Full Stride with Casey Winans

own . I'm your host , nate Schutz . Let's build something together from the ground up . Good morning , everybody , or good afternoon , depending on when you're listening to this . Welcome back to the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics . We are doing exactly what we've been doing for years . There's really no change to the structure or format of Season 3 .

We're just doing the same thing we've always done unpacking the journeys of founders that are building supply chain and logistics companies the old-fashioned way , with their own resources , supply chain and logistics companies the old fashioned way , with their own resources being scrappy , not getting a ton of attention .

And I love bringing attention to that myself , because I feel like it's too easy to get lost in the venture capital world or the PR , the social media machine that makes it look like everybody's a unicorn , when the reality is the 99% of businesses out there are small businesses and they've got small business challenges .

But it doesn't mean they've got small thinking . It actually means that they've got really strategic thinking because they are committed to their own vision , mostly free of outside influence , and that's maybe one of the most American dream kind of storylines that's out there . So I love getting to do this with everybody each week .

Thank you for all of those that have followed us . We're at the 100 episode mark right around now and if you've been here from the beginning , I just want to say thank you . I couldn't do it without you and without our sponsors . So this week we're going to do the same sponsors .

So this week we're going to do the same thing , but this time we're going to go deep , with Casey Winans , who's the founder and CEO of Full Stride , a WMS and tech consulting firm based in the US . Casey , good morning . First , it's great to finally get a chance to go deep on a subject that I love warehousing .

I know you're an expert , but it's also our first chance getting to really meet and talk in person . So , good morning , how are you , and thanks for being here .

They may still They've been sold there's a new name on the outside but effectively that's where I got to really cut my teeth and I would say , based on that and the next couple of roles I did , I was more in the software engineering realm of things . I built some products after I moved on from GE

. Reverse auctions for procurement that was something that was done in Pennsylvania . There is like a Commonwealth nonprofit that turned in and spun out as a startup .

After that I worked for probably about an $80 million company that was a middleman and bought print cartridges and old cell phones , refurb them to an extent and then sold them for other purposes down the line and we built all our systems in-house . So that was my first taste of warehouse management systems , parcel manifesting systems .

In fact , my first gig what were my first , I guess , project when I started was this 200 page printout of the ups spec and like build a system that we can so we can create our own labels and do these uh ars labels , authorized , authorized return service , uh , and I didn't know that was unusual . So I did that , built those out . It worked really well .

But after working there for a couple of years they were realizing that in-house software was kind of rough to maintain right , you were always making tweaks versus being strategic .

So they started looking at vendors and , totally coincidental , they were looking at a company called Red Prairie and I was looking to move to North Carolina with my family just for other opportunities and I took a job working for Red Prairie .

I didn't know that at the time , I didn't connect the dots , but I mean this whole time this is probably the first few years of my career I had no idea I was in supply chain . I didn't understand the concept of warehouse management system . It was just these systems we built . They were business systems in my mind .

I was a software engineer that's what I do but taking the job at RepRary turned me into a consultant on the technical side anyways , the first couple of years and I was working with big companies rolling out very complex software , lots of customizations , integrations , and that morphed into an opportunity to lead the Parcel Consulting Group inside of the professional

services , because I raised my hand , called out some things that were happening in the product side . I had a background in it that I didn't appreciate for it and that gave me the opportunity to move into management . So I instantly went in .

I had 15 people reporting to me and I was tasked with fixing projects across the whole spectrum of different verticals , because Parcel was seen as getting a tracking number and all the things that happened behind the scenes in terms of like the rules out there , interfacing with carriers , specifications changing .

No one really understood it until they went live and things didn't work . So I spent that time teaching my team and getting that all taken care of and I did that for about a year and a half . And then I followed a mentor to a 3PL in Canada . Like there you go , they're going to expand into the US .

I'm going to learn the outside part of the vendor equation Still lots of clients coming and going . So there's a good mix and I did that . I learned a ton . But right , right about that time about a year and a half into that so this is probably mid-2013 jda and repair emerged and the messaging was awful that basically jda came in .

