This episode offers a deep dive into the freight industry's nuanced world. Reflecting on how a diverse skill set is not just beneficial but essential in the ever-shifting landscape of LTL freight. We dissect the advantages of providing specialized services, strategies to forge lasting customer relationships, and tips for building a resilient, recession-proof business.
A word about our sponsors:
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: https://success.spi3pl.com/
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.
This episode offers a deep dive into the freight industry's nuanced world. Reflecting on how a diverse skill set is not just beneficial but essential in the ever-shifting landscape of LTL freight. We dissect the advantages of providing specialized services, strategies to forge lasting customer relationships, and tips for building a resilient, recession-proof business.
A word about our sponsors:
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: https://success.spi3pl.com/
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.
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Standing Out. I'm Trey Griggs, your host, so excited to have you with us today for another episode of Standing Out, a show about sales, marketing and leadership. Before we get started, don't forget to check us out at betaconsultinggroupcom and see how we're helping companies with their messaging, how they're communicating with the marketplace. We'd love to hear your story and help you tell yours. So check us out at betaconsultinggroupcom. Click on the little button in the middle of the website there to schedule a call with yours truly. Tell us your story and we will help you write yours. Also, some big news we are now syndicated with Rees Across America Radio. So every Tuesday, an episode of Standing Out will play along with other great shows on the Rees Across America Radio Network. We're excited to be a part of what they're doing over there. And if you don't know about them, be sure to check them out at Reesacrossamericaorg, a phenomenal organization helping the next generation remember the previous generations and the sacrifices that they made so that we can have the freedoms that we have. So again, check them out at Reesacrossamericaorg and make a donation so that a Rees can be placed on the veterans headstone right around Christmas time here at the end of 2024.
Speaker 1:Also, before we get started, I got to say thank you to our sponsor, spi Logistics. Listen, if you're a freight broker and you're just kind of tired of having your own MC and all the back office stuff and all that and you just want to stay in your sweet spot, or maybe you're an agent that's just not happy with where you are with the company that you're working with right now, be sure to check them out at successspi3plcom. They've got the technology systems, back office support to help you succeed and let you stay in your sweet spot. Check them out again at successspi3plcom and let them know that you heard about it right here on Standing Up. All right, today's episode is going to be great when, speaking of SPI, we have one of theirs in the house today to talk a little bit about what's going on over there. So give it up for our good friend from SPI Logistics, one of their agents, robert Cowton. Hey Robert, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Good morning Trey. How are you?
Speaker 1:Good to have you on the show and great walk-up song. My friend, this is one of the better ones.
Speaker 2:Great stuff.
Speaker 1:I feel like I need to let it play for just a little bit now, and we're not going to get to Margaritaville yet, but always a good one.
Speaker 2:Oh, let it smooth, Let it soothe in right, that's right.
Speaker 1:That's right. It's such a casual song. Now, are you a guitar player? Are you a musician? Do you like that kind of thing?
Speaker 2:I love music and I really wish I had the ability to play a guitar like yours. Behind I have an uncle that's very musically talented, but me, I'm two left feet when it comes to music. But as far as loving music and varieties of types, I'm all for music.
Speaker 1:Well, you clearly enjoy great music, and that's what matters, and so thanks for picking that song. That was a great song, and thanks for being on the show. Before we get started, I want to ask you a quick question Are you a coffee drinker? You want a coffee mug or are you a water bottle drinker? Do you like water? Which one would you prefer? We're going to send you one today for being on the show.
Speaker 2:I'm both. You can go with the G's. That's a real tough one. I'll go coffee.
Speaker 1:Coffee, or maybe we'll surprise you and send you both. You never know, but we'll get one of these out to you today. We appreciate you being on the show today and taking some time to talk a little bit about your expertise. I do have a fun fact about you. We're going to start with this. You recently purchased a gravel bike back in October for venture riding, and you've been doing this for quite a long time. How'd you get into that? I?
Speaker 2:actually cycling. I used to be a hockey player. You know I'm in Canada, so as most of us play hockey, I played hockey up to about the age 16. So kind of a higher level hockey. And I kept dislocating my shoulder and I realized that, going I wasn't going to become the NHL player Right.
