December 14, 2022 • 17 mins
Episode 3 of Banyan Technology’s Tire Tracks™ podcast features Curt Kouts and Doug Potvin from Trinity Logistics, a top 25 broker in the U.S. The duo discusses the importance of technology in shipping, the company’s transition from a Truckload-centric brokerage to adding LTL capabilities, and what they see for the supply chain in the next few years.
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Episode Transcript
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Patrick Escolas (00:00):
Hey everybody, I'm still here at Downtown
(00:20):
Cleveland at the Hilton withBanyan's Tire Tracks podcast.
I'm joined here with Doug andKurt from Trinity. Thank you
guys for being here. Reallyexcited. So first off, let's
start with this. What doesTrinity do? What are who are who
are what's your organization?
And what are your roles?
Doug Potvin (00:38):
Trinity's located in the southern part of
Delaware. Okay, sort of out ofthe way.
Patrick Escolas (00:43):
Yeah -- would it's not down the street from
Downtown Cleveland.
Doug Potvin (00:46):
No, it's not, no, it's not. Trinity Logistics is a
top 25 broker in United States,we recently cracked a billion
dollars in sales. We averagedabout 550 to 600,000 shipments
annually, primarily in theTruckload. But we also do a lot
of LTL, which is currentspecialty. We also do intermodal
warehousing internationallythrough third party partners.
(01:06):
But we're exemplifying ourapproach to business we are
focused on the customers in thecustomer service are both
shippers and carriers. Withouteither one, they don't make a
difference. I'm the CFO atTrinity Logistics been there 16
years. And there we go. And Itell you Trinity has two assets.
My Accounts Receivable, which Iknow what the numbers are the
(01:27):
large number, but the secondasset is our team members. And
they're priceless as a Sears orthe MasterCard commercial, they
are precious commodities andencourage one of those people,
the 350 people, 120 agents, weget across United States,
Canada, Mexico and overseas.
Patrick Escolas (01:43):
Hey, you now have leverage on your next next
pay.
Doug Potvin (01:50):
Anyway, it's a little bit of Trinity and but
uh, yeah I'm the CFO in there,all right.
Patrick Escolas (01:54):
And Curt.
Curt Kouts (01:55):
Yeah, I'm the director of LTL. At Trinity,
I've been there for just about13 years, it is a wonderful
place to work to build a career,we have a lot of strong tenure
people there, like Doug wastalking about that. They don't
come in, we have very lowturnover, they build a career
there. We treat everyone with aservant leadership principle
(02:16):
where there's no closed doors,there's no hierarchy, Doug
treats everyone the same way hewould treat anybody else on the
street. So my role in the LTLdepartment is to direct us in
the direction that we want tobe, and leading a team of
operations and then back andbilling people. And we do LTL
(02:37):
I've always told we do itdifferently. Okay, the other
3PLs where we make the barrierto entry super low, we're easy
to do business with. So if acustomer says I don't have
enough time to do this, this andthis, let us handle it, we'll
offload that responsibility.
We'll build that partnershipwith you. We take it from cradle
to grave, whether they're big,small in between. We don't it
doesn't matter to us, everycustomer means the world to us,
(03:00):
and we're happy to have them andhappy to serve them.
Patrick Escolas (03:04):
Now, when you said you're driving the team
forward, is there. What doesthat look like? I mean, where it
sounds like you're at a goodplace, you said low bar to get
and make it easy. So it's nottheir problem. It's kind of it's
mostly yours, you're handlingthat? Where are you driving
towards?
Curt Kouts (03:18):
So we're driving towards, um, we have a couple
bullet points that we hit forpretty much every business
planning season that isproductivity and efficiency,
profitability, and then how canwe interact with our customers
in the best way so they have thebest experience. So what we're
doing is just to give you anoutline on kind of where we've
come from, in the past fiveyears, we have almost doubled
(03:39):
our footprint of LTL withinTrinity as a company. Trinity
has historically been a verytruckload strong company, with
the help of Banyan and thepartnership with that, and the
technology behind it. We've beenable to grow that and double
that percentage up to it'salmost a third of what we ship
at Trinity now. Wow. So it'smore than just a value add. It's
(04:00):
more than just a small piece ofthe pie. It's, it's a heavy
hitting sales thing that ourfolks can use to sell the brand
seller name, get it out therewith our customers. And we've
seen tremendous growth over thepast two years. The pandemic as
anybody in transportation willtell you was sort of a big
catalyst to a lot of growth forthat because people weren't
(04:22):
leaving, people were buyingstuff online that E commerce
shot up like crazy. And thesupply chain became more and
more important. And people knewabout supply chain at that
point. So we gained exposure ityou know, your grandmother was
like, Oh, I heard about thecargo ships. So your people that
are involved with it, thatotherwise wouldn't have cared
are now understanding that 3PLsand the carriers and the
(04:44):
shippers and customers all worktogether to work on the backend
on an otherwise product thatpeople would just ignore for the
most part, except when they seetractor trailers on the road
that might hold up some traffic.