They were used to all these turnkey systems on their side , more planning up front . Where you have a problem , turn the lights off at five , come back in at nine o'clock next morning and deal with it . Well , on the warehouse , the warehouse management space , it's 24 , seven , you're not shipping , you're not making money and I'll help .

Everything's going to fall apart . So it was an awesome opportunity for myself and two other guys that I knew to hang our shingle and start a consulting business . So my first business and we had no grand plans , it was just opportunistic .

You know , mercenaries out there for hire until until this new JDA figured out how to plug the hole and then you know , basically , you know , eat our lunch . But I fast forward five years . We had about 60 people working for us . We were doing , we were on pace to do about 12 million the year .

That that I pulled away and I it just kept growing , you know so you you for help me understand this then .

But there had to have been a moment where you're leaving the relative or perceived safety of a corporate job or a W-2 maybe , and you're like , hey , let's go do this thing on our own . And it was scary . Did you guys just like sit around it ?

Were you at a bar I'm just picturing you with a cocktail napkin and you're sketching out a strategy , or was it lunchtime or how did what ? Was that day like when you and your partner or partners said , okay , we're going to do this ?

I got this little bit of traction here with one client , let's figure out what we do . And I went back to my wife and I'm like I've always wanted to do this , honey , because I used to read business magazines like crazy . It's just one of those like when do I do it ? And I had actually .

So I guess I had a business before this , one client , a little bit of work . I made like 10 great 10 grand and it was awesome . I'm like it felt so liberating . But then the 3pl I worked for got wind of it and told me either go full , full time on that one or hang it up . And I had one client , a little bit of work .

I'm like I can't feed my family , so I put it away . But that was the catalyst for you know just that , that building it up Like I wanted to do it and I was feeling kind of trapped after that in a W2 role .

So , having that lunch , and then from there we went , to excuse me , a place called McGregor's Draft House in Cary , north Carolina , and we had lunch there . Multiple times we were drinking beer literally in the back of a napkin , like what are we doing here , how do we , how do we get this going ?

And then we spent probably a couple weeks just trying to figure out what we call ourselves . That would comprise the three of us , you know , and uh , and more or less we kind of came back and said , well , what about mcgregor partners ? There's a story that's the .

You know it's the , it's the cliched , you know , uh , bar back of a napkin story , and we're partners .

And there is a storytelling element inside of those called the watering hole . And there's a storytelling element inside of those called the watering hole and at a certain point in the journey , before it goes from being an adventure where things are safe and fun into being a quest where things are kind of life or death , there's this they call it .

It's a scene in all these movies . It's called the watering hole and it's that moment where all the friends band together and decide to go off on this quest .

And it's fascinating to me how many entrepreneurs have that same experience of , okay , we're going to leave the relative safety of the Shire or RW2 and we're going to go off and try to slay dragons , and we're in this together and we've come up with the name for our band of misfits and we raise a couple of glasses and make a toast and that's maybe the last

moment that things were innocent and fun . And then it gets real and the danger starts . So the first month that you and your partners are the safety is now behind you . Did you like hit the ground running and things were happening how you thought they would ? Or was it crickets and you couldn't get a customer to say yes ?

Like what was the really really early stage ? Like when you were fully committed ?

So I talked to him and he couldn't envision anything else . So he's like , yeah , bet on yourself , you know the sky's the limit , envision anything else . So he's like , yeah , like , bet on yourself , you know the sky's the limit .

And my wife said the perfect thing to me at that moment in time was honey , it's just a house , which really implied that if we lost everything , we still have each other . We don't care , you know , and that was like freeing , you know . I teared up , I'm like , okay , I get to get to know , chase my dream here .

But one of my other partners , literally that month , I actually you know what , yeah , I had , I had the one partner had a daughter that was just a couple years old , so , you know , still on , probably in diapers at that point , if I get the ages right .

And the other one had his second , his youngest , the daughter , literally that month , or maybe , maybe July , just before August . So like we're all like , like we're in it , but at the same time , like stakes are high , we're nervous , uh . But first month it went , it went awesome .

I mean , it was one of those things where , uh , the one partner had already broke into a 3pl and they were insatiable . You know , just more projects , more projects , tons of work . Our rates weren't great but they were . They were feeding us and we were doing all the work and we had one contractor at that point .

