Lightning like Steve McQueen I'm in the fast lane when the light turns green and I built tough I ain't nothing but grit because I made rugged blood, sweat and spit yeah, like a horse I fly for a bumpy ride I like to play hard but I work harder and I weather the storm because I'm built stronger. What is up, ladies and gentlemen, we are back. We are live. It is the freight coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 08:30 a.m. Pacific, 1030 Central to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve. So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. We are going to jump right in, you guys. I got a couple of very special guests for you guys here today. I'm actually going to be speaking with them here in a couple of weeks out in Florida at technovations and we're going to be talking about like leveraging some technology inside of your operations, what it can do out there.
So I got my good friend Mitch with Ty on the show and then Andrew as well on here. So Andrew, Mitch, thank you guys so much for joining me.
Appreciate it. Thanks for having us.
Hey, thanks, Chris. Appreciate being here.
No, I know. It's good to have you back on. Mitch, Andrew, the three of us, we've jumped on a couple of calls already to really plan out how things are going for our chat here in a couple weeks. What I'm the most excited about though is the direction of where we're going with it, with the technology that's in there. But it's also how do we capitalize on the fundamentals of this industry inside of tech and everything like that. So Mitch, you're actually like, you're leading this panel out there, man. So like, from your perspective, how are like, what are people going to be able to kind of expect from this?
Yeah, I'm really excited to be doing it. We get to switch chairs, right? So instead of you host and I get to host. So that'll be fun, right? We get to ask the questions that you. So I'm really looking forward to this. It's, it's going to be a fun discussion. We're going to talk about how we can take technology and implement technology in our businesses and kind of talk about a little more around like the purpose of technology as well and where it enables our applications, where it enables our business to better and help make our business take the next step forward and the role of technology in that process.
So Andrew, with you and Bedrock right now, man, as well, like, how have you guys personally seen the benefits of implementing a lot of this stuff into your operations compared to. Because like you and I have been broker in freight for a while now. So we kind of know like a pre tech world and the post tech world of kind of like where we're.
At for sure started off with fax machines to get rate confirmations back and, you know, those are long gone now. But, you know, we've kind of, I feel like we have a good perspective of this because, you know, we've implemented new tms, we've implemented new financial system integrations, new partners for, you know, with tracking and, you know, pricing. And, you know, some of it as people in our shoes is like, it's not all great. Some of it's wonderful and it's really trying to decipher, you know, when you're in a position like bedrock is a lot of people want to, you know, it's kind of the same story. It's like if we have this piece of technology, we can help you scale without having to do this and do that faster. And some of it's great, some of it's not.
And we've done it really well and we've done it really terrible. We learn more from doing it wrong than doing it right, I can tell you that for sure. But I'm like somebody who's on both sides is where I get super frustrated with technology. But I also embrace it at the same time because not everything needs to be digitized and not everything needs to be automated. Right. And I think the world right now, they're trying to figure out where does it make the most amount of sense. And that's just like us and everybody else, we're trying to figure it out. And when we've done it right, it's been wonderful. Right. And when we've done it wrong, you know, you're stuck with an expense that's not giving you the RoI.
So, Mitch, how do you deal with that, though, as like a leader of a tech company. When you hear stuff like that, you know, from Andrew, like, hey, tech can be frustrating at times, you know? So, like, how do you kind of decipher, like, hey, this is the direction that we're going to kind of go with this stuff.
I love the way Andrew's putting it because I feel the same way. Right. I run a technology company, but I also run a company, and so we deal with the same thing. You know, I'm a technology guy at heart, right? I mean, I love technology. It's a, it's created a career for me. So I love all of that. But one of the things that he's saying that I really agree with is that sometimes you make bad choices on technology. You take a misstep because there's more to it than just purchasing a product. It's an area where I get frustrated with my team as well as we'll say, like, wow, this product looks really cool. It's going to help us manage this component of our business. Well, that's great. I mean, that sounds like it'll work. However, it's only half the battle.
The other half the battle is how are you going to use it? How are you going to implement it with your team? How are you going to get that adoption through the business to really show you that it's making a difference and you have to have both. The same thing applies to our TMS that we provide, is that we can't just give you a TMS, and it's not going to transform your business. We can give you a TMS that can help you transform your business. If you implement it in your business, you have to be prepared for that. And it doesn't mean you have to gut everything you're doing. And I think Andrew's a great example of this.
He took our TMS and brought it in and made some changes and has continued to improve and develop and change processes through his organization to help let that technology platform add the value it's supposed to add.
So, yeah, go ahead, Andrew. I'm sorry.
