'smore well organic.
Bill Priestley (24:22):
I've got to go to Kevin real quick.
Kevin, do you change anythingin your strategy?
Kevin Hill (24:27):
No.
Bill Priestley (24:31):
We'll have to keep it there.
Blav Bromleave and Kevin Hillwonderful talking to you and
great to see you both, andthanks for joining us here on
For your Presence.
Blythe Brumleve (24:43):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of
Everything Is Logistics, apodcast for the thinkers in it
freight, telling the storiesbehind how your favorite stuff
and people get from point A to B.
Subscribe to the show, sign upfor our newsletter and follow
our socials over ateverythingislogisticscom.
And in addition to the podcast,I also wanted to let y'all know
about another company I operate, and that's Digital Dispatch,
(25:04):
where we help you build a betterwebsite.
Now, a lot of the times, wehand this task of building a new
website or refreshing a currentone off to a co-worker's child,
a neighbor down the street or astranger around the world,
where you probably spend moretime explaining the freight
industry than it takes toactually build the dang website.
Well, that doesn't happen atDigital Dispatch.
(25:25):
We've been building onlinesince 2009, but we're also early
adopters of AI, automation andother website tactics that help
your company to be a centralplace to pull in all of your
social media posts, recruit newemployees and give potential
customers a glimpse into how youoperate your business.
Our new website builds start aslow as $1500, along with
(25:47):
ongoing website management,maintenance and updates starting
at $90 a month, plus some bonus, freight marketing and sales
content similar to what you hearon the podcast.
You can watch a quick explainervideo over on DigitalDispatchio
.
Just check out the pricing pageonce you arrive and you can see
how we can build your digitalecosystem on a strong foundation
(26:10):
.
Until then, I hope you enjoyedthis episode.
I'll see you all real soon andgo Jags.
Welcome into another episode of Everything Is
Logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight.
We are proudly presented by SPILogistics and I am your Blythe
Brumleve.
It's conference travel season,so that means I am bringing you
another episode I did forFreight Waves Presents and this
one is a special addition toinclude a long-form long-form
(00:26):
conversation with Freight Waves,behind-the-scenes host and
producer Magic man, BillPriestly, and also Kevin Hill of
Brush Pass Research, and wetalk about the state of
marketing and sales andlogistics and how to prepare
your teams to crush it in 2024.
It's budgeting season, afterall, so hopefully you will find
(00:46):
this one enjoyable andrefreshing and educational and
all of the good things Enjoy.
Bill Priestley (00:54):
Joining us to talk about the blueprints for
surviving 2023 and thriving in2024 are Blythe Brumleve, owner
of Digital Dispatch inJacksonville, Florida, and
Frequent Contributor to FreightWaves Now, and Kevin Hill, owner
of Brush Pass Research inDallas, Texas Metroplex area and
the person who also hired me infull disclosure, which means
I've at least sold him once.
(01:16):
Guys, thanks so much forjoining us here on the program
as we talk about something thatI think is going to be very
important over the course of thenext six, eight months or so in
terms of people getting back ontheir feet and getting through
these tough economic times,especially in the trucking and
transportation industry.
So let me just start off with ageneral question here and just
(01:37):
understand this both from asales and from a marketing
perspective.
Blight you first here.
Should you have the samemarketing and sales approach,
regardless of the freighteconomy, if it's extremely good,
like it was in 2022 or early 22or now, as it is in 2023?
Blythe Brumleve (01:53):
I tend to lean more towards that.
It should be the same approach.
You should be coming at theapproach from a customer first
approach, meaning thatoftentimes the one person
marketing team is sitting in onsales meetings.
If you don't have time to sitin on sales meetings and hear
those direct customerinteractions and interactions
with leads, then you don'treally have a clear compass on
(02:14):
which way to take your contentmarketing plan.
Starting with your contentmarketing plan, you can really
have those insights if you'reparticipating actively in those
sales meetings.
And so I think getting back tobasics and getting back to
building a strong foundation iswhere at the core of any decent
marketing plan.
And if you have a decentmarketing plan, then that can
(02:35):
set the groundwork for growth inthe future.
Bill Priestley (02:38):
Kevin, what do you think?
Do you take the same strategy?
Good times are bad.
Kevin Hill (02:44):
The same ", the same blocking and tackling, if you
will, in the sports analogy.
