Nate Shutes: Hello and welcome to the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics, the podcast highlighting founders doing it the way that doesn't get a lot of attention.
Nate Shutes: We're here to change that by sharing their stories and inspiring others to take the leap.
Jim Bramlett: It's a roller coaster ride that you might ultimately fail.
Nate Shutes: That's when I kind of knew I was on to something.
Jim Bramlett: It was very hard.
Nate Shutes: It truly is building a legacy.
Nate Shutes: The more life you live, the more wisdom you have, because we are where we're supposed to be.
Nate Shutes: Kind of answering the call.
Nate Shutes: Don't shoulder entrepreneurship on your own.
Nate Shutes: I'm your host, nate Shoots.
Nate Shutes: Let's build something together from the ground up.
Nate Shutes: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the show.
Nate Shutes: We are in season three, doing what we have been doing for a couple of years now going deep into people's personal stories and backgrounds on why they chose to start companies in the supply chain industry and what keeps them going, what are the lessons they've learned along the way, and how can we tap into all of that collective knowledge and not only educate and inform, but a big part of what we try to do here is also to inspire.
Nate Shutes: For entrepreneurs that are deep into their journey or just beginning, it is a roller coaster ride like no other, and so hearing the stories of others that are going through that same experience often offers them a lot of encouragement.
Nate Shutes: And then I also get outreach pretty regularly from somebody who says I'm working a job or I have an idea and I'm trying to come up with a way that I can launch this business, and I've got a bunch of questions.
Nate Shutes: And well, entrepreneurship is about asking questions endlessly and trying to find a good answer to it.
Nate Shutes: So I often tell them I don't have great answers for you, but I do have a library of content of folks that have tried it.
Nate Shutes: Not everybody has succeeded, but they've all said it was worth it, and so that's what this whole thing is about.
Nate Shutes: So I hope to offer some encouragement and some inspiration today by unpacking the story of Jim Bramlett, who is the CEO of Five String Solutions.
Nate Shutes: He has a storied career in the logistics industry.
Nate Shutes: I'm going to have him unpack a little bit of that for us.
Nate Shutes: But there are times in your life where you meet somebody and you say, oh my goodness, we have mirror image experiences in a lot of different places, but also just deep interests in a lot of the same places.
Nate Shutes: So we might be talking for two and a half hours today.
Nate Shutes: We'll see.
Nate Shutes: But first, jim, thank you so much for coming on the show, and would you mind just doing a brief introduction of what your career has looked like so far?
Jim Bramlett: Sure, hey, thanks for having me.
Jim Bramlett: It's fun.
Jim Bramlett: I do consider you a brother from another mother and you and I have so much in common.
Jim Bramlett: So I'm an old you can see the gray hair if you're watching this but my logistics transportation career spans a little over 42 years.
Jim Bramlett: It wasn't exactly the first job I got out of school.
Jim Bramlett: I took a sales job for a consumer goods company, but after a year it just wasn't my thing and I ended up getting hired as a management trainee for Roadway Express at a break bulk in Springfield, missouri.
Jim Bramlett: That's where I went to school.
Jim Bramlett: And, god, I found it so fascinating.
Jim Bramlett: And here's what got me.
Jim Bramlett: I mean, very early on I'd see a pallet of freight and I'd say, oh wait, a minute, two days ago that was in Atlanta, and two, you know, two days from now that's going to be in LA.
Jim Bramlett: God, look at all the things that have to happen to make that transpire.
Jim Bramlett: And that just fascinated me to no end.
Jim Bramlett: And so I began my journey and I've been in it ever since in many different aspects.
Jim Bramlett: I've studied LTL, and I mean studied.
Jim Bramlett: I've gone through the rules, tariffs, I've gone through lots.
Jim Bramlett: So I kind of always kind of centered myself around LTL and I've started in my career seven different companies four for myself, three for others.
Jim Bramlett: I've started a division.
Jim Bramlett: I'm proud to say that I was the first guy to start a time-definite service in the LTL industry for yellow back in the day, and until that time it was a one trick pony.
Jim Bramlett: We are only doing oh, you want to get Chicago to Atlanta?
Jim Bramlett: It's three days, that's all you get.
Jim Bramlett: So an expedited time definite service and then the others in the industry kind of copied that.
Jim Bramlett: So I had a lot of fun doing that.
Jim Bramlett: But I've always been a little bit creative, starting new companies, new offerings, new divisions.
Jim Bramlett: I just always so.
Jim Bramlett: Don't put me in a factory, in a production line, that's just not my gig.
Jim Bramlett: But I've had a lot of fun doing that and I'm still a shareholder in my last company I founded.
Jim Bramlett: I'm no longer active in the day-to-day.
Jim Bramlett: I let the others do that because I'm doing executive coaching now, running a peer group, and I love that.
Jim Bramlett: I'm a business nerd.
Jim Bramlett: I love learning how businesses work, the challenges they face, the wins they experience and all of that.
Jim Bramlett: I've a couple books, kind of, about that.
