1131. #TFCP - Building A Process For Quoting Freight! - podcast episode cover

1131. #TFCP - Building A Process For Quoting Freight!

Feb 11, 202533 min
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Episode description

In this episode with Brandon Bay, key discussions center around business development and technology integration within the transportation industry!

Brandon talks about his company’s impressive company growth, emphasizes the challenges of acquiring new customers amid a competitive freight market, alongside the importance of maintaining strong customer relationships, the technologies they’re utilizing for tracking quotes and enhancing operational efficiency, and the future role of AI in the industry as a powerful complement to human relationships rather than a replacement!

 

About Brandon Bay

As the Executive Vice President at Logistics Group International, Inc., I lead the company's strategic direction and technology efforts. With over 4.5 years of experience in this role, and growing from 12-42 Million. I have successfully navigated the complex logistics industry, leveraging my skills in customer relationship management (CRM), team building, and relationship building. I am also a certified transportation broker, demonstrating my expertise in the field. In addition to my professional responsibilities, I co-hosted a podcast called "Hold My Beer: We're Talking Freight," where we discussed various topics related to freight and logistics. This experience not only enhanced my communication skills but also allowed me to connect with a diverse range of professionals in the industry. I am passionate about delivering exceptional service and solutions to our clients, and I am always eager to learn new skills and technologies to stay ahead in the ever-evolving logistics landscape.

 

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the blame moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made them make a bigger boss hey.

Speaker 2

What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is a 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 you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve.

So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I got a guest. We're going to bring him up here shortly. Just a quick reminder, though, you guys, the newsletter drops tomorrow, all right? So if you want to auto register for it, go to the freightcoach.com it'll prompt you to do it. I hear the audience loud and clear. I will not automatically sign you up for it because I hate that stuff as well. So if you want to get that drops every Wednesday, go to thefraycoach.com it'll help you auto sign up for it. But with that being said, you guys, I got a very special guest for you guys today.

You know, obviously technology is coming at us in every single angle right now, and there are very few people out there who came from the old school and then have since kind of adopted and implemented the tech inside of it. And it's leveraging both of them and building up a business with that. So with that being said, I got my good friend Brandon Bay back on the show. Brandon, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Speaker 1

Hey, Chris, I appreciate you having me on and it's good to see you again, man. It's been. It's been a while.

Speaker 2

No, I know, man. It's like it's where we only see each other at conferences and you're out there, you're on a man on a mission at them, and, you know, I need to maximize my time at a Lot of these conferences as well. So it's mainly just fist bumps in the hallway and going out there and trying to make stuff happen. But dude, what's been going on, man? How have you been, how's everything going out there in H town?

Speaker 1

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I've been great. You know, I've got two beautiful children that are healthy. Bennett will be starting kindergarten in August, and then my daughter is just 15 months behind. You know, my wife, she's amazing. She's meaner than ever, I always say, you know, on the business side, you know, we, given, you know, all the circumstances of where we have been in the freight market, you know, were actually able to grow, you know, by revenue and by load count. So, you know, I guess we'll see if we're on our way out of that. But, you know, we've done a lot of really cool things and, you know, just excited to see what the future holds. You know, from 12 to 40 million since 2020 has been a ride.

Speaker 2

Damn, dude. You guys are, you guys have been on a growth trajectory here for a while now. And so like, how are you leveraging that? Right? Because, you know, I'm out developing my business, you know, from scratch. Right. And contrary to what's out there on the Internet, it's very hard to develop a book of business in any freight market, let alone kind of what we've been going off of here over these last couple of years. So are you guys seeing new revenue growth coming in? Is it existing accounts that you've since grown and taken market share away from other providers? Kind of. How has that been going for you?

Speaker 1

Well, I think it's you sprinkling a little bit of both. You know, I think throughout the last couple years, you know, getting your foot in the door has always been the heart, the hard part. And usually, you know, as a new provider, you know, you got to pick up all the bad stuff, right, or you know, the lanes that nobody wants. So, you know, we've done a good job, I think, of getting our foot in the door with some of these shippers and then hopefully as the market changes, we're going to be able to expand that business. Obviously, we've had some growth from within, you know, current accounts and we've had attrition too. You know, it's not all about getting accounts. I mean, there's some that's going to fall off.

So, you know, it's been a wild ride but people do business with people, not companies. So as long as you're servicing the freight and you're taking care of your customer, you know, the rest will fall into place.