Speaker 2:So I ended up departing and, through my sister, in fact, she had me volunteer to go to a triathlon and I used my old mountain bike, heavy duty mountain bike. I had a triathlon and then that got me inspired and I got a road bike and that led me to a race team and through a, through a fellow in my community, the Angaro family, their, their sons, alex and Paul, have both been to the Commonwealth games. They were both track like they're high end cyclists and so through that I got connected to events of cycling and Edmonton and I spent many years, fantastic years, cycling with and racing around BC, alberta, british Columbia and Alberta racing and had a lot of fun. It just it really taught me about it a lot, about myself in the community. And then, you know, wife, kids, life gets busy. I still bike, but not as much. And then my neighbor reinspired me and so I started.
Speaker 2:I ended up getting a road bike a few years ago, back in 2017, a newer version. I still have my old original race bike built by Bob Townsend. But I bought another road bike and then this year I ended up going into gravel because I want to stay off the highways. I can't trust the road, the drivers, as they used to be, so want to stay off the roads, and gravel bike is that perfect mix between not I don't want to be a crazy mountain biker flying down hills, so this gives me that mixed they call it mixed train riding. So you can a little bit of road, a little bit of gravel, a little bit of single track and have fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm still thinking about a mountain bike and a triathlon.
Speaker 2:That's just double the work, that's probably was a little harder to but I was young, I was like I was, I was pretty young. It's 15 or 15 years old or 14. That's happy to be in the race.
Speaker 1:That's right Just happy in the race. You know, I looked up what a gravel bike is and essentially it's almost like taking a road bike like a 10 speed and putting a front suspension on it and somewhat kind of like mountain bike tires. Yeah, the suspension is new.
Speaker 2:That's new, it's more. The frame is a little bit more beefier than a road bike and the terminology here in 2024 is that they're built more slack compared to a road bike. If I showed you my road bike and my gravel bike, you'd see the angles and the slackness allows you to go down trails and it's a little more comfortable ride, not as aggressive. So it's, yeah, very interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm with you, I don't. I don't ride bikes, but I like to run and when I do I much prefer a trail as opposed to riding on the road, not so much for the cars, maybe for the knees what it does to my knees but at the same point it's much. I think it's more enjoyable to kind of be out there on, you know, in a trail or on the gravel.
Speaker 2:I'm a runner as well. Yeah, I can appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What are some of the lessons you've learned in in some of these endurance races and how does that help you in your career?
Speaker 2:I'm not saying I wouldn't say I'm a super endurance racer, but I would say that, in fact, more than most, when I jumped into the world of freight brokering, I had started and I started from ground zero with no customers. And I remember one day, in fact, I was out for a run and I'm like I just had this vision I should be in Vancouver. And this is before I joined SPL logistics. I've only been working with two brokages and when I started in the freight industry in 2008, and then I joined SPI in 2016, but summers around 2008, I was running and I'm like I should be in Vancouver. So I went out there and I set out and I met a bunch of customers. I had some set appointments, some open appointments and through that I met people and, in fact, two of the customers out there I've been servicing since that visit. I've been servicing since 2008.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible. And just had a vision for going to Vancouver. Now I can understand that I've been to Vancouver. I only moved to Vancouver, believe it or not, love that city. Where were you before that? Where did you start out?
Speaker 2:So basically I went to University of Alberta in Edmonton. My goal was actually to go focus on facility management, or tourism was my angle. I have a degree in Recreation Administration from the University of Alberta. I worked in that a little bit because prior to that I was a lifeguard. I worked for Playgrounds. I was a Playground Leader, lifeguards from Instructor.
Speaker 2:I came out working at Grant McEwen College. I was their kind of facility coordinator, booking space and such. That was great being at Grant McEwen College. Then a friend from University says hey, I'm at Coca-Cola and that's great. I think you'd be a great fit. Well, one thing led to another. I spent from 1998 to 2008 at Coca-Cola doing account management District Sales Manager. I eventually became a District Sales Manager for the last five years. So I had a team I managed, overlooked the bulk channel. Then I made the big switch to the freight world where I started from ground zero. But I took that, my salesmanship and my customer focus into that, started from nothing and slowly built up at a great mentor when I started in 2008. The broker does that.