Patrick Escolas (04:56):
Yeah. And you said that within that five years
LTL has grown tremendously foryou obviously like you've talked
about with COVID? And do alittle bit of pitching here? I
know Banyan some part to play inthat. But how much is
automation? Been a player withinthat? Why? Yeah. Why has that
helped?
Curt Kouts (05:11):
Yeah, sure. So, automation, and technology is
sort of the future of anylogistics company, right now.
rates or rates, you know, your,you know, stuff like that. But
when it comes down to it,technology, automation, ease of
use, and Banyan has been a realgood component for us to sell as
a TMS platform, a datawarehouse, internal application
(05:34):
for our teams to get moreefficient, have more
productivity, do more with less,and things like, you know, some
of the backend features that youguys have built for us customer,
you guys work with us on justabout any idea that I possibly
have. And I have a long list ofthem and you guys, don't laugh
at them, you support them, yougive me the scopes, you talk
through the processes with us.
So...
Patrick Escolas (05:56):
Doug, you're gonna have a problem, because
he's gonna take my job, and he'sgonna work for me, we're just
gonna put him in front of all ofour customers right there. And
that's everything. We want togive right there.
Curt Kouts (06:05):
whiteboard and a marker. And, and I'm good for
the rest of the day.
Patrick Escolas (06:09):
That's awesome to hear. Because you know, I'm
in it day in and day out talkingto clients talking to customers,
and not from the logisticsbackground. And to me, it was
crazy how many organizationsdidn't have automation, because
I just assumed they did, becausethis is my first step into it,
and a lot of ways. But yeah,just a little bit of going into
that. Sure. Everything we wantto hear about, you know, if
(06:29):
we're, if I'm looking atperfect, perfect thing of what I
want to hear back, you just kindof nailed that right there. So
with kind of in line and wherethat the past 18 months have
been Where you've come in fiveyears, what does 2023 look like
for Trinity as a whole, not justin the LTL space, but as a
whole? Especially? You'll have abroader picture, but we'll start
with you.
Curt Kouts (06:48):
Yeah, I'll hit on the LTL piece. So right now it's
looking like we're gonna finish22 In the same sort of
trajectory that we have been forthe past two years. We are, it's
a little bit different thantruckload so it's hard to kind
of quantify that and equate thatto the same sort of standard,
but we are expecting it to kindof taper off and remain steady,
but not necessarily dip down inany sort of drastic manner,
(07:11):
forever. No, that would begreat. steady incline for the
rest of time, but we don'tanticipate it being any type of
a lull, we're looking tocontinue strong, especially with
the ever-advancing technology,and our customer platforms and
stuff like that, that we havewith them. So...
Doug Potvin (07:29):
It's gonna be an interesting 2022 and 2023.
Especially with regard to theeconomic situation going on
right now with the interestrates continue to being raised
by the Fed, we're alreadybeginning to see a little bit a
slight decline in productivitynot in our place, but just in
manufacturing as a whole. Okay,again, people begin to curtail
(07:50):
buying things, again, requiresthe use of capital right on
there. So we expect freightvolumes to, to, I wouldn't say
dip but level off, and maybe dipto a degree but not a not a
large within reason that noreason not to freak out about,
like we heard this morning, Idon't expect to hear see a deep
recession or anything of thatnature. Okay, but just a gradual
part of that. Getting intoconsumer to get and feel good
(08:12):
about what they're doing and howthey're spending oriented.
They've saved some money, butthey've also spent money during
this process, as well. I'mreally good at spending money.
