Tune in to more content in Season 3 of the Standing Out podcast! We delve into the essence of leadership and the art of assembling a self-reliant team. Sharing personal insights on the power of leading by example, we reveal how to foster a vibrant work-life balance that keeps a team thriving. All in this exclusive one-on-one interview with Rob Light, the brilliant CEO & Co-Founder of Carrier Source.
Sponsored by SPI Logistics. If you're looking for back-office support such as admin, finance, IT, and sales as a freight broker - reach out to SPI Logistics today! Learn more about becoming an agent here:
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
Tune in to more content in Season 3 of the Standing Out podcast! We delve into the essence of leadership and the art of assembling a self-reliant team. Sharing personal insights on the power of leading by example, we reveal how to foster a vibrant work-life balance that keeps a team thriving. All in this exclusive one-on-one interview with Rob Light, the brilliant CEO & Co-Founder of Carrier Source.
Sponsored by SPI Logistics. If you're looking for back-office support such as admin, finance, IT, and sales as a freight broker - reach out to SPI Logistics today! Learn more about becoming an agent here:
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
Hello everybody and welcome to season three of standing out, a podcast about sales, marketing and leadership. I'm Trey Greggs, your host, so glad that you're with us today. We got a great show for you. Can't wait to bring our guests on. But before we do that, a couple of quick announcements. We got some changes for you coming up here in season three here in 2024, starting in February, we will be strictly streaming to YouTube, so be sure to check us out at our new YouTube channel. You can find it by searching beta podcast network. At that page you're going to see all of our episodes for standing out for the edge, for word on the street and other content that we're going to be putting out as well in 2024. So be sure to go over there to YouTube and search for beta podcast network and subscribe so that you catch every show that you'd like to see and we appreciate your support along the way. Also, we're going to be out at a couple of events. We're going to talk about those later in the show, but it's coming up here Trade show season and transportation is about to hit in full effect, so we'll talk more about that towards the end of the show, but be sure to catch us out there on the road. If you're going to be at any of those events that we're going to be at as well that we mentioned, make sure you reach out and let us know. We'd love to connect with you while we are there. All right, listen, it is time to bring our guests onto the show today. This guy got to meet about three months ago. Four months ago, we had a good time down at the broker carrier summit, learned a lot about what he's doing over there and carrier source, and so excited to have him on the show. So please welcome the co-founder and CEO of carrier source, rob Light.
Speaker 1:Good song, dude. Good song, good song. Listen to this. What a song, dude. That's pretty epic. I don't know how you can even top that. I mean, that's pretty legit. No better intro than that? Definitely not, definitely not. Hey, what's up, man? How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
Speaker 2:I'm doing great, I'm doing great, I'm doing great, I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:I'm doing great. Hey, what's up, man? How are you doing Everything? Good, I'm doing great. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on. We're recording this recently after the holidays. Did you have a good holiday season with the family? Do anything really special this year, you know?
Speaker 2:we kept it pretty low key. We were just, you know, kind of around the Chicago area. We were expecting our second child here. Oh, congratulations, thank you, thank you. So, yeah, we stayed home, no traveling, but it was good. It was nice to spend time with the fan, Is this?
Speaker 1:number two Terms kids. Yep, it's not your first rodeo, but life does change, my friend. You go from playing zone to. You got to go man to man. Now you guys have to. Yeah, it's going to be a little different, but it's going to get excited. Do you know if you're having a boy or girl? Yet, boy Having a boy is first boy or second First boy?
Speaker 2:So we've got a girl who's almost two She'll turn two in February and then a boy come in and a week or so here.
Speaker 1:Wow, see, that's exciting. We have all new stuff toys, clothing. A lot of times doesn't work, maybe paint the nursery a different color, but it is exciting. So congrats to you and your wife. I hope everything goes smoothly and that everybody's very healthy. That's going to be fun, man, enjoy that, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we're pumped All right. Before we get started today. We love having our guests on the show. I want to say thank you. So we want to know are you a coffee drinker? Do you want this beautiful coffee mug from standing out, or are you a water bottle drinker? You want a water bottle with a standing out logo? Which one do you like? I'm going to go coffee mug all day. All right, okay, coffee mug, it's on the way. Man, thank you for being on the show. We appreciate it. Man, I hope you enjoy that coffee mug, all right. So fun fact about you. I didn't know this. Actually, you taught English in Spain for two years and Osuna Spain.
