1048. #TFCP - What If The Market Doesn't Change?

And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, I only talked. 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. Happy Friday, everyone. Last day of the week and then we are out on the road, actually, these next couple of weeks here. And I'll be out in Florida, in Jacksonville for a technovations and everything next week. So if you see me out there, say hi. I'll be doing my live show from that event out there and I am always looking forward to getting out on the road. But yeah, today.

So I just want to do a little quick recap of the week. You know, obviously I had the guy from Convoy of Hope on Wednesday. And again, I just wanted to reiterate that the links to donate on Convoy of Hope will be listed up on like the show notes on all of my episodes. And it's going to be up on like our weekly newsletter that we drop on Wednesday and everything else. I mean, we're going to keep that going for a while, you guys.

Again, I'm not affiliated with Convoy of Hope, but like, it's an organization that, you know, and especially after speaking with them, it's an organization that I think is great to align with if you're able to donate anything to help out the victims of, these hurricanes that have just absolutely decimated the south here for these last couple of weeks, to definitely, do that if you can. And those links are going to be out there because I know some people just don't know who to reach out to, you know, or who to donate to. They want to help, but they don't know where to turn. And that is a great organization to check out.

So that link will be shared out there on all the show notes and everything else for the foreseeable future because as they said, it's not the pre storm donations, it's the post work that they do afterwards. And, you know, and just to keep that funded, you guys. And, you know, the thing that I like the most about what he said was, is, you know, they could, through their court, like their partners and everything out there, they're able to turn a $50 donation into $250 worth of value of goods and everything for people to utilize during that time. But, yeah, so that was just a little quick recap on that.

Now, yesterday had a really good conversation with Jeff, with cass, and I wanted to bring him on and, you know, cause again, to really talk about the, you know, like, the challenges in the market as a whole. Right. And where we're seeing things right now. And, you know, I wanted to bring him on because, you know, the data always tells a story and I wanted people to see that, although it's challenging out there in the market right now, I wanted people to see that, like, the market is kind of performing the way it always has. If you pull out, like I said, you guys on their website, you can go up to the last, like 15 years worth of market data and to see where things are. And, yeah, obviously, inflation is a very real thing in the real world. And I understand that.

And I'm not trying to discredit anything out there right now. I'm not trying to say that it's not tough out there, especially if you got in and you have high payments on your equipment and everything else. And so I'm not, I get it. I get where most people are coming from when it comes down to it like that. But I just, I wanted people to see the macro view of all of this and how the market performs right now is very similar to how the market performed for a very long time, excluding those two years. You know, you could say late 2020 through all of 2022. You know, those were an anomaly. Those were a black swan event that accounted for a lot of chaos across the world.

So, you know, when you're out there and you're planning for things, it's good to look out at the long term to see, like, is this kind of normal, what we're experiencing right now and everything that you see out there in the market really paints a, a, this is a normal freight market picture. I mean, I don't know if most people just forgot the way that things worked pre 2020 and everything else, but it is you know, it's one of those things that, you know, that this might be how things are. And I think that, you know, to serve really to survive in business and everything else, it really needs to focus in and you really need to focus in on the health of your operation.

It is literally paying attention to every dollar that you have coming in, you know, and saving as much as you possibly can for those rainy days because the rainy days are going to come and they're going to come more often than not out there. So I feel like that's one of the big things, to really pay attention to because, you know, we could sit here and hope all we want that things are going to change and get better. And you know, I think mainly a lot of the people just want it to be easy again. Right. I, they want all of this money just to be coming in and just not think about things.

But what you're experiencing right now, I feel like is a very good opportunity to become very savvy in working your over your fixed costs, your p and L and all of that stuff. And like I've said numerous times on this show, you guys, numerous times, you need to work with the CPA, you need to work with a bookkeeper, you need to start looking at the financials of your business so you can see where are you spending money, where is it necessary and where is it unnecessary? And, you know, and look into these things. What are your financial options in business, right? Because again, there's a lot of stuff out there that can happen. Okay? There's a lot of stuff that will happen in business and you need to be prepared for that.

Ultimately you need to, because if nothing changes in the next twelve months, are you just going to give up on your dream? I think that's one of those situations that some people might find themselves in. Right. And I would never advocate for that or anything, but I think ultimately, at the end of the day, we really need to pay attention and accept the fact that this might be the way things are going to be for a while. And however we want to react to that, however we want to handle a lot of this stuff is it's going to be very beneficial for us to take this time right now and really look at how our business is performing, how our business is operating and really get things taken care of out there. So I found this article, and this is from fleet owner.com.

