Ep. #75: Chris O'Brien, President, Sunset Armada Holdings

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
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(01:28):
Welcome back to another episodeof Free.
I have not said those words in along time.
I've taken off maybe about twomonths of recording, and um I
almost spent a ton of timeexplaining why.
I let me just say I got a littlefrustrated with the process of
this, the commercialization ofit, the number of inbound people

(01:49):
treating it like it's amarketing tool for their
business and just telling melike I should get to go on
because this other person wenton, and our business is better
than them.
And once you start to feel usedis is once I start to feel used,
I um I withdraw.
So I took a little bit of timeoff.
Um and I'm back now doing thisbecause I want to do it and
because I find people like myguest today very interesting and

(02:12):
their stories interesting.
And uh so that's why we're heretoday.
And my guest today is Mr.
Chris O'Brien.
Welcome to the show, Chris.
How are you doing?
Thanks a lot, Andrew.
I'm great.
Glad to be uh part of your uhwelcome back to the podcast
world.
Thank you.
Um, and you know, this is gonnabe interesting for a number of
reasons.
I, you know, just a quickbackstory on Chris's career.

(02:33):
He spent 31 years at the CHRobinson, um, which is a company
that is I find fascinating and Ihave yet to be able to crack in
on it.
Um, you know, I can't even getDave Bozeman to accept my
LinkedIn request, uh, let alonecome on the show.
Um, but with your illustriouscareer there, there's so much we

(02:54):
can talk about there.
And then now your new venturecoming into Armada, uh, another
fascinating business that I wantto learn about and educate our
audience on.
So I think those will be the twoprimary uh focal points of the
show today.
We'll see where we go withthings.
Um to start, why don't you takeme back all the way back to what

(03:14):
was it, 1993, when I was athree-year-old boy and you were
getting your career careerstarted in freight.
Um, what did the business whatwas that like?
What was the business like backthen?
What do you remember about thosekind of early days?
And give me just kind of acontextual backdrop of what the
business looked like.
Sure.
Yeah, I was 93.

SPEAKER_01 (03:35):
Uh, I'd recently moved with my uh girlfriend, my
wife now, Annie, to Chicago.
She had a job.
I we both just finished upundergrad.
Uh, had moved to Chicago.
I went to Alma College inMichigan and we were connected
to DePaul.
And DePaul had um a relationshipwith C.
H.
Robinson's recruiting at thetime, and they told me about

(03:58):
what was uh uh a producebrokerage job.
And the office uh was in Alsop,Illinois, uh, and it turned out
to be a transportation uhbrokerage job.
C.H.
Robinson was maybe 50-50.
Uh, you know, they they justtransportation had just passed
off, uh, passed uh producebrokerage as the largest part of

(04:19):
the business.
And this was later called theChicago South office, uh, was a
super high growth office, but itwas maybe six people in the
office at the time that you knowat one point was a couple
hundred.
Um and uh truck brokerage wasnot exactly new.
Uh people have been doing it fora while, and CH Robinson had

(04:41):
been doing it for decades bythat time, but you know, this is
you know 10 years beyond uhderegulation, so it was starting
to take off, but it wasdefinitely a different world.
He didn't run into too manyother brokers.
In fact, I I hardly knew any.
Uh you were selling againstasset-based carriers for the
most part.
Um you came in.

(05:03):
Uh I what I really liked aboutthat experience is you did
everything.
And so I had the carrier side, Ihad carriers, um, I was
dispatching drivers, you know,at dinner, you know, uh uh you
know, working all hours.
I had customers.
Um you so you did a little bitof everything from collect the
money or pay it on your share ofthe profits of the business.

(05:25):
So it was this a thousand-personcompany about at the time.
They just passed a billiondollars.
I was one of the first employeeshired that didn't get to go to
the billion dollar party.
I had to stay in in book freightand answer the phones.
Oh, well, everybody else tookoff.
But uh it was it was a goodtime.
Um the industry was kind ofgoing in our direction at that

(05:45):
time.
It we know, I didn't know whatwas ahead.
Um, the name certainly wasn'tthat as well recognized.
You know, you know, think youknow, think a thousand employees
and a billion dollars.
Um, and most, you know, almosthalf that business in the
produce space.
But uh third-partytransportation was about to take
off.

(06:06):
Uh, but I remember you, youknow, selling in those early
days, you almost had toapologize for not having trucks,
you know, for being a yeah,first you had to explain what a
broker is.
Like, what do you mean you dothis without having trucks?
And how do you make that work?
Um, it's just so funny how it'sgone from not only so accepted
and the technology that's a partof it, to you know, even my

(06:29):
friends at some of the biggestasset-based carriers today say,
well, now we lead withbrokerage.
I was like, man, you if I rolledthat clock back 32 years ago,
um, you know, that didn't lastlong.
You didn't have to apologize fornot having trucks for very long.
You know, it's somewhere in thelate 90s that you know it that
that model for many reasons uhstarted to accelerate.
But uh it was certainly adifferent world back then.

(06:52):
Yeah, so it all started in uhour Chicago South office.

SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
So apologizing for being a broker is such an
interesting concept, and there'sstill some of that kind of there
are definitely people who whenyou when they answer the phone
and you tell them you're abroker, they uh they aren't
happy to know that that's whoyou are.
Um but I'm curious, like was ithard to get the business then as

(07:17):
a broker?
Or you know, people were like,oh, you know what?
I guess it makes sense.
You know, it's it's assets,there's a finite number of
assets a carrier has.
If you're telling me that youcan always find me a truck,
here, take my load.
Was it that simple?
Or it was still kind of frownedupon how they looked at it.

SPEAKER_01 (07:32):
It wasn't frowned upon, I wouldn't say apologize
as much as explain.
Um, in that the model justdidn't, there wasn't that it was
a really small share of themarketplace.
And I think Armstrong's trackedthis growth over the years.
It was in the low single digits.
I'm not sure exactly when theystarted uh that measurement, but
it's gone from like zero at somepoint to the single digits,

(07:53):
probably when I started to themid-20s now.
Um so it it was more abouthaving to explain how you can
service.
Um, and we had decent scale, youknow.
That that's not a small companyat that point.
It was really us, and Mark 7 atthe time was kind of the other
C.
H.
Robinson.
Uh they later got bought up umand through a series of

(08:14):
acquisitions that now um uh ityou know it that business
doesn't exist.
Some of those some of the partsof it are still out there, but
that was sort of our corecompetitor at the time that had
some scale, about the same timeas same size as us.
They came out of the intermodalspace.
But you were mostly explaininghow you're gonna be able to
service it.
But yeah, I think the thefundamentals made sense.

(08:35):
We talked about having rubberwalls of capacity versus fixed.
If you have 10 that goes to 20,we're gonna say yes to all of
those.
Uh, but you really just neededto get in.
You needed a chance to provethat um that this model was more
flexible, uh, you know, moredynamic.
Um and I would say that we triedto outcompete the marketplace on

(08:58):
hustle and sales.
You know, that uh the fit theassets uh you know they're in a
certain place, they're fixed.
They can't wish that they had 10more, they can't wish that they
were somewhere else.
Uh so I I respect that model andrely on them every day.
Uh but but at this point it wassomething that was new, it was
it was a little bit different.
Um you know, we um we prettyquickly went from getting

(09:23):
transactional business to uhselling full outsources and uh
and I think the growth of youknow our competitors helped too.
It just became more of anaccepted model, and C.
H.
Robinson themselves drove youknow drove a lot of that market
share growth for the model.
So over time, yeah, it goteasier.
But um once you got in and youproved that you care more,

(09:45):
you're gonna hustle.
I think that was the differenceregardless of model.
And a lot of the people thatyou're competing against then
might have been like you know,uh uh a non-incented clerk from
uh from an asset-based carrieror uh or LTL in some of those
cases.
But it I think it came down topeople, and that I think that's
one of the things that we gotright in those early days.

(10:06):
Yeah, the business model has hasits advantages too.

SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
It's so interesting for a couple of reasons.
One, you know, I think about thethe comparison of selling
against assets, and you know, Ijust I imagine you getting
hired.
Well, how old were you?
I was probably 23 or 4.
Exactly.
That's the number I wasthinking.
So you know, 23-year-old kidhired into a job, and there's

(10:33):
really endless opportunity infront of you because you know,
as many trucks as you can find,you can book loads, right?
So there's no limit to what youcan do, which is why hustle
becomes such an importantcredential of success there
versus an asset-based carrierwho one, I don't think are

(10:53):
hiring 23, 24-year-old highlymotivated kids to do that
dispatch clerking job.
At least it's not what it lookslike at many of the asset
carriers I know today.
Um tends to be a different kindof character.
Um, and so I see how you can winthere.
Um, but I also think it's justfascinating that the very thing

(11:13):
that you were selling in 1993that helped grow Robinson into
what it is today is exactly whatI was selling in 2018 to get my
business off the ground in suchdifferent settings against
different competitive landscapeswith different tools available
to us.
And I just think it'sfascinating that at the end of
the day, like this business isabout hustle and grit, no matter

(11:36):
how much technology you apply toit.
That maybe will always be thedifferentiator.
And who knows, 30 years fromnow, uh I won't have the hair
you do, but maybe I'll besitting on a show talking to
some 35-year-old and he'll askme about it and he'll tell me
that his business in 2050 thathe started uh was successful
because of hustle.
And I think that'd be cool ifthat's the case.

SPEAKER_01 (11:57):
I I hope so too.
You know, the marketplacechanges, the competitive sets
change, technology certainlychanges it, but you know, to
fast forward that 32 years, youknow, we're we're in the middle
of a deal right now and uh avery competitive process, and
we're winning.
And the customer prospect said,Hey, I can just tell that this
is a bigger deal to you.

(12:18):
I can just tell that you caremore.
And that's what I rememberselling in in those days, too,
is you know, we're not waitingfor you to call.
I'm here, I showed up at yourdock, I set up this meeting, and
I'm gonna be calling you everyday until you say yes.
Um, that shines through.
And uh and I'm glad that itstill does today.
And I'm with you on 30 moreyears out there.

(12:38):
I you know, that's where you canreally differentiate.
And I thought that's what youknow, the model helped.
Uh the the model was financiallya great one, and it was a bit
ahead of its time, and thatthere was a huge market share
advantage that uh C.
Robinson took from uh that.
But I think the thing that theygot right was uh that hustle and
hiring the right people and sortof getting out of their way and

(13:01):
letting them go out there andprove that they care more.

SPEAKER_00 (13:05):
When you say the model worked, can you explain a
little bit of that and and whywhy it was important that the
model was the way it was?

SPEAKER_01 (13:14):
Well, uh, I just uh by that I just mean you know
this business was ripe for somefor some disintermediation.
Uh the the the trucks neededhelp getting backhaul.
Um you you know in this businessthe math's always been pretty
simple to me.
You don't move any freightwithout a truck.
And so I I I've always focusedon you know building those

(13:37):
relationships with both.
Um so the the carriers needed uhways to get back home and um
ways to get to their nextshipment.
Um and then there's you know thefinancial model, the uh um our
our biggest uh uh expense at thetime was people, you know,
followed by technology.

(13:58):
And so you know that, you know,I I think I've always said in
this model, if somebody couldprove that you know it's better
to just have assets or be acarrier that people, you know,
people choose the model thatthat works best for them.
And you know, being both alwaysseemed like a bit of a
challenge.
You know, that there was a lotof resources at C.