Yeah, it's good. But let's seewhat happened with the interest
rates going up in effect the Fedtalked about they weren't
actually, which was really weirdunemployment to increase in the
rate. Because as you keep hiringworkers, you keep paying them
(08:35):
more, right, I'm into the seatsand stuff. Yes. So you get to
continue wage base thing, whichallows for the prices continue
to go up and you continue to getthis spiraling inflation. So
you've been, you've been gettingto have to bring that back a
little bit to curtail a littlebit of the domestic spending.
Patrick Escolas (08:50):
I'm not not a genius within that level. But
that you you explain that in away that made sense. And I
appreciate that. So, I wouldhave never thought that that was
kind of counter logistic orlogical to my thinking.
Doug Potvin (09:01):
Because, because of small businesses hiring. Larger
businesses are beginning tocurtail but smaller businesses
are still out there.
Patrick Escolas (09:08):
It's a high level, it's consolidation at the
lower level, it's getting moreproductive wherever they can.
Okay,
Doug Potvin (09:13):
And we look like from a from a freight
perspective during the pandemiccourse, customers had a need to
get the shipments thereimmediately anyway. So they're
willing to keep ramping up therates and up the rates and up
the rates and such right and acarriage and during the Great
time now you'd begin to seefreight begin to level off begin
to come down from the high fallout somewhere carriers now have
(09:33):
their rates are dropping rightand unfortunately the ones who
entered into the very endthinking of that's where they
want to play for a while they'regoing to be hurting their first
off right but yeah, and in themarket is going to go back to
shippers gonna say yeah, I hadto go through all this stuff.
And now it's occurred to leveloff and everything else and I'm
going to start coming down onour prices. So we expect to see
some margin squeezes over thefuture but but honestly, and
(09:54):
it's more about working with thecustomer now right to be You
proactive in our relationship.
It's a partnership. Yes. Andmake them make sure they're
successful so that we continueto be successful.
Patrick Escolas (10:07):
And that's why with Banyan and what me and my
other account managers and otherco-workers, it's very much and
we get to deal with brokers andthree peels, it's very much a
win win, there isn't a certainsituation where you do okay, but
I do better because of it. No,the, it's exponential as far as
your when relating to it. Andlooking at any business, when
it's everybody is going the samedirection for the same reason.
(10:30):
It's really nice, becausethere's not much of a conflict
within those ideologies. Butthank you for that. And the for
kind of get going to the nextone. So that's next year, what
do you see five years from now,as far as kind of a? I don't
know, it's more of a guess atthis point. But it's way that
things are moving? What Whatwould you think that the
industry might look like in fiveyears?
Doug Potvin (10:49):
I think the industry in five years will be
much more technology advancedthan us. For brokers, I think
you're gonna see interactionsdirectly through technology,
people, but you'll never replacethe people. Relationships. Oh,
Patrick Escolas (11:02):
I hear that a lot today. Yeah, really good to
know, because I'm a person.
So...
Doug Potvin (11:06):
I don't anticipate that ever going away, 'cuz you
want to provide that greatservice. Let's face it, me. And
the other 8,000 brokers, we alldo the same exact thing. We
utilize the same carriers LTLspecially right, in FedEx ups. I
mean, you're using the samecarrier. What do you
differentiate yourself withservice? It's who you trust the
hypermart helping out in a tightsituation, not looking at
(11:26):
knowledge, I think five yearsfrom now, I think there'll be
some more consolidation withinthe brokerage space. I think
they'll probably be more agentswithin the brokerage. Okay. I
gotcha. I think that'll be alsothe case, or the smaller brokers
will say, hey, because they'realso people looking to get out
or do something differently. Soeither, like I said, a
consolidation or become agents,because again, it's the backend
(11:48):
stuff that all of a suddenmistakes, insurance, yes,
collections, the tertiaryaspects of it. Yeah. So I use
passion that's going to happenwithin the industry as a self, I
think, I think you'll see thenumber of brokers shrink, but
actually the volume goingthrough brokers are going to
increase dramatically, becauseas a customer, you don't want to
hire 1520 People in thetransportation department when
(12:08):
you can outsource it to acompany like Trinity, right?
outsource the LTL to tuckerton.
His team there. Yeah. And itgets handled well, and you can
focus on your business realizethat transportation is taken
care. You don't have to wear somany hats. Correct? I see that
as well.