But then the beauty of where we came out of because we all came out of Red Prairie , jda , now it's Blue Yonder is we'd worked with clients for years , so it was reaching out to our personal networks and we'd get some work here and there . It didn't have to be big in those days , it was just something to kind of move the needle , but the it was just .

It was crazy . We were working 80 hour weeks . We were killing ourselves . It was . It was not fun , but fun at the same time . I mean , the money was awesome . Seeing that come in like it just opened my world . We just opened my world . We were all making low six figures . Before you know we had moved up to director roles .

So it was like we're quickly surpassing that , wow , okay , uh , we're gonna need to hire at some point . So I mean we can kind of get into that piece there too . But it was just gangbusters and we started getting other clients coming in and they wanted something . But by and large we had dhl where it was excel logistics . At that point DHL turned into .

I mean , you know , they're massive , so we would work for one director . Another director will pull us in more projects , clients coming and going .

So there was just a whole lot of complexity there and we were there to pick up the pieces and definitely augment their teams because we had the depth where a lot of their teams internally they were closer to operation , they didn't know the systems as well and we could get in and do just about anything in it , even the nasty , complex , hairy stuff behind the

scenes so you're doing a combination , then , of kind of consulting , implementation plus software development , kind of simultaneously .

And so how did you and your partners think about cash flow and keeping the lights on as the business started to grow ? And okay , now we've got to make a couple of different decisions . You're getting paid a little bit , but now we've got to take a risk .

We've got to hire some outsiders , we've got to maybe get an office and the expense structure changes , which , for bootstrappers , can be really , really uncomfortable .

So we would work from each other's homes , if we had to , to meet up to figure out something , you know logistically around the business itself , and just daydream and figure out where we're going , what's working , what's not working , how do we go forward .

But some of the things I learned from the 3PL I worked with since I was one of just a small handful of US employees at that point is they use something called a PEO , a professional employer organization , and they take care of a lot of the HR pieces where we effectively , our employees of our business , are at least to them or at least back to .

Somehow , I don't know , you can work up PEO , but it was a great way for us to get benefits very quickly , manage payroll , all these things . So we had this stuff set up so we could put the contractors in there as well . And suddenly you know we could .

We could out compete with some of the other consulting firms that were popping up at the same time in our same space because they didn't know those things . So yeah , it's going to be something I was exposed to and you know , wearing my business hat , I'm like that's really smart . So instantly we got that going

, uh . So that was , that was one piece that helped . But , yeah , we avoided most of the overhead . Really , we agreed at some point for taking smaller salaries , something smaller than what we had had before , and then we worked on the concept of distributions . Now , one other thing that we did have in our back pocket was one of the partners .

His dad had had a business for years and he knew some accountants down in our area . So myself and one of the partners went down and we just sat with him and he gave us some advice in terms of how to structure some of this . So that was helpful for the distribution thing .

And then I also had my father-in-law very much pressing to get a really good operating agreement in place with buy sell language in there which we can get to , because that's the other story , uh , to really make sure that when everything is going well , you guys can agree on terms , potentially , how things dissolve all the things that can get hairy later on if

there are disputes or anything like that . So we have these things in our favor . I didn't really appreciate them at that moment , but it worked out great .

And then I think there's probably a lot of companies out there that don't understand that and to get into it without it and hope everything just works out and when it doesn't , that's not the time to be trying to hash this stuff out .

You maybe have been co-workers at a company before , and those operating agreements and partnership agreements matter the most when things go really really well and there's lots of money to be split , or when they go really really bad and things get dicey .

And for most first-time founders I guess I shouldn't say most for many first-time founders those are uncomfortable conversations to have early because everything's going well .

Why would I introduce stuff that might be sensitive or might cause us to not be as close with one another and uncomfortable at well said , and the reality is , over a long enough period of time and enough interactions with human beings , one of the core driving forces is self-interest , and that means something different to everybody .

You mentioned your co-founders having young children .

They would have totally different personal circumstances and needs than somebody who's already independently wealthy and doesn't have any responsibilities , and so those kinds of agreements can prevent lots of future conflict and in some cases they can even decide hey , you know what , after we've gone through this exercise , maybe this structure isn't the right thing before we

even get started , and those are some of the things that happen when you're a second time founder . Now you have all of that knowledge and maybe we can unpack some of that in the next part here .