(14:19):
H.
Robinson at the time, and theycould have gone out and bought a
large fleet if they wanted to,but the feedback from customers
was hey, this is somethingdifferent.
It's filling a niche with thebiggest companies.
You know, it was maybe more thetransactional business that
changed you know throughout the90s and that we were competing
on core and getting you knowcore allocations.
And you know, I focus personallya lot on the integrated

(14:42):
outsource parts of the businessat that at that point and you
know, a lot of my career.
But there's you know, if you doit well, it's not easy.
You have to build those carryrelationships and build those
customer relationships.
But if you do it well, um thefinancial model works and um
from a net income standpoint isreally what I meant there.

SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
Gotcha.
And last point on on 90sbrokerage before we talk about
your move into kind ofleadership and and building an
office.
Um what did the expectationslook like for service back then?
There were no cell phones,right?
Like drive, there certainly wasno tracking of loads through

(15:23):
macro point or forkites or anyof those tools.
I mean, as far as what I feel Iremember or have been told, it's
like guys, you'd give someone aload and then you'd wait for
them to call you from a payphonea day or two later and let you
know where they were.
Like, how did that work?

SPEAKER_01 (15:39):
Yeah, so the 800 number and payphones was a big
part of the model.
And um, so there was trackingand tracing.
Um, we made check calls tocarriers at the time, you know,
to see see where they were at umuh as much as we could.
Uh again, that was mostlypre-cell phone.
Remember uh the the C.
H.
Robinson office at the time, uh,this is 93, 94.

(16:03):
That's when cell phones cameout, basically.
When they got more popularized.
And and we had one.
It was in a bag.
I remember taking it uh back.
Uh so I lived in um in Lakeviewat the time, my first couple
years in Chicago, and I'd bedriving around Lakeshore Drive.
I can remember calling mymother-in-law saying, 'You'll
never guess what I'm callingfrom.
It's the car.
And it was the it was the officeshared phone.

(16:26):
Uh, and the person who was oncall that night took that.' But
um, and before that, andthroughout that period, pagers
too.
So the office, you know, numberfor for you know, dispatch at
night or issues would ringthrough a pager.
You jump, you know, if you're onthe road, you jump on a payphone
and call and see what, you know,seven up or whoever your
customer needed help with, andum, and then a lot of landlines.

(16:49):
But there was an expectation ofcertainly service delivering on
time.
Uh, there weren't you knowoutside technologies uh for
tracking, but we relied on uhthe requirement to have the
carrier do do calls in to us forthe most part.
You're picked up, uh you'reloaded, you're in transit, and
you deliver it.

(17:09):
Those were kind of, if I recall,sort of three common
expectations that C.
H.
Tropinson and probably most ofthe industry had, but it was
done, it was done through callsfrom docs and um early on from
um from payphones.
And was there a real distancewas a long distance was a pretty
big part of your expense at thetime.
I mean that was like a majornegotiation yet at the corporate

(17:30):
level is negotiating your MCIcontract.
And uh obviously that'scompletely gone away.

SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
That's fascinating.
Never thought about that, butinteresting, interesting
anecdote.
One last point there.
I mean, were there metrics thatthat customers could hold you
accountable to that they werelike, you know, you're at 92% on
time, or like there was notreally an easy way for them to
even do that back then withanalytics?

SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
There were you know, I wouldn't say it was as dialed
in as it is now withscorecarding.
Uh, you know, I think thatevolved as the industry got
smarter, but I think it happenedfor the third-party industry and
the carriers at the same time.
Got it.
Um, you know, EDI has been thereforever.
I mean, that goes back, youknow, predates the 90s.
So um in that period, um EDIupdates started to come out and

(18:17):
um but no on-time pickup andon-time delivery was maybe
measured by most of your uhimportant customers.
And you had to perform too.
I mean, you couldn't you weren'tgonna get freight and not
perform.
You had to be at market rates.
And I always thought of it as,you know, in the early days, you
needed your service to be alittle bit better.
That hustle and care that Italked about needed to come

(18:39):
through and being moreproactive, you know, uh talking
to them more about you knowprocess improvement and you
know, taking over other parts oftheir business, controlling
their inbound, you know,converting to prepaid.
So um the the metrics werethere, they just just wasn't as
automated, and and of course youdidn't have uh you know all the

(19:00):
geopositioning.

SPEAKER_00 (19:01):
Yeah.
So I think it was 96 that youtook on your first leadership
role to open an office inRaleigh, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 (19:11):
Yeah, I did I did.
So it right before then I wenton site, um, we had a major um
opportunity with a retail ofours.
So I was on site in Salisbury,North Carolina for uh right
through a good chunk of 1996 uhat Food Lion.
Yep.
And that was a pretty meaningfulstep for me in my career getting

(19:33):
to see how a customer thinksabout logistics and freight.
And um, but that was because Iwas on my way to open up a new
market at that time, Siege.
Robinson opened a few newoffices a year.
Um, and I had the good fortuneto be able to go to Raleigh,
North Carolina, and open up uh anew office for the company then.

SPEAKER_00 (19:53):
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(20:14):
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(20:37):
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Was that on site in Raleighbecause you were a like just a
large carrier of theirs, or wasthere an outsource type deal

(20:57):
that you guys were managing forthem?
Uh at that point, so uh C.

SPEAKER_01 (21:02):
H.
Robinson had uh produce businesswith Food Lion on the retail
side, and it was a major producerelationship, and the
opportunity was to help them uhwith controlling more of their
inbound freight.
So I I was I was an on-siterepresentative for the
transportation side of CHRobinson, helping them, you
know, looking at all theirfreight allowances and almost

(21:23):
like cold calling the major CPGsof the world to say, hey, we'd
like to pick this freight up,and you know, here's what our
freight discount would be.
And um, you sometimes the mathwould work out great, and they
would just say, great.
Um, but it was a it was acomplex negotiation of helping
uh, you know, a major retailerwho was a produce customer uh
take more control of theirtransportation freight.

(21:44):
And uh it worked for me becauseI was, you know, my bags were at
that point were halfway packedfor Raleigh, and it was a little
bit of a timeout.
Hey, could you could you do thisin the meantime?
And um, at first I was like, ohman, I I want to get to Raleigh
and get this office open.
But I'm so glad that uh a leaderat CH Robinson pushed me uh to
do this first because just thatexperience of being on site and

(22:07):
understanding what matters to acustomer is not your own stuff.
You know, it's just how do youhelp them with their goal, their
bonus check, you know, their andgetting to learn in other
culture too.
It sort of pushed me on thispath a little bit of always
thinking about C.
H.
Robinson, Armada, my wholecareer through the lens of a
customer.
And you know, it's all you know,what's relevant is only what's

(22:29):
relevant to them.
So I was so glad I did that.

SPEAKER_00 (22:32):
So I don't know if you know this, but I also spent
a year working on site when Iwas 21.
I took a year off of collegeafter my junior year and worked
on site at Kraft.
Uh back then it was Kraft,certainly not Kraft Heinz.
Um, Kraft and what becameMondelez were one company, and
they had their transportationcenter in Madison, Wisconsin,

(22:55):
where they also, I think that'swhere they slaughtered all the
pigs or something like that.
But um that if you asked me whatthe five most meaningful points
of my career were, I wouldabsolutely include that in the
top five, maybe the top three.
Um, you know, I'd like to talkabout that for just a couple
minutes between you and I, oflike why was that?

(23:17):
I mean, you mentioned being ableto kind of get into the mind of
the customer and understand whatthey care about versus you know
living in your own world.
And and I hope anyone who'slistening, like a major takeaway
should be if you ever get achance to go work on site at a
shipper, do it.
Don't ask questions, just sayyes.
And then once you get there, askall the questions, lead with

(23:37):
your curiosity.
You know, I rememberspecifically, I just dug into
every piece of information,every computer tool I had.
I tried to make a relationshipwith every person that worked at
Kraft to understand what theywere doing, why they were doing
it, what they cared about.
At one point, I got so deep intothe system because I had access
to OTM.

(23:58):
Just I just was poking aroundand I one day found this file
that just had all of the spotquotes from every carrier uh on
all the loads for the lastmonth.
And I let them know so I didn'thave access for long.
But I I just I pointed out tosay that like there's so much
you can learn sitting on site ata shipper that you will never

(24:18):
get that opportunity to learnlike that from somewhere else.
I'm curious what your experiencewas like there and and what kind
of takeaways you had from it.

SPEAKER_01 (24:25):
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm glad you agree and had that had
that experience.
You know, I I diagnosed a lot ofthis afterwards as I was
thinking about it, but uh,because when you're doing it,
you're just doing it.
Hey, I'm here and this is mymission, and um, but you're you
are learning things in adifferent way.
I later used that experience.
I was meeting other people thathave been on site.
You just could sort of notice alittle bit of a difference.

(24:46):
You know, they had a differentmessage.
If you're in front of a customeror a carrier someday, you've got
you know a broader experience.
You know, you've walked in theirfootsteps a little bit as a as a
shipper, if you will.
Um so I thought um, one, ithelps you understand sort of the
math of freight and howdifferent organizations make
money.

(25:06):
You know, it's not just the thecarriers and it's not just the
you know, the three PLs outthere, a shipper or a receiver,
if they're doing it right,essentially is trying to you
know at least cover their costand be as efficient as they can.
And for many of them, that was aprofit center, too.
So uh you get into the PO.
I thought that was good tounderstand, you know, collect,

(25:27):
prepay, just all the terms.
Um and I mean the project I hadreally made you get super
hands-on with how the core oftransportation and the money
associated with it flows.
And that helped me throughout mycareer.
Uh I just think the the biggestone was it it immediately put me

(25:48):
thinking a little bit moreexternal, and it helped me, I
think, push my company to bemore externally focused and that
if bring the customer into thoseconversations.
Um things, things like you know,you get really proud when you
start, you know, at a company,you're excited about it.
You know, and I love thebusiness model.

(26:09):
Um, I I loved what we weredoing, and I could not wait to
get you know the ability toimpact and build a team in
Raleigh.
Uh, but you are immediatelythrown into now, you're the only
person.
I was you know, there wasn'teven like a community of other
on-site people.
And so that forces you to youknow learn another culture, and

(26:29):
you get to be a part of a newteam that wasn't all just the
same, you know, it wasn't a youknow a group that was hired in
kind of similar ways.
Um I still, you know, I stillkeep in contact with a few
people from from thatexperience.
But you know, things likejargon, you know, you grow up
with your acronyms and yourjargon.
Nobody cares.
The things that you are the mostproud of, and and there were

(26:51):
certainly many throughout mycareer, um, the size of your
company, the number of shipmentsyou did, it helped me like push
that stuff later on, you know,when I had the opportunity to
lead marketing at CH Robinson.
It was more of, you know, ithelped me think they don't care
how big you are, they don't careabout your stats, they care
about how do your solutions helpthem with their job.

(27:16):
And um sitting in that chair andhaving to add value every day,
being on sort of on the spot forall right, what are you doing
here?
How have you helped Foodlinetoday?
Um, it was never, you know, youhad to get out of your own sort
of like company speak a littlebit.
And I I just think it's so muchfaster to learn that in an

(27:38):
environment like that.
Um, so I later started aprogram.
I made on-site a pretty uh alarger deal at CH Robinson.
We you know, we supported it.
We we went from, you know, insales calls when they would ask,
from saying, Yeah, we think wecan to leading with it.
No, we have an on-site program.
We had people sign up, they wereready to go.
We knew where people were goingto be able to be on-site.