Speaker 2:Is that correct? I did yes, yeah. So after college didn't really know what was next right, that's the classic.
Speaker 1:I don't know what's next. I want to go teach English to some kids overseas, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, after kind of a series of events, I ended up in Spain and, yeah, ended up staying for two years and teaching out there, and it was an incredible experience.
Speaker 1:You got some great experience. You were an English teacher in Spain, not alone. That's pretty epic. I'm sure some really good memories from that time. Do you speak Spanish fluently? I?
Speaker 2:wouldn't say fluently, and it's gotten worse over the last 10 years since I've been there, right? But I'm pretty good at understanding. I can listen. You can still make your way around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can make your way around. You also worked at a pizzeria. I mean, come on, I don't know how people work at a pizzeria and don't get just like massively overweight, because I would be eating pizza all day. I would probably make pizzas incorrectly on purpose that we couldn't give away anymore, just to eat. Did you ever do that? Did you ever make a pizza incorrectly just to be able to eat one?
Speaker 2:You know it wasn't even close to that exciting. I was really. So. Luz is a. Lumol Nadi is a big local chain here, right. So I was actually in the corporate office so they didn't let me anywhere near a kitchen. But I was, yeah, doing customer service, doing large catering orders. They also do shipping all over the US with their Taste of Chicago program, so we were sending Portillos and Lumol Nadi's and Garrett's popcorn and all that good stuff all over the US. So no, unfortunately we only got pizza on Fridays.
Speaker 1:So well, that's something I mean. Did you get the friends and family discount when you went into the Lumol Nadi's shops? I'm sure you did. Yeah, I did.
Speaker 2:I did so for every event. I had to be the one going to get all the food for everybody and everything like that, so, but it was good, it was a great time.
Speaker 1:Are you still like did you have so much, you don't even want any more of it? Are you still a big fan?
Speaker 2:I'm still a big fan. I really do think if I can only eat one more thing for the rest of my life, it would be pizza.
Speaker 1:I agree with you on that. I totally agree with you on that. The controversy is is it Chicago style pizza or is it the rest of the world style pizza? I was just in Connecticut, in New Haven. They're not fans of Chicago style pizza, my friend, they got a whole other track going up there.
Speaker 2:And, to be honest with you, deep dishes overwhelming. A lot of the time I will say it's great. But Chicago has a lot of good thin crust like loose thin crust. I think is is awesome. I didn't even know they have thin crust. Wow, exactly, and it's really good. And Chicago's tavern style pizza, you know, cut in the squares and good crispy crust, is still really good too. So it's not all just deep dish.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good to know. I didn't know that because I was thinking, man, it's the only deep dish which is not bad, but you can only have one piece. Like it's hard to really kind of enjoy it, it's so thick and heavy. So, anyways, that's good to know. All right, let's turn the corners a little bit and let's talk about your career. So you're now a co-founder with Carrier Source and you guys hit a couple of milestones recently hit 50,000 reviews on Carrier Source. First of all, to everybody what Carrier Source is. I think there might be some viewers out there that don't know what that is. And how did you, how did you, get into starting this? Where'd the idea come from?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll start with Carrier Source, which is a review website for trucking companies.
Speaker 2:We collect reviews on carriers from brokers and shippers, first and foremost to help those trucking companies build a fair reputation online.
