Ep. #74: Peter Coratola, President, CEO, & Founder, EASE Logistics

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
and we're off.
Welcome back to another episodeof the free pod.
That's the first time I'veopened the show like that
without just a welcome back.
And, uh, I'm joined today by aspecial guest, per usual, ceo,
founder of Ease Logistics, mrPeter Corotola.
Do you go by, peter, peter?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Depends if you're mad at me or not.
Let's go with Peter.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Not there yet, we're 40 seconds in, so I don't have
anything to be mad at you aboutyet.
So it's good to have you, man.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Welcome to likewise I appreciate you having me on, so
I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I you know I was just telling you before we started
recording I've I've come tolearn that, um, when I get to
sit down with brokerage guyslike yourself, it's such a
natural conversation and I justlove it.
So I'm excited for this.
Not that it's not exciting totalk to all the AI guys and all
these other things, thebusinesses that I haven't done.

(01:10):
It's just a different thingwhere I have to, you know,
really put in more energy andeffort versus sitting and
talking to a guy like yourselfwho has been through similar
things that I have and I knowyour world, and so I'm excited
to get into it today, as am I.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, there's a common ground of brotherhood or
sisterhood that's formed whenyou're in the office at two in
the morning ripping every carercall off DAT trying to find
somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Speaking of.
You know that is the oppositeof ease or easy, and you know
any good broker knows thatthere's nothing easy about this
job.
So your company is called EaseLogistics.
Let's talk about the name for asecond.
Where does that come from?

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, you know, I wish I could tell you it was
some like really thought-outbusiness plan.
Actually, like moments beforewe were going to file I was
filing for the LLC, it wasactually a Midwest loyal with an
L, you know.
And right before we signed it,the lawyer I've been working
with for like weeks was like whyMidwest loyal?

(02:18):
And this is the name we'd beentalking about the whole time.
It's like what if it getsbigger?
I'm like, well, all right,danny, a little late in the game
for opinions.
But I appreciate, you know,appreciate the insight, and I
remember at that point just kindof thinking through, like what
am I trying to accomplish, right?
And some of the things thatdrove me to wanting to do this
kind of led me like simple, howyou know, how easy can we make

(02:38):
logistics?
You know that.
Then it kind of you can kind ofsee where I made that jump.
And I started searching and Iwas actually shocked to find out
there wasn't a ease logistics.
You know there was an easetransport way back in the day
out of California, which I willcome to find later in starting
the company.
That that was quite the hurdleto get over, right.

(02:59):
Not only a new MC number.
But when you have a similarname coming that went out of
business, right, yep, not only anew MC number, but when you
have a similar name coming thatwent out of business, right, uh,
yep.
But you know it plays into whatthe focus is at ease and what
kind of drove me there is.
You know the ease of logistics,making it easy for X user
inside the office, the customer,the carrier.
You know how do we increase theexperience, how do we make it a

(03:23):
better experience?
You know how do we increase theexperience, how do we make it a
better experience?
Um, really like taking thatmodel and just applying it
through how we operate and youwere pretty young when you
started the company.
How old uh, I was 24.
I was 24 years old.
Um, I'd worked at anotherlogistic shop prior to that.
You know, I graduated from OhioState criminology degree, which

(03:45):
again come to find out later.
That actually is pretty appliespretty well to logistics as
well.
You know, my firstborn son came, peter Joseph, in 23 October
and I was let go from my lastyou know that other was just his
company shortly after.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
So wait, in 20, in 23,?
In 13?
Yeah, I'm sorry, sorry, okay,2013.
You were 23 or yeah?

Speaker 1 (04:10):
2013.
Got it, I got let go started in2014.
So I was, you know, 24 yearsold.
Why'd you get let go?
Crappy employee, pretty much,you know.
Intolerant smoking in theoffice no, it was, you know.
Intolerant smoking in the off?
Now, uh, it was, you know itwas.
You know, just didn't see eyeto eye from the communication I
got.
Um, you know it was a.

(04:31):
It was a peaceful separationand, you know, still in a lot of
respect because it brought meinto the industry and it made me
see the opportunities and thepotential, what could happen
inside yeah, I was gonna make acomment that you clearly made
some bad decisions early in yourlife, like going to Ohio State
University.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I just wanted to find a way to plug that as a
Michigan man I was gonna say sohow did you find freight like?
How did you end up even at the,the first logistics company?

Speaker 1 (05:02):
and that was it.
You know, when I graduated inwhat?
2012,?
It wasn't the best market goingon really out there with
criminology and my dad's aretired police officer.
Even with both those things, Istill didn't make the cut to be
a police officer.
So I was going into theworkforce world with a huge ego,
right after being shot, youknow, and really it was one of

(05:26):
the job offers I got at the time.
Just, you know, I didn't reallyknow what brokers was.
To be honest with you, you know, I walked into the office,
interviewed and I, you know, gota crash course of how the
industry works.
Um, and, and real quick, youknow, I started my, you know, my
life's journey of differentjobs I've had being a coach,

(05:48):
working in construction, projectmanagement, kind of all coming
together and being utilized wellin this industry.
Right, a little bit of grit,problem solving, have to be
confident, have to pick up thephone, have to communicate you
do all these thingssimultaneously really well,
right, and you introduce alittle bit of luck, it can be

(06:12):
that flip, that switch flips andI start to get the itch type of
deal, and that's really whatdrew me into the industry to a
point where I was that young guythat probably is annoying to
the seasoned brokers right,taking the phones at night
saying I'll work the weekendshifts because I was.
I was truly intrigued.

(06:33):
You know I was addicted, but itwas like you know and I still
use the philosophy today themore you do, the more you make,
right.
So, like you know, the morecustomers you call, the more
opportunities you get.
The more quotes you send, themore loads do, the more you make
.
The more customers you call,the more opportunities you get.
The more quotes you send, themore loads you have.
The more time you call carriers, the better rates.
The more time you check on yourloads, the less service issues.
It was like your whole life.

(06:57):
You're taught put in hard workand you'll reap the benefits.
I feel like the logisticsindustry was for the first time
where you put in the hard workand it really does.
You know you can't reap thebenefits.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
I was going to add before you got there that that,
as you said, that the more youdo, the more you make.
It's like the logisticsindustry is the perfect example
of that.
And and one of the reasons Iwas excited about having you on
the show is because I thinkthere are a lot of guys and gals
out there today who are in asimilar position to how you were

(07:35):
12, 11 years ago a young, 23,24 years old coming out of
college.
Maybe they've had their firsttaste of freight in logistics as
a kind of w-2 employee, butthey have bigger ambitions and
they wonder, like, could I startmy own thing?
And here you are, kind of 11years later, being a guy that

(07:55):
started by himself now has likea fully operational, scaled,
successful freight brokerage.
It's, it's cool.
So that's that's one of thereasons I wanted to have you on
the show and kind of uh used youas a source of inspiration for
the uh, the youngins out there Iappreciate that and it is.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
It's, you know, I always say especially at ease,
and you know, I think, from thelineage companies you've worked
out, I think this also alignswell.
It's like if you, if you makeit through the first 18 months
and you're successful, you'regoing to be successful here or
you're most likely going to gobe successful and be the most
successful person at the nextcompany you go to.

(08:33):
If you keep the same qualitiesand work ethic is a great career
path, a great entrepreneurialpath.
But also it's a great firststepping stone for a lot of
people that don't know what theywant to do, because it forces
you to be responsible, forcesyou to communicate, it forces

(08:54):
you to do all these things atthe same time Right.
And then it constantly remindsyou how you have to accept
defeat, learn from it and justmove on quickly.
You got to compartmentalize andjust go, so I think it kind of
puts that rhino skin on you realquick.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, you nailed it to accepting defeat and moving
on quickly with a short kind ofgoldfish-like memory.
To the value of having to do 14things at once and learning how
to prioritize.
To communication skills,because the difference between
an excellent communicator and apoor communicator they can have

(09:41):
the same customers, the sameopportunities, the same workload
and for the excellentcommunicator they're going to
make a lot more money andprobably have to do a lot less
physical work, versus the poorcommunicator who's going to make
a lot less money and have to doa lot more work because you're
constantly playing from behind,the worse you communicate.
And it's really to me, like totake it a step further great

(10:04):
communication it's not even justabout how you personally engage
or, you know, talk to acustomer or to a carrier, but
it's it's almost more so like astep further back is how you set
, how you set expectationsbetween any relationship you

(10:24):
have, whether that's between youand an operations rep on your
team, or you and a carrier repon your team, or you and your
carrier, or you and yourcustomer.
And the example I always try touse is from my own days as a
carrier rep.
I had a bunch of owneroperators that I worked with and
I worked my ass off for them,because I thought that I was

(10:45):
competing with not only everyother broker but even the other
people on my team in that likeif I didn't offer a better level
of service to these guys, theywould give their trucks to
someone else.
And that's still true today.
And so my thought was I'm goingto tell these guys from the jump
here's the thing I expect, xyzout of you.
I expect you to be as guys fromthe jump.
Here's the thing I expect X, y,z out of you.
I expect you to be as on timeas you can be legally.