(28:00):
And you know, that's a huge partof Armada's business model today
on-site teams.
And um for such a short periodof time, I was I wasn't even
there a full year.
Uh, it was just left a huge markon me that I feel like I've used
to make companies better sincethen.

SPEAKER_00 (28:17):
That's brilliant.
And I'm kicking myself for notdoing the same thing coming out
of my own experience therebecause I never pushed for it at
Molo.
We had somebody on site at A B,but like that was they asked us
versus leading with it as anopportunity.
I mean, just the amount offreight opportunities you get
before everyone else just bybeing there are substantial and
probably pays for it itself.

unknown (28:38):
For sure.

SPEAKER_00 (28:38):
Because like who wants to send an go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 (28:41):
I was gonna say, and the and the impact it's having
on all of those people's careersthat are also getting that
experience, and they come backand they're more capable of
doing more.
But I I think when you make itup, when you lead with it, they
don't they notice there's nohesitancy.
Yes, we do that, it's ourprogram.
In fact, we'd like to.
And uh, here's the you know, thenumber of people that have been,
you know, that want to be in youknow X City.

(29:03):
It's it was a it was a bigdifference maker.

SPEAKER_00 (29:06):
Yeah.
I I actually sat next to MikeSchoenhall's, who was the
on-site rep at craft for CHRobinson.
Um, and all I did was just tryto uh beat him up, uh, not
physically, but just I wasalways like, How many loads you
get today?
I'm gonna get five more than youjust constantly talk and smack.

SPEAKER_01 (29:27):
Um yeah, those are interesting rooms when you know
at the bigger shippers andretailers, where it's just a
whole you know pit ofcompetitors together.
I'm I'm I'm sure you learndifferent things, and like you
said, in in environments likethat.
And you just you just get moreexposure.

SPEAKER_00 (29:41):
Yeah, and the relationships carry on for for
you know as long as you'rewilling to carry them on.
I mean, I think, you know,especially in a business like
craft, but like so many, so muchchange over time.
And this happens in everybusiness that change takes place
and people go from one companyto the next.
Um, but those are potentialbusinesses and opportunities for
you as you know, I think thereare maybe.
10 or 15 customers that I workedwith 10 years later because I

(30:04):
spent just a year working sideby side by some of these folks.
Um so yeah, um great experienceand and I think enough on that.
Let's then now let's get intoRaleigh.
So you you spent a little timethere and then you you moved
into Raleigh to open thatoffice, which I believe was your
first um kind of real leadershipexperience.
So I'd love to just get intokind of the mind of you yourself

(30:28):
from from that perspective ofbuilding an office from scratch.
And also I'd like to understanda little bit about the culture
of Robinson and having a billionoffices and uh the pros and cons
of that.
I think I'd like to talk alittle bit about as we get into
this part of the story.

SPEAKER_01 (30:43):
Okay.
Yeah, so um at that point, youat CH Robinson, it there was um
a certain number of offices thatwere opened and based on sort of
opportunity and and people readyto go.
I had been a part of a reallylarge sales process and a
company that came to us and saidwe uh we're gonna outsource all

(31:03):
of our transportation, whichagain was what I focused on a
lot of in Chicago, and uh it wasbig enough that I needed to go
get some help and willingly fromyou know more senior officers in
the company, and that led to uma potential on-site at that
customer, uh, which led reallyto this.
So uh at that point, you startedwith one experienced C.

(31:26):
H.
Robinson person, and I, youknow, you don't really know.
They will select, hey, here'sthe person who's ready to go in
your market area.
I got really lucky, this guy,Sammy Fallon, uh, you know, now
still a leader in intransportation today, but he was
amazing booking freight.
Um and the the two of us start.
I I think I talked the companyinto saying, hey, three's
probably a better number, butyou go, you you're starting from

(31:48):
scratch, you're out there.
Um Mitch uh you've had MitchLuciano on the uh podcast
before.
Yeah.
So we we just we hired a lot ofkind of stars in there.
Lane Turner was you know uh hada long career at you know, he's
president of Blue Logistics now.
There's there's some presidents,and Matt Cornyn was the third
one that came in, and he openedtwo more markets for C.H.

(32:11):
Robinson had had a great career.
So um Rich Clark and MitchWilson both have had these these
strong careers.
Mitch is CEO of Trailer Bridgenow.
Uh we even had Evan Armstrong asa part of the office for a while
because uh we had this reallybig opportunity uh with a
warehousing piece.
It was way overhead, but we saidyes, we'll do this.

(32:31):
Um and Evan came in uh for abrief period of time as a as a
C.
H.
Robinson employee as a part ofRaleigh to help us with this um
big this really big outsource.
But we I was interviewing forpeople that you know identified
with this mission, you know, atthe time, again, now there's
more 3PLs in place.
Um uh American Backhaulers had apretty good customer presence in

(32:55):
in uh in North Carolina.
I think that was probably theCampbell's business and Maxton.
Um but still C.
H.
Robinson was one of you know theone of the biggest ones out
there.
And you're we were trying to bethe largest office in the
Carolinas and the largest in thesoutheast.
And um so uh we hired uh uhaggressively and early and uh

(33:17):
just had a ton of fun.
Um I'd say if you talk you knowto any of those people, it was
such a short but sweetexperience.
Uh for me, I was you know, I wasonly there two years before this
became knocking, and so there'san opportunity in Europe.
But we we set some companyrecords, we hired some great
people.
Um every day you go home and youknow you know what the score is

(33:37):
from what you did in thatoffice.
And um I was you know I wasproud to be a part of that
expansion of the office network.
You mentioned it did get really,really big and technology
probably changed the need tohave so many, but um something
about being close to thosecustomers was an advantage.
And I I don't know that you knowneeded as many.

(34:00):
I I don't know what the cut thethe office count might have been
around 100 or something there,but after one full year, we were
in the top 20 um and uh just hada blast.
Um you're starting with gettingthere with zero freight.
Um you could think you know,you've got the systems, you've
got the back office, um, you'vegot the carrier relationship.

(34:21):
So it's you know it's different.
You know, people would sayentrepreneurial, well, yeah, but
I wasn't taking this the sametype of risk as somebody uh at
that point, but you're taking alot of career risk, and um the
answer could be that you'restill sitting at zero months
later, and we just said that'sthat's not what we're here for.
And uh we hired people that hadthat same mission of wanting to
dominate a marketplace and uhand just just had a blast there

(34:43):
building up your own team.
That was my kind of firstexperience with leading people.
I was a supervisor, maybe.
I had a small pod, if you will,in in Chicago before this, but
uh uh a very unique experiencestarting a market from zero.

SPEAKER_00 (34:58):
So a couple things stand out to me.
One, um, you know, growing inthe office as quickly as you did
to be a top 20 after a year,there's there's clearly
something there I'd like to diginto to understand how you make
that happen.
Um so let's start thereactually.
And then the set the otherquestion I have is separate to
that.
So, like, oh, and and the otherpiece of this that I'm curious

(35:20):
about is you mentioned, I don'tknow, five, six, seven people
who you hired that becamepresidents, CEOs of other
companies.
There's something there.
So, you know, try to get in yourhead a little bit on the why and
the how.
Um what is it about your you andyour group that allowed you to

(35:43):
grow so quickly?
And and two, if there's anythingbeyond hustle, obviously.
And then two is like, how didyou how were you able to
identify like what stood outabout these certain people or
what stood out about the way youand your team develop those
people that would lead to thembeing these all-stars down the
road?

SPEAKER_01 (36:03):
Yeah, I'll start with the the people and and
recruiting piece.
You know, you're you are talkingto people, um you're looking for
people who want have somethingto prove.
And um early on, it's Matt andSam and I, and we're we did
group interviews, and we wouldbounce off of them this mission.
Hey, we you know, this isn't ajob.

(36:25):
Uh, we're here on we're here ona mission, and here's our
mission.
We are trying to grow, we'retrying to set records, uh, we're
trying to be the largest officein the southeast.
We uh here's what we're tryingto do with customers and
carriers.
And I remember that just hearingtheir reaction, they would
either identify with that orthey would answer your questions
about something that showed youthat what they really want is a

(36:47):
job.
And so we used that forselection.
Did they identify with thataggressive mission?
Um and that helped us hire theright people.
We got lucky too.
You don't, you don't always youdon't always know.
Some people are really good atinterviews.
Um, it's interesting.
I, you know, I did hear Mitch onyour podcast, and he was talking
about that experience and hejust kept calling me and calling

(37:09):
me because we weren't ready tohire another person because
there was there were metrics inplace of, you know, I was
already pushing them.
You know, I I started with threeinstead of two.
But as you grow, you earn theright to hire more people.
And I wasn't at that metric yetwhen I interviewed Mitch and
really liked him, but the guyjust never stopped calling.
I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm thisthis guy understands it and he's

(37:32):
gonna fit in well.
Um so you know, I think there'sa little bit of luck, uh, but
there's also sometimes you canjust tell just is this person
going to fit in thisenvironment?
Not everybody did.
You know, we had some turnover.
Um it will, you know, and so Iyou know, I think that has
something to do with the fact.

(37:52):
I hope that um you know theywould all look back at that and
say there was something aboutthe early part of their career
and being a part of some of thatsuccess and fun that helped them
later on in their careers becomeCEOs and presidents and other
office leaders.
Um so the other, so the theother part of your question is
is how did we grow?
Again, I'd go back to that samestory, great people.

(38:15):
Uh getting out of the way,understanding who's great at
what.
Um, you know, we had people thatwere gonna be great at, you
know, building our carrier base.
Um I personally spent a lot oftime selling as I'm learning to
be a manager at the same time.
I didn't always get that right.
You know, I remember coming backafter being on the road for
weeks.

(38:36):
Um I mentioned, you know, thatwe we had this huge outsource,
this huge warehousingopportunity that happened in uh
Winston-Salem.
And so I'm constantly going backand forth, and we're helping a
major retailer, you know, withtheir distribution centers, and
we're digging trailers out ofthe mud and just trying to get
them caught up and sort of makea mirror uh a twin warehouse to

(38:57):
help them with their growth.
And it it took a lot of time onsite, and I remember coming back
out and thinking, man, I youknow, now I need to be the
manager.
You know, I there's things weneed to deal with.
This this office has grown thisaggressively and this quickly,
and uh so so it was a balance,but um I've always liked that
combination of beingcustomer-facing, um, committing.

(39:20):
We you know, we said yes to somethings that uh that others were
saying maybe to, both within thecompany and externally.
So everything when you're fouror five people seems like it's
over your head if you think thatway.
But if you think about whereyou're going, then you're like,
yeah, of course, this is thetype and size of customer that
we need to go figure out.

(39:41):
Um, and we developed areputation in the marketplace
and internally uh for an officethat would commit.
Um, there was a lot of sharedfreight at the time.
Uh, so you know that keeps youbusy.
I you know that was important,uh, the the shared freight out
of the area that we covered itbetter than anyone else.
But uh we really spent a ton oftime on business development.

(40:02):
And before we knew it, we hadmost of the major shippers in
the Carolinas uh inside thehouse.

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profitably.
So this is so fascinating to me.
As someone who also I openedCoyote's Denver office, so I
have a little understanding ofstarting from scratch and the

(41:18):
competitive nature of one officeagainst another.
But our our our background,we've we've got some similar
history for ourselves.
Um, but in just listening toyou, and we've only talked about
the first six years of yourcareer, actually, I think three
or four years of your careerthis far.
Probably by the time I'm done inRaleigh, it's probably about uh

(41:39):
seven years.
Yeah, six, seven years.
Um but I I think I'm I'm hearingthese micro lessons that I'm
gonna call out that I think giveme a good understanding for why
you would become the commercialleader of the largest brokerage
in the industry that grew from abillion to 15 or whatever it is
now.
And I think it's a mindset.