But if you are considering starting a business and you've got a buddy or some coworkers or something that you think , hey , we'd be a great fit to go out and go do this thing , Get an agreement written up on paper , Talk through . What percentage of equity is everybody going to own ? What are your responsibilities going to be versus the other person ?

Who's going to be responsible for being the tiebreaker ? When you don't agree and you add those things up , put them on paper , and your likelihood of avoiding significant issues down the road just multiplies a hundredfold . It sounds like , based on what you shared , that you may have found some challenges down the road . So what actually happened ?

But one of them one of the partners had been doing this for a little longer had some cash and he was able to give us short-term loans for the first month . So that was a cash flow piece to get us through before we started paying ourselves , and the typical net 30 .

You work , then you bill and then you wait because they've come up with excuses of why the invoice isn't ready yet and all those fun things . So that got us through it . But part of that agreement was there were going to be accelerators in terms of equity based on that and they seem like big numbers to us .

You know , a couple million here , a couple million there . We hit those and then ratchet up and then we're pretty close to all evenly splitting the pot . So that happened . That happened pretty quickly . So then we revisited the operating agreement to kind of play with what looks like longer term . But so we did this for five years . Tons of clients .

We eventually grew to 60 people . That first hire was really scary that first year because you know , suddenly we're on the hook for somebody else's livelihood . But that worked out well and then we started hiring , you know , slowly at first , and then we started doing multiple ones , but so it ended up being about 60 people .

We were on track to do somewhere close to 12 million the year 2018 . Wow , but probably that fourth year we really started looking at what do we want to do and two of the partners wanted to go in and build software and I liked the idea to an extent being naive , coming into it .

But at the same time , I was also starting to chase something called managed services . So we have SLAs and they're paying us for peace of mind effectively to jump in when things go sideways . In a warehouse world . That's really important . Vendors can't do it or if they do , it's just to fix defects and maybe some data , not to understand your operation .

So I got into that . My first client at that point was Advanced Auto and we learned a ton in terms of how to structure these deals and they were massively profitable . So I'm like that's probably our future . I like that . It really kind of plays with the implementation side plus supporting it long-term , but there's always gaps when you're doing something .

So that's the software realm . So we started doing that . We didn't know how to sell , so we were burning cash on employees and all that . And we got great insights for early customers who didn't turn into early customers . And it was just this dividing piece here where it's like , okay , five years in , what do we want to do ?

I like the idea of stepping back to an extent , maybe trying something different and , you know , being a sign of partner . One of my partners liked that for a while , but ultimately , two of them decided they were going to go double down on software and I'm nodding , you know .

So middle of 2018 , they decided that they were going to buy me out , and you know it was . It was bittersweet , you know . It was one of those things where I knew I wasn't happy , but at the same time , this is my baby and you know these were my friends and like this is this is tough , but we had to buy a sale agreement . So you know I couldn't stop .

I couldn't stop the sale , but I could negotiate , and one of the things we had in there that was really good was this concept of we can each go get our own valuation . You know , in my mind theirs came back very low , which great you know , it's . Just it's the bottom part of it .

They were hoping to get me out quickly , maybe because I'm I'm pretty past and passive that way , in terms of if it's good for the business , I would do it typically . But then I went out and I found a great lawyer on my side who got me in connection with a great appraiser and this guy that's all he does .

So he came back with all this other information and it was like double the valuation . So it took probably this was the middle of 2018 . We probably didn't finalize the negotiation until sometime in November , december . So it was frustrating , right ? Sure , I bet you know , am I getting paid ? What's going on ?

I can't talk to people inside the company for valid reasons . I mean , I'm not throwing anybody under the bus , I get it . But it really sucked because I couldn't tell my story and I just kind of disappeared . But it really sucked because I couldn't tell my story and I just kind of disappeared .

And then actually the same day , I was told that they're like hey , we want to buy you out . My mother-in-law had a stroke

and then she ended up dying two weeks later . So it was just awful , right , like we were like Alice falling down the hole , no power thing , our world just getting ripped apart . And so we got through that . We got through the year and this is something that no one knows , my partners included .