(11:09):
When you're not on time, I justexpect you to let me know as
soon as possible.
And then, maybe most or asimportant, when shit hits the
fan, I just expect you to workwith me like a partner who wants
to do what's best for both ofus.
Expect you to work with me likea partner who wants to do what's
best for both of us,understanding that sometimes
what's best for both of us isnot best for either of us.

(11:30):
It's kind of meeting in themiddle type deal, but in
exchange for them doing thosethings, I'd be willing to answer
the phone whenever they neededme and if I wasn't available I'd
call them back right away.
I'd always kind of go to batfor them and do whatever I could
to take care of themfinancially and, you know, help
them out of detention situations, whatever it may be.

(11:51):
But setting that stage on thefront end saves me so much time
over the long run of not if acarrier couldn't accommodate
that I wasn't the right fit forthem, but that's like to me,
like a step further oncommunication that can make a
broker's life so much easier.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's huge especially on the carrier side, right, and
I feel like we handle it, or Ihandle very similar setting
expectations.
It was like either we're goingto be on time or there's a no
surprise execution, right.
So like we both don't want tobe late.
But if you tell me you're goingto be late, I can, I can work
with it.
You know, and you find realquick in this industry.

(12:32):
You know we jumped intoautomotive line production as
one of our first customers,right, that's like.
That's like taking yourdriver's ed on the indy 500.
You know, that's a great,that's a great comparison.
You try to fabricate it.
I've seen grown adults crumbletrying to fabricate a story to a
plant manager that has lineproduction costs of 15.

(12:53):
You know what I mean.
You just can't do it.
You know he doesn't care aboutthe story anyways.
Yeah, he doesn't you know, andwhen you possess that internally
, you know you take the samelevel of respect to your
customers as to your carriersand you set those expectations.
It just has that constant flowof respectful communication.
A lot of times people don'tknow where to start.

(13:14):
How do you communicate better?
How do you?
And I always tell people, it'sas simple as respecting people's
time and responding to them andaddressing by name.
You know, I mean, we have someof our customers that we've
worked with for 10 years andwe've deployed truck fleets,
we've have autonomous trucks, wehave all this, you know,
warehouse, and they still say,hey, your response time is why

(13:36):
we love it.
I'm like well, austin, you know, probably could have saved some
money on the other big assets,but it's, you know, I love that.
The the first, you know, thefirst kind of sales pitch is
still working, but it's.
It's so important and that'swhat I, you know, continues to
scare me about the evolution oftechnology in the industry and
where it's being placed Right.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Like because you think it risks losing some of
that.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
I think it challenges it every day.
I mean, I think we're.
How?
How many months away are wefrom carriers being inundated
every day by ai calls askingwhere their trucks are?
You know we're not far fromthat.
You know, and it terrifies mebecause then it's, you know, the
masses that we're fighting withjust to actually get them on
the phone to talk.
And you know ease takes a stancefrom a standpoint of, you know,

(14:26):
humanity executed, but techenabled, right.
So we want to always manage thecommunication between humans
and put all the tech behind usto make us quicker, faster,
stronger.
Yeah, there's time and a placefor certain customers and
carriers that like portals andlike that.
You know I'm not discounting it, Um, but I think the emphasis

(14:48):
on communicate, respectfulcommunication, timely
communication, Um, I mean it's,it's an incredible business tool
where you know you don't needto invest in massive tech stacks
to be able to to execute thatright.
That's a mindset and that's acultural inside those walls,
that if everybody gets on board,it's a, you know, it's a
universal perk for the, foreverybody that works with you

(15:12):
and it attracts customers,carriers and business.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, I think for me.
I think about it through thelens of, like, meeting the
customer where they want to bemet, and by customer I mean the
carrier, I mean the shipper, Imean in some cases, even your
employees, and you bring up aninteresting point around, kind
of the AI bots calling and it'sdefinitely going to we're going

(15:39):
to get to a.
There's going to be a problem,like you know.
There's so many of them comingout and I'm sure the tech will
be good and I've heard the voiceon some of them and it's good
but there's gonna be a point oflike a tipping point where the
carriers are just getting toomany calls and they'll have
their own ai technology thatprobably is doing the same thing

(16:03):
.
It feels like it's going to bea chaotic mess of data.
But I think, as I would thinkabout it, there are going to be
some carriers that maybe evenprefer it for certain things,
where it's like hey, I want,like a dispatcher might want to
have his own AI that just paysattention to if the trucks are

(16:26):
on time and handles all theupdates, because a dispatcher
doesn't want to have to takethat call from one of your ops
guys being like hey, is thattruck going to be on time?
Like he doesn't want to dealwith that, just like your rep
doesn't necessarily want to dealwith making the call asking if
he's going to be on time.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Right, and that that's actually where we've put
it and that's kind of our.
You know, when I sat out and Idrank the juice of AI, you know
actually this past Monday how totaste uh, well, let's start at
first, but now it's veryaddictive.
Uh, you know, it was terrifying.
It's like a Diet Coke.

(17:03):
Yeah, it challenged everythingfor the philosophy that got us
here.
I mean, for the size that we'vegotten.
We're sending handwritten emailupdates 24 hours a day to
customers, big and small, right,so I'm that terrified of losing
that experience.
Call me crazy, I get it, butwhere our focus was is using it

(17:26):
for the outbound compliancecalls and when we're building it
, I was very direct.
It was let it sound like ahuman, but it should be the
experience of like TSA nobodygoes through TSA and be like man
.
That was a great pat down.
I really enjoyed that customerexperience.
You know it's like, are you thedriver that's supposed to be on
the load?
Are you meeting thequalifications to go through?

(17:47):
Right, so it's intentional, butit's required, you know, yeah,
so, like, I feel like that's agood use case because the calls
have to happen right and ai isnot emotional.
So there's no, you know there'sno, all right, waiting on
paperwork, I'll mark you emptyand said you're going there.
Type of deal it's yes or no.
Type of.
You know there's no, all right,waiting on paperwork, I'll mark
you empty and said you're goingthere.
Type of deal it's yes or no.
Type of deal.

(18:07):
You know that is an area wherewe're finding success, right,
I'm terrified to put it anywhereelse right now because, right,
like you said, we both grew upon the ops floor.
We know how much is learned onan inbound call for someone
calling in on a load, or youknow, just from the first couple

(18:30):
of seconds of the tone orwhatever.
You know, and those are allthings that I'm still striving
to get back.
You know, like four years agowe converted to soft phones.
It killed my soul, right?
You don't hear the ring?
Oh my god.
I still.
You know, part of me wants togo hang an old phone up at the

(18:51):
top of the ops floor just tohave it.
You know, like background noise, how could it be applied?
You know, if carriers couldhave their own AI agent when
they called, just to say, hey,we have someone call me, so they
always get, you know the callsalways answered.
I think that's a good way tohave a good meeting round, but
it definitely terrifies me and,uh, I think we're approaching it

(19:15):
in a way that aligns with ourservice and how we want to
continue to handle ouroperations.
But I think about all the time,about these carriers.
Uh, any data, I mean how manycalls.
We all get spam calls.
I can't imagine the shippers,how many they get.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Mm-hmm, are you looking to grow your brokerage?
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
freight as an opportunity, buttoday Cargado exists and that

(19:53):
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.
I've been able to see Cargadogo from ideation to launch to
rapid growth.
It's amazing to see how manylogistics companies have been
able to use Cargado to expandinto Mexico to grow their
business.
Cargado is the first platformthat connects logistics

(20:19):
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-ocom.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's um, it'sgreat, it's changed we, I feel
like we really are at a tippingpoint.
You know, when we look at thelast 11 years of your business

(20:39):
and I do want you to kind ofwalk through some of the early
days, but like there were littleor it feels like there were
impactful changes in theindustry that happened like kind
of in silos, like the eldmandate happened.
I think you were like threeyears into your business at that

(20:59):
point.
That was a big change it was,but it was like siloed and we
all kind of dealt with it as wedid.
There was like the carb out incalifornia, that that whole
thing um a change.
You navigated whatever, butthere weren't like
groundbreaking changes in ourindustry.

(21:19):
You know, the the big one was,I guess, the last couple years
that I thought was really goingto impact how guys like you and
I had to think about ourbusinesses was the API pricing
for kind of real-time dynamicspot quoting.
That was a meaningful changewhere it's like, okay, if I
don't figure out how to bringthis into my business, I'm going

(21:41):
to lose some of my volume fromcustomers.
That was your hand was forced.
What we're entering now withthis kind of age of AI, feels
like it's a very differentchange, because, one, it's not a
required change, it's notsomething that your shippers
aren't like calling you and say,hey, if you don't implement AI,
you're out.