Curt Kouts (12:26):
I mean, I agree with everything Doug just said,. On
the LTL space, we look to see, Ilook to see more carriers sort
of looking at not necessarilyfinal mile, but more of a
consolidation, like kind of whatYRC or Yellow, Matt talked about
earlier today. Yeah, redefiningtheir role as a terminal to
(12:46):
terminal basis to have fasterservice that one and two day
delivery point, increasing thoseturnaround times for our
customers. Because right now,we've got a lot of consumers and
shippers and customers that wentthrough that pandemic. And
there's some expectations ofthose service levels. Because
like what Doug said, we all usethe same carriers, at least in
(13:07):
LTL. So when FedEx is trying toset themselves apart from the
UPS or an SDS, what is what'sgoing to set them apart rates
and their service. And for us,that's where we can sell that
stuff as well through Bannionthrough the integration process,
but I look to see more, moreadvancement in that area, as
(13:28):
well as the technology from thecarriers. They've been heavily
investing in personnel but alsotheir technology, right? Well as
their assets. We had a couple ofcarrier reps over the past year
that told us they were placingseveral 100 orders for trailers
and tractors that wouldn't becompleted until 23, 24. So they
(13:48):
are ramping up their assets tobe able to handle any capacity.
Assuming that we continuetrending like we are which based
on the economic forecast, itdoesn't look like it's
necessarily going down socarriers are investing in
themselves now to be able tobetter set up themselves for
those next 2, 3, 4 years.
Patrick Escolas (14:07):
That's great because I got I got Doug's
saying you'll have theopportunity to go out of house
and you say that people arebringing it in house so I guess
that in five years it's still Itall depends on how you're
looking at school say where youthink that that's going to play
into what you do better and I Iliked that because you're it's
two different outlooks or twodifferent sides of the story.
But so I also hear it'sautomation still further
(14:28):
automation and more immediate.
Yeah, like getting thatimmediate service last touch.
Yeah, we're gonna we're gonnakeep self service. Yep. Self
Service. Exactly. So I love alot of what you guys have hit on
here and you guys are a greatpartner to have within the
space. We love the relationshipand all kinds of give it to you
now you got the mic first. Yougot a statement that makes you
customers to people in logisticsspace. What's one thing to walk
(14:50):
away from here and talking abouttoday that you put out there.
Curt Kouts (14:56):
Banyan related? I can plug you guys!
Patrick Escolas (15:00):
We all over here, you're already our half
our spokesperson now they'reactually firing me after this,
you're gonna be hosting thepodcast! Trinity, logistics,
anything!
Curt Kouts (15:11):
So, as you know, born and bred at Trinity, it's
been a third of my lifeessentially. I think the word
broker has a bad rap to it. And3PL, I guess what I what I would
want to say is that forcustomers and shippers like we
(15:33):
look at you guys as partners,not customers, not shippers, not
a dime to be made, we look atthe partnerships and the value
because as they grow, we grow.
They succeed, and thissustainable method, you know,
there's plenty of others outthere that would rather make a
quick buck. And that's neverbeen our philosophy is customer
first? How can we make thatexperience, something that they
(15:56):
want to come back to? And toreinforce that with our team
members internally as well, tosell that statement? And create
that experience?
Patrick Escolas (16:04):
It's, I don't think that's ever going out of
style?
Curt Kouts (16:06):
I hope not.
Patrick Escolas (16:08):
Doug, do you have anything for it's kind of a
last shot?
Doug Potvin (16:11):
A shot for Trinity itself. I mean, we're people
centric and provide a greatmethodology or people centered
freight centric, say focus onthe people, the relationships
across the board, from teammembers, to the agents, to the
shipping customers and carriercustomers that we have. And
that's what we want to focus onis continuing to maintain and
building relationships withpeople. We don't want to be the
(16:33):
biggest, that's not our goal.
But what we want to do isdeliver the best, deliver the
best to all people in theserelationships that we have. And
that's what we're trying to dois about, we've grown
dramatically over the lastseveral years, but we've never
lost focus on the people.
Patrick Escolas (16:48):
Hey, you guys have said some great things in
ways that I couldn't say it'sthat's why I sit back here and
let you do the work for me. AndI really appreciate you joining
us today, Doug. Thank you somuch. Thank you, Kurt. You'll be
hearing from us to do our nextcommercial. And that's right,
well contact your
Doug Potvin (17:05):
Thanking me!