(42:00):
Um a never say die, a never sayno, like we can always figure it
out mindset of like committing,not knowing if you could do it,
but knowing that you you you youbelieve in your team's ability
to figure it out is one piece.
But two is this always kind ofpushing, pushing the envelope.
I mean, just just looking at howyou're like, yeah, you're
supposed to start with two, butI pushed to start with three.

(42:21):
It's such a small thing.
But if that's the way you thinkabout everything in life, and
that's the way I think aboutmost things, is and I always,
you know, my yin, my the yin tomy yang was my business partner,
Matt Bogrich, and he always wastrying to temper my aspirations
in the right way.
But it's always like, okay, Iknow we think it the number
should be five, but I think itshould be six or seven or eight

(42:43):
or nine, because why not?
Because let's I want to do bigthings, and and you know,
starting at a the moderate levelthat people expect doesn't lead
to doing massive having massivesuccess.
You gotta push and you gotta yougotta keep pushing.
Um, so I'm just I the littlethings that you're saying that I
think are adding up for me toexplain why you know 25 years

(43:06):
from now you'd be the the chiefcommercial officer of this
business.
Um I don't know if you agree ordisagree with what I'm saying,
but no, I I do.

SPEAKER_01 (43:14):
I think the other thing too is finding like-minded
individuals.
And I I mentioned that I gotlucky in hiring.
I also got lucky in where Istarted too.
I'm really proud of that companyand that career.
Um, but I never felt like I hadto swim upstream to take these
chances.
Uh and you were trained to sayyes.
You and so um it was part of thecompany culture too, um, to

(43:38):
embody that.
And so at a very early age, youknow, which is very formative
too.
You know, like I always think oflike first jobs kind of like
childhood in a way, and it'sit's formative, the influences
that you get.
But um going back to Chicago,um, the company always had this
mission mentality and um andthat we're gonna create a ton of
space for this third-party youknow truck brokerage thing and

(44:01):
keep innovating and making gooddecisions.
And I got empowered to makethose choices while I was down
there.
So it yeah, it did it start withit started with us and and
having that you know thatmentality we're gonna take
risks, uh hiring the rightpeople.
But the company had a lot to dowith it too.
And that uh it was it was thepreferred way to do business, is
say yes and figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 (44:24):
So from Raleigh, you make the move across the pond to
Europe.
And I think I want to giveEurope maybe five or six minutes
of our time because we're 40minutes in and we're only seven
years into your career.
And I want to spend a lot oftime on our MATA too.
So um, I don't I don't want togo too deep on Europe, but it's
obviously a very kind offascinating part of the journey,

(44:47):
um, even if it was short.
So talk to me a little bit aboutwhat it was like, give a little
context on what what youactually did going there and
what the mission was and uh whatthe experience was like.

SPEAKER_01 (44:58):
Yeah, so uh overall, uh this was sort of the next six
years uh uh of my chapter of mycareer was in Europe, uh, first
in Belgium and then in France.
Um Raleigh was short, Raleighwas only a couple years, but uh
amazing.
Um but we were doing well, anduh I was asked to go over and uh

(45:19):
lead Europe.
That was kind of some mostly uhone large customer in Europe, uh
an American CPG company, uh,where we had some people on
site.
Um we we were almost you knowtoo much the integrated 4 PL and
hadn't really learned how tobroker yet, uh, you know, taking
their carriers and you know,cleaning up, adding some value.

(45:40):
But um there was a small airfreight acquisition maybe at the
time.
So uh a couple of offices in theEngland, the UK, Poland, um,
five or six offices, maybe 50 or60 people.
Um, but it was a bit um go overthere and figure it out.
I think I don't think we knew atthe time exactly what the
opportunity was.

(46:01):
A similar size market from atruck standpoint, that was the
objective.
Is there's gotta be somethingfor us here in this market.
Yeah, actually, more third-partyintermediary business, you know,
in Europe than there was inNorth America at the time.
So it started out more grow it.
Um uh we made an acquisition umuh of a company in France, and

(46:26):
that's when I had two kids inBelgium, and um my wife was
pregnant with our second whenthey said, Hey, you know, at the
end of three years, you're notgoing back.
Why don't you go to France?
Because we just made thisacquisition, um, which is a good
one.
It really helped us become moreuh helped us with carriers.
What acquisition was that?
Uh it was a company calledNormanter at the time.

(46:46):
Okay.
Um, and they were uhheadquartered in Caen France in
Normandy.
They had a nice office network,they had thousands of carriers.
It helped us take that step backthat I said we needed.
Um, great people, still many,many great friends.
Um uh but the integration, youknow, it's that's a lot of work.
It was hard for me to do fromBelgium.
And um I needed to get hands-on,get get more directly involved

(47:11):
with that team, uh, and ended upum ended up leading that
business and integrating it inwith the rest of Robinson.
But that was that was so thatwas a major jump uh for the
company in Europe at the time.
And uh I moved to France to uhto help with that and lead lead
that team.

SPEAKER_00 (47:28):
How is brokerage in Europe different than it was in
the States?
In what ways was it maybebetter?
In what ways was it morechallenging or worse?

SPEAKER_01 (47:37):
Uh it was more accepted.
It was easier to sell it becauseall the trucking companies had a
lot of third-party businessanyway.
Uh it was a very fragmentedbusiness like North America, so
it was ripe for the model.
It was not as good in the way asthat you couldn't earn the same
type of margin, um, shorterdistances, uh, a little bit more

(47:59):
competitive since everyone wasdoing it.
Um so we were trying to figureout how to do it on a slightly
lower uh margin percentage.
Um labor is a little bit moreexpensive at the time on uh on
average, but it was reallysimilar.
And that's what that's what wefound in the company that we
made the acquisition is acultural fit, and that they
thought that you know there's abetter way, and that better way

(48:21):
is focusing on the flexibilityof staying pure to the to the
third-party model.
Um but uh but we made it work,that acquisition went well.
We um we developed a good, funuh culture and a profitable
business at the same time overthere.

SPEAKER_00 (48:40):
Would you say the the labor market was it as easy
to find people that would be asbought into the mission and and
believed in the hustle and Brit?
You know, I'm just curious ifthat same type of environment
existed.

SPEAKER_01 (48:55):
I met a ton of great people.
Um I always thought there wasreally not that much of a
difference that those peoplewant to be successful, um, that
those people were hustling.
It felt really similar to me,especially after the
acquisition.
And you know, now all of asudden we're not just you know
an outsourced logistics companyat one large shipper.

(49:16):
We are multi-customer, again,multi-carrier.
Uh I thought that it felt reallyfamiliar to me.
Of course, there's differences,there's lots of languages.
Um the tech, you know, we weneeded work on the tech.
Uh but um from a hustlestandpoint, you find the right
people.

(49:36):
It's I I don't know if it's howmuch harder it is there, but we
we that group had the rightpeople, and we kept up that
mentality of continuing to tohire people that had that had
the interest in and just hustle.
And is this when you met myfather?
Oh yeah, yeah.

(49:57):
So uh your dad and I are goodfriends still today.
Uh he um I I was in Europe forthe acquisition of American
Bachaulers.
Probably a good time to be therebecause there's a lot of change,
a lot of integration.
I get to sort of watch that, youknow, uh a little bit from
Europe and try and learn as muchas I could.
Um so Jeff came over uh to helpus with uh technology

(50:20):
integration.
So uh when we made theacquisition, that was one gap
that we identified is uh wedidn't have the right platform
for sharing all the freight, uh,for bringing in the Robinson and
the Normature offices together.
Um and Jeff uh at just at theright time for me uh came over
and was leading an integrationof um of the express technology

(50:43):
that was going, you know, wasbeing launched throughout C.
H.
Robinson, but at the time hetook a really special interest
uh in helping us in Europe, um,which is Andrew.
I think I pointed this out.
I think the time I met you, youwere probably I don't know how
old you would have been in thelate 90s.
Nine.
Nine, okay, yeah.
So the whole uh large silverfamily uh was over, and he had

(51:07):
rented uh a home for the summer,and uh I remember getting
together and meeting what seemedlike 20 or 30 of you.
Yeah, there's seven kids.
Uh so that makes sense.
Yeah, so so Jeff, uh Jeff was apart of that uh uh and uh a big
influence on uh the technologyand the acceleration that pulled
that business together, and wewe still keep in touch a lot.

SPEAKER_00 (51:30):
What what would you say, just kind of you know,
closing out the Europe chapter,what would you say was kind of
the most pivotal moment of ofyour European journey?

SPEAKER_01 (51:40):
I think it was probably uh in the middle of the
integration, in the middle ofthe acquisition, we had a
founder owner um who was gonnastay on, and I was going to lead
the commercial stuff.
He was gonna have theoperations, um, and that didn't
always go well.
Um it's hard to it's hard, it'shard to go from an owner to a
part of a part of a biggerthing.

(52:01):
Yep.
Um and uh that was part of thethe request for me to go down to
France.
And um uh I would just say uh Iremember you're trying to lead a
European organization.
It's one thing when you've gotthis large outsource.
Now I've got all these people uhin half the business in France.
I had to learn, I never gotgreat, but I learned the

(52:22):
language.
Um, but I remember just likethat doubt of okay, well, now
this is for real, because we heleft the business at that point,
and that was part of um I I wentdown there before he had left,
but uh I think it was sort oflooking around the room to at
those leaders and saying, we wecan do this.
Um and that um finding out thatthey believed in themselves,

(52:44):
it's never about one person,it's about your shared
commitment.
Um and in what was a prettychallenging situation to have
just moved to France, justlearning the language, and now
you're leading the business.
To, you know, there's self-doubtroles in there, right?
Like, okay, this is good this isdifferent.
Um and I had to just buckle downand and and learn and you know,

(53:06):
learn to help them.
You know, I remember going onsales calls, I was so proud of
the first one I was able to domostly in French, and um they
they tolerated my terribleFrench, um, but still good
friends today uh throughout thatorganization.
But I think it was just thatcommitment to you but you barely
even think of it at the time,but when you look back on it,

(53:26):
it's uh staring challenges likethat down, saying, I can help.
We're going to make this work,and uh great people on this team
want to help us pull togetherand be successful.
And we retained all of thoseleaders throughout that
transition and and and many moreyears and turned it into a
successful business.

SPEAKER_00 (53:46):
So this is the first time I've ever contemplated
trying to sell in a language, ina non-native language for
yourself, especially one thatyou you self-admitted is you
weren't great at, because likeso much of selling a lot of it
is you know, obviously the wordsand and this the substance of
what you say, but sales is alsoa feeling you create for the

(54:10):
person on the other side of thetable.
And to have to try to createthat feeling of trust and
confidence in what you'repreaching must be so hard if you
can't speak the language aseffectively as you'd like to.
Because in English, you know,it's your language.

(54:30):
You you exactly the tone youwant, how you say, like
everything will come off how youwant.
If you're trying to piecetogether, and I your French
probably sounds like how mySpanish was at a point.
I could never sell in anotherlanguage, at least with with
without like you know, I justfeel like it would be really,
really hard.