(22:01):
And two, it's completelyuncharted territory where no one
knows what the scaled outcomeof any one of these solutions
might look like.
No one knows what it's going tolook like when you let the AI
call every carrier in yournetwork every day and how
they're going to react to it anyof that.

(22:21):
So it's like you kind of haveto, as an individual business
owner, make these individualbets within your company on.
I think this is going to reactto it any of that.
So it's like you kind of haveto, as an individual business
owner, make these individualbets within your company on.
I think this is going to work.
I think that's going to work.
So I am curious from yourperspective, how are you
thinking about how to deploywhat and when?
It feels like you're kind ofmore on the not skeptical but

(22:44):
apprehensive, or really I guess,if I had to guess and I'll risk

(23:04):
that it won't change it for thebetter, necessarily and that
there may be fall off in serviceand you just can't have that
yeah, I mean, it's like you said, the industry, our industry,
has kept some very age oldthings for a very long time and
then we get some of these right.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
I mean shit I have.
I I think we still have a myfax account.
I might be the only person myfax, I might be the only
customer left, right, uh, but Imean, I think we both remember
faxing packets back.
You know any more data facts.
And now, now ai comes out andwithin two weeks of you know,
comes out.
Then there's all thesedifferent things.

(23:43):
It's hard to keep up.
Um, how we look at it is youknow again, where can we apply
it?
That doesn't impact this,doesn't impact things.
That has got us here.
You know communication, respon,accountability, making sure
that our compliance is high, allyou know.
So where do we focus?
Right, have you know viciouslyattacks and redundant processes

(24:04):
that are taking up time on acall?
Sure, so when I looked at AI,how did we want to start with it
?
Our first benchmark was I wantedeverybody in the ops floor.
If I went out there and askedwho's using AI today, everyone
would raise their hand.
You made a post the other day.
I was going to ask you about it, about everyone's talking about
AI.
Who can show me something?

(24:24):
And I appreciate that.
Ask you about it, abouteveryone's talking about ai,
who's actually who can show mesomething?
You know, um, and I appreciatethat.
I'd be curious, you know onrecord, off record, to see kind
of what the responses kind ofgot, because I feel the same way
, you know.
So our goal when we sat out washow do we get everybody using it
in any capacity?
You know, and that's been ourgoal, and you know, six weeks
ago we launched our first AIaccount manager assistant in our

(24:46):
ops on a Thursday and you know,at noon I walked the ops for
how many people use the AI todaybefore launch 20%.
You know, before launch, notlaunch 20%.
Maybe raise their hand.
You know, next day walked outtire falling, raised their hand
Right and it wasn't auto rating,it wasn't getting in the way of

(25:12):
customers, it was that askingquestions about data that we had
and the communications insideour teams chats went from hey,
what should I pay on this tolook at the carrier rate versus
market rate analysis when webook 72 hours versus 48 hours on
these shipments?
But you know it was like youknow.
So, like how I'm looking at itis, how do we improve just

(25:33):
people's adoption?
And like how they use AI insidethese walls.
And then let let us see themost type of questions that are
being asked and let that be thenext command prompts that we are
writing.
And since we've deployed, we'reup to about a thousand
interactions a day across theops floor.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
So what you're saying is it's less customer facing
and more, currently, a tool togive your people, who are
individuals doing theirindividual job, a better way to
digest data and informationthat's available to them that

(26:10):
without AI they didn'tnecessarily know how to get to
at least as quickly 100%.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
There's no AI between us and the customer.
It's taking every customer datathat we get from inbound email
or data loads on the board andcapacity or account managers can
say you know, what quotes do Ihave or where should I focus?
Do I have any issues?
You know?
You know, give me something totalk to this customer about.
You know, and it's just now,there's, and we've limited it a

(26:39):
little bit and I've toldeveryone with caution, like you
know.
Again, which is a crazy thingthat we have to talk about is
hallucination with technology.
Right, crazy, but it's.
It's.
It's just, I think, gettingeverybody to adopt it and just
get comfortable with this newform of technology, this inner,

(27:00):
truly interactive form oftechnology right that expands
your brain, that challenges thenormal, right.
It's not just like, but let metype in this word, or put in
Excel and it's, it's.
How do it's like making youthink and use technology and
data to actually, you know,instigate motion.

(27:21):
You know it's, rather than justusing data to say this is what
I did, we were successful or not.
It's, this is what we did andthis is what we should do now,
or this is what the trends aretelling us.
Right, and it's really powerfulwhen you start getting a buy-in
on just using it, and I've been, I've been happy with our, with
our approach, and I think theuse cases show that it's you

(27:44):
know, with our approach and Ithink the use cases show that
it's you know, at least it'sworking inside our walls of
getting more buy-in and peopleusing AI every day.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, I mean, I love the way you're thinking about it
, because you made it clear yourintent, which is you want
everybody to taste it and get afeel for it and try it, and in
doing that, there's a couple ofthings that happen.
It and try it.
And in doing that there's acouple things that happen.
One is like curiosity becomeslike a catalyst for opportunity

(28:10):
and development because you knowyou're not giving them like a
hey when you schedule, you mustuse this tool to hit this button
.
That's like more remedial, likeredundant task removal, as you
were talking about, but this ismore of like a how do you engage
with the customer better usingour data today?
And we've now given you a toolso you can ask it kind of dumb

(28:33):
questions and not feel dumb,right, but like you can play,
and you know play is a great wayto get people to.
One be bought in um, but two,what I think it will do is it's
going to give people a chance tostand out.
Like if I'm an employee in yourfour walls right now I'm
thinking how do I become thebest at this?

(28:54):
How do I show that I am able totake this new tool and make the
most out of it for myself interms of my own development, but
also for my customers and mycarriers and, ultimately, for
the business, because, whetherpeople like it or not, this is
becoming a part of the future.
I'm not going to say this isthe future because I don't know,
I'm not saying it's everything,but it will be in most of our

(29:18):
workflows in five years, and thepeople who, in the early days,
showed the most promise and kindof adaptability to navigate it
and leverage it, those are thepeople who are going to be
running the business.
I mean, those are the peoplewho are going to be leading the
new teams and divisions that getstarted up using this stuff.

(29:39):
So I just really like kind ofhow you're thinking about it,
especially in the keeping inmind that it's low risk, right?

Speaker 1 (29:47):
That's it.
It's creative and, like yousaid, we may be losing some
ground on certain areas where wedon't have AI fully deployed,
but we have 100% adoption, maybeon an ops floor.
So it's like you know we'regrooming a team to at least
understand how to use it.
And when I told the ops for Itold him kind of like when we

(30:09):
started this talk, it's like youusing AI every day will make
you successful here and if iteases now your forever career,
it's gonna make you successfulsomewhere else, because this is
where the world's going right.
So, challenging yourself justlike I challenge myself to get
on you know inbound logistics orsomething every day to just
read something you know, it'sthe same thing.
Ask it a question, you know, andit.

(30:30):
And when you start to see thetype of questions I mean, I look
at what it can do and I thinkback, like what we said, the
more you do, the more you make,like what it can do for a
growing account manager forengagement, or how do I talk to
this guy who should I call youknow?

(30:50):
What care should I call youknow?
Like one of our next kind ofphases is how do we increase the
chance of success on the firstoutbound carrier call for a load
by X percent.
You know, because you know aswell as I know that we move that
needle 5%.
That extrapolated by what Imean.
That's why it's like it's, it'shard to even trace back an ROI.

(31:11):
But for people that's been onthe floor of I can, of my
successful book call is thethird call rather than the
seventh call.
You know how much time we'regetting back.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
So it's crazy to me how much time we're getting back
, so it's crazy to me.
That's such a perfect exampleof using this internally to
become more efficient, and itcan't help but go back to for me
, what was 2000,.
I don't know, maybe 2009, 2010,.
I was 19 or 20, working as acarrier rep and coyote had as

(31:43):
good a tools as anyone back thenthen.
But but even then, you know,knowing who to call on a load
for me was an.
I was a sticky notes guy.
I had I had a hundred stickynotes on my desk and rain and
like I just really, yeah, I waslike it was a little bit rain
man where I was like trying torely on my memory.
I'm like, okay, I just saw thiscoke load from atlanta to tampa.