Patrick Escolas (17:08):
Thanks again guys. Thanks for watching
another episode of Tire Tracksand we'll keep at it!
Hey everybody, I'm still here at Downtown
(00:20):
Cleveland at the Hilton withBanyan's Tire Tracks podcast.
I'm joined here with Doug andKurt from Trinity. Thank you
guys for being here. Reallyexcited. So first off, let's
start with this. What doesTrinity do? What are who are who
are what's your organization?
And what are your roles?
Doug Potvin (00:38):
Trinity's located in the southern part of
Delaware. Okay, sort of out ofthe way.
Patrick Escolas (00:43):
Yeah -- would it's not down the street from
Downtown Cleveland.
Doug Potvin (00:46):
No, it's not, no, it's not. Trinity Logistics is a
top 25 broker in United States,we recently cracked a billion
dollars in sales. We averagedabout 550 to 600,000 shipments
annually, primarily in theTruckload. But we also do a lot
of LTL, which is currentspecialty. We also do intermodal
warehousing internationallythrough third party partners.
(01:06):
But we're exemplifying ourapproach to business we are
focused on the customers in thecustomer service are both
shippers and carriers. Withouteither one, they don't make a
difference. I'm the CFO atTrinity Logistics been there 16
years. And there we go. And Itell you Trinity has two assets.
My Accounts Receivable, which Iknow what the numbers are the
(01:27):
large number, but the secondasset is our team members. And
they're priceless as a Sears orthe MasterCard commercial, they
are precious commodities andencourage one of those people,
the 350 people, 120 agents, weget across United States,
Canada, Mexico and overseas.
Patrick Escolas (01:43):
Hey, you now have leverage on your next next
pay.
Doug Potvin (01:50):
Anyway, it's a little bit of Trinity and but
uh, yeah I'm the CFO in there,all right.
Patrick Escolas (01:54):
And Curt.
Curt Kouts (01:55):
Yeah, I'm the director of LTL. At Trinity,
I've been there for just about13 years, it is a wonderful
place to work to build a career,we have a lot of strong tenure
people there, like Doug wastalking about that. They don't
come in, we have very lowturnover, they build a career
there. We treat everyone with aservant leadership principle
(02:16):
where there's no closed doors,there's no hierarchy, Doug
treats everyone the same way hewould treat anybody else on the
street. So my role in the LTLdepartment is to direct us in
the direction that we want tobe, and leading a team of
operations and then back andbilling people. And we do LTL
(02:37):
I've always told we do itdifferently. Okay, the other
3PLs where we make the barrierto entry super low, we're easy
to do business with. So if acustomer says I don't have
enough time to do this, this andthis, let us handle it, we'll
offload that responsibility.
We'll build that partnershipwith you. We take it from cradle
to grave, whether they're big,small in between. We don't it
doesn't matter to us, everycustomer means the world to us,
(03:00):
and we're happy to have them andhappy to serve them.
Patrick Escolas (03:04):
Now, when you said you're driving the team
forward, is there. What doesthat look like? I mean, where it
sounds like you're at a goodplace, you said low bar to get
and make it easy. So it's nottheir problem. It's kind of it's
mostly yours, you're handlingthat? Where are you driving
towards?
Curt Kouts (03:18):
So we're driving towards, um, we have a couple
bullet points that we hit forpretty much every business
planning season that isproductivity and efficiency,
profitability, and then how canwe interact with our customers
in the best way so they have thebest experience. So what we're
doing is just to give you anoutline on kind of where we've
come from, in the past fiveyears, we have almost doubled
(03:39):
our footprint of LTL withinTrinity as a company. Trinity
has historically been a verytruckload strong company, with
the help of Banyan and thepartnership with that, and the
technology behind it. We've beenable to grow that and double
that percentage up to it'salmost a third of what we ship
at Trinity now. Wow. So it'smore than just a value add. It's
(04:00):
more than just a small piece ofthe pie. It's, it's a heavy
hitting sales thing that ourfolks can use to sell the brand
seller name, get it out therewith our customers. And we've
seen tremendous growth over thepast two years. The pandemic as
anybody in transportation willtell you was sort of a big
catalyst to a lot of growth forthat because people weren't
(04:22):
leaving, people were buyingstuff online that E commerce
shot up like crazy. And thesupply chain became more and
more important. And people knewabout supply chain at that
point. So we gained exposure ityou know, your grandmother was
like, Oh, I heard about thecargo ships. So your people that
are involved with it, thatotherwise wouldn't have cared
are now understanding that 3PLsand the carriers and the
(04:44):
shippers and customers all worktogether to work on the backend
on an otherwise product thatpeople would just ignore for the
most part, except when they seetractor trailers on the road
that might hold up some traffic.