Speaker 2

How are you guys assessing that? You know, because you brought up the attrition thing and I think that's one of those, that's like a very overlooked superpower inside of business development. Right. Because at the end of the day, I feel like most individuals when they're developing a book of business, they are cold calling, doing everything that they can to get a customer. And then they want to believe that's going to be the greatest account of all time. They might have multiple locations, everything. They only see the positive because it's comfortable to bury yourself in air, quote busy work than actual revenue generating activities. And there's got to be a point where it's like, hey, I don't want to continue to just quote for the sake of quoting because like I got to make money here at the end of the day.

So how are you guys going through and really assessing them? Do you guys have any internal metrics where it's like, hey, if we hit, this is an arbitrary example, 25 quotes. If we don't win any loads, we got to have a call with them. If they don't have a call, then we move on. Like, what does that look like?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think we treat every customer in every situation a little bit different. You know, is it one on one drive in freight? Is it ready for freight? Is it multiple picks, multiple drops? You know, I think, you know, for us we use different tools, you know, green screens, you know, vuma, we use vma, those tools to be able to track those quotes. So if we, if a rep gets an account and we don't see a load on the board after the first two weeks and I'll even shorten it up to like a week, it's like, hey, what's going on? Are we getting opportunities? What's the outcome of those that we asked for feedback? So again, I think getting set up is one part, but getting that first load, we all know is the second part.

And the third part is not messing up on that first load because we all know the industry, something's gonna go wrong on that first one. So I like to get those out of the way.

Speaker 2

Yeah, no, I, I feel you there, man. And I think, like it, you know, it's tough because, you know, from our perspective, like we are scraping inclined to try and get any Revenue to come through the door, right? Like, yeah, you know, but we're very niche specific in what we go after. Like, we've, you know, we've tried to dabble here and there and it just always, all roads always lead back to full truckload flatbed freight. For me, like, no matter what, man, it's always like, there's always something. And I'm just like, no, screw it. So that was like, you know, we just decided that we're going to have a singular sales focus and we're just going to go with that and we're going to run with that.

And that has resonated with a lot of our prospects of like, oh, okay, you guys only do this perfect, let's talk a little bit more about it. But then, yeah, after you get in the door and then you start bidding on freight, you know, you get a very, I think you get a, a clearer view on how some of these accounts are looking to perform right now. Because I still feel like there are some shippers out there that are still trying to recoup blown budgets from a few years ago of transportation spend where they're willingly driving down rates out there. All right, I, I will come out there and say it. I, I see it a lot, you know, and then you just, if you don't believe me, go to a load board, for example.

You guys go to a load board and see what freight is being posted for and everything else. And you know, some people want to say, oh, brokers are only out there taking cheap freight. Here's a very live example. I talked to a shipper last week in the Southeast, for example, and we talked about a specific lane and I gave them my rate and they said, you're $300 above what we're looking to pay right now. And I looked at the miles, I looked at everything. I'm like, dude, you guys are looking to move this for 90 cents a mile.

Speaker 1

Just because the shipper said they're looking to move something for a rate doesn't mean it's the right one.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but dude, like that's what's going on out there. Because again, you know, it's back down to like, as you're going through this sales progression here, how are you tracking? How are you really assessing? Is this somebody who is who you want to work with? And you know, I'm not trying to be a bearer of bad news for everybody, but not all revenue is good revenue. Not all customers are good customers at the end of the day. And you got to go through a lot of these stuff. Like, you need to have a process in place to kind of weed out some of this because otherwise you're going to get bogged down again with all of those busy work opportunities that don't actually generate revenue.

Speaker 1

Well, right now, Chris, and this is just my opinion, whether people want to agree with me or not, but right now you do have to be the lowest cost provider to get a foot in the door. Like, obviously, like obviously, if you have relationships and say they go to a different company, that's one thing. But if you're just fresh, you know, right now, the barrier to entry is sometimes being that low cost. I don't think you really can evaluate until you get, you know, a good handful of loads, you know, that you've moved. But how much have you coded within that time? What's your margin percentage? You know, we've went through, you know, exercises where we look at all of our customers and our volume and then what's that margin percentage?

Okay, well, we'll put an initiative in to say let's raise it by one or two points in the next month if we can. If we can't, then it's just not good business. And I think knowing your cost per load is, you know, super important when it comes to, that comes to quoting and comes to figuring out if, you know, the customer's good for you. I think over the years, Chris, you know, I've been on the same page of like, finding your niche and doing it well. But also too, you know, you should be analyzing your current customers and customers that you bring in as soon as you get in, because like you just said, not all customers are good customers.