I was going to say kind of adding to that. And I think every single person who's worked with brokers or in a brokerage can understand this is like when you implement technology. We're dealing with our own team who are a bunch of salespeople, a bunch of brokers who I always joke around as you could pay them more money than they're generating. They're still feeling like they're getting shorted a little bit. So trying to convince them to do something they don't want to do is always a challenge. And for us with technology, and this is what I would say is hands down the most important part is the support because stuff does not always go right, and most of the time it doesn't.
And that's where with Ty, like, you know, went from, you know, we're a pretty established brokerage and we immediately just went to a whole new TMS. And, you know, the first month was really difficult, but, you know, there were little things that were able to kind of adapt what were doing. But when we said, hey, we've got this issue, this won't work. It has to be adapted. You know, we got hurt, right? We used to be on a very large, well known, robust TMS and we would still be working on our first ticket right now for some of these changes. And so even with our tracking partners that we work with, that you know, with Ty and them, they hear us, they make the changes quickly, they adapt.
You know, it's from a person who's running a business is like, you know, anybody who runs a business who knows anything knows that it's never going to be perfect. Right? But when you go ahead.
No, I was gonna say so, like, from your decision, you know, with your company, Andrew, like, how did you end up deciding on a company like Ty? Right. So it's like for all of those out there. Cause people are, especially in today's market, are going to be looking at their tech stack, like, what's working, what's not working if they are trying to make a change. What were some of those deciding factors when you were meeting with the team at Ty? Because, you know, making a transition for a TMS isn't anything that I'm assuming you guys didn't take that lightly, right?
Yeah, we met. We met with everybody and it's the people and it's. There's not even a close second. Is that the people that were showing us, presenting it, Mitch himself, Sean, everybody, right? Like just kind of going through the demonstrations and we reached out to a bunch of people who had used the system because my biggest concern was support. I can live with things not going as planned. I can't live without them being addressed or a solution towards the end. And that's that. You know, some of the stuff that we've gotten updated, it didn't happen overnight, but it's happened. And, you know, I've been in a system where it just, you know, it's just an act of Congress to just even get your voice heard on some of the stuff you're trying to do. And that was an over.
If you ask all of Ty's customers, that's an overwhelming response that we got was that their support and their team listen, right. And I think, you know, you take a look as like, you know, Apple software when they come out with a new update, you know, 17.1 or whatever it is, and then two days later they're like, oh my God, there's a major security flaw. Comes out the next day. It's one of the biggest companies in the world. So if they have problems, Bedrock's going to have problems and so is Ty. But, you know, when you get to them and addressing them is, that's a big thing. The other thing I also took a look at is I looked at their people and where they were in the marketplaces. You know, Bedrock's trying to take over the world and so is Ty.
And I feel like our groups of our people are kind of the similar time in the industry, similar goals of what we're trying to accomplish. And it wasn't like us being a younger brokerage out there kind of climbing the mountain and then just an established tms that was just been there for 25 years and things weren't changing. It's kind of entering the marketplace at the same maturity level.
I got you and. Yeah, go ahead, Mitch.
I love hearing that, Andrew, and thank you so much for all the kind words. And it works both ways.
Right.
We have to work with, as I was kind of saying earlier on, with a company that wants to implement the product and is looking to make some changes and implement a TMS that will help you make your business better. And so that's one of the things that we definitely saw during the bedrock implementation is that, yeah, there were challenges that came up. We worked through them, came up with solutions and some of those are going to be a little bit negative, but hopefully the positive ones far outweigh it once you get implemented. And it's great to see and hear that the team's achieving that level of success too, because that's what we try to do. But hearing it from you definitely makes it feel a lot better too. So thank you for that.
Yeah, I was going to say, Mitch, how do you decipher though, like when you get that feedback from Andrew and some of your other customers about where your product's at and kind of like the functionality of it, how do you decipher, like, what's feasible and what's not, how can you actually change that? Direction without completely, like, I'm not a tech guy at all, right? Like, I know how to turn my computer on. So it's like, when a lot of these changes come to your plate, which inevitably probably happens, how do you decipher, like, hey, that's a really good idea. We can implement that. Here's a, here's a realistic timeframe. And, hey, that's just a little outside of our realm of capabilities.
Transparency and honesty is really the way you have to do it. Right? Because you're exactly right. Sometimes the recommendations or requests that come in are things that we can do. Sometimes they're just things that are too difficult or things that really just aren't feasible, and you just have to be transparent about that. But also, one of the things Andrew said is we got to listen. We have to listen to the business case. We have to listen to what's trying to be accomplished. And one of the parts that we really try to do is dig in past the how you do it and listen more to what are you trying to do? What's the use case here? What's the business reason that we're doing this? And then find a solution that meets in the middle there?
