Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh 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 lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them make a bigger balls.
Hey 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 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 very special guest for you guys here. I'm going to bring him up in a second, but got to do a little bit of housekeeping here quick, you guys. Our weekly newsletter, the Freight Coach newsletter, drops tomorrow. If you want to go to the FreightCoach.com to register for it will auto prompt you to do it there. As I always say, I don't sell up my contact list and auto sign everybody up for it because it annoys me and I know it annoys other people as well. So if you want to get in on that, it only drops once a week.
We talk freight rates, we talk diesel prices, and then we just talk about the industry because at the end of the day, you guys, I only know freight and I'm not trying to be anybody's life coach out there. So hit that up. Also, you guys, the NMFTA put out, we put out an episode yesterday regarding class changes for the NMFC codes that are going on July 19th. You guys go check that out. This is a way bigger deal than I think a lot of people are even understanding. So get over there, check that out, educate yourself on it, bring that stuff up to your customers. But with that being said, you guys, like I said, I got a very special guest for you guys here today. We met all of 8 minutes ago and we are going to put some money content out there.
So I have Mr. Sam Ajimon on the show today. He's the VP of Business Development from the ITF Group. Sam, thank you so much for joining me.
Chris, it's definitely a pleasure. Appreciate the introduction. Happy to be here.
No, man, I, I, like I said, I love. I'm really excited that we just met a couple of minutes ago because it's been a while since I've done one of these interviews like this. Sam. So we're going to make this happen. But dude, how did you get your start in transportation, Sam? What brought you into the industry?
That's a great question. And I think that's something that a lot of people are just curious about because it's like there's a lot out there and there are lots of different divisions in freight, but not everyone has a clear, straight path to it. And that certainly wasn't my story either. I had been on the retail side of business on for several years, working with our shippers to get their goods to their stores and literally had an opportunity through the technology arm of ITF or Hub to kind of join logistics side. And I've loved it. The chaos is real, but the organization that you know that you get from it and how you're kind of always on your toes and making sure those customers are getting their needs met, I can't beat it. It's.
It's not for everyone, but it's definitely something that I really enjoy.
Sam. It's addicting, right? Like I always say, if you make it past six months in transportation, you're in it for life in one capacity, literally. Where else, though, like I am, I need to have something different all the time, right? Like I. Monotony is like my biggest. I just get anxiety just thinking about doing the same thing day in and day out. And transportation provides me with that opportunity to literally have a different day every day of the week. And I like that. Right. Like, obviously there's some consistencies and stuff that come along with it. For the most part, it's something new. It's a new challenge every day and that's what I love the most about it. So what brought you into to ITF group with it, man?
Because I, you know, doing my little bit of guest research out there, I saw you know, the co founder of your company and everything, and then are you guys operating underneath the ITF umbrella?
That's absolutely correct. So as you can see behind me, we're live in Nashville Music City at ntf, which is National Postal Forum. So giving you that backdrop, this isn't My digital screen background Essentially ITF is the parent company. It's a group of companies. We have so many different offerings and solutions that we are trying to kind of build our teams around. So essentially for ITF group caller have this one component technology arms. We also have freight forwarding which is of forward now and we do fulfillment, we do distribution, we do over the road trucking obviously. And literally if you've got a, a problem in logistics that needs solutions we probably will be able to find some solutions for you without which is something that I can't say for a lot of people. 3pls, you know they may focus one niche.
We have like lots of different prongs and we are poised and ready to kind of be a one stop shop for those people wherever the journey you are on your logistics trail. So if you're starting out and you've got like a, a TikTok shop that's blowing up and you need warehousing and distribution, e commerce solutions we can take you from you know 100 units a day to a thousand. So we can scale up with pretty much any customer and then we have our enterprise customers obviously and you can do a lot with the tools that we have which is really exciting because I know that a lot of companies, they don't have assets.
The fact that we have trucks on the road and 400 trucks to be exact and 2,000 trailers, we literally have so many different opportunities for drop trailer for retailers that want to get their goods on the trailer at their own time. We have a lot of different solutions for that.
So you guys are essentially working with companies of all maturity. Right? Like you brought up TikTok shop and I know that this is kind of like a new vertical, not necessarily a new vertical but there's a lot of young people who are out there and young is a relative statement. I'm not necessarily talking age, I mean like young in business that are having a lot of opportunities come their way and setting up an E commerce platform or developing something where you need distribution, you need warehousing space, drop shipping as you mentioned, you know and stuff like that. Where do you turn?