(32:04):
Um, who is it?
Who is the guy I talked to?
Oh, impel logistics.
Where's his number?
Oh, it's over here.
Right, like that's the firstguy I should call because he's
like to think of where.
Where we were then, versus whatyou can do today with the
technology is, um, it'sfascinating and that's, and
that's how you think aboutbuilding that right.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
It's like, hey, remind me of this, you know,
just like those type of reps.
It's like let's just startgetting those all in a box to
make our account managers, ourcarrier reps, so powerful that
the chance of success on theirfirst engagement is so high.
Right, or at least it yieldssomething.
It yields a yes or no, not, youknow.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
What we're trying to do is at least not, you know,
remove empty calls or carriersor customers we shouldn't have
called, or something like that,you know yep, and I just want to
hit one more thing on yourpoint about like feeling like
maybe there's an area whereyou're behind against
competitors in this and and Iwant to say resoundingly, I
don't think that's going to bethe case, because I think I I

(33:09):
think there's a very valuablelesson that people can learn
from uber.
Um, uber came into thisindustry with more resources
than anyone ever has.
No one has ever come into thisspace as a startup with the
amount of financial andtechnical resources that Uber
had, and it wasn't hard for themto get business.

(33:29):
I mean, they called and peoplewanted to hear what Uber had to
say.
Yet, 10 years later, they havea reputation that is not
necessarily one that certainlyyou or I would be proud of in
terms of how you and I thinkabout execution and service,
because for us, the customer isalways first, and making sure
that we deliver on thecommitments we made to them is

(33:50):
like the.
If we said we were going to doX Y Z, then we have to make sure
we do X Y Z.
And I think the fault in Uber'sapproach was their philosophy
was innovate, innovate, innovate, even if it's at the expense of
the customer in the short term,I think in their minds.
In the long run, they werealways going to do what's best

(34:11):
for the customer, but there wasa lot of pain created for the
customer along the way.
Why?
Because technology was thepriority.
And when you make technologythe priority above the simple
execution, what ends uphappening is you deploy a new
technology or deploy a new AItool or this or that, and 60% of

(34:33):
it works, because it's neverright the first time, and the
40% is fallout.
And the people who feel theimpact of the fallout are the
customers.
They're the ones that didn'tget the right information,
they're the ones that didn't gettheir loads picked up up or
they're the ones that get a bidpassed back to them.
I mean, I will never forget aninstance of hearing about an
uber situation where they wonlike a 30 or 40 million dollar

(34:56):
drop trailer award from I thinkit was procter and gamble and
immediately called and gave thewhole thing back and was just
like, yeah, the tech didn't work, it wasn't right and that's
terrifying.
I think that's a perfect exampleof like I would.
I would be in a very bad mentalstate if, if my team was
calling our customers doing that.
I would not be okay.
I would.
I would not have made it right,um, and I think that's why guys

(35:19):
like you and I spend so muchtime kind of insulating our
business with like this.
We know the number one rule isexecution.
Everything has to fit withinthat rule and I'm not just going
to deploy a new AI tool becauseI think in the long run, it's
going to be great if the risk isa deterioration of execution,

(35:39):
and I think that's where a lotof people miss.
And so I don't think you fallbehind by not like being the
first mover on some of thisstuff Right, and that's it.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
It's like it's terrifying to say yes, we want
to.
You know, I actually think Ipicked it up from an old coyote.
Like, talk of, like viciouslyattack redundant processes,
right, like we want to, we wantto do that Right, but we can't
be at the expense of our corevalues and our core, what we
agreed to right.
So like, let's go attack allthe other ones, right, but I'm

(36:13):
losing.
I'm losing an edge on mycompetition because I'm X and
that X entirely challenges, likeyou said, 100% execution, 100%,
be able to stand behind ourcommitments, you know, be able
to get a hold of all thesethings, and that's right now.
That's the risk I'm willing totake.
You know, technology is makingit easier for companies

(36:38):
logistics companies to be good,right, and I think it's making
it harder for people to be greatas well.
You've got to really fosterthat communication as a business
tool by empowering technology.
I think in certain areas weshare the same sentiment.
It terrifies me.
Again, I appreciate theconfidence you have in my
approach.
If we do another one in twoyears we'll see if it was the

(36:58):
right call or not.
I appreciate the confidence youhave in my, my approach.
Let's you know we do anotherone in two years.
We'll see if it was a rightright call or not that's fair.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
I mean to me what I look at it as in terms of what
we're, what you might be missingout on or what you're losing is
you're you're giving up maybesome efficiency in the near term
where it's like, okay, they saythis tool can do X, y, z.
If I were to do it, I canprobably decrease my costs on

(37:29):
that function by 10%.
And so it's like, if I have tochoose between short-term giving
up 10% or X% of my potentialmargin improvement to ensure
that my execution stays at thelevel it needs to, I'm picking
that.
I'm giving that up every timebecause I want to see it play

(37:50):
out first, like I just if everydecision I were making as a
business leader was just focusedon efficiency and margin
improvement.
You run into a point at some,you run into a situation at some
point where it's a trade-offand you're going to have to
sacrifice execution and in anindustry where execution is

(38:15):
really becoming the only thingthat you can sell as how you're
differentiating, it's like Ialways was too scared to put
that at risk.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah, and I think that is going to be like going
back to your post, why someoneshow me AI that's being used
across the entire operation athigh volume right now.
And we're not talking about theAI that's running automation,
like the green screens andNavics, all those that are fully

(38:43):
automated.
We're saying like across theoperation being utilized.
That approach will continue to,I guess, be challenged from
that standpoint.
Just again, it terrifies me tojump over there, give up your
core values at the expense ofsomething that we don't know how

(39:05):
it's going to turn out.
I think this is a good.
I guess the point I was tryingto say is AI right now is a good
example of being a fastfollower, and I think everybody
wants to be a fast follower andthat's why it's like there's not
a lot of arms being raisedsaying, yeah, it's deployed and
we have high volume use acrossthe board here.
Look at all these examples,right, so like it's it's we're

(39:27):
talking to underneath the scenesand I understand because it's
it's it's growing, but I thinkit's AI is one of those.
It's okay to be a fast followerand see how it's working other
places before I go, my corevalues or you know core values
and check.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Attention freight brokers and 3PLs.
Greenscreensai is transforminghow freight professionals price
and quote freight.
With AI-powered pricing andreal-time market intelligence,
greenscreens delivers accurate,reliable predictions to help
stay competitive in a constantlyshifting market.
Whether managing spot rates orlong-term contracts,
greenscreens empowers brokers toquote with confidence and boost

(40:05):
profitability, removing theguesswork from freight pricing
strategies.
Trusted by over 220 brokerages,greenscreen is leading the way
in the future of freight pricing.
And now there's Illuminate,greenscreen's latest product.
Designed to shine a light ondeeper freight market insights.
Illuminate providesunparalleled visibility into
spot and contract freight trends, giving users a clearer view of

(40:27):
pricing fluctuations and marketconditions to inform smarter,
more profitable decisions.
Visit greenscreensai, slash thefreight pod and discover how
Greenscreens and Illuminate canhelp win more business more
profitably.
What's funny about that commentis I actually heard the same
thing from an AI company, and Iheard it through the lens of

(40:50):
somebody who's about to start anAI business.
And what they said?
I was like do you worry aboutbeing too late?
And they were like no, no, no,I like coming in at this point,
I get to see how everyone elseis screwing it up first, and
these guys are the ones that aretaking the chances with these
customers and screwing it up.
And then I'm here to understandwhat they did wrong and apply

(41:15):
it effectively so that we don'thave that problem.
And the thing that I'm hearingis most of these tools still
have too many kinks and it's notto say that they're not
effective in one way or another,but I've heard from a number of
brokers that have fired theirappointment AI company because
they found that it's not anend-to-end solution.

(41:38):
They're not saying, hey, wewill own your appointments for
craft hines.
They're saying we'll try to ownyour appointments for craft
hines, but if there areexceptions, you're gonna have to
handle them right and we'llkick it back to you and welcome
to logistics, where exceptionsare the rule.

(41:59):
That's it.
And one of the things I toldthese guys is like you should
find a way to own the end-to-endexecution.
If I was selling AI to thesepeople, I would not sell myself
as an AI company.
I would sell myself as anexecution company and I would
build the infrastructure withinit so that I have AI supported
by people, which will still becheaper than it would be for you

(42:21):
to have your full-time Ohiostaff scheduling appointments.
And then what I'm selling toyou is that if you give me your
appointments for craft.
You don't have to worry aboutif it's going to get kicked back
to you Because whether thetechnology executes 60% of it
and my people do 40% all youcare about is 100% of the loads

(42:41):
are going to be scheduled whenthey're supposed to be.
To me.
That's how a broker wants tobuy technology because they know
it's going to work, versus likebe a partner with us and like
it'll work sometimes, but likemaybe not other times and we
don't have the staff to supportyou when it doesn't work.
So you have to have your staffkind of flexing from when

(43:05):
they're involved and notinvolved, and that's the
opposite of accountability.
Like you don't want someone,you can't hold your rep
accountable if they get to pointthe finger at the technology
when it doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
And that's that's like.
Our next big focus from, like,the module side is like how do
you, how do we handle theexception management when ai has
a non-compliant or an exception?
Where does it go?
Who, who do we know, got it?
Who's responsible for it?
How do we know it's being takencare of?
You know, um, because it's youknow it's.