Speaker 2:We noticed that within the industry, most of the feedback mechanisms if not all the feedback mechanisms were were negative reviews. Right, lots of reporting out there for bad actors, but oftentimes it didn't paint a full picture of who this company is, right, and so what we did is we created very much a Yelp-like platform where every carrier has a profile that's public, it's forward-facing, it's free to access. We pushed some FMCSA information onto that page right, inspection, data, safety, data, insurance information that we put side by side with those reviews that we're collecting, again to portray these carriers more accurately. And it's free for carriers to come in, claim their profile page, add some additional information at a logo, write a description of their business, share their background a little bit which for small fleet's owner operators is a huge opportunity, right, and then they can publicly respond to those reviews. It's free for them to gather reviews and so on, and then, if they so choose, we have had some premium sales and marketing solutions that we offer on top of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I like the idea that the framing of Yelp, because that makes a lot of sense for people. Yelp doesn't tell you which restaurant you should go to, it just helps you make a decision on which restaurant you decided to go to. Now you're still responsible for that, of course, but they're just giving you the information. You guys are just trying to paint a bigger picture. You're still showing, maybe, some of the negatives that they might have, but trying to balance that out with some positives that might be there as well to give a more accurate reflection of the company. Is that a pretty accurate assessment of that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And when we started vetting the concept and the idea, we talked to a lot of brokers who were like man, I'd love to give a few carriers a piece of my mind, right, and we were worried that it was gonna be kind of a dumping ground of negative reviews. And it's actually really been the opposite. Over 80% of our reviews are four or five stars and it's really largely a way to find kind of the best carriers to work with, right, and at the end of the day, we don't care if it's a positive or negative review. Like you said, we're just trying to give brokers and shippers more information to make those decisions off of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just trying to be more of a neutral market for them to access that information. So right now the product is mainly for brokers and shippers to review carriers. Is there other plans to create a similar product for carriers to review brokers and shippers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, it's on kind of the short-term roadmap. We're hoping in Q1 of this year we'll have profiles for brokerages that do look similar to carrier profiles, with similar solutions and allow carriers to leave reviews but also shippers to leave reviews that are working with brokers too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's good because they're all important players of the game. The transaction requires all three, or at least two out of the three, but usually all three in that regard, so it's good that they're all a part of it. You hit 50,000 reviews before the end of last year. What are you guys up to right now? How many reviews do you have?
Speaker 2:total, I think we're approaching 60,000. And so, yeah, things are moving along pretty quickly, which is really exciting. And the more carriers we get engaged, the easier it is to kind of gather those reviews, right To encourage those folks to reach out to their customers and gather those reviews. So the wheel has spin and the flywheel is going and we hope to really ramp that up this year.
Speaker 1:How do the carriers feel about it? Are they excited about it? Are they concerns or nervousness about it? What's been the response from them?
Speaker 2:I think, if you asked most, their first initial gut reaction is that it makes them a little anxious to get public reviews like that. But then I think when they sit with it for a minute they realize that there's a real opportunity there for them that doesn't really exist elsewhere. Right, there's freight guard reports inside Carrier 411, which have a direct impact on their business. Right, there's TIA watchdog reports for theft or fraud. But when you start talking to them about the ability to hey reach out to your 10 customers that you work with, if you want to get 10 reviews right, that you've worked with for years and that you have a good relationship with, they're not going to pan you right. And so I think the initial reaction is nervous, but then I think they get excited about it and they see the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can understand the nervousness. I could see where that could be a little bit of an issue and just not too sure about that. Are they owning their profile or is it owned by Carrier Source as a kind of a totally neutral third-party platform? What is that like for a Carrier experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they can update some information on there. It's free for them to come in and claim their page and, in a sense, own it right and so they can it sounds like Zillow.
Speaker 1:You can own your house page on Zillow as the owner of the house. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we won't change certain information, things that are on file with the FMCSA, right? We're not going to change safety information or even address. That's on file or insurance information. That's on file, and we won't just take down a review because you asked. Right, we have a very thorough moderation process that comes with it. We read every review, we do a background check on the actual reviewer, make sure they're a real broker or shipper, and we even asked for proof in our review form or that's a redacted rate confirmation a screenshot of your TMS, a screenshot of email correspondence, something that proves that you worked with that Carrier in order for us to approve it and publish it.