Right like and this is like I'm glad we're taking this angle with this because this is something that you know, I see a lot in you know like the E commerce space and you know they're out there, they're creating a new, you know, they got a new brand, they got everything and where do you go, right, Like a lot of people are going out of their garage out of their bedroom and they're piecing stuff together. But inevitably or eventually you hit a certain point where you're like, hey, I need to grow quick. But maybe they don't want to manage that back of the house operations from the fulfillment aspect of it.
Absolutely. And I think that's one of the great things about what we do at ITF Group. We really do. We have so much opportunity for people that are starting out. And it's not something that I think that companies of our sign, our size are particularly interested in, but we like kind of getting in the nitty gritty and developing those processes for people that are starting out as well. You know, it's very rewarding to see someone that like literally is like just beginning and watch how they grow and not having to basically depart from our solutions and our services because we can scale up with them. So I think that's really exciting as far as someone coming in and starting out and not knowing exactly where to go. You know, we come with a lot of expertise, a lot of knowledge.
It's like, hey, if you want to really make something out of your business, your online business, we can take you to that next level and we can keep you going and sustain like throughout the life cycle of your business.
What, what's something like, what are some early hurdles that you see some of your guys as clients kind of experience, you know, because like, again, if you don't know transportation, if you don't know all, you know, you hear, you know, stuff about tariffs in the news, you hear about port issues, you hear about a lot of this stuff. But like, what does it actually mean? And you know, so it's like, you know, like as somebody who's founded their company, Sam, there's a lot of stuff that I thought was going to happen or I thought that the, you know, the direction was going to be. That has been the polar opposite. There's so much learning that has to happen so quick.
But you know, I always like to prepare people who maybe are out there looking for their, you know, warehousing provider and stuff like that. What are some early hurdles that you have seen or like maybe are, you know, that people can better prepared for when it's like, hey, I'm going from my bedroom or garage to now this 100,000 square foot warehousing that's got 50 dock doors and you know, and everything else.
I think probably the biggest hurdle for a lot of people that are starting out is recognizing the cost. Right? Yeah. You know, when you're talking about shipping or warehousing, cross talking, any of the above. People don't factor into their margins the cost of doing all that. And that's what's going to get your goods to the customers that you need them to kind of purchasing your stuff. So essentially it's such a blessing in my opinion to be able to work with people that are willing to kind of like take you on every leg of that journey. So if you're starting out, we had a person in our warehouse currently that's doing E commerce and they started out with like literally a sample of goods that they were doing through their school.
They were able to grow that into like local opportunities and into local stores, like supermarkets. And were their warehouse. We were able to get their stuff into their stores, into the hands of their end consumer. And that was just a very awesome experience watching how they had an idea and they were able to make it like real and then get it out to the customers. Because I think that's the most important part. If you're missing a good logistics partner or strategic partner to kind of build that bridge for you into your next journey of your business, you're going to find a lot of pitfalls on your own through trial and error.
So the fact that you've got like a partner that can basically help navigate and whatever the pitfalls may be, if you're concerned about like tariffs, if you're getting things that are predominantly made in China, maybe we can help you as far as like, hey, we've got a manufacturer in Turkey and we can use that manufacturer to kind of get your things done. Going to be a much lower rate to you. So always thinking about ways to kind of mitigate those costs for our end user so that they can, I continue to be our partners and they can get their goods out to more of their customers.
So you know, you had mentioned that you guys have your own trailers to me and you guys, you have your own assets and everything out there. And you know, I look, you know, as somebody who, you know, I've been a broker for 15 years now. I've gone into almost every major retail distribution center that is out there. You know, some require drop trailers, some don't, you know, live offload, all that fun stuff that comes along with it. So is that something that you guys are seeing now as you know, as like more of a, a requirement?
And then you know, with some of your brands that are out there, they might not pack the shelf punch at one of their retail Partners to where they can get kind of preferred, you know, appointment times and drop trailer capacity to make sure their product is there. Or you know, maybe they've never done a holiday sale before where they need to have a drop trailer pool at some of those strategic things. Is that something that you guys work with Sam, with your guys's partners on setting up drop trailer pools and stuff kind of around the country? If they have rollouts like that coming.