(43:38):
It's a little intimidatingjumping into some of these
deeper portals with commandprompts and everything trying to
find the root problem.
You know, and we both know, wedon't want to be on the tail end
of a communication with craftor whatever customer saying why
didn't you pick this PO up?
You know, and I got to send afull truck at my cost because
the robot, you know, didn't knowa J was a J type of shit.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
You know didn't know a J was a J type of shit.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you ever hauled for aMaricold.
I have paid for way too manyone-off PO full truckloads for a
Maricold.
A Maricold is one of the most.
They're not a bad customer, butjust challenging in terms of
their PO structure, where youcould get sent 20 different POs

(44:22):
and it's on you to make surethat they all end up on the
truck.
If you show up to the warehouse, they're not.
They don't care how many POsthey load you with.
They're going to load you withwhatever POs you ask for, and
that's it's really important toget that right.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, One of those feelings, the last feelings of
the war, when you like, you knowit immediately, damn it.
There's not even a debate aboutit.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
No, you know you're not charging.
You just go check what the rateis.
You're like what did I justgive away Three grand from
Atlanta to Boston right now.
Wonderful, Send it Revenue zero, exactly.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Put it on the house count Yep.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
That's funny, all right, well, let's, we've, we've
dove.
We dove headfirst into ai.
So I appreciate you giving melike 20 minutes on that.
Um, I do want to kind of, Iwant to give my listeners some
understanding of kind of how youdid it, and when I say how you
did it I mean like your 10 years, and how big is the business
today?
I forgot to ask you that.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
Uh, from revenue side wise yeah, around 220.
On the logistics side, um aboutjust over, you know, depending
the last couple years, you know315 to 340 in top line.
Um, I know the expedited to thefleet and warehouse side, about
50 to 60 people on that sideand revenues around 25 to 30.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
What is the fleet and warehouse side?
What is that function of thebusiness?

Speaker 1 (45:55):
So it's still under E's, it's E's expedited and it's
subsidiary.
We got asset fleettransportation and we have
operated three warehouses.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Oh wow, Why'd you choose to get into that business
?

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Go in the role of listening to customers and
trying to get more sticky withthem.
And I just think, as alogistics provider now and
moving into the future, you know, now that we've got the AI talk
behind us, I think companiesthat will continue to grow are
companies that harness theability of multi-solutions, and
I think assets will continue tobe increasingly important.

(46:33):
And, you know, not saying wewant to go own a massive
trucking company or own 5million square feet, but knowing
how to navigate it and operateit and have the ability to scale
one if we need to, I think isvery important.
So it's uh, it got us into itabout five years ago.
Um, you know, the fleet sidereally started as one straight

(46:56):
truck and a couple trailers justto infuse in some drop trailer
and I was seeing what I was likepaying drop trailer loads.
I was like shit, I'm gonna getsome trailers and I broke the
cardinal rule, jumped over it,you know like I like it though.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it'sthe right move it had, it's,
it's, it's come to be that wayand I agree and I'm happy we did

(47:16):
it, because it makes you knowthe tools on our belt for our
account managers and ourselves,team, to offer to customers,
make us more sticky right and beable to do those things.
But it also just expands ourinternal capabilities of how we
use our resources.
You know it's like in acompetitive business.
You know, if I have oneresponsibility as my position is

(47:40):
to equip our team with all theresources they need to be
successful 100, you know 100.
So giving them access totrailers, give them access to,
hey, let's cross stock or let'sstart pitching warehouse, um, it
grows you as a company as well,you know, and it pushes us.
So again, it's, you know, totell you that just ease, have
some ambition to be a massivetrucking company.

(48:00):
No, uh, right, uh, havetrailers to support our
customers needs.
Right, have power units, youknow, position them and do some,
you know, full distribution.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
I think it's a good play there yeah, you don't want
to be a massive trucking company, but you do want to be a
massive logistics company, Ithink, and you can't do well,
maybe you can do it without thatstuff, but it's a lot easier to
do it with it.
And you know, I always comeback to.
I spent so much time in my rolejust thinking about the

(48:30):
interaction between a sales repand a prospect and just the
conversation and like what doesmy team have to sell?
And maybe more importantly oras important, what are they
selling against?
What does the competition looklike?
And I felt like I was kind ofalmost the guy in the pool.

(48:52):
What do they say?
The guy in the ocean when thetide comes in and he's swimming
naked?
I've heard that one.
And all of a sudden you're juststanding there naked.

(49:17):
I haven't heard that one.
If you're just a transactionalbroker, he thinks you won't
exist.
And I think it's important todefine transactional because to
me, transactional broker is apure spot broker.
That's just kind of supportingyou on the spot market.
There's no depth, there's noteven like contract rates that
you own, and I don't see howthose companies survive long

(49:39):
term.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
It challenges me as well.
He's been fortunate how we'vegrown about 65%, 70% of our
business dedicated and that'skind of always been our focus.
We're a split model as well, sowe don't have the massive floor
of cradle to grave which, again, it works for some and it just
it's never been our, you know.

(50:05):
You know, bring people in tofocus on certain tasks.
I think, like you said, it's a.
It would terrify me because Iremember at one point ease was
all spot and that's a terrifyingit's, it's, it is, you know
it's like, and a lot of it wasautomotive too.
So it's like you know it's,either I miss it or I shut it
down, I'm screwed either way.

(50:25):
You know, um and it's, but itdoes force excellence.
And then if you take thatexcellence and know how to
convert spot into strategic orenterprise right, then I think
that's the sweet spot.
And, like you said, it comeswith execution.
But then it comes to how do youget more sticky with customers?

(50:46):
Right, I was.
You know what's the cardinal,you know what's the biggest
feedback that sells get fromprospects right, asset, way, you
know, and I always tellourselves represents should be a
two-part conversation.
The different, you know, thedifference between us and asset

(51:07):
is.
I don't have the reason to tellyou why I didn't pick up the
load outside of greed, right.
And if you still only wantasset, let us see what your
opportunities are and we'll seeif it makes sense for our fleet
on there, right.
But I, you know, from astandpoint of wanting to make
sure that we honor ourcommitments at all times, which
that's what's made us successful, it would be doing a customer a

(51:29):
disservice to say, let's onlysay this truck, because this
truck doesn't show over mydriver's sick.
I want to be able to, I want tobe able to cover my commitments
at my cost, because it's when wesigned up.
You know, on on the flip side,customers, they provide
opportunities, but there's noexpectation for them to have to
give you margin.
I always tell ourselves that'slike for us to create, you know.

(51:52):
So you know customers canprovide opportunities.
You got to provide service, youknow you got to create your own
margin, but then you got tofigure out a way to get sticky
and it's it's hard, and it'sit's hard in a very
transactional world, world, likeyou said.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Oh, yeah, you know especially because there's
there's a you know the oldserenity prayer, you know the
idea that, like, there arecertain things that are within
your control and that's what youhave to focus on, and then
there are things that are not inyour control.
And one thing that I've alwaysfound to be true in our industry
is, every year your customerstake a position, it's either we

(52:33):
are reducing the number ofcarriers we're working with,
which is usually what it feelslike it is, or it's we're adding
a few, very specialized, if itreally makes sense, but like
ultimately it's not in yourcontrol.
If you get that call from ashipper who says like hey, just
fyi, we're looking at downsizingour network from 200 to 150 or

(52:55):
from 50 to 30, right, but whatis within your control is like
your position within thatcompany over time and how the
services you provide develop,create that stickiness and it is
way less likely for you to getthe cut.
If you're entrenched in theirbusiness across three different
modes, if you've got somewarehousing you're supporting,

(53:17):
if you're doing some of theirexpedited and you've got
contractual over the road volume, you're in such a better spot I
use spot on purpose than theguy who does five spot loads a
week and he just lives on theportal.
Does he have less risk than you?
And that's what a lot ofbrokers want.
Is less risk?
Sure, but like that's.
That's.
That's like a different problem.

(53:38):
And you know, I always lookedat contract freight as insurance
, like you have to have it andif you don't when the tide comes
in, like it would have been areally hard time for you the
last year as this tariff stuffstarted to be just a purely spot
automotive player.
I mean, you probably would havehad to lay off a ton of people.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
It's brutal and it and it also materially
challenges where we want to beas a company to carriers.
I don't want to be the one thatoffers carriers $145 to start
their truck.
It's like it's just not ourmodel, you know.
But it's, you know, like goodfreight is earned and like great
customers are retained withexecution, and I think that's
just like it's proven in everysize customer.

(54:19):
You know it's like, yes, weunderstand the customers will
always, there'll always be aprice driver.
We get it.
But, um, when we get, you know,internal feedback, this customer
it's hard to, you know, to landloads or, uh, you know, get
good margin on it.
I always say, look, I I'malways hiring people that can

(54:40):
find customers that have the 20%margins right off the rip, you
know.
But always those are great, I'malways, you know, unicorns, yep
, but until then you got to goprove and you got to earn it.
You got to earn the trust andyou know you get opportunities
and then it's on you to make themargin All right.
So, yeah, you to make themargin right.

(55:01):
So yeah, and it's it is again,as we move forward the future,
like I said, it's easier forlogistics companies now to be
good, but the heavy transactions, you know.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
That's why we really try to focus on getting more
sticky, more strategic with ourcustomers, but also our
solutions was automotive anintentional focus early on, so
you just didn't realize what youwere signing up for and then
that was all you knew.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Well, the mindset behind it was right.
I liked the industry becauseopportunities are plentiful.
So also where we are located.
You know we're we're kind of inthat automotive.
We're definitely in theautomotive pipeline, right, and
we got a massive OEM just rightoutside the city.
So just having that exposure.

(55:50):
We're wanting to grow right andlearn best practices.
If you get the opportunity lineproduction automotive forces
you to do it.
It builds excellence.
It builds 100 gps compliance.
It builds 100 sla.
It builds a true 24 7 serviceright.
The other attraction to it was Idon't have.

(56:11):
It was me and myself, right, um, and I can't, I'm not, I can't
go compete with a lot ofcompanies at that point.
So how am I going to grow?
So if I'm going to service anindustry that has continuous
opportunities 24-7, right, mycompetition is sleeping, I can
continue to kind of itch thatrevenue up to get more people on

(56:32):
.
So you know there was.
It was a combination of theattraction to it just because of
where I'm located, right, butalso that continuous opportunity
of round the clockopportunities and what I was
noticing from my experience ofthe you know the other company I
was at not saying that theypractice this way, but just from
the companies I learned while Iwas.

(56:53):
There was a lot of the largestcompanies out there, right, they
had 24, seven, but they weremore just track and trace right,
full execution at two in themorning to get quote truck

(57:19):
booked.
All that I think.
Maybe you agree or not.
I don't think it's as plentifulas everyone makes out to be
when they say we have two 24-7right and shots fired
potentially across the wholeindustry.
So I apologize, but you know, uh, you know I started a company
so let me be ambitious.
Um, but that was it and welearned a lot.
You know, when you learn,response time is important and
again, you cannot dispatch atruck without it being on gps.
You know.

(57:40):
I mean, we've had people comefrom other companies and think I
think it's wild that our gpscompliance is a hundred percent
and that's the daily expectationyou know, yep, but it, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
It does seem crazy, as someone who was never an
automotive, that that, likeknowing my own experience, we
struggled with that.
So I get um and it's wild.
It would be surprising me towalk into a brokerage and them
to be like we're at 100% GPStracking compliance.
I would just be like I thinkyou're lying, I think you're
manipulating.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
I know and I'm always up for the fax checks on that
and we do it after.
But it's one of those things.
You have a few of those callsand you need to know exactly
where the truck is.
You're born in those momentsand that's where all of our

(58:28):
processes have been born andgrown.
Is preventing those type ofsituations where where's the
truck and I can't answer itright away, so it takes five or
seven more minutes or it couldpossibly be rebooking the whole
truck, but in the moment whenyou need it it's exponentially.

(58:48):
You know better and those arewhen best customer, best
customer moments are are formed.
I mean I remember it was likenine months in of doing uh mine
automotive and it was uh in thewinter and from Misagwita down
here close to Columbus, 294miles, truck got stuck on

(59:09):
Ambassador Bridge because ofsnow.
I had sent email updates everyfive minutes.
I mean when I had to go down tothe plant to explain because
the line shut down.
I mean I had 40 pages of emailupdates every five trucks one
mile.
I had 40 pages of email updatesevery five trucks one mile.
And that was a.
That was like a turning pointin the relationship, I would say
, because they even said come inthese meetings and some there's

(59:32):
no communication, that we hadno updates, right, and all I had
.
You know, I didn't have anyfancy technology, I literally
had printed out just our emailchain.
Great, I didn't know what a 5Yor other shit was.
But you go through a couple ofthose and then you take that
automotive service and thoseexpectations and you apply it to

(59:52):
the food and beverage or CBGindustry and you know it gets
eaten up when they say you'regoing to honor your commitments,
you're going to be available,you're going to honor your
commitments, you're going to beavailable, you're going to have
true operations, right, you'regoing to follow through with
what you say.
And it kind of grew us in thoseindustries At.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Molo we built a great company and 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
Ryan and the team at Metaphora.
They've consistently deliveredvalue in the transportation and

(01:00:36):
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 to solveproblems we simply couldn't on
our own.
Metafora is the only partneryou should trust to help you win
, whether that's doing ops andtech diligence, growing revenue,
optimizing spend or selectingand building software.

(01:00:58):
Go check them out atMetaforanet.
That's M-E-T-A-f-o-r-anet.
Yes, it's, it's your commentaround 20.
I love that story and I I'mgoing to share a similar one.
Um, but the comments around 247.
I do believe that, like yousaid, it's almost like it's not

(01:01:18):
really 24 7 and and I was inthat camp where it's like we had
people who could answer thephone at 1 o'clock in the
morning but they couldn't solvea problem.
So how do you set up thestructure to really solve the
problem.
One of my first big accounts asa sales rep when I was like 23

(01:01:40):
was Lasership, the East Coastpackage delivery company, final
mile delivery company, and wehad dedicated lanes from
Charlotte to Tampa and Charlotteto Miami.
Every night at 2 am they pickedup and they delivered straight

(01:02:00):
through.
It was like 600 miles orsomething like that and they
would deliver at 2 pm with teamsand if at 2 am the driver
hadn't shown up, I was getting acall on my cell phone and there
was no other solution to handlethis because I couldn't ask the
after hours team that wasmaking I don't know 15 bucks an
hour to like solve the problem.

(01:02:21):
Because this guy was callingand if the truck wasn't there
and I didn't know why, he wasmother effing me and cause in
their minds it was like it'sit's not one truck, every truck
has 2000 packages and if itdoesn't make it in time for the
sort, then those 2000 packagesall don't deliver that day,
which means that 2000 people hadmissed deliveries.

(01:02:41):
So I ended up eventually, Ithink, giving up the business
Because my girlfriend at thetime was like you can't keep
taking calls at 2 am everymorning.
But I didn't have a bettersystem.
I didn't know how to build asystem that was better.
It was just a sales rep at thetime and my point in this is
like this was at Coyote, we wereas a top brokerage.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
This was at Coyote, we were a top brokerage but even
then we didn't have systems inplace to represent 24-7
problem-solving coverage.
It's hard, it's not just wefound it and broke down and tell
them it's, find a recovery,find a cross-doc, take 24

(01:03:25):
pallets off to the side oftennessee road, you know, and
get it going.
It's not like you can't justsay, hey, it broke down, I'll be
there at eight, like it's.
It's like uncomprehensible onhow that's received on the other
side.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
It's like yeah, not no, you know yeah, uh, can you
explain that a little bit, justbecause just for my audience
that doesn't understand, maybeautomotive, like what are the
expectations and then what arethe ramifications when you are
late and the line shuts down,and what are the cost
ramifications?

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
I'd love to just yeah , I mean it's, it's a high
expectations at all times.
It's no fail, right.
You know, uh, the oems that youknow we support, specific to
this.
You know their inventory,what's on?
These trucks are going rightoff the trucks right out being
plugged into plants.
These plants have 5,000, 5,500people working.

(01:04:12):
There's a cost per minute,there's a cost per hour and
there's production and there'spost-production.
When you shut down and you'relate with a, with production
parts, it's not just well, youknow, go start another line that
you know the entire line start,all the way back to the new
white bodies coming in, right.
So when you talk about what'sthe expectation, it's no fit.

(01:04:35):
You know our motto is don'tshut down the line at all costs,
right, like, no matter what.
Don't shut down the line,whatever it is.
I mean we've set up helicopters, we've sent jet.
They're not jet ski snowmobiles.
I mean you don't shut it downbecause the the math is, if it's
10 000 bucks a minute, 5 000bucks a minute, right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
And that's what it is right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
It's the numbers of that astronomical if you fail
right, and depending on whatplanet is and what line, if it's
line one, production at the,you know, the main OEM that's
doing 6,500 cars or something,right, I mean you could get up.
You know 12,050.
I mean it gets it, gets there,right, so it, when you, when you

(01:05:16):
are in that environment right,you, environment you can't just
say we're gonna just handle ittomorrow.
You got to solve it.
So those expectations and it'sthey need to know when you're
gonna talk to me next.
What's your plan of action?
How are you gonna recover it?
What are you gonna do If youshut down online?