Speaker 2:So we won't do any sort of removing of reviews as long as we think they're legit. But they can't own it, right, they can put an image in there, a logo. If they choose to upgrade their profile page, they can put a nice banner image across the top. They can add photos or videos or downloadable documents. If they have marketing collateral or if they wanna put their insurance cert forward, facing or whatever it might be, they can add all that to their profile page and that's theirs. And so if they've got prospective customers that they're talking to, they can say hey, go check out my Carrier Shores profile page. Here's our customer testimonials. Right, you can learn a little bit more about us there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really does sound like Zilla, where you can take ownership of the page, add some pictures, but they're not gonna change like the square footage on the house, we're not gonna change some of the things that are on file with the county, that type of stuff. So I like that. That's cool. It definitely gives carriers, I think, a little less caution. Pause the caution on that and nervousness kind of removes all that from them a little bit, gives them a little bit more control. But I think that's interesting. You also said you're able to verify brokers like the actual broker. That's making the comment. Man, if you can do that, you should just solve the problem of double brokering and verify carriers, just whatever you guys are doing, just throw that in the mix.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do release every month a list of all the carriers who've been flagged by brokers for double brokering and we make that forward facing. And if you come to a profile page where they have been reported for double brokering, we have a little banner up at the top that's a big red caution to say, hey, this carrier has been reported by other brokers as a double broker, to kind of immediately give the user a heads up that they may not wanna work with this carrier so top of mind right now.
Speaker 1:I think everybody's thinking about that. So good that you guys have thought through and throw some of that stuff in there. I love the product. I love the idea. I loved how I learned about it at Broker Carrier Summit, where we were in that session and somebody was talking about that, about how they wish there was a place to have a better be able to manage the reputation better and one broker was. I wish it was a place I could actually see if a carrier is legit or if they're good ahead of time. And it just worked out perfectly.
Speaker 2:So that was a pretty comical moment, worked out pretty well, yeah no, it was great, it was very Fortuitous that we were sitting right there and they were talking about it, but it's we've. We heard it so many times before we even stood it up. Most, most carriers have a hard time building out an online presence or creating kind of brand reputation. There's just so many trucking companies right, so many owner ops, small fleets that that there was not one kind of centralized platform To manage that reputation, and so I think what we're bringing to the industry is unique from that standpoint as well as kind of opening up this information to making it more public and forward-facing and easy to find. If you Google pretty much any carrier, small fleet, owner up, you know we rank on the first page of Google for for that with their profile, and so it's it's easy to find and it provides them this opportunity that that didn't exist elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great product and I'm excited to see what you guys do with it here in 2024. Rob, hang tight for a minute. We got to take a quick break to pay the bills around here. I want to give a quick shout out to our sponsor, spi logistics. Listen, if you are a freight broker or an agent or maybe just looking to get into freight agency, definitely check them out at success SPI 3plcom. They've got the technology systems and back office support to help you succeed and their great people out of Vancouver, british Columbia, so we can check them out at success dot SPI 3plcom. All right, rob, we're gonna jump back in here. We're gonna talk about your leadership style. You know you've had some time, obviously, at some of the jobs that we talked about earlier. You know, at Luma Nadis you were with G2 for a while and then you jumped into Starting a company, which essentially throws you in the leadership position by default. How would you describe your leadership style? How do you like to you know to think about leadership?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think leading by example is probably the number one thing that I took away from from my previous jobs, right especially at G2. I think the founders of G2 really led by example. They worked extremely hard but they also had a ton of fun while they were doing it, right and and that fun was infectious. But so was that hard work right. Like they were the first ones there in the morning and they were the last ones there to leave, but during the day they were, they were always laughing, they were having a good time and that's infectious. It really does rub off on the rest of team and it trickles down and and I think if there's there's ever any kind of unsettling cultural aspects at the top, that trickles down to right. So I'm a big believer in that type of leadership style, of leading by example, I guess would be the best way to put it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you're right about that. It goes along everything from work ethic to even. You know, as I think about it, I have to lead by example of actually unplugging and taking time off. If, as a leader, I don't take time off, then even if I tell my team, take some time off, there's something inside of this like wait a minute, I don't want to look negatively upon me, or there's a stigma that's attached to it. But if a leader can take time off and unplug, it gives everybody else permission to do it as well. I think you're right. I mean, you have to lead by an example, and how fortunate are you and so many of us that we've had great leaders to actually teach us things. I think a lot of times, bad leadership comes from no leadership comes from not seeing a good example of it, and yet you were able to see that. So I think that's that's really awesome. You had that opportunity to do that. Was it tough, transitioning from employee to entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for a lot of reasons, I think, but, but, but really for a long time it was myself and an outsourced engineer, so it wasn't a ton of leadership to be had early on, right, and I knew the steps needed to build a review marketplace G2 is the world's largest software review yeah, right, and so it was kind of just grind through an execute right on my own for a long time there.
