Ep. #64: Shipper Panel: Insights from Top Food Shippers

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Andrew Silver (00:00):
Hey FreightPod listeners.
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That's gorapidocom.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Freight Pod.

(01:32):
I'm your host, andrew Silver,and we are back with another
panel.
This one is maybe more excitingthan the last.
We had tariff talk recently,but today we are getting inside
the minds of three of the bestand brightest shippers in North
America.
I am joined today for thispanel by Ms Nicole Schumann, the

(01:54):
Transportation ProcurementManager at Reesers Fine Foods,
mr Andrew Daphnos, director ofSupply Chain at Kehi
Distributors and Mr MarcoVargas-Zavila, director of US
Logistics at Dole Packaged Foods.
I appreciate all three of youfor coming on the show today.
I did solicit guests for thispanel a few months ago and it

(02:15):
took us some time to get thisthing where it is now.
But here we are and we areready.
So I appreciate all of youcoming on.
Why don't we start with somebasic introductions before we
get into the real nitty-grittyof what goes on in your
day-to-day?
Nicole, start with you, maybejust kind of your background,

(02:36):
how you got into transportation,and we'll go with that.

Nicole Schuman (02:40):
So, first off, like best and brightest, I'd
probably change mine to you know, best and available.
So thanks for trying to fluffthat up.
I actually I got intotransportation by accident, were
working for, you know, Coyoteand you know I would really like

(03:14):
transportation never beensomething that I really thought
about as a career.
And this one woman inparticular, she, you know, I'm
like, so tell me what you doagain.
I, you know, a few times shehad to explain it to me and I,
she would tell me and inside Iwas saying, god, she is so
bright and engaging and funny.
What a waste of time to becalling on trucks.

(03:34):
You know, schedulingappointments, you know just like
.
And then, uh, you know, skippingahead, I wound up, um, skipping
ahead.
I wound up, um coming to Coyote, uh, and um, uh, you know,
loved it.
You know, like something I hadnever thought of, like I said,

(03:56):
and it was just exciting and um,challenging and I learned
something every day and you know, fast forward, uh to coming to
this side.
Uh, reesers was one of mycustomers and I wasn't with
Coyote anymore, um, but I'dheard my one of my contacts at
at Reesers was retiring and Ireached out and you know, to

(04:18):
congratulate him on hisretirement.
And we chatted and he was, youknow, would you ever want to,
would you ever want my job?
And I laughed.
You know I was like, oh God,tom, that sounds horrible.
You know spreadsheets and allthis.
But long story short, Irethought it and, um, he
connected me with his boss,who's now my boss, and, uh, I've

(04:40):
been with research for four andI'm really thankful and loving
every moment of it, almost everymoment of it.

Will you give us a quick high-level overview of
Reesers?

Sure, so you know, as I said, reesers was my
customer for years and I had noidea the extent of where we are.
You know, of course, like mostpeople know of, like the potato
salad or the macaroni salad, um,we also have don ponchos or
tortilla and tortilla chips.

(05:14):
Um, we do co-packing, we do, um, everything.
I mean, we're everywhere, likein all the deli cases, the
mounds of potato salad, the, youknow, the jello salad, the
seafood salad that you know, youknow, and restaurants and fast
food restaurants.

(05:35):
You know, we're everywhere.
It was like a I did a projectwith my daughter for middle
school and like a career fairthing for middle school and like
a career fair thing, and, um,we, you know, I think it was
like we manufacture, uh, theequivalent of potato products in
a year as equal to MountEverest.
You know, like, just likecurrency.

So, yeah, we're, but we're only in, uh, north
America, but we're only in NorthAmerica and we have plants
across the United States, andwhat would you say?
This is maybe I don't know ifit's a challenging question, but
what would you say is the mostunique characteristic about your
business as pertains totransportation, in terms of

(06:23):
something that might be a littledifferent than you know, the
normal?
Over the road load I mean, orlike identifying characteristic.

At the end of the day, it's, you know, reefer
freight transportation inparticular.
I mean, we have, you know,research is a seven-year-old
company and so we have, you know, longstanding relationships
with a lot of our carriers,where, you know, I can think of
off the top of my head a handfulthat are second generation that

(06:58):
are hauling for us.
I mean, you know, the one ofthe things that made me rethink
my initial kickback of you know,you know, would I want to work
for Reesers, was the people thatwe have at the company.

(07:18):
Like I just, you know,reflected on how amazing, like
there's just so many great, notthere isn't everywhere, but you
know, great, hard-working peoplethat really care.
So, um, but I mean, you knoweveryone, can you know fast fare
, friendly service, kind ofstuff, like I don't know how I
would uh qualify that question,I guess it's all good.

I, I thought it was.
I didn't mean it to be an oddquestion.
I just was curious if there wassome kind of identifying
characteristic that if someonedidn't know a ton about your
business, that that would kindof hone them in on.
But the refrigerated is a bigpart and I think we're going to
that.
That's going to be a topic fortoday's conversation, given the
three of you.
But thank you, I appreciate youkind of getting us started

(08:03):
there.
Andrew, I'm going to move toyou now.
Kind of just a quick high levelbackground how you got into the
space and what you're doing nowat KE.

Andrew Dafnos (08:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
And first off, thanks forhaving me on, andrew.
Definitely an honor.
Like Nicole, I got into thisspace by accident.
It was not the intention.
I was an econ, economics andgeography major at Indiana
University.
My intention was to go intofinance after graduating.

(08:37):
However, I graduated during thelate 2000s, early 2010s
financial crisis, so it was alittle bit difficult to make my
entry into that industry.
So I was applying to variousjobs in various industries and
one that really stood out wassales in a freight brokerage.

(09:00):
And this is coming from someonewho has never taken a supply
chain class in college, so Iknew very little about the
industry when I first started.
But looking back on it, it was afantastic way to understand how
logistics works from thecarrier side and customer sides

(09:22):
of the business works from thecarrier side and customer sides
of the business.
So I started out at mid-sizedbrokerage in Chicago and I
started off on the carrier sideand learning on how to book
freight, track and trace,dealing with various issues,
talking to drivers, and I didthat from my first initial year

(09:45):
and then the second year Ishifted over to the account
management side and understoodwhat a shipper goes through,
some of the challenges ofinefficiencies and ensuring that
a particular shipment is set upfor success, and from there
actually moved on to work for amanaged services 3PL where we

(10:06):
manage inbound logistics onbehalf of fast food brands, and
I was actually there for sevenyears managing the carrier
development team until I movedto Keihei almost four years ago.

And how about a high level of Keihei and what
you all do there?

Yeah, absolutely so.
Keihei Distributors is aleading natural, organic
specialty fresh fruit, freshfood distributor in North
America, so we partner withretailers and brands to bring
innovative, healthy, sustainableproducts to market.
We're about over 6,800employees right now and we have

(10:50):
a nationwide presence with 16distribution centers across the
US and three more up in Canada.

Perfect.
And the same weird questionthat I gave Nicole.
If you were to kind of thinkabout a unique identifying
characteristic of the Keihebrand, or as pertains to
transportation, what kind ofstands out for you?

Yeah, I mean just given the demographics of the
supplier.
The suppliers that we deal with, we do ship a lot of LTL orders
.
No-transcript.

Interesting, very cool.
Thank you, all right, marco,you're up.

Marco Vargas-Avila (11:55):
Yeah, so moved to the US in 2001,.
So kind of been an immigrantinto the US from Ecuador
originally, so always looked atAmerica and all all the
opportunity here right.
Went to college to studyfinance and econ.
Similar to Andrew, had dreamsof trying to make it into Wall
Street or you know.
Specifically, later figured outForex trading was kind of what

(12:17):
I wanted to break into but forwhatever reason at that time
around 2012 and 13, couldn'tbreak into some of those
brokerages.
And you know, and similar tomost of the folks on this, call
Freight found me through arecruiter at TQL where I started
originally as a broker in theChicago office.
Did that for about a year.
Then went to a trucking companythat had a startup brokerage

(12:40):
Grain Transportation.
They had a small brokerage atthe time that was handling
overflow business for the assets, so helped build out the
pricing team, helped build outthe logistics brokerage
operation, but ultimately wantedto learn a little bit more than
just the domestic, and so anopportunity reached to go to
Damco, which later became MaerskLogistics, which is an NVOCC,

(13:04):
essentially a broker, but forthe international side.
So there I was targeting importlogistics for small and
medium-sized importers in theMidwest, so helping design the
inland routes but learning theocean freight, the air freight,
the customs brokerage, obviouslydrayage, and then helping them
sell those services to thosecustomers.

(13:25):
And so I spent time there doingsome business development,
later moved on to transportationprocurement and warehousing
procurement and ultimatelyintermodal operations and after
having done the domestic andinternational side, went to
Kraft Heinz, got the opportunityto go work there in the
Chicagoland area as atransportation productivity
manager focused on efficiencyand savings.

(13:46):
I equate that position to acontinuous improvement manager.
But just really looking at thelarge transportation network
that Kraft Heinz had at the timeand with scale comes certain
issues and sometimes you'redoing the very basics and doing
them well can yield to a lot ofsavings when you have a very
large network like Kraft Heinz.
So I met a lot of really smartpeople, kind of leveled up my

(14:09):
analytical kind of acumen there.
And then the opportunity camearound where Dole Packaged Foods
not Dole Fresh, not to beconfused with Dole Fresh,
there's two Dole's in the US butDole Packaged Foods reached out
to lead their logisticsfunction and ultimately now I've
rolled it up into managing thedry transportation, the frozen

(14:31):
transportation and the inboundtransportation for dolls.
So looking at everything fordredge, ltl, truckload and
remodel and ultimately managingthat piece of the business and
building out that logisticscapability to try to make it a
competitive advantage for theshipper that I end up working
for.
So a little bit about myself.

Thank you.
Each of you very diverseexperience and background and I
think it's interesting that allthree of you happen to have
stumbled into and experiencedtime at brokers.
I almost wonder if there's likea link between your willingness
to come on here and having hadthat brokerage experience.

(15:13):
All three of the people whovolunteered were brokers.
But let me ask you thisquestion, and this is for each
of you, but you know, havingbeen, having worked at a
brokerage in the past, what wasthe most surprising thing that
you learned coming over to theshipper side?
You know that you maybe hadn'trealized was true, or hadn't

(15:37):
realized while you were at abrokerage that, like, maybe if
you had known, would have madeyou a better broker.

