Market Shifts and Innovation with QuikSkope | Episode 302

In this episode, Ben Kowalski and Mike Fullam break down current freight market challenges, including tariffs and shifting consumer habits. They also discuss the new version of QuiksSkope, a tool designed to combat freight fraud and improve accountability in the transportation industry.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome back to this week's episode of Freight
360.
Nate is traveling down toNashville, I believe, so Mike
Fulham from Quickscope is goingto be joining me.
We're going to talk about thenew release of the product, dig
into a little bit about marketconditions and fan of the show
like subscribe, you know, do allthat fun stuff we were just

(00:21):
talking about right before wewent into recording is Wimbledon
semifinals.
Just basically, I guess wereset as of like an hour and a
half ago and you were asking mewell, it's Sinner and Djokovic,
they're going to play Friday'stime, still TBD, and then Fritz
from the US, who's ranked fifth,is going to play Alcarez on

(00:42):
Friday.
So really pretty coolsemifinals.
And you were just asking meabout Djokovic and why he was
ranked sixth and I mean I thinkpart of it is just he's probably
playing less tournaments.
I don't follow like the wholeyear versus tennis and honestly,
like I've only really beenwatching tennis for like the
past four or five months since Istarted playing again, but I

(01:02):
mean I think he's 38.
But I mean, and Wimbledon, likehe's been playing great.
I mean like the only two peoplethat they think if he's on top
of his game that can beat him,are number one center and
possibly Alcarez.
So I think it's going to be agreat you know semifinals him
playing center on Friday.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I've seen Alcareaz play a few times.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
That kid's really good, he's a monster After.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Federer and Nadal started retiring, I kind of lost
track of everything.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I always like Jock but he is good.
I mean he's got the most ofanybody you know grand slams.
I think he has 24.
I think Federer has 21 or 22.
And I think Nadal he's gottenin the high teens, maybe low 20s
.
I'm going to look it up.
But because I was asking mytennis coach this the other day,
I'm like you know he's a hugeFederer fan and Federer, like,

(01:53):
might be considered the bestever, but he definitely has less
grand slams than Djokovic and Ithink the reason, looking up
Nadal grand slams, I know nadalwas the best on clay.
So nadal is 22 in total and he,I think it was 14 in a row.
He won the french open rollingarrows on clay which is insane.

(02:16):
Yeah and um, federer, let me seehow many federer federer 20.
So Nadal and Djokovic have more.
Djokovic has the most and Ithink he just broke the record
for the most consecutivesemifinals, like yesterday when
he went into the match, or twodays ago when he went into
today's.
But I guess it's becauseFederer dominated on grass at

(02:38):
Wimbledon, nadal dominated onclay but Djokovic dominated on
hard court, and there's justmore grand slams on hard court
because the Australian Open andthe US are both played hard
court, which is probably why heended up with more is, I guess,
my guess.
But to your point, I haven'tfollowed tennis long enough or
extensively enough.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Nadal also was always hurt.
He was so big, you know, he hada big frame that yeah, I just
don't think it held up as wellas Djokovic or Federer.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, and I think in like 09 or 10, as somebody was
telling me like he had reallybad shoulder injuries.
He was basically out like anentire season and he definitely
wore out faster, I think, thanthe other.
But I mean Djokovic looksfantastic, I mean for his age.
Watching him today, like I meanmean I can't remember the kid he
beat today, but like he's gotto be like damn near twice his

(03:28):
age and he looked fantasticstill playing, yeah, yeah, and
he actually he fell and therewas an injury timeout on the
last point of today where hisleft foot slipped in grass, he
went down into like a full split, like I really thought yeah, I
thought he might have had tolose the match on literally the

(03:49):
final point because, like heslipped right before winning the
final point to take it into thesemis.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
But yeah, if that happened to me, I wouldn't be
walking for a month.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
There was I forget there was one or two other ones
the guy yesterday too, I can'tremember his name, um, he was
beating center, world number one, um, like pretty handily, and
he had, uh, he pulled his peckon a serve and he ended up
having to retire the match tocenter, which you know sucks.

(04:18):
I mean like yeah that close inWimbledon to be playing that
well against the number one guyin the world and I think he was
up one or two sets to none Likehe was really outplaying him,
like it was significant.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
And yeah, sucks to see that I always enjoyed
watching tennis.
I mean I didn't watch a lot ofit.
I watched, you know, the majors, the Grand Slams and usually
the semifinals on.
But ever since Federer andNadal retired, I mean I've
always liked Djokovic but Ihaven't kept up with who's next,
but I did see that Alcaraz kidplaying.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
he's good yeah, I haven't seen him play yet he's
fantastic.
I mean, he's really good and infact it's even worth re-watching
.
The French Open, which was justa weeks ago, was number one and
number two.
So Alcaraz played center and itnot only went all the way
through best of five to the last, but then it went into.

(05:12):
In fact I can't even rememberwhat it's called, but it's
basically like overtime rightwhen, like they were tied and
you got a win by two and it wentinto a tie break to decide the
French Open.
It was like the best way youcould like basically script out
number one versus number two,going all the way to the final
and even like throughout it,like, if I remember, like I

(05:34):
think Cinder was up like two,meaning like if he won one more
it was over, and then Alcarazwon the next two and then they
fought out the final one andthen went into again.
I can't remember what it'scalled.
It's like, I think, in French,best of seven or best of 10.
But it went like all the way tothe wire.
It was fantastic.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Those types of matches aregreat for tennis.
I forget who it was.
It was years ago, but thetennis match was like what?
Was it five or six hours long?
I watched that whole thing.
I can't remember which one itwas.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I think they made a movie about that one, cause I
saw a preview for it.
I thought and I tried to findthat movie.
I could have swore it wascalled like the longest day in
tennis or something and therewas maybe a documentary and I
couldn't.
I couldn't find it but Iremember it, but I don't
remember like actually how itplayed out or like who was in it
yeah.