Speaker 2:Then things changed in 2016 when I had to make a change. I was looking for a company that had cross-border support. I needed LTL support. I was doing intermodal full truckload a variety. I'm a generalist, I guess you'd say a lot of broker agents are very mode-specific. Just refer just rapid. But I focused more on customers. I looked at it from the standpoint If I can service the customer in a variety of ways. That was my goal. So I came across SPI logistics and it was a perfect fit. Literally within it was January 6th or the 8th or something. I was right at the very beginning of January. Within two days we went through a list of my customers to verify I knew other agents had them. Within two days I was up and running and didn't miss a beat. Wow.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. We're going to dig into that here just a little bit. But I have a question now I'm wondering that you worked at Coca-Cola. I've been wondering this forever. Is there a difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero? The ingredients look the exact same on the cans.
Speaker 2:As far as I didn't regard it to the chemical, but I can tell you it's a different sugar. They're different.
Speaker 1:Instead of Diet.
Speaker 2:Coke has aspartame and Coke Zero is something different and that's what gives it a different taste, because you have the hardcore Diet Coke drinkers and Coke Zero, and that's why they taste a little different, because Coke. Zero was to. There were some people that liked Coca-Cola but wanted something different, but didn't like that Diet Coke, and that's when they came up with Coca-Cola Zero, and that was that perfect hybrid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seemed like the ingredients were almost the exact same. I could never figure out the difference. But my wife is she's pretty strict about it. She's like Diet Coke and nothing else.
Speaker 1:And I tend to move around a little bit. So good to know, good to know, all right. So let's get back to where you're talking about. Being a generalist definitely makes it exciting, because you get to do a lot of different things throughout the day. I tend to be a generalist about things as well, and so I can appreciate that. So when you came over to SPI, you were servicing customers in many different ways, what really made it a perfect fit in working with SPI.
Speaker 2:It was the fact that when I called and had a conversation at the time, it was Greg. It was Greg and he was the kind of VP of operations at that time, greg Davenport, and the conversation was perfect. When I asked, do you have this? Yes, do you have that? Yes, I had a lot of great questions and then we went through the process reviewing our customers and they were, that was and well, obviously we're going to talk a little bit about the LTL and that was a big part of my business and they had everything I needed and they had the cross-border support, dual currencies, they had all the software that I needed. It was just a perfect fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's nice when you find a home like that where it's just kind of plug and play. You don't really have to do much.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:In fact, it just enhances what you're currently doing and makes it even easier.
Speaker 2:It always makes it a little bit Well, I think the other main thing was the fact that they were very strong with their cross-border freight and having the systems in place and that I needed Because that was the bane of my business is cross-border, is the internal Canada and cross-border freight, and so they had the mixture of all of that. That gave me the opportunity that I can move my customers freight within Canada, within the United States and cross-border, so it's a full 360 opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the dual currencies is a big thing too, because a lot of brokerages in the States don't have some of those things in play. That's right, whether it's cross-border to Canada or cross-border to Mexico, and so just having that in play is obviously really helpful as well. So let's talk about LTL freight. Let's talk about some of the differences between USA, canada and cross-border complexities. What is it about that that can get you? I know you have a lot of interest in LTL and you have a lot of business in LTL. What is it about that that can get you excited?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess a lot of as I mentioned, a lot of broker agents tend to be mode like when I use the word mode, reefer, flatbed heavy haul, drive-in specific and some agents are actually mode and lane driven, where they only focus on drive-in freight between Chicago and Texas and Chicago Anything between Chicago and Texas. That's like their forte, that's their thing, and if someone calls them about something else, they kind of have the blinders on and they're not interested. As I mentioned, my thought was, when I came into this industry of freight brokering, I realized I wanted it to be somewhat recession-proof. So I didn't go with the traditional, I'm just going to go after the grocery distributors. I thought, well, what if one industry goes down, I need another one to offset. And it's worked out for me because, well, I've been doing it since 2008. And I have the gamut from things related to construction all the way to frozen. I've got the gamut of there and they always seem like when one slows down, another one picks up and it's this you kind of ride. I've been riding that roller coaster of having that variety and so tying an LTL.