(01:05:36):
It's depending on the agreementand the contract, those costs,
can you do the math?
You know, take it at fivedollars a minute or five
thousand dollars a minute, right, yeah, I mean when you start
it's astronomical.
I mean it really sounds like oneload can destroy a year's worth

(01:05:56):
of profitability on an accountand and the biggest, the you,
one of the biggest drivers ofhow you handle it too.
Again, what's put on the to theside that we all understand
that you got to have soundprocesses and compliance right
Is communication.
I learned that from that sameplant manager that ran me

(01:06:18):
through the ringer, but my emailupdates started right Was when
you tell me I can do things.
I can.
I can call an early lunch or Ican repurpose the line you know
the line to maybe do a facilityclean.
Right, so they have theseability to get you more hours,
right.
So you are super proactive.
And you're super proactiveright.
And that is to the point of, ifyou see it, if you saw a pain

(01:06:42):
there three times in a row, whydidn't you call them type of
deal?
Every minute counts.
So you learn to be so proactive.
And so, on top of it, thatthose things like being 100% GPS
compliance, you start to justsay fuck it, it has to happen.
Right, you know it has to right.
Say it has to happen, right,you know it has to right.

(01:07:08):
So, yeah, I mean it's, itforges you in fire and the
expectations are high.
Um, but again, I think itreally instills good core
processes that are that aretransferable to all industries.
Right, I know that there arefood and beverage customers that
are that are hard to work withjust by their demand and CPG and
all that, but I think that ifyou're successful in line
production automotive, it's verytransferable to other

(01:07:30):
industries, just from anexpectation standpoint.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Yeah, I mean I would you know.
Again, I'm always kind ofsitting in the camp of how would
I be selling this business tocustomers and how would I sell
it to prospects?
You know you could go, youcould walk into pretty much any
shipper and if you're spendingyour time telling your stories
of your experience in automotiveyou're instilling confidence in

(01:07:57):
them that you can support theirfreight Sure.
I mean, it's just a very youknow, if I go in there and I'm
telling stories of hauling paperrolls that have two weeks to
deliver, I'm not necessarilyinstilling a ton of confidence
that I've built an operationthat can handle the hardest of
hard.
But no, I think that's reallyinteresting.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
It is and it just teaches you.
You know more on themanufacturing supply chain, that
how it trickles over to all theother industries Right, and
because it's not just to theplant, you have to remember the
racks that brought the parts andalso have to get back to the
supplier so they can put theparts back on the racks and get
back on Right.
So every, every way is important, right, and it's just.

(01:08:37):
And then you see, when you knowautos have their plan shutdowns
and when production's low Ithink maybe because we're, I'm
so in tune with it I see howthat impacts the.
You know the national capacity,right, when they take their
three-week shutdowns mid-yearand at the end of the year.
Right, we see that.

(01:08:59):
And I see all this opencapacity going on because all
the autos are down and you getall these.
You know you have to think someof these plants are running
6,500, you know for 5,000 matchper route today, right, a day
like shuttle to shuttle, andthat stops for three weeks.
You got all these drivers thatare hitting the market and all
that stuff.

(01:09:19):
So it's very interesting onceyou start seeing how the
manufacturing ripple effectacross multiple industries plays
a part there too.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
I'm curious to talk about that for a second.
If we zoom out and think morethematically around the reading
the market in general andunderstanding where capacity is
going, where demand is like, howdo you guys evaluate the market
and evaluate kind of if, ifwe're going into, if, if things

(01:09:54):
are changing, if things areturning for the better?
Like you know, it's hard to bea company like yours that is
kind of committed to executingon the things you promise, when
in an industry where the onlything that's guaranteed is that
the price of the truck fromtoday to tomorrow to a month
from now is likely to change,whether it goes up or it goes

(01:10:17):
down, and you just can'tnecessarily make that same
change on your contractual ratesif they're 65 to 70% of your
business.
So it's really important foryou and your team to be in tune
with the market in a way thatyou can effectively price
freight, and I'm just curioushow you think about that because
it's a really interestingchallenge.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Yeah, I mean I think we use I know we use a lot with
you know we we see our pre-bookpercentage on dedicated and we
see how that gets challenged,right.
So once we start seeingpre-book drop to you know 60%,
let's say on dedicated, we start.
You know that's kind of likefuture looking, that we can
start seeing All right, and whyis this happening?
So it raises some alarms.

(01:10:57):
We see our spot conversionsstart to you know drop under 40%
.
Let's say that's typically allright.
Do we need to tweak our ratesor we're not keeping up with the
market?
Some of the outside factorsthat we look at are
customer-specific, especiallyfor automotive is what is their

(01:11:17):
success rate to productionschedule?
How many consecutive weeks havethey been at 90% or more than
the planned production schedule,right?
How many routes are theycanceling?
Another big one for us is whenwe start seeing flatbed
capacities start to increaseinto T1 suppliers and OEMs right
, because that means we'restarting to see some investment

(01:11:38):
in retooling, right.
So that typically thinks thatwe're going to see a spike in
production when we start seeingthose investments On the
automotive side.
We take that into considerationas well for 45 day projects or
six month mass pro projects typeof deal.

(01:11:58):
A lot of that can transfer justfrom a general capacity side.
Some of the food and beverageright, I think temperature
capacity is just so crazy.
Since kov, like you know, I I'veI told you that I that I, our
indicators are 100 accurate.
We both know I'm full of.

(01:12:20):
You know what it has challengedus, though, since COVID, and I
think we've done a good job ofactually being this far, and
that's the first time we've saidthe word COVID yeah Right, you
brought it up, I didn't, butwe've we've evolved a lot of
this company.
We have some great brains here,and you know some guys that you

(01:12:41):
know that are very passionateabout freight that are really
challenging us on how we look atdata and how we apply data, um,
and it's again we a mix ofgreen screens, external market
rates, but it's really our goalis establishing that ease rate
and how we're buying into themarket.
Um, so I could tell you it'swhen we see lumber go up.

(01:13:02):
I could tell you that you knowcopper and all that, but right
now, all those, a lot of thoseyou know off the bean path
indicators have been somaterially challenging the last
couple years like I'm factchecking them every single day,
you know what's your generalthesis on when things start to

(01:13:24):
pick up or if we've still got along way to go?
I love that question, you knowfrom the feedback that I get
Look into that crystal ball.
Right.
I think that we're going tocontinue.
I think you know June and Julywere pretty challenging, just
from you know, continued bottomrecession.

(01:13:46):
Again you have an extendedshutdown for auto.
I think this year will continueto be pretty challenging.
I think we'll see a spike upback to school.
I do think that you know mid Q1is going to start to start
seeing some some role, some somethunder, and I really think
that's going to be right.
Again, I'm using a lot ofautomotive but I know that there

(01:14:08):
are OEMs coming out with 27 newmodels next year.
I know that they're startingnew plants and I've seen the
commitment.
I've seen Like.
So, like you know I for howmuch I want to say tomorrow,
I've accepted it.
Temper expectations, yeah, butagain, I think, for the
companies that have been aroundfor a minute, we've all learned

(01:14:31):
how to navigate in this bearishkind of market and we've really
focused on preparing for thebull market, so to speak.
So we've made changes.
I across the industry since youknow 22.
You've seen a lot of kind ofrestructuring of how companies
look at, how they operate.
Right, we've all gone a lotsmarter.

(01:14:52):
We've all for the fortunateones that were able to figure it
out and I know there was a lotof unfortunate situations as
well.
But being able to navigate thislong in this type of market, I
think, and preparing for, youknow, the bullish market to come
up, I think it's it's been agood learning.

(01:15:13):
Very long, very long learningcurve, but I think it's making
this long learning very wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
I gotcha, what would.
What would you say has beenlike how do you keep the team
motivated in in this type ofmarket?
Like, what kind of things canyou do to, I don't know keep the
fire lit in the belly?

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
yeah, I mean it's, you know, ease.
We're very fortunate here andyou know not to continue to
reference, but I love doing itbecause I it is one of the
companies I look up to Coyote2012, 2019, there's a swagger
inside these walls where peopleare super proud.
I got a lot of feedback.