Patrick Escolas (04:56):
Yeah. And you said that within that five years
LTL has grown tremendously foryou obviously like you've talked
about with COVID? And do alittle bit of pitching here? I
know Banyan some part to play inthat. But how much is
automation? Been a player withinthat? Why? Yeah. Why has that
helped?
Curt Kouts (05:11):
Yeah, sure. So, automation, and technology is
sort of the future of anylogistics company, right now.
rates or rates, you know, your,you know, stuff like that. But
when it comes down to it,technology, automation, ease of
use, and Banyan has been a realgood component for us to sell as
a TMS platform, a datawarehouse, internal application
(05:34):
for our teams to get moreefficient, have more
productivity, do more with less,and things like, you know, some
of the backend features that youguys have built for us customer,
you guys work with us on justabout any idea that I possibly
have. And I have a long list ofthem and you guys, don't laugh
at them, you support them, yougive me the scopes, you talk
through the processes with us.
So...
Patrick Escolas (05:56):
Doug, you're gonna have a problem, because
he's gonna take my job, and he'sgonna work for me, we're just
gonna put him in front of all ofour customers right there. And
that's everything. We want togive right there.
Curt Kouts (06:05):
whiteboard and a marker. And, and I'm good for
the rest of the day.
Patrick Escolas (06:09):
That's awesome to hear. Because you know, I'm
in it day in and day out talkingto clients talking to customers,
and not from the logisticsbackground. And to me, it was
crazy how many organizationsdidn't have automation, because
I just assumed they did, becausethis is my first step into it,
and a lot of ways. But yeah,just a little bit of going into
that. Sure. Everything we wantto hear about, you know, if
(06:29):
we're, if I'm looking atperfect, perfect thing of what I
want to hear back, you just kindof nailed that right there. So
with kind of in line and wherethat the past 18 months have
been Where you've come in fiveyears, what does 2023 look like
for Trinity as a whole, not justin the LTL space, but as a
whole? Especially? You'll have abroader picture, but we'll start
with you.
Curt Kouts (06:48):
Yeah, I'll hit on the LTL piece. So right now it's
looking like we're gonna finish22 In the same sort of
trajectory that we have been forthe past two years. We are, it's
a little bit different thantruckload so it's hard to kind
of quantify that and equate thatto the same sort of standard,
but we are expecting it to kindof taper off and remain steady,
but not necessarily dip down inany sort of drastic manner,
(07:11):
forever. No, that would begreat. steady incline for the
rest of time, but we don'tanticipate it being any type of
a lull, we're looking tocontinue strong, especially with
the ever-advancing technology,and our customer platforms and
stuff like that, that we havewith them. So...
Doug Potvin (07:29):
It's gonna be an interesting 2022 and 2023.
Especially with regard to theeconomic situation going on
right now with the interestrates continue to being raised
by the Fed, we're alreadybeginning to see a little bit a
slight decline in productivitynot in our place, but just in
manufacturing as a whole. Okay,again, people begin to curtail
(07:50):
buying things, again, requiresthe use of capital right on
there. So we expect freightvolumes to, to, I wouldn't say
dip but level off, and maybe dipto a degree but not a not a
large within reason that noreason not to freak out about,
like we heard this morning, Idon't expect to hear see a deep
recession or anything of thatnature. Okay, but just a gradual
part of that. Getting intoconsumer to get and feel good
(08:12):
about what they're doing and howthey're spending oriented.
They've saved some money, butthey've also spent money during
this process, as well. I'mreally good at spending money.
Yeah, it's good. But let's seewhat happened with the interest
rates going up in effect the Fedtalked about they weren't
actually, which was really weirdunemployment to increase in the
rate. Because as you keep hiringworkers, you keep paying them
(08:35):
more, right, I'm into the seatsand stuff. Yes. So you get to
continue wage base thing, whichallows for the prices continue
to go up and you continue to getthis spiraling inflation. So
you've been, you've been gettingto have to bring that back a
little bit to curtail a littlebit of the domestic spending.