It's all the same.
It's fast and heavy customerapproach first and then,
depending on the market, youtweak it here and there.
Bad markets are good to set upfor the good markets, good
markets are good to set up forthe bad markets.
(03:05):
So it's really all a cycle andBlight.
Hit it right there, with themarketing people sitting in on
the sales meeting, sellingmarketing, talking to each other
, being complementary to oneanother as well.
Bill Priestley (03:21):
Let's take that ad as one step further in terms
of the relationship betweensales and marketing.
Blight as you look at it.
Let's ask the chicken and theegg question Do you set your
marketing first and let yoursalespeople kind of follow that,
or do the salespeople dictatewhat the marketing should be?
Blythe Brumleve (03:38):
So I actually I know this opinion has evolved a
little bit over the years, butI am of the opinion that if you
have a really strong marketingdepartment, then you don't
necessarily need a ton of entrylevel sales reps.
You should be prioritizing thosecustomer conversations,
listening in on thoseconversations what questions
specifically that they're asking, what verbiage specifically
(03:59):
that they're asking and craftinga content marketing plan based
on those questions with theclients and with the leads, or
with your customers as well.
And so if you have that setup,that infrastructure setup where
maybe you don't have time toattend every meeting, but you
can have some kind of an AI notetaking tool that can attend
every meeting for you and put itin a digestible format of
(04:21):
takeaways and notes that areautomatically sent to you, I
think that that is a brilliantway for freight companies and
small marketing teams all overthe country to start taking
their marketing at a strongfoundational level and kicking
it up a notch.
And so if you come at it fromthat perspective, then you're
coming at it from theperspective of the customer is
already well educated on who youare and the problems that
(04:41):
you're trying to solve for them,based on the marketing that
you're already creating.
And so when they do eventuallyreach out, when they do book a
meeting or when they take thatmeeting with you, then they're
talking to more experiencedaccount representatives not
entry level, more of thedirector level role, where they
can get immediate answers andsign up much more quickly.
And so your closed one ratio isa lot higher because you did
(05:05):
the work on the marketing infirst.
Bill Priestley (05:07):
Kevin, it's also been noted that basically 20%
of brokers will do 80% of therevenue as well.
Do you, if you have a situationlike that, do you let that 20%
say, hey, here's what we need todo marketing wise, or do you
kind of work it so thatmarketing still has a hand in
exactly how the company is goingto be viewed externally before
they get to a salesperson?
Kevin Hill (05:26):
If we're talking about the top 20%, that they
should, that they should design.
You should design yourmarketing system, like Black
says said, to generate inboundleads.
So you're not, so you can skipthat.
The entry level sells.
If you don't have that, though,you know, I think it's just a
natural evolution, right?
You start at ground zero,making cold calls, reaching out
(05:46):
sales, being that the heavy armor the heavy lifter of
everything as you develop yourmarketing program.
But your natural evolution,what you really want to get to,
is that that cold outreach atthe beginning stages of a
company or a cycle or what haveyou, and evolve that into
inbound leads and leading withinbound leads, having a content
(06:09):
marketing structure and justoverall marketing structure that
generates leads.
But you don't start there fromground zero, right From from T
zero.
You don't start with that, soyou build that up over time and
you use cold outreach to do that.
Bill Priestley (06:25):
So let's kind of I want to kind of take a broad
base approach to this, obviouslyin terms of trying to make sure
that we get to a very basicidea of what people should be
doing to survive 2023 and get to2024.
And so why don't we just startin terms of marketing?
Obviously, excuse me, you getto where you have.
(06:47):
You've got to have a strategyin place.
If you had to start over, ifyou had a blank slate, what are
you telling your people?
Started in terms of marketingand how you want to get the word
out and how you're going tosurvive this.
What's necessary for you to dothat?
Blythe Brumleve (07:01):
So what I would do is I would start at the base
level the customer interviewsof what we talked about before
but then I would also lookinternally at the founders and
look at the executive team.
Is there anyone within theexecutive circle, or the founder
, preferably the founder arethey able to be conversational
on camera?
Are they able to do interviewslike this?
Are they able to jump onpodcasts interviews?
(07:23):
Are they able to put togetherthree or four paragraphs that
they could promote regularly onsocial media, focusing on who
the founders are and who theexecutives are that are going to
be there for the long haul?
