All right, we're going to start in 3, 2 and 1. 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, 8:30 in Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys, we're here to actually talk about and provide some actual insight into the transportation industry. You guys, 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. I got a very special guest for you guys here. You guys are kind of seeing this because this is like a pre recorded episode. To be completely honest with you guys. We're going to throw this out there, but I got my friend John Cooper here. He's, he's an agent with spi. I'm an agent with spi and you know, he's got a really unique journey in the industry and kind of getting to where he is today.
So with that being said, John, thank you so much for joining me.
Hey, thanks for having me, Chris. It's, it's great to be part of what you're doing. I'm super impressed by the podcast, the sponsors and really wish you would have existed maybe 10 years ago. Help me speed along my process.
Dude, it's, you know that right there, what you just said is literally why I, I do this. And it's one of those things where I just wanted to put, I wanted to put content out there that would just help people. At the end of the day, like, I don't know the answer to everything, but like, I just wanted people to know that, like, hey, I've actually done the job that I'm talking about or now, like, hey, I'm actually in the trenches. I'm doing this. This isn't a theory, right? Like, I'm not a consultant who's sitting back, who's never actually moved a load before, trying to tell people, like, oh, well, this is what I think I would do. I've been consulting for a very long time.
I just think that there is a big difference between sitting on the sidelines and being on the Trent in the trenches. And you know, I, the messages that I get from people like that are when people ask how do It? Every single day. It's those messages from people at this point, you know, because I'm coming up on doing this for five years now and I'm feeling more energetic about this because I know that there's people out there who get value out of this stuff, whether it's for me or my guests. And they're going to get value out of your story today too here, John. And it's like if they can get that and they apply it to their business and they get it and they see a difference in it, that's what it's all about to me, man.
Like, that's what I'm choosing to use social media for. It's not a self promotion. And yeah, I mean I benefit from having the podcast, but I've also worked very hard to get it to this point. But you know, at the end of the day I just want people to be able to know that like, hey, the message, whatever it is coming from people who are like actively doing this work. And there's no like, hey, at the end of the episode, if you made it this far, sign up for my course. It's, you know, it's 9 99amonth or whatever that is.
I've got to get one of those consultant gigs.
Yeah.
Just kidding. But yeah, so yeah, you've put in the reps and definitely experience is what people want to hear. And I feel like a lot of time it's bad experience that helps us learn and grow and maybe get closer with our customers too. But yeah, I like to quote Dr. Evil. He says the details of my life are quite interesting, inconsequential. You know, I'm originally from Oklahoma and been here in northwest Arkansas, Rogers. We're close to Walmart headquarters. Been here for about 25 years. We have two 24 year old big boys, married about five years. We love it. We're close. We're about 45 minutes away from Three Rivers. And so in the summer it's canoeing season. But, but right now it's karaoke season. Yeah. So I've got your lightning like Steve McQueen down. That's, I'm just joking. But I do love the music.
Dude, where I was going to say we're actually in a process of, we're doing a little bit of A rebrand here. We'll be coming out there a little bit. We're changing up the intro and the. In the music and everything. And, you know, it's just we've been using that one for a while now, and I like to change it up every once in a while until I can, you know, actually afford to pay a top tier musician to create a unique track just for me. We have to license out that music, so we only have the license for an extended period of time and then we got to go and change it up. But that's not a bad thing though, man. But so.
Dude, no, yeah, no, change is great.
So how did you get starting? Oh, go ahead.
No, I was just gonna say I believe that I heard your audio guy on like a Netflix show that I was, you know, checking out at one time and I should have messaged you at that time and shared it with you because I'm pretty sure that's the guy. But you're asking how did I get my start?
Yeah.
Yeah. So once upon a time in 2002, 2003, at UPS, unloading trailers in the early morning. And I did this for a while. And I'd work at UPS and something else. I worked at like a Dillard, and eventually I worked at sprint PCs and I did B2B, which is like talking to business owners about having cell phones. And so we'd have these cellular employee days. And I ended up at JB Hunt and sold a phone to Mr. Don Jenkins and his wife. And he was a recruiting manager and he recruited me to be a recruiter. And what that is code for is making about 100 calls a day. It was like an automated dialer. There was about 150 other guys doing what I was doing. And so it was super unique introduction. It was very narrow, you know, like, I didn't have the.
The knowledge. And what's funny is they said, they say the more knowledge you have, the less successful at recruiting you are. Isn't that funny? But it was preaching being out 14 days on the road at a time and then two days home. And so that's a tough sell. But some guys love to be out on the road. Yeah, Mostly it taught me to appreciate drivers, you know, being, you know, if you own it, a driver delivered it. And sometimes they're out two, three weeks at a time, and sometimes they like that, but other times it's. They're trying to provide, you know.
Yeah.
So, yeah, so, Yeah, I was there 03 to 09 and then eventually ended up in a Brokering role for Transplace, which is now they were purchased by Uber Freight and did some other brokering work. Never heard of it. Freight agent, any agency, anything. I was totally ignorant on that. And so 10 years ago would have loved this conversation to con to hear your words. But, But Covid hit 2020 and so my wife and I, well, our boys are 20, one's going to college, one's moving with his cousin. We're empty nesters. And so we sold the house, we said let's travel and so went to Cabo San Lucas and Florida mostly we spent our honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas in a place called La Paz.
Oh yeah.
And we did this course for super great jacu, so calls it the aquarium of the world. Right. And so we got our sailing certification. So I'm my wife's skipper, you know, she's like good at navigating and stuff. And, and by the way, speaking of spi and sailing, Carolyn Fawcett, I don't know if you know her, she's like out on about right now on vacation, making, having fun. Nice. Okay, so yeah, so yeah, so we traveled there and mostly to Florida. And this is a time where like gig economy has become a thing. Everybody's working from home and so we're so my wife's an oral surgery assistant for a long time and so she's looking at different websites and there's like PRN where you can do temp work for when someone's out of their oral surgery office and she can work for them.
So she found a gig for a snorkel guide. And so I became a snorkel guide in a place just north of Fort Lauderdale called Lauderdale by the Sea. And so I'm replying to the guy first of all and I'm interested and he's like he needs to pre qualify a person, whoever he's going to hire. And so he has tourists come in the early morning, you watch the sunrise, it's really cool. And so he says meet me over there at this, it's like a paid parking place is what it was, right on the beach. And so I, I see this guy, this long haired guy, shirtless, he's riding his bicycle barefoot. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the guy. About to meet this intimidating guy. Well, come to find out it was a 23 year old like programmer who was my boss.
But he's, his role was trip advisor and having people have a good time with the tour So I, anyhow, I had this tour guide role for a little while. Fast forwarding. Our boys needed us back in Arkansas. And so I'm listening to Shark Tank and how I built this NPR and all these different kind of cat, kind of not nine to five in a box rolls. And, and I, I ended up taking this marketing position called Flypaper in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And I'm listening to a podcast and I hear a guy named Josh Perry on. It was called the Startup Junkie podcast. And Josh Perry is the SPI agent in Arkansas and he's Andy's hiring and he has an app. And so I started working for Josh and he was not like any other brokerages that I worked with before.
He had like these niche, like he would haul hatching eggs. And so we have a load like this going on right now where we're taking some eggs that are, and they're still eggs but they're hatching. And so we take them from Arkansas to airport and then they go to Hawaii, you know, for example. And have I ever. Have I answered your question yet? No, he. Okay, so here's where, here's what happened. Josh is one of those guys where they say if you want something done, have a busy person do it. And so Josh, he was triple busy. He had the, he had the freight agency, he had this app that I, he was talking about on the podcast.
He's got a food truck and he's got a small construction company and you know, but his passion is what I haven't mentioned and that's like music management.
Yeah.
So. So long story short, he wanted to do that mostly and, and it created an opportunity and a blessing for me and you know, my little house, my tribe.
No dude, that I, I, you know, I, I like that. Right? Like, I like the non traditional journeys that most people have because I think that gives a lot of insight to a lot of the younger generation who thinks they need to have all their life figured out right. At 20 years old or 22 years old. And so true, you know, going out and trying different things. Like, you know, I had a guy on the show once who was like, it was actually just the other day and he was like, man, he's like, I did like seven different roles inside of a company because like I just wanted to learn everything about it. I took pay cuts and all of this stuff, wanted to be more well versed in it and how much it paid off to where he's at now in his business.
And I Think like, you know, that's one thing that I'm gonna push my son to do when he graduates and goes out. Like man, just go somewhere and just go work for a while. Just don't worry about school, don't worry about having it all figured out. Just go live life for a little bit and find what you want to do. Because eventually all paths will lead to where you're supposed to be. At least that's how I feel. Man, the older I get, the less and less I am concerned about do I have everything buttoned up to like what society feels like? I personally are like, man, screw society.
I'm going to do me, I'm going to do what makes me happy and I'm going to go after my dreams and you know, and where I'm at right now is like, man, it's nowhere near where I thought I was going to be. Like, if I was to go back at 25 years old and say, hey, where are you going to be at 40? This was not it at all. You know, have having a right, you know, the biggest podcast in the transportation industry, a growing freight brokerage. Like dude, I didn't think about, I thought I was going to be an executive at some company, some large company at this point in my life.
That's what I thought and it couldn't further from it but man, I couldn't be happier than where I'm at right now and on that pursuit of doing it for me and you know, it's one of those things that like what I love the most about being an agent and having it's having the resources that we have and are able to operate like a large corporation because I mean we pretty much are, right? Like there's not a decision I have to make right now when you're building up your business that is like, hey, do I not do this because like we can't afford to actually pay for that service or that software. Like we have those capabilities where we can flex. Like we're a couple hundred million dollar organization, we have all of those resources while we're building.
And that's one of the things that it's like, you know, when I talk to people who are like hey, I'm thinking about starting my own business and I'm like, I'm always open ears. I always love to talk to people who are thinking about doing it and money is always their biggest thing. They're like, well I'm going to go out there and raise money and do all of this, I'm like, oh, it's just that easy. You're just going to go raise capital. But like my number one thing about being an agent is yeah, there's a revenue share that goes along with it. But like, they don't own any equity in me. Right, but they're like an actual financial partner, they're a technology partner. They're there to help us grow, but they're completely hands off.
You know, like, we get to operate like we're our own entity out here. We. It's not like anybody's breathing down our throat, hey, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? That does not exist. At least here where it's like I feel 100% that like this is us. We're out here doing our thing and operate, but we're not like out on an island in a sense of like where nobody's, you know, at our, you know, like there's nobody that's able to help us out if we have any problems or anything like that. So I don't know, man, it's like, it's a perfect balance that's out there where it's like, hey, you have all the tools at your disposal. You know, like, we move high value freight at times where we have to buy additional insurance. We, we have that resources now.
Like, we have all of that stuff. But I'm able to make my own decisions and do what I want in it. And I think it's like, it's a perfect stepping stone for a lot of individuals that are out there that are like, you know, because I look at it like this, I don't plan on going back and working for anybody ever again. That's not going to happen. But I look at it for all those individuals that are out there, John, that are like, man, I want to go out and do something on my own, but I don't have the capital to fund it. That's where it's like an opportunity like this is such a prime role or a prime step for a lot of individuals to see. Like, hey, do you actually want to do this or do you.
Is that the facade of being out on your own that you like? Because it's like I look at it like this, man. Like, I can always go back and find a job, right? I'm not going to, but right, like this setup that the agent model is at least with SPI can't speak for anybody else because I've only been an agent with SPI I will only be an agent with SPI I get to do my own thing. And it's like, it truly gives you that ability to go out and build your own business, but also not feel like you have somebody breathing down your neck or like an investor is like, hey, man, where's your return? Where's the money? You know, we gave you $1 million. Why aren't you profitable yet? And all of that stuff.
Right, Right. Yeah. I definitely have encouraged my son to. To. To just. Yeah, do as much as you can become, you know, a Swiss army knife, you know, but really just with the purpose of finding what you like, you know, because even when we have a goal that we want to hit or a place we want to go with our whatever, you know, as a young person, what kind of employer or employee you want to be, you know, it. You. There's not a clear path.
Right.
You end up zigging and zagging and you can't plan. You know, a spontaneous moment. Sometimes you have a conversation, and it takes you somewhere that you would have never intended to be, and you sometimes are really thankful for that.
Yeah.