Speaker 2:And then the first hires at carrier source were folks I'd worked with the G2 right, and including one of their co founders of G2, mark Myers, is our chief product officer, right, so he got to join and and and then you know, when you're working with really seasoned, experienced folks that you have a bit of a personal relationship with to leadership is different in that sense to I don't have to micromanage anybody or and I never want to, right, and so that's such a luxury to not have to worry about how hard somebody's working or their expertise, that they're there in their role or if they have a true understanding of what they need to do, and so I've been extremely fortunate from that standpoint that you know I haven't had to do the teaching. It's been more just, kind of pure leading right. So I've been very lucky from that standpoint. I don't take that for granted at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges in leadership is recruiting people. Don't talk about those two things in the same vein. But if you're a great recruiter, I think it makes leadership a lot easier. Like you said, you're not having to micromanage people, are able to bring really smart people in. Let them do their thing and really teach you. Like that's I feel. I want to be taught. I want to hire great people that are better than me and haven't teaching me how to do stuff. Did you feel like that was an easy thing to figure out? That did you? Did you not have the park on all your recruits right away? Was it a learning curve? What was it like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I, like I said I, I think I got really lucky with with being able to bring over my friends that I've worked with in the past, right and so that, in and of itself, made made the recruiting experience a bit unique. Right, we didn't have to post on LinkedIn for a CTO. Right, I didn't have to post on LinkedIn for a head of growth around any job sites. Right, like I reached out to people and truly blessed with the G2 network, right of really smart driven folks and they were behind me throughout all of this. They had invested in carrier source right, and so there was some some weight to that, given that they are multiple time entrepreneurs, very successful folks. So I got to kind of sell that aspect beyond just the idea and what this could be. I got to sell that like, hey, we're staying within the entrepreneurial family, we're going to push, we're going to build. It's going to be awesome and exciting. But you know, I was fortunate to not have to make too many mistakes before finding the right, the right folks.
Speaker 1:So the lesson is have really good friends. That's the lesson. Have friends and bottom to work with you and everything takes care of itself. That's.
Speaker 2:I think in life, if you've got good friends, you can go far right. Just in general, I think that's a good lesson, but that and I mean maybe some other takeaways are never burn bridges when it comes to jobs. Right, and stay in touch with those folks that have helped you along the way, because you never know when you have opportunities to help them or to work with them again, or, yeah, you know, stay in touch with those really smart people.
Speaker 1:The world's a lot smaller than we think it is. That's the. That's the truth, that's for sure. Our Rob, we got to pause and play a game here, like to have fun on this show and we always come up with some different games. Today we're going to be playing wave links. All right, rob, listen, we're on the same team here, okay? So we gotta get on the same wavelength here. As the title indicates. Here, what we're gonna do is we're gonna put up a category and a letter. All right, a category and a letter. So we're gonna put up like car and a R. We gotta try to come up with the same word based upon the information that's given. We gotta be on the same wavelength here. So we're gonna see how well we can do. I think we have eight rounds of this, so let's try it out. Here we go. The first one is let's see what we got here. We got a movie that starts with a Y, movie that starts with a Y, mm. Okay, okay, mm, mm, rob, I think this is a tough one.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of them out there, but it's a real tough one, but I've got one.
Speaker 1:Oh, you have one. Oh okay, all right. Oh gosh, oh my gosh, I can think of something with a Y in it, but not the beginning. Oh okay, all right, we're gonna try it. Here we go, you ready? Yep, All right, what do you got?
Speaker 2:You've got mail.
Speaker 1:Oh, such a good one. That's so easy. Why didn't I think of that? I thought of you and me, which I didn't know if it's a movie. I just I couldn't think of anything. But you've got mail. That's a good one. All right, I blew that one. I think the music might be a little too loud. It's messy. I'm gonna bring it down just a hair. I guess it's in my ear. Okay, all right, here we go. Next one, next category We've got a song that starts with S. Oh, I've got one right away. Is this what you're gonna be thinking, though, Mm Ooh? Song that starts with an S.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think of what you'd be thinking of.