I think utilizing your internalexecutive team and your internal
leadership team is a quickrecipe for success because it
doesn't involve the marketingdepartment spreading themselves
(07:45):
too thin.
Now, if you do have a marketingdepartment, aka one person
that's handling everything, whatI would do immediately is slim
down everything that's notworking.
If it's not working, say,instagram is pretty tough to.
Unless you're posting memes,it's a pretty tough nut to crack
, and so, from that perspective,I would turn all other social
media profiles if you're activethere, I would turn them more
(08:08):
into informational overviewpages, not posting regularly,
and then I would double down onthe platforms that are working.
So think about LinkedIn is anobvious answer for a lot of
folks within our industry.
But then, if you have time, inaddition to that one platform, I
would start looking into eitherYouTube shorts or I would look
into a community built platformssuch as Discord or Twitter
(08:30):
slash X.
There are growing freightcommunities on those platforms
and so you get a little bit morebang for your organic buck
without having to pay for thatadditional advertising.
Then you can get someadditional exposure and brand
awareness by simply justconversating with people.
It takes a little bit of a timeinvestment, but if you focus on
(08:50):
the time investment piece, thenyou could just focus on one
platform, two platforms max andthen you can really find out
what nuances and what languagesand verbiages are working on
that platform.
Engage your employee leadershipbase in order to post on their
own and be creative, and thenyou can amplify each other based
on those platforms and thatthat strong focus of where
(09:12):
you're going to put your timeand attention for right now,
until you can build on, add morepeople, add more contractors,
freelancers, and then you canexpand to other social media
platforms.
Bill Priestley (09:22):
Hopefully you can figure out what those
platforms are fairly quicklythere as well.
Kevin, starting from the groundup, or at least starting from
where you are in terms of thesales team that you've gotten
and how you kind of work thatforward, do you take a position
of all right, do we need toeducate, Do we need to train, Do
we need to get better?
Or do you take these if you'rejust starting right now and
(09:44):
trying to enlist a new outlook,a new philosophy, if you will,
or do you take the Glenn Gary,Glenn Ross method and say, hey,
first place gets the car, secondplace gets the knives, third
place gets the door?
Kevin Hill (09:56):
Well, you don't really want to totally take that
attitude but at least at thetime to win.
That attitude is taken in a lotof ways, but I think I think in
the core of it right now, toset yourself up and make it
through these growing times, youhave to embrace the nose, you
have to embrace the silence, youhave to embrace starting from
scratch in a lot of ways,because a lot of your messaging
(10:17):
that you go out like I talked alot about the platforms you need
to pick out your platforms.
You need to pick out yourmessaging too and I'll talk a
little bit about the content isyour core values, your core
business, your core strengths,your core message that you
really want to, that you tellyour sales team.
You need to take it outpublicly and don't expect a lot
of activity from it at start.
Blythe Brumleve (10:41):
I think what you know for blogging stats and
we talked about all the time.
It takes a long time to get apodcast up and running to reach
that scale, but once it does, itpays off in an exponential way.
So it's the same with thingwith your messaging and your
phone calls, your outboundmarketing your inbound marketing
(11:03):
.
Bill Priestley (11:03):
It's going to be slow right now, but this is the
time to really build out thatcontent library build out that
messaging find out who you are,because the market is going to
turn and I have no cluewhatsoever.
Blythe Brumleve (11:14):
but it will turn and once it does, you want
to be out there.
You want to be a known quantityin the market you know, to
front of your customers, yourcentral customers, your buyers,
you want to be a known quantitybecause a lot of the sales
process is all about credibility.
Kevin Hill (11:31):
And if you can get the credibility and get up to
that scale where you're crediblebefore you even talk to that
prospect, the sales become somuch easier.
And when there's an upswing,when there's a need that arises,
it is like shooting you know,shooting fish in a barrel.
I think I messed up thatanalogy, but or that metaphor,
(11:55):
but it really is.
It makes everything so mucheasier.
So now's the time to actuallyGet out there, pick your
platforms, pick your content andrun full steam ahead.
Bill Priestley (12:06):
Bladeless back up a little bit.
Just talk a little bit aboutthe structure of how things go
here.
I know this could be reallynerve-wracking for marketing
people, especially having beenone for a while and knowing this
myself from personal experience.