Can I take a first stab at this one?

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I think about this a lot Cause I
you know we get called calls andI speak to brokers all the time
.
I think for me, making the jumpto the shipper side was how
often what we as brokers at thetime deem is basic right, the,
the lingo, the vocabulary, someof the operations, how we take
that for granted and just assumethat the other side knows

(16:09):
exactly how it actually movesfrom point A to point B, right,
and the daily operational issuesthat you know, you live and
breathe in every day, that youjust, in a sense, assume that
the other side knows how itactually operates.
And so I think that was thebiggest eye-opener to me that
sometimes you're dealing withfolks that just don't have that
transportation operationsbackground and come from a very

(16:29):
different set right, Planning orinventory or finance or
whatever it may be warehousingand sometimes we're looking at
transportation and the processof moving things from A to B
from a completely different lens.
That sometimes allows thebroker to really add value right
, To help them discoversomething that they may not have
known in the past.
And so that came across very,very often, Things that I took

(16:53):
for granted to just assume thisbasic, that were really kind of
eye-opening insight for certainfolks that if you were asked
that on the brokerage floor,it's just like oh yeah, I
learned that day one on training, right.
So that's, I think, one of thebiggest takeaways.
Most folks that you speak withon the other side, if they
didn't come from thatoperational background,
sometimes don't really know, Uh,and you're assuming how it
actually goes from A to B asopposed to knowing the exact

(17:15):
process.

Nicole, how about you?
Or Andrew, how about you?

Sure, I can.
I mean, I can just go if youwant, All right.

Go ahead.

So one of the things that kind of surprised me
from you know, moving from thebrokerage side to the shipper
side, I mean you get a senseworking with your shippers and I
was always like shipper focusedwas the you know.
I got a sense from this oldschool mentality of like just

(17:47):
you know you're going to do it,because you said, or you know
just like that forcing you toyou know do things, or you know
move the freight at a certainprice, or you know just like
very like um stuck, I guess.
Um and then when I came to theshipper side, you know, um, you

(18:11):
know, like the, you know ashipper or, excuse me, a carrier
and a broker, like an assetcarrier and a broker.
They're two different businessmodels and you know, like you
just like a truck is a truck,you know it's not the case.
Like a carrier is a carrier,it's not the case.

(18:34):
If you don't like meet the um,the partner, where they're at,
like, you're just settingyourself both up for failure.
So that was like the um, the,the biggest, like eye opener for
me.
And then also coming from thebrokerage side, where, like, if
you have a last minute, you knowtruck fall off and you're like
working your butt off internallytrying to get that recover and

(18:55):
you know it's like very tenseand you're calling in favors
you're doing all the thing andthen you want to like tell the
shipper you know you want tohigh five from your shipper you
know like and the shippers arelike, oh, good for you.
You know like, why am I wastingmy time?
You're like, well, where's myhigh five?
I worked so hard for this.
You know.
They're like just do your job,okay, all right, you know so.

(19:18):
Um, yeah, I mean, that was ahard transition, or eye-opening
transition, I guess, to realizethat you know you may be
sweating your tail off behindthe scenes, but you know to the
customer or the shipper, likethey don't want to know how the

(19:39):
sausage is made.
You know like so.
They want the results and theydon't even want to hear about
the results.
You know they just, they justdon't want to hear about the uh,
the failures, you know, like so.

Interesting.
That's a.
That's a good anecdote or agood good point.
Are you looking to grow yourbrokerage?
Are you struggling to land newcustomers in these challenging
market conditions?
Look within so many companiesthat tender you freight
throughout the domestic UnitedStates also have business coming
out of Mexico.
A year ago I understand why youmight not have seen that

(20:16):
freight as an opportunity, buttoday Cargado exists and that
means any load coming into orout of Mexico is now an
opportunity for you to support.
In just over a year I've beenable to see Cargado go from
ideation to launch to rapidgrowth.
It's amazing to see how manylogistics companies have been
able to use Cargado to expandinto Mexico to grow their

(20:39):
business.
Cargado is the first platformthat connects logistics
companies and trucking companieswho are moving freight into and
out of Mexico.
If you move Mexico freight orare planning to reach out to
Cargado today at cargadocom,that's C-A-R-G-A-D-O dot com.
What about you, andrew?
You got anything over there?

Yeah, so you know , I think you know starting off
on the brokerage side it'sextremely beneficial in my
career.
You know starting off on thebrokerage side it's extremely
beneficial in my career and I'msure it is for the other two
panelists as well reallyunderstanding you know what
really goes into everyindividual shipment that a
shipper might not see.
You know talking to owneroperators, understanding the
challenges.
You know understanding what afuel advances and you know

(21:24):
seeing how service and carrierselection really is on the
brokerage side in various marketcycles and how to develop
relationships with those smallerproviders.
And just understanding thegeneral challenges that a
brokerage would see, whereassomeone that might be starting

(21:44):
out on the shipper side in theirlogistics career they're a bit
immune to seeing that sort ofissue and if something were to
arise or if there's trends ofissues, they might not have the
full understanding of what thebrokerage is going through.

(22:06):
But with my experience ofunderstanding those challenges
in different market cycles, youcan speak to those internally
with my team.
But also you can understand andvet through what sort of
promises that a broker mightmake where it doesn't pass a

(22:28):
sniff test.
You know if we talk about RFPsand a broker is vastly below
market than the other brokersthat bid on a particular lane.
You know, if I didn't have thatbrokerage background I might
bite on that.
But just to protect thebusiness and less noise I'm a

(22:48):
little bit hesitant to take thatrate unless there's some sort
of unique opportunity on thebrokerage end that might justify
that.
So at the end of the day it'svery important for my career to
understand that side of thebusiness so I can have that full
understanding of the challengesthat you know each side is

(23:09):
going through.

Yeah, that makes sense A hundred percent.
I mean, I actually remember andI think I've spoken about this
on the show once a long time ago, but you know, I had a very
brief stint working basicallyfor a distributor and managing
their carrier group.
While I was sitting out myfirst non-compete and yeah, it
was very different once I wastaking calls from brokers
wanting business and the snifftest wasn't easy, like you know.

(23:37):
Someone promised me like they'dalways respond within 10
minutes of any request at anytime for anything, and I was
just like that's just not reallywell.
I guess in today's AI worldmaybe that's a little more
doable, but it certainly was notdoable in 2018.
And that was a classic examplewhere, like, it just didn't pass
the sniff test.
It's, it's, it's, you know,we're on on to the, on to the
next one.
All right, well, listen, I wantto get into a kind of topic

(23:58):
around kind of network designand strategy and specifically, I
guess where I'd start is.
It's interesting when you comeinto your job for the first time
and you're overseeingtransportation, how do you think
about disrupting the status quowith what you were kind of

(24:20):
handed versus making your ownimpact and, you know, designing
your own relationships, becauseyou know, nicole, as you said,
there are carriers that aresecond generation now supporting
the business.
So I imagine you probably don'twant to come in and really
disrupt that in a nefarious way.
But at the same time you knowyou also are probably

(24:43):
accountable for the results, andso there's probably a balance
to strike there between makingyour own or taking autonomy and
making your own decisions versuskind of leveraging what's been
going on, because it's not likeyou're building a network from
scratch in any of your cases.
With your roles You're more soprobably fine-tuning.
So I am just curious You'veeach been in roles for different

(25:06):
time periods but as you gotstarted and started to get your
arms around your business, howdid you think about, you know,
maintaining what you have versusbuilding out your own kind of
strategy?

Yeah, I mean.
So when I came to research, themarket was much different.
You know it's the flip of now,right, it was not so.

How long ago was this?

It was 2021.
Okay, you know like, juststepping back, we had like just
even looking at like thehousecleaning had like just even
looking at like the housecleaning, like the looking at
the routing guide and you know,in, you know grabbing rates from
whatever carrier that camealong.
You know mostly brokers that,like, promised a low rate,

(25:57):
wanted to get their foot in thedoor.
You know they got shoved in arouting guide with you know
other brokers you know like, andit was just like pulling the
garbage out.
You know like, you know makingsure that the way that we were
tendering the freight made senseand so, like you know,
prioritizing our assets.

(26:18):
You know our directrelationships and then
eliminating duplication ofbrokers in any routing guide, uh
, or lane, you know, andsometimes region, you know, so
we have, um, you know, built inconsistency and then
understanding like, yeah, thatcarrier has been hauling for us
for 40 years but their fleet is40 trucks.

(26:39):
Um, you know they have a killerrate.
You know, and they do it, ofcourse.
You know they.
They have a killer rate.
You know, and they do it ofcourse.
You know they haul up twicethis lane twice or three times a
week.
Like, yeah, I'm going to putthem on top and I'm going to
capture those trucks to makesure.
And then you know layer inthese other trucks and then just
watching how you know.

(27:00):
You know carriers consistentthose assets.
Like we had a bigger carrier inour network, asset carrier that
was in virtually every singlelane because they gave us low
price but they only took thefreight when and where it was
like convenient for them, whenthe market was good.
And you know like rooting outthat you know it's just a lot of

(27:24):
house cleaning.
You know like rooting out thatyou know it's just a lot of
house cleaning.
You know like um, and, butultimately it comes down to like
making sure that you understandwhy a carrier wants the freight
.
Like does it fit for them nowor does it fit for them forever?
Like understanding their umjustification or their their

(27:45):
need for it.
Like I don't.
Like you know carriers will belike you know, whatever you need
, we'll do for you.
And it's like I don't want tohear, like it's not about what I
need, that's not consistent.
You know that's not sustainable.
Like what do you need?
Do I have that so I can put youin place and then not have to
worry about it anymore, cause Iknow that you're motivated by

(28:06):
your own need to to do wellthere.
So I think that's the biggestum, you know, biggest helpful,
you know change that had tohappen with our network.

How do you?
How do you kind of do that atscale with like a lot of
carriers and a ton of lanes?
Like how do you feel like youget your arms around that to a
place where you know?
You know, as you're looking atnext year's bid, like, oh yeah,
this lane from, you know, oregonto kansas city is, uh, joe's

(28:43):
trucking and they have a back,they have.
They have another customer inKansas City.
They get meat down there.
I know they'll be able to comeback here versus this other lane
, like you know, once you'relooking at the spreadsheet
trying to do it, how do youremember all those conversations
and all those moves?
Is there a way to get that alllike so in a place that's?

you know I work with good ship.
You know I have for a long timeand that was like coming into,
you know, when I started talkingwith Ryan, who's the founder,
original founder you know thatwas the problem.
The market was really tough,you know, and you know how do

(29:21):
you keep because there were,like there are in transportation
, there are a lot of handshakedeals.
Look, I'll give you this rateon this lane now, but I need you
to, over here, take seven aweek of these Topeka to
Chicagoland, you know, and thenyou got to try to capture all
that data.
You know challenging aspect,especially with this.