Speaker 1:No, just think of what you were thinking of. Maybe the ether has allowed us to get on the same wavelength here. What do you think?
Speaker 2:You know, when you think of just one song and then it stays in there and you can't think of any other possible song.
Speaker 1:I know, I know it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Mine's gonna be embarrassing. All right, you ready, Right, go for it. What do you got? I've got a. Say my name by Destiny's Child.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good one, that's a good one, that's a really good one. Yep, so I had Shake it Off by Taylor Swift. We were in the, you know, we're in the pop star era, so I think that was close.
Speaker 1:That was close. All right, we're over two. All right, here we go. We gotta get one here. We gotta get one. A band that starts with an R. Oh, I've got one already. Me too, I got one. You got one. Ooh, are we? I'm going old school Same. All right, here we go. You ready? Yep, rm? Oh, I was close.
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought about RM right away.
Speaker 1:So close, all right, okay, that's close, all right, we're in the same era. We're gonna get one of these. All right, all right, next one, Next one. Here we go, let's see if we can get this one. Tv shows let's start with this. I've got one, got a classic.
Speaker 2:I got one. I got one. Oh, mine's kinda newer. You got a classic.
Speaker 1:Ooh, you got a newer one. Ooh, ooh, all right, classic one dude.
Speaker 2:Classic like popular Classic.
Speaker 1:All right, go for it. What do you got? Succession Ooh, that's a good one. There's a new one. I had Seinfeld.
Speaker 2:I just saw Jerry do stand up. He was in Chicago.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice she still got it.
Speaker 2:Is she good? Oh, got it. He performed with Jim Gaffigan at the United Center. It was awesome.
Speaker 1:Ooh, that would be a good show. Jim Gaffigan opening for Seinfeld oh man, that's actually a pretty dope show. I'm gonna be jealous. I did not have tickets to that one. Okay, all right, we're over for it. The first half has been terrible. Let's see. Let's see if we can get one Rob. Okay, a food that starts with a Z? Okay, we gotta get this one Ready, Yep.
Speaker 2:Zucchini, zucchini.
Speaker 1:Yeah, baby, we are one for five All right, let's try to redeem ourselves here on the last three. Okay, here we go. Next one we got a place that starts with N.
Speaker 2:Okay, I got one Place starts with N Ready Yep, nebraska.
Speaker 1:Oh, Nebraska.
Speaker 2:Nebraska. I was thinking, you know I was going a little out west, you know, from Illinois.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, all right, that's true. Okay, I thought for sure we had that one. I was really confident about that one. I was like here we go.
Speaker 2:I heard.
Speaker 1:Nebraska. I was like, hmm, I'm not bad.
Speaker 2:My mom's from Nebraska and my dad's from New York, so I could have gone either way there but Could have gone either way there.
Speaker 1:I know, okay, all right. Well, that was kind of the same wavelength. That was kind of. I mean, it's close, all right. Last one, final round, rob, we gotta get more than just one. It's probably the worst episode of wavelength we've ever played here. Okay, a famous person. The full name starts with a Nip. Full name starts with an M. Ooh, I'm okay, I have one, but this might be tricky.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of a one name, full name. Same you ready Yep, madonna, madonna. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Let's go All right, so two out of seven. Okay, you know not great, but we got the last one, so I feel good about that. Rob, that was today's version of wavelength. Let me ask you maybe you redeem yourself a little bit. We always like to have a random question of the day, sometimes as well, so here's our random question today what do you think is more fun, being the superhero or being the supervillain? Which one would you play?
Speaker 2:I'd have to say superhero. Yeah, do you have one in mind, do you have a favorite? You know, I don't really have a favorite. It's more so that I this is probably a personality flaw in some ways I just don't like to be disliked, you know I.
Speaker 1:I actively work hard. You don't like to play the role People like you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't like being the villain so much.
Speaker 1:Nothing wrong with that. I would go the same route. I tend to be a bit of a people pleaser. I like people to like me. It's not, you know, I'm not really a good villain. Anyways, I don't think I can play one. I would want to be Superman because Superman can fly, so I'd like to be the superhero Superman. To me, that would be the best one. Plus, he can see through stuff Not bad.