SPEAKER_01 (54:49):
Yeah, I for sure.
And if and if I was on my ownand I had to make that whole
thing work without the supportof my friends, we probably
wouldn't have gotten any sale.
But part of it was just that youknow, this this was actually a
large important customermeeting, uh, and they're trying
to figure out who you are.
And um, and for me, part of itwas just that commitment and

(55:09):
saying, uh one, I'll becomfortable.
Because yeah, I'm not gettingany nuances right.
I'm not even getting the all thewords right.
Exactly.
But it was I think if I you knowlook back on it, it was more
just that commitment to I'llI'll I'll go in a place that's
super uncomfortable.
I'm going to get more and morecomfortable with it over time.

(55:30):
Um you know, I just buckleddown.
Every morning I would be, youknow, I uh every drive was tapes
online.
In fact, your your dad turned meonto this pimsler system for
learning the language.
Yep.
Um and I did not have an openmoment for a couple years.
You know, I apologized to myfamily uh for the for some of
the hours at that period oftime.

(55:51):
But um my first meeting down inFrance, there was an interpreter
in there for me and my seniorleaders.
Because in Belgium I had not hitthe language very hard.
I didn't need to.
And I just remember saying tomyself, I don't she I don't know
exactly how long she's gonna bein the room, but it's not gonna
be very damn long.
I need to be able to communicatewith these people.
And I think like the the largecustomer at that moment, they

(56:12):
they appreciate the effort.

SPEAKER_00 (56:14):
Yeah.
I I would say that makes sense.
I I I can understand that.
All right.
So we're closing the Europeanchapter.
You're coming back toMinneapolis, to the mothership.
What what year is this now?
We're in early 2000s?

SPEAKER_01 (56:30):
This is about 2002, I think.
Uh uh 2000, yeah, spring of2003.
Um, yeah, back back joined theexecutive leadership team.
Um, throughout this Europeanprocess, I had you know the
benefit of one leader for youknow 17 years, John Weehoff, who
was later the CEO.
By the time I got back, he wasCEO of the company.
Um and so he brought me back uhafter I think like just around

(56:55):
six years in Europe uh to whatwas the senior leadership team,
focused mostly on thetransportation side of the
business, um, where you're a bitof a generalist, you know,
working working with a lot ofdifferent offices.
Um, but it was yeah, my firsttime living in Minneapolis.
I've been there ever since, youknow, 20, 23 or 4 years now.

(57:16):
Um and um that so so the jobleft like like a lot of my jobs,
it left some openness for whereI wanted to focus on.
And I slowly started gravitatingtowards the this is before there
was a chief commercial officer,but those were just the gaps
that I thought you know I wouldI was best uh served to to work
on and and focus on for thecompany.

(57:37):
But it was a there was onesenior leadership team that
really had you know supervisionof all the different office bit
uh offices.

SPEAKER_00 (57:46):
So you would eventually become the chief
commercial officer.
And and I would argue that's themost influential sales
leadership role in our industry.
And in go ahead.
Go ahead.
Well, I was just gonna say likethat that means I want to spend
some time talking about sales,but I also want to spend time

(58:07):
talking about kind of the I feellike the real growth and
maturity of Robinson happensduring these last 10 to 15 years
here.
And so there's a lot I want tospend a little bit of time
there, but let's start withsales in general.
Um I guess simple question.
What makes a great sales greatsalesperson?

SPEAKER_01 (58:28):
I think someone who can listen, uh, who can diagnose
problems, who can I here'swhat's easy.
It's easy to advocate um foryour own company.
Uh sometimes some people have abetter, a harder time at you
know, easier time advocating forthe customer, like, hey,

(58:50):
everything we do is wrong and weneed to change everything just
for them.
Or you uh I think the people Ifind that are the best at it are
more balanced and they can doboth.
You have to advocate foryourself, you have to advocate
for that customer in the deal uhand drive change.
Um there's there's been a lot ofstudies on what makes great

(59:10):
salespeople.
Um one of them is being able topush back appropriately on the
customer, you know, especiallyas more and more deals involve
multiple people, buyingcommittees, five and six people.
They have they haven't made uptheir mind on exactly what they
want.
And it's an uncomfortableposition for a salesperson
sometimes to force out that lackof comfort and clarity.

(59:32):
You don't all seem to be alignedon this.
You know, you know, let's let'slet's talk about what we really
want out of this.
And I don't know if there is aI've always debated this.
There's a sales personality, andthey're you know, they don't
like conflict and they needextra special treatment.
I never thought of it that way.
Um I think to me, sales is thishigh art form.

(59:55):
And uh just like peopleleadership is, uh, I've always
been somebody who liked it.
Do you know a little bit of bothand bring both to that table?
But I think there's you knowit's kind of that maturity to be
able to say, hey, not all dealsare the best deals.
Um people don't want to be sold,and people, you know, that
wasn't a recent change.
People say, okay, you know,traditional sales ended in the

(01:00:16):
90s.
Like, I don't think it reallyever existed.
Nobody ever wanted to get pushedinto you know something they
didn't want, right?
So there wasn't some point wherehumans evolved and no sales has
to change.
Um so I think it's thesebalanced individuals who will
listen.
Um, and again, I I go back tothat on-site experience of of
thinking externally and beingable to come back and advocate
and come up with the best dealand push your company too.

(01:00:40):
Some of the best sales are notsomething that you can handle
right now, but but you're gonnafigure it out.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:46):
At Molo, we built a great company and I'm proud of
the work we did.
We knew when to ask for help,and sometimes that meant going
outside of our own company.
I'm proud we built an ecosystemof trusted partners like
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When we needed differentiatedindustry expertise in business
consulting or technologyservices, we looked at Peter,
Ryan, and the team at Metaphora.

(01:01:07):
They've consistently deliveredvalue in the transportation and
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At Molo, we use Metaphor tosolve problems we simply
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Metaphor is the only partner youshould trust to help you win,
whether that's doing ops andtech diligence, growing revenue,

(01:01:28):
optimizing spend, or selectingand building software.
Go check them out atmetaphora.net.
That's M-E-T-A-F-O-R-A.net.
Yeah, I mean, those those arethe deals that mature a
business.
Those are the deals that teachyou not what you're not what you
were capable of, but what youcan be capable of.

(01:01:49):
And from those, there's like somuch growth that can come.
Um, opens new doors and helpsyou realize like, wait, we
actually can do this.
Like, let's start selling it asa core competency.
For example, being on site, youknow, uh, one experience turns
into a sales platform and and anopportunity to grow across the
entire organization.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:08):
Yeah.

unknown (01:02:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:09):
So my opportunity there in that role was I I used
my sales experience, I used mycustomer-facing experience, I
used being uh the global, I usedleading a team.
Um, and the the the benefit wasI had a leader who wanted to
keep evolving the company.
You know, that that company hadnever grown by sitting still.
Um and so I worked, and saleswas a very you know, a bit of a

(01:02:33):
disorganized job family at C.
H.
Robinson.
They were just kind of startingup full-time outside sales.
Well, I'd been in those, I'vebeen in their footsteps.
And so I started listening, likeI had with customers, to our
salespeople.
Uh started a sales contest witha team uh of leaders, Jason
Lidke now and James Santee, whoboth lead companies out there
today uh in the space, and wejust started getting more

(01:02:55):
organized around measuringacross the whole company.
Let's now, all right, let's takethe winners.
And some of my favorite meetingsis when we started this rewards
trip and listened to the thingsthat were in their way.
You know, it started with fiveor six people that it had X
number of revenue.
And probably one of my mostmeaningful meetings was them
talking about things that get intheir way internally.

(01:03:17):
And I always saw my job was notto supervise anything or manage
anything, it was to grow, fix,improve, listen to customers.
And so we started a moreorganized sales force.
We we did a few go-to-marketchanges around getting the
company um morecustomer-centric, more
coordinated for some of thebiggest customers.
I, you know, I'd been in thatseat of trying to work with you

(01:03:39):
know a network of offices toserve a greater, larger customer
more than we could have done onour own.
And um my some I always sawexecutive leadership was about
doing that more by design.
Now I had this chance to go helpour customers, our care, you
know, our salespeople and ouraccount managers by making the

(01:03:59):
company, you know, by by makingchanges that made their job
easier, make made us easier todo business with and a little
bit more coordinated, if youwill.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:09):
Couple thoughts that are coming to my mind.
Um, one, you mentioned therewards trip.
Are you telling me that arewards trip is more than just a
chance to go to a beach inPuerto Vallarta for three days
spending hundreds of thousandsof dollars or a cruise in the
Caribbean?
Yeah, it was for me.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:25):
Um I that's certainly part of it.
That drives some of themotivation.
Um but our first one, uh, youknow, we set a threshold for uh
a sales number.
Again, we didn't, you know, thisis pretty new.
There, you know, there's youknow, think you know, hundreds,
not thousands in this in thisjob group.
And um the first year was five,I think that went.
Um many of them came back formany, many more years.

(01:04:47):
That got to be a much biggertrip over the years.
But yeah, I we would use it toget feedback.
We would use it to test changes.
Hey, we're thinking of this.
There was always businesscontent uh at those meetings uh
as how we designed it.
Um but my favorite time, Iremember John saying the same
thing uh was listening to thesepeople that had been successful

(01:05:11):
more than others.
And it's easier to listen to agroup like that, too.
Oh, yeah.
You know, you're getting noteverything's gonna be a great
idea.
But but when you hear thosethings that are thematic of what
gets in their way, what theywish they had, uh, that was
hugely impactful for me.
And I made sure that it happenedfor every single trip that we
did.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:31):
So you just gave me part of the answer to the
question, but I'm gonna ask itanyways to see if there's more
more gold nuggets in there.
Um making changes for commercialfor a commercial organization of
Robinson's size is is a big dealand can be a massive
opportunity, and it can also bea terrible disaster if done

(01:05:52):
poorly.
So I'm curious what your generalmindset is to approaching big
changes in a commercialorganization, how you think
about approaching it, and I'llleave it at there.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:03):
Yeah, well, it's a great question because I'm I'm
looking at things like that nowas we you know go to one armada.
Um and I'll I'll I'll tell yousome of the things that I think
are important from a guidelinestandpoint as I'm putting teams
together to look at multipleoptions for us.
Um one, it's think externally.
And you have when you'rethinking about major change like

(01:06:26):
this and how you can be betterorganized, uh, you have to start
by getting outside observations.
Talk to your customers, talk toyour carriers.
Uh each time I modeled othercompanies.
Uh Chicago, Minneapolis, youknow, we traveled around, we saw
companies that we thought werehad solved some of the

(01:06:47):
challenges.
And we would usually say, hey,here's some of the things we
think we do well.
Would you like to have thischief commercial officer to
chief commercial organizationget together?
Here are the things we'recurious about.
And I still have some of thoserelationships from doing that.
You find the non-competitivemodels and we are customer-based
vendors.
Um, and I there are good ideasout there that you don't that

(01:07:10):
you can borrow from others andlearn from.
Um the other thing I think thatis key, and I would call it sort
of a design parameter forchange, is make it about growth.
This isn't about like a neaterorg chart or something that you
feel you know looks nicer.
Uh, it is how do you unlock thepotential for growth?

(01:07:30):
And um that's you know, that hasto be at the heart of it.
Um, and then the last one Iwould say is doing it
collaboratively.
I never thought when someonesaid, hey, Chris, we you know,
we here's the challenge we wantto solve, let's get let's get a
little bit more coordinated ishow I'd sort of capture what's
much, much bigger and deeperthan that.
It's a um but we called it youknow go-to-market changes.

(01:07:54):
Um I never thought that thatwould be something though that
all I had to lead that I wasever going to do alone.
So I pulled in people from alldifferent levels, some of them
that had new jobs out of this,but the field, sales, account
managers, other leaders, um dothat very, very collaboratively.
You know, have the courage to belet people challenge you.