(29:45):
You know, like research, youknow our volume.
You know we have freight yearround, certainly, but our may
have 10 loads a week on one laneduring the winter, but now it's
, you know, 45 during the summer.

(30:12):
Um, how do you um, you knowit's a different story now with
the markets soft, but um, I mean, you know, because everyone
takes what they can, but it'sjust time.
And like communication and um,um, you know.

(30:33):
You know Good Ship has been ahuge help for us, especially
like, I think you know, you know, the majority of the carriers
out there.
They want to do a good job andwe're all stretched.
You know there is.
You know we're not the onlycustomer, they've got a
bazillion customers.
But the fact that they can logon to their their scorecard at

(30:55):
any given time and see howthey're doing, you know it makes
it much easier.
But you know there's just nosubstitute for communication
with your carriers.

Yeah, leveraging the right technology that gives
your carriers a place tocommunicate back and forth with
you and also track theirperformance and make sure
they're doing what they should.

Got it Okay.

I mean clear expectations and forth with you,
and also track theirperformance and make sure
they're doing what they should.
Yeah, got it okay, I mean clearexpectations.

Clear expectations always a winner
always all right, who wants tojump in here?
Marco sure.
So we use emerge, which I thinkhaving the first step of a good
procurement tool helps.
I think I've also seen GoodShipand very similar.
In that sense it really helpsmake that process easier than
skimming through thousands andthousands of rates.
So there's other software outthere too, but I think that's

(31:49):
the first step.
Secondarily, though, there is noother way but having those
conversations at some point inthe middle of your procurement
event or right before.
But then are you going toremember that at the time where
the decision really has to bemade, you know whenever your
rate, your final round, is setand you're handing out awards,
and so we've taken the approachthat you know right before the

(32:12):
last round, whatever that issecond, third, fourth, whatever
how many rounds folks do.
Last round, whatever that issecond, third, fourth, whatever
how many rounds folks do, wewant to have a conversation for
some critical number of laneswith some very specific
providers that we think arerealistically going to be
awarded.
And in those conversations Ithink you know you hit it on the
head there.
You know why do you want thefreight Like, why does this

(32:33):
carrier or this broker want thislane is critical to
understanding whether that rateis real or not and if they can
execute on that level, on thatrate, but at the level of
service that is required,because not everybody has to be
100% on time delivery for everysingle lane the vast majority of
them do, but there are somethat have flexibility and I
think in those conversations youunderstand who really wants the

(32:56):
freight or who thinks of it, ohit must be nice to have.
Or who just shot a rate and gotlucky and they're hoping to
build a carrier base or put theassets behind them to service
that lane.
And so it's reallyunderstanding that intrinsic
motivation to why you price itthe way you priced it.
And if you are more competitiveor well below market which there

(33:16):
are situations that can thatexist that way.
Right, if you could really findthe true backhaul, say for a
dedicated fleet, that might be arate where it's well below
market, right, those could besome of those situations.
But you don't know that throughthe numbers.
You need to have thatconversation and we look at it
as this kind of blendingqualitative data with
quantitative data.
Right, there are some thingsthat you just can't put a number

(33:38):
to, but if you know that theyhave.
They could handle this lane for20 any any week.
But if you give them 50, youknow they'll take all of it
because they are moving 150truckloads like a week in that
lane Right.
But how do you find thatinformation?
I think is where you can findout through a bidding process
and a procurement event whetherthat is a real rate or a paper
rate, right.

Anything to add, Andrew?

Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know.
I agree with both Nicole andMarco.
We had very similar mindsets ofhow to evaluate, you know, our
carrier base.
It's all about you know,connecting them on a cadence of
you know whether it's before anRFP, during an RFP, after an RFP
, of understanding their network, understanding their power

(34:23):
lanes.
You know, especially if it's anasset, understanding where
their drivers are domiciled.
Have they landed any newaccounts lately that they need
to feed freight into?
Are there any surpluses ordeficits in specific markets for
that carrier?
And then you, all of this in avery similar mindset All
brokerages say, hey, we can doall 48 states, we have capacity

(34:44):
everywhere, but every broker isdifferent of where they truly
thrive in in terms of thecarrier network.
Every broker has a differentcarrier network or a different
specialty where we try to ensurethat they're transparent on
those specific lanes or marketsor temperature types.

(35:05):
Not that it will negateanything outside of it, but it
will give us the ability to honein on those specific strengths
Because, at the end of the day,as a shipper, you want to pair
the right lane with the rightcarrier.
Of course, because, at the endof the day, as a shipper, you
want to pair the right lane withthe right carrier.
Of course you know cost in mind, but you know that's how you're
going to get the service andthat consistency and manage
through seasonality as well.

I would want to add one more thing that we've
done that I feel has been veryhelpful for us is that, instead
of like one bid season, I feelhas been very helpful for us is
that, instead of like one bidseason, we run 12 different bids
from August through April andit depends on.
You know we have three.
You know we've got a handful ofshipping points in the Pacific

(35:51):
Northwest.
We've got four plants in adistribution center in Kansas
Topeka, kansas and then we'vegot a couple of plants in
Halifax, north Carolina, and theseasonality of each of those
origin points versus you knowwhere the destination is going
or where the destination is, youknow affects the desirability

(36:12):
of that freight.
You know affects thedesirability of that freight.
And so, instead of trying tolike, you know Pacific Northwest
is an area where, you know,nine months out of the year it's
very easy to move freight, butthat you know.
Fourth quarter, you knowcompletely.

(36:33):
You know upends.
So instead of trying to eitheroverpay the entire year to cover
our rear ends in the fourthquarter, we break up that bid.
So we have a bid that it is forthe nine months that times are

(36:56):
good, and then we have athree-month bid for the fourth
quarter.
We have a strong preference tothe incumbents and we'll put out
a first round to get you knowthose you know like a wide net
of market rates, and then we'll,you know know, have
conversations with our carriersand find out.

(37:18):
You know, look at what they'recharging now versus what they've
taken through the year, andholding them accountable is like
staying consistent, um, butyeah, so bidding went to add to
your point I think bid cyclereally matters here, right, and
how a shipper structures its bidbefore you decide to go live

(37:42):
really takes a lot of thoughtand planning.

Historically it used to be you do a one-year
bid, it's around March, that'sthe bid season, right, and you
put everything you have in thatbid, right.
But I think if COVID taught usanything was that you need to
plan ahead and not everythingfalls through that regular
contract business cycle whereyou could do it once every 12
months.
Whether you do it six months,three months or a full year,

(38:08):
thinking about the piece, thefreight and the lanes that
you're adding to that bed reallymatter.
Cause to Nicole's point, right,if you have a lot of
seasonality, are you reallytrying to pay the peak price
year round just to ensure youhave that capacity?
And kind of going back to yourprevious question of kind of
changing the mindsets when youcome in new versus established
processes, this is a really bigone, right?

(38:29):
If the shipper that you're atisn't looking at transportation
logistics as an area to be fixedor to be improved, but more so
just to maintain and run it, youknow, perhaps the level of
innovation or changes are notgoing to be as receptive as
someone who recognizes like, hey, I have a problem and we need
to bring in some fresh, newideas.
Right, because you know, settingyour bid up in an unstructured

(38:53):
manner without understanding ofyour own seasonality and whether
you should be doing 12 months,six months or whatever that
cycle is, speaks volumes on theshipper.
So if the shipper doesn't knowthat, I think it's the side for
those other participants to sayokay, how much sophistication is
in this procurement eventversus others?
Because if you've always doneit like this and you haven't

(39:13):
changed in 20 or even five years, there are some things that
have changed in the marketplacein the years.
There are some things that havechanged in the marketplace in
the last few years that you maybe missing, or vendors that
could potentially be greatpartners that you're completely
omitting.
Because if you only want towork with one broker or you're
afraid of the word broker,you're really limiting a huge
portion of the marketplace thatcould really help you up.
Vice versa, if you're onlygoing with assets and you think

(39:36):
assets or dedicated fleetsaren't the only way to go and
you've never looked at a 3PL, itcould lead to a shipper having
to overpay for the specificservice that you want because
it's just easy and convenient.
So it's having that balance andthat kind of foresight before
you go to market.

Yeah, and to add to that as well, at Keiki our
network is constantly evolving.
Almost daily we deal withthousands of supplier partners.
So you're a come and go orwe're converting freight from
prepaid to collect.
So you know, in between bidcycles we do have some changes.
But you know we connect withour carrier partners and I'll

(40:15):
give an asset base example ofyou know understanding their
power lanes and what they needfor the long term.
Because when we have thoseopportunities on an ad hoc level
we can reach out to thoseproviders and leverage our
network to leverage that extracapacity where they need some

(40:37):
contract pricing and help theirnetwork out, help their
customers out, help theirnetwork balancing out for the
long term, because at the end ofthe day their primary objective
is to keep their trucks moving,eliminate any deadhead or empty
miles.
So if we can contribute totheir success it's a win-win and

(41:03):
we're all coming together tocreate a network efficiency
improvement for both sides.

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I mean great points from allthree of you.
I think dynamic is a word Ikeep thinking of in terms of you

(42:16):
know, one I would want todescribe If I was running a
transportation network anddesigning my strategy.
I would want, like the worddynamic, to be involved in all
my pull at my teammates heads oflike yes, we have a plan and
yes, we're going to execute thatplan.
Plan, but whether it's internalthings like changes within the

(42:40):
organization or changes withinthe company strategy of new
products or external things liketariffs or bird flu or COVID,
whatever it is.
There's constantly a need toand opportunity to, dynamically
adapt to what's going on.