And I thought that this was going to be kind of a really good one to kind of piggyback off of on what were talking about yesterday with everything, right. About just kind of dealing with, you know, this, what goes on and, you know, in adjusting in your business, right? And it goes on, you know, because it goes on to say that the past few years have been a whirlwind. Logistics companies have learned to grapple with changes by implementing some of their own. The study examines relationships between three pls and shippers by surveying senior executives and leaders to provide valuable insights on why some organizations have elected not use three pls. The survey results indicate that both shippers and three pls to continue invest in visibility and technology.

And then the current state of the three PL market goes on to say shippers and three PL providers have a lot to contend with this year. Impacts of the pandemic such as inventory management challenges, trucking capacity, and consumer demands continue to plague the industry. Inflation has impacted the cost of labor, equipment, logistics services, and raw materials. And then let's see here. This year has been particularly challenged in three PL and shipper relationships. Last year, 95% of shippers felt their relationships were successful with three pls, compared to 89% this year. That's a pretty big drop. Last year, nearly every three PL surveyed felt their relationships with shippers were successful. Shocker. Oh, man. Regardless of the shippers and three pls need each other, the inconsistency in the physical distribution of the supply chain world. Well, I'm just kind of summarizing here.

A trend that skewed downward is the shippers belief that three PlS contribute to better customer service, 82% this year compared to 89% last year. Shippers noted a more drastic change in their beliefs that three Pl contribute to reducing logistics costs, 66% this year compared to 80% last year. And then the shifts in the expectations. And then due to these negatives out there, according to the survey, do the negative numbers signal a shift in expectations? The majority of shippers, 68%, most frequently request control tower visibility technology. That's up. Okay, hold on. Another notable shifts is including, Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so, you know, again, I think that, you know, from reading this article and you guys can go out there, it's on fleet owner.com. You know, I want to talk about, you know, again, looking at your internal business, right? Like what?

Like, are your customers okay with you? Are they satisfied with you or are they loyal to you? And I think that there's three different classifications of it out there. And, you know, I ultimately think, you know, it in, I, this isn't everywhere but what I've experienced out there as a sales rep. And I think that most sales reps, and, hell, you could even go as far as some people in business, I would probably argue. A lot of people think that just because they're doing something, they're entitled to success, right. That, like, people should just pay them because they exist. And I think that's one of the biggest issues plaguing a lot of people, is they get the business, then they think that the work is done.

And if you've listened to this show for any period of time, you've heard me reiterate this numerous times, selling the front end is ultimately the easy part, you guys. The real work will always start. When the transactions start rolling through, that's when the real work will always start. Because it's easy to sell, right? Like, ultimately, it's easy to go out there and sell your service and say that everything's going to be great and everything's going to be fine, and there's never going to be any issues until there's an issue, right. And that's where, you know, and again, and I understand that you got to go through some situations to really get that confidence, right. You got to go through some scenarios where you get a little bit more comfortable dealing with, challenging situations.

And, you know, that from my perspective, that's where the real value comes in. Working with somebody like myself who's been through some stuff, right? Like, I, there aren't a lot of scenarios that I'm faced with on the transactional level of freight, right? Like, if there's a delay, what do I do? If there's a breakdown, what do I do? If there's, you know, damage to the product, what do I do? If there's, you know, something happens, what do I do? I'm not necessarily faced with a lot of situations anymore where I don't know what to do or how to handle a lot of that. And I think that's what they're ultimately talking about in this article isdev. Every, when it's good, everybody's a rock star.

Everybody's an all star, but you really, your time to shine in business really comes in when things aren't favorable, right? Because that's where the real opportunity is to separate yourself, because ultimately, and you can make some direct parallels to this in your personal life as well. Most people shy in a little bit of adversity, right? And I'm not even talking like major problems. Most people, the second there's just a slight bit of inconvenience or adversity, turn and run in the other direction. Well, I'm here to tell you guys, that is where you need to really like, strap in and put on your thinking cap about how you're going to come to a resolution, because ultimately that is how you are really going to separate yourself from your competition. I truly feel that way.

I think in today's day and age, there's so much data, there's so much technology that everybody has access to. Ultimately, there's real no clear service difference about like what we're all trying to accomplish, right? You can list the biggest, you can go out there and look at the biggest freight broker in North America, all right? And then you can go down to the one person startup, for example. We're offering the same shit, right? Like ultimately we're offering capacity, you know, the ability to manage their transportation a little bit. Yada, yada. We all have technology, we all have all of that stuff, right? So, like, ultimately, how are you going to separate yourself in a flooded market? It's, you know, from my perspective, it's really going to boil down to when something happens, right?