(01:08:15):
There's no bad answers.
Um, those I think are some ofthe keys that stick with me and
how I still try to drive changetoday.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:23):
Yeah, I love that answer.
Um, you know, my my experience,you know, we we had a commission
program for our salespeople atMolo that was the same program
we had started with.
And four years in, my partnerand I wanted to change it.
And just a couple of theprinciples that we thought about
was one, the collaborativenature you bring up.

(01:08:46):
I I made sure before before wehad even considered our first
plan of what it would change to,we told our entire sales force,
hey, we need to make a change.
And explaining the why of why wewanted to change it.
And it I agree with you, it'scentered on growth.
And when you center it ongrowth, everyone should be
aligned that like growth wheneveryone wins when the business

(01:09:08):
grows.
Like there's there's not someonewho loses because the business
is growing, right?
It's it's either helpingeverybody make more money or
it's creating more jobopportunities, more promotions,
more new teams, et cetera, etcetera.
And so I think being intentionaland proactive about
communicating that and thentaking feedback, those are so

(01:09:28):
instrumental in getting buy-infrom the team.
Like at the end of the day, theymight not agree with the change
you make, but they won't besurprised by it.
And their feedback will havebeen heard and they will
understand the why.
They can always disagree andthey can always make a change
for themselves if they disagree,because you can't always make
everybody happy.

(01:09:49):
For us, one of the things Iwanted to change was having
people become stagnant withtheir book of business over
time, not focused on bringing innew opportunities because they
had five good customers andthat's all they cared about.
And so what I wanted to do wasessentially say over time, you'd
get paid less on accounts thatwere supported by the rest of
the business because as theaccount grew, the support you

(01:10:11):
needed on the account grew.
And somebody that that that'smoney that comes out of the
business's pocket, andsomebody's got to pay for that.
Um, but being upfront about itand explaining the why and
getting opinions and feedbackfrom people, like you said,
they're not always the rightopinions because some people are
like, Yeah, you should just payus more.
It's like, yeah, we'd love tolike get make us more money,

(01:10:32):
like happily.
Um, so I just want to share thatbecause that that was kind of my
perspective, and and I think italigns with what you're sharing.
Yeah, for sure.
All right, so just a couple moreminutes of Robinson, and then
let's move on to Armada.
Um and I guess I should beprepared with a question to ask
as I say that.
Um I guess when you think backon your time at Robinson,

(01:10:57):
especially in the last you know,decade or so as chief commercial
officer, what would you say werelike the most important things
that you accomplished or thatyou and the group did to help
drive the business forward?

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:11):
Yeah, it was just I would go, but maybe maybe based
on things I heard fromcustomers.
Perfect.
Um that's the right way to thinkabout it.
Yeah, and I would say over theyears, I knew we were doing
something right when I washearing things like you've
you've empowered that accountmanager more so than they were

(01:11:33):
in the past.
That we you know, that the howdecisions are made and the
control points needed to be alittle bit more, the customer
needed to be in there a littlebit more, and those those jobs
needed to be more powerful, alittle bit more creative.
Um, and I you know was talkingto one of them recently about
the fact that um, hey, you know,you you helped make the company

(01:11:56):
a little bit morecustomer-centered, or and and
they were talking about people,people on our teams, uh, more so
than the company.
And that hey, they had they uhthey added a great account
manager behind the scenes.
We had to make changes toempower those people.
Um but I think the thing thatyou know there's a lot I'm proud
of.
I stayed there for 31 yearsbecause it was a great company,

(01:12:19):
and it was you know time for meto try something else, and I
can't wait to talk about Armada.
But uh I would say uh you know,I'm just the most proud of
finding change that wasrational, that made sense, that
drove growth.
It wasn't for the sake of justchange, it was for um, and if
you know, if I was leading onthe carrier side, I would have
been driving you know similarthings, making it easier for our

(01:12:40):
customers to do business with usand for our account-facing
people to sell everything thatwe had uh and to sell to those
customers.
That's that's what I'm theproudest of.
It's you know, I I thought, youknow, and then having that
chance to later in your careerat a company you know so well,
create some of the things thatyou wish you maybe had earlier

(01:13:01):
on.
And um when I get feedback fromsome of those people that reach
out or or those customers, itwas um it m my favorite is if
they had no idea what thatchange was, but they just
thought, hey, this is just howyou guys work and it's great.
So that that's probably the mostsatisfying.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:16):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
All right, all right, it's time.
So 31 years and you say it'stime, time to move on, and
eventually you find Armada.
Two questions.
First, why Armada?
Second to that, what is Armada?

(01:13:37):
I would love to hear thatdirectly from you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:39):
Sure.
Okay.
Well, first, why?
Um, I had known um uh the thefounder, uh the two leaders
here, John Burke uh and JoeDominajani, who is the CEO of
Armada.
Uh John's the chairman.
Uh I'd known them for probablyseven or eight years.
Um I'd seen them at conferences.

(01:14:00):
Uh we always found each other,it seems like, and ended up
talking.
And uh and so I I had a sort ofappreciation for who they were
as people.
Um in my uh after I left CHRobinson, I uh they found out
that I was available, and weended up starting a conversation
that allowed me to come toPittsburgh, uh, Armada's

(01:14:21):
headquartered in Pittsburgh.
I'll talk a little bit about youknow the next part of your
question of who we are.
Um but I had a pretty goodfeeling, based on knowing Joe
and John, that the company wasgoing to be great.
I knew uh about them, theirreputation, uh, especially in
that restaurant space, that itwas very hard to unseat them if,
you know, the with the way theyhave relationships.
So super curious as to how theyhad such tenure uh with these

(01:14:44):
large restaurant customers.
Uh but uh one of the firstthings they did is said, well,
we'd like you to come in andmeet more people, which one that
said something to me about themagain.
You know, let's find if there'sa cultural fit with Chris and
this team.
And I just had a greatconversation in Pittsburgh with
that next level of leadership.
We talked, you know, the meetingwent on and on, you know, past

(01:15:04):
when it was supposed to.
We just found like kindredspirits.
Um so that that was a part ofit, a cultural fit.
Uh and nine months later I wouldsay, you know, so glad I did
this, uh, because cultural fit'seven more than I had expected.
Um two, I was um I was I I gotto learn some what some of their

(01:15:26):
advantages were.
Um, and uh I'll talk aboutthose.
Uh I'll come back to that in aminute.
But I I um it was pretty easy tosee, man, this is something
unique and different.
Now you you know you shared thatlike in our very first
conversation.
Hey it's hard to classifyexactly you know what they are,
so I'll talk about that next.
But um so there was a culturalfit, there was the unique

(01:15:50):
advantages that they had, andthen there was the map the mix
of what they were looking forand what I do.
You know, I've I've had broadstrategic leadership in a lot of
different areas.
I've you know I've I've I grewup on you know both the customer
and the carrier side, but thecommon theme for me is driving
growth.
Um and uh Armada's been a growthcompany, but they were looking

(01:16:10):
to accelerate that growth, youknow, looking to jump into other
spaces and build the commercialengine, if you will.
And so um the third piece of itfor me was the particular type
of leader they were looking formatched the things that I like
to spend my, you know, thelargest percentage of my time

(01:16:30):
on.
So that's the why.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:33):
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:34):
I'll talk about the who.
Um Armada is the largest part ofthe business.
They've made a a couple ofacquisitions that I'll talk
about, but uh about a thousandpeople and uh spread between
inventory, engineering, managedfreight.
The the two main areas ofrevenue are managed freight uh

(01:16:55):
and inventory services,redistribution uh at Armada.
Those are sort of the two mainways that we make uh make our
money as saving companies moneyin those two spaces.
Um again, about the same size asC.
H.
Robinson when I joined, um,privately held.
Uh it was you know, I'm all in,I'm you know, now you know

(01:17:16):
committed and one of thepartners in the business, but uh
amazing people.
You know, you you asked aboutwhat it is.
So, you know, part of it, youknow, one of the largest
services is this inventory.
We have about two million squarefeet uh across four centers that
we call our hubs, you know,large, large distribution
centers where we help you knowprimarily our restaurant

(01:17:38):
customers.
That's the largest, you know, ofthis this business started in
the restaurant space.
It's been in uh it's been aroundmany years.
Uh you know, it started out asactually a food company,
Northside Foods, and it goesback a hundred years, the story.
The last 20 have more been aboutlogistics, technology, and
engineering as at uh as a ZoreManagement buyout that made that

(01:17:59):
its own business and becameArmada.
Um but um so really deepengineering.
Um uh the uh the inventory pieceis basically taking, you know,
it's it's I would call it sortof a play on LTL consolidation.
Redistribution is about takingthe goods that you know couldn't
normally go truckload into uh acustomer's distribution center.

(01:18:23):
Um so we're consolidating, we'remanaging the inventory, we're
doing some unique things likeowning that inventory.
Um I I would call it, you know,it I it's it's more complex than
than LTL consolidation becauseof the inventory.
And we're do we're we'reaccountable for visibility for
our customers for some of theyou know, we we're a part of
their teams for planning.
So that's you know, that's a bigpart of it.

(01:18:46):
Then the next part is thismanaged freight piece.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:48):
Um before you go to managed freight.
Go ahead.
Before you go to managedfreight, I think it's important.
I don't think the averagelistener understands the nuance
of restaurant supply chainrelative to Walmart, Kroger, or
you know, any normal freightbrokering or movement of goods
for a CPG or a retailer.

(01:19:09):
So I think if you could touch ona little bit why there's a need
for redistribution in therestaurant supply chain and the
low inventory levels that mostof the restaurants keep, I think
that's I think it's aninteresting nuance that will
help the audience understand whythis business even needs to
exist.

SPEAKER_01 (01:19:27):
Yes.
Yes, that's a great question.
So, you know, why how do we saveour customers money in this
space and what's unique aboutthe restaurant space?
You know, one, I I would startwith the fact that in general
they've got their final miledistribution because of how many
stores you know they have,they've got final mile
distribution generallyoutsourced to just food
distribution companies.

(01:19:48):
We're handling that first andsecond mile into them.
Uh another uniqueness is thatthey've got a much wider variety
of skews in terms of the speedthat they move through uh versus
retail.
Uh if you think about thedifferent SKUs on a shelf, they
you know they all move a littlebit differently, but you think
about the restaurant space, uhFrench fries and hamburgers move

(01:20:11):
really quickly.
Um, all the accessories andsauces and straws and you know,
you know, gloves, that movesvery slowly.
So it's ripe for uh some directtruckload and some
consolidation.
Uh that that combination of alarge, larger variety of speed
uh through the system than youwould have in the retail space.

(01:20:34):
Um a lot of temperaturecontrolled and perishable, so
that makes it unique.
Um and when you get into thedistribution and consolidation
of those spaces, again, there'sfewer players out there that do
that well while we specialize inand do it great.
Uh and then the last thing Iwould say is limited time
offers, LTOs, um to drive growthuh uh and the McRib.

(01:21:00):
When something like a McRibcomes around, um that's sourcing
something that you didn't havein your space that you
immediately need to get going.
The planning, the management forsomething like that is not just
good for redistribution.
You know, that's that yes,that's a huge advantage force,
but for people and engineeringand inventory planning, that
plays really well into thestrength of our MATA.

(01:21:22):
Um so those would be some of themain differences in the in the
restaurant space that make ourbusiness unique, relevant, uh,
and uh and so so strong atdriving you know improvement,
availability, and savings forour customers.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:36):
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I think the audience will too.
Um now you can move back to youwere getting into the managed
freight piece.
Managed freight.