(43:02):
And, as Marco, as you kind ofsaid, it's like if your
transportation strategy is justset and that's like we're
committed to this is who we areand how we behave you're likely
missing out on opportunities todo better, and that could be.
You could be through leveragingtech partners that can bring
better visibility or bettercommunication between you and

(43:22):
your carriers, or it's justchanges in the market that
warrant an updated process.
I think that the old school12-month bid works for a lot of
people and it can work, stillwork, um, but there are reasons
to change, you know.
And and if you've got a ton ofrefrigerated freight out of the

(43:45):
Pacific Northwest, yeah, ninemonths of the year it's gravy,
but for three months it's it's anightmare to move Um, and and
having the right relationshipsand the right kind of
commitments is, I think, thebest way to execute effectively
there.
One thing I'm curious about ishow do you think about making

(44:07):
changes in your org or makingchanges in your transportation
network, while also wanting tostay true to kind of
relationships and commitmentsthat you've made to your
partners, because in some casesyou know necessary changes for
the business may come at theexpense of a commitment you've
made to someone already and notwanting to get into this game of

(44:32):
tit for tat where it's like,okay, well, I'm going to break
my commitment to my carriers andnow they're going to feel like
they can break their commitmentsto me in a few months because
you know I did it to them.
You know what I'm talking about, how you can kind of get into
that.
So I'm just curious how you allthink about kind of
implementing potential change,knowing that you've got a
history with your carriers.

Yeah, I'll start this one off.
I guess it really depends on thereasoning behind the change,
right, is there a business caseof a network change, or a
supplier moved locations, orthere's some sort of change on
that side where either thevolume will drastically change
or the commitment that wecommitted to the carrier isn't

(45:14):
going to be fulfilled, that wecommitted to the carrier isn't
going to be fulfilled.
You know we, in general speaking, we try to commit to our
carrier contract pricing as muchas we can control, and the
reason for that is to ensurethat, hey, we're taking care of
our carrier partners during ashipper's market.

(45:37):
So you know, we're showing ourstripes of hey, we're sticking
to our pricing, we're notshopping it out and that way on
the other side of the marketflip.
You know we're not the firstone on the totem pole to be
either asking for rate increaseor the service is getting
degraded and they're committingtheir side of the bargain as

(45:58):
well.
But of course, just like withany shipper, there are things
outside of your control whereyou have to adjust, whether it's
bringing a new provider in,that's a niche provider for that
particular lane, and if thatpotentially comes at an expense
of another carrier, or thatcarrier lost the lane because of
something that was out of ourcontrol.
You know, let's make sure thatwe're helping that provider,

(46:20):
especially if it's a quality andtrusted partner.
You know, let's try to replacethat freight with something else
that is comparable, that isalso a fit for their network.

I like that what you mentioned there.
I think the only thing I wouldadd would be I like that what
you mentioned there.
I think the only thing I wouldadd would be transparency, and
you kind of touched on it too.
Right, we take very seriouslythese relationships that we have
with these logistic serviceproviders and we try to set up
situations that are good for thebuyer, good for the seller and,
ultimately, good for society asa whole.

(46:56):
And in that means, if thenetwork changes and you have to
pull business away, from someoneletting them know why Too often
it's just a short email sayingyou're removed from the lane and
the logistics broker or theasset-based trucking company
doesn't know why and explainingthose situations, right, and
whether you give them a heads upthat this change is coming so

(47:17):
that they can reposition theirassets or they don't get caught
by surprise, right, we try to bevery transparent in that sense
because, you know, not allshippers are very transparent
when it comes to sharing allthat information, the data, the
reasoning or even the driversfor some of these changes.
Right, and I've found, justhaving been in carrier sales and
spoken with that driver or thebroker or the asset, they want

(47:38):
to know, because sometimes theunknown can create situations
where they're thinking the worst, when it's just simply we are
closing the warehouse and we'removing somewhere else and
there's nothing related to theirservice.

Right, absolutely, it's a tough one.
You don't want to take away.
Like I mean, things change thatare beyond your control.
Yeah, communication is a huge,is a key to that relationship.
And then also like, okay, youknow putting your money where
your mouth is and being like,okay, this is going away, I know

(48:15):
that this is affecting you thisway.
Like, what else can we do withthose trucks?
Or your network?
you know like what else can Ioffer you to to make up for that
?
And um, I don't know, I thinkI'd be.
I can't think of one time whereI it's just been like, well,
that just sucks, and that's howit is, like there's always

(48:35):
something that you can do,almost always, you know, like
yeah, very good.

Let's take a zoom out for a sec just to do how
you generally think aboutcarrier procurement.
You know so.
So you know, as you approachmaybe it's maybe it's
approaching a large bid you'redoing or just in an annual
cleaning up of your network, howdo you think about, like, and
feel free to be as specific oryou can be more general in how

(49:07):
you answer this, depending onwhat you're comfortable sharing
but when you think aboutdesigning your network, how do
you think about your carrierprocurement strategy?
How do you think about, kind,of the number of carriers versus
brokers, the tools you want touse, how you even want to go
about evaluating them, like isit an ongoing basis of you just

(49:28):
take emails as they come in orcalls and you think about it, or
it's you put all the emails ina specific folder and once a
year you open them up and you gothrough them.
I'm just you know let's.
I'd love to get inside yourheads and give our audience kind
of an idea of what this lookslike from from your side.

Yeah, so you know , from from our standpoint
similar to Nicole we actuallyare with Good Ship as well.
We actually are with Good Shipas well.
So we leverage the carrierscorecard piece of monitoring
service in pretty much real time.
So it enables us to be a littlebit more proactive and identify

(50:14):
trends and addressing issueswhere, hey, this is a
transportation issue, we've gotto address it with the carrier
issue, we got to address it withthe carrier.
But we also leverage that datafor our procurement events to
understand hey, do we need totorque their volume down due to
service issues?
Do we need to torque it upbecause they were exceptional in
their service levels or do weneed to just remove them from
the network entirely, whetherit's because of service or, you

(50:35):
know, maybe they were teeteringon the edge of unsatisfactory
and there's already a redundancywith that particular provider.
So you know, in terms of theprocurement events, you know,
kind of dating back to what Imentioned earlier is having
those conversations with ourproviders throughout the year

(50:57):
it's not just right before anRFP event of understanding, all
right, we've got to make surethat we're pairing up the right
lanes with the right carriers.
And it's very similar to whatNicole said earlier, don't have
forcing a carrier to adapt toyour network.
How can we work together so weenhance our network

(51:19):
simultaneously in the effort forboth cost and service?

Yeah, I think that with this group right here,
you know our superpowers of youknow, coming from the brokerage
world and seeing both sides,like you know and I tell my
carriers this all the time likeyou know, when I'm like giving
my spiel, like I want to knowwhat's important to you so I get
the best price and service.
If there's something I need andthere's some, you know I don't

(51:47):
have someone in my network thatyou know fits that I'll go find
them, like whether it be, youknow, usually it's assets right,
cause there's, you know, amillion good brokers out there.
But you know I'll pick up thephone, I'll Google, I'll.
You know there's a milliondifferent ways that you can find
it.
You know like Topeka to Floridawas a huge pain point for us

(52:15):
when I first started and I juststarted, can't imagine why.

I know right, sounds like a great one.
You're telling me there's notan abundance of carriers in
Topeka, kansas, waiting to getdown to Florida.
They love going to Florida 350a month.

Exactly.
But you just start looking forcarriers who have the motivation
to go to Florida, whetherthey're domiciled, you know.
You just like start looking forcarriers who have the
motivation to go to Florida, youknow whether they're domiciled.
No-transcript, you know, youknow, but you can't just wait

(53:04):
for the right email to come intoyour inbox so, yeah, nicole, to
to your point um, you know it's, um.

I think that's fantastic because you know you,
even dating back to my brokeragedays, you understand which
shippers don't ask thosequestions.
If they, if there's a specificopportunity, they just blast it
out to their entire network andthey'll just get the lowest
price and on they go when.
I think all of us here you knowhere understand our carrier

(53:38):
networks and their strengths.
So when we do have thatopportunity, rather than
blasting out to the entirenetwork, we just reach out to
one or two or three.
That might be a great fitbecause we know, given the
information that was given to us, we know that they will be
successful on that freight andmost likely will be cost
competitive.

Yeah, to add to this, what we do on our side
is we look at our servicemetrics, particularly on time
delivery to the customer'srequested arrival date.
That's what we go by, right,we're trying to avoid fines from
your Walmarts and your Kroger'sand all the other food service
distributors out there.
And if you don't have that datareadily available down to the

(54:21):
month, down to the year orhowever long they've been
running volume for you, it makesit hard to then segment some
folks out when you can justconsistently tell through the
numbers that they're notservicing your business as
needed.
So that makes it a regular,recurring event where we're
trying to remove the bottom 20%or 10%.

(54:41):
We work with quite a lot ofassets and brokers upwards of
100 every year and more getinvited to the bid.
But in terms of who actuallysees the majority of an award or
the largest award, some folksare better off on spot auctions,
right, because there's aportion of our business that
just doesn't go under contractand it's those daily auctions
that we send out where somefolks prefer to play in those

(55:03):
areas.
But the ones that do receive anaward and then have an on-time
delivery score that is belowservice and you've addressed it
with them and maybe theirvolumes, you notice, have
decreased and it gets to a pointwhere is it even worth the
administrative effort to managethat if they consistently fail
or there's a forever revolvingdoor of folks managing your

(55:24):
account who can never quitefigure out the operational
expectations, right?
So we actively look to removethe bottom performance every
year, but then also looking atthose areas where you know we
need a new blood or newparticipant or new assets, right
, because it might be a toughlane for us or it might be a

(55:44):
very remote area where we knowthat not a lot of players go
into For us.
For example, frozen LTL not alot of folks do those sort of
things.
There's FFE and there's H&M Bayand there's other ones around
as well like brokers that can doit right.
But finding the right providersin those regional areas I think
goes a long way if you areactively always removing the

(56:06):
bottom kind of 10% ofnon-performance and giving a
chance to the new ones to comein and and also having a kind of
a continuous approach to bringin a new partner in the process
for onboarding them and reallyvetting them to determine hey,

(56:28):
do you have network synergies oror assets in areas where, uh,
we are, we need help in, right,and so that's how we approach it
.
It's just remove thenon-performance and consistently
keep adding in areas of need,uh, and so you know to to those
brokers that that are alwayseither making phone calls or
sending that cold email.
You never know when you catchthe shipper that needs help on

(56:50):
that particular day, and you'llget a response via email or
LinkedIn or a text message orwhatever.
It may be right.
I think there's striking theright balance there, but try not
to be annoying, because I'msure we all get a lot of those,
but you never know when ashipper might just pick up the
phone or send you an email whenthey're in need of help, and so
that's how we approach it.