Speaker 2:Decent. He's got a lot of powers that are pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty, pretty cool stuff, that's for sure. All right, let's wrap this baby up. What is on the horizon here in 2024 for Carrier Source? What can we expect to see, my man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a the coolest thing that we're working on that we should be releasing kind of soon here is what we're actually calling a Shipper RFP. Intent is a new feature that we're coming out with for carriers. So we do a ton of traffic to our website. We get about 300,000 visitors every month right now and that's growing pretty quickly and so it's a big audience of folks. But, as I mentioned early on, it's free to access carrier source right. We don't always require folks to log in. Unless you're trying to contact a carrier, write a review or something like that, we don't require you to log in.
Speaker 2:But what we're going to be doing is working to build out some solutions to identify what companies are coming to carrier source and doing research on carriers right. And as we've begun to move up market to more mid-sized large carriers, they're very focused on finding shippers to work with right, and so what we'll be doing is identifying some of those companies who are either searching certain lanes or looking at certain profiles and help carriers kind of know who might be running their RFP right, who's in market, to either reassess their carrier network, expand their carrier network and help folks kind of proactively go out and whether it's their sales motion, or target them with ads or send them reviews from carrier source or whatever it might be as ways to get into those RFPs, potentially find new customers to work with that they previously wouldn't have identified. It's the thing that I'm personally most excited about that we're launching here in the next few weeks One of just many, many things that I'm sure will push here in 2024.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so essentially a capacity tool in a way, but has reviews tied to it. So I could say only show me five star carriers in this lane, maybe, or four and five star carriers in this lane, and filter it that way. So a little bit of a context to a carrier, as opposed to just the fact that they're don't miss out on this area or said they want to work these lanes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so right now brokers and shippers can do that.
Speaker 2:This is more so on kind of the carrier facing side right, With their login into their profile page and their so, carriers can find shippers, yeah, so they can identify who may be in market to change up their carrier network or expand their carrier network or who may be running an RFP right and they're looking to see who to include. So it's very much a carrier facing solution, but something that I think again is kind of unique within the industry and hopefully is really helpful to some of those mid-sized, larger carriers out there.
Speaker 1:Excellent, cool, and I'm going to see you at the Broker Carrier Summit, correct? I will be there. Yes, in Kansas City. Yeah, april 22 through 24. You may not know this, my friend, but we're putting on a special golf tournament for this event as well. It's a two person event. We got to find out what company and logistics has the greatest golfer. It's time to find out. These four person scrambles suck. We're not doing it. It's going to be a new golf tournament. We're calling it the post and pray classic. It's going to be awesome. We have a lot of fun at that the Monday of the summit. So I look forward to seeing you in Kansas City in April for that. Are you going to any other events between now and then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know we're going to the Mid-America Trucking Show, so we'll be there Out.
Speaker 1:Louisville, that's in March 21 through 23.
Speaker 2:That's in March, right? Yeah, I will not be at Manifest, but some folks from Carriage Source will be there. It was a tough swing for me to say I was going to Vegas three weeks after our baby was born.
Speaker 1:That's a tough one to swing. I'm with you, man. That's a tough one, but you make it the right call. But we'll enjoy the after party for you on that one. But that's going to be exciting. We'll keep us up to date. Send us some pictures of the new baby boy when you get in. That's exciting for you, man, and again looking forward to seeing you in person in Kansas City. Thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Thanks for having me, Trey. I'm excited to see you in person. I'm sure we'll talk before then. Sounds good man.
Speaker 1:We'll talk to you soon. Awesome Thanks, all right, everybody, make sure you come back every Tuesday for an episode of Standing Out, and don't forget to sign up for the Broker Carrier Summit. That's brokercarriersummitcom, and you can join us in Kansas City for an incredible event with brokers and carriers coming together, talk to one another, build networks, find partners and have a good time together. Look forward to seeing you out there. And again, thanks for watching the show today. Shout out to our sponsor, spi Logistics. We appreciate them. And check us out at betaconsultinggroupcom. See how we're helping companies build their brand to becoming known and trusted. We'll see you guys. The next one, take care.