(06:28):
Tennis is great.
I don't play it, but I'vealways liked watching it.
Yeah, a lot of fun really beenenjoying it again.
Mostly, I started playingbecause my daughter she's six,
she started taking lessons andit's just fun to do with her.
But like, really good exerciseand definitely keeps your
interest.
I'm not a big fan of running ona treadmill or just doing
cardio in any way whatsoever, soI'm like, oh, this is a good
excuse to actually like runaround.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, it's good exercise.
It's functional too.
I mean, the older you get, themore you got to think about
moving your body in athleticways.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
You're gonna lose it you know it was funny, somebody
I think it was my cousin wastelling me this is like,
statistically, if you thinkabout it, like when was the last
time you ran full speed orjumped like as high, like
literally jumped, like almost ashigh or like too close to what
you could do?
And I'm like he's in his latethirties, I'm in my early

(07:13):
forties and I'm like when Ithought I'm like I literally
can't remember the last time Iran as fast as I could until I
started playing like some sportagain.
I'm like I don't know 15 years,maybe, not recently.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
We took the kids for a walk the other day and we went
to like a little playgroundnear us and I was chasing after
him on the playground andclimbing up like the monkey bars
and all that.
And I was like oh my, like Idid not have what I used to have
and I need to be careful or I'mgoing to break something.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well, that was a funny thing Nate and I talked
about a lot Like that was mymotivation, like a big one, to
like wanting to get back intoshape again.
It's like I literally kind ofjust couldn't keep up with like
a three-year-old and afour-year-old you know what I
mean Like when she got aroundthat age to just run around.
I'm like I am exhausted and I'mlike if I want to have fun
playing with her for the next 10, 15 years while she's still a

(08:02):
kid, like I need to likeactively go and work out, and
that's the other thing is likemostly just to avoid injuries
and to be able to keep up withmy kid is like enough motivation
.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, I hear you getting old.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
I mean there's nothing really news new in the
news other than tariff deadline,two deals out of 90 that were
promised.
Who knows if they'll comethrough.
But we can start talking alittle about market conditions,
cause I'm really curious whatyou're seeing.
I mean you run a brokerage team.
You are in the industry daily.
I mean, what are you guysseeing in the market from like

(08:36):
volume rate volatility, justfrom whatever perspective?

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, I mean we don't do we really don't do much spot
market work anymore.
Most of the stuff we do is likestrategic, long-term stuff,
multi-drop, distribution basedthings, kind of asset light
stuff.
We don't really plug ourselvesinto a traditional brokerage
market as much as we used to,partially because of the

(09:01):
conditions.
I mean, it's been like this forhow long?
Two years, almost four years,yeah, almost four now.
It's crazy.
So I think it's a combinationof things.
I think we're stilloversupplied.
I think in general, productflow has slowed down because of
all these changes with tariffsand just post-pandemic
potentially if you want to callit a recession or not.

(09:22):
But I also think that prior tothe pandemic, retail and
manufacturing were alwaysfocused on staying in stock,
which is very important to be instock, and I think what the
pandemic taught them is thatyou'd be chargeable and you
don't really need to be in stockand you don't need to be a
one-stop shop, and it's reallyabout per unit margins rather

(09:43):
than foot traffic and all thisnoise that they used to focus on
.
So I think part of it is justthe urgency.
They used to drive rates upbecause they would do whatever
it takes to get a truckunderneath.
It's also gone.
So I think what we're dealingwith is buyer behaviors have
changed.
Retail manufacturing behaviorshave changed, probably in a
recession.

(10:03):
Retail and manufacturingbehaviors have changed, probably
in a recession.
We are oversupplied and it'sjust creating this perfect storm
that I don't think we're goingto see a turn.
I don't think we're going tosee a snapback.
I think it's going to be agradual climb out of it and I
don't know if we really shouldeven expect traditional tight
markets again.
I think we're going to do abetter job next time of

(10:28):
controlling the highs and thelows.
I think we'll see tight marketsin short periods of time, but I
don't think you'll see theseyou know, 18 month periods where
it's just crazy.
I just don't see it happen.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, and I think one I totally agree with, like the
economic perspective, one Itotally agree with.
Like the economic perspective,like big picture, I tried to dig
into this like a few months ago.
If you like, look at post-COVID.
What technically like I mean arecession for anyone out there
is just two consecutive quartersof negative GDP.
Basically, the gross domesticproduct of the country goes

(11:01):
negative for two consecutivequarters is technically a
recession, but that's reallynuanced when you get into it,
because consumer spending has abig piece of that and so does
government spending.
And when I dug into the amountof government spending
post-COVID, if you theoreticallycould strip that out, we would
have been in a recession.

(11:21):
And most of government spendingdoesn't buy goods Like.
It buys services, like healthcare and things it pays for
salaries.
So while there was a lot ofmoney and the GDP was
technically positive, it wasn'tpeople buying things that was
keeping it positive.
It was the government pushingmoney into the economy, booing

(11:43):
it the GDP positive, and I thinka lot of that was an economic
cycle.
Nobody's going to get reelectedwhen everybody sees that it's a
technical recession.
But the reality was we have beenin this economic position I
think for the better part offour years and I don't think
there's anything really on thehorizon showing that any of the

(12:04):
consumers are doing any better.
In fact, everything I'm readingis the opposite.
The consumers, going into thesummer, are terrified of what
prices will be as tariffs startto affect what they're actually
paying in the stores.
They're going to restaurantsless, they're spending less
money buying things.
Automotive sales are down, likeI mean I'm hard pressed to

(12:25):
think in the past three or fouryears of any specific industry
that has done well.
I mean, even if you look at thes&p like there was somebody
talking about the other dayslike if you back out like the
top seven companies right andgrowth out of the s&p and you
just look at the next 492 or 93,the s&p also hasn't been doing
well and hasn't been doing wellin the past few years.