Maybe we can find a way that isn't the way that you're currently doing it. Maybe it's better, maybe it's an extra click, maybe it's two clicks less. Maybe it's a little different of a flow, but accomplishing the same objective and that way of thinking and that way of working is one of the things that I think a lot of software companies are missing. But something that we really try to embrace, and I was touching on it earlier as well, is that earlier on, like, when were first getting our first round of tmss and our first round of technology, and 15 years ago, we just needed a Tmsheen. Like, we just needed a product that kept us off of pen and paper, that kept us out of excel. But that's not the world we live in today.
The world we live in today is we need a software partner that's going to enable us for success. We need a software partner that's looking at, how can I take a TMS and connect it to a tracking application? And I can't say, like, well, you know, as a TMS, we only work with this one tracking application. We have to be flexible enough to work with others because who knows? Andrew may come to us tomorrow and say, hey, you know what? I have this really large customer that came in. They work with this one tracking application and we're never going to get them to change.
Yeah.
How can you help me? And I can't say like, well, we work with this one. That's it. And we have to be thinking about best in class. We have to be thinking about connectivity and flexibility so that the TMS product is enabling the business and that it's always adding value, that it's always helping build up a partnership with our customers.
Yeah. So Andrew, from your seat, man, like you undoubtedly probably demo a lot of stuff. You probably get a lot of people coming to you trying to get you to switch or you know, hey, you need this piece of tech or that piece of tech. How are you sitting there and kind of making those decisions right now about like what do you actually need? Right? Because it's like if you sit here and, you know, scroll through any form of social media, you need 87,000 platforms before you book one load. And it's like, well how am I gonna pay for that? Right? So it's like from your seat, how do you really decipher like this is what you actually need? And then like maybe as some revenue comes in that's a luxury item that we could look at that time.
That's, that's the million dollar question because the, a lot of the providers that are bolt on to tmss have kind of found this price point of where there it doesn't seem like that much money, right? But it's like, you know, I tell the story of like when, you know, my wife and I first got married long time ago and like we moved into a house and we got like 0% financing on like furniture, best buy, like everything you need. Then all of a sudden you're spending like $1,000 a month and you don't even own the furniture you're still paying money on because like, you know, you've had it for so long. And that's how I, sometimes these things can kind of get you right? And you know, I made the comment when we last talked.
I was like, you could be, you know, 5000 thousand dollars in and not even move to load if you really got everything. It's really kind of determining, you know, and I think this is different between what type of brokerage you are too. Like where you are in your size and what your model. There's a million different ways to be a successful freight brokerage. Like, you know, the models that all across the board there's lots of people making tons of money. But for us, like I just, I really focus on, is it going to make it quicker for the broker? Because, like, I am still such a believer that speed is the most important thing that you can do in our job. Whether, you know, one of my favorite things about Ty is that I could build 20 loads in 20 minutes.
Like just boom, boom. And for us, you know, because these customers, you know, everybody's like wanting everything to be all automated and digitized and streamlined. It's the customers that are going to be the hardest things for us to change because they're the ones who ultimately pay the end bills so they don't have to change what they're doing. We don't have to force them to change how they send over information. And if they don't want to, they don't. And so, you know, that's one thing that's really important is be able to get information in system like quoting tools. Is it quickly? Because, you know, a lot of times customer, if they send you over 2020 lanes to quote, some of them want them back in ten to 15 minutes, right.
You can't go run it through this process that's cumbersome and you can't run it through five different tools. You have to have everything into one spot and spit it out right in front of you, and you gotta be able to get it back quick. So maybe that's just me personally, maybe it's the bedrock type of customers. But speed is such a big deal for me. So if it doesn't make us faster, it's tough for me to want.
So let's go back to like, you know, being a smaller company though, right? Cause there's people from all sizes, you know, that tune into this show and I always say if you're out there and you're a freight broker, you need a TMS. Like, ultimately you need a TMS and load boards to start. Like, if you're looking at from a bare bones basic, this is what you need to go. Because like, I'm a. And again, all of the people who are, you know, part of CRMs, like I've said every single time you guys dm me after I say this, I understand the value of a CRM, but I also know that you can track all of that in an Excel spreadsheet if you're bootstrapping up there.
So it's like when you're looking at it from a dollar per dollar ROI, I think a TMS, the integrations inside of load boards and load boards. And that's really all you need to start from a tech perspective, 100% 100%.