Yeah, you know I want to jump into solicitations
a little bit and you gave me agood segue there and my own two
cents coming off.
Your last comment which I thinkis so true is I've managed the
sales org at Molo and all thesales leaders and the people all
rolled up through me, and Ialways thought it was

(57:33):
interesting because I'd go sitwith the sales rep and ask them
about their process and ask themabout soliciting, and people
felt like they knew the way orknew a way, and it would be like
well, shippers don't like whenI do this or they don't, they
like when this and don't likewhen that.
And I just think it's not smartto speak so generally or in so

(57:57):
much of an absolute, because youknow, let's say, someone thinks
that a short email that'sdirectly to the point and states
exactly what the value add is,with a little bit of flair about
the shipper's network, is theway.
And maybe it is the way todaywhen I email it to you, nicole,

(58:21):
because, as Marco said, it justhappens to be the day that
you're looking for me to emailyou, but I might send it 17
different times to other peopleand it ain't going to work
because it's not their day, andI think that that's just.
The truth of it is that there'snot like a way, there's not a
right way to solicit.
There are definitely thingsthat are more likely not to work

(58:43):
than to work, like, maybe,emailing someone every three
hours until they respond, oremailing someone and saying I'm
going to email you every threehours until you respond, but I
don't think it's wise for peopleto be committed to the idea
that there is a way to solicitfreight.
I think that there are a way tosolicit freight.

(59:06):
I think that there are.
My perspective historicallythat I would tell my sellers is
try everything and do it in asrespectfully persistent of a way
as possible.
You know, if last week youemailed someone on Monday
morning, thinking maybe theyreviewed their new emails while
they're having coffee, if theydidn't respond, try Tuesday
afternoon this week, tryThursday morning next week and

(59:29):
try Saturday afternoon the weekafter that.
My point is just that, like weshouldn't be so married to the
idea that there's a right orwrong way to do something like
solicit opportunities, andunderstand that there are some
things with respect to yourpitch that are just out of your
control, in that, like it's morea product of how the other side
is willing and able to receivewhat you're offering as much as

(59:51):
it is the quality of what you'reoffering.
So that's my two cents.
At Molo we built a great companyand I'm proud of the work we
did.
We knew when to ask for helpand sometimes that meant going
outside of our own company.
I'm proud we built an ecosystemof trusted partners like
Metaphora.
When we needed differentiatedindustry expertise in business
consulting or technologyservices, we looked at Peter

(01:00:13):
Ryan and the team at Metaphora.
They've consistently deliveredvalue in the transportation and
logistics space for over adecade for mid-market and
enterprise brokers, for shippers, carriers, private equity and
freight tech companies.
At Molo we use Metafora tosolve problems we simply
couldn't on our own.
Metafora is the only partneryou should trust to help you win

(01:00:33):
, whether that's doing ops andtech diligence, growing revenue,
optimizing spend or selectingand building software.
Go check them out atMetaforanet.
That's M-E-T-A-F-O-R-Anet.
Now I'm going to turn it overto you guys.
I would love to hear how do youlike to be solicited?

(01:00:54):
And you know what are the do'sand don'ts.
And we'll start there.

Nicole Schuman (01:01:00):
I mean yes.

Andrew Dafnos (01:01:01):
Oh, go ahead, Nicole.

I was just going to say it's one thing to think
about what the shipper needs,but also when you're that, try
everything, do what feels rightto you.
Be genuine.
That's one of the things thatyou know.
If you're a broker and you'retalking about my trucks, you
know it makes me just like eyeroll every single time I get an

(01:01:24):
email.
You know, if you're a brokerand you're talking about my
trucks, you know, all right,yeah, I've god.
It makes me just like eye rollevery single time I get an email
.
It's like I'm, you know so, andso you know blah, blah and I'm.
You know I've got trucksdelivering to your facility
every day, you know it's likethose aren't your trucks, dude,
you know like, no poses what you, um, you are, you know, like, I

(01:01:50):
don't know getting right to thepoint, but on the flip side,
I've had customers that, um, youknow I'm, I'm a very like,
transparent.
I put my foot in my mouth allthe time.
I'm, I'm very comfortable beingme.
When I was a broker, you knowlike, this, you know, always
sticks in my mind Like there's ashipper that I call leave a
message for like every week.

(01:02:13):
And after a year and a half ofdoing this, you know, and I'm
picking up the phone thinkingI'm just going to leave another
voice message, he actually picksup and it caught me so off
guard that I it's fun, you knowand then there was this pause
and then he and I both startedlaughing hysterically and like,

(01:02:36):
and then we had, you know, like,we started working together
almost immediately and very, youknow, we were very transparent,
very um, we worked welltogether because we were, you
know, we're very transparent,very um, we worked well together
because we were, you know, we,we knew that what we were
getting from each other wassincere and, um, accurate and,

(01:02:57):
you know, I didn't have to thinktwice about it.
So, yeah, be genuine so.

I don't want to, you know it.
So, yeah, be genuine.
So I don't want to, you know,come across as self-centered
with my response, but you knowjust to kind of, you know I, you
know, at this point in mycareer, you know I, I know we
don't typically work with anyonethat we or anyone on my team or
within Kehi have had a pastrelationship with in the past.

(01:03:24):
So I'm not sure they haven't orthey have.
They have not.
It's very difficult for us toonboard that company.
But I'm not referring to thecarriers themselves, it's more
alluding to the salespersonrepresenting the Kahee account,
because he or she will have theknowledge on our complexities,

(01:03:48):
um, understand the high servicestandards that we require, um
and also limits the learningcurve considerably, um, and and
you know, at the end of the day,it is a people industry, it's a
relationship industry.
So, even if I've had experiencewith a particular sales rep in

(01:04:08):
my past life, in my past company, but I don't work with them
today, I understand thestandards that they have, where
I'm comfortable to bring them onboard and not having to babysit
or worry about them or, youknow, because I'm not don't know
them on a professional level.

(01:04:29):
I, you know I don't have toworry about the unexpected
surprises Now.
I do receive countless emails,phone calls, linkedin messages
from various salespeople daily,right?
So you know I do shake my headwhen I see daily emails that
were clearly copied and pasted,while failing to set themselves

(01:04:53):
apart from thousands of otherbrokers that I get.
It is truly a lazy way to get acustomer to bite.
I even had one salespersonsimilar to Nicole, where it left
me a voicemail every day for ayear with the same scripted
message, which would besomething along the lines of I'm
looking for a way to get set upas a carrier for Kahee without

(01:05:16):
selling their values.
I'm not really sure.
Maybe it was to get their callcount up by leaving me a voice
message every day, but know it'snot gonna get me to pick up the
phone or call back someone ifyou go down that route with the
you know repetition yeah, formyself, we're a little bit

(01:05:38):
different.

Marco Vargas-Avila (01:05:38):
In that sense, I think the complexity of
the shippers, freight and thecommodities that you move and
the number of locations reallymatter.
Right, you're moving somehazmat into like a bonded
facility that's a governmentbuilding, like that's a
different carrier than if it'sjust like a one pick, one drop
of just you know 12 pallets ofdry freight, right?
But you know, for us, sinceit's a bit more simpler in that

(01:06:00):
sense, for me, it's if you havean elevator pitch that describes
your company and what they doand then why you want to work
with us in a if you happen tocatch me on the phone I kept
laughing at that example yougave Nicole, because I've had
that happen a lot for me where,like, okay, this guy's called me

(01:06:20):
like six months in a row, let'spick up the phone and see what
they say.
And when you catch themunprepared, that speaks not just
about them but also the servicethat that company may provide.
Like, if, if you're notprepared to speak about who your
company is, what they do, theservices they provide, without
having to think about it, youknow, what else does that say
about the service you're goingto provide when you pick up our
freight, right, but having agood pitch, if you do happen to

(01:06:42):
have someone pick up the phone,just goes a long way to be
prepared.
It doesn't have to be fancy, itjust has to be clean and direct
to the point.
In that sense, yeah.
Now when it comes to emails,though, you know I talked about
this on the freight caviarpodcast, maybe like a year and a
half ago with those guys, causethey asked about this as well,
because they asked about this aswell, and my advice to just

(01:07:06):
anybody sending a cold email isuse visualization and talk about
your particular business andwhere you pick up from.
What I said was show maybe aheat map that shows here's all
the freight that we picked upand all the origin locations,
because that says a lot morethan giving me a list of like.
Here's where my trucks are.
It's got like 40 differentcities, right, if I know that I
have a need in, say, southernCalifornia, and I see that you

(01:07:28):
have a huge you know hugevolumes picking up and
delivering there.
Maybe that give me a reason tosend you a note.
But at the same time, in thebody of the email, right, just
explain again what that elevatorpitch would be and again, you
don't want to keep, you know,put someone to sleep and write
them like four paragraphs, likea novel, but that's just not

(01:07:53):
going to get read right.
But if you think about, you havea 30, maybe 15 second window
for someone to skim through itand if it catches their eye then
it likely will result in aresponse, whether it's in a
LinkedIn message or an email.
And I've had a lot of successwith that with startup brokers
that have mentioned theexperience of where they came
from and some of the similarcustomers that I would be
delivering to or picking up from.
In that sense, and if I see somesynergies there where you're

(01:08:15):
picking up in these geographiclocations that we're doing
business in and you're alreadyfamiliar with, say, walmart,
that's hard to deliver to aKroger in that sense, then it's
more likely to that you'll get ashot as opposed to somebody
brand new that's just kind ofsmiling and dialing for dollars,
in a sense, and just makingthat same pitch, ever hoping to
get lucky, which, um, ironically, how I started at TQL just

(01:08:37):
picking up a list and callingall those folks and making that
same message and that call andrefining your pitch over time
right, so that, I think, goes along way with most shippers.
Just keep it short and to thepoint.
And then, if you do send anemail short and to the point,
but then put something thattells us about what is it that
you're offering from aservice-level perspective and

(01:08:59):
how much of it have you donewhether you're large or small
and likely, it'll improve yourchances of getting a response, I
think.