Up, not only is it something that we do, it's something that we do very well. We've got enterprise customers that use or drop trailers. It's basically saying, hey, you load these trailers at your own convenience. And it removes a lot of those hiccups on the supply chain that we already know, like waiting for the trailer to get loaded and if it's loaded late and you're worried about getting it delivered to your customer in time, whenever we drop a trailer on the lot and you can fill it up when you need and have it picked up and delivered, it just makes everything simpler. It's a, a way better approach to getting your goods on the road and getting them done more efficiently.
Do you think that this is a mode that more people should entertain as opposed to the live load? Live offload is go into the drop trailer opportunity that's out there and really kind of run with that. Do you think that's being underutilized out there in the market?
And especially for high velocity industries like retail, where you need to get your goods on the shelf because it's dollars and cents, if you're not fully restocked and you've got the weekend rush, you're going to lose money. So making sure that those decisions are made earlier so that you can get the goods to your customers and to your stores in the timely fashion so they can actually make some more revenue. It's a win.
Is this something that you see more on kind of the retail side of things? Right. And then are you talking retail, like consumer goods, clothing, stuff like that? I mean, retail is kind of a, a vast def, you know, definition there.
Exactly. So we're talking about apparel, we're talking about us cpg. Like, there are lots of different verticals within that retail sector that we service with it. So being able to understand the urgency and to meet them at that urgency and get their goods to where they need to go, that's a big part of what we do and that's what they rely on us for.
So are you guys doing, you know, like, are you guys Doing anything? Yeah, like I think retail, I think sometimes it's going to be tight spaces to get in and out of. Are you guys ever transloading onto like ltl pub trailers with liftgate and doing all of that stuff? Because you know, I have some friends on the retail side of things and that, you know, that's a hurdle for them and they, it's getting their stuff to their actual retail locations in major metropolitan areas, malls, stuff like that. Are you guys, do you guys have that inside of your fleet, Sam, where you guys are loading it onto 24 foot pup trailers with lift gates to get them out there and get it into those locations?
So we do have those capabilities. But what's more I say prevalent is we really do believe in getting things like the drop trailer situation because that is the easiest way to get your goods in your own time frame. You don't have to worry about any of the. It's definitely more flexible. And you know, we also have like transloading and a border, be able to get things from the border from Mexico easily into the country by making sure that we're able to do that as well. So there's, there's a lot of flexibility and by that flexibility we're also very responsive. So being able to have near shoring definitely help accelerate the warehouse space as things tighten. Because we know that, you know, we're going to experience some type of tariff.
There's going to be some type of tariffs on the goods that are coming in from overseas. So a lot of companies are deciding whether or not they're just going to bring in a lot more inventory and store it, try to mitigate those costs or if they're just going to try to find alternative places to get their things produced and into the country.
Yeah, I think we're at kind of an interesting point with everything that's going on right now in regards to tariffs, Sam, because like, you know, from my perspective, it's it. I think it's going to cause more of a short term bullwhip where a lot of people are going to be trying to plan ahead at the end of the day. Right. And you know, again, whatever said is said out there, but you know, inside of transportation, we need to come up with solutions for our customers because there are going to be a lot of businesses who are going to possibly front end order some stuff to kind of curtail and avoid some of these tariffs. But once it gets stateside, once it gets processed into the United States, where are we going to store it? Right.
They might not have adequate warehousing space on top of it. And that's where I see, you know, when you're bringing up drop trailers, that's something that I see as kind of being that short term storage solution for a lot of people to put inventory in there. Right. Because it's a very real thing that a lot of businesses are going to be faced with here until there's, you know, a lot calmer waters, we'll put it in regards to tariffs. But you know, again, as transportation providers, I mean, at least from my perspective, I don't care what set out there. I have to find a solution for my customer. Whether that's short term storage, long term storage, drop trailer storage, I've got, I've done it all in my career. Right. So it's like you need to be prepared for that.
And that's why I feel like this is a, a really solid solution, Sam, that a lot of people might not even be thinking about out there to be able to bring to their customers here in the short term.
