Lightning like Steve McQueen? I'm in a fast lane when the light turns green And I built tough? I ain't nothing but grit? Cause 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, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what we 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. Happy holiday week, everybody. We're going to jump right in. I always love talking about this topic, and you're building out your tech stack inside of transportation. What do you actually need? But most importantly, like, how do you assess any of these providers?
And I'm bringing somebody on this show today who gets hit with this all the time and literally does this every single day to hope that we can put some more information out there that you guys can kind of bring in as you're deciding your tech platform out there. So I got my main man Eze on the show. Eze, what's going on, brother? How are you?
Doing great. Doing great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
No, man, I always. It's always a pleasure to talk with you about this. And you know, when we saw each other at Technovations and, you know, everything that's going on out there is, oh, AI this and AI that it. You know, from. From your perspective, man, like, how. How much of what you are brought out there? What, like, how are you deciding? Is it more of like a want versus need, like, or are you taking, like, feedback from the agents, like, hey, this is stuff that we're looking for. Are you constantly on the hunt to be like, hey, what's out there? How can we possibly get ahead of the curve here so we can bring some better tech to our. To our company?
Yeah, I think it comes a little bit from both sides. On one hand, we have the responsibility to be looking for what is coming and how the future looks like. But also at the same time, we need to listen to the day to day needs from our agents as well. So I think I see it as kind of like two paths there. Generally during conferences there is more the side of seeing what's available. But many times an agent would come with an idea and then it's like, well, we will assess if there's a product out there or if we will have the capacity to build it internally.
Yeah. Because I think there's so much out there right now, Eze, where it's like, I see it all the time. It's like, oh, this new piece of tech and that new piece of tech. And you know, as a broker I like, I kind of sit back when I see a lot of this stuff and I'm like, all right, who's actually asking for this? Because is a shipper asking for this or you know, and then. But most importantly is a driver asking for this as well? And you know, how does that balance out? Because I feel like, you know, what's your opinion on this man? Do you think that there's too much technology at some point and like it's kind of over states what you actually need to do as a broker?
I don't see it as being too much technology. I think what some of that helps me and also just because we also made many mistakes along the way as everyone. Right. You know, it's impossible to always make the best decision in every scenario. But something that helps is to think about alignment and the outcomes that you're pursuing as a business. And I think sometimes we forget that piece and then we get entangled in the technology itself and the technology itself sometimes not going to solve a problem if you are not, if it's not in alignment with your, with the outcomes that you're pursuing. So I think maybe a specific vendor that might not be, you know, in alignment with one broker, maybe they are the perfect fit for another one.
So that's why I also think that there are so many tools and different technologies coming out. Because I think everyone is finding their niche and the alignment with specific scenarios, like it's not the same being a broker that makes 5 million revenue per year or someone who makes 100 or someone who makes 500 or a billion. Yeah, but it's true to your point also, it's true that shippers are asking for more. Right. So there are certain technologies that are going to Come from that side, there are carriers asking for other things. So there's going to be technology that comes from that side. And then you have the kind of like peripheral things or that overarching technologies that affect everything. Like AI, for example. Right. So you're going to have all those forces.
So that's why I think that explains why there are so many vendors and technology out there, I think.
Do you think that, you know, because I think like there, you know, I always look at it, you know, need versus want is kind of my big thing. And you know, you brought up the different scales of a brokerage, right? You got the $5 million, 50, $500 billion brokers out there and how they each need something different. And then I think knowing that and being like realistic about what you actually need inside of your business, because, you know, not everybody is an agent with an SPI who has, like, you guys are very tech forward thinking in a lot of what you guys do. Right. It's not just inside of our operating system. You know, it's with claims, it's with accounting, like everything. You guys are all encompassing of that. And not everybody takes that.
But a lot of people sit back and they're like, oh, if that company has that, we need that. And that's not necessarily the case because I feel like, you know, I say this all the time, man. I feel like as a broker, the one thing you should invest in first is a solid tms. Like, get that one that has integrations already in with load boards. Because I feel like that's the next iteration from a broker's perspective is it's like, all right, you need your tms, you need a way to source your carriers. And then I would say number three is probably back office support. Right? Like, whether it's a factoring company or, you know, maybe your bank has it for payments or whatever that looks like. I think those are probably the top three. And then that, like, and then that.
I think that might take you up a lot further in the revenue game than you really think.
Yeah. And I think it's important to have. Develop the ability to have your own roadmap and then that roadmap for your business. Even if it's not a technology roadmap, it's a business roadmap.
Yeah.
And then your technology investment, you need to evaluate it against that roadmap. And that's going to clarify a lot of things because, yeah, you might buy a piece of technology that makes you book 100 times more loads, but then if you don't have the back office, your back office is not streamlined. Then you have a bottleneck in processing all those invoices and paying those carriers. And at the end of the day you need to add people in those roles and you're you already missing that alignment that initially you needed. So maybe even maybe before buying that tool that is going to make you win 100 times more freight, you need to maybe streamline some other part of the process. And I agree with you.
I think TMS and I think one of the main things to look at is integrations, always the ability to have, if they don't have them, the ability to add them. You know, sometimes working with the vendor for them to add them. Or if you can develop your own, if they have APIs and you can develop your own. I do think there is a lot of for the ones who can invest in it, having some of your technology being custom built, I think there is value on that. Not everyone can afford the investment of software development and the risk involved in it too. But I think when it's done properly, I think it's a good combination that buying some, I would say a good guideline would be trying to buy what is very standard functionality.
Like for example, anything related to accounting is quite standard, right? You're not going to reinvent that. A tms order management, it's quite standard. So you're not going to build your own tms. But there are maybe certain integrations, certain customizations that you might want to do that are very specific to your business. Those I think make sense sometimes to build and building not always mean building a full application. Sometimes you can build stuff with tools that are available today. It's really easy. It's easier than ever to build as well.
Okay, so how do you think, how do you decipher a lot of what gets thrown at you from an opportunities perspective? Because I could only assume the amount of cold emails and outreach you get from tech companies that are out there inside of freight. How would you assess, maybe what advice would you give to somebody who doesn't like how would you put it into a bucket? Is it, is it a revenue producing bucket that the outreach goes into? Like hey, is this a shipper who's asking for this? How do you kind of decipher like what you look at? And a lot of that is more geared towards. Not everybody has your expertise out there as a.
But these, you know, there's other business leaders inside of this industry that gets this exact same bombardment of outreach and they want to improve their business but they might not have the budget to do it. So how do you kind of decipher what's worth exploring and what's not?
Yeah, I think it comes. I'd like to come back to the idea of the business roadmap. Right. So if you know the outcomes that your business is pursuing on a specific timeframe, you want to focus on the tech offerings that are in line with where you're at in your roadmap and try to not go too far in advance and try being patient sometimes that it's better to build up a solution, even if it's a partnership with a vendor. Building up over time is better than trying to get a fast, quick result. But yeah, I qualify them into. Yeah, revenue generation opportunities sometimes is related to efficiency. Just you're trying to make a certain process more efficient and that will free up time that then you can take into revenue generating activities. So everything ends up being revenue generating somehow. Right. Indirectly or directly.
And then there are also the cases when a shipper is asking for a specific need. And in those cases, many times we just stop doing what we're doing and then we go right away into building or buying. Mostly building in our case, but. Or buying the tool that the shipper is asking for if that business worth the investment. Right.
So when you say building, are you talking about like you and the team at SPI building out like a custom integration with a shipper who might have a piece of specific technology that they need for the freight and then rtms might not have that connectivity, so we build an API on the back end. Is that what you're kind of talking about?
Yeah, yeah. And there are sometimes requests like for example, we need a file dropped with this specific format on this specific server once a day for. And that's something that their back office will grab and do some process that we don't even, we might not even know what it is. But they need that file there. Right. And that might be just a scheduled job that we create to do that. Or it's mostly those requests are kind of out of the ordinary and. Yeah, exactly what you said. Like maybe the TMS doesn't have that specific functionality and we just, yeah, filled it out.
What are your thoughts with where freight tech is as a whole? You know, like, maybe if you don't want to answer this, I completely understand, but I, I feel like there's a lot of noise out there and not a lot of like actual necessity for that inside of a brokerage. Right. And I, you know, because it's like I go out there and I see a lot of these new companies coming up. And again, I'm a capitalist, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm not saying this shouldn't be a part of the market, but how much of it is noise as opposed to like actual applicability inside of a broker's business? Or is it more of a pipe dream five, 10 years away? Or you know, like. Cause I just see a lot of this, you know, and we'll talk, you know, AI in particular.
And this isn't a knock on any AI company in general, but I feel like it's the latest buzzword that's being thrown around out there. And again, I want to be a billionaire tomorrow too. Right? Who doesn't, who doesn't want to go out there? But like, is that something that is. I know AI is here and it's a powerful tool, but is this something that needs to be seriously taken at, or is there so much noise out there on the AI buzz in the tech world, like not just freight, but like tech in general, that it's being oversold, overpriced and everything else, and it's not necessarily that much of a value add to in today's dollars?
Yeah, that's a very good question. I think it's important to develop criteria to be able to look through all the hype and the fomo. And I think that criteria, going back to what I was saying before, if you have, you know, if you have an understanding of where you're at in the maturity of your business, it's going to be easier to navigate that because you're going to, you know, if you're being honest and saying, I'm not ready for this tool, I'm not ready for this, and also I don't have the need. Right. So I think making your needs drive your decisions. It's a good idea. And I think, yeah, there might be some noise, but I don't think that's a problem or a consequence of any problem with the industry or the tech industry.
I think part of it is also related to how software companies operate and the fact that if you're a software startup, it's hard and you're trying to get revenue, there's a lot of competition and you're trying. Sometimes people might also take shortcuts in order to get that revenue because they have investors to respond to. And, and in many cases a brokerage is trying to build up something that is long term. And sometimes that long term vision doesn't really fit with the taking shortcuts vision that some people might be even forced to like. It's not something that people are trying to be like, oh, I'm going to make a bad product or anything. I don't think there is mal intent in anybody, but it's just a consequence of how things work and how hard it is to also have a software company or startup. Right?
No, definitely. And you know, I look at it a lot of when I'm out there actively, you know, when I'm talking to the shippers and my prospects and everything else, I feel like a lot of these shippers that might require technology. If you're going in it from like a pure business development standpoint, a lot of those accounts, like realistically, man, they're not going to talk to me for two to four years. Like they have a lot of requirements behind it. Right. That need to get up there. So I think that's another thing to take into consideration as you're going out there and assessing what technology is in the market right now is, are your customers even really going to ask for that? And then B, are the customers that might require, what's the probability of you onboarding them?
And then what does that timeframe look like? And again, back to your tech roadmap here. Like maybe you can plan that out. Like, hey, this is my 24 month goal to have this because this aligns with some of my current prospects. And you know, and I'm just going in it because, you know, like I was talking with, you know, you and James were both there. I think you were there when were having lunch. But like I'm looking at my P and l every 90 days and I'm like, all right, what is this going for? What is that going for? Like, I treat this deal because like this is a real business, right? On the media side of things, I'm like, what am I spending? What's the roi? Do we actually use this?
Because it's easy to get emotional in the moment and be like, yes, sign up for it. And it's always, you know, $50 here, $90 there. But you know, if you look at it over time, I mean we're talking about 5,000 plus dollars a year on little integrations here and there are little 50, $80 a month accounts. And I mean that for most small businesses that's a large sum of money on annual basis and you're emotionally using it in the moment.
Yes. And I think yeah, it's important to evaluate that return and also be completely honest in if you're really ready to do what is needed to make a technology project succeed. Because a lot of the times, even if the technology is good, you need to be able to support the changes needed in your organization. Sometimes, let's say if you incorporate tools to automate your tender process, well, then you need to think about your compensation model because there might be resistance from, you know, people that might feel that there's some sort of threat there because you're automating something that they're doing. And even if that's not your not the idea, you need to still be ready to face those changes.
And a lot of the times I think projects fail or succeed more because of the effort of the organization to push the project forward than because of the quality of the technology. And going back to what I said before, I don't want to sound like I think it's okay sometimes to partner with someone who is building up their product as long as they are honest and they're like, well, we are building this up what I don't like. Or I think it's a red flag for people to as an advice for people who are evaluating technologies.
If the salesperson is saying yes to absolutely everything and they're not asking you questions about your business, if they are not trying to understand where you are at and they're just saying yes to everything that you asked for, that sometimes could be a red flag because it means that they're just trying to close the deal, not really make a partnership for long term and meet you where you're at.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And being honest about the platform's current capabilities because otherwise you're locked into a contract and you were told that it was a thing and then you find out it's six months down the road. And then you realize it's six months down the road before they even start about having a conversation about doing an integration and everything. And you know, I'm actually, it's funny because I'm listening to Marc Benioff's book, audio book right now and he talks about that and how Salesforce, they kind of flipped everything on the its back and they're like, no, we are a pure monthly subscription. Like you do not with no long term contracts, none of that stuff. If you're not happy with us, you cancel it. And he's.
I'm at the point in the book where they're talking, starting to talk about that, do you think in freight tech that's going to eventually make its way in here again, I don't know every company's, you know, contracts or do you think it's going to switch to more of a pure SaaS model where it's like, hey, it's a 30 day thing, there's no long term contracts anymore. And do you think that would help companies, at least the sales reps of these tech companies be more honest about their capabilities? Because now they can't say that get you locked into a 12 month contract because you'll cancel in 30 days if you don't actually have what you're promising in the sales pitch.
I think that changing the model should not be needed to achieve that transparency and honesty. I think with the current model like, you know, that should be just the standard. I think it's tricky because also it's hard to maintain a technology startup, right? It's hard to get the revenue and it's hard to build software that is good quality and cost effective and that is cheap. You cannot have it all so that, you know, if you are salesforce, you have more structure to kind of like back that up, right? Like you can have that monthly subscription model but you have millions of customers, right? As a freight tech startup it might be harder to offer that because you're gonna go on a, you're gonna be at a loss for a while, right?
And then eventually if you don't, if that company doesn't make it, then you are leaving those customers, you know, with that void, right? So I think there needs to be a balance. And I think also as customers and customer of a lot of freight tech vendors, I think it's fine sometimes to have that long term contract as long as there is the transparency of what the product is and where it's at. If that's transparent, then I think it doesn't really matter if it's monthly or if it's 12 months, 24 months. Actually sometimes we prefer doing a three year term because you can get actually a more, you know, closer collaboration and you know, contract is not a problem. It's like we are not worried about the contract now let's worry about making these projects succeed. Like let's, you know, that's out of the way.
Do you think, you know, Robert Cowton, he brought this up, you know, maximizing the available technology that's out there. Do you think that more people should be like expecting more from their tech vendors on showing the full capabilities and almost Doing like, I don't know, I don't want to call it like a quarterly training or anything like that, but you know, like, how can you make sure you're getting the most out of the technology that's out there?
I think one of the problems that I see in the free tech environment, it's related to what you're saying there. That is governance.
Okay.
I think governance of the implementation of projects and governance over the data. Sometimes it's not very clear. You get a contract with a vendor and it's not clear who is the owner of the project, who should be doing what to make that project succeed. And I think that's another good indicator of if a partnership is going to be a good one or not. Before getting into an involvement, it's being clear about who is going to be the owner of the success of the project. It's always a collaboration, but it needs to be clear what are the responsibilities of the customer and the vendor. And I think that's something that needs to be talked about more is governance. And also governance of the data is like who owns that data? Is that data just now the vendor can do anything they want with the data.
It's not very clear in the current scenario what, how does that look like, what our vendors doing with the data? There's not much, there's no regulation present. So. But yeah, I think the key point there is governance. Who owns the projects?
I think that you know, I always like, this is just my own personal perspective on things is I really dislike when I reach out to somebody and I'm like, hey, does your stuff do this? And they're like yeah, it's done this who time? I'm like, well why was this never brought to your attention? Like I want thorough capabilities, right? Like I want to know everything and that's why it's like, you know, again it's not necessary. But I think that's why I will always gravitate towards tech that was designed by people who used to do the job that I'm doing and they built tech around it because they saw that there was a need for that in their day to day.
Because to me it's like, I don't think that, like I'm a firm believer that, you know, we all kind of have the same data. Now when it comes down to it from a pricing perspective, I think that there's so much stuff that's out there. I personally feel like everybody's kind of quoting around the exact same rate for most lanes. That's out there. There's just too much data now. Shippers are on. Shippers have their own data now to go off of. It's a lot different landscape than it used to be. So it's like, for me, it's just like those little things, those little soft skills that I look for about how do I increase my output, right? Like, how do I get more quotes out in a day?
Like when I'm dealing with an issue one load and another customer of mine reaches out for a rate, how do I make sure that's getting responded to in a timely manner? And then if I win that, how do I make sure that load's getting built in a timely manner and everything else. So those are the big things. To me from like a workflow perspective, that's what I want to invest in the most. Because I just, I need to be faster, Right. Like, no matter what, it's a game of speed in most instances. Sometimes it's not the cheapest rate, it's the fastest rate that got back to the customer.
Yeah. And it's speed and reliability, Right? Speed, reliability and accuracy, I would say. And going back to the beginning when were talking about what are good guidelines to try to find vendors and yeah, I think that's a point to look at the training capabilities and also the quality attributes, right? Like, what are the quality attributes that you want to improve? It's like speed. I want to improve accuracy of my load building. You know, I want to reduce the amount of errors or I want to increase the security because I'm getting, you know, my team, my software, like, it's getting hacked frequently or so that's a good guideline too. It's like what quality attributes you want to improve in your business and then try to find technology that fulfills that.
You know, don't, don't get lost in the new shiny, you know, the new shiny object that comes up.
And that's where I'm at too, right, Is I feel like there's a lot of shiny objects that are out there. But, you know, I think your advice, eze, about where knowing where you're at in your business and building out a tech roadmap to that and kind of how that aligns with certain revenue markers. And again, like, I look at it like this, like it. Sometimes you got to invest in stuff before. I don't want to say before you can afford it. But like, sometimes you need to take that risk and invest in something. You know, like there's going to Be a shipper who's going to come to you at some point and say, hey, we have this. If you want to move our freight, it costs X to do it.
Every single, like that's going to be a real decision that you need to make. So that's going to be a cost benefit analysis there. Is it worth it? Is your team able to fully maximize that?
I need to take the time to do it. It takes time, it takes an effort. And a lot of people also say, oh, I want to maximize my investment. But then you need to also spend the time analyzing the data, downloading data and like going through it and really going through that exercise of finding the opportunity and being honest. Because yeah, maybe you partner with a vendor and they agree on, give you training, but then you're never available for the training. You don't have the time to do it, you know, so it's a commitment from both sides.
Yeah, no, and you do, you need to invest in that. You need to, you need to find the time to make it work. And it's not going to come in that nine to five. But as always, man, I appreciate you coming on. Like, I learned so much every time I talk to you about this because, you know, a lot of people need to start taking a more pragmatic look at how they're investing and deploying capital out there to invest in their technical infrastructure of their business as opposed to, oh, it's AI, boom, I'll spend five grand a month on that or whatever that is, you know, like, it's gotta be like, what's the roi? Is it applicable to my day to day?
And you know, I know I'm fortunate as being an agent with spi, knowing that you're out there and you know, and this is everybody inside of SPI and you know, again, shameless plug. This is why I love working inside of SPI as an agent is you guys are constantly on the forefront, whether it be technology, insurance, everything to make sure that we are given the best tools out there to succeed in business. So I can't thank you enough for all that stuff, man.
Thank you, thank you, Chris. Thank you very much.
And hey, that's going to be it for today, you guys. We will be back tomorrow. We got a guest coming on tomorrow, but it's Thanksgiving week. Everybody get a hold of your shippers, your receivers, find out when they're open closing down all of that stuff so you can stay ahead of it. As always. If you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show you guys share it out there to your 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. The running joke.