We used to joke around is that, and I've got a friend of mine who's starting or has been building up a company, and we used to joke around that, saying that you could do $30,000 a month margin with a pen, paper, and, you know, the load boards, you know, like in a phone. But after that, if you really want to start kind of scaling, you have to start getting some organization. And, you know, it kind of goes into the tech part of, like, you know, what do you replace? What do you improve and what do you do? It's tough, but you are absolutely right. You don't need this stuff to get started, but I think you need it to get to the next plateau.
I think that's really well said in that get the tools that are appropriate for your level of your business. But as kind of, you were mentioning, like, what do you need? When do you need it? You should reevaluate this every year, or if you're growing really fast, maybe even more frequently than that, but take some time. Put on your calendar one day a year, and I try to do this for our business as well, is take that one day a year and just look at all of our processes. Where do we have weaknesses? Where do we have a challenges? Where can we better as an organization? You know, ask people in your team and evaluate your business. So, yeah, right out the gate, I'd agree with you.
TMS and some load boards are fine, but maybe in six months or a year, the next thing you need would be maybe getting highway, get your CRM in there, you know, get a tracking tool in there as you get to that next step. And then it's the next step. Maybe you need to upgrade your tms because the free or entry level tms aren't working for you anymore. Reevaluate these things as you move along, because you can't expect your business to stay the same. And it's also not worth the investment to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or put this huge burden in front of you so that you have every tool in place you can possibly imagine. You're better off, as Andrew's kind of saying, start hitting the streets. Let's build the volume up for the business along with the technology.
It's not like build the technology, then the business. Build them both incremental.
And I think that's what it is. It's like you think when you're building something that all the business is just going to come to you because you started your llc right I think that's one of the, probably the biggest misconceptions about when you start a business that, oh, I'm going to be rich in six days, right. That's all it's going to take, you know, so it's like, as you're going out there and making those decisions, like, I would recommend you almost go in there from like a revenue multiplier perspective, right? Like, hey, hypothetical example, you're at $5 million top line revenue. Let's assess our tech stack. Let's see where we could implement maybe then it's 1525, whatever that looks like.
And then see, because you're, it's very easy to get caught up early on into the, just do all of this stuff and then this business is going to come. But, you know, from a freight brokerage perspective, from somebody who's actually cold calling every single day, I have yet to have a customer or prospect ask me what my tech stack looks like, right? So it's like you need to get the business before you start adding on. And I think, like fundamentally, most people, when you're starting out, you need to sell, you need to cold call. I have not had very minimal success with email outreach from a business development perspective, from freight brokerage. All of the success that we've had have come from picking up the phone and dialing and stashing everything on an excel spreadsheet. Essentially, that's what we've done.
And we've grown a couple hundred percent year over year with this method. All right, so it's like, and I think as you kind of grow and scale, then it's like, hey, we hit this level of revenue. Now let's look at some of these other technology. What can we do to implement? Maybe it's, you know, Andrew, you brought up a great point about speed quoting everything else. Maybe there's a botanical, you know, to scrape. You know, your email of whatever that comes through, it has an integration with the green screens that auto replies with the rate to your customer and stuff like that. So it's like, I think as you hit certain levels, that's when you need to start looking at it. But, you know, the paralysis analysis is a very real thing when you have no money.
And then you think like, oh, if I spend money all of a sudden I'm just going to make it instantly. And that's not always the case. Like, I think you really need to stick with the fundamentals to, you get to a certain revenue number annually and then you start looking at adding on the bells and whistles.
Yeah, I really agree with where you're going with that. And one of the points that'll come up, I'm sure after that will be the work smarter, not harder. But I don't think. I think that's not a valid argument and against what you're saying. It's an argument to support what you're saying is you got to put the work in. These things don't happen easily. It's not easy running a business, not easy starting a freight brokerage. It's not easy for any of us. We have to get the work in. We have to put the effort out. And whether or not you're using a bot to help make that a little bit faster, whether you're calling and emailing and texting and posting, the harder you're willing to work, the more successful you're going to be.
And then as you add work smart along with the work hard, exponentially makes you better and better for sure.
It's talk about building it. As I always joke with people, I said, like the first five years, every day I walked into the office and I was like, is this going to be it? Type of deal? Because like, you know, it is so volatile with what we do. It's so difficult. And everybody out there who's built a book of business should pat themselves on the back, especially over the past couple of years, as this is a tough industry. I think kind of back to, you know, what you were talking about with technology and the pricing is like, I guess, for bedrock. One of the challenges that we're looking at with like our technology and everybody we're dealing with is, I think the most difficult thing for people who are not industry vets is actually pricing. Right?
