Speaker 1: 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.
We're here to change that by sharing their stories and
inspiring others to take the leap.
Speaker 2: It's a roller coaster ride that you might ultimately
fail.
Speaker 1: That's when I kind of knew I was on to something.
It was very hard.
It truly is building a legacy.
The more life you live, the more wisdom you have.
Speaker 2: Because we are where we're supposed to be kind of
answering the call.
Speaker 1: Don't shoulder entrepreneurship on your own.
I'm your host, Nate Schutz.
Let's build something together from the ground up.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the show.
We are mid-2025.
We are past the 100-episode mark on sharing founder stories
and supply chain and logistics, and this week we get to stay in
the Midwest, which is always special to me.
I'm born and raised in Minnesota, if you can't tell by
my accent already and we're going to be spending some time
in Omaha this week with the founder of Able Transport, Liz
Wayne.
Liz, good morning, how are you today?
Speaker 2: Good Nate, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic.
I love to find stories that resonate with me and founders
whose stories are appealing on a human level, not just a
logistics level or on a business level, and there are several
elements of your background that I find really compelling, and
so I want to, if you don't mind.
We're going to go back to the beginnings of Able Transport,
unpack part of your journey, and I'd love to draw out a couple
of themes that really stood out to me, which means we're going
to peel the onion a little bit.
But before we go to that, would you mind just explaining what
Able Transport is and a little bit of your own background?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have been in the industry for about 23
years now, worked at an asset-based shop, everywhere
from accounting to dispatch, and I found ABLE.
Well, 11 years ago, you know, as an agent on my own, and I
started hiring staff.
It'll be 10 years next month.
We're having our big ABLE anniversary, so looking forward
to that.
So ABLE is very niche focused.
We are an open deck broker, so 95 plus percent of our freight
is going to be open deck heavy haul specialized.
Speaker 1: And so 10 years.
In first of all, not a lot of companies make it to the 10 year
mark, so congratulations.
That's a huge milestone in and of itself, especially if I look
at the last four years, the number of businesses that have
folded or are struggling to survive, so just longevity by
itself is something to be celebrated, so congratulations.
I'd love to help promote and share when you have your
anniversary party and help you celebrate.
So one of the things that you mentioned in starting the
business in 2015 was that you wanted to reinvent the freight
broker reputation more positive reputation than they do now,
with a lot of the double brokering and freight fraud and
the less attractive element that has worked its way into the
industry.
So what do you remember about freight brokerage reputations 10
years ago versus now?
Speaker 2: is is interesting to me because I've never thought
about it that way.
Um, because I don't put the fraudsters in the category of,
like, the good guys.
So when I say reinvent the freight broker's reputation,
that's, you know, the goal there was really like from the
shippers perspective.
So one of our things that able was, you know, and still is, we
don't give loads back, so we're going to honor our quote, we're
going to provide a truck, you know, and the shippers might not
understand that ultimately, brokers who honor their price
are gambling every day.
Um, you know, and when we win, more often than we lose, we can
build a sustainable business.
But at the end of the day, for the most part, when we provide a
price to the shipper, we don't know what we're going to pay the
truck.
And so it was just kind of like provide a more reliable
experience for the shipper.
When you used to make calls to sell freight brokerage services,
like the first question would be you know, are you an asset
based broker?
Or you know, I don't work with brokers, and so I think that the
industry as a whole has leveled up since 2015, because that is
no longer shippers first question, like they are more apt
to work with a broker than they were 10 or 15 years ago, and I
think that's because our reputation is evolving and I
think we've leveled up as a whole.
Speaker 1: To be honest, Well, I remember trying to describe
what a paper rate was to somebody outside of the industry
.
Now, what do you mean?
What's a paper rate?
You would give somebody a price and then charge them something
different later.
Isn't that wrong?
And I'm like no, it happens all the time, cause I've been on
the shipper side and the 3PL side and trying to explain that
contract rate doesn't actually mean there's a contract that's
enforceable.
And to people outside of the industry they're like I don't
get it.
Why would that be that?
Why does the industry operate that way?
And to be able to say, yeah, here's my price and I'm
committed to it, no matter what happens down the road, is a
shift.
Even today it's still a shift for some mindsets.
Speaker 2: It's funny what you just shared and as a shipper,
from that perspective, we just had this conversation in my
office yesterday, so working on some kind of like account
development with that team and just kind of trying to pour some
of our I've got a president with, you know, 25, 30 years of
experience like myself, so we're really trying to take this
group that's sort of newer to their role and just pour this
experience into them.
And you know, um, and it's funny because what came out
yesterday in the meeting was just that was shippers don't
always look at a price as a truck.
So but we do, you know.
So when my guys are quoting something, it's like, hey, you,
you take this, you're going to have a truck like that, and we
don't, you know, we don't fail.
And it's like they take it so seriously, actually to the point
, that it's kind of like they don't understand how the
industry totally operates.
Um, because of this kind of just operational mindset that
we've instilled in them, which is great, Like I'm not
complaining, but it's funny because it's like, you know, we
challenged them last week to, you know, when you get a good
price in on something, call them and say, hey, how's my price?
Look, you know, do some followup , and so they had great success
with that.
And it was kind of like how's that, How's that work, why is
that?
And we came to the conclusion the shippers don't just believe
that a number equates to a truck , Like when they hear, hey, I've
got a truck 30 miles out ready to rock.
It really closes the deal in a way that just the number on its
own isn't going to.
So I don't want to sidetrack, but it's just funny because
literally we ended the day yesterday with that whole
conversation.
So it's funny that you share that perspective as a shipper.
Speaker 1: Well, it would be interesting, I think, for
everyone to spend a week in everybody else's shoes, from a
broker to a carrier to a shipper , and begin to appreciate what
it actually takes to move cargo around the country or around the
world, and a deeper understanding of shippers aren't
thinking like freight brokers, they're thinking about products
and they're thinking about customers, and transportation is
a necessary step in that transaction.
And oftentimes the shipper doesn't recognize the sale of
the goods until it has left their facility.
And so a warehouse is not just holding product, it's also the
cash register and that truck that's 30 minutes out.
If it doesn't show up, then the sale doesn't happen, oftentimes
until the next day, and so it's not just hey, I have to pay
overtime to somebody to stay late that evening until the
truck can make it after the facility is closed, and there's
an assessorial charge or something along those lines.
It is a revenue recognition for the shipper community is part
of it, and then their commitments to their customers,
for the shipper community is part of it, and then their
commitments to their customers, and most product-based shippers
are thinking about those types of things not.
I wonder how many trucks are within two hours of us on a
Thursday afternoon and that's the value that freight
brokerages provide is thinking of all of those variables and
what a dynamic market looks like , so that a shipper can focus on
growing their business, which is not a transportation business
at its core.
And and the deeper I get into my own career, the more
appreciation I have for what it actually takes on the ground.
I worked at a carrier when I was in college and then 14 years
as a 3PL and then about a decade on the shipper side that
know their subject matter better than anybody else is a
superpower.
It's what makes commerce happen .
So if you haven't heard from a shipper in a long time how much
your work is appreciated, just know that it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I love the antidote there and thinking
about the warehouse like a cash register.
I'm going to share that with my team because, you know, I think
we all feel it at the end of the month or the end of a
quarter, but it's a it feels like a really good way to help
them understand why.
That is why they experienced those, those spikes at that time
.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not.
Um, transportation is a part of a shipper's business, but it is
not their business, and that's something I try to remind uh
other participants in the industry about.
Is you're thinking about trucking all day?
Most shippers aren't.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're thinking about products and customers.
I'd like to go back to a little bit of your early days.
Me that, when you were young, you had a bunch of different
paths that you were considering, in that you had new ideas every
day about what you wanted to be when you grew up.
What were some of the things you wanted to be?
Speaker 2: Well, I remember when I was really young I thought I
could be everything.
So it was like, oh, I'm going to be like a firefighter for a
month, and then I'm going to be a banker for a month, and then
I'm going to be a banker for a month, and then I'm going to be
a teacher.
Maybe I could give that a whole school year, I don't know.
And then so I thought you could , just the world was my oyster.
I thought you could just do all the things all the time.
So I do remember very vividly, like planning out my 200 careers
, you know.
So that's when I was really, really, probably like under 10
years old, I suppose.
Speaker 1: And as an entrepreneur, you probably get
to be all.
You are a banker and you have to put out fires all day and you
have to teach other people.
So maybe you, you've actually achieved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
I mean I think this entrepreneurial journey is just
that.
It's like getting to wear a hundred hats and I mean, you
know, you've heard a lot of people in logistics just say
they have ADHD.
I mean, I've never been diagnosed, but I probably do,
and I think that's a superpower for entrepreneurs really,
because, um, you know, if you look at it that way, it's like
we get to do different things all of the time.
I think, you know, yesterday on that call, I was probably
complaining about it, as I do sometimes, because there's a
burden to wearing all the hats, but also what a privilege, you
know, you never get bored.
Speaker 1: So what is it about the idea of, or when was it that
the idea of entrepreneurship for you started to not just be a
random idea, but an actual path ?
Speaker 2: You know, I think it really so when I set out, it
wasn't really to build the company that I have today.
So now I am excited to build a bigger company than I have today
.
But you know, 11, 12 years ago or whatever, when I quit my last
job, that wasn't necessarily the goal.
Um, I wanted to be a freight agent for more flexible hours
and I built myself a home office and I had babies at home and
well, oh, yeah, okay, I was expecting one when I quit my
last job I'm just trying to think through exactly how old
the kids are, but it was really in like a, my husband and I had
a real estate brokerage and so it was really like for
flexibility and to be able to do the work from home and not
commute, go straight upstairs to the kids, and it would allow us
to multitask and work on the real estate business.
Um, so that was the plan, was just really for myself and my
family in the beginning, and then it quickly turned into like
this is a 24 seven gig and that is kind of not what I uh, cause
I had always worked, you know, with small teams and offices
where like, yeah, there's on call, but you're rotating it.
Or you have, um, you know vacation days, or you know
Saturdays, Sundays, and it just got to be.
You know the trucking doesn't stop, and so I didn't
necessarily want it to be the person um on call 24, seven.
And so I also, at the same time, sort of had been working on a
few um.
I had been working on one big opportunity for like six months
a long, slow, large sale.
Big opportunity for like six months, a long, slow, large sale
.
Who's still my biggest customer 10 years later?
Um, and simultaneously another um really large customer just
happened to walk in my front door, uh, walk in their dog at
my first office space, my little three or 400 foot office space,
and so at that time looked around and it's like, okay, I
with these couple of accounts, I can support some payroll and
with some help I can get some relief from this 24-7 thing.
And so that's when kind of the vision turned into having a
small office and then to go from , you know, to kind of scale
from there.
It was all about the customers, like they needed a company like
us.
The construction job site had been left behind by
transportation, and so once I started to kind of realize that
growth was really easy and really fun, you know, until here
, post COVID freight recession, it, it.
It's been a little less fun lately, but it's um, so it was
sort of an evolution.
I didn't just set out to have able as it is today.
Speaker 1: And what have you learned about yourself in that
period of going Well?
First of all, I also love to understand what is it like to
have small children and be a mom while starting a company, and
how you would keep your sanity.
I have no idea.
I'm responsible for people and I have to shape and mold them.
Think about processes.
Did that come naturally to you, or was that a place in your
journey where you had to adapt quickly?
Speaker 2: You know partly both.
I think I'm definitely process oriented, so like it was not
ever hard for me to identify the best way to do something and to
want that for myself, my team, my company.
Now getting results through other people, though that's you
know, um, that's you know.
Um, as a leader, I can be impatient, I definitely you know
.
You only sort of know like you spend your whole life in your
own head, right, and so you don't know what other people
don't know, and I think that's you know.
At some point along the way I started kind of taking opening
day training and stuff like way back to the beginning, because,
um, you just it's hard to remember every little thing
you've took in over all of these years and you bring somebody
new in, and so I think that's where I could have done better
is probably, um, I don't know if it would have been like
management training or leadership training or that for
myself.
Um, because I just kind of expected everybody to tick like
me and be motivated in the same way and by the same things that
I am, and that's just not the case, and nor should it be.
It's not their business.
You know what I mean, and so kind of it all takes time.
You get better.
I think today I'm the best leader that I've ever been, but
I still have a long way to go on my journey.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: What are you most proud of, then, in your own
growth?
Speaker 2: You know, I guess just probably that I think in
the like I was in a leadership role at the last company I
worked for and sometimes I think back and I'm like what was he
being my boss?
Like what was he thinking?
He let me treat people like that or he let me Um, and so I
think I'm proud of that.
I bring um just a more sort of like love.
He called me as bulldog.
You know, like that's the energy that I took to situations
back then and I think today I bring a more level head.
You know, it's just like there's, I think, when you, if
you're not a good leader or manager or whatever the case,
it's like just that pound your fist and that gets stuff done
and so like, if it gets enough done, you don't really evolve
past that.
But for me that's what it's been.
It's just kind of moving past that and finding you know better
ways.
Speaker 1: I like the way you said that evolve past that.
When I've had leaders in my career that expressed anger or,
you know, really big frustration about a situation or about a
moment, I remember thinking to myself ooh, that's a potentially
dangerous way to make change happen.
I've since come to look at it as it's just information.
If somebody's really frustrated , it's hey.
Can I ask are you upset with the situation and we need to
work on that, or are you upset with me and we have something to
talk about?
And that simple filter helped me understand, manage up better
when you needed to neutralize a difficult situation.
And then, as I made all the mistakes you can make in
managing people myself early in my career, I'm able to now
reflect back on it and say there's no way I could have
grown without somebody pulling me aside and saying, yeah, you
can use force sometimes, there is a place for it.
But if that's the only note, you know how to play.
You're going to create a culture of fear and then people aren't
going to have ideas that they're willing to share, they're not
going to take risks, and you'll surround yourself with people
that just agree with you, not because they agree with you, but
because they're afraid of you, and that was a one of my own aha
moments of I thought being in charge was the goal, like I
thought that's all it took.
And learning how to influence and shape and develop other
people in ways that are good for them, that keep them highly
engaged, is good for the business and it's good for me.
It's just a different kind of emotional intelligence and
maturity.
And then occasionally you come across somebody who's just
gifted at all of those things at a really young age or you know
they're advanced beyond their years and they're highly
inspiring and motivating people and I wish I had been that, but
I had to learn things the hard way, by getting it wrong mostly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same.
I've got a 23-year-old son who's turning into a pretty good
leader himself and he works in an organization full of young
people, so he's been able to take his first couple of leaps
into leadership and stuff and it's really fun to watch him.
When you just said, like some people just have it, he has it
and he, you know, listen, I've learned from him, like listening
to him talk to some of his people, you know, if he's at the
house or something and I hear him take a phone call on that,
it's like wow, that was geez, you know.
And for him I've really thought it's come from watching some of
his good football coaches.
I mean he's got like he played college football and his coaches
in the Hall of Fame and it's like I, when I hear him, it's
like I know that's where he got some of his you know just all of
this because I mean, think about it Like.
I mean, just as a football coach, like just you would never
see a football coach that reached a certain level that
that's the only tool they had in their toolbox was banging their
fist right Like there is a time and a place, but you've got to
bring more to the situation as well, you know.
But I do, I feel like with some of the young people they got it
from, because if they haven't had a lot of work experience,
that's the leadership experience they're pulling from.
You know.
Speaker 1: Well, and athletics is such a rich environment to
learn those types of skills and capabilities.
I was not much of an athlete myself.
I made it to high school and then I was not competitive any
longer, and so, watching my four children themselves go through
athletics programs in volleyball and football and baseball and
lacrosse I envy the learnings that they got.
As high school students and for anybody who makes it to the
collegiate level, you're generally going to be surrounded
with mentors and teachers and people that are going to grow
you as athletes but also going to grow you as human beings, and
I think that's part of why recruiting is still done heavily
at.
You know, for athletics at college campuses in
transportation and logistics is competitiveness and grit and
adaptability, and- Commitment.
Flexibility.
All of those skills are so much easier to accumulate in an
athletic environment.
So were you an athlete yourself ?
Or where, where, where do you feel like you got most of your
own development from then people in your life or in your life?
Speaker 2: Trial and error.
I've done everything wrong.
Now I just get it right sometimes.
No, I I've shared with you that I've been part of the Vistage
community for about five years, so I know, like my, my group
here in Omaha has definitely helped me.
You know, level up my leadership skills um as well,
just kind of, um, you know, getting people in place at ABLE,
kind of making sure the right people are in the right seats um
to amplify the, the, the good stuff, and then also kind of to
balance out what I don't bring to the table and what I don't
have.
Where there was a point in ABLE's history where there was
probably too much of a certain type of leadership energy, call
it.
And so you know, I think I've learned balance in that way too.
Like I said, like you know, people amplify the good stuff
that I bring to the table and then people to pick up the slack
and and clean up behind me where I'm lacking.
You know what I mean.
And so I'm in a good place hire a president who had led um you
know, some offices for CH, for you know a number of years, a
couple of decades, and so it was just very relevant experience,
like my office, you know, very much feels like a.
You know, although CH is a really big company, um, with
billions in revenue, it was a lot of small offices, you know,
and so there's just a lot of similarities there and um, with
both of us, you know, leading now it's like I feel like we're
able to move a lot faster and just for those reasons, like I
said, he he amplifies some work I do and he's really good at
some stuff that I'm not so good at, you know, which is really on
on the people side and the leadership side, and so Well, it
sounds like you have a path forward for the next 10 years.
Speaker 1: We wish you nothing but success on the in the next
chapter.
Last question what does able transport mean?
What is?
Where did the name come from and what does it mean to you?
Speaker 2: come from, and what does it mean to you?
That's a good question.
So, ready, willing and able, Um , but how it came to me as it
was, it was in the running.
I can't even remember now like my top two or three names I had
chosen.
But, um, I was putting on my shoes one day.
I do remember, you know how some things just remember where you
were at and what you were doing.
I was putting on my shoes in the mudroom and I shouted in and
told my husband it's able, calling it able, and it was like
capable, reliable, dependable and just all of these things.
And so that's kind of where it came from.
But then I sent, when I sent the name over to the graphic
designer and that, and when she designed the brand, I was like,
yes, I loved the colors, I loved the little road, how she made
the A into a road, and, um, yeah , and then I could just see it
and it was I.
Really I'm still, 10 years later, I'm in love with the
brand.
Um, still, so I, yeah, but that's kind of how it came to be
.
Speaker 1: That is a great story .
You never know where that moment of inspiration is going
to come from, and it is similar to naming a child, because
you're going to have it for a long time and it means something
deeply personal, and so thank you, thank you for sharing that
with us today, thanks for opening up about your journey
journey I'm hoping if somebody is listening right now, that is
maybe where you were 10 years ago that they have heard.
I mean, the themes that I've heard from you are adaptability,
just plain old hard work, doing what you said you're going to
do, following through and that's maybe why I'm attracted to your
story is that those are all very Midwest, humble,
straightforward, old fashioned values and with that as your
foundation, I have no doubt you're going to continue being
successful and, like I said, we're all rooting for you, thank
you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to another episode of the
bootstrappers guide to logistics , and a special thank you to our
sponsors and the team behind the scenes who make it all
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Be sure to like, follow or subscribe to the podcast to get
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To learn more about the show and connect with the growing
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And, of course, thank you to all the founders who trust us to
share their stories.