(12:48):
Like the consumer, money isgetting dumped into AI and tech,
but like that's offsetting alot of it and that's not
creating a lot of necessary jobs.
It's going into data centers.
It's going into resources likepossible investments into power
plants and resources to powerthat.
Resources like possibleinvestments into power plants
and resources to power that butlike that money is not hitting
people's bank accounts and thenbeing spent at a restaurant or

(13:09):
at Macy's, for example.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
We have a lot in front of us as the consumer,
because, I mean, just take thebrokerage industry as an example
we're not going to see marginexpansion.
What we're going to see is itcosts less to operate low-level
business.
We don't need as many people,so what's going to happen is the
competitive build, too, isgoing to decrease, so you can

(13:31):
maintain that market share, butyou're also not going to need
the margin profile to supportthe operation as you did, and I
think the consequence of that isone.
The brokerage space isn't goingto see a lot of growth, but the
consumers, who are likely goingto have to either reposition or
maybe find a new place for ajob because of artificial
intelligence and the emergenceof AI and recovery and consumer

(13:53):
spending or capacity constraints.
I just see our efficiency, likeas a country, our efficiency
only increasing from here, youknow.
So I don't know, I just don't.

(14:13):
I think brokerage is reallygoing to evolve into security,
old school, actual arranging oftransportation and getting
shippers in touch with the rightcarriers at the right time
stabilizing rates, making theoperation seamless and high
service levels.
I mean, you even see it in thebig retail space now how many of
them are actually doing annualcontracts.

(14:35):
They might do six months, theymight do three months, they
might go to mini-bit Becauseroute guide compliance during
COVID was non-existent.
Yeah, just, they all fell apartand they're really just why.
Why lock in rates for a year?
So there's really not a lot ofopportunity for turmoil.
And brokerage has historicallylived in the spot market.

(14:56):
Not that the majority of it isa contract business I'm not
saying that.
But what earns you new businessand what earns you the best
margins?

Speaker 1 (15:03):
It's the fluctuations what earns you new business and
what earns you the best margins.
It's the fluctuations, it's thevariability of the ups and
downs that really opens the doorthat creates the service
failures in the contracts, thatopens the door for other brokers
.
The thing I would say is, likeI was a whole lot of negative, I
think, and both of us, I think,we're coming from a good place.
I would say the thing that Ithink could create some of that

(15:25):
volatility is like there's onlyso long that the whole carrier
market can operate at the rateper mile average as they are,
and a lot of the reason whythey've been able to run a lot
longer than typically is becausethere was a lot of that money
that went out in COVID.
A lot of carriers did reallywell, some banked a lot of it
and had a big piggy bank thatthey've been able to live on,

(15:48):
and I had.
We had Dean Croke on like a fewmonths ago and he's like it's
like really a tale of twocarrier markets where half of
them were able to buy trucksvery cheaply Okay and had money
from government subsidies, andthe other half did really well
but bought trucks that were moreexpensive at the peak.
And he said we're now reachingthat period where a lot of those

(16:10):
assets are going to need fullon rebuilds, like for the motors
and things, and he's likethere's not a lot of carriers
that have enough savings to dothat rebuild.
And he's like, you know,there's only so long that a
carrier, any of the carriermarket, is going to be able to
sustain a buck 70 a mile, a buck80 a mile, when everything the

(16:32):
trucking companies have to payfor has gotten more expensive
from the tires to the engines,to the maintenance, to the
drivers, is everything gets moreexpensive.
In this country Things costmore.
That cost operated truck isgoing up, while the rate per
mile hasn't, and something hasto give at some point and that
could create some volatility.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
There's also the fact that we're probably going to
see a reduction in drivers withthe new mandates and just this
administration.
I mean there's going to be alot less drivers that come here
to work for a period of time.
I mean there's going to be alot less drivers that come here
to work for a period of time.
And you know you look at theproduce market or any market
that has seasonal trends they'llbring in drivers from overseas

(17:12):
or across the border and nowthey're going to have to meet
requirements or at least be heldaccountable to existing
requirements.
That could strain the carrierbase.
But what I do think even ifnone of that wind promotes a
healthier market for us I thinkthat we're going through
tremendous change in this spaceright now.
You have the emergence of tech.

(17:34):
You have shippers that some ofthe younger generations are
moving into those decision-makerpositions.
They're a little bit less babyboomer negotiating I can't tell
you what my rate is Got to getthe cheapest rates.
They're more partnership driven, visibility driven.
I think what could occur is thatthe traditional world where
carrier and broker are at odds,broker and shipper, broker does

(17:58):
whatever they want for shipperand then shipper doesn't care
and passes it down the line.
I think what you're going tohave is very transparent
arrangements, more collaborativearrangements.
I think there's an opportunityto create more accountability,
which is really whatQuickscope's aiming to do, and
make these relationships alittle bit less prehistoric.

(18:19):
And, like you know, I'm goingto get the carrier down a
hundred bucks and I'm going todo this.
I think we can actually besmart business people if we're,
if we're smart about this andnot going about it the old way,
like I'm going to hold out till6 PM on a Friday to catch the
like what are we doing?
What are we doing?
There's much smarter ways toengage in this and the tools

(18:40):
exist, and I think that's thebiggest thing about this,

(19:01):
because I think there's a spacefor all of us.
I don't think we necessarilyneed hyper-tight markets to win.
I think we need to go back todoing what the purpose was was
to arrange transportation,provide service and security of
that freight and bridge the gapbetween someone that needs work
and someone that wants the workdone.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
I couldn't agree with that more.
It's a good segue.
So for anybody that hasn't beenbrought up to speed, hasn't
been reading our newsletters orcaught any of the other episodes
, why don't we give everybodylike a breakdown on what
Quickscope is and what the newrelease is going to be like?
Give everybody kind of like abackground base level
understanding on?
I mean, you could start withwhy and how it came to be, but I
think it'll be helpful foreverybody's context to

(19:42):
understand that too.
It's a good refresher, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, sure, so Quickscope.
We started in 2023 and the goalof Quickscope was to address
freight fraud in its simplestforms target theft and double
brokerage or re-brokering, whichI guess would be the
politically correct way to sayit.
But ultimately, the whole teamthere's about seven of us we've

(20:05):
been in this industry for a longtime 15 to 25 years, depending
on who you're talking to and Iwould say over the past six,
double brokerage was becomingmore of an issue.
I think double brokerage alwaysexisted, but it really wasn't a
big deal because it was givingthe load to a friend that nobody
really had to solve foranything.