Yeah, marco, that's a great point, you know,
and not only that, it's alsovery important for whether
you're an asset or a broker toproactively research the
prospect that you're callingupon, right, you know, finding
out DC locations, what type offreight is being moved.
What we do in general, I meanall that information is public

(01:09:30):
knowledge.
If you go to our website, ifyou make that quick five-minute
research, it gives a little bitmore value to that sales email
to the person that's receivingit on the other side.
Now, if you're an asset, that'sreceiving it on the other side.
Now, if you're an asset, whatreally catches my eye is if they
indicate a need and would liketo leverage Kahey to fill a void

(01:09:52):
in their network, if they cometo me with that, that is,
actionable solutions right offthe bat, rather than creating
this blanket.
Hey, we can help you out withanything.
But I think what's superimportant, especially on the
brokerage side, you know,especially in this day and age,
when it's not all about pickingup freight from point A to point

(01:10:16):
B and saying, well, we willnever reject tenders.
Uh, we have competitive pricing, our service levels are
exceptional.
You know that that's really notgoing to wow me, because who
knows that that's factual, youknow, but if you, if you're
providing any unique offeringsthat differentiate yourselves

(01:10:36):
from your other competitors, um,that could help us fill a need,
and then that that would besomething that's eye opening and
that could be anywhere fromtechnologies or to unique
programs that you've builtthrough managed services, etc.
Etc.
Something that would you know.
You know, say, hey, I amdifferent from XYZ broker.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to differentiate
yourself as a broker.
You know, and then you know 20plus years of sales experience
for sales managers.
You know the like you know,just like in in my head is like
you know, don't.
You know, don't cut theconversation short by telling

(01:11:21):
them.
You know specifics, like listento the customer first and then
tailor, tailor.
And you know, like in today'sage, like with so many emails
and so many calls, so many, youknow, like you just have to.
You know you do have to tailor,you have to look for the right
prospect and you have to be upfront with what you are good at.

(01:11:43):
You know whether you know thatheat map as far as um, you know
visual visualization.
That is a you know very helpful, because if I see a, an email
that comes in, that's uh, youknow, four paragraphs.
Uh, delete, you know, like Ican't, I don't have time for
that.
So, like, um, you know I don'thave time for that.
So, like you know, it may not besomething I need now, but keep

(01:12:06):
at it.
You know, if this is yourstrength, you know you dominate
the southeast, or you know youhave an ungodly amount of
freight that you know goes fromhere to there and you really,
you know your company really can, you know, provide competitive
prices like lead.
With your strengths, even ifit's not a strength that

(01:12:29):
everyone needs, just keep on andmove on.
So I don't know.

To touch on consistency.
I think you know we'll stickwith emails, right.
But if it applies to phonecalls too, if I see that you've
emailed me like five timesbefore and I just happened to
catch this one right and I seethat your emails aren't just
copied and pasted but you'vetried to slowly evolve it, just
try to keep it conversational,but you're progressively adding

(01:12:56):
more details to, say, the emailyou're sending.
But because you're finding outmore about that shipper, it does
show a lot of you knowresilience and consistency from
that you know salesperson orwoman, because it speaks very
highly in terms of, well, theirconsistency.
If things go wrong, they're notjust going to drop you right
away.
Or that inevitable example of,like you, you have a fallout on

(01:13:19):
a friday and it's alreadyafternoon, are they the type of
broker that will recover it foryou because they're trying to
provide that level of service?
Or is it someone that like, ohsorry, it's three o'clock, I got
to go, I got to leave for theday, so this is a Monday problem
, right?
We're looking for thoseexamples that showcase the level
of service that we couldpotentially get if we do were to

(01:13:40):
give you freight right and soall of these things that we
could potentially get if we dowere to give you freight right,
and so all of these things, atthe end of the day, position the
broker as a partner andspecifically on the level of
service that a shipper canexpect.
Whether you realize it or not,you're being judged.

Andrew Silver (01:13:57):
I think that's a great point and I say it because
one I've heard it before fromcoaches I've had, managers I've
had around.
You don't realize it, but youmight be being tested from your
first email.
And someone told me there arepeople out there who commit to
the idea that they aren't goingto respond to you for three

(01:14:17):
months.
But if you're still there intheir inbox after three months
they'll consider it.
But if you're still there intheir inbox after three months
they'll consider it.
And I do like that notion ofkind of what you see is what
you're going to get and it mightbe what you see in how they
approach their emails to you.
And this is one of the things Iwas worried about for myself,
because I was so disorganized asa seller I could never keep

(01:14:40):
track of a consistent plan ofI'm going to email them on
Monday and the next week onTuesday and make sure it's once
a week, and so sometimes I'demail and then I'd forget about
it for two weeks and then I'dshow back up an email and my
thought was like this wouldn'tyou know my freight still picked
up and delivered on time, andthat was part of having a good

(01:15:01):
team and having operations folksthat were much better on the
stuff that you weren't good at.
But I completely can see how youmight miss opportunities,
because there were definitelyshippers who I reached out to
for the first time and I put alot of energy and effort.
I did all the research ahead oftime.
I tailored my approach and Isent them an email that I

(01:15:22):
thought was a good email andthey didn't respond, and then
I'd forget about them for threemonths and three months later
I'd come back and try again andthen, six months later, and just
like those ones typicallydidn't work out for me.
So I just think you guys areall giving great.
There's a lot of gold in theseanswers, so I just wanted to
give my two cents.

There's a lot of gold in these answers, so I
just wanted to give my two cents.
I think it's worth pushing thequestion upstream.
Then there are a lot of salesreps I would probably argue
majority of sales reps that youhave a finite amount of time to
get a response, or to move theconversation forward, or blah,
blah blah.
Or to move the conversationforward, or blah, blah, blah,

(01:16:08):
before you have to drop theaccount, for you know, um, you
know some other rep to to try uha lot.
You know a lot of what we'resaying is timing.
You know you have to beconsistent, you have to
demonstrate that.
You know what you're talkingabout for the business and it
feels like like I mean, therecertainly is.

(01:16:30):
You know if you're gettingfeedback from the.
You know if you're engagingwith the, the prospect, and
you're just not able you knowable to move the needle case at
some point.
You need to move forward.
But you know some of these reps,I think you know, especially in
a time right now, where youknow that question of like what
do you need?
It's like no one, a shipper,doesn't have a need.

(01:16:52):
You know, like if there's agaping hole in your network,
there's something wrong withthat shipper.
And you know these I want tocall them kids now but like you
know these reps that are likeyou've got six months to move
forward and it's like, is thatreally enough time?
And then you're losing all thisprogress and then the new rep
coming in has to relearn.

(01:17:13):
You know, uh, what theseshippers I mean, I don't know.
Andrew, this is a question foryou.

So yeah, jump in here, because this was a point
of debate at Molo and it was apoint of debate, I remember, at
Coyote.
And what we're talking about is, you know, as you now design
your sales org as a broker, youhave to have rules, rules of

(01:17:41):
engagement or rules of the hunt.

I remember, is what we call it.

And these rules were designed in a way so that,
uh, there was kind of a fairplaying field for the
salespeople.
In some cases you had 20 salesrep, others, you know you had
500.
And you know these rules couldbe as related to the size of a
shipper that you can pursue andwanting to make sure that a rep

(01:18:07):
had a certain amount ofexperience in order to pursue
that large of a customer.
So it might say, in your firstyear or until you've proven you
could do X amount of revenue.
You can only pursue companiesup to $ million in annual
revenue, or it might be adifferent metric that they're
measured against, and then aftertwo plus years you can pursue

(01:18:29):
up to 500 million, things likethat.
But what specifically Nicole'stalking about is what you might
call a forward progress rule,which would say, once you have
an account in your name thatyou're allowed to pursue, you
have X amount of time call itmaybe six months during which
you have to move the accountforward and if at that time you

(01:18:53):
haven't, you have to let someoneelse try.
And this is where it's reallyinteresting, because you know
there is no, it's not black andwhite, it's never black and
white.
I know there are some companiesthat don't even allow someone
to own an account until they'vegotten progress, and that's
where you have situations whereyou might have seven different

(01:19:14):
people from the same companycalling a shipper, and let me
just say I can speak foreverybody when I say that's a
bad way to run your business.

It's a real bad look.

You should never have multiple people calling the
same account, unless it's likea rep plus an executive who are
tag teaming and they're workingtogether, aligned, and they're
working together.
That I understand, but multiplepeople pursuing the same thing
to try to get there first willnever work out for you.

(01:19:43):
Where we struggled with thiswas you want to be fair to both
the playing field of sales repsand make sure that people aren't
just holding onto accountsforever without actually putting
in the effort to move forward.
But at the same time, where Ithink a lot of people make
mistakes is having a hard cutrule where if you don't get it

(01:20:06):
by six months it goes to someoneelse, because I do think there
are a lot of instances where arelationship is starting to
develop over six months and byaround the six month timeframe
is.
You know, you might not beready to commit to me as a
partner, but I'm, I'm in, butI'm on your bench and you're
thinking about me when the nextguy screws up and if I disappear

(01:20:28):
and Joe Schmo jumps in and he'snow selling and there's
definitely starting from scratchthere.
So my two cents in general tothose listening if you're
someone who's designing rules ofthe hunt strategy for your
sales team as a brokerage, doyour best to put the customer
first and the customerexperience first, and that's

(01:20:50):
hard to do with black and whiterules.
So what we had at one point atCoyote and I think I might have
been part of it, I don't want totake credit said but what we
had at some point at Coyote, andthen a little bit at Molo too,
was kind of like a judge andjury, like a group of people

(01:21:10):
that were kind of outside of thesales.
They weren't involved.
They weren't someone's manager,but there were sales involved.
They weren't involved in theactual transaction or the actual
issue and you could contest aruling, so to speak.
So you know, if your six monthswas up but you felt you were
making progress, you could thenput it to the judge and jury and
they would look at it and saywhat's in the best interest of

(01:21:32):
us in the business.
Let's look at the engagementback and forth between you and
the customer or the prospect.
Does it look like we're gettingclose, even though we haven't
fully met the requirements offorward progress?
Because you might defineforward progress as having
received a bid.
And, nicole, you and I mighthave spent the last six months.
We've exchanged a few emails,we've had a phone call, but

(01:21:54):
maybe you haven't even had a bid.
This isn't great for yourbusiness, because you explained
to us that you have 12 bidsthroughout the year.
But for someone else whodoesn't have frequent bids, we
might've just missed the mark ontiming and all of a sudden my
time's up.
But we are getting kind ofclose and that's where I might
go to the judge and jury and say, hey, look at this, look at all
the context here.

(01:22:14):
I am the right person for thisaccount.
It's just not time yet.
Give me three more months, giveme six more months, and then
they could look at it and say,hey, this makes sense, let's
keep him on the account.
But it's hard.
It's hard from both sidesbecause you do want to do what's
best.
I mean, my theory in running aservice business is to design

(01:22:36):
every rule in the businessaround what's best for the
customer, knowing who yourcustomers are, and this is where
we flirted with it beingchallenging for us in Molo is
because I thought that for us tohave the best business possible
, we had to try to treat ouremployees like they were a
customer, and that like for usto make a really great product

(01:22:57):
for our end customer, theshipper, and for the carrier.
We had to make a great productfor the employee and you run
into a little bit of atug-of-war game when you're
trying to design a rule in anyinstance where you know in one
side it's what's best for theemployee and on the other side
what's best for the shipper.
It's not always necessarily thesame thing and that's where

(01:23:18):
maybe it's challenging, but Ithink when you have that
philosophy you end up with thebest possible rules for your
business, if that makes sense.

Right.
Yeah, A lot of the pitches andthe brokerages that I think I've
dealt with don't always putthat customer experience aspect
first and foremost, becauseultimately that customer
experience isn't just us threeon this call, getting pitched
and getting emails right, it'sthe people that are operating

(01:23:48):
with your service and how istheir experience with your
company once you do break it inright or you get a shot right,
Because I think that speaks moreto the level of service you can
expect.
That then allows a shipper tosay, hey, do I want to grow this
, this business, together withthem?
Like, does the shipper activelyreach out?
It's like where else could webe doing business together

(01:24:09):
because we're happy with yourperformance in a particular area
?
Right, First you got to breakin right and then you have to
develop the relationship and getsome sort of business.
But for us, we we have improvedthemselves on auctions, like 50
auctions before you can get intoa bid, so that we can have a
real example of how your serviceis and isn't Right, and so you

(01:24:33):
know whether that sales rep thathelped break in and then
carries on with kind ofmonitoring the level of service
that the operations team isexecuting on goes a long way,
Right, and ultimately it's partof that whole customer
experience, Right, thatsometimes you know who the
actual customer is on theday-to-day basis kind of gets
lost because we are so focusedon the decision maker, right and
and while the three of us herehave progressed enough that you

(01:24:55):
know we we're able to make thesedecisions now, I think always
keep in sight of the folks thatare ultimately doing that
frontline operation and theexperience that they have vice
versa plays into your ability togrow and also just break in,
right, but just some thoughts.

Yeah, I can really appreciate that, and
there was a moment where Inoticed, or just that became
apparently true to me, when oneof our customers at Molo called
me and said that they had justfinished going through their
award process and that we werewinning an award, for I don't
remember what he called it, butin essence he had taken a poll

(01:25:35):
of all of his frontlineemployees and there were like 10
people in the operations who insome way, shape or form,
touched the freight.
And there were like 10 people inthe operations who in some way,
shape or form, touched thefreight, and you know whether
they were the ones tendering it,handling the appointments,
handling the exceptions,handling the payments, whatever
it was.
But every year he had gave thema survey at the end of the year

(01:25:58):
and then they all filled it out.
And that's part of not thewhole thing, but part of how
they evaluated the quality ofthe carriers.
And he was like you guys were atop carrier for this in terms
of feedback from the team, and Iwas like it was the first time
I ever thought about that interms of like that's a really
important element of the wholething is that, like these people
who are actually touching thefreight like.
You have a chance to make amaterial impact on them with how

(01:26:19):
you respond to them, howquickly you respond to them, how
polite, respectful you are,things like that.
So I just wanted to echo yourpoint there, marco.
Anyone else on this stuffbefore we move to our kind of
last topic?

Yeah, I mean.
The one thing I would add is,you know, regarding pitches,
right pitches and sales pitchesyou kind of touched on this,
andrew, earlier, where it's veryimportant of what you pitch,

(01:26:57):
even that initial sales rep,what you pitch to a prospect,
because, yeah, that six monthsmight be up and another sales
rep might come in and try to winthe business.
But if you had a horrific pitchwhere it casts a lot of doubt
on the organization itself,right, and just because that rep
is no longer there or no longertouching the account, you still

(01:27:20):
, in the back of your mind, youknow, think, yeah, it's still
that same brokerage, I don'twant to do anything with them.
So it's very important as a, asa leader of part of a brokerage
, to make sure that, yeah, ifyou're not going to um land the
account today, at least make agood representation of the
company itself, right?
So you know um, you know I, Irecently had a, a broker who um

(01:27:44):
actually removed from thenetwork, uh, at K he and at my
last company as well, but he hereaches out constantly to to win
K he back.
But his pitch was um, you know,I'm a different sales rep and
the person you dealt with is nolonger with the company.
And you know, uh little did heknow that I dealt with multiple
sales rep at his company in inprior years.

(01:28:07):
So I, you know, I think it wasmore of a leadership issue.
But the the the kicker was hetalked about how they will take
losses on their shipments.
Now and and, and, and and thenfollowed up with attempting to
guilt trip me that, kiki, helost thousands of dollars a few
years ago on losers.
I'm like, well, I don't know,that sounds very conflicting.

(01:28:31):
So it's a poor reflection onthe organization for future
pitches because, you know, ifthey're cultivating that kind of
culture of how to approach aprospect, then you know, then I
don't think any shipper wouldwant to do business with them.

Yeah, get that 100%.
All right, let's, I get it.

You're trying to stand out, trying to be funny,
and it was.
He had clearly Googled, youknow, hungry child.
You know image and attached itinto his email.
You know like I need to makemoney in order to, uh, feed my

(01:29:30):
you know my daughter.
You know, blah, blah, blah,blah.
And it is the one time that Ilike literally, you know,
immediately googled the.
The company forwarded on to um,the execs that I could get you
know find their emails and I waslike never contact again.
Like this is a real kid likesome of the like don't lose just

(01:29:54):
so um losing touch with reality.
You know you're so like wrappedup and touch with reality.
You know you're so like wrappedup and me, you know I want
something, yeah it's just can behorrible.

But yeah, yeah, all right, good note, don't do
that don't do that, don't dothat don't do that.
Um, all right, I want to justfor a couple minutes, talk about
kind of emerging trends,challenges you guys are
navigating in today's market.
We have seen this industryevolve and it seems like a lot
of the tech that I'm seeing isvery focused on.

(01:30:36):
For one, ai is the word of theyear, at a minimum maybe the
word of the decade Word oracronym Acronym, I guess of the
year and so we're seeing a lotof technology come out with AI
that applies to brokers andcarriers, and now they've got
the AI agents that make phonecalls and we've got the ones

(01:30:58):
that are doing a lot of theworkflows on behalf of these
companies.
I'm just curious in each ofyour roles, what have you seen
come into the market that hashad any kind of impact to your
business or that you've, maybenot even necessarily technology
you've bought, but at least thatyou've looked at, that you
could see being impactful toyour business in some way, shape

(01:31:21):
or form in today's market.

The one I saw.
Actually, just last week we weremeeting with several vendors on
business interviews and one ofthe pitches that I saw that was
really impressive was, if yourTMS has your data and you have
all of your BI reporting andanalytics, if you're able to
create an agent that essentiallycreates these dashboards or

(01:31:49):
these views, these charts andline graphs, I can show you with
a prompt things like show methe average cost per shipment or
per mile in this lane for thelast 12 months and overlay it
with volume right mile in thislane for the last 12 months and
overlay it with volume Right,and then within seconds, it just
spitting out this image andthen you're able to to adjust it
as needed to get you thatanalysis that ultimately you're

(01:32:11):
trying to using thatpresentation or put together for
your period and reviews,whatever it may be.
I hadn't seen that tied to a TMSup until very recently, and so
that was very much eyeopening,right.
Imagine if you actually havechat GPT with your data being
fed into it, whether it be yourTMS, your ERP, your financial
payments data, and then it'sable to really create a lot of

(01:32:34):
these analyses that might take aday or weeks to put together
right and that's, I think,really powerful, because it
really levels up what theanalytics teams can do for
logistics.
Uh, so that was one of thethings that really was an eye
opener.
You know, imagine having a chatGPT agent tied right to your
TMS or wherever all your yourTMS data is Right.

Marco, that's, that's, uh, actually very
relatable.
So you know, that's actuallyvery relatable.
So, you know, this year we'regoing to be upgrading to the new
version of our TMS platform andwithin that it has AI
technology to help streamline orautomate load planning Right,
something that we don't haveright now.

(01:33:17):
Still the same company, butjust the new version of it.
And it's important because youimportant because we're in this
rapid growth here at Kahey andrather than throwing bodies to
scale which, of course, is arequirement to a degree but how
can we leverage AI andtechnology to make load planning

(01:33:38):
, to make, to make, you know,data processing, data management
a little bit more, you know, alittle bit more effective, to
where you know we don't need,you know, to just staff up to do
the same thing that a AItechnology platform can do.
You know, we've been heavilyinvesting in technology over the

(01:34:00):
last, you know, couple of yearsand we're still going to be
investing in technology.
Another platform that we didonboard a couple of years ago
was a network optimization andblueprinting tool, something
that we did not have in the past, and it helps us, you know,
achieve stronger utilization oftrucks and decrease our per
truck footprint across thenetwork and enables us to stop

(01:34:24):
shipping air right, because,again, we do a lot of LTL
quantities and consolidation.
In order for that to work, thetiming needs to work, purchasing
needs to be read in and to makesure that we're all aligned, to
make sure that we're optimizingthe trucks the best as we can.
And then going back to Nicole'son Good Ship as well but we did

(01:34:44):
onboard Good Ship this year,which offers a new set of
technologies for us that willhelp us be a little bit more
efficient with a new RFPprocurement tool, you know,
having carrier scorecarding, alittle bit more carrier facing,
rather than you know what we hadin the past.
It was a little bit more you,little bit more internally
focused, and it will be able tohelp us even be more proactive

(01:35:11):
with service issues and trendsand making those decisions
before having someone else bringup an issue before it's too
late.

Great Anything you want to add, Nicole.

I mean like it's fine, yeah, no, I mean we're,
yeah, we're a little bit behindon the times, for sure.
I mean we still do like, or wedo quarterly carry meetings with
all 70 plus of our carriers,you know, and via zoom, you know

(01:35:49):
, you know the communicationgoes back.
You know, good, ship is great,but no, none of you really
haven't seen much application ofAI and and our business, at
least the transportation side.