We ended up getting life insurance that kept us afloat , so I couldn't negotiate for it and have to take a smaller deal . So it was a blessing , huge blessing .

But at the end of it I had to sign a non-compete for two years and I got a chunk paid up front and then I got a chunk paid every year for several years and that kind of got me through well , pretty much going into COVID , because COVID kind of really rocked a year later . But what do you want me to ?

It is just a very intense lived experience of somebody who and I'm sure if we asked your partners that were there , they would have a slightly different version of the story and they would say some of the same things of like yeah , it was really hard for us too .

But I think we glamorize entrepreneurship I know I do , I'm guilty of it at times and the realities are it's very hard , it's very emotional , emotional . It is a different kind of sleepless night when you're dealing with equity and distributions and maybe a an ending , a partnership that's ending that .

There's not a lot of people that can understand that kind of pressure and stress . I'm sure your wife vividly remembers every week of that and if she probably flashed back to when you were all starry-eyed and like , hey , let's go do this thing , and she said it's just a house , you know , to get to that full circle moment on the other end of it . That is .

I mean I'm not going to spend too much time on the storytelling part of our narrative and how that all works . Uh , that is . I mean , I'm not going to spend too much time on the storytelling part of of our narrative and how that all works .

But yeah , these are quote life and death and from a financial standpoint , uh , stakes they're not um fun , they are terrifying .

They had been homeschooled for a while for other reasons medical for one of them , but I think they were in private school at that point , right , so I was doing all these things that were valuable to my kids , really pouring into them , that required a sizable income , and then suddenly the rugs pulled out and what do you do and what's going on ?

And I had a lot of guilt actually too . I mean , here's the other human person . Part of it is for those five years and then years before it I traveled like crazy . So it was constantly like I'm seeing my kids grow up through , you know , facetime , talking to my wife , you know , and odds and ends .

And there was one project I did where I felt like I lived in Memphis for two and a half years , I mean every week , four days , four days a week there , constantly . So there was that coming out of it . So it was relief on one end , you know .

But you know friendships are kind of getting pulled and pulled apart , ending , you know , uncertainty about what's coming next to me . So there's , there's all those . It's all that human drama that was in there at the end of it 2019 , you know , like the very beginning of the year . So I think it was , I think it was December 31st .

We signed the papers and I was no longer an owner , got a chunk of money , got the promissory note for X number of payments and you know , I that was kind of cut out from everything I'd done for for years . So what do you do next ? And you have to reinvent yourself . Or , uh , and and honestly , I did sensationalize entrepreneurship .

There was a lot of relearning , unlearning at that point , cause I thought my stuff didn't stink .

I realized that there was a whole bunch of things around business that I didn't know , that it was just the perfect storm of being in a space where there was a lot of demand and I just happened to be able to build and capitalize on a network when I didn't have it anymore . You're starting from scratch so much harder .

So if they listen to this , this is probably their first , uh guess , perspective of , or at least my perspective of , what happened and why it happened . And so I'm I'm pretty private that way . I overshare sometimes in other spaces , but I've been quiet in this in terms of detail , but I think .

Hey , you're going to need to get really good at accounting . You're going to have to understand what a GL code is and how a balance sheet and the income statement work together or don't at times and statements of cash Well , you're going to learn all that kind of stuff .

Plus , you got to be a part-time lawyer , part-time HR generalist and you're going to miss a lot of your kids' sporting events and and and and so to help prepare them for those kind of rough seas that might come , stories like yours , I believe , add significant value . Now you can tell somebody else hey , don't make the same mistakes I did .

And oftentimes people are like no , I think I want to burn my hand on the stove myself before I listen to what you say . But now you've gone through it yourself and then you had to sit out for a couple of years and now you're doing full stride . So let's shift then . Second time founder , new organization well , for new name ? Where did full stride come from ?

What does it do and what are you doing differently now in your next venture , gotcha ?

So I got to learn a lot of the stuff that happens before they select a vendor and get an implementation , which meant are we building business cases ? Does it make sense ? Here's different vendors , where are they better , worse for you , based on what you're trying to achieve . And then just structuring all that and I did a lot of that with fixed fee arrangements .