(20:26):
Now double brokerage has becomea scheme where people are
stealing money and screwing thecarrier, and so much so that
it's caught the attention ofshippers.
They're already dealing withmassive amounts of cargo theft.
Yeah, so we said, can we solvethis issue, at least for our own
customers?
So we went out and we built aproduct and the product works
kind of like a trucker tools,where it's deployed at the load

(20:49):
level and what it does is ittracks the driver to the shipper
.
When the driver gets within acertain radius of that shipper,
quickscope deploys.
Quickscope will ask them totake a picture of the side of
the truck, it will timestamp it,it will geofence it, it will
send the picture back.
Quickscope cross-referencesthat with what the broker or
shipper has provided and ifeverything aligns DOT, mc number

(21:13):
, things like that we will thenrelease the pickup number,
things like that.
We will then release the pickupnumber and from there
Quickscope kind of orchestratesthe loading and delivery of the
truck, providing pickup numbersat each shed when the truck gets
close, giving them thequantities, whether it's case
count, pallet counts, trackingthem through transit, and you
can even ask for verifiedupdates in transit.

(21:34):
And it's been really effective.
We've put probably 10, 000different users through it at
this point version one and wehaven't had any issues.
No, most often if we do runinto a fraudulent actor, I think
they're deterred before theytake the load.
You know, at tender, if youtell them that you know you're
gonna have to get your pickupnumber through Quickscope, a lot

(21:56):
of them will just punt.
We have caught a lot at thepicture phase, but ultimately we
felt like we could do a lotmore with Quickscope.
So that's what version two isabout and that we're really
excited about.
It expands our valueproposition a lot.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
So just to kind of reiterate for everybody right,
like, basically, what's going tohappen is you're going to log
in, you go into the website orthe user interface, you put in
your load details, you put inthe driver info.
It's going to send a link tothe driver.
The driver is going to openthat when they arrive within a
physical location, meaning theirGPS is close enough to that

(22:36):
shipper.
They are then going to take apicture of their truck at that
location.
That is going to determinewhether or not the pickup number
gets released to them, so thatif somebody's impersonating that
truck, if it's a differentcarrier, it's somebody trying to
steal a load, they don't getthe pickup number, they can't
get the load.
So it's really load levelsecurity to make sure the

(22:58):
information is only going tosomebody a driver and a carrier
that was supposed to actuallypick up that load.
Right, exactly, exactly.
So, when you, when you saidcould do a lot more.
Tell me a little more aboutlike what you mean.
What were some of your thoughtsaround version one and how you
guys saw you're going to be ableto improve it.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Originally we were just going to provide it for
brokers.
Originally it was just to helpthem solve that problem.
But the amount of shipperinterest was pretty crazy.
We got quite a few shippersreaching out to us trying to
help them solve this problem.
But there was other things thatthey need to solve, for they

(23:36):
needed real-time locationupdates all the time pre-loading
, during transit, after loading.
They needed methods to not onlycollect and categorize
documents in real time but theyneeded the ability to
cross-reference them.
An example might be a BOLDriver's supposed to pick up
1,500 cases.
They submit the BOL throughtheir phone.

(23:58):
It immediately getscross-referenced with the tender
in our system and it says youknow what?
You're short 35 cases.
So the truck hasn't even leftyet.
They haven't even signed theBOL yet.
You know we can address thosethings Also the creation of BOLs
and the collection of thingslike seals.
We had a couple of departmentstores ask.
They had a lot of cargo theftand the seals were being

(24:20):
violated.
They wanted us to capture thatin real time, categorize the
document, save the document.
So the documentation processand creation is a big part of it
.
Track and trace is a big partof it.
But a couple of the shippers wework with have really demanding
final type procedures where thedrivers are going in dealing

(24:41):
with volatile products you knowcould be perishable, could be
expensive, et cetera.
They're taking them into stores, they're merchandising them,
they're then recovering reusableequipment and bringing it back
to the facility.
There's a lot to manage there.
There's temperature monitoring.
It's making sure that it'sbeing stored.
A lot of the deliveries happenbefore the store itself is open,

(25:04):
so they use things like lockboxes to maintain a code in
there.
So what we're doing is justlike we're mapping the pickup
number.
We're now containing the codeto the lock box to get into the
store.
So only one individual has thatin real time at all times.
And what it has evolved into isa platform that takes the
lifecycle of a transportationorder for a shipper or a broker

(25:29):
and institutes a lot of basicTMS principles with inside the
transaction benefits, like Isaid, the document collection
facilitation, real-time trackingand a lot of custom things like
the lockbox.
The shippers have found a lotof value in it, partially
because of its price point, easeof use.

(25:50):
The big part about all of thatis that we're not going to be
collecting the data from a lotof like the competition does.
I think a lot of the issuesthat we have with finding
capacity today and qualifyingthat capacity is that we're
trusting kind of thesecentralized sources, whether it

(26:11):
be DAT or highway or carriershore, whoever it is.
Well, what they're doing is, asthe brokers or carriers utilize
them, or even shippers, they'recollecting that information and
then sharing it back.
When you and I started inbrokerage, having capacity was a
competitive advantage and thesebrokers are just like whatever
you know, whatever We'll justlike.
I think it's kind of crazy.

(26:31):
So we want to create veryvaluable driver level data, not
carrier level, not bringer level, not shipper level driver level
.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Should we go down to the VIN level?