SPEAKER_01 (01:21:43):
Yeah, so I I talked about these advantages that we
have.
One is this combination of both,managed freight and these
inventory pieces.
These are weapons that you knowcombined, I've never really had
at my disposal.
And um, and the company pullsthem together so nicely uh that
you know where that you knowwhere we can do both, you know,

(01:22:04):
our our ability to win is isreally, really high.
Um and um so then you know let'stalk about what you know what
managed freight is for us,what's unique about it.
I'll talk about Sunset and ATECare uh two divisions of the
company next, but core ArmadaManaged Freight, it's powered by
a really unique carrier base.
You know, um we for most of ourcustomers, we are the sole

(01:22:28):
source of managing their carrierselection.
And it's the one way that youget access to those large retail
chains that we work with today.
Um because of that, the companyhas operated a lot more like a
shipper with those carriers.
Deep long-term relationships.
I was just at our carrier summittalking to them about them and

(01:22:49):
reinforcing how much you knowthat was part of what attracted
me here.
Um, carriers that you know Ihadn't been able to even work
with in the past to that level,um, have senior leaders in the
room.
Uh, and and that's because ofthe way our mod has uh been
great and built strongrelationships with them.
Uh something I would say youknow, I had a high bar for
coming in, but it's but it hasbeen surpassed.

(01:23:10):
Um a smaller pool, you know,we're not talking thousands,
we're talking hundreds of thesemostly larger and medium-sized
carriers uh that we don't chasethe market up and down with, uh,
that we hold, you know, holdaccountable for service and
rate.
You know, we don't, again, youdon't we're saving our our
customers money on managing thatfreight very, very well.

(01:23:30):
But the prioritization of at onepoint I've said, hey, we act
more like a shipper, but in someways it's even better because we
act like a good shipper thatunderstands how carriers want to
be treated, how they want to bepaid.
Um and just some of my just corephilosophy, spending a lot more
time in the past on the morededicated programs and the

(01:23:51):
larger customers, it just fitthe way I look at the carrier
model really well.
And I saw just what a great jobthe team has done over the
years.
Um, you know, a lot of thefreight emanates from our hubs.
Not, you know, most of itdoesn't, but a lot is going
through our hubs.
But that's not what makes usmore like a shipper.
It's really just we makelong-term commitments to these
carriers.
Um, once you're in, if youperform, you're in.

(01:24:13):
Um there's a recognition thatshort-term market changes, you
can you're never really going towin that game.
We are rewarded for thatapproach with a ton of loyalty
from uh amazing carriers.
Some large, some medium who'vebuilt their business around
Armada.
Uh, but it is I would I would itis unique in the marketplace and

(01:24:35):
maybe part of your question,hey, what exactly is Armada?
You know, the from the from themanaged freight piece.
So it's um you know that thatgives us you know the ability to
punch way above our weight as wego to expand this business.
We've got this broad, you know,this this set of super unique
contracted carriers.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:53):
And what Paul's there, Andrew.
Yeah, what does that kind ofcarrier pool look like?
I mean, because Sunset, as Iunderstand, is like a true
freight broker.
Is that right?
Yes.
Yep.
So how do they kind of fit intothe kind of picture of your
carrier pool or network?
Are they a provider or the whathow does that work?

SPEAKER_01 (01:25:16):
Yes, that they are.
Uh the company has long workedwith multiple 3 PLs, you know,
for for growth.
And you know, again, there'sstrong loyal relationships
there.
Uh, but Sunset is one of them.
So yeah, so think about youknow, on the Armada side, a more
limited pool of carriers uh thathave growth opportunity because
they're all you know generallylarger carriers.

(01:25:38):
Uh let's talk about Sunset, anacquisition uh in 2002.
You know, today um uh a reallysuccessful company.
I did not, I was I knew who theywere, but um uh it was a
competitive process from uh fromwhen the company went to market
to I think in 2022 to go to findmore capacity and enter into

(01:26:00):
this this brokerage model.
Um traditional, but alsountraditional in some ways.
Uh also a very pretty highpercentage of um outsource
freight.
Uh uh, one of the very firstthree PLs in the LTL space.
So really good LTL operator, uhreally strong culture.
Lindsey Graves, uh their fatherran that business for many years

(01:26:22):
uh and that sales.
So Lindsay runs that for ustoday.
They have built just a greatteam.
Again, I've been I've been soimpressed with what they do.
But yeah, a broader carrierportfolio, think you know,
thousands now instead ofhundreds across all industries,
you know, like a you know atypical you know uh broker in
that space.

(01:26:42):
A part of our story of takingthis whole thing and you know
and expanding beyond ourrestaurant strength is this
group.
But uh main office in St.
Louis with offices in uh St.
Paul, Nashville, and uh GrandHaven, Western Michigan.
Uh few agents, uh part of thatnetwork, a growing agency
network.

(01:27:03):
Um it's my first time in sort ofthe agency space.
That's been a lot of fun.
Um but really strong people uhthat fit the culture really
well, uh going in the rightdirection, growing our volume
this year in spite of themarketplace.
You know, we've uh doing a lotof the right things to make that
business great.
So that's sunset.

(01:27:23):
And then how about ATEC?
ATEC uh is our um it it it'sit's oversimplifying to call
them an ocean forwarder.
They uh a restaurant specialist,long-term partner in the
restaurant space.
Armada and ATEC knew each otherfor many years as co-suppliers
to different restaurant chains,uh, an amazing executor in

(01:27:43):
Orlando, uh ocean and airfocused, export primarily, uh
helping a lot of uh restaurantcustomers, franchisees in other
markets.
Uh Latin America, uh uh real youknow, high specialist there, but
it but again, international,they um like our motto.
We'll do some thingsdifferently, talking about our

(01:28:04):
competitive advantages.
You know, we own a lot of ourinventory.
Uh, they'll do that on theexport side too.
Some things that the uh a smallfranchisee in Puerto Rico might
not be able to do to get buyingpower with some of these large
North American food suppliers.
Uh they'll uh handle that greatsynergies in that a lot of that
freight will be consolidatedthrough our hub centers.

(01:28:26):
So real cost advantages for ourcustomers as we export and
consolidate and build reallynicely consolidated containers
for export.
So uh again, they meet thecultural uh high bar uh across
Dharmada.
Uh amazing people doing doinggreat things in uh in our

(01:28:47):
Orlando throughout the world.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:50):
I'm I'm curious about a sales process for a
business like this.
You know, I feel like it's it'sdefinitely not the way that your
old sales guys at Robinson ormine at Molo would be calling.
I mean, maybe for Sunset'sbusiness, the traditional
brokerage part it would be, butyou know, you're selling

(01:29:12):
redistribution, you're sellinginventory management, the
managed freight piece.
What does that commercial effortlook like in terms of you know,
is it is it cold calling and youknow, trying to bang on doors to
be like we can do all of thisfor you?
Or and because I mean there's alimited number of opportunities,

(01:29:34):
I imagine, right?
We're talking about the majorfast food brands primarily, but
also are there other kind ofrestaurant brands that that I'm
not thinking of that have thiskind of wide ranging network
that needs this level ofsupport?

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:49):
Yeah, well, let's let's take that in pieces.
First, you're right.
The the the sunset piece,probably from a sales
standpoint, looks a little bitmore familiar to you.
Everybody's got some truckloadand some LTL right.
Right.
And so we've got SDRs, outsidesales, a little bit more cold
intro on the Armada side.

(01:30:10):
There are many restaurants thatwe don't do business with, but
we feel this business isextremely portable.
There's a lot of companies thathave a mix of need and wear
distribution service andengineering.
The managed freight piece of it,again, I talked about that
advantage that we have with thiscarrier group that can apply
outside of the restaurant space.
So our managed services, youknow, especially if you look at

(01:30:33):
the power of what we have atSunset plus Armada, those two
sort of unique carrier models,there's probably something in
between how we leverage those aswe think about integration that
makes that even more applicable.
You know, I mentioned thingsthat I, you know, weren't
available to me in the past,like with some of these larger
carriers and the inventorypiece.
Um we see that that Armadasolution uh expands nicely

(01:30:58):
outside of the restaurant spacetoo.
We went to convenience stores.
Um most companies need some typeof inventory control and
engineering and support as wellas manage freight.
So that's a part of our growthstory is expanding that.
Um and then you think about howthey all come together the
international, the you know, themore slightly more transactional

(01:31:18):
truck brokerage, the moreintegrated model, plus that.
You pull these all thingstogether and put them together
pieces in the right way.
Um, it is a more complex sell.
It's maybe not for everyone, butit was part of why we made the
decision to bring thesebusinesses together is uh rather
than cross-training everyone onthese different things, let's
make it what we do.

(01:31:39):
And I think when we pull thesethings together, our future is
about something that doesn'texist in the marketplace, uh,
that has unique advantages thatno one else has in a sort of a
crowded space of managed freightor brokerage.
Uh, we're bringing these thingstogether for growth and to make
a statement that uh that thatwe've got we've got things that
others don't.

(01:31:59):
And it's it's time for us tobring it together and start
telling that story.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:03):
Yes.
So I have two questions.
One, I guess it's probably timefor us, given you just lead led
us right into the one armadaconcept.
So let's let's sit with that fora minute.
Talk about that strategy, whatthat business will look like, or
what your intent is for thatbusiness to look like, and how
you actually execute on thatvision and integration process.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:24):
Yeah, I'll I'll start with the fact that um you
know it's been something I'vehad my eye on uh since you know,
since coming in is hey, what isthe right way for us to be
organized?
Um it's not the brand is onepart of it.
I would say going to one Armadabrand is more associated with
the decision to go to onelarger, more integrated,
competitive company.

(01:32:45):
And that, you know, when when weasked ourselves some of the
questions is hey, do we have acommon buyer across these three
different businesses?
Mostly, yes.
Uh, is it a similar service?
Yeah, you know, there's veryvariations on how we get it
done, uh, but they're all supplychain and transportation
services.
Um so the decision was made uhreally to make it easier for us

(01:33:08):
to grow and to grow faster.
Um and a lot of our saleslately, some of the biggest
sales deals we're doing rightnow, take advantage of you know
all three parts of this businessin different ways.
Um there's an internationalcomponent to it.
Um the TMS at sunset, you know,might be a stronger play for us.

(01:33:29):
And then there's the largededicated carrier base.
So the different parts that theteams were already working
together to bring the piecestogether for customers.
Uh, this is just about making iteasier.
Let's do this by design.
Let's train everyone to do it.
Let's go figure out thedifferent parts of the business
that we want to be as strong aswe are in the restaurant space.

(01:33:50):
Bringing us together instantlymakes us pretty much puts us
into every vertical.
Um so it's you know, it's one ofthose things like um there's a
ton of rational reasons to getthis done.
Um, but it comes down to, like Isaid before, it starts with
growth.
Uh, we're gonna be thoughtfulabout it.
Um, you know, just just likeJohn and Joe were about you know

(01:34:12):
bringing me in and having aleadership transition.
We're going to make sure that westay focused on our our
customers and our carriers as wemake some of these.
They're gonna be involved in youknow in how we how we pull these
things together.
But it it just started with thethe premise that um what we do
is unique.
These advantages that we have,um, we could better tell our

(01:34:34):
story.
Uh we wanted to do that acrossone platform, you know, invest
in one brand versus three.
Uh and the last thing I wouldsay about that is each of these
businesses brings somethingunique, both from their brand,
their culture.
And this isn't about jammingthings together as much as it is
thinking about hey, how can webest organize and get the best
of all these different thingsthat we have?