So no longer per hour , you know where this , this , this messy part of we want more , they want less . You know , and then we're fighting over inputs and outputs versus like , what are we achieving ? So I did that for a year and a half . He retired . I didn't really mesh well with the rest of the executive team , so part of the ways .

But taking all the things that I learned there , I wanted to put into full stride . And full stride really is like you

start slower and you ramp up and then you're running right . So that image in your head . I wanted to work with the mid-sized businesses that weren't well served by Blue Yonder , the ones that I had seen buy them , always choked and they struggled long-term if they didn't just abandon ship at some point .

So I'm like there needs to be somebody there advocating for them .

And one of the things that didn't go well with my first business and the one I was working with afterwards is when your time and materials and your project-based the ones that get you going early on to feed you eventually are the ones that you get the scraps or don't even get any attention because you're chasing ever bigger paydays .

So with McGregor we were going high , six-figure , low , seven-figure implementations versus the five and six-figure we did at the beginning . Same thing with the other company I worked with . So these other ones , these clients , were getting the scraps , the ones coming .

They were coming and looking for , say , blue Yonder and you can potentially pay the subscription fee , maybe pay for a small implementation , but you're always going to struggle with this . They're going to eat you alive because there's all these assumptions behind the scenes in terms of how it's structured for large business , not midsize .

So we started looking at that company . In between , I started looking at other vendors that were maybe a tier lower , didn't have the partner . Ecosystems really wanted to grow , wanted some outside influence partnerships to go . So I took those agreements and I literally one of them . I wrote an email . My wife was like how did that work ?

It was maybe six , seven lines . After I talked to the CEO of one of those vendors and I said , hey , I made the case , you want partnerships . You felt like you missed the boat on that one . What if I build a business that didn't outgrow you and we can talk ? And he's like , let's do it so instantly . There you go . I had my first partnership .

Then I went out and I started the LLC and all that . But she was kind of dumbfounded Like , how did that work ? I spoke his language .

As you know , I went back to being the guy who was turning the wrenches and configuration and talking to clients . So that was that was that was me , my , my deal . I was going to be an implementation partner for midsize businesses , midsize vendors , right Connecting the dots there doing ?

You need A big thing to run your operation but they're not big enough for the big names in the new half , the vendors out there that want to grow in . A mid-sized business is great for them . It's a quicker implementation . It's the first one . Land and expand as they grow . If you do well , it's virtuous .

And then I'm in the middle of figuring okay , well , how do I do this profitably where I build a team and I don't outgrow anybody ? They outgrow me and I celebrate it Like that's not something you see in a typical consulting firm . That's just . That's just the business model that doesn't exist .

You know , like my first one , we just kept growing and then people fell off the bus as we got bigger and bigger , unfortunately inadvertently . So I started doing that .

I did that for several months and then I hired my first employee , paul Hinman , and we were working together and we were a great middle where you could see , it was sold to somebody who wasn't ready . They were typically first-time buyers and we were the ones that were level setting after the fact . The vendors kind of liked it , but they didn't like it .

The clients appreciated it , but didn't like it because we were delivering bad news .

And then we were always the ones getting the black eye and , regardless of us being there or not , we could see the ones getting the black eye and , regardless of us being there or not , we could see the other projects going on with some of these vendors and they never , really ever , transitioned to fully supported live .

They were tethered and there was no real leadership on that side of things . So it was coming in and you're asking the customer what they want versus leading them with some type of process , and so at the at the very end of 2023 , I pulled back . I'm like this is this is enough , it's , it's , it's a lot of money , it's great money .

I can probably keep hiring this way , but I hate my life again , like I don't want to build another body shop and that's the effectively what you know where I'd worked outside of vendors . I'm like I don't want to do that . I want this to be meaningful . I love helping people and I want to help American businesses effectively .

The mid-sized mama pops getting bigger , maybe getting into private equity , but I want to have a meaningful impact there . I don't want to get them after they've gone corporate because then I'm just talking to a middle manager who doesn't have real say . I'm like I want to talk to the leaders .