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Probably more to the CDL level.
Like the CDL itself the person,not the truck.
We can incorporate VINs and allthat, elds and all those things
, but we really want to get tobetter triangulation or
efficiency at the driver level.
We also want to give driversthe ability to get better

(27:06):
business, not like, hey, you getfreight matching.
That's not where we're going.
We have spent most of our timein the creation of version two,
building out the valueproposition for the driver.
That is where we've spend mostof our time, because we want to
create a very collaborativechain between the broker, the
driver and the shipper wherepeople can be held accountable

(27:29):
fairly.
They can document things inreal time and maybe not get
taken advantage of for a claimhere or a claim there or
temperature.
You just unloaded my truck andyou're leaving it sit on the
dock and it's refrigerated, oryou're loading it and it's
damaged.
So we're using the video, we'reusing the phone to create
accountability across this chainand listen.
For that reason I think there'sa lot of shippers that won't

(27:49):
want to use it, but the rightshippers still.
They want to do things theright way and drivers want good
business, they want consistentbusiness and as they do these
things extra here, extra there.
I need you to pull every day orI need you to go into the
facility, unlock this lockbox,put the frozen stuff here, the
refrigerated stuff there, thedry stuff there.
They'll get compensated reallymore for that.

(28:10):
So what we're allowing them todo is, as they effectively check
boxes in QuickScope, we'regoing to give them a resume and
that resume is going to becollected so that they can
deploy it to get better business.
Through QuickScope, we're alsogiving shippers and brokers the
ability to tip the driverdirectly.
So you bypass dispatch, bypassthe carrier, you go right to the

(28:33):
driver and tip them for extrainstead of fines.
There's a lot of stuff in therefor the driver.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
And I think that's a really good perspective on this.
I've talked with Nate aboutthis a lot and it's like I think
if you provide visibility intothe work that better drivers are
doing, the industry would bewilling to pay them more because
it reduces risk.
Right, like, if you think aboutit just from a very simple

(29:00):
standpoint, right, like, youreally have two risks every time
you book a truck, is that?
Well, I'll go three.
Is that truck, the truck thatyou think you booked, right?
Okay, carrier wise, thatQuickscope addresses in version
one, which is making sure thiscarrier is the one that picked
up the load, before they canpick up the load.
But the other two risks that areas old as our industry is is

(29:21):
this equipment maintained wellenough to make it from pickup to
delivery?
What is the likelihood theybreak down?
Right, the maintenance level ofthat asset is one, but the
other big risk is what is thedriver fitness?
Right, and the informationavailable is to that whole
carrier, to the industry.
Like, you can't see down to thedriver level.
So you might have five greatdrivers, four new drivers at a

(29:44):
carrier and they have poordriver fitness, all because
there's four poorly traineddrivers that a company hired and
didn't do what they should havedone.
The five very good drivers getpenalized for a company's
decision.
They had nothing to do withRight, but yet you and I on the
brokerage side, or even ifyou're a shipper, like if that

(30:07):
vehicle is well-maintained, likeyou would be willing to pay
more for a driver that is goingto drive in a way that is safe
for one and two, reduce claims.
I mean the faster you'redriving or the more haphazard
you're driving, the more likelythere is a claim that cargo is
going to shift, that there'sdamage, Like I saw one like two
days ago, and that one, to yourpoint, was a shipper issue.
They didn't load it correctly,wanted to blame it on the driver

(30:28):
right.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
And like there's two instances that come to mind that
were recent, like one was ifthat driver could have taken a
picture of a video of the truckwhen it was loaded.
He could have taken a pictureof a video of the truck when it
was loaded.
He could have had absoluteverification, because that truck
was then sealed, made it to thereceiver, driver didn't have
any issues, but yet it wasdamaged.
But they didn't wrap the frontpallet right.
It was in the nose of the truckand it was just loaded poorly.

(30:50):
And the receiver even said overthe phone to one of our brokers
like hey, like we've had thisissue with this facility before,
like we know this is prettycommon with them.
You don't want to penalize thedriver for something they didn't
do.
You don't want to penalize thetrucking company by claiming
their insurance for somethingthe company that loaded it did
Right.
So you help protect the drivers.
And then the other instance Iwas thinking of is when you said

(31:13):
like um, helping product, likewe had a claim.
I don't know if it was us, itwas somebody I worked with.
I helped with the claim.
It's probably like six monthsago, it was a load of lettuce.
And to your point aboutshippers that are unethical.
Right, they loaded half thetruck pre-cold lettuce the way
they were supposed to right.
The other half of the truckthey brought a flatbed out of
the field in the summer.

(31:33):
Right.
Put it right in the truck andthe driver.
And here's what happened, right, like the driver um wasn't as
great with english but was areally good driver like I spoke
with him right and what he wassaying was, like I pulped half
the product, it was right, halfof it was not.
And he said clearly, like thisshipper made me initial this,

(31:56):
this, this was not the sametemperature as what I already
pulped.
I knew they loaded half of thishot.
Like this is not on me.
Right and to your point, likethe driver's doing what he's
supposed to.
That shipper basicallystrong-armed the driver into
doing this right After he wasprobably sitting there five, six
hours anyway waiting for theshipper to do what they were
supposed to.
Then there's a claim on theproduct and then it goes on the

(32:18):
carrier and the reality was likethat was never really the
carrier's fault.
That driver did everything hewas supposed to.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
The carrier did everything they were supposed to
.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
And like this is very I don't want to say very common
, but it's pretty common.
If you're shipping, likeeverybody that's been in the
industry long enough knows,there are certain shippers that
will intentionally load productthey know isn't going to make it
, that isn't pre-cooled.
Sometimes and again I want to begenerous too yeah, I mean like
I want to be understanding ofshippers that are under

(32:47):
constraint sometimes to getproduct where it needs to be.
So they're oftentimes likeunder very tight timelines where
they're trying to do their bestand I don't want to say that
like all of it is malicious, butbut at the end of the day, like
you don't want other people orother businesses paying the cost
for a risk another one tookRight, and I think when you've
got a product like this thatbrings the visibility and can