Speaker 2

Yeah. You know, it's tough out there, man, because it's like, you know, I, I don't believe in working for free. You know, like, I'm not going to knowingly take a loss on a load just to say I moved a load with somebody, because I just don't. I just don't. It's just not worth it. Right? Like it's not worth it. I'm, I'm more like long term. I know I'm not always going to have a perfect brand out there in the industry. Like, there's somebody, you're going to piss somebody off at some point. Right. But I want to do everything inside of my control to not put myself knowingly in a situation where I'm going to have to possibly book somebody that I probably shouldn't.

Be booking just to try and get a little bit of a smaller loss on a load, just to get an opportunity to book freight in the future with it, Right? So I feel like there's a lot of that assessment that goes on, but like, dude, how are you tracking a lot of this stuff, right? Like, how are you tracking a lot of these opportunities that are coming through your door to kind of put a plan together, you know, like as a leader inside of your organization and you're meeting with your reps and you're doing book of business reviews and stuff like that. Are you guys utilizing any tools right now that kind of tracks a lot of that data?

Speaker 1

Yeah. So, I mean, for, for our ratings, we use green screens. We've used green screens. I think were, I think were one of their first, 10 or 15 first clients, you know, back when they first fired up. So we've had a really good relationship with them. So we utilize green screens. And then recently we've integrated with VUMA within our inbox. That's been very powerful because, you know, we're able to quote right out of our inbox. We don't have to switch into different programs, but also too, you know, tracks the quoting process for us. You know, it marks it new, marks it quoted, and then there's even some technologies where it'll market won or lost. So it's been pretty powerful.

You know, we're still tweaking on, you know, some of the data that comes over, but you're still, you're able to get a really good idea of like, how much are we quoting and how much are we winning? How much opportunity have we missed? So that's, that's another metric that's really important is like one and lost is great. Opportunities are great, but how many opportunities did we miss? How many, how much did we leave on the table by not quoting it? So, you know, those tools have been pretty powerful to know where we stand on that process.

Speaker 2

So, like, when you talk about missed opportunities, man, is that something that you can do inside of vuma? Like, are they tracking that? Like, I've had Jesse on the show and everything, but, you know, like missed opportunities and stuff. And I've had, you know, Dan Hellman on the show as well, and we've talked about those, you know, because like with inside of Hubtech or, you know, and Tabby is, you know, tracking a lot of that to see like, hey guys, what are you actually missing? Because it's Easy to sit here and say, like, oh, we bid X amount of loads, but how many did you miss out there because of, you know, for whatever reason?

Speaker 1

Yeah, so I think, you know, we've worked with Dan too. He's, he's awesome. And, but I think in our experience, unless they've come out with some different product, they do a lot of your API bidding. Right. So they're able to track all of that. Yeah, that's a good piece. But I think too, like, the Inbox is super important. That's where all of us live. But yeah, it's able to say, and again, we're still refining it a little bit, but 100%, it can tell you like, hey, this was a missed opportunity. So did a customer send in a quote request that wasn't replied to, it was missed. And so, yes, it is able to track that.

Speaker 2

So are you tracking win loss percentage as well? Like, hey, your customer, you bid on it. And you know, if a customer, like, I'm, because I'm just thinking of it like this, man. Like there's some times where it's like, you know, in my world, for example, what's going to be the most cost effective way? Is it going to be, you know, a partial hotshot or are they like, hey, we just looked at it, we just want to do it. Ltl for whatever reason is, are you able to look at it on a granular level to see, like, what was the customer response on that? Was it a price issue? Was it a mode issue? Can you kind of break it down like that?

Speaker 1

I don't know if you can get that green granular. I mean, we put some rules in place that says like, if a customer doesn't reply within X amount of hours, market lost. Because we all know, like, people are bidding like crazy. One really neat thing that I know VUMA and Green Screen's partnership is working on is like being able to combine the data. So a quote comes in, you quote it, you send it back to your customer, you win it, you move it through the system and then you, you book it. I think they're working on combining data to see the whole life cycle of that because it's one way to quote it and say, one, I won the load, you know, in vuma. But whenever it got to the other part of our business, did we buy right?