(01:15:54):
That's how it was back in the.
I never made the cut to even beconsidered by Coyote, so I
don't know, but I've been told,probably that Ohio State degree.
I think of of what?
But there's a swagger.
So I think there's the swaggerof ease that keeps a lot of
positivity going on.
But I also think introducingsome technologies like we did
you know the the amy, ai, umgetting people excited about new

(01:16:17):
solutions like expanding fleetor warehouse, just letting them
see a continued investment ofthe company growing and
preparing for it, keeps them upAt the end of the day.
Nobody likes seeing losers ondedicated and 3% margin.
It does wear you out, but iteven goes all the way back to

(01:16:37):
our investment in 24-7.
You know like 25% of ourcompany domestically is support
8 pm to 8 am, right, so likeit's….

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
Wait, 25% of the company domestically works 8 pm
to 8 am.
Mm-hmm, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
Mm-hmm.
So we do a four-day, mondaythrough Thursday, team second
and third.
Then we run three, or what isit three or four tens Friday,
saturday, sunday, yep, right,wow, second, third.
Yeah, that's different.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
I mean, that's different.
I'd be selling the shit out ofthat.
I do, I do.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
Trust me, I sell the shit out of it and I think for
all the shippers listening youneed to listen to, andrew, how
amazing that is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Call us at 1 am.
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
But no, I think also these are the times where you
really need to make sure thatpeople can have that work-life
balance.
When you're beating your headagainst the wall all day and it
is very frustrating and for themto know, like, look, I can put
my phone down and if it'sabsolutely critical, right, I'll
get called, but there's a goodchance our support is going to
be able to handle it as well,right?
So, like, you got to take thesmall wins.

(01:17:53):
You know, putting points on theboard every day is kind of how
we look at it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
Just like small wins.
You know, maybe we didn't hitour margin number today, but
look well, you know we improvedthree more processes or
something.
Yep 100, I'm with you.
What would you say has been thehardest test you've had to deal
with in the time that you'vebeen at ease?

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
oh, you know, started in a hard market in 2014 and
then, um, you know, had ups anddowns, then figured out, you
know, navigated the C wordthrough that, um, you know,
through the growth spurt of thefollowing years.
You know, 22, 23,.

(01:18:37):
You know, uh, 23,.
You know, uh, we grew, um, butyou know, compression across the
industry.
So, um, you know, I'm real lifedecisions to make and it's some
of the hardest decisions youhave to make is when you have to
100% put your business hat on,because it's such an emotional
business, like you expect, whenyou start and you're out on the

(01:19:01):
ops floor and you see you'reworking like shoulder to
shoulder with everybody that'shelping you run this company
right.
It's such a ridiculous change,like the.
You know that no one you can'tbe prepared for then have to go
into a room and act to put abusiness hat on and be like I
have to make decisions based onnumbers because it's just, it's

(01:19:23):
the reality of the situation,you know, and it's you know that
was something that having tomake decisions that you know
have to part ways with somepeople based on decisions that I
allowed, and you know I alwaystake 100% responsibility and uh,
it is, there's, there's blowsto your ego, and then there's

(01:19:44):
that, and it's something younever, ever want to, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever have todo.
So being more in tune with howimportant it is to hold people
accountable.
Being in tune with, obviously,if we have continued margin, uh,
compression is the companystructured in a way that it can

(01:20:07):
support and how?
You know, so you know, learningthat in in real life situations
over the last couple years, um,it's definitely hard, it's hard,
it's the it's, it's the hard,it's the hardest thing and it's
I wish, I don't wish, becauseit's definitely hard, it's hard,
it's the it's, it's the hardest, hardest thing and it's I wish.
I don't wish, because it's I.
I don't think I could be thatdisconnected, but it's, it's so

(01:20:30):
hard to just put that businesshat on.
You know, it's like every day,when I wake up, before I go to
bed, I think about.
It's not just my kids, all the,it's everybody that's helping
us move the ship forward, typeof deal, right?
So you know, like I said,there's ego blows and there's
that, and it's at a core level,so deep that it materially

(01:20:50):
changes how you operate.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
Yeah, you talk about how emotional the business is,
about how emotional the businessis, and I think that I think
one of my flaws as the CEO wasallowing my emotion to drive too
many decisions sometimes andtrying to save someone pain

(01:21:16):
whether it was my ego or anemployee by not doing what the
business necessarily needed, butmore so trying to appease again
either my own ego or theirlivelihood or whatever.
I think that there weremistakes I made and somebody
told me this quote the other daythat they live by Now it's

(01:21:41):
stick to the plan, not your mood.
And it like really struck homewith me like huh, if every time,
because like it's, it's, it's agrounding, it feels like it's a
really good grounding techniquebecause when you're
clear-headed, it's easy to tostick to the plan.
When things are in chaos, whenthings are emotional, that's

(01:22:07):
when you can't necessarily trustwhere your brain is taking your
decision-making.
It's like how people say youshould never make a decision
when you're angry, becauseliterally, when you're angry,
there's a physiological changein your body where your blood
all rushes to your head and thenit becomes almost impossible to
clearly think um and makedecisions and so like, if you

(01:22:29):
can, if I can get myself toground in those moments and
remember like stick to the plan,not my mood, like my mood tells
me I want to help this personor make this choice because
it'll save my ego or whatever,but the plan, the plan we've
been working on for 10 years.
We put blood, sweat and tearsinto the plan and if I, if I
deviate from the plan to appeasemy ego or to appease this

(01:22:51):
person or my mood, I'm giving upa lot of hard work that brought
us here I know it's, it's yeah,that's a great way to put it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
It's like the confidence that allows us most
likely to be in these positionsis the same confidence that
challenges us to accept defeat,you know, and it's not so much
like look, like we say we'vebeen in brokerage, we can accept
defeat and move on.
It's one of those things youknow.
It's like at those such highlevels where I can figure it out

(01:23:20):
Right and yeah it it's, you'reright, you get so cloudy because
you just don't.
It's, you know it's the fear of.
You know it's like fear ofsuccess and fear of failure,
both equally as big right, likethey're both terrifying and

(01:23:40):
they're both hard to navigateand they're both hard to manage.
And there's not a, there's notany business book at least that
I've come across I can equip youfor those situations at the
most extreme, right, and it'slike a lesson learned and, god
willing, you take it intoconsideration and apply it Right
so you never, like I said, saidyou never be in that position

(01:24:02):
again.
Um, but it's, yeah, it's, it's.
It's a hard-fought fight, butit's.
I think what also attracts meto is just because of the
emotional side of of logistics,of how much teamwork there is
there too, so it's like it'sit's a double-edged sword there.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
I I don't know if I could be in this industry where
I know we wouldn't be where weare today if it was not a
personable business, or whether,like we didn't have humanity in
our, in our core, you know yeahso because, because, like
that's what carries you throughthe really really hard moments
like this business getsgruelingly challenging at times

(01:24:44):
in the down markets, when theopportunities aren't coming in
and you're sitting looking atyour P&L and it doesn't look how
you want it to and there's noquick answers.
But being able to turn andrealize there are people to your
left and right who are in itwith you, willing to go to the
ends of the earth with you,because they believe in you and

(01:25:05):
what you all are doing, that'swhat carries you from one day to
the next when everything elselooks darkest.

Speaker 1 (01:25:11):
It's what gets me up every day, right, well, my kids
and my wife it's.
It's it's like the confidencethat people have in me that come
in to help us move forward is Iwill do anything in the world
every single day.
You know that's.
You know.
I would like to say I don'tgolf because it's I'm not good
at it, but it's also it'sbecause I want to be here and I

(01:25:31):
want to always drive us forward.
You know it's like, and I Ilove what I'm doing.
I'm very fortunate to haveamazing, smart people around me
to help do it.
I think, like you said, we're atthe cusp of this industry where
, for all the things we talkedabout type of solutions, ai
right, like it's super excitingright now, right.

(01:25:53):
And if you got your thumb onthe pulse and you have the right
team, and if you've been ableto weather the last couple of
years, I think that, you know,depending on the model of your
company, I think we're we're ingood spots.
You know.
I think there's a there's a lotof fun to be had in heartache,
but fun to be had in theupcoming years.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
I'm with you.
I'm excited to see it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
As my don't think about it every day.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
Well, listen, man, this has been great.
I appreciate you giving mealmost 90 minutes of your time
and telling me more about yourstory and how you've built this
awesome company.
Any parting thoughts for ouraudience?

Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
Well, just first off, I appreciate you and what you
do on this podcast of bringingshippers and suppliers and
vendors and everybody togetherand, like we said, I just had a
minute ago, like reminding thehumanity aspect of the industry,
so I think it's super coolthere.
Any last words If you need anytransportation or warehouse or

(01:27:04):
logistics services, please reachout to east logistics.
We're 24 7.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
yeah, you are that's all we got folks, thank you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. #74: Peter Coratola, President, CEO, & Founder, EASE Logistics

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Ep. #74: Peter Coratola, President, CEO, & Founder, EASE Logistics

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal