Balancing Tech and Touch with Patrick Noonan

Very , very jealous as we sit here in December , but good morning and welcome to Patrick Noonan , who's the founder of MAP Transit , based in Florida . Good morning , patrick . How are you today ?

Our really founding principles were developing relationships , strengthening relationships and not being a transactional company . I think the companies that have really made it in our industry it's 100% based on relationships .

I think the more we see what technology don't get me wrong , technology is such a great thing in our industry , but things are becoming more transactional . I'll pick up the phone , I'll book a load or take a load from a customer . It's a one-off and then maybe we talk three weeks later .

We founded this company based on talking to people every day , creating relationships , not just hey , where are your trucks going to be or what loads do you have today , but how is your kids baseball game this weekend ? How's your wife doing Cindy right ? Peeling back the onion more and more and creating lasting relationships .

I think the companies that do that at a high level are the ones that are successful and that's what we aspire to be .

They actually want to work with human beings when there's a problem or when something goes sideways . How do you view what is the right amount of technology versus what's the right amount of human touch ?

I remember the beginning of sending MacroPoint or RMIS setups , every carrier said I don't want to do MacroPoint , I don't want to do RMIS , just send me the paper copy , I get it . That's how things were done for so long . When we started MAP in 2020 , every carrier was like where's the RMIS , where's the MacroPoint ? We can't afford it .

Yet Now the expectation is we have these things , so there doesn't have to be as many touches . When I look at technology and relationships coming together as one and helping this industry move forward , I look at it from a carrier sales perspective , or even a customer sales perspective . Carrier sales-wise , I might have John in Chicago who has 10 drive-in trucks .

John wants to know what loads I have at all times . John and I can't talk 100 times a day every time a load hits the board . Now John might see my portal and say , hey , I have 10 loads coming out of Chicago over the next six days , as opposed to calling me every 20 minutes for what do I have , what don't I have .

I now have this portal where John can say hey , pat , I got trucks for this load , this load and this load . Now where the relationship comes in is hey , guess what ? Your driver got rejected on my load . Hey , john , I'm going to do my best to take care of you .

The customer is going to take a while to get back to me , but no matter what happens , I'm going to do my best to compensate you for your time . That's me as the broker . Now John is the carrier . Let's say his driver gets rejected on a previous load .

The relationship I'm building with him as a human being that technology can't is John calls me and says hey man , I know our pickups not for four hours , but I got some rejected freight . It's probably best you start looking for a new truck and I'll reach out to you if things get fixed here Now . We both had problems , but we're taking care of each other .

That's the relationship piece . The technology piece is all that stuff that we used to do by phone call or email or this or that that can now just be automated . Right . Our carrier sales manager , for example , has done such a great job of in our system . Now it shoots out to carriers that elect to receive it All our loads in their area twice a day .

Then I see the emails coming in hey JP , hey Taylor , hey John , what do you got here ? What do you got there ? Now they're negotiating rates , they're figuring out what they need , how often they're there . That first layer of creating the relationship is being done via technology . Now it's our guys' jobs to peel back the onion . Where are your trucks and when ?

Oh , on top of that , what are you doing this weekend ? They go hand in hand . But I don't think the relation . You're never going to convince me that technology is the 51% . The relationship is always going to be 51% to me and technology can be as high as 49% .

He said , well , let's just do our own thing . I said I'm in In the next three weeks . What I did is I went home Every night . I just typed into Google what I need to become a freight broker right . I don't know how people did it before the internet , right , and I just followed those steps . Hey , this is what I need .

And then , you know , my dad has some clients he's in wealth management who are entrepreneurs and he set up some meetings with me and I just picked their brains right . So back to the story . About three weeks later , I got back from a vacation . You know , something frustrated happened . I was just kind of like what am I doing ?

You know , I took a walk around the block . I came back in and I said , you know , I'm done here . And I texted Andy and said , all right , I just quit , let's do it . And he goes are you serious ? He was like I'm like , yeah , we're doing this , you know . So that was July of 2020 . He worked with Max , who's my other co-founder , max Fangor .

He was a sales guy for the brokerage portion of the shipper they worked for in Florida . I've never seen someone who can talk like Max . You can hear him on sales calls . Then you hear the person on the other line saying no , no , no , no , no . 90 minutes later , you hear Max say what's that email address again .