But in terms of how you want toset this up between sales and
marketing, do you have themunder the same umbrella?
If you're safe for instance,you're the CEO or an operations
(12:28):
person do you have them underthe same umbrella and that
person calls the shots to whatmarketing does and to what sales
does, or do you have them asmore independent entities?
Blythe Brumleve (12:37):
I think it needs to be a little bit of a
separation of church and state,but it also needs to be a
collaborative effort.
You don't want to havemarketing completely on an
island, separate from sales,because that's the way they're
going to operate.
They're going to operateindependently and not work
together.
If they're working together, ifmarketing is doing the job of
sitting in on those meetings andproving to be a helpful
(12:59):
resource for sales, then that'sa tremendous opportunity for the
sales to have a two-wayrelationship with the marketing
department to say, hey, thismessaging or this ebook or this
video is working really wellwith my leads and with my
audience.
I'm closing more than Itypically was with any other
content that's been created.
Let's go create three moreversions of that same type of
(13:22):
content and keep building onthat.
I think that they need tooperate independently but they
need to be collaborativetogether because otherwise
marketing is not going to beable to create the content
that's going to be drivingrevenue.
In today's world, marketingneeds to understand what's
driving revenue.
Otherwise, you can't justifythe things that you're doing,
(13:44):
you can't justify the numbersthat you're reaching and you
can't justify the goals of thecontent that you're creating If
you have a boss that's coming toyou and saying why aren't we
getting leads from this landingpage or from this ebook, then
you need to be able to explainclearly as to why and how you're
going to be able to fix it orwhat the original goal of that
piece of content was.
(14:04):
If it wasn't to generate leads,it was just to generate brand
awareness or to generate emailsignups, then that's a totally
different metric for marketingsuccess versus someone that's
going to book a call becausethey're ready to buy right now.
The reality is that most peopleare not ready to buy.
Only about 5% of your audienceis ever really in a buying,
(14:24):
active buying cycle, but youneed to be creating that
messaging for the 95% that aregoing to eventually hopefully
become ready to buy in thefuture.
Bill Priestley (14:34):
Kevin, we've got a chart here that used last
week on freight waves.
Now, in terms of the number ofbrokerages that are out there,
we're getting a little bitactive at this particular point,
maybe not depending on howsmall they are, how big they are
, how they are moving as thatnumber continues to increase.
Obviously this becomes muchmore as I mentioned in the
opening a street fight betweenpeople in terms of trying to get
(14:57):
the freight that they need topass, to get into red numbers,
essentially, or to get intoblack numbers, essentially.
As you look at it from a salesperspective, how important is it
to make sure that you've gotthe right people and not
necessarily again going to thatGlingary-Gunross method of
attrition, if you will, andlosing who's not being effective
(15:17):
?
But how critical do you need tobe of your salespeople to make
sure that they are doing whatthey need to be doing to survive
in this kind of an economy?
Kevin Hill (15:25):
Oh, it's essential.
It's essential to haveyourselves people on the same
page, having that positiveattitude, because there's a lot
of no's out there I just said ita lot of silence as well.
But to be able to embrace thatand think long term, think to
the next turn on the cycle andembrace the gap to there.
And I won't say don't worryabout the short term, but don't
(15:49):
put all your eggs in that shortterm basket, because that is
going to trip you up.
Right, because there's a lot ofactivity that sells people do.
That is based on future salesand that's what marketing does
mostly bring in future sales.
So there should be a lot ofconcentration about that.
It's a good time to trainWhenever you have this downtime
(16:12):
or this slow time in the markettraining, training, training and
really just your sales process,your automation.
How do you get all the manualtasks that take time away from
your sales people being on thephone, being in front of
customers?
How do you automate as much ofthat as possible?
(16:32):
And that's what you want to bethinking about right now.
And it's all setting the termsbeing solid in the short term
here in the down cycle, butbuilding up to attack the market
once it turns again, becausethat rise, a lot of most
(16:52):
brokerages, most salespeoplewill miss most of that rise and
they'll be just hitting theirstride when it peaks and all of
a sudden it goes back down again.
You want to capture that riseup because that's where the
profits are.
Bill Priestley (17:05):
Blav, if you're the marketing person, again
let's say we're started, we'reon a new strategy, we're moving
forward.
What are the metrics that youwant to look at in terms of if
this is working or not?
Blythe Brumleve (17:16):
So I would be looking at so specifically when
it comes to your website,because that's where that's a
property that you own.
It's one of the threeproperties you're ever going to
own, between your podcast andyour email list, and also your
website.
So all of your social traffic,all of your marketing traffic,
should be generated back to, orshould be focused on generating
traffic back to your website.
And so, if they're on thewebsite, you want to be looking
(17:38):
at the landing page metrics,those key metrics.
Is the visits to this pagegoing up or down?
How is that trending thisquarter versus the previous
quarter?
You don't really want to lookat month over month because
there's a lot of variations thatcan affect that.
Holiday travel, summer travelall of these things can
negatively and impact thosenumbers.
So looking at it on a quarterversus quarter basis is really
(18:00):
where you get a lot of thoseeye-opening insights, and then
you can compare the half yearversus the previous year once
you start collecting thatinsight.
So if you're looking at thetraffic, is it trending up or
down?
Are the lead form fills?
Are they trending up or down?
What kind of insight are yougetting from those lead form
fills?
Are you asking people?
How did you hear about us?
It's this thing that I justpreach to the high heavens.
(18:22):
You make it a field on all ofyour high intent converting
forms.
You ask people how they heardabout you.
You make it a free text field,no dropdown, no text or check
boxes, and you just let peoplefreely tell you how they heard
about you and then you can takethose answers and you can funnel
them through Kevin mentionedusing different automation tools
(18:43):
.
There's also AI that can comeinto play with these, as you can
export all of those differentdata points and then you can use
AI to analyze where's themajority of these leads coming
from.
Are they coming from anadvertisement?
Are they coming from a webinar?
Are they coming from a guestappearance?
Are they coming from a singlesocial media post?
Are they coming from a podcast?
(19:03):
All of those things you can tellfrom that kind of data which a
lot of marketing attributionsoftware cannot tell you.
They're going to tell you thatsomebody came from Google search
, when in reality a lot of folksjust go to Google, type in your
name and then arrive on yourwebsite.
So a lot of leads will getunjustifiably attributed to
Google search when they shouldhave been attributed to
(19:23):
something else.
So that's the reason for askinghow did you hear about us?
So you really want to look atthose key landing pages.
Are they trending up or down asfar as visits?
And then also on the form fillsare they trending up or down on
those form fills?
And those are your key impactpages and as long as you're
looking at that, then that cantell you the story of where you
shouldn't be investing more time, whether it's on the landing
(19:44):
page itself or whether it's onsocial media campaigns or email
campaigns that you might beworking on.
Bill Priestley (19:49):
Kevin, is it a mistake, if you're taking that
particular perspective?
Is it a mistake to measuresales growth as a function of
how well your marketing is, oris that sales growth basically
dependent mostly upon theeffectiveness of your
salespeople?
Kevin Hill (20:06):
I think it's mostly effective on the marketing and
your messaging out there andless on the sales team itself.
I think that's where I wouldland on that you have to have an
effective sales team and thatthey have to be doing their XOs
and their processes.
But I think marketing has a lotto do with that and the overall
(20:30):
messaging of the organization.
Bill Priestley (20:33):
Gotcha, we've got just a few minutes left here
.
So, blythe, if you were to putit out in terms of how you want
to set this up and what is maybeone or two things that
everybody or every broker needsto be concerned about in terms
of how they're going to market,how they're going to get out
there, what do they have to do,what is definitely on that
checklist to be successful in2023, to get to 2024?
Blythe Brumleve (20:57):
Immediately, I would sign up for a tool like
otterai.
It's a meeting note-taking toolthat automatically joins all of
the meetings that you arescheduled to.
It automatically takes notes soyou can focus on the meeting at
hand and then get those notesafterwards.
Those notes are shared witheverybody who is on the call and
you have that database that youcan then look up in the future
to find different content ideas,find different social media
(21:20):
ideas, and then I don't havetime to really get into it too
much, but develop what's calleda why buy?
Campaign, where you're talkingabout what the problem of the
current state is, what is thefuture state and some
pseudo-controversial opinionsthat you have and how your
company solves those things.
I've written about this before.