So we stepped back and the big question I had in my mind was what does across my career ? I've been doing this for 20 years what's the commonality ? And my thought process then was no one's ever really ready when they buy . Was no one's ever really ready when they buy . No one really talks about all the stuff at the business level that should be done .

That would help influence who you're working with but also impact all the things that come along .

You know , when you get into configuration and design there's I can't tell you the number of times I've gone into a meeting and I've asked a simple question at least I assumed it was simple and you get multiple answers and people look at each other kind of shocked like oh , you're not thinking the same way I am and instantly like guess what that derails the

project ? We're going to spend more time in design than anyone anticipated , and unless you get more budget , something's going to have to give , which is training , testing , go live , support , all the things down the road that are like forever away , and I'm like that's , that's the part we need to fix . So we started brainstorming .

I'm like what have I done that's been successful ? And that's when we started carving up and coming up with something called Clarity . First , and it's a framework . I have three big questions , with questions inside of that , all geared towards letting people know should you invest now and most of the time ?

If it's not , yes , it's not yet , because if you're growing , eventually you're going to need one . And then there's things behind it that are objective . Another one is where aren't you ready , which is a hard pill for people to swallow .

So we get into that Unpacking that around teams , process data , all the things that an ERP doesn't necessarily need or will probably should . But you can get away with it because there's another aspect to the whole operation that way . But so we started doing that and that's where we went full into it , and I've walked away from a lot of revenue to get there .

It was pretty painful and then eventually , since we weren't getting traction until just after uh , I had to . I had to let that guy go . You know which was like losing your right arm . It really sucked . And it was at that perfect time though , too . He was getting married , he was buying a house . They want to start a family .

He needed stability that I couldn't give him . Where , where I'm I'm second time I can do this . My wife works , so there's some cushion there too . Two of my kids are out of the house at this point , so it's just different all around . They weren't then , but they are now .

So I bit the bullet and said , well , I'm going to go double down on the mission-based piece of this , and so I had to start from scratch . I had to get my message out there , figure out how to talk to people , figure out how do I get in front of an audience . Podcasts became part of that plan Right on .

Little by little , towards the middle of the year , I started getting more leads coming in , and so I didn't have to do any weird consulting gigs anymore . That kind of kept the lights on , but , you know , divided your attention Didn't really , didn't really help my mission , and I've been doing it ever since .

It's not it's not something where I'm getting enough traction yet to hire a team . It's like feast and famine I'll get a couple , then there's a , there's a , there's a you know dry spot , and then I get more . So it's it's like start and stop jerky . So I'm in survival mode still at this point , you know . And then I've been looking for what's in my .

Am I pulling too much versus , or am I pushing too much versus pulling where clients are coming to me ? And this is a problem . So I have the .

I guess I'm blessed enough to know that I have , if I can be , I'm finding the fit and I'm going to have something that I enjoy doing long-term , that I can build a team around and I can choose to either sell it or keep going and maybe run it forever and sponsor other businesses , cause that's how my brain works .

You know , no , you're not global . Somebody's address is another thing , yeah , and sort of like puff up and try to appear as something that you're not , and it sounds like your approach is the opposite and it might take longer as a result , to get , maybe , where you want to get .

But it sounds like you have a much deeper sense of clarity about how you want to run a business , this time around very much , and you're zooming out and looking at the whole family experience and the financial side of it and the the impact on your employees .

You mentioned the one that had to leave um to start a family and those are the kinds of learnings that you can't read about . I wish we could . I wish somebody else could just download all of the learnings and then apply them immediately and increase their odds of success .

Two or three X , but that's just not human nature when folks are willing to talk about these things in such a candid and frank way .

And I don't know what happens next for you , of course , but I love that you are putting yourself out there , because I'm convinced that when you show up that way , there are some people out there that are absolutely attracted to that way of doing things , and we just try to connect them .

So when we grow awareness for smaller businesses , you don't have it all figured out . You're not a $50 million a year thing , you're very early in the process and we want to offer that support to you . I also just love talking warehousing and WMS and all that stuff myself too .

So selfishly we could record for a couple more hours because I want to know what those three questions are that you ask . I've implemented a WMS myself .