So we had the perfect , like kind of relationship there . So the three of us decided , hey , let's do this . We actually brought in a four silent partner who owns 80 assets down in Miami , and then I moved from Chicago to Florida , october of 2020 . And at this time , we were struggling to get the company open .

There was all these hoops to jump through with the government 2020 , of course , you know , things were nuts . Nothing was happening on time . So what we actually did we couldn't get the company open and we had no money . So we , max , had a customer .

It was a freight forwarder and I'm not gonna say who their customer was , but it was a mail company out of Memphis that has orange and purple , so you can read between the lines there Okay , keep going . So what we did is I called my buddy up and I said , hey , would you mind if I worked as an agent model under your brokerage ?

And he said , yeah , for 50% of the profits I'll do it , which , at the time , we were like 50% is so much . Well , we didn't know what billing was . We didn't know what all this other back office stuff was Right , so we actually got a pretty good deal . So what we did is I actually I moved to Florida .

I worked off of Andy's kitchen table in Boynton Beach , florida , and I cradled the grave the whole thing . So I was working with the customer , I was booking the trucks , updating everything . We made . I think we split 60,000 . So we got 30,000 of it and that was the capital we used to start the company . So that was FedEx .

Peak was , excuse me , freight forwarder . Peak was . It was , you know , november , december of 2020 . And the company opened January 14th with our what we thought was a ton of money at the time . We realized shortly after we needed more cash . But that's how we got things off the ground .

So to hear not that you were gambling , but to hear your story of we didn't have enough to get started , so we had to hustle and grind in the agent model just to be able to have enough to get started on our own . That is the essence of bootstrapping it is starting with nothing and turning it into something .

Does that make you as you think back on that three years ago ? And you are not . You don't have a . You have humble beginnings but you're not in a humble place now . You have accomplished quite a lot . Do you hope to retain that scrappiness as you get bigger and bigger ?

But , yeah , just remembering the nights early on , like I mentioned , we didn't even know what accounting was .

So I remember the first two months , like it got to the point where , you know , max was basically cradle to graving and I was doing all the back office stuff , right , and we thought Max was gonna bring in the customers , I was gonna book the freight , and then we realized there was this whole other piece that we didn't know about .

So I remember not sleeping like two hours a night sleeping , cause I was just like how do I do accounting ? What can I do ? Like who can I ask ? Where can I go ? And it's , when I think about it , that's kind of the culture and the mentality that we are trying to drive into all of our people .

One of our five core values is entrepreneurial spirit , and what that means is creating a business within the business , right ? So if you're a carrier rep , you're creating your own book of business with inside a map . Right , you are an entrepreneur , you are doing your thing with inside the frames that we give you .

Right , we're just here to support you and continuing to tell people like we'll have , we'll be out with the guys or whatever , just having a couple drinks or whatever , and the one our carrier , sales manager . So be like Pat , pat , tell the garage story , tell this story right .

And I love telling those stories because not to say hey , like , look at what we did , but to say , hey , this is what needed to be done to get us here , right , and I never want to forget what we had to do to get to the next step , right . But if you don't remember the past , you're not going to know what to do in the future .

So you need to continue to learn and develop right . If I was a C player when we started the company , I hope I'm a B minus player now and we're just going to keep moving forward with that right .

So to kind of sum up , the answer to your question is yes , it did a ton for us and we want to do our best to relay that experience to our people to realize , hey , you know , a little elbow grease and a can do attitude , we can make anything happen at MAP .

I was listening to something not too long ago . It was another guy similar to myself and he said I was a terrible manager because I tried to keep turning everyone into myself . Nobody's going to do anything . Like I am right , and that really stuck with me because I've worked with hundreds of carrier sales reps . That's my background .

I've never seen anyone do it the same way , but I've seen a lot of people be really successful doing it their own way , and when I would manage , I would just be like well , why would you do that ? Why are you saying this ? Why are you saying that ? That doesn't work right ?

You have to give people some SOPs and some leeway and let them fail and succeed on their own right . When they fail , you got to be there to pick them up and help them , and when they succeed , you got to pat them on the back and say keep going . However , I just really struggle with that . In between part . I know what needs to be done .

I just I'm so intense that I can't get out of my own way at times is really what it comes down to Now . I don't hold anyone to a standard I don't hold myself to . I like to joke . I got out of college . I can barely read and I can kind of count sometimes .

But when I think back , the one thing I did learn in college is we had to read a sales book and the number one rule in that book of management was never ask someone to do something you wouldn't do yourself right . And that stuck with me . If I got anything out of college , I'm glad it's that .

So I know I'm a horrible manager , but I do know that if I'm not willing to do something whether I own the company or I'm X , y or Z position , it doesn't matter . I can't ask someone else to do that if I'm not willing to do it myself .

And that's back to kind of the culture we're creating and making sure that that continues , because now that we're building out the management layer , our managers need to have that same thought process as we have about that .

Huge , huge impact on my life . He was such a great , great guy . Now my other grandfather much more of a character probably where I get some of my personality from and when I talked about opening the company , you know reaching out to entrepreneurs and saying , hey , how did you do this , how do you do that ?

My grandfather talks in this like deep , like real blue collar accent type thing . He's like , hey , you know , I'm Poncho , we call him Poncho . And that's just how he speaks right . And I remember before I was moved to Florida , about two weeks I was back in Iowa and I was like you know , poncho , how'd you get started ?

He's owned his own company since he was , I think , 20 years old he's 85 now excavating company . So you talk about blue collar , tough work , right . And the way he tells the story is like he and his brother went and bought a backhoe down in Cedar Rapids from Caterpillar .

They had to come up with $1,000 on a $10,000 backhoe and then they hook it up , they drive down the road and somebody just waves them down and says , hey , I need some work here . And then they get it done . Right , I know that's not what happened . He's a salesman .

We thought we were going to lose them and guess who's still out in the backhoe every day working . I mean he's going to dial . He's in his 80s Exactly . He's going to die out there in the field and that's how he wants it , you know , and I just love it , Like that's , that's happiness for him , that's hard work . And when I look they look at those two .

I just I think about every single day Actually never had a tattoo . I got one just before the company opened , with them on my side and it's just a reminder , like when things stink . You know , I have my one grandfather who was was so disciplined , so smart , retired at a young age because that's what he wanted to do .

He wanted to be part of his grandkids lives . He never missed a basketball game , never missed any of our games , right , Always there for us . And then I have the other grandfather , who was always there for us as well , but he did it in a different way , right , he did nothing but work .

But when we grew up on that side of the family , we had all the toys , right , he had the four-wheelers , he had the boat he had , and that was just how he liked to do things , right , it was he wanted us to experience the things he didn't have growing up , and that's kind of how he showed his love .

I mean , they were just there for us in different ways . And I remember I was saying at a young age I just I have the coolest grandparents , I want to be like them . And when I come home now and I have a rough day , it's like what would those two do in this situation ? You know how are you going to get over this ?

And I just it's great , great memories to have .

But I think they knew the values they instilled in me at a young age . They knew I was going to be okay . And I laugh now as we talked about I'm not a good manager , but I laugh now . I had so much disdain for my parents growing up and you know why ? Because they told me no , they did the right things for me .

And I see myself in those situations sometimes too , when people get frustrated with me and I think are you doing right by them ? Right ? And the saying I love so much is I would rather you hate me and get better than like me and stay the same . Now , of course , I hope everyone likes me . I don't want to be hated , but I want people to be better .

And when I look back at how I was raised with my parents , they didn't care if I was happy or not with their decisions . What they cared about was instilling the proper values in me , so that when I got to where I am today , at 35 years old , trying to create something for other people , I was going to do the right thing when no one else was looking .

And I feel that every day like thank God I had them in my life , Because anytime I do something wrong , believe me , I get caught . So I know hey , you got to stick on the straight and narrow . You're not going to screw drivers out of detention . You're not going to take shortcuts that are going to make an extra 100 or 200 here .

You're going to do the right thing and in the long run , it's going to pay off for you .

But those who are willing to delay gratification and do the right thing in the long term doesn't mean that they're going to be for sure successful , but it means that you improve the likelihood of being successful . Let's go back to the comment that you made about your parents offering to support you when you started the company .

So you took this 30 grand that you made doing the agent model and you put all that into the new business . What is it like in the early days , just from a cash flow perspective , trying to make it week to week ?