But. Yeah, and even within SPI Being an agent, you know, there. There's still. I remember I needed some help, or a customer asked, hey, do you guys go from port to port? We have something going on in Portugal. And. And so I was like, well, let me get back to you. So I get with our. Our team, and they introduce me to a guy named Tony who. Well, he, like, lives in Portugal.
Oh, wow.
And he's from, like, Florida. Yeah. And so. So. And that's what he does. It didn't, you know, they didn't need our services, but it was super cool that, you know, I never thought of, you know, freight forwarding other than, you know, listening to podcasts and. And learning about things that way.
Yeah. Yeah. And to me, like, that. That's the thing, right? Like, I know that there's, you know, there's obviously, there's positives and negatives to every situation, you know, and I know that some people are like, oh, you're better off just going out on your own and doing your own thing. And, you know, yeah, there's. There's some truth to that, but, like, at the end of the day, if, you know, I look at it from a business development standpoint right now, where you're out there prospecting, you never know when your number is going to get called with any customer at the end of the day. Right.
If you're out there actively prospect or you know, maybe you have an existing shipper right now and they're, you know, now they're going to institute some technology inside of their business and you essentially got to pay for it, like an EDI or an whatever you want to put out. And do you have the capital to pay for that though? You know, like that's a very real thing that a lot of people come up with. Like I think it's great a lot of the tech that's out there that is at your disposal, but like it's extremely expensive to pay for all of that stuff. And it's like, is it necessary or not?
And you know, to go back to the business development piece, I can say with confidence now that like if I have a customer who's like, hey, you need to be EDI compliant, you know, this laundry list of capabilities to even be able to move their freight, I know that it's not going to cost me, you know, like an employee essentially to come in and like can I actually afford it. Especially in that ramp up period that a lot of people for some reason don't like talking about when you're building a business is there's a lot of ebbs and flows of your revenue and some technology. Some things that are out there don't care that you had a down month. You still got to pay that bill every single month.
And that's like what you know, from the fin, I feel like it truly lists a financial burden off of your shoulders in a sense of like yes, there's a revenue share but like at the end of the day, if I have a customer who comes in and says hey, we need this, they're all on board with that, right? Within reason. I can't speak for spi, but any, we've came to them about something where it's like, hey, if it was EDI or we had to do a complex customer setup, they're like yeah, let's do it. You know, we don't have to look at it as a startup or a bootstrapped organization to be like, can we actually afford to onboard that shipper? You know, because that's something, you know, that's just the real, that's a big question point.
Yeah, that's so true. I mean everything is, you know, figureoutable. It's nice to be. What's it, what's the saying about we're standing on the shoulders of giants or people have figured things out for us yeah. I mean, it's nice to. I feel like it's like a translator. It's like, I don't speak that language, you know, so let's get with the folks at SPI who speak that.
Tech and that's how. I mean, man, there's just been instances.
And then we have to figure it out.
Yeah. I mean, when you're actually moving freight, when you're actually doing the work, shit happens at the end of the day, right? There's damages, there's unpaid bill, you know, unpaid claim, whatever you want to call it. It's nice to have that security blanket behind the scenes who are actively working for you in those moments, they want to help and everything else. And you know, because it's so easy to sit back and think like, oh, I started this business, everything's going to go perfect. We're going to be. Everybody thinks that you're going to be a millionaire within six months. And then when the real shit starts to hit the fan about stuff, it's nice to have those systems in place to help you navigate through some of those things. Because it's so fragile. You know, relationships in business are so fragile.
And if you can't come through when something happens in those instances, like, man, there's been times where we've had power only loads because we have a customer who does tow away trailers. We had one of their units break down in transit and it was like, you know, a tow bill that was a decent sum of money where most small businesses would not be able to pay it.
The driver tow companies have figured out whatever the maximum is correct.
That's what it is dialed in. But you know, that, that's another one of the many benefits though of working with a company like SPI is they're like, no, we'll put it on our. We'll take care of it for you know, because the customer was going to pay it, but it was after hours and everything else. And for them to front that capital and that risk is massive. You know, it's so. To be able to do that. And again, it's like, yeah, they're all about that solution in those moments. Because I want to sit here and think that everything is going to go perfect all the time, but I've just been out on my own now for five years. I know it's never, it's only a matter of, you know, it's never a matter of if.
It's a matter of when something happens and are you going to be able to stomach it when that happens. You know, a lot of people won't, man. A lot of people don't have the stomach for what it actually takes to get something off the ground and running because it is a long slow process that is just riddled with rejection and everything else that comes along with it. And to know that you have the, I think the bulk of things kind of covered behind the scenes with technology, insurance, finance, like we don't have to worry about, hey, you have to new of an mc we can't haul for. We have to worry about it. We can go out there and we can flex muscle and go and actually get stuff done.
And I think it's helped expedite a lot of that startup journey that's out there because I've worked for a startup brokerage before. I know how big of a pain in the asset is for the first year and a half to two years. When it comes to establishing your business credit, establishing a credit, getting all of that stuff out there, people actually know that you're a real business and that's why it's like, you know, to make. I don't even know how we got on this little tangent but just to kind of like wrap it up, that's. I'm a fan of being an agent like all of that and then some man. It's, it's the real deal. I feel like I can actually go out there and focus on building my business because like I hate all the back end, man.
Like I like selling, I like moving freight. That's what I like to do. Fortunately, I have a business partner who likes all that back end stuff but.
Like, you know, no fair.
At the end of the day though, man, I just want to go out there and focus on selling freight. I want to build those relationships with my carriers. My customers want to do that and that's the opportunity.
I mean, yeah, totally. I was going to say there's, I've heard a saying the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, you know, so it's like how thankful are we for having someone that speaks, you know, the language of. Well first of all the transparency of seeing what each carriers can handle, you know, just easily as far as insurance requirements go, cargo insurance. I had an experience where were hauling some wholesale plants from one place to another and the driver gets in an accident, SPI gets involved. One thing that happened with this is the person that was going to be the receiver. They didn't, they didn't know if they wanted these plants that have been in an accident and one of the things that they were able to do is pay the fee for our guys to get into this towing.
The, the tow guy was being a real jerk about everything. And so they paid to make the, make it happen so that we could water these living plants. Right. And keep these guys alive. It all worked out. And, and so anyhow, that's one of those experiences. That was a good story.
No man, I, I love that.
So dude, how are you keep our relationship. Those are the things. Oh no, I'm sorry, I was gonna say those bad experiences. Tentative bad experiences or possible bad. Having those, you know, helps progress the relationship with the customer when they work out. Yeah, no, I'm sorry, what were you gonna say?
No, I was gonna say like, you know, from my, from your perspective, man, how are you going out there and like building your book of business right now? Like are you out there get, you know, actively selling? Like what have you found success in, out there? Because, you know, at least for me, I talk about this a lot on the show. Is, is, you know, I'm all cold calling. Like we've tried email, we tried all that. So it didn't work at the level that we had hoped. And I'm trying to save people money and time and just go back to the basics. So we're all about cold calling and site visits. So like how are you attacking that angle and like growing out your operation?
Yeah, I love that. You know, when I was a young person, my parents were Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, so I've knocked on a lot of doors as a youngster. Yeah. And I've heard rejection before in that arena and in this arena. But yeah, you know, I, I do keep a little hard hat. I mean if I go into a place which is I can think of. So we had a customer in Maryland. They were delivering, they were saying they had an available load going to Arkansas. I'm like, that's in my neighborhood. Whatever it is, you know, we'll do that. We want to see this through. And so I brought my hard hat and my reflective in my safety goggles and my ear protection and my clipboard. Clipboard is a good one.
If you're going to stop in on purse in person, you look like your dot. But I just wanted to see the load through and it was going to a non profit organization over here, NWA Food bank. And so Northwest Arkansas Food Bank. And so yeah, just that's just knocking on doors and I forget what they told me. They asked me like, oh, are you here to inspect something? You know, I looked like I was. Yeah, I wasn't gonna not get seen, you know, but yeah, really, phone is what I prefer if there's, you know, there's no, if you get the positive result, there's no, it wasn't the wrong way, you know, but yeah, so calling is probably, you know, it's definitely. I mean it's like the other day when we spoke it was 16 degrees.
So it's not the time of day to the outside for me.
Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, I think everybody's got to get out there and kind of find their own way of doing it. Right. And I think like as competition continues to increase, you know, it's like how are you going to really stand out? And like that's kind of my thing. As you know, somebody who's been in sales for the overwhelming majority of my life is man, how do I stand out? How do I get them to think of me first when they need me? Because like I don't go in there and ask to bid on their freight. I don't know who taught that, but like I'm in there man. Like I'm actually trying to find out what it is that they're really moving at the end of the day, like outside of their commodity and product. I know what that is.
But like man, we do full truckload at the end of the day. Like that's where we want to stay in the open deck space. And I really want to get that established to really make sure like, is this somebody who I'm actually, that's actually worth following up with Because I think in a lot of the lead generation software that's out there gives you a lot of garbage at the end of the day. And then you spend so much time going after somebody or some entity that isn't actually going to give you any money in any point in time. Right.
And that's why it's like I feel like I can get so much more accomplished in a 32nd phone call or we can get, you know, in a five minute site visit by just showing up at a place or you know, we always call ahead. We don't just cold show up at places, we always call ahead and see if we can swing by and we can find out so much more about that. And again back to like what I was saying earlier. I think that there's almost more value in knowing who not to go after and what not to do than there is in what to do. And, you know, again, I want to. Everybody has a finite window to get their business off the ground. You know, like every capital is a very real thing. Not everybody's got an flow of money.
Yeah. There's no. There's no base salary going on.
Exactly right. So it's like I would. I find. And I've wired my brain this way now, and this is a recent revelation for me is. Is I've wired my brain now that when I find somebody who doesn't want to work with us for. For whatever reason, right, they might be ltl or, you know, they just don't have the freight that we're looking to move. I might do that to win. Now I know who not to call back. That means that I. I'm on the right path and I'm going to find.
That yes one no closer to a yes.
Yeah. And that's the literal definition of it. Because, like, I just. Like with any of anybody, I'm a regular human being. I've struggled. I struggle with that shit all the time. Rejection, the, you know, all of that stuff, it starts to add up. I don't care who you are, it will beat you down. And, you know, so from my perspective, I've almost gamified it from that way, John. It's now. It's a word. I'm out there. I'm like, all right, it's a no. Or, hey, we're not adding anybody right now. Okay, perfect. You weren't. If you're not adding anybody for the next 12 months, why would I continue to call you? You know, or at least why would I call every week?
Why would I waste that dial on somebody who tells me that when I could invest that dial into a potential yes on that next phone call? And that's just how I reprogram my brain now to where it's.
I love. I love what you said there with gamified, you know, because so much of our speech can be negative or passive, but. But making what we do or making the pursuit of growing our businesses into a game, that's a fun time, you know, because some people. Well, yeah, that's. It's. Yeah. One no closer to yes. It's people who are slam on the door slow. You know, it's like if you call it gamified, you know, I just. This whole conversation was worth it for me to. I'm going to write that down now.
No, absolutely, man. And that's where it is for me because it's like, you know, again, I don't want to go after something that's not going to benefit my business. Right. At the end of the day, we're a service provider, but I'm selling to the business. I'm not selling to the person on the phone. So it's like if I call somebody who clearly they manufacture pipe, clearly they are out there shipping on flatbeds. They work with outside providers. They're not adding anybody right now. That is somebody who I'm still going to follow up with. But if I call that exact same company and they're like, we have our own fleet. We don't work with any outside providers. Yes, they might manufacture pipe.
And if they do work with an outside provider, it's at such a small level that it's not worth pursuing long term because again, I need revenue 12 months out of the year. Not, not one time. I think it helps me focus in on the right customers that we can work and in prospect and then grow and scale with. I think too many people get hung up on these no's in a sense of like, oh, I'm gonna make now I'm gonna turn them into a yes, just watch. As opposed to, well, screw it. Why don't I just focus on this next one that will possibly work with me and not get hung up and try and convince somebody to work with me.
Like, I don't want to convince anybody for any reason to be in a relationship with me, whether it's a professional or a business setting, because I convinced them to. I want them to work with me because they like working with me and it's earned and all of that.
So again, yeah, and that may start snow slow and snowball something I've started adding with our existing, you know, customers. I want to be a great communicator. Like we all do something I started and we, and being appreciative, you know, I mean, they say to trade your expectation for appreciation, you know, and our world kind of changes. Whenever I'm thanking someone for a load, a customer for a load, at the end I'll. I've. Say thank you. And then I'm. Something I started adding is just like, let me know if you have any questions and if there's anything else we can do. And twice that's not a lot, but I've had customers say like, yeah, and we have another load today. So definitely appreciative of like Mike Mikalip talks about like having this deep Relationship and growing what we. What relationship?