I've opened new facilities under an existing ERP that had a WMS module inside of it and I couldn't change anything because it was a copy paste of all the other distribution centers and it didn't quite work for the way I wanted to do it , and so I feel the pain of having been the user of the WMS , and so maybe you and I we need to have our own McGregor

brew house conversation sometime , and I want to pick your brain on all the ways to do it more expertly in the future . When you think now , wrapping up , who is the type of business or somebody that you would be a great fit for , that should reach out to you .

It didn't go well for all the reasons of why I do what I do . So pulled me

in and while I was working with them , they were captivated by the quick wins that I offer , which I just do as a you know like hey , this kind of helps offset my fees . Well , they , they drank it up and they were so approachable and you know they're a small business . So there's , you know there's not a big budget for consulting .

I'm probably the first one they've worked with , or maybe in a long time , because they had a bad taste in their mouth . That's what I'm up against . But so I'm really thinking about doubling down in that space of upstart 3PLs , because they need , they need the WMS right off , right out of the gate .

I've been working with distributors too , but there's that , that , that milestone of we've finally outgrown the erp with the module , wms module and everyone is in alignment with that , or they're at least asking the question where I can come in and help paint the picture of yes or no . You should do this , 3pls .

It's much earlier , uh , the organization's more flat so we can have the conversations . They enjoy this , this content . That's where they found me . I can be real , super real and polished , or corporate , yep , you know all the things that I , I value , I might , this , I get to be more , uh it's .

It's a combination of the warehouse management guy but also the business consultant guy , because I come in and ask like are you capturing all the revenue you should be capturing ? Because I know in a 3po world , you know labor is massively expensive , the margins are low and what I'm seeing you do here , do you capture that ?

Because if you're not doing it consistently , you're giving people free rides and that's killing you on the back end here , whether you see it or not . So I love that part and that's really kind of opened my eyes . How do I get in front of more of those folks ?

And I've met so many other entrepreneurs that have networks in that realm , either like matchmakers or other some other offshoots of that , that are like oh yeah , we bump into these folks all the time . We we don't have any way to help them Like , well , yeah , perfect client for me , let's , let's , let's help them make them bigger .

They're good for you , I help them , you help me , so everybody wins . So that's where I think I'm really going on that side of things . It's it's the smaller upside upstarts , and that might not just be 3pls , I don't know .

I've bumped into some brands on the e-com side that really want to get in and do their own fulfillment and they have the same challenges of yeah , what do we do early on ? What do we do ? We're kind of figuring out and making it work , but is it dumb ?

Like you know , are we doing things the hard way , versus like you come in and tell us to make a change and suddenly you know we're three times more productive . So that's the kind of stuff I like now . My big challenge now is how do I make that profitable for me long term , where I can build , sure , and not just be limited to me ?

It's where the real work gets done .

Tons of hardworking people that get up in the middle of the night , three o'clock in the morning , four o'clock in the morning , show up at a distribution center an hour later and get to work and lifting heavy things and walking long distances and driving heavy and sometimes dangerous equipment , and they're interacting alongside technologists and finance professionals and

customer teams , and I always like to tip my hat to them . I'm responsible for a distribution center right now , you know , with around 30 or 40 people , and I always love to honor them because they do the work that doesn't get seen and if we , you know leadership and technologists and vendors do our jobs really , really well , they also benefit .

It's a safer work environment , it's more ergonomic , it is less taxing , it's more intelligent .

How it's done and engaging those folks in that kind of work is a blast , yeah , and so , yeah , it keeps lighting the fire for me talking to you , casey , because I it's easy to get lost in the business of business sometimes and need to zoom out and say , why are we doing this ? Oh , that's right .

Mostly do everything that we do for people , our families , our teams , our customers , and so thanks for bringing that full circle today and we wish you nothing but the best . Again , I always end by saying we're all rooting for you .

We really are , and I can't wait until you get up to full stride yourself , and then we can come back and do an update in a year and say , hey , where are they now , casey , what's up ? And we can hear from you . But thanks again for being here today .

Thanks for listening to another episode of the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics , and a special thank you to our sponsors and the team behind the scenes who make it all possible . Be sure to like , follow or subscribe to the podcast to get the latest updates .

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