Cause that's where my real value comes to shine is going through and coming up with solutions. Because I'm, I bet, like I said, I've been through these things and I know not everybody out there, has been through these situations ultimately, right? So, you know, again, from my scenario, when you're going out there and you're attacking this right now because it is very challenging out there in the market from a business development standpoint, from all of that stuff. The, I want you to start thinking about that as you're going out there and making your cold calls, right? Cause ultimately, that is what really, builds up that anxiety for a lot of people, ultimately. Cause, like, there's so much rejection that's involved in it. There's so much you know, I mean, realistically, I'll just, to be truthful, you guys get more voicemails than anything, all right?

Like, you're gonna get way more voicemails than actual confrontation on the phone. And it's way more weight made up in your head about how bad it is than it actually is when you're getting that feedback out there. But you know, ultimately a way to look through it is, you know, you need to go out there, you need to make your dials and you need to start telling yourself like, hey, ultimately this is going to be the easy part, right? Making your cold calls, talking to people about your services, introducing yourself to as many people as possible. That's going to ultimately be the easy part because the real work is always going to start when the transactions start moving and then really when it boils down to it.

Because ultimately guys, trucks showing up on time and delivering on time, as I've said numerous times, is the expectation. There's not a ton of value in that. Yes, it's valuable, but like that's kind of your job, right? So I think ultimately when there's an issue that arises, you can't turn a blind eye and say you're going to just go find new business. And then brokers especially, it's the same shit. And I'm not just saying this on the customer side, it's on the carrier side as well. The fact that some brokers out there completely disregard the carrier in this entire transaction is insane to me. It is absolutely insane. Carriers and customers are one a and one b of importance. You're not going to change my opinion on that, all right?

And they are completely interchangeable out there because I would rather have a solid group of carriers that are there for me because, you know, ultimately I've just been, if I'm looking at this from the long term of my career, I've lost customers before, but I've got customers back. But I've also kept the same group of carriers through all of that. So they've almost been more of a constant throughout everything than some of my customers. Right. Because you know you're going to lose business sometimes, you guys, because the decision maker leaves, they shuffle up their organization, whatever that looks like. There's a lot of stuff that's outside of your control in that and I've had a lot of that stuff happen. I've lost customers because I fucked up before too, though. But ultimately that constant throughout all of it though is my carrier partners.

That's why I will always say that they are one a and one b of importance out there and brokers need to really look at that from a different light. So I think a lot of the volatility in stuff that we're seeing out there is going to continue. I truly do. I think it's going to continue. I don't see anything changing anytime soon. Right. And it's easy to sit here and say, oh, 2025. But, but again, what if the way things are right now happen in 2025? 2026, we don't know. Right? Ultimately, nobody knows. There's a lot of stuff riding on a lot right now. But what are you going to do to keep your business profitable? Ho sway, what is up, man? He says too many casuals flooded the market. It's the same people leaving. And that's the thing, man.

There's a lot of people who saw that gold rush in that time and then entered the market because of that, and they're slowly flooding out. But that, you know, again, it's just the typical cycle that kind of comes along with every boom and bust in any industry, right? It's just like in real estate, everybody's a real estate agent. When the real estate markets hot or a mortgage broker or everything else, and it just filters through. And I think that the people who take this time to actually run their business like a real business are going to be even more profitable when things change, right? And then when the market flips and everything else, and that's the way that you need to attack it. It's just what you signed up for out there. And Jose way, please keep posting all of your videos, man.

I like them. I watch them every time that you post. I love seeing those out there, man. But, you know, I think that, you know, the challenges are, that are in the market. I think that everything that's going on out there is just part of it, right? So I think you really need to accept the fact that there's a lot of stuff that is outside of your control, but you need to focus on controlling your controllables, most importantly, especially in your business. All right? You need to control your controllables. You need to find out what it is that you can improve upon, and then ultimately, you just got to stick with it because, you know, and this is why I love, you know, if you guys don't follow Andy for Sella, I would highly recommend you guys go out there and follow him.

Listen to his podcast, the real Af podcast, you know, talking about business and everything else, because you guys, it takes so much longer than you think to build up something sustainable, and you're gonna go through a ton of shit, right? Like, I know that there's a lot of people and it's. It's flooded into LinkedIn right now about this whole, you know, give up your paycheck style talk out there. And, you know, again, I'm an entrepreneur through and through. Right? Like, I love this game, but ultimately, there's not a lot talked about the real side of what you will face out there because it's very expensive to run a business. It is very expensive to run a business. And I think people would be shocked at my little operation.