Did we actually, did we actually book it and make money? Because your win loss can be. Or your win percentage could be 95%, which you might be losing on the back end. So I think when they combine that, I know that's something that they're working on. It's gonna be very powerful for all brokerages. I mean, we talked about like the days before the technology, Chris. Like there wasn't any of this tracking. When I got a new customer, my goal was to get a load within 48 hours. So I was bidding and then I was calling them five minutes later, hey, did you award that? Where do I stand? You know, eagerness, trying to get that load. So yeah, I think that's going to be very powerful.

Speaker 2

How, how are you leveraging this, man? Like, how are you leveraging the, you know, the way you were brought into the industry, but then like implementing and really rolling out a lot of the tech that's kind of at our disposal now. Right. And like, I guess from your perspective, what is the most outside of the tms, what's the most pivotal piece of tech that you think most brokers should look into or should have inside of their operation?

Speaker 1

Front email. Okay, but you didn't expect that one, did you? Yeah, so, so the. We have Front. I could never use Outlook again, But we have McLeod integrated in there. We have highway integrated into Front. We have Vuma, green screens and DAT all integrated within our email inbox. Our users do not have to go into highway to check if they, if this is a bad actor. They don't have to go in and say we set up with them. Right. It's got tags, it's got, it hits every email address. We don't have to go out of our inbox to quote anymore because it's all integrated between boom and green screens. We've got, you know, different things with McLeod integration.

So we have a sidebar plugin where our reps can type in an order number and it pulls up all of the low details right in their inbox.

Speaker 2

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1

So for us, like one piece of technology. Yeah. That makes, we talk about efficiency would be Front email. We don't have, we don't have. What are those lists? Distribution lists. There's dynamic rules based off domain. Like it, it creates so much efficiency that it's crazy.

Speaker 2

Dude, that's insane. Yeah, no, I, I like that a lot. I'm, you know. Cause like I'm always sitting out here thinking, you know, and I try and talk about it on the show as much as possible is like what do you actually need from a tech stack perspective? Right. And then from like a Cost perspective as well, because that's a whole other ball game. Like a lot of this stuff sounds great, but it can be expensive. Right? And it's like, is there certain, like, have you guys ever looked at, you know, because you said you came in, you guys were doing like 12 million, now you guys are like 40 million or something like that. You guys have probably had that conversation internally. Like, all right, guys, we hit a new revenue multiplier. Let's look at adding this.

Or did you guys invest in a lot of it up front? And then it's kind of like you guys have changed providers out there. Cause I think like, that's my, that's one of my biggest things is like, man, what is the right revenue multiplier to start adding some of this stuff in? Because if you're out there bootstrapping, if you don't have a capital partner who's funneling money, who's able to invest in a lot of this stuff early on, if you're dollar for dollar, you know, you got to be very price sensitive about what you're actually implementing inside of your organization.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So. And I will throw it out there. It's one thing that we're really proud of here is we are bootstrapped. We don't, we don't owe a dime to anybody. And we take a lot of pride in that. But I would say, like, when it comes to looking at tech, there's a lot of things that we all want because again, like, it sounds great on paper, but like, we try to look at things of, like, how can we gain efficiency? How can we give that time back to grow that revenue? So like, you know, what do you spend your non productive or non revenue generating time doing? And then how can we facilitate to make that better? And so I think everybody's a little bit different depending on where they are in their journey, where they are in their business.

But you know, if you're finding yourself doing the same repetitive thing, there's a way to automate it, to give you more time to like grow your business. That's the ideal, that's the ideal piece of technology. I think that's different for everybody.

Speaker 2

Yeah, my whole thing is, man, is. You know, I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I will never have cap commissions at my organization. I want all, I want all my people to hunt. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I want to arm them with the right tools to maximize their time. Right. Because like, ultimately, that's all I try and do. Like, that's the biggest, like, metric that I track throughout my day is the time it takes me to do certain tasks. Right. Because I'm always looking, like, how do I get a little bit better inside of my, you know, like I was telling you before we jumped on, like, I do a lot of my prospecting in the morning. I like to get at least 35 sales calls done before I do my live show. That's how I structure out my day. I like the early bird gets the worm mentality. I would rather get somebody earlier in the day than later on in the day.

And I'm looking at it like, all right, so if it takes me two hours, you know, hypothetical example, to do 35 cold calls, how do I get that down to an hour and a half? Right? Like, is it a click to dial feature that I can implement in there? Is it, you know, something like preloading a lot of my leads for the day, which I do that. I have my calls already listed out there. But, you know, again, I'm trying to find those little time saves because at the end of the day, I need to maximize my output. You know, I. If it's like, hey, I'm doing 50 cold calls in a day right now, I need to find a way to scrape and claw to get 55 out in a day and stuff like that.