Speaker 2:What it can do, first and foremost, is your customer can now really utilize you as it gets well one. It's going to get you a deeper relationship with the customer. So I'll give a simple example rather than a long story, and this can lead to others. So you're doing truckload freight for a customer, ok, going to go. You deliver the last load. Two days later you get a call saying they get a call when they receive the load. The consignee one of the pallets was the wrong product, the wrong skewer, wrong something. You got picked by their warehouse incorrectly. That customer is not planning to order another truckload for at least two weeks. Now they got this dealing but they're short the one pallet. So instead of the customer having to figure out how to do this, they can just call you up and saying, hey, we have this one pallet, we need to ship one pallet and then, when you, we need to pick up the other pallet and return it. That's that right there in itself.
Speaker 2:The second example I can give the benefits of having the knowledge and the skill set to offer LTL service to your customers Project freight. So again, because I'm customer focused, if a customer is in construction and they're going to be building something, or they're they're taking on a contract, they're going to build something, whether it's a house, a hospital or whatever. Well, sometimes they might. You might be sending truckloads of a variety of equipment, bobcats and tools, flatbeds of that, but you may also be shipping, you know, a truckload of insulation or pallets of brick or something like that, but meanwhile they may need to order some widgets and parts one pallet here, one pallet there and then they bring it to the yard, put it all together. Because you have that LTL ability, you can do that.
Speaker 2:Third Way I can explain that's a benefit. You can do it. So if you're shipping a variety of things with your customers, like I have, I have customers that ship out of, say, ohio, pennsylvania, illinois, wisconsin. Sometimes, when the stars align and it happens more often than you think they'll say I got two skids here once get there. Sometimes it's better I just ship each one separately. Sometimes I pick up the two from here, two from there, bring them into, say, toronto, and then I put them on intermodal rail and ship it as a half a container. So being creative and having these modes that you have the skill set for Allows that your customer can totally rely on you to help their supply chain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and I love the fact that you, like you're always wanting to learn. It sounds like you want to sort of figure out these problems and not just have, like the same problem every day to figure out, but actually learn some new problems and work with customers.
Speaker 2:Being in this business, never stop learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it and you know I started my career at DAT in Portland and you know DAT really has their load board for the United States. But then there's there's there's load link up in Canada which is kind of the sister company for that.
Speaker 1:I know that point that there's quite a few differences between Canadian freight and Freight here in the United States. What is that from an LTL perspective? How would you kind of categorize the difference between Canadian freight you know, domestic freight here in the US and cross-border? What the complexities are of that?
Speaker 2:well, I'll touch on this and then I'll get on to the next. But the basic summary is if you're taking an LTL freight, like one Palate, in Canada, going from, say, vancouver to Toronto or Montreal, and you're taking one pallet from Houston, texas, to Chicago and you're doing the price calculations, number one difference is in Canada the pricing structure is much simpler. It's a cubic, it's either actual weight or cubic weight, whichever is greater, pure and simple. So carriers have a model of a minimum, they have a minimum charge and then it goes up to 500. So if it's less than that, you get the minimum, or up summers in between there. And then what happens is it's pretty simple. Like you see, a chart is going to be 500 pound, thousand pounds, maybe 15, 2000, typically it's five, one thousand, 2005, thousand and then ten thousand. So basically, if the cubic weight, actual weight, is whichever is greater and we'll talk a little bit, we can dive into it that's how you get priced, whereas in the United States the pricing model is based off of the nmfc, national motor freight classification system, and often those nmfcs is based on the description of the goods and then when you open up that nmfc number, it might be density based, it could be description based, so you could have a density base. So you have to count, know how to calculate the density which will then cross reference to the freight class. So it takes a lot of work to get to that freight class. When someone says, yeah, we ship a freight class 70, well, hang on a sec. We got to look into this, just like just this.
Speaker 2:Just literally yesterday I picked up in Georgia a pallet that's an nmfc. It has subclasses but not based on density, it's based on. It's a. It was a valve and it's based on. Is it aluminum or iron? There's different how the compote, so what it's made of was the determining factor to determine the nmfc. So those are the. That's the simple answer.
Speaker 1:This reminds me of our system of measurement here in the united states. We seems like we make it more complex than it needs to be. You know we have our, our measurements. Uh, you know we got miles and feet and pounds and the rest of the world has. You know, meters, kilometers. There's a lot of simpler. You know the units of measure. Why do you, why do we make it so complicated, robert?
Speaker 2:Well, actually canada's, can I have to say canada's a bit messed up. You know why? Because we're supposed to be all kilograms. Well, guess what? The price of hamburgers advertised on a pound basis.
Speaker 1:Really, oh well, see, we've got a few things, we've got leaders for a few things, you know, like sodas and Uh, you know some of those types of things, but not a lot of things.
Speaker 2:and we have meters only for certain sports, unpopular sports like swimming and and theory, like if you go to a job site and you're working most of the time You're cutting wood. It's not in millimeters and centimeters, which would be more accurate, but a lot of times they say cut me a piece of wood at seven and three eights. Yeah, it's crazy so we're, and if you go to the, if you go to the hardware store, you're not ordering a thousand millimeters of wood.
Speaker 1:Yeah see, that's america's bad influence on canada.
Speaker 2:That's what that's right, we're not doing that to other countries in the world. We've done it to canada. Yeah, we're just. We're a mishmash of both.
Speaker 1:You got the international, you know flair, which is way simpler, and then you've got us trying to work with us and oh, that's, that's hilarious. Yeah, the the ltl classification system is is pretty archaic and it seems like, why do we still have this like who has the stronghold? Why do we keep using it? But I think it's that well, it's the way that they structure show.
Speaker 2:If I can kind of touch on one thing about the ltl, because sometimes say, if an eight Someone who's in the freight industry has seen this, this podcast, and is thinking, boy, that sounds like a great idea, I should, I should really offer ltl freight. Hang on a second, here we got you got you got to hold the horses for a second. And and a couple things that I would bring up With if you're going to enter your customers and you want to try to provide service, a value added services, as a ltl freight, something to consider. Number one patience. Ltl freight is not the kind of freight where you have a drive-in load that picks up, say a short haul that picks up on a monday, delivers wednesday, you've got the pod and it's invoiced by thursday or friday morning. That's not happening with ltl, even if it's only a next day service, if everything's right, sure, but often it takes several days for the you know the invoicing and if there's problems it can take weeks. I just I have a shipment from october that I'm going to finally finish this week because I had a claim there's problems. So one is the patience. Are you a patient? If you're like I just want to get the loads booked, delivered, invoiced and moved on, then maybe ltl is not your forte. It might be, but but next thing, willingness to learn. If you're not willing to dive deep Into the ltl organizational structure and the nmfcs and the, the freight calculations and the processes involved, um, if you're not willing to get into the weeds of that, then it may or may not be a fit for you.
Speaker 2:Uh, the other thing to consider With ltl freight it's very competitive, so it may not always be the highest. Uh dollar value, right, but you're percentage wise. If you're making, you know, 15 or 10 or 15 on a truck load Of $2,000, you might only, you might be shipping a pallet that's $200 and you may only put 40 or 50 dollars profit, 60 dollars profit depends what it is and so you're. So the dollar value may not look good, but really it looks like 26, 50, 40, 30 percent. That can look good on a percentage ways, but dollar value Okay. The other thing is the appreciation of the entire complexities of it.
Speaker 2:Because when you think about, if you compare a truck load like right now, you and I could go out, create a trucking business tomorrow, higher Five, six, seven owner operators both working we, you and I could be working from our home. We split the country your dispatch and these drivers I'm dispatching those ones and we're working from our home. We have five trucks, we have no facilities. The drivers work from their homes and they take the loads and you know it's all done. There's no infrastructure there, there's just you and I. We're doing everything. We're dealing with the brokers and all the paperwork and as we grow, okay, maybe we add one or two people, but essentially it's pretty darn simple.
Speaker 2:If you go to open up an LTL business and you want to be an LTL carrier, you're buying a. What you have to have a warehouse at minimum. You're going to need a bunch of trucks for the pickup and deliveries. You're going to need dispatchers. You're going to need a safety manager. You're going to need customer service staff. You're going to need someone to hire all these staff and manage all this.
Speaker 2:So, right from the hop, they're, they're, their investment is huge, but yet they have. They're expected in the marketplace to come out and provide low-cost options and provide consistent daily service. So that is one thing. Like you're going to get one thing what LTL afraid is you're going to get that consistency. You can pick up if it's one to five, one to four skids you can literally call, unless it's a remote town where it's only service certain days of the week. I have that History there. There's a lot there. But generally if you're in major cities you can pick, you can dispatch every single day and get a truck, whereas sometimes with those truckloads you may or may not get a truck that same day, maybe the next day. But LTL freight can be done daily.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's reasons why we have hundreds of thousands of truckload carriers and only hundreds of common LTL carriers. That's a hard game to get into. It's a lot of complexities and Infrastructure and networks that have been created Over a long time, and so it is.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a learning game, that's for sure and I was going to say that the real thing, that the other thing is there's the whole thing about claims, but appreciating that there's a claims process and there's that as well. But I think the very the, the best thing that LTL can do for you, if you're willing to dive in and learn, is it will take your customer level from, say, the kind of an entry level to a, you know, a risk kind of level and it it Sorry, I would say to an excellence level meaning because when you go into the LTL world you have to become an educator and a consultant for your customer. You need to take the time to understand their, how their warehouse works. You want it so that you learn their products, that you get to the point where, if they have, you know product a, b, c or a, 20 and code a, d, 20 and d 60s, all these different codes, and you know when you can, when your customer can call, say, yeah, we got a pallet, it's going to have you know three boxes of this, four boxes that and three boxes this and you know what it is. You can calculate and say, okay, that's going to be a 48 by 48 by 64 pallet and it's going to weigh this much when your customer, when you don't, your customers didn't have to tell you all the weights. I have that with customers. That is huge and so, but part of that process, though, is when you enter and venture into the world of LTL.
Speaker 2:You need to look at how are your customers freight if their boxes Is always overhang the pallets because they always do truckloads, well, that's not suitable, because if boxes overhang up, the foot put on the pallet, that ships at risk, shippers risk and liability, which will lead to a claim. And then the customer is disappointed because you didn't educate them that. Well, yeah, it chipped out and there's a claim, but we can't put the claim through because your pallet wasn't professionally packaged to withstand the rigors of LTL freight. So you have to be an educator, you have to teach them. If they're only putting a little bit of wrap and they say, well, we want to do LTL, okay, how much is it going to cost to buy a band banding machine and band it? All right, you got to educate them on this whole process. So there's, that's what it does. It just takes you to that next level with your customers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it creates a much stickier, has the potential to create a much stickier customer. In that regard, are you going to your customers warehouses to talk them through that? Do you do that through video conferencing, like how do you help educate your customers?
Speaker 2:Well, a couple ways. Obviously I can't go to all mine because I got customers all around us and Canada, but the ones I can, I do go and If I go, I I'm walking into there with my tape measure, never leave home without. I actually have a bag in that closet behind that's my PPE, ppe bag. So when I go to my customers visits, I got a safety vest, I got a hard hat, I got steel toes shoes and I've got my Tape measure and I'm when I go, I look if I'm going to the world. So I come in prepared and I'm measuring everything. I don't even ask, I just start measuring and then I and if in doubt, I asked my customer to send me a picture, and but I have to.
Speaker 2:You have to find different ways, uh, to get the information. Or you get it from the carrier or, if I can, if the freight say the freight came from Another city and it's going to be passing like it's going to be delivering to the city near me, I'll go and find a way to get that. Uh, get pictures. I just try to gain insight. However I can, the more that I learn, and I'll keep talking to my customer and say, hey, you, would you mind help me get some information about your product so that, as I learn, if I can research it, whatever I can do to gain that extra step to make myself differentiate? Because, right, my goal as a broker agent Whether it's ltl, whatever mode, the ultimate goal of any broker agent is that when a customer says we just won a project, we just won some big sales, where we're going to ship, we need to ship all this product.
Speaker 2:Right, some sales rep sold something that they need to ship and they're in this conference meeting in a room. When they say we need to ship that, the first thing that comes up is that rob or Tray or whoever the agent is, that's our person that we're going to rely on that too.
Speaker 1:That's right, I love that. That's what you want. Now, your first rodeo, I'd love to see a picture of you with all your gear on out there just walking in, uh, measure you just taking over, taking control in there and uh and doing well, which I'm sure your customers really, really appreciate that. So that's, that's awesome to hear. All right, we got to pause and play a little game, like to have a little fun on the show, and, robert, today we're going to play a little game of would you rather? All right, robert, the way this game works is we're going to put some statements up on the screen, some some kind of this or that type of thing. So would you rather do this or that? You got to pick one and tell us why real quick, and then we'll we'll move on to the next one. The first one we have for you today is Would you rather be stuck in a romantic comedy with your worst enemy or in a horror, horror movie with your best friend?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go with the horror movie With your best friend.
Speaker 1:Do you like horror movies or?
Speaker 2:is it?
Speaker 1:because the best friend it's, it's just being with somebody, I think I think someone.
Speaker 2:I'd rather be with someone that I can trust and talk about Than my worst enemy.
Speaker 1:I guess it'd be more adventurous, that's for sure, and I actually have a best friend who loves horror movies, so I think that would work out well for me. So I'm with you on this. I'm going the same way horror movie with best friend. 100%, all right. Next one Would you rather be able to speak every language in the world or be able to talk to animals? Oh, wow, that's an interesting one.
Speaker 2:That is. But you know what the animals would be cool because I think they would have some deep thoughts to share with us humans that they could say sometimes how crazy we are. But I think when you, if you've ever traveled, being able to speak languages is huge because you know what? There's a lot of people around the world. We're all the same and the only sometimes that differentiates us is our language, that we can't communicate clearly. And having that ability to speak to people around the world would be huge.
Speaker 1:So you're on the practical side of every language, which certainly looks better in public. If you're speaking to animals, people might think you're weird, but if you can speak languages, people are like wow, look at that guy, he's so smart.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:Animals would be interesting, though Would be interesting. I agree with you on that. That would be interesting. Alright, round three. Which one would you rather have a knife when you need a spoon or a spoon when you need a knife?
Speaker 2:Spoon all day long.
Speaker 1:Really? Oh, for sure, I can have lots with a spoon. Possibly, if it's sharp enough. Maybe it's a plastic spoon, you're done. I kind of go. I got another way. I can do anything with a knife, because the opposite side of a knife is not sharp, so I could eat with that side.
Speaker 2:Oh, true yeah.
Speaker 1:There's more possibilities with a knife to cut things to eat, sometimes the spoon.
Speaker 2:And it's actually easier to carry it's flat.
Speaker 1:Could you cut a steak with a spoon? That would be interesting. I don't know, not sure, but I think I could eat cereal with a knife. I think, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2:That would be tough. I see you make some funny videos. That would be a shorty of the day. That would be the viral shorty of the day.
Speaker 1:You know I might have to do it this afternoon and make a little video of me eating, trying to eat cereal with a knife. I like where you're going with that, robert. Okay, next one. Would you rather have to use shrimp flavored toothpaste or deodorant that smells like cheese? Who's coming up with these?
Speaker 2:Alright, which one Shrimp flavored? I'm going to go with the shrimp flavored toothpaste, because at least you know what. It kind of seems exotic Like. Hey, this guy was eating shrimp. That seems kind of cool, that's right.
Speaker 1:And you can always wash it down with something else later. You can kind of get over it, right. But cheese deodorant, what is that? Nobody wants to smell like cheese. Yeah, I'm with you on that. That's terrible. Alright, final round. Robert, here we go. Almost done with this. Alright, would you rather eat all your food with your hands or use utensils with only your non-dominant hand? We just talked about this yesterday with a friend of mine. Which one would you rather do Eat with your hands only or have to use your non-dominant hand?
Speaker 2:I think, eat with my hands only Just because I have a funky hand, my left hand, that's the non-dominant, it's webbed, it's smaller and so it's just not the same.
Speaker 1:Might not work. Might not work.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't be, it would work. But it's just yeah, I'd rather use my hand.
Speaker 1:There's something fun about eating with your hands too. Kind of something enjoyable, especially if it's something you can lick later. Doritos are great because you get a little extra. Afterwards. You get an extra bonus. Exactly, I'm with you on that. I think that's a good one.
Speaker 2:It's kind of primitive as well.
Speaker 1:That's right. Well, Robert, thank you for playing. Would you Rather? That was fun. I always enjoy having those conversations and we have one more. We have a random question of the day. We always like to throw this out. It's something kind of fun. So here's our random question of the day what would a world populated by clones of you be like? So the world is just all Roberts. What would that be like?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, my wife would sure have comments about that.
Speaker 1:A lot of cycling going on, probably a lot of races.
Speaker 2:The only thing I guess I could say is I'm a pretty high energy person, so I'd say that's a positive it is.
Speaker 2:The unfortunate thing is that the world would not have a lot of music. We could pretend that we would think that we're singing, but I guess you know what, If it's all me, I would think I'm sounding really good. If it's all of us, we're all going to sound really good, but anyone else it just wouldn't be there. And then you know what? I'm not a. I love to research, so that part's good. I'm willing to dive into research, but I'm okay with math, but math is not my strong point. So to design a bridge and calculate a bridge could be a real.
Speaker 2:There could be a lot of rivers without crossings We'd have to use that's okay, I like the kayak and paddleboard, so the whole world would just have to kayak and paddleboard across rivers because I couldn't build a bridge.
Speaker 1:It'd be a very natural world. I like it. I like your creativity with that. That's awesome. I love that. That's so good. What a question. That's a nice random question today, Alright, Robert. So I got one more question to ask you about your work and then we're going to get you out of here and get you on your way today. So you've been with SPI for a long time. What keeps you at SPI? What is it about working with the team at SPI that keeps you around?
Speaker 2:The support. You've got an accounts payable, accounts receivable team and you've got a client care team and then you've got upper management From Anita to Mark to Joe, mike, there's Peter and then Mitch the owner We've got. If you need support in any capacity, whether you're dealing with an issue or you have a huge prospect if you need support there's support. And that includes I've had the support of Anita helping me hire people. I actually To show the complexities of freight, of LTL freight, is I actually have a freight auditor that works for me that I hire, so 20 hours a week that person's there to help me keep on top of my LTL freight for tracking, tracing and billing purposes, so that it makes it a little bit easier for SPI's back end and I try to be so that things match up and everything is.
Speaker 2:I'm dealing with all the complexities behind the scenes so that when it's all said and done, it's easy once it hits the back office. And that's just because of the nature of my business. I'm not saying that's necessary for all agents, but for my particular book of business it just works. I think it works a little bit better.
Speaker 1:So I think that combination there I kind of agree with you. When I met the team at SPI, I could just tell that they love taking care of their agents and it's real passion for them and they mean it. They're not just saying it, they really mean it. I got to speak to the sports staff when I was up there Just phenomenal people and so it's been a pleasure to have you on the show, Robert, and to talk about your experience with SPI. Thanks for being so creative and having fun with us today. We're going to get you out of here with a little more Mark Ureda bill. So great walk of song.
Speaker 2:For that. Kudos to you and congratulations to you. You don't talk about yourself a lot, but you have quite the accolade of accomplishments in your career and sometimes in our life, what we do in one part you've had to accomplish sales, but you're a teacher. When you're a teacher, you're a sales person. Right, you're a sales person. You're a principal's away and you've got to talk to parents and that's led you to the success you're having today. So congratulations.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. That's very kind of you to say. You're welcome on the show anytime. My friend, you have to have me back on the show, but thanks again for being on the show today. We'll see you real soon.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Everybody. Make sure you come back every Tuesday for another episode of standing out with great guests like Robert. Also, don't forget to sign up for the broker carrier summit brokercarriersummitcom. That's going to be April 22 through 24. It's a phenomenal event, with brokers and carriers coming together to talk about the problems in the industry and finding partners to do business together. So it's going to be an incredible event. Hopefully we'll see you in Kansas City. Make sure you use the coupon code beta BETA to save 10% on your registration. Limited number of those available will hopefully see you in April. Also, don't forget to sign up for TMSA in June. That's the elevate conference. If you're in sales and marketing and transportation, you got to be there for that. You can sign up for that by going to the eventstmsa todayorg website and you can sign up for that as well. And until next time, remember folks stop standing still. Start standing out.