We have already, like, we've. We've done tractor trailer for one customer that does commercial equipment. And then they've had us do, like, from point A of their. The customer to point to their other office and their trade shows hauling freight that is. That's going to be in the trade show.
Yep.
And. And then yesterday I got a phone.
I got a.
Not a phone call, but an email, and they asked, hey, what do you think about moving freight out of the port in Vancouver and taking it to Mississauga, Ontario?
Yeah.
So it's like, well, that's figureoutable.
Yeah.
And. And so anyhow. And they're like, well, maybe, but it's great to be able to say, hold on. And then, yes, you know, we could. We can have simple solutions. We can provide solutions for that.
No, absolutely. And I think that, that cross, you know, that upsell in time and, you know, I'm, you know, you brought up the appreciation factor of things. Like, I am so much more appreciative of the customers that I have now than I did. You know, that. I'm even proud to admit, early on in my career, it's just. It's different, man. Like now when you're out there actually hunting every single day like I am, you know, whether it's with, you know, the media company that I've built up here or, you know, the freight brokerage and, you know, people that are actually paying me fucking money, you know, and I'm just like, man, it's just different where it's like, I. I do not take any of this for granted.
You know, I do not take for granted the opportunity that I have in front of me with any of the shippers that I work with or any of the advertisers for my podcast. I don't take that stuff for granted, man. I like, because, like, at the end of the day, I'm not entitled to it. I. I'm all about the meritocracy, man. I'm gonna earn that. I'm gonna earn that revenue every single day. And that's what keeps me coming back more times. That's right. Is it's like, man, like, it. It's not like we're talking about a lot of money at the end of the day, and it's not an easy thing. People don't just, like, willingly give you something because you have a pulse. You got to earn that day in and day out. And that's what I love about all this stuff, man.
And I'm Just appreciative. I'm appreciative of your time today. And, you know, thanks for coming on and talking about your. Your story in the industry. I'm excited to. To see you continue.
Thank you for having me.
Oh, man, thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you for having me. I was going to. To say that I have a takeaway. Yeah, There's. There's something that I heard about eight years ago, and I'll. I'll never forget it. And, and someone asked, what is the key to happiness? And it does relate to freight, they said. And it wasn't. It wasn't freight, Chris, but they said in. In one word, what is the key to happiness? And people, you know, might say, like, love or. Or family or God, you know, or money. But. But they said, well, they had an illustration, and it's in the good Book and James. And it talks about this mirror, says, what kind of man looks at himself in the mirror and. And then immediately walks. Walks away?
You know, if we look in the mirror, it's like, man, I got a lot of changes that I gotta do. But. But it goes. It says, what kind of man looks himself in the mirror and then walks away? And it says, he who's not a forgetful hearer but a doer will be happy or. Or blessed. Some translation saying. I was like, oh, man, that's so. So they said the key to happiness is improvement. And it's like your podcast, you know, we all want to improve. We're not like the verse said, you know, we don't want to be a forgetful hearer, but we want to be a doer, you know, some things I'm trying not to listen to, things that don't help me move to something, but. But anyhow, I thought that was a really good one. Improvement is the key to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, right there with you, man.
Yeah. I mean, it's like there's some big goals that we want to get to, but there's. I'm like, if I'm washing my window and it's clean, I'm kind of. I'm in a happy state. If I'm at a gym and I'm. I'm like, lost a couple pounds, you know, or a pound, you know, we'll take it.
Yeah.
So I thought it was shareable, a good one that I. I liked.
No, I love it, man. Dude, that's perfect. That's. That's a good spot to end it, man. I. I really do. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
To great solutions. Improvement.
Exactly. But, hey, that's going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. If you got value, which I know you did, and you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show, ladies and gentlemen. Share it out there. If you're feeling really ambitious, really rank the show on itunes and Spotify because that's how we reach more people. And it's because of you and that you saw value, because if you did, chances are your network will as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys, and we'll be talking to you soon.