I'm looking for those small little incremental bumps of productivity inside of my day. Is that something that you guys really looked for as well? Like, hey, you know, because you had mentioned that, you know, is it all about time saving for our reps to give them an opportunity to maximize their output in the day?

Speaker 1

Yeah. So I think on the sales side, there's all kinds of different tools that one could use, but, you know, it's just basic black blocking and tackling on that front. Like, structure your day to call, to email, to do however outreach you want, because that's revenue generating. Right. I think where once you get the load from, you know, procurement to build, you know, what's going on within the life cycle of that load, and how can I touch it the least amount? How can that get in our system and get all the way to billing with. With little to no touch? And I think that's obviously everybody's goal or dream, but that's really what we started tackling of, like, how can we give this operations the ability to do more right, make it easier on them.

And two, like that makes everybody's life a little bit better at work. Gives your time back, lets you focus on your service. Because it doesn't matter what technology I have or you have or what everybody has. The only thing that separates LGI from anyone else is our service. Like I live and die by that technology, will never replace that service. It's that, you know, that's, it's the relationship and, and that's the only thing that differentiates a broker. So we try to utilize that technology to, to get the life cycle of the load once it's procured all the way through. I mean again, on the sales side, on the front end. Yeah. Just like you said, Chris, there's things that you can put in place to make sure that you're not stuck and staggered. It's easy to get distracted.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And so, but I think that front is revenue generating and so it's going to. People can automate a lot of things, but you're never going to be able to automate that cold call.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I'm right there with you, man. At least for, not from a business development perspective. And I know because every time I say this, some AI guys in my fucking Inbot or my DMs telling me how wrong I am and everything, and that's fine, you can have that opinion. But I've actually developed a book of business in this industry. You've talked about developing a book of business in this industry. So that's generally my response with it. But it, you know, from my perspective though, man, is, you know, you're 100 spot on with that. Like, I want to try my absolute best to make them because I truly think that's the next frontier. Yes, AI's here, all of that. I mean, you're gonna see just a bombardment of posts about it after Manifest is done here.

But here's where I think the great separator is going to lie. Because you're right, there is literally in today's day and age, there is nothing that CH Robinson has access to that a one person operation can have access to. From a tech rating perspective, all of that stuff, right? It's, it's very hard to differentiate yourself early on in the process, it really is. Right, because there is nothing that I'm gonna say or you're gonna say on the cold calls, Brandon, that they haven't heard a thousand times before. It's going to be when they're like, hey man, you followed up with me enough. We're in A tough bind. Can you do this? And then how you service them in those moments.

Service and communication, I think is probably something that is extremely overlooked based on the feedback that I have with a lot of my prospects. A lot of y'all are not communicating at the levels you guys think you are. And I think like, that's ultimately when it boils down to it, man, that's the only thing people want to know is everything okay? And that's it. That's. That's the fundamental difference maker out there is are you communicating no matter what, or are you only there when things are going right?

Speaker 1

And I can give everybody a little tidbit is that time without communication creates emergencies. So when a customer asks for a quote, you don't have it back. Or if they ask for an update and you're having trouble getting a hold of the driver, a quick of like, hey, I'm working on this. I'll have it over to you shortly. Hey, I'm still working on. So, you know, those little tidbits of communication will make 95 of like problems go away, in my opinion. But, but yeah, man, like some, I look at some of the technology too. Like, I'll use DFM for an example. You know, Covid hit DFM was flying out that was going to revolutionize what's the, what's the word? They're going to disrupt the industry.

And, and I think now looking back, DFM has added a lot of great pieces to tech stack, but DFM today is not DFM what it was three years ago, but there's always going to be a piece of that within, like the industry and so on and so forth. I think what a lot of this AI stuff is going to be very similar. There's going to be functions in a piece that's going to live within everybody's operation or else you're just not going to be able to afford to do business. I mean, margins are getting thinner. So we use it as like a force multiplier. So how. Like on our agents, right?

So for our agents, we, you know, we say, hey, we have these tools where you can come in and you are doing X here, but over here you might be able to do a third more. Because we have technology that can API load tenders into our system, we have quoting tools, we have all of these things that can make people a force multiplier. So I think when you look at it at that level, it's like, how can we supercharge people. And that's where we're finding success within, you know, our agents using the technology and then also to our ops teams, they're using it, you know, they're able to do more.

Speaker 2

Are you, what do you think is the next frontier with a lot of this stuff? Right? Because I, I don't know, man. Maybe I'm naive, maybe I don't know what it is. But I think the ones who are going to really separate themselves over the next five years are going to be the ones who actually revert off of a lot of technology and go back to the human to human interaction, that aren't afraid to go knock on doors, who aren't afraid to go and show up in person. Because like, I feel like, and we're not here yet, but I feel like at some point people are just going to be like, dude, I don't want any more technology. Like, I'm sick and tired of this stuff, you know, Like, I can tell you this right now.

And again, this might be a personal preference of mine. If I owned a manufacturing company, I would not want a fucking bot telling me what was going on with a truckload of mine that possibly pays for my entire month's PNL based on the sale of that. Right. Like, that's just me. And I think like, eventually people are going to be like, am I actually talking to a human? Or, or is this just another bot out there? And I feel like that I, I honestly think that people are going to revert back to the tribal mentality of like, I want to talk to people. I want to know that the person that I'm dealing with is an actual person.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So I, I don't think it's ever going to replace that human interaction. You, those relationships are always going to be there. And that's, and again, I said it a little bit earlier, people do business with people, not companies. But, but using, utilizing the AI to supercharge your business, whether that's inbound calls, right. Whether that's screening, you know, screening those calls and not having to, hey, this is lgi. Oh, let me get your mco. We can't work with you. Like that's, you know, using that to screen pod collections, there's all kinds of things that you can use it for. That's not going to disrupt that, that relationship. Right. So as much as we do use some technology, I'll sit here and tell you, like, we don't. It will never replace the relationship you have with your customers or your carriers.

And it shouldn't what it should do is just supercharge you. And I think too, you know, those carriers and those items were. And we're very upfront, you know, any of the A.I. Faces. This is A.I. Yes, transfer me. Okay. Cool thing is like you don't get that a lot, but it's out there. Like if I call Verizon right now and try to get through to somebody. Operator. Operator. Operator. It's not like that with this, with these large language models and things like that. I mean it's conversational. So while it's not perfect, what it's going to do is it's those reps. And Chris, we both know because were here before the COVID days where reps could just sit there and field inbound calls and book loads. There weren't.

They didn't have to build relationships or do 150 outbound calls to cover a load before lunch because that's not what the market's been. So what we see is that for the inbound, you know, freight that we have out there, if we're able to automate that, then we can really focus on building capacity for contractual business, making sure that hey, like our service is good. So the reps that just want us in our, in my opinion that just up there want to feel them down calls, those days are over.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Do you think this slows down a little bit when you have to start making outbound dials to start covering freight? If capacity ever tightens back up to those levels, which I think inevitably it'll get back to there. I don't know when, but do you think that changes things at that point?

Speaker 1

100 and I'm really eager to see when that happens. So I think too like if you've mastered being able to facilitate an inbound booking, you know, and the market changes like our reps should be, I mean there's still loads we have to call out on. Not, not everything is inbound. But we know that hey, this stuff's been taken care of. I can focus on these other lanes and call outbound. I know a lot of different AI and tech companies are trying to automate every single piece of the business. I think, I think we've talked about like niche flatbed reefer produce. The AI companies that find that niche and they learn how to do it really, really well. I think they're gonna, are gonna continue to do well.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So it's really be really interesting when the market changes to see what happens, because who knows? I think it's going to be very interesting because here's the deal too, Chris. If you have a driver that wants to load and you've got these AI bots just they can dial faster than anybody, they're gonna be blowing these drivers phones up.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So like, what happens then? I don't know, but it's going to happen and I'm eager to see what when that takes place.

Speaker 2

I'm right there with you, man. It's exciting times, Brandon. But dude, I appreciate you joining me here today, man. How does anybody reach out to you guys? Are you guys hiring? Put that stuff out there, man, so anybody can reach out to you. Find out more.

Speaker 1

Yeah, listen, I mean we're always looking to add valuable and good people to the organization, whether that's through, you know, our agency or on the internal brokerage. We're on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. Appreciate everybody that joined in and heard us talk some shop today. And Chris, I appreciate you for having me on.

Speaker 2

Dude. It's always good having you on the show, Brandon. And that will be it for today though, ladies and gentlemen. As always, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. If you're feeling really, really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify as well, you guys, because that's how we reach more people is because if you saw value, chances are your network is going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon, dude.

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