There's so much that goes into pricing that is like, if you understand how to price quickly and effectively, you know, you can, you can have a quick learning curve with new people, even if they're great at sales, is like having a good pricing strategy is a barrier to entry. You know, I learned a lot of lessons, like early on with, I lost a big reefer company early on in my. Because didn't realize that short runs over the weekend, the pricing matrices don't add up. They are way more expensive. Right. You know, little things like that, you know, not all the tools can capture effectively. Or when you do it, when they say, hey, here's this quote, an experienced person, before they quote back, they say, what day is this shipping on?
Because that's going to affect and knowing what day it ships is the difference between landing a customer and not landing a customer because your price could be vastly different. So whatever you can do with technology to speed the learning curve of development, I think that would be my close number two, besides speed.
Yeah, I get it. And you know, I want to use, were almost out of time here, so I want to use the last couple of minutes that we have talking about more, a little bit more about our session and what people can really expect when they're sitting down here. Right? Because, you know, Mitch is, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Mitch, you've only worked in technology for the entirety of your career. You've built this up, you know, and then Andrew and I are freight brokers at heart, right? So it's like we're coming out here and we're balancing this stuff out every single day about, you know, technology, what to implement, what to use, what not to use. And you know, when you have customer demands, you know, because like ultimately that's the deciding factor.
And Andrew, you could probably agree with me on that. If a customer comes to us and says you need this piece of technology, we're going to a guy like Mitch and we're like, hey, Mitch, we need this done like yesterday.
Yeah, for sure. And that's where Ty is awesome though, because like there's especially early on we had conversations of like, you know, and we made concessions too, of like we need this and they present an alternative. We'd always come to a solution, but we've had a couple conversations early on where say like if we can't do this, it just would not work for us. And then we have really good, like around the customers, right. Because they're the ultimately the ones who pay us, who pay for everything, right. You know, so, and that, I think that's what Ty's been very good about. They can decipher when we're just, hey, could we do this? Or we need to do this.
Yeah, go ahead, Mitch, I appreciate that. And part of that is that. Cause you're absolutely right. Like from the technology side, we need to be thinking about our customer and what our customers are accomplishing. And it's an important part of the partnership to understand our company. So like an example of that is every person who works for Ty, even though we're a software company, we're supporting software. Every one of the people goes through a freight training program so they know what it's like to be a broker. A lot of them actually have been brokers as well, because that expertise allows us to relate a little bit better and be that trusted partner. And so kind of jump into your question about what are we going to see. I'm really excited about this session because doing it live is always a lot of fun, too.
We'll have an audience in front of us that'll get to ask us some questions as well. If anyone's going to technovations or all those people who are going technovations, please come in and join us to listen to the session. And we're going to talk about some of these same topics. We're going to get in a little more detail on some of the ways to plan and be strategic about your growth and the business. We're going to talk about a little more depth and a little more around this idea of how will technology help you and where does technology hurt you as well, which Andrew's kind of touched on a little bit more as well.
So it's going to be really fun to hit on these topics and spend a little bit more time and get in depth on them, on different components and where they all fit together.
Yeah, I'm sorry, Andrew, go ahead.
I was going to say two good perspectives, too, because, you know, it's doing all this over the past year. I'm so happy we've done it. But oh, my God, it was a lot bigger undertaking than we thought. And so kind of got two very good vantage points, one from the TMS side and one from a brokerage trying to improve all their technology. So it's very good perspectives.
No, and that's exactly it, right. Is it's bringing the different perspectives about people's actual tangible experiences that they can apply to their business. Right. Because I think, like, ultimately, when you're going out there and you're listening to, and I mean, I going toot my own horn. This is why people tune into this show, right. Because it's real conversations with real people who are actually in the industry. There's no theory here, right. Like all the decisions that Andrew's made in his business over the last twelve, probably 24 months of when he probably started kicking around the idea that we got to make some changes, that's a very real decision that could completely tank a business or stand it into the stratosphere. Right. So a lot of these things are not taken lightly.
And that's what I'm really looking forward to the most when we sit down here in a couple of weeks and really break it down and get into, you know, like what Mitch brought up strategy, right? Like, hey, we're going to actually talk about granular strategy and decisions that were made out there. So, you know, with that being said, you guys, I really appreciate both of your time. And you guys go hit up technovations. Tiana, hit that up. If you guys want to register for that event or come check us out. We're talking on Thursday morning for the west coasters. It's going to be early for us on our clock, but we're going to be out there. We're going to make that happen for you guys. But check us out. We'll be going on Thursday and that'll be it for today.
As always, you guys, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys share it out there. Dear network, because if you see value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Thanks a lot.