Patrick Escolas (08:50):
I'm not not a genius within that level. But
that you you explain that in away that made sense. And I
appreciate that. So, I wouldhave never thought that that was
kind of counter logistic orlogical to my thinking.
Doug Potvin (09:01):
Because, because of small businesses hiring. Larger
businesses are beginning tocurtail but smaller businesses
are still out there.
Patrick Escolas (09:08):
It's a high level, it's consolidation at the
lower level, it's getting moreproductive wherever they can.
Okay,
Doug Potvin (09:13):
And we look like from a from a freight
perspective during the pandemiccourse, customers had a need to
get the shipments thereimmediately anyway. So they're
willing to keep ramping up therates and up the rates and up
the rates and such right and acarriage and during the Great
time now you'd begin to seefreight begin to level off begin
to come down from the high fallout somewhere carriers now have
(09:33):
their rates are dropping rightand unfortunately the ones who
entered into the very endthinking of that's where they
want to play for a while they'regoing to be hurting their first
off right but yeah, and in themarket is going to go back to
shippers gonna say yeah, I hadto go through all this stuff.
And now it's occurred to leveloff and everything else and I'm
going to start coming down onour prices. So we expect to see
some margin squeezes over thefuture but but honestly, and
(09:54):
it's more about working with thecustomer now right to be You
proactive in our relationship.
It's a partnership. Yes. Andmake them make sure they're
successful so that we continueto be successful.
Patrick Escolas (10:07):
And that's why with Banyan and what me and my
other account managers and otherco-workers, it's very much and
we get to deal with brokers andthree peels, it's very much a
win win, there isn't a certainsituation where you do okay, but
I do better because of it. No,the, it's exponential as far as
your when relating to it. Andlooking at any business, when
it's everybody is going the samedirection for the same reason.
(10:30):
It's really nice, becausethere's not much of a conflict
within those ideologies. Butthank you for that. And the for
kind of get going to the nextone. So that's next year, what
do you see five years from now,as far as kind of a? I don't
know, it's more of a guess atthis point. But it's way that
things are moving? What Whatwould you think that the
industry might look like in fiveyears?
Doug Potvin (10:49):
I think the industry in five years will be
much more technology advancedthan us. For brokers, I think
you're gonna see interactionsdirectly through technology,
people, but you'll never replacethe people. Relationships. Oh,
Patrick Escolas (11:02):
I hear that a lot today. Yeah, really good to
know, because I'm a person.
So...
Doug Potvin (11:06):
I don't anticipate that ever going away, 'cuz you
want to provide that greatservice. Let's face it, me. And
the other 8,000 brokers, we alldo the same exact thing. We
utilize the same carriers LTLspecially right, in FedEx ups. I
mean, you're using the samecarrier. What do you
differentiate yourself withservice? It's who you trust the
hypermart helping out in a tightsituation, not looking at
(11:26):
knowledge, I think five yearsfrom now, I think there'll be
some more consolidation withinthe brokerage space. I think
they'll probably be more agentswithin the brokerage. Okay. I
gotcha. I think that'll be alsothe case, or the smaller brokers
will say, hey, because they'realso people looking to get out
or do something differently. Soeither, like I said, a
consolidation or become agents,because again, it's the backend
(11:48):
stuff that all of a suddenmistakes, insurance, yes,
collections, the tertiaryaspects of it. Yeah. So I use
passion that's going to happenwithin the industry as a self, I
think, I think you'll see thenumber of brokers shrink, but
actually the volume goingthrough brokers are going to
increase dramatically, becauseas a customer, you don't want to
hire 1520 People in thetransportation department when
(12:08):
you can outsource it to acompany like Trinity, right?
outsource the LTL to tuckerton.
His team there. Yeah. And itgets handled well, and you can
focus on your business realizethat transportation is taken
care. You don't have to wear somany hats. Correct? I see that
as well.