(33:08):
show this driver's doing whathe's supposed to like, if I got
a customer that has a load thatis super important, or even just
a lane, and a customer thatthey need better service on
lower risk they can't deal withan issue at delivery or a claim
most of the industry would bewilling to pay them more and I
think even all the way up thechain of the shippers.
I can absolutely see getting onthe phone with a customer of

(33:30):
mine and being like, listen,this is important.
I want to give this guy anextra 200 bucks.
I'm going to literally pay thisdriver an extra 200, not the
carrier, not me to make surethat this is done exactly to
your specs, your standards Right, and it's like now that driver
gets the benefit.
And then people in our industrylike you and me, like you can

(33:51):
see which drivers are takingmore risks and which ones aren't
.
And it's not that you don'twant to give freight to the guys
taking more risks.
It's like, okay, well, ifyou're shipping a load of pavers
or you know asphalt shingles,that's not as important.
If you're shipping $150,000load of whatever frozen seafood
or high claim risk, like youwant to spend a little more but

(34:12):
the industry can't actually givethose more incentives or more
money because like we can't tellthe difference, like at the end
of the day, all you can see isthe whole trucking company.
You don't know if that driveris better than the other one.
I mean, the dispatcher is goingto tell you that no matter what
you ask anyway.
So there's no real way to seeinto that opaque market side.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
And why should a dispatcher or a driver be tied
to a dispatcher?
Like, if you're doing a reallygood job, you've amounted this
proof of success?
Like, wouldn't you want to makeyourself available for the
right job for you and yourfamily at the right time?
So we have put a ton of focuson that you had mentioned.
He's forcing them to sign thisBOL.
We want the driver to be in theQuickScope app at that point in

(34:56):
time and either record it ortake a picture of it happening,
because when he presses thatbutton, everybody linked to
Quickscope at the brokerage side, the shipper side, from you
made aware they're going to becaught in the act.
And listen, there's going to bea lot of big shippers,
especially the big retailers,that probably wouldn't want to
deal with that.
But that's not what we'reaiming for.
We're aiming for.

(35:21):
We're aiming for the shippers,the drivers, the brokers that
actually want to develop acollaborative transportation
chain where they're not againsteach other, they're treated
fairly, compensated for goodwork, there's no fraud and
there's not a lot of extraenergy dealing with the inertia
of this document or this pieceof communication or this
question mark that nobody cansee or feel in the moment
because they're behind acomputer desk and the appetite

(35:41):
on the shipper side has beenreally good.
And it's not your big shippers,it's your intermediate size ones
, the ones that have a reallyunique value proposition, that
are growing the right way, thatdon't want a large degree of
turnover, they're not going toRFP every 10 seconds and I think
that's what Quickscope is goingto assert.
The drivers that want that, thebrokers that want that, the

(36:03):
shippers that want that, thosethat are going to play the wild
wild west game.
There's plenty of options.
You know, it's just probablynot.
You know Quickscope.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
And you know what else.
That reminds me is Nate and Iwere working directly with a
shipper on some consulting thisyear and one of the things they
said and they're a very, verylarge company in the billions
and they said the biggest issuethey have is that like from a
staffing perspective, it's veryhard for them to get long term

(36:33):
employees loading trucks.
Like it's very hard for them tostaff them with positions where
people are there for more thana few years that really
understand and can make surethey're being done.
Cause we're talking a hundredpercent right, like you're
talking about checking a BOLversus what should have been
loaded in the truck, versus whatwas.
And he told us he's like it'sjust really difficult.

(36:54):
Like we try to pay a littlemore, we try to hire the best
people we can find, there's alot of turnover in that position
, and it's just he's like it'sjust been impossible in the 20
some years he's been doing this.
He's like to eliminate mistakesloading a truck and he's like
they're not intentional, they'rejust doing this all day.
Sometimes there's an orderchange, sometimes that
information doesn't get all theway to the dock in time for that

(37:16):
truck to get loaded right.
The broker has the updated BOL,the shipping department has it,
right, the driver has it, butthen the person loading it
either didn't get that email orthe email got buried, or they
were busy and there's a mistakeloading the truck.
Well, that's a cost to thedriver, a cost to the shipper,
and usually that isn't found toyour point until it makes it to

(37:36):
its delivery.
Now that shipper's got to bookanother truck, rework whatever
the next load is, or pay to senda full truckload for a few
pallets, right.
The fact that that informationcan go all the way around and
back to the dock with Quickscopeto me eliminates so many issues
.
Right, because that ordercoming from the company to a
broker, to the carrier, is goingto be likely as close to 100%

(38:02):
correct as you're going to get.
That error is usually going tohappen at the loading dock,
where maybe their system wasuploaded and updated, but, like
they're literally loading atruck and they just didn't see
that another pallet needs addedto that load, right, but that
information is not going to goall the way around back to the
driver, where the driver isgoing to be able to scan what
they put in his truck andquickscope is going to be able
to say hey, there was supposedto be 26 pallets, there's 24 in

(38:24):
here now, before the driver evenleaves, he can walk right back
over and be like, hey, just wantto run this past your system.
check it one more time before Ileave, because this is showing
me that, like we didn't loadeverything Like to me that's a
huge benefit.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, a lot of the causes of things being misloaded
, whether it's too many pallets,not enough pallets, whatever is
upstream issues right, it couldbe WMS issue, it could be
whatever but there are issuescaused exclusively by trucking
and that's congestion.
And the biggest cause forcongestion is that I'm supposed

(39:00):
to load five trucks in the nextthree hours, right, and they all
have appointment times.
One of them doesn't show andthat product stage.
So now you can take thatproduct back.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
The second truck or the third truck gets there when
the first truck supposed to bethere because of traffic.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
So they're moving stuff around right, or a hundred
different reasons.
Everybody's panicked.
There's a bunch of trucksshowing up at the same time, so
one of the things we're doingwith quickscope and this is
great for the driver's suit iswe're going to be doing what
we're calling remote check-in.
So as the driver clears hisverification, he's within x
miles of the shipper.
He's cleared his verification,he's good to go, he has an
appointment time.
We're going to notify theshipper or receiver that the