Jim Bramlett: I have a really strong theory about organic business growth and I'm out promoting that all the time.
Jim Bramlett: I love the journeys of any entrepreneur that's brave enough to take.
Jim Bramlett: You know, take that step and, uh, cause it's scary.
Jim Bramlett: It was scary for me a lot of times.
Jim Bramlett: Um, so that's a real quick synopsis and I'm going to more detail if you'd like.
Nate Shutes: Well, I want to unpack it.
Nate Shutes: In a career that spans four decades, the industry has undergone massive transformation deregulation in the early eighties, the rise of the internet and technology in the early 2000s and late 90s.
Nate Shutes: Now we're into an AI environment or an artificial intelligence age.
Nate Shutes: So I guess I'm curious what hasn't changed?
Jim Bramlett: I'll tell you what hasn't changed, and especially in the LTL industry, is the complexity.
Jim Bramlett: You know they're making headway, but I argue that they are still using many parts of the Kamae classification system that was born from the railroad industry back in 1935.
Jim Bramlett: And I believe in simplicity.
Jim Bramlett: That is not simple.
Jim Bramlett: The tariffs are not simple.
Jim Bramlett: The rules are not simple.
Jim Bramlett: The industry makes it pretty complex and there's been very little change from that.
Jim Bramlett: However you talk about the progression the industry's found.
Jim Bramlett: One reason for 3PL's existence is to make the lives of shippers simpler easier, save them time and effort, because it's not easy dealing with an LTL carrier and figuring out what the net charge is going to be for any particular shipment.
Jim Bramlett: It's not easy finding the right truck to haul your truck load because of the fragmentation in the industry.
Jim Bramlett: So I believe the third-party logistics industry is predicated on exactly what I preach.
Jim Bramlett: We're going to make your shippers' lives simpler easier.
Jim Bramlett: We're going to save you time and effort.
Jim Bramlett: We're going to make your shippers lives simpler easier.
Jim Bramlett: We're going to save you time and effort.
Jim Bramlett: We're going to give you a better user experience.
Jim Bramlett: We might even be able to save you money and you can trust us, and that's all the things I preach all the time.
Jim Bramlett: So I love that kind of progression.
Jim Bramlett: The technology that you mentioned, and now AI is and I'm not kept up with it all, but I've got to imagine AI is absolutely impacting how logistics and transportation companies function and how they can be more efficient Legacy LTL pricing and classification methodology is probably going to be around for a while longer, although there have been a number of attempts at reform.
Nate Shutes: But the beneficiaries of that system are the LTL carriers themselves, and so it works for them quite well.
Nate Shutes: So along that journey, you discovered something that led you to create FiveString.
Nate Shutes: So a couple of questions.
Nate Shutes: What was the moment or the catalyst of this?
Nate Shutes: Is the idea that I want to pursue, for however long it takes to find the answer.
Jim Bramlett: And why the name FiveString?
Jim Bramlett: All right, great, good question.
Jim Bramlett: So Genesis 5-String started when I started my internet-centric 3PL it was called FreightProcom back in 1999.
Jim Bramlett: And we got involved, not because of me but somebody who worked for me.
Jim Bramlett: We got involved in a lot of pool distribution and those kind of solutions and we were using what is termed as couriers to do the final mile delivery.
Jim Bramlett: Well, this is a whole part of the industry I was not familiar with, but one of my people were and I got to learning about it and I was fascinated by it that these people even existed, because I grew up in the LTL space with big brands you see rolling down the highway everywhere across the cities.
Jim Bramlett: You recognize these brands.
Jim Bramlett: Well, that courier industry is very fragmented.
Jim Bramlett: There's thousands of players.
Jim Bramlett: They don't all do the same thing.
Jim Bramlett: I joke that it's an industry a little bit like Baskin Robbins it's ice cream but there's 31 flavors but it's an industry.
Jim Bramlett: The courier industry is largely comprised of companies who are using independent contractors.
Jim Bramlett: An independent contractor model has a 30% cost advantage over a W-2 provider and they're so flexible.
Jim Bramlett: What do you need?
Jim Bramlett: We'll do that.
Jim Bramlett: And so, matter of fact, we were doing distribution to homes for a home party plan company and the drivers actually had the garage door codes for certain customers.
Jim Bramlett: They would, you know, deliver every week.
Jim Bramlett: Yeah, and they.
Jim Bramlett: It was amazing.
Jim Bramlett: So anyway, I got, I got really fascinated with that and and after that journey, you know, we started getting into e-commerce and of course it doesn't take long to say that's going to be pretty popular, right, and?
Jim Bramlett: And so I saw the writing on the wall that this e-commerce thing is going to pick up, and not necessarily small packets, because there's UPS, fedex and the post office, but on the large and bulky there wasn't anything equivalent to UPS or FedEx.
Jim Bramlett: And so I said, well, that's going to explode and there's going to be more need for that final model delivery, not only the homes but, you know, in case of pool distribution, et cetera.
Jim Bramlett: And I ran into a company called Grand Junction I think, nate, you've heard of those guys.
Jim Bramlett: They were very successful putting the data connectors in, data connectors in, so you connect shippers with the final mile and exchange information, you know, passing orders, pulling back shipment statuses, pods and the like, and they were doing quite well.
Jim Bramlett: But they got acquired by your neighbor, target, and Target decided we're not going to make you available to the public.
Jim Bramlett: We only want you for our internal use.
Jim Bramlett: So tell all your customers that they need to find another home.
Jim Bramlett: We'll give them a year.
Jim Bramlett: And so I said, hmm, wonder who else is in that line of work.
Jim Bramlett: And I found out who it was and I talked to them and I thought there was something they weren't going to be doing that I thought was important.
Jim Bramlett: And so I said you know what?
Jim Bramlett: I think there's not a lot of competition and there's a need.
Jim Bramlett: So I'm going to try and duplicate what Grand Junction was doing, In other words, create a data hub that shippers and carriers, especially fundamental couriers, can connect to, because that all-important status for the end consumer is important.
Jim Bramlett: And I tell people now.
Jim Bramlett: I said you know, everybody's pretty accustomed to the information you get when Amazon makes a delivery, but not everybody has their own blue trucks running around.
Jim Bramlett: And so in the large and bulky side of the business, unless you use a 3PL like a JBN or an XPO or something of that nature, if you want to assemble your own network, it's going to take multiple carriers, okay.
Jim Bramlett: So how do you get this delivery information?
Jim Bramlett: How do you push orders to them?
Jim Bramlett: How do you get quotes back, whatever you need to do.
Jim Bramlett: From a data standpoint, that's a pretty hard problem to solve.
Jim Bramlett: And so I set about solving that.
Jim Bramlett: But I didn't want to be a broker.
Jim Bramlett: I'd been there and done that and I thought being a Grand Junction being a SaaS provider with the technology connectors.
Jim Bramlett: But I want to build a referral network because people don't know who's in the final mile.
Jim Bramlett: They don't know that flavor of ice cream.
Jim Bramlett: Oh, I want to deliver fitness equipment what kind of carriers do I need?
Jim Bramlett: Or I want to deliver meal kits what do I need for that?
Jim Bramlett: And so we built a referral network so that when we engaged a shipper, I could introduce them.
Jim Bramlett: But they cut the deal themselves.
Jim Bramlett: We were just a technology enabler.
Jim Bramlett: So that's what we set out to do and we're still doing it.
Jim Bramlett: Only I'm not doing it on a day-to-day basis.
Nate Shutes: What's interesting to me about that is when you have deep domain expertise and you understand all of the perspectives and roles in the market.
Nate Shutes: You've got carriers in the middle mile.
Nate Shutes: You have carriers in the final mile of a whole bunch of different varieties, from couriers on up to box trucks doing white glove delivery, and then you have truckload providers, you have final mile nodes.
Nate Shutes: And then you have the shipper side of things, where, from enterprise on down to small business, they're not in the logistics business, they are in the product business, and this is a necessary evil in some ways, and they can either let that be a liability or they can turn it into some kind of a competitive advantage.
Nate Shutes: And so, after the decades of experience that you had at that point to be able to articulate a narrow gap that wasn't being served in the industry, that kind of intuition and deep insight that says, hey, I know somebody's building this product, but I think they're missing another layer, that level of strategic identification of a market need.
Nate Shutes: Where did that come from for you?
Nate Shutes: Is that something that are you?
Nate Shutes: Constantly your back brain is thinking about ltl and you can't turn it off.
Nate Shutes: Or did you read a book?
Nate Shutes: Or like, where does that curiosity to keep looking for that.
Jim Bramlett: Um slice of an insight come from well, one, one of the things and like I said in my intro, I have studied.
Jim Bramlett: I just wasn't in LTL.
Jim Bramlett: I studied it deeply and you know, the thing that amazed me was and it still does LTL carriers do not like anything that's not industrial shipments, meaning dock-to-dock.
Jim Bramlett: They love that, they price that, that's what they want.
Nate Shutes: Palletized yep.
Jim Bramlett: But if it's a shipment to a residence, if it's a shipment to a self-storage unit, a golf course, you know a construction site, or requires an appointment, they don't like it.
Jim Bramlett: So what do they do?
Jim Bramlett: They have these assessorial charges, and I saw the assessorial charges getting more and more punitive.
Jim Bramlett: Okay, well, you don't like it, but there is a factor segment of the transportation industry does like it.
Jim Bramlett: You know, I used to joke when I started meeting these final mile carriers, the couriers hey, do you know about limited access?
Jim Bramlett: And they go what are you talking about?
Jim Bramlett: Well, do you charge extra to deliver to the self-storage unit?
Jim Bramlett: Do you charge extra to deliver to a house?
Jim Bramlett: Do you charge extra for the lift gate that's on your box truck?
Jim Bramlett: No, no, no To them.
Jim Bramlett: It's a delivery which I think it's another opportunity for customers to use a different kind of service that may be a little bit better on the delivery.
Jim Bramlett: But you just hit the nail on the head.
Jim Bramlett: What about the middle mile?
Jim Bramlett: See, they're just final mile.
Jim Bramlett: And so how you integrate that middle mile to the final mile?
Jim Bramlett: Probably best served by a 3PL.
Jim Bramlett: That's what they do, and I've said this all along.
Jim Bramlett: If all you do is resell another service, you're just a pure transactional broker and you're just offering LTL resell services.
Jim Bramlett: How much value is there really there?
Jim Bramlett: Tl resell services how much value is there really there?
Jim Bramlett: But when you can do something like pool distribution, you're managing the middle mile and you're putting it coordinating with the final mile.
Jim Bramlett: Oh, by the way, I've got a network of people who can do your assembly of your fitness equipment.
Jim Bramlett: That's where real value comes to play.
Jim Bramlett: And so, yeah, I'm always thinking what is it that makes sense, that adds more value to the equation or takes costs out of the equation, because that's got to be popular?
Nate Shutes: And again, that is a different way of coming at a problem, and I think that's part of why our conversations that usually go well beyond their scheduled time.
Nate Shutes: If we put 30 minutes on the calendar, we're talking for an hour.
Nate Shutes: We put an hour, we talk for three.
Nate Shutes: It's just the way of things, because I, because we're both drawn to the similar parts of the market and, um, I, I agree, we are, you are a brother from another mother, for me as well.
Nate Shutes: So you have this professional career portion of you.
Nate Shutes: You're an executive, you learn the ropes and then you're responsible for things.
Nate Shutes: Then you have a couple of other chapters where you're starting businesses, you're exiting businesses and after all that time now you still are an owner, but you have somebody else running five string.
Nate Shutes: What is that process?
Nate Shutes: What has it been like for you?
Nate Shutes: Not not technically or not financially, and reviewing dashboards remotely and all that, but what has it meant for you to have to let go of the vision that you maybe started it with?
Nate Shutes: And the next generation is coming in and they share a lot of it, I'm sure, but they're also passionate and they see a couple of things that maybe you don't.
Nate Shutes: So how do you transition from active and in the business to more of a chairman role.
Jim Bramlett: Yeah, great question.
Jim Bramlett: I think you know, I think every entrepreneur faces this, because I believe every entrepreneur has their vision.
Jim Bramlett: This is how it should be, this is how it should work.
Jim Bramlett: But as you grow you have to cede authority to some other folks who might think slightly differently, and that becomes hard.
Jim Bramlett: And so I joke that I like being married.
Jim Bramlett: And the story is my wife retired about a year after I started FiveStream and when she retired she started poking at me.
Jim Bramlett: Remember all those things we're going to go do in our golden years?
Jim Bramlett: You know, and, like I said, I've been married almost 48 years now, so I like it.
Jim Bramlett: And to appease her, because I'm in the grind man, you know, you know how it is, and everybody who's out there today probably knows how it is in the logistics transportation space, you're working, working, working, working.
Jim Bramlett: And I finally decided that yeah, I want to take a different course.
Jim Bramlett: And so I found people to take it over and yet have me become more of an advisor.
Jim Bramlett: So I wasn't totally out of it, but I had the seed to control.
Jim Bramlett: They make the decisions now, and that was hard because I was the one making all the decisions until that time, and that's a different position to be in but I've transitioned.
Jim Bramlett: But you know what's funny, nate, is when I gave that up and I say, well, I kind of tried retirement but I flunked.
Jim Bramlett: I was three months away from the day-to-day and I'm playing some golf and tennis and maybe a little pickleball and maybe a little banjo, but there's no purpose in that.
Jim Bramlett: And so I'm a guy who's got to have some purpose.
Jim Bramlett: And so I got contacted by Vistage, which is the world's leading, largest business leader peer group organization, and they wanted to have another group formed in Kansas City and thought I'd be a good candidate to lead that.
Jim Bramlett: I saw a purpose there.
Jim Bramlett: And now that's what I'm doing and I love it because I'm still involved in the business world, not necessarily totally transportation, logistics.
Jim Bramlett: I'm getting to learn so much from all other types of leaders and what they face and challenge all the time, so I really, really enjoy that.
Jim Bramlett: Is business business at the end of the day?
Jim Bramlett: Does it not matter?
Jim Bramlett: Or is having unique industry insight an advantage?
Jim Bramlett: How do you think about what's universal and what's not?
Jim Bramlett: I had a five-star general.
Jim Bramlett: Come talk to my leadership group and I said, okay, tell me the difference between leading in the military versus leading in public or private company, and he says leadership of people is all the same and that's what we're really doing.
Jim Bramlett: We're leading people and they handle the processes and they handle the processes.
Jim Bramlett: But when you can inspire people and get them all in the same line to do the same thing for a common purpose, that's what really leadership is all about.
Jim Bramlett: Yeah, and as I coach these leaders, I say look, I got an aerospace manufacturing leader.
Jim Bramlett: I don't know anything about aerospace manufacturing, I don't need to, but he faces some of the same challenges, be it marketing, be it gosh.
Jim Bramlett: How do I think about AI?
Nate Shutes: How do I think about culture?
Nate Shutes: How do I inspire my team?
Nate Shutes: All of that?
Nate Shutes: How do I retain my key employees?
Nate Shutes: It's so much of that that is very common for any leader.
Nate Shutes: When you look back on your own career.
Nate Shutes: Do you wish you had a group like that yourself?
Nate Shutes: Oh my God.
Jim Bramlett: Did you have mentors that were there and advisors that were on the sidelines to help you?
Jim Bramlett: No, I didn't, and I regret that.
Jim Bramlett: When I started FreightProcom in 1999, I joke that my leadership experience to that date was I was a senior class president in my high school it had 12 students in it.
Jim Bramlett: That's not leadership.
Jim Bramlett: So I come into this and I'm the visionary and I now have a board of directors because we raised some capital.
Jim Bramlett: The capital sources were the board.
Jim Bramlett: Now I got to report to them.
Jim Bramlett: I've never done that before and I've got 30 people.
Jim Bramlett: Never led that before and I made a ton of mistakes.
Nate Shutes: You know I learned very quickly that you don't take all your challenges and issues to the board because they'll just say we don't have the right guy in the chair.
Jim Bramlett: You're there to solve them.
Jim Bramlett: They're there to listen and ask good questions.
Jim Bramlett: It became very lonely and I made a ton of mistakes and I look back today and go man, I wish I had peers to lean on.
Jim Bramlett: You know, and you know, the last person who wanted to hear about my struggles and trials was my wife.
Jim Bramlett: She doesn't want to hear that, and there are things you can't share with your team.
Jim Bramlett: You know, even though you might call them family and team, they've got their agenda and I've got mine, and so, yeah, I reflect back and go.
Jim Bramlett: It's always better, and that's why I encourage any leader to be part of another group, something bigger.
Jim Bramlett: You got to vent and you've got to constantly be learning.
Jim Bramlett: I believe leaders are lifetime learners and they're curious.
Jim Bramlett: And well, you're going to learn a lot from other people, and especially if they're in a similar role not industry, but industry too but if they're in another role, you're going to learn a lot.
Jim Bramlett: So attach yourself to others, be it mentors, be it coaches, be it peer groups, mastermind group, I don't care what you call it but when you're attached to other people, it's going to make you a better person going to make you a better leader.
Nate Shutes: So eventually you probably could have written a book on all the things what not to do Be too big.
Nate Shutes: And then one day you decided that you did want to write a book.
Nate Shutes: I know you're the author of the book called Stop the Hassle and I think you're working on another book now.
Nate Shutes: What is behind that, is it?
Nate Shutes: I want to pass on the knowledge that I've gleaned as part of the next chapter of finding that purpose that you mentioned.
Jim Bramlett: Yeah.
Jim Bramlett: So one thing I tell all my leaders in my peer group if you're going to learn, you got to be vulnerable.
Jim Bramlett: So I'm going to be vulnerable with you and your audience, and I profess this in my book.
Jim Bramlett: My very first company I started I was a senior in college and I went to college in Springfield, missouri, and they had this.
Jim Bramlett: They have this restaurant that sold cashew chicken.
Jim Bramlett: I'd say it's a Chinese dish, but it really isn't.
Jim Bramlett: It's just little fried chicken nuggets with an oyster gravy and some cashews and onions on it and over rice.
Jim Bramlett: But very popular.
Jim Bramlett: I mean very popular.
Jim Bramlett: It was probably one every mile you went.
Jim Bramlett: Well, I grew up 100 miles down the road in a little town called Rolla.
Jim Bramlett: We didn't have that there.
Jim Bramlett: So my roommate and I decided well, we're going to start this restaurant in Rolla, we'll just hire a manager and we'll just collect the checks.
Jim Bramlett: And you can imagine how it ended.
Jim Bramlett: And it did end that way.
Jim Bramlett: And then five years later I say, hey, I'm in the trucking industry, I know trucking, I'm going to start a trucking company and that didn't end well.
Jim Bramlett: And so I tell people today just because you like to cook doesn't mean you should start a restaurant Just because you like working with grass and flowers, don't start a landscaping company.
Jim Bramlett: So what happened was later in my career, after I learned these really hard and expensive lessons, I got asked to speak at a logistics conference.
Jim Bramlett: I said what would you like me to talk on?
Jim Bramlett: Don't care.
Jim Bramlett: And so I thought, okay, I want to reflect and do something creative.
Jim Bramlett: And so I started reflecting on my career and what's happening in the industry, with 3PLs coming out and all this.
Jim Bramlett: And that was the genesis of me discovering the real secret to organic growth.
Jim Bramlett: And what I did?
Jim Bramlett: I studied Amazon and Netflix and Uber and I came up with the common formula that they use, and my first book was called the Unconventional Thinking of Dominant Companies, and it's 100% about those monsters that shot to the top, beat their competition very quickly became unicorns and a few local Kansas City companies that I think do the same thing, and they all use this formula.
Jim Bramlett: They don't talk about it.
Jim Bramlett: I don't even know if they're really aware of it, but the same thing, and they all use this formula.
Jim Bramlett: They don't talk about it.
Jim Bramlett: I don't even know if they're really aware of it, but they do this.
Jim Bramlett: And so in the second book Stop the Hassle I decided to write that book about what every company should be doing, both from a what I call product point of view and a cultural point of view, and real quickly.
Jim Bramlett: It's this.
Jim Bramlett: I believe you and I, and everybody listening to this, are buyers.
Jim Bramlett: Now, we may not be professional buyers, but we buy things every day.
Jim Bramlett: We make a buying decision and I believe there's a formula, a psychology that we use, and it involves we're looking for convenience, we want to save time, effort, we want it simple and easy.
Jim Bramlett: When I pull off the interstate for gas, it's always 319.9 at every station at that interchange.
Jim Bramlett: Well, am I going to go left across the interchange through a couple lights to the gas station on the left or am I going to stay on the right-hand side so I can get back?
Jim Bramlett: I'm going to do that because it saves me time and effort.
Jim Bramlett: That's a natural thing tendency we have.
Jim Bramlett: I want simple, I want easy, I don't want a more complex life.
Jim Bramlett: So when we're out looking, we want that convenience.
Jim Bramlett: We want a competitive price.
Jim Bramlett: We don't necessarily want lowest price all the time, but we're trying to save money.
Jim Bramlett: But what we really want is transparency, and this goes back to LTL.
Jim Bramlett: I want to know what it's going to cost before I make that purchase decision.
Jim Bramlett: That's why I like TMSs now, because I can tell exactly what my cost should be.
Jim Bramlett: But we like that transparency.
Jim Bramlett: That's why we don't like working with lawyers.
Jim Bramlett: We know it's $300 an hour but we never know how many hours the airlines oh what $200 charge.
Jim Bramlett: I didn't know.
Jim Bramlett: Oh, it's in the fine print.
Jim Bramlett: I was in Vegas last weekend and my $125 room a night had a $49 resort fee.
Jim Bramlett: What's that?
Jim Bramlett: Oh, you didn't.
Jim Bramlett: You know, that's in the fine print.
Jim Bramlett: I don't like fine print.
Jim Bramlett: Okay, so that transparency.
Jim Bramlett: Third, we like a great user experience, both in the buying process and the product itself.
Jim Bramlett: I want to be treated like I'm their only customer.
Jim Bramlett: If I have questions, I want them answered.
Jim Bramlett: I really don't want to talk to a bot.
Jim Bramlett: I want to talk to a human, because who knows where my questions are going to go and I've had too much frustration with bots taking me time and effort.
Jim Bramlett: But the product if it's a merchandise, I want durability, I want style, I want efficiency.
Jim Bramlett: If I'm dealing with a professional, you know, I want courteousness, professionalism.
Jim Bramlett: I want, you know, I like uniforms.
Jim Bramlett: If I'm going into a retail store, I like bright lights, clean, organized.
Jim Bramlett: That all creates great user experience.
Jim Bramlett: And then fourth is trust.
Jim Bramlett: When we make a buying decision, we buyers have in our mind what it is we're going to get.
Jim Bramlett: That's our experience, especially true if there's a brand promise, like when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight.
Jim Bramlett: Well, guess what?
Jim Bramlett: I expect it to be there overnight.
Jim Bramlett: That's your brand promise, but we have this expectation and we don't get it.
Jim Bramlett: Now I can't trust them ever again.
Jim Bramlett: Okay, and I'm sure, in logistics, when somebody's late with a shipment or damages a shipment, how do I trust them going forward?
Jim Bramlett: Do they have a guarantee?
Jim Bramlett: What kind of guarantee?
Jim Bramlett: Are there warranties?
Jim Bramlett: Are there free returns?
Jim Bramlett: Are there testimonials where my peers are telling me, yeah, I had a great experience, bad experience?
Jim Bramlett: So bottom line is, when you can do all four of those convenience, transparent, competitive pricing, great buying and user experience and trust I as a buyer don't have any excuses not to buy from you.
Jim Bramlett: But the problem is most companies have some sort of trade-off, a conscious trade-off, and I use Walmart Walmart, you know, everyday low prices, rollback America, but I hope you like checking yourself out.
Jim Bramlett: I don't find that a particularly appealing experience.
Jim Bramlett: They're not maybe as well lit, not as well organized as, say, a Target, right, I think there's just a little different user experience.
Jim Bramlett: Dollar stores pretty cheap stuff, but oh my God, there might be one person working there and they don't have storerooms.
Jim Bramlett: It's all cluttery, it's a nightmare.
Jim Bramlett: Jiffy Lube.
Jim Bramlett: Their tradeoff is we're going to change our oil in 20 minutes, but it's going to come at a price.
Jim Bramlett: I can do it at Walmart for half the price twice the time, and so I believe they have these conscious tradeoffs.
Jim Bramlett: When you do that, you now have to appeal to somebody whose personal value system matches what you offer.
Jim Bramlett: Okay, now I can't tell you what yours is, nate, but my personal value system is time.
Jim Bramlett: I will pay a premium if you save me time.
Jim Bramlett: I believe time is our most precious commodity, not money.
Jim Bramlett: I can go to my financial planner and my banking accounts, tell you how much money I have.
Jim Bramlett: I can't tell you how much time I've got, so I believe time is our most precious.
Jim Bramlett: So that's how I make my decision.
Jim Bramlett: I've got a relative lives in a small town, about 15,000.
Jim Bramlett: There's two grocery stores and a Walmart.
Jim Bramlett: She clips coupons every week and goes to all three to buy the sales and I'm going to guess she might save $20, $25 a week, but it takes her two, two and a half hours.
Jim Bramlett: I'm not doing that.
Jim Bramlett: My time is more valuable, but that's her personal value system is money.
Jim Bramlett: I've got a friend who will only fly first class.
Jim Bramlett: They like that experience, okay, so we all have our personal value systems, but I claim that Amazon, uber, netflix they've used this formula to where hey, I don't have a excuse not to buy from them.
Jim Bramlett: So that's what I preach in my book.
Jim Bramlett: And the cultural side of that is this we all have competitors.
Jim Bramlett: Or said another way, a buyer has alternatives.
Jim Bramlett: Do I wash my own car or do I go to the car wash?
Jim Bramlett: Now, do I go to the car wash where I'm spraying it myself, or do I go through the drive-thru?
Jim Bramlett: Okay, so you know which one of those do I do?
Jim Bramlett: And so those alternatives, those competitors, need to know about each other.
Jim Bramlett: And I joke about this.
Jim Bramlett: I'm a big Kansas City Chiefs fan.
Jim Bramlett: I go listen, andy Reid doesn't show up on a Sunday morning and go, let's see who we play in this week.
Jim Bramlett: And what do they like to do?
Jim Bramlett: Do they run the ball?
Jim Bramlett: Do they pass the ball?
Jim Bramlett: What about defense?
Jim Bramlett: Are they playing zone?
Jim Bramlett: No, they study their competition.
Jim Bramlett: So I claim that every company should have an R&D function.
Jim Bramlett: Now that sounds funny.
Jim Bramlett: Not a pharmaceutical or scientific company, but R&D.
Jim Bramlett: I need you to be researching the alternative that a buyer has.
Jim Bramlett: How do you stack up from a convenience standpoint, how much time, effort, simple, easy.
Jim Bramlett: From a price standpoint, from a transparency, from a user experience, from a guarantee or trust?
Jim Bramlett: And if you don't stack up, be working on that because that's the excuse your buyers are using.
Jim Bramlett: Well, I don't go there because it's just not a good experience.
Jim Bramlett: I don't get waited on.
Jim Bramlett: It takes too much time and too much effort or they're just priced high.
Jim Bramlett: You get these buyer issues.
Jim Bramlett: So study your competition and constantly be working on that, because if you don't, that's where startups come to play.
Jim Bramlett: 3pls came to play because it was too hard to figure out these LTL prices and rules.
Jim Bramlett: It's too hard, too much time.
Jim Bramlett: 3pls said oh, we'll make it easier.
Jim Bramlett: You want access to a TMS where you can rate, shop and create your own bills of lading and you just tell us what you need and we'll send a dry van or a flatbed or a free.
Jim Bramlett: Okay, make it easy.
Jim Bramlett: That's how that 3PL industry.
Jim Bramlett: So if you don't pay attention to what your buyers are looking for.
Jim Bramlett: You don't pay attention to what your competitors are doing.
Jim Bramlett: You're going to be the blockbuster and they're going to be the Netflix, or a Netflix is going to show up and say we found your weakness and we're going to exploit that.
Jim Bramlett: Well, that's a masterclass right there you just.
Nate Shutes: I'm sure for those that are listening, sometimes it's really easy to get wrapped up in the day to day or just what the P&L shows in the last month end and or your latest big customer issue or or contract problem, you name it, and that's a part of running and owning a business, for sure.
Nate Shutes: But there is also an opportunity to get on the balcony and instead of just asking, like, how should we be playing this game?
Nate Shutes: It's, is this even the right game to be playing in the first place?
Jim Bramlett: this game.
Jim Bramlett: Is this even the right game to be playing in the first place?
Jim Bramlett: Nate, I've been at this for over 40 years and for the companies I worked for, never once did I walk into a meeting and say, okay, we're going to talk about how many customers we gained last month and why, and then we're going to talk about how many customers we lost and why.
Jim Bramlett: Never, it was always.
Jim Bramlett: Well, here's our revenue.
Jim Bramlett: What was the budget?
Jim Bramlett: Oh, we're beating budget.
Jim Bramlett: We're losing budget.
Jim Bramlett: Okay, now here's our expenses oh, we're over in labor.
Jim Bramlett: We're going to have to do something about that.
Jim Bramlett: Now let's talk about our IT project.
Jim Bramlett: Me, me, me, we, we, we.
Jim Bramlett: One of my biggest heroes is Jeff Bezos, and, if anybody's looking for a really good book, the Everything Store is an awesome book and it's the Amazon story.
Jim Bramlett: When I started FreightProcom in 1999, Jeff had already started Amazon and he was a villain.
Jim Bramlett: He was a bumbling fool.
Jim Bramlett: I think he even made Time Magazine because he was such an idiot, Burning cash left and right, refusing to change his business model, and Wall Street was just castigizing him, saying what's he doing?
Jim Bramlett: Well, Jeff believes in putting the customer at the center of his universe and working everything backward.
Jim Bramlett: Matter of fact, their number one leadership principles are leaders need to obsess about the customers, not just care obsess.
Jim Bramlett: Jeff's whole theory was if we satisfy the customer, take care of the customer, everything else will fall in place.
Jim Bramlett: Okay, and I believe that.
Jim Bramlett: I believe that I used to watch the show the Profit with Marcus Limonis and he would go in and research a company and it was always people, process and product.
Jim Bramlett: I also believe purpose is another P.
Jim Bramlett: That's important, but that's how he would evaluate and I tell people look, if the product isn't right meaning customer-centric, with all the four criteria if the product isn't right, I'm not sure it matters about your people and your process.
Jim Bramlett: So if the product is right and it's meeting the needs of the buyer, then it's probably going to work.
Jim Bramlett: Then go work on your people and your process, but focus on what the buyer is looking for.
Jim Bramlett: Don't start that restaurant because you like to cook.
Jim Bramlett: If you're thinking about starting a company, start here.
Jim Bramlett: Go find a business or an industry in your neighborhood, I don't care.
Jim Bramlett: That has a weakness.
Jim Bramlett: They're not very convenient.
Jim Bramlett: They don't give a good user experience, they're priced too high.
Jim Bramlett: I can't trust them.
Jim Bramlett: They don't have guarantees.
Jim Bramlett: That's a weakness you can leverage.
Jim Bramlett: That's what I preach now.
Nate Shutes: Well, on that note, we can't record for two hours.
Nate Shutes: I would like to, because I think this is really valuable content and people need to be reminded of it.
Nate Shutes: So how will you know when you're done, when you have met the purpose that you're seeking?
Jim Bramlett: I don't know if I'll ever be done.
Jim Bramlett: You know, what I enjoy today more than anything is helping others.
Jim Bramlett: I went, you know I went through.
Jim Bramlett: A mentor once told me, before you can succeed, you must fail, and his point was you won't know what success is if you don't know what failure is not fail right.
Jim Bramlett: Those first two companies I failed, and I've failed more than that, and so my goal in life now is do anything I can to help anybody else from failing.
Jim Bramlett: You know, call it servant leadership or whatever, but I don't think I'll ever be done at that.
Jim Bramlett: I'm not the kind of guy to sit on the porch and watch the world go by.
Jim Bramlett: I got to be involved in something, and the more I can help anybody else, the better I feel about it.
Nate Shutes: Well, I think you're in the right place, then.
Nate Shutes: You're where you're meant to be helping support other entrepreneurs on their journey, because you're further down the road than they are, and this has been helpful for me as well.
Nate Shutes: Jim, I've learned a new framework for the four Ps.
Nate Shutes: I like that a lot.
Nate Shutes: I'm going to dig into that some more.
Nate Shutes: Where can people reach out to you or where can they find out more about what you're doing and what you're writing?
Jim Bramlett: to you or where can they find out more about what you're doing and what you're writing?
Jim Bramlett: Yeah, my website is jimbramlettcom.
Jim Bramlett: I will be launching a new website in the near future called Strategies to Grow.
Jim Bramlett: I'm on LinkedIn.
Jim Bramlett: I'm an active LinkedIn, so hit me up there.
Jim Bramlett: I put quite a bit of content out there and then I'm working on a course.
Jim Bramlett: I'm working on an online course so that people can learn this formula and how it applies to them.
Jim Bramlett: So that's how they can find me and I'm happy to help anybody I can.
Nate Shutes: Right on Well.
Nate Shutes: Again, jim, thank you for sharing your story, for unpacking it and for the help that you're definitely going to be offering to others as they listen to your journey.
Nate Shutes: We are all rooting for you, my friend.
Jim Bramlett: Nate, thanks for having me buddy Take care Brother.
Nate Shutes: Thanks for listening to another episode of the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics, and a special thank you to our sponsors and the team behind the scenes who make it all possible.
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Nate Shutes: And, of course, thank you to all the founders who trust us to share their stories.