Curt Kouts (12:26):
I mean, I agree with everything Doug just said,. On
the LTL space, we look to see, Ilook to see more carriers sort
of looking at not necessarilyfinal mile, but more of a
consolidation, like kind of whatYRC or Yellow, Matt talked about
earlier today. Yeah, redefiningtheir role as a terminal to
(12:46):
terminal basis to have fasterservice that one and two day
delivery point, increasing thoseturnaround times for our
customers. Because right now,we've got a lot of consumers and
shippers and customers that wentthrough that pandemic. And
there's some expectations ofthose service levels. Because
like what Doug said, we all usethe same carriers, at least in
(13:07):
LTL. So when FedEx is trying toset themselves apart from the
UPS or an SDS, what is what'sgoing to set them apart rates
and their service. And for us,that's where we can sell that
stuff as well through Bannionthrough the integration process,
but I look to see more, moreadvancement in that area, as
(13:28):
well as the technology from thecarriers. They've been heavily
investing in personnel but alsotheir technology, right? Well as
their assets. We had a couple ofcarrier reps over the past year
that told us they were placingseveral 100 orders for trailers
and tractors that wouldn't becompleted until 23, 24. So they
(13:48):
are ramping up their assets tobe able to handle any capacity.
Assuming that we continuetrending like we are which based
on the economic forecast, itdoesn't look like it's
necessarily going down socarriers are investing in
themselves now to be able tobetter set up themselves for
those next 2, 3, 4 years.
Patrick Escolas (14:07):
That's great because I got I got Doug's
saying you'll have theopportunity to go out of house
and you say that people arebringing it in house so I guess
that in five years it's still Itall depends on how you're
looking at school say where youthink that that's going to play
into what you do better and I Iliked that because you're it's
two different outlooks or twodifferent sides of the story.
But so I also hear it'sautomation still further
(14:28):
automation and more immediate.
Yeah, like getting thatimmediate service last touch.
Yeah, we're gonna we're gonnakeep self service. Yep. Self
Service. Exactly. So I love alot of what you guys have hit on
here and you guys are a greatpartner to have within the
space. We love the relationshipand all kinds of give it to you
now you got the mic first. Yougot a statement that makes you
customers to people in logisticsspace. What's one thing to walk
(14:50):
away from here and talking abouttoday that you put out there.
Curt Kouts (14:56):
Banyan related? I can plug you guys!
Patrick Escolas (15:00):
We all over here, you're already our half
our spokesperson now they'reactually firing me after this,
you're gonna be hosting thepodcast! Trinity, logistics,
anything!
Curt Kouts (15:11):
So, as you know, born and bred at Trinity, it's
been a third of my lifeessentially. I think the word
broker has a bad rap to it. And3PL, I guess what I what I would
want to say is that forcustomers and shippers like we
(15:33):
look at you guys as partners,not customers, not shippers, not
a dime to be made, we look atthe partnerships and the value
because as they grow, we grow.
They succeed, and thissustainable method, you know,
there's plenty of others outthere that would rather make a
quick buck. And that's neverbeen our philosophy is customer
first? How can we make thatexperience, something that they
(15:56):
want to come back to? And toreinforce that with our team
members internally as well, tosell that statement? And create
that experience?
Patrick Escolas (16:04):
It's, I don't think that's ever going out of
style?
Curt Kouts (16:06):
I hope not.
Patrick Escolas (16:08):
Doug, do you have anything for it's kind of a
last shot?
Doug Potvin (16:11):
A shot for Trinity itself. I mean, we're people
centric and provide a greatmethodology or people centered
freight centric, say focus onthe people, the relationships
across the board, from teammembers, to the agents, to the
shipping customers and carriercustomers that we have. And
that's what we want to focus onis continuing to maintain and
building relationships withpeople. We don't want to be the
(16:33):
biggest, that's not our goal.
But what we want to do isdeliver the best, deliver the
best to all people in theserelationships that we have. And
that's what we're trying to dois about, we've grown
dramatically over the lastseveral years, but we've never
lost focus on the people.
Patrick Escolas (16:48):
Hey, you guys have said some great things in
ways that I couldn't say it'sthat's why I sit back here and
let you do the work for me. AndI really appreciate you joining
us today, Doug. Thank you somuch. Thank you, Kurt. You'll be
hearing from us to do our nextcommercial. And that's right,
well contact your
Doug Potvin (17:05):
Thanking me!
Patrick Escolas (17:08):
Thanks again guys. Thanks for watching
another episode of Tire Tracksand we'll keep at it!
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