I'd be happy to share it withyou guys, but that's where I
would start, because it's startswith the foundational insight
(21:41):
at gathering and then also fromthe lens of okay, this is how
we're going to develop ourmessaging from a sales and
marketing perspective in orderto go after the customers that
we really want to target.
Bill Priestley (21:52):
Kevin, looking at that, what is one thing that,
as a sales manager, or as theCEO, looking at the sales team,
what is one thing that youdefinitely want to see happen in
terms of either if it'straining or if it's quotas, or
what is it that you want to seein terms of getting this thing
going to make sure it'ssuccessful?
Kevin Hill (22:09):
I will borrow a line from Brent Orsiga that he said
on Put that Coffee Down yearsago activity and attitude.
You want to monitor activityand attitude because those are
only two things that you canreally control.
You can't control the marketcycles.
You can't control buying.
You want to, as Bly said, findyour why buy and what works
(22:30):
right now, but it's all aboutactivity and attitude.
You can have the training, youcan have everything else out
there, but in the sales force,activity and attitude.
Keep it upbeat, keep it flowing.
Make sure that your salespeoplehave the activity and attitude
and things will pay off.
Bill Priestley (22:50):
Moving now from 2023 and the doldrums of 2023
into, hopefully, a land ofprosperity in mid-2024 and
beyond.
Hopefully there is well-blithedas you look at that.
Again, we've said, kind of keepit the same in terms of how you
use your marketing and salesphilosophies to move into a
better economy.
But are there any minutechanges that you absolutely look
(23:12):
at in terms of I know you'realways in a constant state of
evaluation what's working,what's not working, but in terms
of when things start going, doyou change any little nuance
just because it is a bettereconomy?
Blythe Brumleve (23:25):
So I think when it is a better economy, that's
when you the groundwork of theorganic posting so the non paid
posting or the non paid contentthat you've been working on you
can look back on and see okay,this performed really well for
an organic perspective.
Now that the economy is hummingalong a little bit, it's
looking, it has signs ofimprovement, Then you can
(23:45):
justify more budget, to takethat budget and then invest in
advertising because you've laidthe groundwork.
You're listening to yourcustomers, you're listening to
your leads, you've developedthat messaging, you've developed
your Y buys and then you cantest and you can see okay, all
of these things have workedreally well for an organic
perspective.
Now I have justification to goto the executive team and to be
able to ask for an advertisingbudget that I can go to a
(24:08):
specialized agency, aspecialized freelancer that is
experienced in social mediaadvertising, and then you can
take some of that organiccontent that you've created and
you could put a little juicebehind it with some paid
advertisements, because it'smore well organic.
Bill Priestley (24:22):
I've got to go to Kevin real quick.
Kevin, do you change anythingin your strategy?
Kevin Hill (24:27):
No.
Bill Priestley (24:31):
We'll have to keep it there.
Blav Bromleave and Kevin Hillwonderful talking to you and
great to see you both, andthanks for joining us here on
For your Presence.
Blythe Brumleve (24:43):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of
Everything Is Logistics, apodcast for the thinkers in it
freight, telling the storiesbehind how your favorite stuff
and people get from point A to B.
Subscribe to the show, sign upfor our newsletter and follow
our socials over ateverythingislogisticscom.
And in addition to the podcast,I also wanted to let y'all know
about another company I operate, and that's Digital Dispatch,
(25:04):
where we help you build a betterwebsite.
Now, a lot of the times, wehand this task of building a new
website or refreshing a currentone off to a co-worker's child,
a neighbor down the street or astranger around the world,
where you probably spend moretime explaining the freight
industry than it takes toactually build the dang website.
Well, that doesn't happen atDigital Dispatch.
(25:25):
We've been building onlinesince 2009, but we're also early
adopters of AI, automation andother website tactics that help
your company to be a centralplace to pull in all of your
social media posts, recruit newemployees and give potential
customers a glimpse into how youoperate your business.
Our new website builds start aslow as $1500, along with
(25:47):
ongoing website management,maintenance and updates starting
at $90 a month, plus some bonus, freight marketing and sales
content similar to what you hearon the podcast.
You can watch a quick explainervideo over on DigitalDispatchio
.
Just check out the pricing pageonce you arrive and you can see
how we can build your digitalecosystem on a strong foundation
(26:10):
.
Until then, I hope you enjoyedthis episode.
I'll see you all real soon andgo Jags.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.