(39:36):
truck is within strikingdistance and he's verified ready
to go and that truck's going tobe able or I'm not going to
check in early, I'm going tostay here, grab a shower, eat
something.
They're going to tell theshipper or receiver that they're
ready to go.
So if somebody else no-showedthem, they notice to bring that
guy in early and the truck'soff-site, not on-site doing this

(39:59):
.
That was actually arecommendation from one of our
shippers, so we're trying tomake things easier and account.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yes, it's like that Literally at Disney we're like I
don't have to wait in line tocheck into the ride.
It gives me a time so I don'thave to stand there for two and
a half hours.
I can go.
I mean, from Disney's point ofview, I'm going to spend money,
I can go, walk around, I can dowhatever.
And then I show up then and tothe trucking example.
Instead of having whatever nine, 10, 25 trucks all jockeying

(40:28):
around a small parking lot or bya loading dock, moving door to
door, like they're letting theshipper know hey, I'm within 15
miles or I'm within thisparameter.
If you can take me early, letme know.
And now they can manage who'scoming in much more effectively
and much more efficiently.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
And it's going to be documented too.
Detention is going to bedocumented without the driver
having to call you and say I'mhere, I'm waiting, and then the
broker hangs up and all thatcrap.
No, it cleared the geofence.
He checked in, started.
The goal again is that peoplethat want to participate in a
healthy partnership in thetransportation chain shipper,

(41:09):
broker, carrier, specifically,driver Quickscope is the place
to be, and I think the best partabout it is that we're
targeting a price point and, yes, we can get very sophisticated
with how it integrates the API,edi, to this system, that system
.
But we're also making it verysimple to use.

(41:30):
If you don't want to go throughall those integrations, it
still works.
If you're not using EDI or API,it still works.
We can use phones, we can useemail, we can use text message.
It's really just meant to solvethe problem, make things easier
for a good price, really easy.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Well, this is the thing that I want to make sure
we touch on before we wrap right, because we have lots of newer
brokers listening to the show.
We talk to them all the timeand most of the solutions to
address fraud are one expensive,two require and three, take
time to get in place for any ofthem.
Like, and it's not a knock onany of them.

(42:08):
That's how they're built.
That's how they work right.
The thing that I love aboutQuickscope is one you basically
pay per load to use it.
Any size brokerage right andcorrect me if I'm wrong can get
an account, can just jump on,log in, put their information
and decide, hey, I want to useit on this load.
There's not like a yearly fee.

(42:29):
There's not a fee that you'vegot to pay, that you're locked
into for some long-term to seeif this works.
And to me, like that was thething when you guys first came
out with this and Nate and Italked about it was, and even
with you, I'm like this is thebest thing about this is anybody
can use this low or it's highease of use, like literally any
broker out there, and even ifyou've just gotten in the

(42:51):
industry and you've beenshipping things that are like
low theft whatever, whether it'slumber or any of the
commodities you kind of startwithin the industry.
You get one new customer that'sshipping some like higher end
material or high theft commodity.
You don't need to fork outthousands of dollars to get any
other solution Like you couldliterally just go and sign up
for account for quick scope thefirst load that you're going to

(43:12):
move with this customer.
If you're worried about theftand you don't have all this
other vetting software, you atleast know that the trucking
company you booked is the onethat picked up the load right
Like that alone, to me, is stillone of the biggest advantages
of quick scope is just ease ofuse.
You don't need to betechnically savvy, you don't
need an integration team and youdon't need to fork out
thousands of dollars to protecta load.

(43:34):
You're going to ship Shit.
If you're listening to this inthe next 15 minutes, you can get
an account spun up andbasically use this.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, we're super pumped about it, like I wish I
could take you through theplatform so you can understand,
like all the little things, allthe little nuances, because most
of us are logistics operators.
We know what it's like to usethese platforms.
They're just little things thatif you were a logistics person,
if you're a driver, if you're ashipper, you're going to love
and ultimately, yeah, anybodycan use it.

(44:01):
We don't want to create a worldwhere we're taking on a bunch
of funding and getting as big aswe possibly can and we hire a
bajillion salespeople and wecollect as much.
That's not what we're going for.
We're trying to build anawesome product that's easy to
use for a good price and committo the customers that want to
commit to its mission.
If you're not in, then whatever,we don't have a lot of mouths

(44:22):
to feed.
We're not trying to be IBM here, but when I tell you the amount
of artificial intelligencethat's in this thing and all the
nuances that it's enabled us todo quickly, it's going to have
object detection, so you'regoing to know.
You know if it's a fraudulentpicture.
You're going to know if,potentially, down the line,

(44:42):
there's some things that we'regoing to be doing with video
that will help with temperaturemonitoring and counting cases
and pallets, like there's somereally cool things that just you
know half the memes that yousee about freight brokerage or
trucking will make them go away,because a lot of that noise
will go away.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
And I think that's like the best news for the
industry.
It's like who in this industrywants to see their shit stolen?
No, full stop, it's everything.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Right, it's a cheap product.
It's expensive Anything.
Stop, it's everything.
Right, it's cheap product.
It's expensive anything.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
If it's easy to turn over, they'll steal it yeah, I
mean I remember and this isgoing back a long time but like
one of the highest theft itemsthat always surprised me and
this was I think I heard aboutthis like 15 years ago was like
laundry detergent, like tide,and laundry detergent was like
always a super high theftcommodity.
And razor blades, for exactlythe same reason you said, is

(45:30):
like if you stole a truckload,you could literally sell it in a
few hours or an afternoonbasically anywhere in the
country.
Because if you're like, hey,this stuff's eight bucks a
bottle, I'll sell it to you forfour.
I mean it's like stuff you seein the movies in like the 40s
and 50s, where they're sellingsteaks off the back of a truck
that they stole.
Like.
Like that stuff still happenstoday.
It's not just the three or$400,000 truckload of TVs, it's