Another topic that I think has come up
with the application of AI.
I think it's on the schedulingside and doing some of these
administrative pieces andwhether you can have the
shipping warehouse and thereceiving warehouse talk to each
other via AI around thescheduling and what appointment
should you schedule right andyou can remove the emails or the
receiving warehouse talk toeach other via AI around the
schedule and what appointmentshould you schedule right and
you can remove the emails or thephone calls right.
One of the pieces that, as AIstarts coming into operations,

(01:36:30):
particularly in transportationand logistics, I think the
participants should not losesight of is what happens when it
goes wrong.
Because if you just becomeanother ticket in a giant list
of IT tickets when you actuallyneed something to be fixed
urgently, right, I think thatcan really sour the shipper's
perspective on your technologyand your overall product.

(01:36:52):
If, ultimately, when thetechnology breaks or fails, who
and how is there to fix it, andthat that same um company that
made that pitch that I mentionedat the beginning in terms of uh
, chat, gpt, kind of tied to it,that can provide these
visualizations right If youbecome just an uh a ticket

(01:37:14):
within the giant list of otherissues that they have to
troubleshoot, and it's just youfeel like you're going to a
calling center that has no ideawhat your issue actually is.
That can actually work to yourdetriment.
Right, because technology isgreat and it could really help
bring a lot of efficiencies andoptimizations out.
Right, but you still needpeople that can be there to

(01:37:35):
ultimately make sure it'sworking as intended and step in
in a case-by-case exception.
Right, and so I think it has tobe a balanced approach.
Right, because you you knowthere's never going to be just
fully autonomous, maybe in ourlifetimes, in terms of TMS and
procurement events.
Right, there's still going tobe decision makers and folks
that have to look through that.
Right, but will we get help fromAI?

(01:37:57):
For sure, right, but when thosethings inevitably go wrong and
there's a bug or there's aglitch or whatever it may be,
you still need to rely on thosepeople to be able to help you
troubleshoot those issues thatmay arise.
And so, whether it is, you knowyou scheduled all these things
incorrectly and now you got togo back and redo them all.
Right, and how that getscommunicated to the rest of the

(01:38:17):
organization does go a long way,and so it has to be, I think,
the right approach of technologyand people to really be able to
push, I think, ai to really beembraced right.
I think you know,transportation and logistics is
an industry that is very kind ofset in its ways, right, and so
sometimes it's harder for ourindustry to kind of push itself

(01:38:37):
forward like it perhaps shouldbe in some other areas, right.
But these are, I think, theevents and the conversations
that help push that towards theforefront, right, like how do
all of us utilize thistechnology to the betterment of
our group and organizations?

To summarize what you're saying, I heard
something that really resonatedand it was AI is not going to
replace your job, but someonewho can utilize AI probably will
.
You know like we just have tofind that right.
You know, back to your point,the right balance of you know

(01:39:13):
how do we do.
You know what we do, just alittle smarter, a little faster
more efficient.

Well said.

So, in the interest of time, I will make
this next question our last one.
Um, it's hard to manage a witha panel with three people to get
the time right with all thequestions you want to ask, but
you guys had great answers allthroughout today, so so I'm glad
, I'm glad.
I appreciate you all.
So I guess what I'll ask now iswhat is something that you know

(01:39:50):
as you look at the next coupleof years?
What is either a problem or itdoesn't even have to be a
problem, but what's a solutionor a innovation that you'd like
to see come into the space thatwould make your job easier or
make your team more efficient,or just make your business run

(01:40:11):
better.
What's just something that'snot there today, that you just
wish was or you hope comes tofruition in the next few years?

One of the things I saw when I think it was
at Manifest and I was just like, by seeing different companies
speak together like panels,different panels, like I saw
like a shift of competitionwhich everyone you know loves to
.
You know of competition whicheveryone you know loves to.
You know chest pump and youknow like, oh, we're the best,
you know we're going to be thebest, and but there seemed to be
like a shift in likecollaboration and I think that

(01:40:55):
if you know, I mean all theinformation's out there, if you
look hard enough, like everyoneeveryone tries to you know, yeah
, the look on your face.
Andrew says where are you goinghere?
Wrap it up here, lady.

No, no, you're good, you're good.

Well, I recognize I'm not being very
concise.
I think that what would make mypeople's position easier is
that people that they work withwere more transparent.
You know, and felt comfortablebeing more transparent If the

(01:41:32):
three shippers that are on thecall right now and I like, got
together later and like hey,where you know, let's look at
our network and and see if wecan share some resources.
Who's doing this lane for you?
Can they do?
You know, where are you?
You know, if we work together alittle more, um cause, I mean,

(01:41:52):
it's not the yeah you know,right now.

I love.
I love that answer.
I was just going to say shipshipper collaborationipper
collaboration is something I'vealways been super curious about,
as if there's a way to get likea network of networks.
And you know, les Aiken I'll behearing from him after this
because he's all about this toobut I just think, and I don't

(01:42:17):
think everyone can do it and youknow it'd be interesting to see
, like a Coke and a Pepsi, youknow, overlap and work together.
I don't think that's going tohappen anytime soon, but the
right companies, and maybe it'svendors and retailers,
distributors and vendors there's, there's there's, there's
opportunity because you knowit's, it's A to B and B back to

(01:42:38):
A the networks exist that couldoverlap and create a lot of
efficiencies and make lifeeasier for all the participants.
It's just hard when everybodyhas their own kind of
self-interest that they need tocare for.
But I do think it's possible.
So I'm with you and that'sthat's one that I hope.
Costs are increasing.

somehow, you know, and we can grind the bones
of our carriers to get them totake freight that they really
you know money at, or they justhave to keep their trucks going.
But if we can find theefficiencies in our networks,
then everyone wins yeah.

I will add, and I'll admit to this as well, so I
do some of that today withother shippers that I know that
have a lot of the same, similarasset-based carriers that we do
just through meeting them atevents or working at my past
company and understanding theirnetwork.
And there are a few shippersout there where it correlates

(01:43:39):
with the Kahee network very wellin terms of their ship points
are receiving points and viceversa.
And, while leveraging the samecarrier, go and match that up
with their network, because ifmy shipper buddy is successful
with their service, I'm gettingthe service as well and the

(01:44:09):
carrier is happy because theirtrucks are continuously moving
and it's almost acting like adedicated program.
So I agree, there should be alot more of that and a lot more
transparency to make sure thatall parties involved are
successful, because at the endof the day, yeah, everyone wants
to be profitable, but alsoeveryone wants to be as

(01:44:32):
efficient as possible, with asminimal noise as possible as
well.
You know, in terms of the future, yes, I hope there is a lot of
that, yes, I hope there is a lotof that and also finding out
ways and, you know, I thinkshippers, brokers, asset base
carriers can all agree on thisis to lessen the volatility of

(01:44:54):
the market swings.
Whether that's going up anddown, you know it's certainly
going to be around.
You know, especially with youknow, ever since the
deregulation, but you know it'ssomething that needs to.
How can we make the pain strikea little bit less for both

(01:45:17):
sides of the table that you'resitting on?
You know, still expecting thatthere'll be swings, but not as
vicious as we've seen over thelast decade.

Yeah, to add to your point, both of your
points actually, because, nicole, you gave me an idea here in
terms of, like my answer.
But first, you know, proactivecollaboration with other fleets
to find, like those backhauls, Ithink goes a long way.
You know, I would love to seethat in the next 10 years where
the idea that you're invitingnot just assets and brokerages
but some of these strategicvendors that you know have

(01:45:51):
dedicated fleets that needbackhauls, for example, to be a
participant in your bid as ifthey were a trucker, you know,
just like you mentioned, youknow we also work with some of
our particular pallet vendors tofind those synergies where,
like, hey, you're delivering aload of pallets into my
warehouse, why don't you pick upsomething else out of it?
And we can probably put you inthe general area where you want

(01:46:13):
to be and if you're able toprovide a competitive rate which
they typically are becausethey're sometimes going back
empty that those are thoseperfect win-win scenarios where
you find that buzzword ofnetwork synergies, right, those
are the real examples.
So we'd love for that to be amore of a bigger staple in most
shippers' bids, right, to kindof incentivize that

(01:46:33):
collaboration.
But the other one that reallycomes to mind also with
collaboration, but more as likean industry.
Collaboration is fightingfreight fraud, right, like in
the last year and a half, theamount of fraud that I've
particularly have noticed out ofour Southern California
warehouse has been rampant, andsometimes the methods in terms
of stealing, like fruit cups orjuices, right, which, again,

(01:46:55):
we're not talking high valueitems here.
It's so creative where you'relike, wow, I wonder what they
could do if they applied that tosomething useful for the
benefits of society, right.
But specifically to the fraughtpoint is, like you know, I think
the brokerage community hasreally done a good job recently
in terms of trying to bandage ortrying to find those bad actors
, right, but it also impacts theshippers, right, and so finding

(01:47:16):
some sort of entity in themarketplace that kind of helps
create that transparency toultimately accomplish the
objective that everybody wants,which is, I want to be able to
trust the people that arecalling on our freight, that are
picking up our freight, so thatall this theft and double
brokering issues can be put tobed, so that you don't have this
segment of organized crimeimpacting not just the brokers

(01:47:37):
but the shippers as well.
Right, because nobody wants todeal with a cargo claim on the
shipper side.
I'd rather just deliver to theright location, right?
But who is that right partnerto to create that collaboration
and share that transparent toultimately, you know, not allow
those bad actors to to causemore problems for everyone
involved, right?
So freight fraud would be great, great to see as a much larger

(01:48:01):
area of collaboration in theindustry.
I agree.

Really great points all around.
Yeah, I mean from freight fraud.
That's a serious issue that theindustry is trying to tackle
and hopefully will continue toput maximum effort into
collaboration across shippers.
I mean, I think there's a lotof opportunities sitting in
front of us and with that, Ijust want to thank all of you
for coming on the show today.

(01:48:24):
This is my first time trying topanel with shippers.
I think you all did anincredible job, really helped
educate our audience on how youlike to run your business, the
things that you've learned inyour time from both the
brokerage and now shipper side,and you know, just really
grateful for all of you forcoming on.
So, with that to our audience,that's all we got and we'll see

(01:48:48):
you next week.
Thank you you.

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