. Actually , when we started we had the 30K and we figured we're going to factor Andrea , our fourth partner , our silent partner . He got us a great factoring rate . So we decide , okay , we're going to factor no big deal , right , we booked the load , we get the paperwork , we send it in , they're going to advance us the money .

Well , back to me not really being able to count or read or whatever . We had to fill out these little spreadsheets every day and there'd be five , six , seven loads on the spreadsheets , right ? And there'd be , let's call it , 10 columns across and you have to fill each one in properly , right ?

So seven times 10 , we're talking about maybe 70 columns you got to fill out . If one of those columns was wrong it would get rejected and you wouldn't get your money that day . We were wrong every single time . I mean , it took us three to four transmittals to get it right every time and the factoring company , believe me , they hated us .

They hated us , and I get why because we made their lives harder . In some ways , they made ours harder , but we had to do it right . So I remember we're probably about a month in and we hadn't taken any money at the time , right , and we got like $6,000 in the bank account , which $6,000 is a lot of money when you're running a business .

Five , 10 loads a day , not a lot of money . So go back to the parents like , hey , don't need much , but just a little bridge to get us through the first six to nine months until we can really start cash flowing .

And I mean it was a very small amount of money , but it was all that we needed just to screw up our transmittals every single day and then wait the two to three days to get our cash , as opposed to the one day , and within I think , eight months we had paid them back in full .

But it was so funny at that point , like we're kind of looking around at each other and realizing , oh yeah , this cash flow thing that everyone talks about , this is a real thing . You know , we need to be cognizant of it . Now , on the back end of that , what's funny is we did . We did it .

Well , it's a different story , but we did two different projects that we factored everything on and we had all this money in our bank account and we're thinking , oh my God , look at us . We're blowing up . We hadn't received any of that money , right ? The factoring company was advancing at all .

So at the time we're thinking , oh , we're crushing it towards the end of 2021 , in our first full year . And then we're looking at the taxes and stuff and we're like , well , why are the taxes low ? This doesn't make sense , because , listen , ding Dong , you haven't received any of the money yet .

So we went from not having money to thinking we had money back to realizing , oh no , we don't have any money . So it's been such that ying and yang with cash flow and now , now more than ever , we've really buckled down , and I give Andy a ton of credit .

He's really grabbed the bull by the horns here and he's like this year we're going in with a budget . We're doing this , we're doing that because we're still scaling organically . We haven't taken any money . We took , like I said , the small bridge loan , but we paid it back immediately . So we have to be smart .

We could hire 15 people tomorrow and the business would operate so much better . However , we can't afford that unless we're going to go out and take some money . So that cash flow is so smart , but the way we're doing it . It creates that discipline that I love . It's showing us how frugal we need to be .

You mentioned some other companies that have just kind of thrown money at the problems . Money dries up eventually . You just can't continue to throw money at the problems . Then to go back to kind of tech we were talking about . Like I said , there's a place for it . I would like to see the tech companies start operating more organically Now .

Maybe it takes some five to 10 years longer to get to market , but I think our economy and our industry would go so much further by being much more fiscally responsible . I think there's a place to really teach people within our industry how to do that . So you hit it on the head Cash flow is king .

I talked to another owner of a brokerage when we met down in Nashville this summer and he looked at me and said you realize , all you are is a bank , right ? Customer pays in 120 , you pay in 25 , right ? And I'm like you're kind of right , cash is king . So yeah , I've learned a lot of lessons about cash flow and we're still learning them .

No matter what you think , you don't realize what things cost and how much people cost early on , because you have to overpay everyone to buy into what you're trying to do . There's that , I think . The other thing is being able to work with people , me being a . I was a sales rep , for I sold windows and then I sold freight yeah , carry sales for 10 years .

When you're a sales rep , a lot of times you're isolated . It's like playing tennis it's me versus the other guy . It's not playing basketball , You're not passing to anyone , it's just you versus someone else . So once getting into that partnership , I had to learn like , hey , man , this is a true team . When carry sales , sometimes we get the raw raw .

We're all on a team , but our commission checks are different , aren't they ? So when you're a partnership , it's learning how to work with people who are different than you , think differently than you , and that has been such a blessing I like to think about , like Max and myself .

When people ask what's the dynamic between you three , I say if it's a football field , I would be on one goal line personality wise . Max would be on the other goal line personality wise and , depending on the day , andy would float somewhere between the 20 yard lines . And that's such a blessing .

If everyone had the same opinion , you and me wouldn't be talking here today . Nate , I've learned so much from those two over the last couple of years where it's just like God , just step back and think about it . But I was so used to just doing things one way , which was my way , and sure , my way got me some success in sales .

But you have to be able to digest other people's opinions , whether right or wrong , and then find the good from those things . So that working as a team was definitely number two for me . And then I think , number three that you have to .

You know if anyone who works in freight knows this , but it's really really important , especially in the freight game , because we can control such a small piece . At the end of the day , if the customer acts in a certain way or the carer acts in a certain way , we can't control that .

We can get on the phone and we can try and come to a common ground , but that's very , very difficult . So you just need to keep in mind that life isn't so much what happens to you , it's how you react to it .

If we can take these horrible situations and compartmentalize them and say you know what , I can't get as worked up about this because I did everything in my power , I can't control that . When you worry about things that you can't control , you're worrying about the wrong things , and I've seen that dynamic when I was trying to manage people for a while .

One of the things I laughed about it was I get to a point . It was like I want it more than you do . It was like I would never say that to someone , but I would think in my head like you know , you just have to be able to stay positive and no matter what's happening .

So for me , as a manager , like I need to be able maybe I wanted it more than they did I need to be able to help them . If they're a C player , let's give them to a B player , right ? Doesn't mean we're just done because I want it more than they do . I got more screws missing than most people do , so I'm going to want these things .

But how can I help people ? How can I compartmentalize the things I can't control and then work on the things I can't control , right , so I can't control wanting it more than someone , or this carrier acting erotically or this customer acting , you know , this way or that way . But what I can control is my actions and how I respond to it .

Am I going to get down in the dumps about it or am I going to say okay , I understand , I'm going to take the L on this one and I'm going to move forward and try and take a W on the next one .

and simply adapts endlessly to the environment in order to find its own unique path to survival and growth . So you've made it through the hardest part of starting a company early days of cash flow , early team dynamics and obviously a very turbulent macro environment , both ups and downs , in the last two and a half three years .

So , as you look forward 24 , 25 , 26 or beyond what are your biggest and wildest hopes and dreams ?

Now my hopes and dreams are , of course , we want to be at a hundred million dollar company by the time I think 2026 . And people will say , well , money doesn't make you happy . Agreed , money doesn't make you happy .

But you know what money does in this environment it creates more opportunities for others the guy who wants to be the manager , the gal who wants to go from operations to carrier sales . You know these vertical movements that we can do , or these upward movements that we can do when we have a hundred million dollar company and not a 20 million dollar company .

That benefits everyone around us . So I know the more opportunities we create for people and , like I talked about earlier , they're an entrepreneur within the framework of our team . So some people are going to grab those opportunities and run with them . Some aren't . That doesn't mean they're a bad worker or a bad person .

Maybe there's just a different role for them . Maybe the guy who grabbed that opportunity as an account manager or as a customer sales rep , maybe he needs an ops rep , or maybe he needs someone to assist him . Look at that Now we got one stud who grabbed the opportunity who create another opportunity for someone else .

That sounds a lot like an entrepreneur to me . So yeah , we have , you know , big things ahead . We're going to open up a Chicago office this year , which is going to be exciting . That's going to be really the next step in our growth process .

But it all comes back to one thing Continue to focus on creating opportunities and the rest will take care of itself .

You get some tailwinds behind you with the economy in a couple of years . You've got the framework built , you've got the model down and , as you keep building that team and creating those opportunities for others , I have no doubt in my mind you're going to hit that $100 million mark faster than you think .

You know , michael Jordan was like one of my guys and he used to make up stories about people to like inspire himself , and I think I do some of the same things . But you know I really appreciate the kind words .

You know it's just continuing to lay the brickwork and I know we're going to get there , but yeah , all the positive energy that we received externally , it means a lot , so it's been exciting .

what are . On an update , I'm going to say 2026 . That's going to be the finish line , because I know you're motivated by doubters . I don't know if you're going to be able to do it that fast .