(45:52):
literally things like atruckload of Gillette razor
blades, down to a truckload ofTide you could be shipping If it
can be resold cheaply and fast,like that's a target, that's
quick cash for thieves, likethey're going to go whatever
they can resell.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, and that issue is something that we need to
hold.
Shippers accountable for,receivers accountable for,
brokers accountable for the gooddrivers are not the problem.
They've never been the problem.
It's, you know, cyber criminalsor people that are part of a
criminal organization and youeither stop that before the

(46:26):
truck loads or a shipper or areceiver doesn't use their po
number as the pickup number.
Right, like basic things, justvery basic.
Most of the consults we getcalled into with these shippers
it's like oh so tell me, youjust asked for mom and the truck
gets loaded.
Yeah, it's been working for 20years.
Well, we need stuff like we'vealways done, mike.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
We've always done it this way, right like the driver
shows up goes, give me the loadto you know, la, and we put it
on his truck.
You mean, we're supposed to uselike a specific number before
we give them.
Yeah, eighty thousand dollarsworth of our inventory.
Yeah, maybe we should just atleast check to make sure the
company you're putting it on isthe company that is supposed to

(47:08):
be picking it up.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Right, yeah, like I've never like the truck, the
truck drivers that do their joband have the intent to do their
job the right way are not evenremotely close to this problem.
No, they're likely the onesthat don't get paid by the
broker.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
And it's wild.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
All we're doing is driving accountability more to
the driver, more to thecharacter.
Well, maybe we just create anenvironment where good players
play together and have, teachshippers how to not do things
that make themselves at risk andreceivers and hold them
accountable by documenting andfacilitating the process and
giving them the tools to saythat makes sense.
I see what you're saying.

(47:46):
We'll make a change.
That's one of the things we'redoing for a shipper right now.
I'll stop after.
This is their fast food companyhave meals where they put toys
in them like like a mcdonald'swould do.
It's not mcdonald's, but theyuh, they're worth not a lot of
money, I mean thousands, nothundreds of thousands and they
were getting stolen like crazy,like crazy.
And so what we did was weimplemented a random number

(48:10):
generator in Quixco and thatrandom number generator
associates itself with the POprovided, so the shipper never
had to change their PO number.
All we had to do was, at thetime of loading, tell them this
is the random generated numberyou should be presented with,
and they would associate that tothe PO number and they knew
what to load.
There's very simple fixes tothis.

(48:31):
Like you don't need NetSuite,like you don't need this crazy
ERP system or hundreds ofthousands hiring all these
people.
You just got to know whatyou're doing and deploy some
tools and hold peopleaccountable.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
And that's the biggest piece, right?
If you've got a relationshipwith your shipper right and you
guys can all work together, fromthe driver through the shipper
Like that's what keeps thecriminals from being able to
take the things right.
Like the problems are whennobody's talking, everybody's
fighting with each other, thatthe thieves are like damn, this
is great.
Like all three of you arefighting with each other.
I'm just going to walk right inand take this and leave and no

(49:03):
one's even going to notice thatit was me and that's exactly
what you're doing, right?
Yeah, you don't need this crazysuite of products where, like
you have all these things doingeverything at the end of the day
, like, if all three parties arejust working together, then at
least you know that company isthe one that picked it up,
instead of just giving the loadto whoever asked for it, because
they said give me that loadheading to Chicago today.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, let me pay a bunch of money for an onboarding
platform that just takes mythroughput and gives it to my
competitor Like it just doesn'tmake sense.
It doesn't make sense and backto our original, you know market
thing.
That's what we're hoping for isthat there's enough people out

(49:44):
there that want to do thissimple, cost-effective, the
right way, and that's whereQuickscope's going to be
deployed.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree with you more.
Um, where can everybody findyou?
Where can they get moreinformation, or what's the
easiest way for anybody toaccess?
Sign up, start using yourproduct.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, they could reach out to me on LinkedIn,
mike Fulham at LinkedIn.
They could reach out to me onemail, m Fulham F U L L A M at
quickscopecom.
Quickscopecom is spelledQ-U-I-K-S-K-O-P-E, and if you
just email info at quickscopecomand ask for a free trial, we'll

(50:18):
throw you on version one.
We're really hoping thatversion two is going to be out
September.
I think what we're going to bedoing is releasing it for a few
shippers first, but if you reachout to us prior, we're
grandfathering people into ourold rates.
So if you reach out prior andyou're willing to commit to
Quickscope for, let's say, sixmonths, we'll give you that
version one price.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
We're just trying to create a list of people and
we're not going to be doing aton of marketing, not going to
be doing a ton of sales.
We're going to be dealing withthe people that are in line and
making sure the solution iscustomized enough.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, I mean you can click the link on our newsletter
.
If you guys are signed up, it'sin every one of our newsletters
.
You can also email us if youhave issues getting a hold of
anybody at info at free360.net.
We'll put you guys in touchwith Mike and be able to jump in
and start using this productand hopefully protect your
customer and yourself and yourinsurance and everything along

(51:09):
the line all the way down to thedriver, by being able to use a
simple solution for this.
Yeah, exactly, Sweet man.
Well, appreciate having you onAny final thoughts you want to
wrap up with Thanks for havingme Go Eagles.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
You know it's nice to be a champion, I know you guys.
So Nate's a Bills fan.
Where were you?

Speaker 1 (51:24):
I'm Steelers.
I'm from Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Steelers.
Well, maybe you got to go thisyear.
You know, you got DK, you gotRodgers.
At least they'll sling it alittle bit.
It's a possibility.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
I don't know that it's super likely, but it should
be an interesting season towatch.
We will see.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, it'll be more fun than last year.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Yes, that's not a super high bar to get over but
We'll see hey making somechanges.
It'll be a fun season.
We'll see how it goes.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
But listen, there's room on the Eagles bandwagon.
If you want to join, just letme know.
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
I don't know that that's even possible.
I'm pretty sure my family woulddissent on me.
But a whole other story, man, Imean thanks for having you on
and whether you believe you canor believe you can't,