I'm a small business and I'm not going to talk about my numbers on the show or anything like that. But if you saw my fixed costs, if you saw my p and l, you'd probably be pretty surprised on what it is, what goes into running this, right? And then you amplify that into a brokerage or a trucking company and everything else. And I just think that it's doable, right? You can go out there and you can make it happen. I want to be abundantly clear, but it costs a lot more than people think. It costs a lot more. You have to personally guarantee way more than you think, especially when you first get started out, you know, like you're going to, everything is going to be on the line for you when you go out there and start a business and everything else and.

But there no better time to do it than right now. You know, I really think that. I think that most people are just going to continue to focus on how do I find an easier way. And you need to look at it as how can I get better in my business and how can you really separate yourself, out there in the market? Because this is literally the hardest thing you're ever going to do. I mean, it's, there's so much stuff that pops up throughout time that you just don't think about when you have the blinders on of, oh, hey, I just started this business, I'm going to be a millionaire in 30 days. And then the reality of things start to come in.

And that's why, you know, again, that's what makes you a more valuable person or a more valuable entrepreneur is the more situations you find yourself in, the better you're going to become at decision making and everything else out there, because, you know, nobody's got a plan for this, right? Like, ultimately, you guys are creating your own blueprints, you guys are creating your own systems, your processes and everything. And then after a while, once you find out, after you've applied some of these systems for a while and then you find out that they're wrong, guess what? It's on you to change them. Find out what you did wrong and adapt and make those things happen. Right.

So I think ultimately, no matter what is happening in the macro economics of things and then the market and everything else, you got to focus on what you can control, right? Because, like, again, I'm a small business. I can't control what. What goes on in large corporations, on the amount of inventory they buy and all of that. I can't control any of that stuff. I can control my daily actions, and I can control setting up those disciplines to hold myself accountable, to make my outreaches every single day to grow my business. And then when I do get that opportunity, I don't take anybody's business for granted. I don't take any of these opportunities that I have in my companies as I'm entitled to them, because, again, it's an ROI.

People need to see the benefit of working with you over somebody else, and you got to continue to deliver that day in and day out. So I think that, you know, no matter what happens out there, you know, we can't control a lot of it. But you can control your business. You can control educating yourself on how do you become more, you know, effective in your company. Right? Like I said, it's working with the right people. You know, looking at, you know, if you don't have a bookkeeper, hire a bookkeeper. If you don't have a CPa, hire a CPA. Become more financially literate in how things operate. And I think that long term, that is going to be the most beneficial thing for you in business. That's going to help you sustain the low markets.

That's going to help you excel in the high markets and everything else. And then again, like we've talked about numerous times on the show, but I think it's very important, to talk about, especially after, everything that's kind of been going on with, you know, the storms, port shutdowns, and everything else, learn from these situations, you guys, because ultimately, success leaves clues. All right? A lot of these large companies, for example, that are multi billion dollar organizations there. And, you know, especially if they're publicly traded, right? Like, essentially, all their moves are published out in their ten k and everything else. But pay attention to how some of these companies operate in those markets, right? I mean, I always use the famous night swift example from a couple of years ago, and everybody was panic buying trucks. They were selling their excess trucks.

They were selling their. Their equipment and everything else, right? I'm not saying that, you know, if you're not in a place to do that, if you have one truck, obviously. But again, pay attention to that stuff. Learn from some of these companies and start applying them into your business. Whether you're a yemenite, small, medium or large business, there's a lot of stuff that you can do during this time to get this all worked out and to kind of right in your ship. Because again, if you have your company right now and it's not performing the way that you want it to perform, regardless of what's happening in the market, it is on you to fix it, all right? And that's the beauty of it.

You got to learn, you got to learn from all of these lessons and you got to take, make those necessary changes and then you got to point that ship in the right direction because people are going to win in this market, all right? People are going to win in this market. People are going to add more customers. People are going to add more revenue. They're going to expand. They're going to grow. They're going to do all of that, all right? And you need to look at that somebody's going to win during this time and it needs to be you, all right? You need to win. If you are a business owner, you need to win. Your livelihood depends on it, just like it does in my business and everything else. And I will figure it out.

And if I can figure it out, anybody can figure it out. But that is going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. We will be back on Monday. As always, you guys. If you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. All right, if you're looking for a good organization to donate money to help out with the victims of the hurricanes out there, convoy for hope. The link is going to be in the show. Notes on the audio only. Replay on itunes and Spotify. You can find it out there and everything, you guys. But I appreciate each and every one of you who tune into this show, you guys, it's wild to be a part of it and, you know, and I just, I can't thank you guys all enough for that, but that's going to be it.

I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon. Bye.