(01:34:55):
Each each of the three companieshas some amazing advantages and
people.
Let's create a new armada that'sone.

SPEAKER_00 (01:35:05):
So I'm it's it's a fascinating concept and process.
And I don't want to use the wordcaution, but I'm curious I've
seen companies try to take dothis do an integration process
where you know, maybe maybe callit LTL was their bread and
butter, and and you've gotsalespeople who've been selling

(01:35:26):
LTL for 30 years, and nowthey're saying, well, these
people can sell brokerage too,why not?
You know, similar customer base.
And and what I saw was you know,someone who's been selling LTL
for 30 years against fivecompetitors nationally now is
going to start selling truckloadbrokerage against 30,000

(01:35:47):
competitors, and you can'talways teach an old dog new
tricks.
Um, at least that's what I'veseen before.
And I'm curious how like youmentioned being thoughtful,
which I you know I could tellwithout you telling me that that
was that's how you'reapproaching it, but how do you
generally think about thatconcept of having people with

(01:36:07):
different historical experienceand skills and bringing them
into one maybe sales force, butalso well, just just start
there.
Um, and then I have a separatequestion about kind of the
different services you offer andhow you think about that
structurally.

SPEAKER_01 (01:36:24):
Yeah, I'll just say that that that sales decision is
a really important one, and Ithink the caution you bring up
is a good one that we havethought about uh and that we
will plan around.
Um, we don't have a preconceiveddestination of where we're
going.
Um, it is a small enough salesforce that we know just from
talking to them they would liketo be able to offer more in the

(01:36:46):
marketplace.
Um but but from a designstandpoint, it could be that
our, you know, again, teamsright now are just starting to
look with me at what are whatare some options in terms of the
best way for us to grow?
Um it could be some combinationof, hey, you're really good at
you know ocean services, um, buthere's how we can make sure that

(01:37:08):
you know everything that thereis to know about the rest of the
enterprise.
It could be an integratedSalesforce from a leadership
standpoint that still is focusedat the division level, and it
could be fully integrated.
You know, that that's that's thegood thing.
And and what to go back tothoughtfulness, this isn't a
race either.
You know, we're we're going toyou know protect this culture,

(01:37:28):
protect uh the legacy.
These are three you knowwell-run companies that were
doing the right thing foramazing uh clients out there and
amazing carriers.
So that has to be job one iskeep that up while we figure
some of these things out.
But I go back to some of thethings we talked about earlier.
It's evolve a lot of people,talk to your customers, talk to

(01:37:51):
your carriers, get greatopinions, um, and don't have an
idea in advance of how it has tobe.
You know, I I'm talking to thepeople that do this today and
letting them take some of thenext steps in terms of what we
were to start from scratch on onsome of this stuff, knowing that
here's the things that we can'tchange and need to protect.
What could this look like?

(01:38:12):
And there's no there's nopredefined answer, but you your
caution is what you know it isone that you know we need to
keep in mind.
Let's this is about growth.
So let's do it in a way thathelps people sell more, not
less.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:23):
Yep.
And and how do you think aboutlike the idea that this business
has these specific functionsthat play really nicely for the
McDonald's of the world andcompanies like that?
And maybe that's the ICP, likeone ICP.

(01:38:43):
Like the ideal customer probablyis tapping into all of the
services you offer.
But you obviously don't want toshut out.
You mentioned managed freight.
A company like Heineken is agreat example that has always or
historically always had anoutsourced managed
transportation provider.
Um, Robinson has hundreds ofcompanies that use them for
managed transportation, andthere are plenty of other

(01:39:04):
companies that are also in thatfield.
Yeah, you want to be best inclass, I'm assuming, at each of
these things individually.
So I'm just curious if there's aspecific way you have to think
about the commercial model orstructure so that yes, you know,
the McDonald's of the world whotouches all of them is great.
But also if it's a Heinekenopportunity that shows up, that

(01:39:26):
you can be best at just thatfunction, or if it's you know,
just inventory management thatsomeone needs.
I'm just curious if there's aspecific way you have to think
about that, if you'reunderstanding what I'm getting
at.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:37):
That yeah.
Yeah, it's it's exactly thetypes of things that we need to
keep in mind as we solve for.
Managed freight's a goodexample.
You know, I think we can bebetter in the broader managed
freight space, you know, outsideof the restaurant space.
We'll keep we'll keep you knowwe'll keep growing that space,
but there's some uniquecombination of these services.

(01:39:59):
You know, one of the very strongcultural components of our MATA
too is a ton of partnership andtransparency with these
customers.
Um and I'm not just talking liketo fees and carrier rates, you
know, for many of our customers,we have a shared PL.
If that's what they want, that'swhat they get.
So I think that's another uniqueadvantage in the managed freight
space.
Um, just like there is thepropensity and the, you know,

(01:40:21):
we've got the flexibility to goout and do some things
financially that others mightnot like, you know, owning that
inventory and you know, takeadvantage of a strong balance
sheet.
Um this these deep relationshipsthat we've had in the restaurant
space have evolved into a lotalmost like supply chain
financial services, if you will,that again, I just don't think

(01:40:42):
others have.
So it's using that strong base,uh, this combination of the
three companies and their greatcultures to figure out other
places that we can be great.
You know, and it's and it'sprobably not going to be all of
them.
There's some things, you know.
The international space is areally big question.
We're really quite good atexport to Latin American

(01:41:02):
countries, uh, and it'sprimarily in that food service
and restaurant space.
Well, we're, you know, we have alot of choices to make.
The choice to be a you know adominant global forwarder across
all export and import markets,that's a big one.
You know, that we we need toknow what we're great at and
figure out what the nextadjacencies are uh that we will

(01:41:24):
approach geographically.
But then what are the areas thatthese combinations of services
just would allow us to take thishuge leap forward in the North
American logistics space?
To me, managed freight is one ofthem.
You know, we're where we'vewe've got tremendous advantages,
we're already in multipleindustries, the business is
extremely portable, and we canuse distribution and the export

(01:41:47):
knowledge and some of thefinancial services that we do to
beat people out.
And um, the other thing I feellucky about is I found another
culture that people just caremore to, and that they the
hustle is still there and thescrappiness is still there.
We're not, you know, we'll neverbe too big for that.
Uh, and I don't think anycompany should be.
Um I, you know, that's part ofmy cultural commitment, is I

(01:42:11):
came here because I appreciatedthat in the culture.
Uh, and uh it's always beensomething I've appreciated and
tried to drive, and I'm gonnacontinue that here.

SPEAKER_00 (01:42:21):
So I just a couple more questions as we're coming
up on time here shortly.
Um two years from now, what doessuccess look like to you?

SPEAKER_01 (01:42:34):
Yeah, two years.
Um, you know, we I would startwith, you know, this is an
integrated business.
Uh the percentage of ourfreight, you know, our our
business that's in you know moreservices uh and more industries
is much higher.
Uh our customers and carrierswould say, congratulations,
Armada.

(01:42:54):
You've uh you've pulled togethersomething that is unique in the
marketplace, and we are ascommitted as ever to continue on
this journey with you.
You you had something unique andyou've protected that, but
you've also grown it intosomething that's better.
Uh and when it comes down to youknow measuring that success,
those will be the first peoplethat I'll talk to.

(01:43:14):
They'll be a part of our plansin terms of you know what would
they say about us in a couple acouple years down the road?
They say amazing things rightnow.
You are a partner, you think ofus first and you second.
Those are the things I'll wantto maintain, and that the
business is much larger.
Uh we have people in the rightplaces and they're enjoying
their careers.
They see that you know, thatthis bigger story that's

(01:43:37):
available to us is out there,and they're even more proud to
be a part of this one biggerthing.
Um so yeah, I think it wouldcome down to primarily that you
know the customers and carrierssaying, you know, congrats, you
know, you you you're providingmore opportunities to us from a
freight standpoint, you'reproviding more services to us as
as customers, uh, and you'vemaintained that great culture

(01:44:00):
that you have in doing it.
You know, that those are things,again, I I came here for this
culture.
Uh I came here for thenimbleness, the scrappiness, uh,
you know, the and I I'm here toprotect that.
But you know, it takes changetoo.
And uh and I'm just so happythat I landed here with a bunch
of people that are that are theyup for that change and they're

(01:44:21):
excited about about comingtogether now.

SPEAKER_00 (01:44:24):
Yeah, I mean, if I could buy your stock, I would.
Um, because I just it the thethe way that it so naturally
comes to mind for you.
The I mean, this is a leadershiplesson for anyone listening that
that you don't have to evendeliberately say, but the fact
that you so naturally trendtowards the feeling you create

(01:44:44):
for the customer as like thefirst thing you're thinking
about, I think about it the sameway.
Like that to me will always bethe greatest measurement of how
we're doing is making sure thatthe customers feel like we're
doing a great job.
And you know, if someone asks methat question, I think I'd think
about it the same way.
Like that's the first person I'mthinking about is like, what
does the customer think of whatwe're doing?
And if if they are happier andand more satisfied with what

(01:45:07):
we're doing, then I know we'vedone a great job.

SPEAKER_01 (01:45:10):
Yeah, totally agree.
And and if they're happy andyou're doing a great job, that's
what great people care abouttoo.
And there's great people herethat would say the exact same
thing.
Let's keep this about ourcustomers, our partners, our
carriers.
Uh, let's design these changeswith them, around them, and for
them.

SPEAKER_00 (01:45:27):
Yeah, and the and the important inverse of that
too is understanding the notionthat happy employees make happy
customers.
And as long as you can maintainor build on the culture you've
created, you can have a highlevel of confidence that your
employees will continue todeliver on the promises you
expect them to deliver on.
Um, because that's how it works.
You know, people want to stay atcompanies that make them happy.

(01:45:50):
And ultimately they're happybecause you know the customers
are are are supporting them in away that allows them to make
money and and do their job in away that that you know is
satisfying.

SPEAKER_01 (01:46:00):
Totally agree.
To me, this is that's been thecommon denominator is are you
having fun?
And I'm on year 34 of having alot of fun.
And I it I we talked about a lotof those jobs, they were all a
blast in different ways, and I Imiss them all.
Uh, but I'm also amazed that uhthe fun just keeps increasing,
and I keep meeting great people.

(01:46:21):
I'm I'm just so excited aboutthis next chance to have uh an
impact on a new team and in adifferent way.

SPEAKER_00 (01:46:28):
We're gonna end it there.
I I like that.
I don't want to ask anotherquestion that might not get as
great of an answer.
Even though most of them wouldbe great.
Um listen, I I really appreciatehow much depth you gave us into
kind of your mindset, yourexperience at Robinson, and now
what you're gonna do at Armada.
I think I would love, you know,maybe two, three years we have

(01:46:49):
another conversation about theresults, and uh I'll be excited
to watch the journey.

SPEAKER_01 (01:46:54):
Uh I I will do it.
Thanks a lot, Andrew.
Really appreciate theopportunity to tell the story.
It's been it's been fun.
I'm excited about it, and uhthanks for being a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:47:03):
Sounds good.
And to our listeners, uh, Ican't say we'll see you next
week because I don't know whenI'll record again, but I will
find another great guest likeChris and I'll get recording and
get just more content.
Thanks everyone.

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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

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.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. #75: Chris O'Brien, President, Sunset Armada Holdings

Episode Transcript

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

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Ep. #75: Chris O'Brien, President, Sunset Armada Holdings

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang