The Freight Pod
The Freight Pod is a deep dive into the journeys of the transportation and logistics industry’s brightest minds and innovators. The show is hosted by Andrew Silver, former founder and CEO of MoLo Solutions, one of the fastest-growing freight brokerages in the industry. His guests will be CEOs, founders, executives, and leaders from some of the most successful freight brokerages, trucking companies, manufacturers, and technology companies that support this great industry. Andrew will interview his guests with a focus on their life and how they got to where they are today, unlocking the key ingredients that helped them develop into the leaders they are now. He will also bring to light the fascinating stories that helped mold and shape his experiences.
The Freight Pod
Ep. #64: Shipper Panel: Insights from Top Food Shippers
In this episode, Andrew welcomes three seasoned logistics leaders with a unique perspective, having all started on the brokerage world before transitioning to the shipper side: Nicole Schuman, transportation procurement manager at Reser’s Fine Foods; Marco Vargas-Avila, director of U.S. logistics at Dole Packaged Foods; and Andrew Dafnos, director of supply chain at KeHE Distributors.
Andrew and the panel cover:
- Balancing cost vs. service, the importance of understanding different provider models (asset vs. non-asset), and strategic bid cycle planning.
- How shippers evaluate potential partners, the critical role of transparency, and why understanding a shipper's specific network needs (not just offering a truck) is key.
- Direct feedback on what makes cold outreach successful, common pitfalls to avoid, and the power of demonstrating genuine understanding before pitching.
- Perspectives on how the logistics landscape is changing and preparing for future trends.
Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.
*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.
A special thanks to our additional sponsors:
- Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
- Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
- Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***
Hey FreightPod listeners. Before we get started today, let's do a quick shout out to our sponsor, rapido Solutions Group. Rapido connects logistics and supply chain organizations in North America with the best near shore talent to scale efficiently and deliver superior customer service. Rapido works with businesses from all sides of the logistics industry. This includes brokers, carriers and logistics software companies. This includes brokers, carriers and logistics software companies. Rapido builds out teams with roles across customer and carrier sales and support, back office administration and technology services.
Andrew Silver:The team at Rapido knows logistics and people. It's what sets them apart. Rapido is driven by an inside knowledge of how to recruit, hire and train within the industry and a passion to build better solutions for success. The team is led by CEO Danny Frisco and COO Roberto Lacazza, two guys I've worked with from my earliest days in the industry at Coyote. I have a long history with them and I trust them. I've even been a customer of theirs at Molo and let me tell you they made our business better. In the current market, where everyone's trying to do more with less and save money, solutions like Rapido are a great place to start To learn more. Check them out at gorapidocom. That's gorapidocom.
Andrew Silver:Welcome back to another episode of the Freight Pod.
Andrew Silver:I'm your host, andrew Silver, and we are back with another panel. This one is maybe more exciting than the last. We had tariff talk recently, but today we are getting inside the minds of three of the best and brightest shippers in North America. I am joined today for this panel by Ms Nicole Schumann, the Transportation Procurement Manager at Reesers Fine Foods, mr Andrew Daphnos, director of Supply Chain at Kehi Distributors and Mr Marco Vargas-Zavila, director of US Logistics at Dole Packaged Foods. I appreciate all three of you for coming on the show today. I did solicit guests for this panel a few months ago and it took us some time to get this thing where it is now. But here we are and we are ready. So I appreciate all of you coming on. Why don't we start with some basic introductions before we get into the real nitty-gritty of what goes on in your day-to-day? Nicole, start with you, maybe just kind of your background, how you got into transportation, and we'll go with that.
Nicole Schuman:So, first off, like best and brightest, I'd probably change mine to you know, best and available. So thanks for trying to fluff that up. I actually I got into transportation by accident, were working for, you know, Coyote and you know I would really like transportation never been something that I really thought about as a career. And this one woman in particular, she, you know, I'm like, so tell me what you do again. I, you know, a few times she had to explain it to me and I, she would tell me and inside I was saying, god, she is so bright and engaging and funny. What a waste of time to be calling on trucks. You know, scheduling appointments, you know just like.
Nicole Schuman:And then, uh, you know, skipping ahead, I wound up, um, skipping ahead. I wound up, um coming to Coyote, uh, and um, uh, you know, loved it. You know, like something I had never thought of, like I said, and it was just exciting and um, challenging and I learned something every day and you know, fast forward, uh to coming to this side. Uh, reesers was one of my customers and I wasn't with Coyote anymore, um, but I'd heard my one of my contacts at at Reesers was retiring and I reached out and you know, to congratulate him on his retirement. And we chatted and he was, you know, would you ever want to, would you ever want my job? And I laughed. You know I was like, oh God, tom, that sounds horrible. You know spreadsheets and all this. But long story short, I rethought it and, um, he connected me with his boss, who's now my boss, and, uh, I've been with research for four and I'm really thankful and loving every moment of it, almost every moment of it.
Andrew Silver:Will you give us a quick high-level overview of Reesers?
Nicole Schuman:Sure, so you know, as I said, reesers was my customer for years and I had no idea the extent of where we are. You know, of course, like most people know of, like the potato salad or the macaroni salad, um, we also have don ponchos or tortilla and tortilla chips. Um, we do co-packing, we do, um, everything. I mean, we're everywhere, like in all the deli cases, the mounds of potato salad, the, you know, the jello salad, the seafood salad that you know, you know, and restaurants and fast food restaurants. You know, we're everywhere. It was like a I did a project with my daughter for middle school and like a career fair thing for middle school and like a career fair thing, and, um, we, you know, I think it was like we manufacture, uh, the equivalent of potato products in a year as equal to Mount Everest. You know, like, just like currency.
Andrew Silver:So, yeah, we're, but we're only in, uh, north America, but we're only in North America and we have plants across the United States, and what would you say? This is maybe I don't know if it's a challenging question, but what would you say is the most unique characteristic about your business as pertains to transportation, in terms of something that might be a little different than you know, the normal? Over the road load I mean, or like identifying characteristic.
Nicole Schuman:At the end of the day, it's, you know, reefer freight transportation in particular. I mean, we have, you know, research is a seven-year-old company and so we have, you know, longstanding relationships with a lot of our carriers, where, you know, I can think of off the top of my head a handful that are second generation that are hauling for us. I mean, you know, the one of the things that made me rethink my initial kickback of you know, you know, would I want to work for Reesers, was the people that we have at the company. Like I just, you know, reflected on how amazing, like there's just so many great, not there isn't everywhere, but you know, great, hard-working people that really care. So, um, but I mean, you know everyone, can you know fast fare, friendly service, kind of stuff, like I don't know how I would uh qualify that question, I guess it's all good.
Andrew Silver:I, I thought it was. I didn't mean it to be an odd question. I just was curious if there was some kind of identifying characteristic that if someone didn't know a ton about your business, that that would kind of hone them in on. But the refrigerated is a big part and I think we're going to that. That's going to be a topic for today's conversation, given the three of you. But thank you, I appreciate you kind of getting us started there. Andrew, I'm going to move to you now. Kind of just a quick high level background how you got into the space and what you're doing now at KE.
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, absolutely. And first off, thanks for having me on, andrew. Definitely an honor. Like Nicole, I got into this space by accident. It was not the intention.
Andrew Dafnos:I was an econ, economics and geography major at Indiana University. My intention was to go into finance after graduating. However, I graduated during the late 2000s, early 2010s financial crisis, so it was a little bit difficult to make my entry into that industry. So I was applying to various jobs in various industries and one that really stood out was sales in a freight brokerage. And this is coming from someone who has never taken a supply chain class in college, so I knew very little about the industry when I first started.
Andrew Dafnos:But looking back on it, it was a fantastic way to understand how logistics works from the carrier side and customer sides of the business works from the carrier side and customer sides of the business. So I started out at mid-sized brokerage in Chicago and I started off on the carrier side and learning on how to book freight, track and trace, dealing with various issues, talking to drivers, and I did that from my first initial year and then the second year I shifted over to the account management side and understood what a shipper goes through, some of the challenges of inefficiencies and ensuring that a particular shipment is set up for success, and from there actually moved on to work for a managed services 3PL where we manage inbound logistics on behalf of fast food brands, and I was actually there for seven years managing the carrier development team until I moved to Keihei almost four years ago.
Andrew Silver:And how about a high level of Keihei and what you all do there?
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, absolutely so. Keihei Distributors is a leading natural, organic specialty fresh fruit, fresh food distributor in North America, so we partner with retailers and brands to bring innovative, healthy, sustainable products to market. We're about over 6,800 employees right now and we have a nationwide presence with 16 distribution centers across the US and three more up in Canada.
Andrew Silver:Perfect. And the same weird question that I gave Nicole. If you were to kind of think about a unique identifying characteristic of the Keihe brand, or as pertains to transportation, what kind of stands out for you?
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, I mean just given the demographics of the supplier. The suppliers that we deal with, we do ship a lot of LTL orders. No-transcript.
Andrew Silver:Interesting, very cool. Thank you, all right, marco, you're up.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Yeah, so moved to the US in 2001,. So kind of been an immigrant into the US from Ecuador originally, so always looked at America and all all the opportunity here right. Went to college to study finance and econ. Similar to Andrew, had dreams of trying to make it into Wall Street or you know. Specifically, later figured out Forex trading was kind of what I wanted to break into but for whatever reason at that time around 2012 and 13, couldn't break into some of those brokerages. And you know, and similar to most of the folks on this, call Freight found me through a recruiter at TQL where I started originally as a broker in the Chicago office. Did that for about a year.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Then went to a trucking company that had a startup brokerage Grain Transportation. They had a small brokerage at the time that was handling overflow business for the assets, so helped build out the pricing team, helped build out the logistics brokerage operation, but ultimately wanted to learn a little bit more than just the domestic, and so an opportunity reached to go to Damco, which later became Maersk Logistics, which is an NVOCC, essentially a broker, but for the international side. So there I was targeting import logistics for small and medium-sized importers in the Midwest, so helping design the inland routes but learning the ocean freight, the air freight, the customs brokerage, obviously drayage, and then helping them sell those services to those customers. And so I spent time there doing some business development, later moved on to transportation procurement and warehousing procurement and ultimately intermodal operations and after having done the domestic and international side, went to Kraft Heinz, got the opportunity to go work there in the Chicagoland area as a transportation productivity manager focused on efficiency and savings. I equate that position to a continuous improvement manager.
Marco Vargas-Avila:But just really looking at the large transportation network that Kraft Heinz had at the time and with scale comes certain issues and sometimes you're doing the very basics and doing them well can yield to a lot of savings when you have a very large network like Kraft Heinz. So I met a lot of really smart people, kind of leveled up my analytical kind of acumen there. And then the opportunity came around where Dole Packaged Foods not Dole Fresh, not to be confused with Dole Fresh, there's two Dole's in the US but Dole Packaged Foods reached out to lead their logistics function and ultimately now I've rolled it up into managing the dry transportation, the frozen transportation and the inbound transportation for dolls. So looking at everything for dredge, ltl, truckload and remodel and ultimately managing that piece of the business and building out that logistics capability to try to make it a competitive advantage for the shipper that I end up working for. So a little bit about myself.
Andrew Silver:Thank you. Each of you very diverse experience and background and I think it's interesting that all three of you happen to have stumbled into and experienced time at brokers. I almost wonder if there's like a link between your willingness to come on here and having had that brokerage experience. All three of the people who volunteered were brokers. But let me ask you this question, and this is for each of you, but you know, having been, having worked at a brokerage in the past, what was the most surprising thing that you learned coming over to the shipper side? You know that you maybe hadn't realized was true, or hadn't realized while you were at a brokerage that, like, maybe if you had known, would have made you a better broker.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Can I take a first stab at this one?
Andrew Silver:Yeah, go ahead.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Yeah, I think about this a lot Cause I you know we get called calls and I speak to brokers all the time.
Marco Vargas-Avila:I think for me, making the jump to the shipper side was how often what we as brokers at the time deem is basic right, the, the lingo, the vocabulary, some of the operations, how we take that for granted and just assume that the other side knows exactly how it actually moves from point A to point B, right, and the daily operational issues that you know, you live and breathe in every day, that you just, in a sense, assume that the other side knows how it actually operates.
Marco Vargas-Avila:And so I think that was the biggest eye-opener to me that sometimes you're dealing with folks that just don't have that transportation operations background and come from a very different set right, Planning or inventory or finance or whatever it may be warehousing and sometimes we're looking at transportation and the process of moving things from A to B from a completely different lens. That sometimes allows the broker to really add value right, To help them discover something that they may not have known in the past. And so that came across very, very often, Things that I took for granted to just assume this basic, that were really kind of eye-opening insight for certain folks that if you were asked that on the brokerage floor, it's just like oh yeah, I learned that day one on training, right. So that's, I think, one of the biggest takeaways. Most folks that you speak with on the other side, if they didn't come from that operational background, sometimes don't really know, Uh, and you're assuming how it actually goes from A to B as opposed to knowing the exact process.
Andrew Silver:Nicole, how about you? Or Andrew, how about you?
Nicole Schuman:Sure, I can. I mean, I can just go if you want, All right.
Andrew Silver:Go ahead.
Nicole Schuman:So one of the things that kind of surprised me from you know, moving from the brokerage side to the shipper side, I mean you get a sense working with your shippers and I was always like shipper focused was the you know. I got a sense from this old school mentality of like just you know you're going to do it, because you said, or you know just like that forcing you to you know do things, or you know move the freight at a certain price, or you know just like very like um stuck, I guess.
Nicole Schuman:Um and then when I came to the shipper side, you know, um, you know, like the, you know a shipper or, excuse me, a carrier and a broker, like an asset carrier and a broker. They're two different business models and you know, like you just like a truck is a truck, you know it's not the case. Like a carrier is a carrier, it's not the case. If you don't like meet the um, the partner, where they're at, like, you're just setting yourself both up for failure. So that was like the um, the, the biggest, like eye opener for me.
Nicole Schuman:And then also coming from the brokerage side, where, like, if you have a last minute, you know truck fall off and you're like working your butt off internally trying to get that recover and you know it's like very tense and you're calling in favors you're doing all the thing and then you want to like tell the shipper you know you want to high five from your shipper you know like and the shippers are like, oh, good for you.
Nicole Schuman:You know like, why am I wasting my time? You're like, well, where's my high five? I worked so hard for this. You know. They're like just do your job, okay, all right, you know so. Um, yeah, I mean, that was a hard transition, or eye-opening transition, I guess, to realize that you know you may be sweating your tail off behind the scenes, but you know to the customer or the shipper, like they don't want to know how the sausage is made. You know like so.
Nicole Schuman:They want the results and they don't even want to hear about the results. You know they just, they just don't want to hear about the uh, the failures, you know, like so.
Andrew Silver:Interesting. That's a. That's a good anecdote or a good good point. Are you looking to grow your brokerage? Are you struggling to land new customers in these challenging market conditions? Look within so many companies that tender you freight throughout the domestic United States also have business coming out of Mexico. A year ago I understand why you might not have seen that freight as an opportunity, but today Cargado exists and that means any load coming into or out of Mexico is now an opportunity for you to support. In just over a year I've been able to see Cargado go from ideation to launch to rapid growth. It's amazing to see how many logistics companies have been able to use Cargado to expand into Mexico to grow their business. Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies who are moving freight into and out of Mexico. If you move Mexico freight or are planning to reach out to Cargado today at cargadocom, that's C-A-R-G-A-D-O dot com. What about you, andrew? You got anything over there?
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, so you know, I think you know starting off on the brokerage side it's extremely beneficial in my career. You know starting off on the brokerage side it's extremely beneficial in my career and I'm sure it is for the other two panelists as well really understanding you know what really goes into every individual shipment that a shipper might not see. You know talking to owner operators, understanding the challenges. You know understanding what a fuel advances and you know seeing how service and carrier selection really is on the brokerage side in various market cycles and how to develop relationships with those smaller providers. And just understanding the general challenges that a brokerage would see, whereas someone that might be starting out on the shipper side in their logistics career they're a bit immune to seeing that sort of issue and if something were to arise or if there's trends of issues, they might not have the full understanding of what the brokerage is going through.
Andrew Dafnos:But with my experience of understanding those challenges in different market cycles, you can speak to those internally with my team. But also you can understand and vet through what sort of promises that a broker might make where it doesn't pass a sniff test. You know if we talk about RFPs and a broker is vastly below market than the other brokers that bid on a particular lane. You know, if I didn't have that brokerage background I might bite on that. But just to protect the business and less noise I'm a little bit hesitant to take that rate unless there's some sort of unique opportunity on the brokerage end that might justify that. So at the end of the day it's very important for my career to understand that side of the business so I can have that full understanding of the challenges that you know each side is going through.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, that makes sense A hundred percent. I mean, I actually remember and I think I've spoken about this on the show once a long time ago, but you know, I had a very brief stint working basically for a distributor and managing their carrier group. While I was sitting out my first non-compete and yeah, it was very different once I was taking calls from brokers wanting business and the sniff test wasn't easy, like you know. Someone promised me like they'd always respond within 10 minutes of any request at any time for anything, and I was just like that's just not really well. I guess in today's AI world maybe that's a little more doable, but it certainly was not doable in 2018. And that was a classic example where, like, it just didn't pass the sniff test. It's, it's, it's, you know, we're on on to the, on to the next one.
Andrew Silver:All right, well, listen, I want to get into a kind of topic around kind of network design and strategy and specifically, I guess where I'd start is.
Andrew Silver:It's interesting when you come into your job for the first time and you're overseeing transportation, how do you think about disrupting the status quo with what you were kind of handed versus making your own impact and, you know, designing your own relationships, because you know, nicole, as you said, there are carriers that are second generation now supporting the business. So I imagine you probably don't want to come in and really disrupt that in a nefarious way. But at the same time you know you also are probably accountable for the results, and so there's probably a balance to strike there between making your own or taking autonomy and making your own decisions versus kind of leveraging what's been going on, because it's not like you're building a network from scratch in any of your cases. With your roles You're more so probably fine-tuning. So I am just curious You've each been in roles for different time periods but as you got started and started to get your arms around your business, how did you think about, you know, maintaining what you have versus building out your own kind of strategy?
Nicole Schuman:Yeah, I mean. So when I came to research, the market was much different. You know it's the flip of now, right, it was not so.
Andrew Silver:How long ago was this?
Nicole Schuman:It was 2021. Okay, you know like, just stepping back, we had like just even looking at like the housecleaning had like just even looking at like the house cleaning, like the looking at the routing guide and you know, in, you know grabbing rates from whatever carrier that came along. You know mostly brokers that, like, promised a low rate, wanted to get their foot in the door. You know they got shoved in a routing guide with you know other brokers you know like, and it was just like pulling the garbage out. You know like, you know making sure that the way that we were tendering the freight made sense and so, like you know, prioritizing our assets. You know our direct relationships and then eliminating duplication of brokers in any routing guide, uh, or lane, you know, and sometimes region, you know, so we have, um, you know, built in consistency and then understanding like, yeah, that carrier has been hauling for us for 40 years but their fleet is 40 trucks. Um, you know they have a killer rate. You know, and they do it, of course. You know they. They have a killer rate. You know, and they do it of course. You know they haul up twice this lane twice or three times a week. Like, yeah, I'm going to put them on top and I'm going to capture those trucks to make sure. And then you know layer in these other trucks and then just watching how you know. You know carriers consistent those assets. Like we had a bigger carrier in our network, asset carrier that was in virtually every single lane because they gave us low price but they only took the freight when and where it was like convenient for them, when the market was good.
Nicole Schuman:And you know like rooting out that you know it's just a lot of house cleaning. You know like rooting out that you know it's just a lot of house cleaning. You know like um, and, but ultimately it comes down to like making sure that you understand why a carrier wants the freight. Like does it fit for them now or does it fit for them forever? Like understanding their um justification or their their need for it. Like I don't. Like you know carriers will be like you know, whatever you need, we'll do for you. And it's like I don't want to hear, like it's not about what I need, that's not consistent. You know that's not sustainable. Like what do you need? Do I have that so I can put you in place and then not have to worry about it anymore, cause I know that you're motivated by your own need to to do well there. So I think that's the biggest um, you know, biggest helpful, you know change that had to happen with our network.
Andrew Silver:How do you? How do you kind of do that at scale with like a lot of carriers and a ton of lanes? Like how do you feel like you get your arms around that to a place where you know? You know, as you're looking at next year's bid, like, oh yeah, this lane from, you know, oregon to kansas city is, uh, joe's trucking and they have a back, they have. They have another customer in Kansas City. They get meat down there. I know they'll be able to come back here versus this other lane, like you know, once you're looking at the spreadsheet trying to do it, how do you remember all those conversations and all those moves? Is there a way to get that all like so in a place that's?
Nicole Schuman:you know I work with good ship. You know I have for a long time and that was like coming into, you know, when I started talking with Ryan, who's the founder, original founder you know that was the problem. The market was really tough, you know, and you know how do you keep because there were, like there are in transportation, there are a lot of handshake deals. Look, I'll give you this rate on this lane now, but I need you to, over here, take seven a week of these Topeka to Chicagoland, you know, and then you got to try to capture all that data. You know challenging aspect, especially with this.
Nicole Schuman:You know, like research, you know our volume. You know we have freight year round, certainly, but our may have 10 loads a week on one lane during the winter, but now it's, you know, 45 during the summer. Um, how do you um, you know it's a different story now with the markets soft, but um, I mean, you know, because everyone takes what they can, but it's just time. And like communication and um, um, you know. You know Good Ship has been a huge help for us, especially like, I think you know, you know, the majority of the carriers out there. They want to do a good job and we're all stretched. You know there is. You know we're not the only customer, they've got a bazillion customers. But the fact that they can log on to their their scorecard at any given time and see how they're doing, you know it makes it much easier. But you know there's just no substitute for communication with your carriers.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, leveraging the right technology that gives your carriers a place to communicate back and forth with you and also track their performance and make sure they're doing what they should.
Nicole Schuman:Got it Okay.
Andrew Silver:I mean clear expectations and forth with you, and also track their performance and make sure they're doing what they should. Yeah, got it okay, I mean clear expectations.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Clear expectations always a winner always all right, who wants to jump in here? Marco sure. So we use emerge, which I think having the first step of a good procurement tool helps. I think I've also seen GoodShip and very similar. In that sense it really helps make that process easier than skimming through thousands and thousands of rates. So there's other software out there too, but I think that's the first step.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Secondarily, though, there is no other way but having those conversations at some point in the middle of your procurement event or right before. But then are you going to remember that at the time where the decision really has to be made, you know whenever your rate, your final round, is set and you're handing out awards, and so we've taken the approach that you know right before the last round, whatever that is second, third, fourth, whatever how many rounds folks do. Last round, whatever that is second, third, fourth, whatever how many rounds folks do, we want to have a conversation for some critical number of lanes with some very specific providers that we think are realistically going to be awarded. And in those conversations I think you know you hit it on the head there. You know why do you want the freight Like, why does this carrier or this broker want this lane is critical to understanding whether that rate is real or not and if they can execute on that level, on that rate, but at the level of service that is required, because not everybody has to be 100% on time delivery for every single lane the vast majority of them do, but there are some that have flexibility and I think in those conversations you understand who really wants the freight or who thinks of it, oh it must be nice to have. Or who just shot a rate and got lucky and they're hoping to build a carrier base or put the assets behind them to service that lane. And so it's really understanding that intrinsic motivation to why you price it the way you priced it.
Marco Vargas-Avila:And if you are more competitive or well below market which there are situations that can that exist that way. Right, if you could really find the true backhaul, say for a dedicated fleet, that might be a rate where it's well below market, right, those could be some of those situations. But you don't know that through the numbers. You need to have that conversation and we look at it as this kind of blending qualitative data with quantitative data. Right, there are some things that you just can't put a number to, but if you know that they have. They could handle this lane for 20 any any week. But if you give them 50, you know they'll take all of it because they are moving 150 truckloads like a week in that lane Right. But how do you find that information? I think is where you can find out through a bidding process and a procurement event whether that is a real rate or a paper rate, right.
Andrew Silver:Anything to add, Andrew?
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know. I agree with both Nicole and Marco. We had very similar mindsets of how to evaluate, you know, our carrier base. It's all about you know, connecting them on a cadence of you know whether it's before an RFP, during an RFP, after an RFP, of understanding their network, understanding their power lanes. You know, especially if it's an asset, understanding where their drivers are domiciled. Have they landed any new accounts lately that they need to feed freight into? Are there any surpluses or deficits in specific markets for that carrier? And then you, all of this in a very similar mindset All brokerages say, hey, we can do all 48 states, we have capacity everywhere, but every broker is different of where they truly thrive in in terms of the carrier network.
Andrew Dafnos:Every broker has a different carrier network or a different specialty where we try to ensure that they're transparent on those specific lanes or markets or temperature types. Not that it will negate anything outside of it, but it will give us the ability to hone in on those specific strengths Because, at the end of the day, as a shipper, you want to pair the right lane with the right carrier. Of course, because, at the end of the day, as a shipper, you want to pair the right lane with the right carrier. Of course you know cost in mind, but you know that's how you're going to get the service and that consistency and manage through seasonality as well.
Nicole Schuman:I would want to add one more thing that we've done that I feel has been very helpful for us is that, instead of like one bid season, I feel has been very helpful for us is that, instead of like one bid season, we run 12 different bids from August through April and it depends on.
Nicole Schuman:You know we have three. You know we've got a handful of shipping points in the Pacific Northwest. We've got four plants in a distribution center in Kansas Topeka, kansas and then we've got a couple of plants in Halifax, north Carolina, and the seasonality of each of those origin points versus you know where the destination is going or where the destination is, you know affects the desirability of that freight. You know affects the desirability of that freight. And so, instead of trying to like, you know Pacific Northwest is an area where, you know, nine months out of the year it's very easy to move freight, but that you know. Fourth quarter, you know completely. You know upends. So instead of trying to either overpay the entire year to cover our rear ends in the fourth quarter, we break up that bid.
Nicole Schuman:So we have a bid that it is for the nine months that times are good, and then we have a three-month bid for the fourth quarter. We have a strong preference to the incumbents and we'll put out a first round to get you know those you know like a wide net of market rates, and then we'll, you know know, have conversations with our carriers and find out. You know, look at what they're charging now versus what they've taken through the year, and holding them accountable is like staying consistent, um, but yeah, so bidding went to add to your point I think bid cycle really matters here, right, and how a shipper structures its bid before you decide to go live really takes a lot of thought and planning.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Historically it used to be you do a one-year bid, it's around March, that's the bid season, right, and you put everything you have in that bid, right. But I think if COVID taught us anything was that you need to plan ahead and not everything falls through that regular contract business cycle where you could do it once every 12 months. Whether you do it six months, three months or a full year, thinking about the piece, the freight and the lanes that you're adding to that bed really matter. Cause to Nicole's point, right, if you have a lot of seasonality, are you really trying to pay the peak price year round just to ensure you have that capacity? And kind of going back to your previous question of kind of changing the mindsets when you come in new versus established processes, this is a really big one, right?
Marco Vargas-Avila:If the shipper that you're at isn't looking at transportation logistics as an area to be fixed or to be improved, but more so just to maintain and run it, you know, perhaps the level of innovation or changes are not going to be as receptive as someone who recognizes like, hey, I have a problem and we need to bring in some fresh, new ideas.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Right, because you know, setting your bid up in an unstructured manner without understanding of your own seasonality and whether you should be doing 12 months, six months or whatever that cycle is, speaks volumes on the shipper.
Marco Vargas-Avila:So if the shipper doesn't know that, I think it's the side for those other participants to say okay, how much sophistication is in this procurement event versus others? Because if you've always done it like this and you haven't changed in 20 or even five years, there are some things that have changed in the marketplace in the years. There are some things that have changed in the marketplace in the last few years that you may be missing, or vendors that could potentially be great partners that you're completely omitting. Because if you only want to work with one broker or you're afraid of the word broker, you're really limiting a huge portion of the marketplace that could really help you up. Vice versa, if you're only going with assets and you think assets or dedicated fleets aren't the only way to go and you've never looked at a 3PL, it could lead to a shipper having to overpay for the specific service that you want because it's just easy and convenient. So it's having that balance and that kind of foresight before you go to market.
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, and to add to that as well, at Keiki our network is constantly evolving. Almost daily we deal with thousands of supplier partners. So you're a come and go or we're converting freight from prepaid to collect. So you know, in between bid cycles we do have some changes. But you know we connect with our carrier partners and I'll give an asset base example of you know understanding their power lanes and what they need for the long term. Because when we have those opportunities on an ad hoc level we can reach out to those providers and leverage our network to leverage that extra capacity where they need some contract pricing and help their network out, help their customers out, help their network balancing out for the long term, because at the end of the day their primary objective is to keep their trucks moving, eliminate any deadhead or empty miles. So if we can contribute to their success it's a win-win and we're all coming together to create a network efficiency improvement for both sides.
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Andrew Silver:I mean great points from all three of you. I think dynamic is a word I keep thinking of in terms of you know, one I would want to describe If I was running a transportation network and designing my strategy. I would want, like the word dynamic, to be involved in all my pull at my teammates heads of like yes, we have a plan and yes, we're going to execute that plan. Plan, but whether it's internal things like changes within the organization or changes within the company strategy of new products or external things like tariffs or bird flu or COVID, whatever it is. There's constantly a need to and opportunity to, dynamically adapt to what's going on. And, as Marco, as you kind of said, it's like if your transportation strategy is just set and that's like we're committed to this is who we are and how we behave you're likely missing out on opportunities to do better, and that could be. You could be through leveraging tech partners that can bring better visibility or better communication between you and your carriers, or it's just changes in the market that warrant an updated process.
Andrew Silver:I think that the old school 12-month bid works for a lot of people and it can work, still work, um, but there are reasons to change, you know.
Andrew Silver:And and if you've got a ton of refrigerated freight out of the Pacific Northwest, yeah, nine months of the year it's gravy, but for three months it's it's a nightmare to move Um, and and having the right relationships and the right kind of commitments is, I think, the best way to execute effectively there.
Andrew Silver:One thing I'm curious about is how do you think about making changes in your org or making changes in your transportation network, while also wanting to stay true to kind of relationships and commitments that you've made to your partners, because in some cases you know necessary changes for the business may come at the expense of a commitment you've made to someone already and not wanting to get into this game of tit for tat where it's like, okay, well, I'm going to break my commitment to my carriers and now they're going to feel like they can break their commitments to me in a few months because you know I did it to them. You know what I'm talking about, how you can kind of get into that. So I'm just curious how you all think about kind of implementing potential change, knowing that you've got a history with your carriers.
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, I'll start this one off.
Andrew Dafnos:I guess it really depends on the reasoning behind the change, right, is there a business case of a network change, or a supplier moved locations, or there's some sort of change on that side where either the volume will drastically change or the commitment that we committed to the carrier isn't going to be fulfilled, that we committed to the carrier isn't going to be fulfilled.
Andrew Dafnos:You know we, in general speaking, we try to commit to our carrier contract pricing as much as we can control, and the reason for that is to ensure that, hey, we're taking care of our carrier partners during a shipper's market.
Andrew Dafnos:So you know, we're showing our stripes of hey, we're sticking to our pricing, we're not shopping it out and that way on the other side of the market flip. You know we're not the first one on the totem pole to be either asking for rate increase or the service is getting degraded and they're committing their side of the bargain as well. But of course, just like with any shipper, there are things outside of your control where you have to adjust, whether it's bringing a new provider in, that's a niche provider for that particular lane, and if that potentially comes at an expense of another carrier, or that carrier lost the lane because of something that was out of our control. You know, let's make sure that we're helping that provider, especially if it's a quality and trusted partner. You know, let's try to replace that freight with something else that is comparable, that is also a fit for their network.
Marco Vargas-Avila:I like that what you mentioned there. I think the only thing I would add would be I like that what you mentioned there. I think the only thing I would add would be transparency, and you kind of touched on it too. Right, we take very seriously these relationships that we have with these logistic service providers and we try to set up situations that are good for the buyer, good for the seller and, ultimately, good for society as a whole. And in that means, if the network changes and you have to pull business away, from someone letting them know why Too often it's just a short email saying you're removed from the lane and the logistics broker or the asset-based trucking company doesn't know why and explaining those situations, right, and whether you give them a heads up that this change is coming so that they can reposition their assets or they don't get caught by surprise, right, we try to be very transparent in that sense because, you know, not all shippers are very transparent when it comes to sharing all that information, the data, the reasoning or even the drivers for some of these changes.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Right, and I've found, just having been in carrier sales and spoken with that driver or the broker or the asset, they want to know, because sometimes the unknown can create situations where they're thinking the worst, when it's just simply we are closing the warehouse and we're moving somewhere else and there's nothing related to their service.
Nicole Schuman:Right, absolutely, it's a tough one. You don't want to take away. Like I mean, things change that are beyond your control. Yeah, communication is a huge, is a key to that relationship. And then also like, okay, you know putting your money where your mouth is and being like, okay, this is going away, I know that this is affecting you this way. Like, what else can we do with those trucks? Or your network?
Nicole Schuman:you know like what else can I offer you to to make up for that? And um, I don't know, I think I'd be. I can't think of one time where I it's just been like, well, that just sucks, and that's how it is, like there's always something that you can do, almost always, you know, like yeah, very good.
Andrew Silver:Let's take a zoom out for a sec just to do how you generally think about carrier procurement. You know so. So you know, as you approach maybe it's maybe it's approaching a large bid you're doing or just in an annual cleaning up of your network, how do you think about, like, and feel free to be as specific or you can be more general in how you answer this, depending on what you're comfortable sharing but when you think about designing your network, how do you think about your carrier procurement strategy? How do you think about, kind, of the number of carriers versus brokers, the tools you want to use, how you even want to go about evaluating them, like is it an ongoing basis of you just take emails as they come in or calls and you think about it, or it's you put all the emails in a specific folder and once a year you open them up and you go through them. I'm just you know let's. I'd love to get inside your heads and give our audience kind of an idea of what this looks like from from your side.
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, so you know, from from our standpoint similar to Nicole we actually are with Good Ship as well. We actually are with Good Ship as well. So we leverage the carrier scorecard piece of monitoring service in pretty much real time. So it enables us to be a little bit more proactive and identify trends and addressing issues where, hey, this is a transportation issue, we've got to address it with the carrier issue, we got to address it with the carrier.
Andrew Dafnos:But we also leverage that data for our procurement events to understand hey, do we need to torque their volume down due to service issues? Do we need to torque it up because they were exceptional in their service levels or do we need to just remove them from the network entirely, whether it's because of service or, you know, maybe they were teetering on the edge of unsatisfactory and there's already a redundancy with that particular provider. So you know, in terms of the procurement events, you know, kind of dating back to what I mentioned earlier is having those conversations with our providers throughout the year it's not just right before an RFP event of understanding, all right, we've got to make sure that we're pairing up the right lanes with the right carriers. And it's very similar to what Nicole said earlier, don't have forcing a carrier to adapt to your network. How can we work together so we enhance our network simultaneously in the effort for both cost and service?
Nicole Schuman:Yeah, I think that with this group right here, you know our superpowers of you know, coming from the brokerage world and seeing both sides, like you know and I tell my carriers this all the time like you know, when I'm like giving my spiel, like I want to know what's important to you so I get the best price and service. If there's something I need and there's some, you know I don't have someone in my network that you know fits that I'll go find them, like whether it be, you know, usually it's assets right, cause there's, you know, a million good brokers out there. But you know I'll pick up the phone, I'll Google, I'll. You know there's a million different ways that you can find it. You know like Topeka to Florida was a huge pain point for us when I first started and I just started, can't imagine why.
Andrew Silver:I know right, sounds like a great one. You're telling me there's not an abundance of carriers in Topeka, kansas, waiting to get down to Florida. They love going to Florida 350 a month.
Nicole Schuman:Exactly. But you just start looking for carriers who have the motivation to go to Florida, whether they're domiciled, you know. You just like start looking for carriers who have the motivation to go to Florida, you know whether they're domiciled. No-transcript, you know, you know, but you can't just wait for the right email to come into your inbox so, yeah, nicole, to to your point um, you know it's, um.
Andrew Dafnos:I think that's fantastic because you know you, even dating back to my brokerage days, you understand which shippers don't ask those questions. If they, if there's a specific opportunity, they just blast it out to their entire network and they'll just get the lowest price and on they go when. I think all of us here you know here understand our carrier networks and their strengths. So when we do have that opportunity, rather than blasting out to the entire network, we just reach out to one or two or three. That might be a great fit because we know, given the information that was given to us, we know that they will be successful on that freight and most likely will be cost competitive.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Yeah, to add to this, what we do on our side is we look at our service metrics, particularly on time delivery to the customer's requested arrival date. That's what we go by, right, we're trying to avoid fines from your Walmarts and your Kroger's and all the other food service distributors out there. And if you don't have that data readily available down to the month, down to the year or however long they've been running volume for you, it makes it hard to then segment some folks out when you can just consistently tell through the numbers that they're not servicing your business as needed. So that makes it a regular, recurring event where we're trying to remove the bottom 20% or 10%. We work with quite a lot of assets and brokers upwards of 100 every year and more get invited to the bid. But in terms of who actually sees the majority of an award or the largest award, some folks are better off on spot auctions, right, because there's a portion of our business that just doesn't go under contract and it's those daily auctions that we send out where some folks prefer to play in those areas. But the ones that do receive an award and then have an on-time delivery score that is below service and you've addressed it with them and maybe their volumes, you notice, have decreased and it gets to a point where is it even worth the administrative effort to manage that if they consistently fail or there's a forever revolving door of folks managing your account who can never quite figure out the operational expectations, right?
Marco Vargas-Avila:So we actively look to remove the bottom performance every year, but then also looking at those areas where you know we need a new blood or new participant or new assets, right, because it might be a tough lane for us or it might be a very remote area where we know that not a lot of players go into For us. For example, frozen LTL not a lot of folks do those sort of things. There's FFE and there's H&M Bay and there's other ones around as well like brokers that can do it right. But finding the right providers in those regional areas I think goes a long way if you are actively always removing the bottom kind of 10% of non-performance and giving a chance to the new ones to come in and and also having a kind of a continuous approach to bring in a new partner in the process for onboarding them and really vetting them to determine hey, do you have network synergies or or assets in areas where, uh, we are, we need help in, right, and so that's how we approach it.
Marco Vargas-Avila:It's just remove the non-performance and consistently keep adding in areas of need, uh, and so you know to to those brokers that that are always either making phone calls or sending that cold email. You never know when you catch the shipper that needs help on that particular day, and you'll get a response via email or LinkedIn or a text message or whatever. It may be right. I think there's striking the right balance there, but try not to be annoying, because I'm sure we all get a lot of those, but you never know when a shipper might just pick up the phone or send you an email when they're in need of help, and so that's how we approach it.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, you know I want to jump into solicitations a little bit and you gave me a good segue there and my own two cents coming off. Your last comment which I think is so true is I've managed the sales org at Molo and all the sales leaders and the people all rolled up through me, and I always thought it was interesting because I'd go sit with the sales rep and ask them about their process and ask them about soliciting, and people felt like they knew the way or knew a way, and it would be like well, shippers don't like when I do this or they don't, they like when this and don't like when that. And I just think it's not smart to speak so generally or in so much of an absolute, because you know, let's say, someone thinks that a short email that's directly to the point and states exactly what the value add is, with a little bit of flair about the shipper's network, is the way. And maybe it is the way today when I email it to you, nicole, because, as Marco said, it just happens to be the day that you're looking for me to email you, but I might send it 17 different times to other people and it ain't going to work because it's not their day, and I think that that's just. The truth of it is that there's not like a way, there's not a right way to solicit. There are definitely things that are more likely not to work than to work, like, maybe, emailing someone every three hours until they respond, or emailing someone and saying I'm going to email you every three hours until you respond, but I don't think it's wise for people to be committed to the idea that there is a way to solicit freight.
Andrew Silver:I think that there are a way to solicit freight. I think that there are. My perspective historically that I would tell my sellers is try everything and do it in as respectfully persistent of a way as possible. You know, if last week you emailed someone on Monday morning, thinking maybe they reviewed their new emails while they're having coffee, if they didn't respond, try Tuesday afternoon this week, try Thursday morning next week and try Saturday afternoon the week after that. My point is just that, like we shouldn't be so married to the idea that there's a right or wrong way to do something like solicit opportunities, and understand that there are some things with respect to your pitch that are just out of your control, in that, like it's more a product of how the other side is willing and able to receive what you're offering as much as it is the quality of what you're offering. So that's my two cents.
Andrew Silver:At Molo we built a great company and I'm proud of the work we did. We knew when to ask for help and sometimes that meant going outside of our own company. I'm proud we built an ecosystem of trusted partners like Metaphora. When we needed differentiated industry expertise in business consulting or technology services, we looked at Peter Ryan and the team at Metaphora. They've consistently delivered value in the transportation and logistics space for over a decade for mid-market and enterprise brokers, for shippers, carriers, private equity and freight tech companies. At Molo we use Metafora to solve problems we simply couldn't on our own. Metafora is the only partner you should trust to help you win, whether that's doing ops and tech diligence, growing revenue, optimizing spend or selecting and building software. Go check them out at Metaforanet. That's M-E-T-A-F-O-R-Anet. Now I'm going to turn it over to you guys. I would love to hear how do you like to be solicited? And you know what are the do's and don'ts. And we'll start there.
Nicole Schuman:I mean yes.
Andrew Dafnos:Oh, go ahead, Nicole.
Nicole Schuman:I was just going to say it's one thing to think about what the shipper needs, but also when you're that, try everything, do what feels right to you. Be genuine. That's one of the things that you know. If you're a broker and you're talking about my trucks, you know it makes me just like eye roll every single time I get an email. You know, if you're a broker and you're talking about my trucks, you know, all right, yeah, I've god. It makes me just like eye roll every single time I get an email. It's like I'm, you know so, and so you know blah, blah and I'm.
Nicole Schuman:You know I've got trucks delivering to your facility every day, you know it's like those aren't your trucks, dude, you know like, no poses what you, um, you are, you know, like, I don't know getting right to the point, but on the flip side, I've had customers that, um, you know I'm, I'm a very like, transparent. I put my foot in my mouth all the time. I'm, I'm very comfortable being me. When I was a broker, you know like, this, you know, always sticks in my mind Like there's a shipper that I call leave a message for like every week.
Nicole Schuman:And after a year and a half of doing this, you know, and I'm picking up the phone thinking I'm just going to leave another voice message, he actually picks up and it caught me so off guard that I it's fun, you know and then there was this pause and then he and I both started laughing hysterically and like, and then we had, you know, like, we started working together almost immediately and very, you know, we were very transparent, very um, we worked well together because we were, you know, we're very transparent, very um, we worked well together because we were, you know, we, we knew that what we were getting from each other was sincere and, um, accurate and, you know, I didn't have to think twice about it. So, yeah, be genuine so.
Andrew Dafnos:I don't want to, you know it. So, yeah, be genuine. So I don't want to, you know, come across as self-centered with my response, but you know just to kind of, you know I, you know, at this point in my career, you know I, I know we don't typically work with anyone that we or anyone on my team or within Kehi have had a past relationship with in the past. So I'm not sure they haven't or they have. They have not. It's very difficult for us to onboard that company. But I'm not referring to the carriers themselves, it's more alluding to the salesperson representing the Kahee account, because he or she will have the knowledge on our complexities, um, understand the high service standards that we require, um and also limits the learning curve considerably, um, and and you know, at the end of the day, it is a people industry, it's a relationship industry. So, even if I've had experience with a particular sales rep in my past life, in my past company, but I don't work with them today, I understand the standards that they have, where I'm comfortable to bring them on board and not having to babysit or worry about them or, you know, because I'm not don't know them on a professional level. I, you know I don't have to worry about the unexpected surprises Now.
Andrew Dafnos:I do receive countless emails, phone calls, linkedin messages from various salespeople daily, right? So you know I do shake my head when I see daily emails that were clearly copied and pasted, while failing to set themselves apart from thousands of other brokers that I get. It is truly a lazy way to get a customer to bite. I even had one salesperson similar to Nicole, where it left me a voicemail every day for a year with the same scripted message, which would be something along the lines of I'm looking for a way to get set up as a carrier for Kahee without selling their values. I'm not really sure. Maybe it was to get their call count up by leaving me a voice message every day, but know it's not gonna get me to pick up the phone or call back someone if you go down that route with the you know repetition yeah, for myself, we're a little bit different.
Marco Vargas-Avila:In that sense, I think the complexity of the shippers, freight and the commodities that you move and the number of locations really matter. Right, you're moving some hazmat into like a bonded facility that's a government building, like that's a different carrier than if it's just like a one pick, one drop of just you know 12 pallets of dry freight, right? But you know, for us, since it's a bit more simpler in that sense, for me, it's if you have an elevator pitch that describes your company and what they do and then why you want to work with us in a if you happen to catch me on the phone I kept laughing at that example you gave Nicole, because I've had that happen a lot for me where, like, okay, this guy's called me like six months in a row, let's pick up the phone and see what they say. And when you catch them unprepared, that speaks not just about them but also the service that that company may provide. Like, if, if you're not prepared to speak about who your company is, what they do, the services they provide, without having to think about it, you know, what else does that say about the service you're going to provide when you pick up our freight, right, but having a good pitch, if you do happen to have someone pick up the phone, just goes a long way to be prepared. It doesn't have to be fancy, it just has to be clean and direct to the point. In that sense, yeah.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Now when it comes to emails, though, you know I talked about this on the freight caviar podcast, maybe like a year and a half ago with those guys, cause they asked about this as well, because they asked about this as well, and my advice to just anybody sending a cold email is use visualization and talk about your particular business and where you pick up from. What I said was show maybe a heat map that shows here's all the freight that we picked up and all the origin locations, because that says a lot more than giving me a list of like. Here's where my trucks are. It's got like 40 different cities, right, if I know that I have a need in, say, southern California, and I see that you have a huge you know huge volumes picking up and delivering there. Maybe that give me a reason to send you a note.
Marco Vargas-Avila:But at the same time, in the body of the email, right, just explain again what that elevator pitch would be and again, you don't want to keep, you know, put someone to sleep and write them like four paragraphs, like a novel, but that's just not going to get read right.
Marco Vargas-Avila:But if you think about, you have a 30, maybe 15 second window for someone to skim through it and if it catches their eye then it likely will result in a response, whether it's in a LinkedIn message or an email.
Marco Vargas-Avila:And I've had a lot of success with that with startup brokers that have mentioned the experience of where they came from and some of the similar customers that I would be delivering to or picking up from.
Marco Vargas-Avila:In that sense, and if I see some synergies there where you're picking up in these geographic locations that we're doing business in and you're already familiar with, say, walmart, that's hard to deliver to a Kroger in that sense, then it's more likely to that you'll get a shot as opposed to somebody brand new that's just kind of smiling and dialing for dollars, in a sense, and just making that same pitch, ever hoping to get lucky, which, um, ironically, how I started at TQL just picking up a list and calling all those folks and making that same message and that call and refining your pitch over time right, so that, I think, goes a long way with most shippers. Just keep it short and to the point. And then, if you do send an email short and to the point, but then put something that tells us about what is it that you're offering from a service-level perspective and how much of it have you done whether you're large or small and likely, it'll improve your chances of getting a response, I think.
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, marco, that's a great point, you know, and not only that, it's also very important for whether you're an asset or a broker to proactively research the prospect that you're calling upon, right, you know, finding out DC locations, what type of freight is being moved. What we do in general, I mean all that information is public knowledge. If you go to our website, if you make that quick five-minute research, it gives a little bit more value to that sales email to the person that's receiving it on the other side. Now, if you're an asset, that's receiving it on the other side. Now, if you're an asset, what really catches my eye is if they indicate a need and would like to leverage Kahey to fill a void in their network, if they come to me with that, that is, actionable solutions right off the bat, rather than creating this blanket. Hey, we can help you out with anything.
Andrew Dafnos:But I think what's super important, especially on the brokerage side, you know, especially in this day and age, when it's not all about picking up freight from point A to point B and saying, well, we will never reject tenders. Uh, we have competitive pricing, our service levels are exceptional. You know that that's really not going to wow me, because who knows that that's factual, you know, but if you, if you're providing any unique offerings that differentiate yourselves from your other competitors, um, that could help us fill a need, and then that that would be something that's eye opening and that could be anywhere from technologies or to unique programs that you've built through managed services, etc. Etc. Something that would you know. You know, say, hey, I am different from XYZ broker.
Nicole Schuman:Yeah, I mean, it's hard to differentiate yourself as a broker. You know, and then you know 20 plus years of sales experience for sales managers. You know the like you know, just like in in my head is like you know, don't. You know, don't cut the conversation short by telling them. You know specifics, like listen to the customer first and then tailor, tailor. And you know, like in today's age, like with so many emails and so many calls, so many, you know, like you just have to. You know you do have to tailor, you have to look for the right prospect and you have to be up front with what you are good at. You know whether you know that heat map as far as um, you know visual visualization. That is a you know very helpful, because if I see a, an email that comes in, that's uh, you know, four paragraphs.
Nicole Schuman:Uh, delete, you know, like I can't, I don't have time for that. So, like, um, you know I don't have time for that.
Nicole Schuman:So, like you know, it may not be something I need now, but keep at it. You know, if this is your strength, you know you dominate the southeast, or you know you have an ungodly amount of freight that you know goes from here to there and you really, you know your company really can, you know, provide competitive prices like lead. With your strengths, even if it's not a strength that everyone needs, just keep on and move on. So I don't know.
Marco Vargas-Avila:To touch on consistency. I think you know we'll stick with emails, right. But if it applies to phone calls too, if I see that you've emailed me like five times before and I just happened to catch this one right and I see that your emails aren't just copied and pasted but you've tried to slowly evolve it, just try to keep it conversational, but you're progressively adding more details to, say, the email you're sending. But because you're finding out more about that shipper, it does show a lot of you know resilience and consistency from that you know salesperson or woman, because it speaks very highly in terms of, well, their consistency.
Marco Vargas-Avila:If things go wrong, they're not just going to drop you right away. Or that inevitable example of, like you, you have a fallout on a friday and it's already afternoon, are they the type of broker that will recover it for you because they're trying to provide that level of service? Or is it someone that like, oh sorry, it's three o'clock, I got to go, I got to leave for the day, so this is a Monday problem, right? We're looking for those examples that showcase the level of service that we could potentially get if we do were to give you freight right and so all of these things that we could potentially get if we do were to give you freight right, and so all of these things, at the end of the day, position the broker as a partner and specifically on the level of service that a shipper can expect. Whether you realize it or not, you're being judged.
Andrew Silver:I think that's a great point and I say it because one I've heard it before from coaches I've had, managers I've had around. You don't realize it, but you might be being tested from your first email. And someone told me there are people out there who commit to the idea that they aren't going to respond to you for three months. But if you're still there in their inbox after three months they'll consider it. But if you're still there in their inbox after three months they'll consider it. And I do like that notion of kind of what you see is what you're going to get and it might be what you see in how they approach their emails to you.
Andrew Silver:And this is one of the things I was worried about for myself, because I was so disorganized as a seller I could never keep track of a consistent plan of I'm going to email them on Monday and the next week on Tuesday and make sure it's once a week, and so sometimes I'd email and then I'd forget about it for two weeks and then I'd show back up an email and my thought was like this wouldn't you know my freight still picked up and delivered on time, and that was part of having a good team and having operations folks that were much better on the stuff that you weren't good at.
Andrew Silver:But I completely can see how you might miss opportunities, because there were definitely shippers who I reached out to for the first time and I put a lot of energy and effort. I did all the research ahead of time. I tailored my approach and I sent them an email that I thought was a good email and they didn't respond, and then I'd forget about them for three months and three months later I'd come back and try again and then, six months later, and just like those ones typically didn't work out for me. So I just think you guys are all giving great. There's a lot of gold in these answers, so I just wanted to give my two cents.
Nicole Schuman:There's a lot of gold in these answers, so I just wanted to give my two cents. I think it's worth pushing the question upstream. Then there are a lot of sales reps I would probably argue majority of sales reps that you have a finite amount of time to get a response, or to move the conversation forward, or blah, blah blah. Or to move the conversation forward, or blah, blah, blah, before you have to drop the account, for you know, um, you know some other rep to to try uh a lot.
Nicole Schuman:You know a lot of what we're saying is timing. You know you have to be consistent, you have to demonstrate that. You know what you're talking about for the business and it feels like like I mean, there certainly is. You know if you're getting feedback from the. You know if you're engaging with the, the prospect, and you're just not able you know able to move the needle case at some point. You need to move forward.
Nicole Schuman:But you know some of these reps, I think you know, especially in a time right now, where you know that question of like what do you need? It's like no one, a shipper, doesn't have a need. You know, like if there's a gaping hole in your network, there's something wrong with that shipper. And you know these I want to call them kids now but like you know these reps that are like you've got six months to move forward and it's like, is that really enough time? And then you're losing all this progress and then the new rep coming in has to relearn. You know, uh, what these shippers I mean, I don't know. Andrew, this is a question for you.
Andrew Silver:So yeah, jump in here, because this was a point of debate at Molo and it was a point of debate, I remember, at Coyote. And what we're talking about is, you know, as you now design your sales org as a broker, you have to have rules, rules of engagement or rules of the hunt.
Nicole Schuman:I remember, is what we call it.
Andrew Silver:And these rules were designed in a way so that, uh, there was kind of a fair playing field for the salespeople. In some cases you had 20 sales rep, others, you know you had 500. And you know these rules could be as related to the size of a shipper that you can pursue and wanting to make sure that a rep had a certain amount of experience in order to pursue that large of a customer. So it might say, in your first year or until you've proven you could do X amount of revenue. You can only pursue companies up to $ million in annual revenue, or it might be a different metric that they're measured against, and then after two plus years you can pursue up to 500 million, things like that.
Andrew Silver:But what specifically Nicole's talking about is what you might call a forward progress rule, which would say, once you have an account in your name that you're allowed to pursue, you have X amount of time call it maybe six months during which you have to move the account forward and if at that time you haven't, you have to let someone else try. And this is where it's really interesting, because you know there is no, it's not black and white, it's never black and white. I know there are some companies that don't even allow someone to own an account until they've gotten progress, and that's where you have situations where you might have seven different people from the same company calling a shipper, and let me just say I can speak for everybody when I say that's a bad way to run your business.
Nicole Schuman:It's a real bad look.
Andrew Silver:You should never have multiple people calling the same account, unless it's like a rep plus an executive who are tag teaming and they're working together, aligned, and they're working together.
Andrew Silver:That I understand, but multiple people pursuing the same thing to try to get there first will never work out for you. Where we struggled with this was you want to be fair to both the playing field of sales reps and make sure that people aren't just holding onto accounts forever without actually putting in the effort to move forward. But at the same time, where I think a lot of people make mistakes is having a hard cut rule where if you don't get it by six months it goes to someone else, because I do think there are a lot of instances where a relationship is starting to develop over six months and by around the six month timeframe is. You know, you might not be ready to commit to me as a partner, but I'm, I'm in, but I'm on your bench and you're thinking about me when the next guy screws up and if I disappear and Joe Schmo jumps in and he's now selling and there's definitely starting from scratch there. So my two cents in general to those listening if you're someone who's designing rules of the hunt strategy for your sales team as a brokerage, do your best to put the customer first and the customer experience first, and that's hard to do with black and white rules. So what we had at one point at Coyote and I think I might have been part of it, I don't want to take credit said but what we had at some point at Coyote, and then a little bit at Molo too, was kind of like a judge and jury, like a group of people that were kind of outside of the sales. They weren't involved. They weren't someone's manager, but there were sales involved. They weren't involved in the actual transaction or the actual issue and you could contest a ruling, so to speak. So you know, if your six months was up but you felt you were making progress, you could then put it to the judge and jury and they would look at it and say what's in the best interest of us in the business.
Andrew Silver:Let's look at the engagement back and forth between you and the customer or the prospect. Does it look like we're getting close, even though we haven't fully met the requirements of forward progress? Because you might define forward progress as having received a bid. And, nicole, you and I might have spent the last six months. We've exchanged a few emails, we've had a phone call, but maybe you haven't even had a bid. This isn't great for your business, because you explained to us that you have 12 bids throughout the year. But for someone else who doesn't have frequent bids, we might've just missed the mark on timing and all of a sudden my time's up. But we are getting kind of close and that's where I might go to the judge and jury and say, hey, look at this, look at all the context here. I am the right person for this account. It's just not time yet. Give me three more months, give me six more months, and then they could look at it and say, hey, this makes sense, let's keep him on the account.
Andrew Silver:But it's hard. It's hard from both sides because you do want to do what's best. I mean, my theory in running a service business is to design every rule in the business around what's best for the customer, knowing who your customers are, and this is where we flirted with it being challenging for us in Molo is because I thought that for us to have the best business possible, we had to try to treat our employees like they were a customer, and that like for us to make a really great product for our end customer, the shipper, and for the carrier. We had to make a great product for the employee and you run into a little bit of a tug-of-war game when you're trying to design a rule in any instance where you know in one side it's what's best for the employee and on the other side what's best for the shipper. It's not always necessarily the same thing and that's where maybe it's challenging, but I think when you have that philosophy you end up with the best possible rules for your business, if that makes sense.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Right. Yeah, A lot of the pitches and the brokerages that I think I've dealt with don't always put that customer experience aspect first and foremost, because ultimately that customer experience isn't just us three on this call, getting pitched and getting emails right, it's the people that are operating with your service and how is their experience with your company once you do break it in right or you get a shot right, Because I think that speaks more to the level of service you can expect. That then allows a shipper to say, hey, do I want to grow this, this business, together with them? Like, does the shipper actively reach out? It's like where else could we be doing business together because we're happy with your performance in a particular area? Right, First you got to break in right and then you have to develop the relationship and get some sort of business.
Marco Vargas-Avila:But for us, we we have improved themselves on auctions, like 50 auctions before you can get into a bid, so that we can have a real example of how your service is and isn't Right, and so you know whether that sales rep that helped break in and then carries on with kind of monitoring the level of service that the operations team is executing on goes a long way, Right, and ultimately it's part of that whole customer experience, Right, that sometimes you know who the actual customer is on the day-to-day basis kind of gets lost because we are so focused on the decision maker, right and and while the three of us here have progressed enough that you know we we're able to make these decisions now, I think always keep in sight of the folks that are ultimately doing that frontline operation and the experience that they have vice versa plays into your ability to grow and also just break in, right, but just some thoughts.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, I can really appreciate that, and there was a moment where I noticed, or just that became apparently true to me, when one of our customers at Molo called me and said that they had just finished going through their award process and that we were winning an award, for I don't remember what he called it, but in essence he had taken a poll of all of his frontline employees and there were like 10 people in the operations who in some way, shape or form, touched the freight.
Andrew Silver:And there were like 10 people in the operations who in some way, shape or form, touched the freight, and you know whether they were the ones tendering it, handling the appointments, handling the exceptions, handling the payments, whatever it was. But every year he had gave them a survey at the end of the year and then they all filled it out. And that's part of not the whole thing, but part of how they evaluated the quality of the carriers. And he was like you guys were a top carrier for this in terms of feedback from the team, and I was like it was the first time I ever thought about that in terms of like that's a really important element of the whole thing is that, like these people who are actually touching the freight like. You have a chance to make a material impact on them with how you respond to them, how quickly you respond to them, how polite, respectful you are, things like that. So I just wanted to echo your point there, marco. Anyone else on this stuff before we move to our kind of last topic?
Andrew Dafnos:Yeah, I mean. The one thing I would add is, you know, regarding pitches, right pitches and sales pitches you kind of touched on this, andrew, earlier, where it's very important of what you pitch, even that initial sales rep, what you pitch to a prospect, because, yeah, that six months might be up and another sales rep might come in and try to win the business. But if you had a horrific pitch where it casts a lot of doubt on the organization itself, right, and just because that rep is no longer there or no longer touching the account, you still, in the back of your mind, you know, think, yeah, it's still that same brokerage, I don't want to do anything with them. So it's very important as a, as a leader of part of a brokerage, to make sure that, yeah, if you're not going to um land the account today, at least make a good representation of the company itself, right? So you know um, you know I, I recently had a, a broker who um actually removed from the network, uh, at K he and at my last company as well, but he he reaches out constantly to to win K he back.
Andrew Dafnos:But his pitch was um, you know, I'm a different sales rep and the person you dealt with is no longer with the company. And you know, uh little did he know that I dealt with multiple sales rep at his company in in prior years. So I, you know, I think it was more of a leadership issue. But the the the kicker was he talked about how they will take losses on their shipments. Now and and, and, and and then followed up with attempting to guilt trip me that, kiki, he lost thousands of dollars a few years ago on losers. I'm like, well, I don't know, that sounds very conflicting. So it's a poor reflection on the organization for future pitches because, you know, if they're cultivating that kind of culture of how to approach a prospect, then you know, then I don't think any shipper would want to do business with them.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, get that 100%. All right, let's, I get it.
Nicole Schuman:You're trying to stand out, trying to be funny, and it was. He had clearly Googled, you know, hungry child. You know image and attached it into his email. You know like I need to make money in order to, uh, feed my you know my daughter. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it is the one time that I like literally, you know, immediately googled the. The company forwarded on to um, the execs that I could get you know find their emails and I was like never contact again.
Nicole Schuman:Like this is a real kid like some of the like don't lose just so um losing touch with reality. You know you're so like wrapped up and touch with reality. You know you're so like wrapped up and me, you know I want something, yeah it's just can be horrible.
Andrew Silver:But yeah, yeah, all right, good note, don't do that don't do that, don't do that don't do that.
Andrew Silver:Um, all right, I want to just for a couple minutes, talk about kind of emerging trends, challenges you guys are navigating in today's market. We have seen this industry evolve and it seems like a lot of the tech that I'm seeing is very focused on. For one, ai is the word of the year, at a minimum maybe the word of the decade Word or acronym Acronym, I guess of the year and so we're seeing a lot of technology come out with AI that applies to brokers and carriers, and now they've got the AI agents that make phone calls and we've got the ones that are doing a lot of the workflows on behalf of these companies. I'm just curious in each of your roles, what have you seen come into the market that has had any kind of impact to your business or that you've, maybe not even necessarily technology you've bought, but at least that you've looked at, that you could see being impactful to your business in some way, shape or form in today's market.
Marco Vargas-Avila:The one I saw.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Actually, just last week we were meeting with several vendors on business interviews and one of the pitches that I saw that was really impressive was, if your TMS has your data and you have all of your BI reporting and analytics, if you're able to create an agent that essentially creates these dashboards or these views, these charts and line graphs, I can show you with a prompt things like show me the average cost per shipment or per mile in this lane for the last 12 months and overlay it with volume right mile in this lane for the last 12 months and overlay it with volume Right, and then within seconds, it just spitting out this image and then you're able to to adjust it as needed to get you that analysis that ultimately you're trying to using that presentation or put together for your period and reviews, whatever it may be.
Marco Vargas-Avila:I hadn't seen that tied to a TMS up until very recently, and so that was very much eyeopening, right. Imagine if you actually have chat GPT with your data being fed into it, whether it be your TMS, your ERP, your financial payments data, and then it's able to really create a lot of these analyses that might take a day or weeks to put together right and that's, I think, really powerful, because it really levels up what the analytics teams can do for logistics. Uh, so that was one of the things that really was an eye opener. You know, imagine having a chat GPT agent tied right to your TMS or wherever all your your TMS data is Right.
Andrew Dafnos:Marco, that's, that's, uh, actually very relatable. So you know, that's actually very relatable. So, you know, this year we're going to be upgrading to the new version of our TMS platform and within that it has AI technology to help streamline or automate load planning Right, something that we don't have right now. Still the same company, but just the new version of it. And it's important because you important because we're in this rapid growth here at Kahey and rather than throwing bodies to scale which, of course, is a requirement to a degree but how can we leverage AI and technology to make load planning, to make, to make, you know, data processing, data management a little bit more, you know, a little bit more effective, to where you know we don't need, you know, to just staff up to do the same thing that a AI technology platform can do. You know, we've been heavily investing in technology over the last, you know, couple of years and we're still going to be investing in technology.
Andrew Dafnos:Another platform that we did onboard a couple of years ago was a network optimization and blueprinting tool, something that we did not have in the past, and it helps us, you know, achieve stronger utilization of trucks and decrease our per truck footprint across the network and enables us to stop shipping air right, because, again, we do a lot of LTL quantities and consolidation.
Andrew Dafnos:In order for that to work, the timing needs to work, purchasing needs to be read in and to make sure that we're all aligned, to make sure that we're optimizing the trucks the best as we can. And then going back to Nicole's on Good Ship as well but we did onboard Good Ship this year, which offers a new set of technologies for us that will help us be a little bit more efficient with a new RFP procurement tool, you know, having carrier scorecarding, a little bit more carrier facing, rather than you know what we had in the past. It was a little bit more you, little bit more internally focused, and it will be able to help us even be more proactive with service issues and trends and making those decisions before having someone else bring up an issue before it's too late.
Andrew Silver:Great Anything you want to add, Nicole.
Nicole Schuman:I mean like it's fine, yeah, no, I mean we're, yeah, we're a little bit behind on the times, for sure. I mean we still do like, or we do quarterly carry meetings with all 70 plus of our carriers, you know, and via zoom, you know, you know the communication goes back. You know, good, ship is great, but no, none of you really haven't seen much application of AI and and our business, at least the transportation side.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Another topic that I think has come up with the application of AI. I think it's on the scheduling side and doing some of these administrative pieces and whether you can have the shipping warehouse and the receiving warehouse talk to each other via AI around the scheduling and what appointment should you schedule right and you can remove the emails or the receiving warehouse talk to each other via AI around the schedule and what appointment should you schedule right and you can remove the emails or the phone calls right. One of the pieces that, as AI starts coming into operations, particularly in transportation and logistics, I think the participants should not lose sight of is what happens when it goes wrong. Because if you just become another ticket in a giant list of IT tickets when you actually need something to be fixed urgently, right, I think that can really sour the shipper's perspective on your technology and your overall product. If, ultimately, when the technology breaks or fails, who and how is there to fix it, and that that same um company that made that pitch that I mentioned at the beginning in terms of uh, chat, gpt, kind of tied to it, that can provide these visualizations right If you become just an uh a ticket within the giant list of other issues that they have to troubleshoot, and it's just you feel like you're going to a calling center that has no idea what your issue actually is. That can actually work to your detriment.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Right, because technology is great and it could really help bring a lot of efficiencies and optimizations out. Right, but you still need people that can be there to ultimately make sure it's working as intended and step in in a case-by-case exception. Right, and so I think it has to be a balanced approach. Right, because you you know there's never going to be just fully autonomous, maybe in our lifetimes, in terms of TMS and procurement events. Right, there's still going to be decision makers and folks that have to look through that.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Right, but will we get help from AI?
Marco Vargas-Avila:For sure, right, but when those things inevitably go wrong and there's a bug or there's a glitch or whatever it may be, you still need to rely on those people to be able to help you troubleshoot those issues that may arise. And so, whether it is, you know you scheduled all these things incorrectly and now you got to go back and redo them all. Right, and how that gets communicated to the rest of the organization does go a long way, and so it has to be, I think, the right approach of technology and people to really be able to push, I think, ai to really be embraced right. I think you know, transportation and logistics is an industry that is very kind of set in its ways, right, and so sometimes it's harder for our industry to kind of push itself forward like it perhaps should be in some other areas, right. But these are, I think, the events and the conversations that help push that towards the forefront, right, like how do all of us utilize this technology to the betterment of our group and organizations?
Nicole Schuman:To summarize what you're saying, I heard something that really resonated and it was AI is not going to replace your job, but someone who can utilize AI probably will. You know like we just have to find that right. You know, back to your point, the right balance of you know how do we do. You know what we do, just a little smarter, a little faster more efficient.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Well said.
Andrew Silver:So, in the interest of time, I will make this next question our last one. Um, it's hard to manage a with a panel with three people to get the time right with all the questions you want to ask, but you guys had great answers all throughout today, so so I'm glad, I'm glad. I appreciate you all. So I guess what I'll ask now is what is something that you know as you look at the next couple of years? What is either a problem or it doesn't even have to be a problem, but what's a solution or a innovation that you'd like to see come into the space that would make your job easier or make your team more efficient, or just make your business run better. What's just something that's not there today, that you just wish was or you hope comes to fruition in the next few years?
Nicole Schuman:One of the things I saw when I think it was at Manifest and I was just like, by seeing different companies speak together like panels, different panels, like I saw like a shift of competition which everyone you know loves to. You know of competition which everyone you know loves to. You know chest pump and you know like, oh, we're the best, you know we're going to be the best, and but there seemed to be like a shift in like collaboration and I think that if you know, I mean all the information's out there, if you look hard enough, like everyone everyone tries to you know, yeah, the look on your face. Andrew says where are you going here? Wrap it up here, lady.
Andrew Silver:No, no, you're good, you're good.
Nicole Schuman:Well, I recognize I'm not being very concise. I think that what would make my people's position easier is that people that they work with were more transparent. You know, and felt comfortable being more transparent If the three shippers that are on the call right now and I like, got together later and like hey, where you know, let's look at our network and and see if we can share some resources. Who's doing this lane for you? Can they do? You know, where are you? You know, if we work together a little more, um cause, I mean, it's not the yeah you know, right now.
Andrew Silver:I love. I love that answer. I was just going to say ship shipper collaborationipper collaboration is something I've always been super curious about, as if there's a way to get like a network of networks. And you know, les Aiken I'll be hearing from him after this because he's all about this too but I just think, and I don't think everyone can do it and you know it'd be interesting to see, like a Coke and a Pepsi, you know, overlap and work together. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, but the right companies, and maybe it's vendors and retailers, distributors and vendors there's, there's there's, there's opportunity because you know it's, it's A to B and B back to A the networks exist that could overlap and create a lot of efficiencies and make life easier for all the participants. It's just hard when everybody has their own kind of self-interest that they need to care for. But I do think it's possible. So I'm with you and that's that's one that I hope. Costs are increasing.
Nicole Schuman:somehow, you know, and we can grind the bones of our carriers to get them to take freight that they really you know money at, or they just have to keep their trucks going. But if we can find the efficiencies in our networks, then everyone wins yeah.
Andrew Dafnos:I will add, and I'll admit to this as well, so I do some of that today with other shippers that I know that have a lot of the same, similar asset-based carriers that we do just through meeting them at events or working at my past company and understanding their network. And there are a few shippers out there where it correlates with the Kahee network very well in terms of their ship points are receiving points and vice versa. And, while leveraging the same carrier, go and match that up with their network, because if my shipper buddy is successful with their service, I'm getting the service as well and the carrier is happy because their trucks are continuously moving and it's almost acting like a dedicated program. So I agree, there should be a lot more of that and a lot more transparency to make sure that all parties involved are successful, because at the end of the day, yeah, everyone wants to be profitable, but also everyone wants to be as efficient as possible, with as minimal noise as possible as well.
Andrew Dafnos:You know, in terms of the future, yes, I hope there is a lot of that, yes, I hope there is a lot of that and also finding out ways and, you know, I think shippers, brokers, asset base carriers can all agree on this is to lessen the volatility of the market swings. Whether that's going up and down, you know it's certainly going to be around. You know, especially with you know, ever since the deregulation, but you know it's something that needs to. How can we make the pain strike a little bit less for both sides of the table that you're sitting on? You know, still expecting that there'll be swings, but not as vicious as we've seen over the last decade.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Yeah, to add to your point, both of your points actually, because, nicole, you gave me an idea here in terms of, like my answer. But first, you know, proactive collaboration with other fleets to find, like those backhauls, I think goes a long way. You know, I would love to see that in the next 10 years where the idea that you're inviting not just assets and brokerages but some of these strategic vendors that you know have dedicated fleets that need backhauls, for example, to be a participant in your bid as if they were a trucker, you know, just like you mentioned, you know we also work with some of our particular pallet vendors to find those synergies where, like, hey, you're delivering a load of pallets into my warehouse, why don't you pick up something else out of it? And we can probably put you in the general area where you want to be and if you're able to provide a competitive rate which they typically are because they're sometimes going back empty that those are those perfect win-win scenarios where you find that buzzword of network synergies, right, those are the real examples. So we'd love for that to be a more of a bigger staple in most shippers' bids, right, to kind of incentivize that collaboration.
Marco Vargas-Avila:But the other one that really comes to mind also with collaboration, but more as like an industry.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Collaboration is fighting freight fraud, right, like in the last year and a half, the amount of fraud that I've particularly have noticed out of our Southern California warehouse has been rampant, and sometimes the methods in terms of stealing, like fruit cups or juices, right, which, again, we're not talking high value items here.
Marco Vargas-Avila:It's so creative where you're like, wow, I wonder what they could do if they applied that to something useful for the benefits of society, right.
Marco Vargas-Avila:But specifically to the fraught point is, like you know, I think the brokerage community has really done a good job recently in terms of trying to bandage or trying to find those bad actors, right, but it also impacts the shippers, right, and so finding some sort of entity in the marketplace that kind of helps create that transparency to ultimately accomplish the objective that everybody wants, which is, I want to be able to trust the people that are calling on our freight, that are picking up our freight, so that all this theft and double brokering issues can be put to bed, so that you don't have this segment of organized crime impacting not just the brokers but the shippers as well.
Marco Vargas-Avila:Right, because nobody wants to deal with a cargo claim on the shipper side. I'd rather just deliver to the right location, right? But who is that right partner to to create that collaboration and share that transparent to ultimately, you know, not allow those bad actors to to cause more problems for everyone involved, right? So freight fraud would be great, great to see as a much larger area of collaboration in the industry. I agree.
Andrew Silver:Really great points all around. Yeah, I mean from freight fraud. That's a serious issue that the industry is trying to tackle and hopefully will continue to put maximum effort into collaboration across shippers. I mean, I think there's a lot of opportunities sitting in front of us and with that, I just want to thank all of you for coming on the show today. This is my first time trying to panel with shippers. I think you all did an incredible job, really helped educate our audience on how you like to run your business, the things that you've learned in your time from both the brokerage and now shipper side, and you know, just really grateful for all of you for coming on. So, with that to our audience, that's all we got and we'll see you next week. Thank you you.