And I think that you hit the nail on the head when you talk about people and planning ahead. You know, it's not that people aren't thinking about it. They don't necessarily know how to go about getting the right strategic partners because that's really our job. Like we're going to take on the headache so that they can get their things delivered where they need to be and for the best margins that you can offer. I think that's kind of the most critical part is finding a good partner that's going to be able to kind of weather the storm with you and not only give you insights on what you can do, but also kind of be a trusted partner that you know, that you can rely on to get what you need done.
And I think that the warehousing component is something that we are very strong in, especially for distribution and fulfillment and also just storage. I think when people hear warehousing, they just think it's okay, I got something things, I got to store them somewhere. It's a lot more involved than that, especially because, you know, once the goods are here, you still have to get them delivered to your end customers. So it's a challenging time. But like I always say, with every challenge comes opportunity. And I think that this is a really good time for people that are in businesses of all sizes to kind of like start planning ahead and making those good partnerships. Because not every partner can be the right partner for what lies ahead. If you don't have a strategic partner.
You might find yourself in unfortunately situations that are not as good or as optimal as they could be. And that's what we're all here to do. We're problem solvers, you know. And yeah, this is one more problem that we're here to solve in this industry.
Yeah, I look at it as well Sam, as you know, when you go out there and you know, choosing the right partner in regards to order fulfillment in transportation and all that stuff, I mean it's so crucial. Right. And then you know, I think like it's also like doing your due diligence, you know, and then just not because you know, and it's easy for anybody to sit there and say this in a controlled environment when it's not you with your back against the wall and stuff like that as a brand who's out there trying to build. But I feel like you know, looking at the long term capabilities because I know in startup world a lot of people make short term decisions with long term ramifications. Right. Because they look at it, obviously we need to make money. All right.
Like that's said and done. But like you need to also think where are things potentially going to be trending in the next five years and if you get yourself into a long term contract with a 3 PL, 4 PL, whatever PL we're up to now out there in the market, it's, you could potentially curtail your growth if they're not willing to grow with you. Right. And then on top of that it, you know, and I feel like that's something that I wish there was more information out there on. Right.
Like I haven't seen and again I, my content is only goes so far but I haven't personally seen anything out there that explains like what could a CPG brand do early on to look at to you know, to accurately project out for the next five years to make sure that they are choosing their right fulfillment partner that has the right geographical footprint out there, the right delivery capabilities, order packering cape order packing cap and all of that. That's something that I think like again I'm just a freight nerd at heart Sam, but I would love to see something like that because how many young brands don't get, don't take off because they made a fatal error in choosing a fulfillment partner?
Too many to be, to be direct. And I think that's really the crux of it all. If you're really trying to build something and you don't have the right partners to help you build or your people that are assuming that you've got all the answers and you don't, you're going to find yourself really hitting roadblocks early on. So we try to kind of educate everyone that comes in, even our more senior partners, you know, their things and insights that we may have an industry that they don't necessarily have. And we're always collaborating with our customers to find better solutions. So if it's a situation where it's getting your things from the DC faster, like again, did you think about doing some type of drop trailer situation?
Because if you did that, you can get those trailers on the road, drop off an empty trailer, have it build up, picked up, and then on the road to where it's going to go. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't realize that these are options that are not necessarily reinventing the wheel. They're available, they're in their kind of industry standards. But if you don't know who to kind of like work with an actual assets, you might find yourself in a situation where you're at a disadvantage.
Yeah, exactly. Nobody makes money afraid sitting on the docks and not being picked.
No, it does.
Not to the end user. But Sam, you mentioned you guys are at a conference right now. What, what trade show is this?
Oh, so we're at NPF and it's the National Postal Forum. They're celebrating 250 years of delivering mail, which is kind of impressive. There's a guy dressed up as Benjamin Franklin walking around and it kind of was, I guess the first Postmaster General. So it's, I have to say it's been an awesome event. It's down in Nashville, which is Music City and the people have been fantastic. It's been a great vibe. A lot of people that are obsessed with mail and I kid you not, it's definitely, I thought that I was a freight nerd, but there are some different degrees of obsession of different industries. And I was, I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the overall energy and so many different vendors that are here and conferences. Really great stuff to learn about, especially with all the changes that may be coming.
Yeah, I was in this, I was going to say what, what's kind of been the biggest takeaway out there, Right. Because you know, there's a lot of talk about privatizing the postal service and everything else. So is there any real change in sentiment on that or is it kind of just a giant. We gotta wait and see at this point.
If I'm being honest, it's a big old giant wait and see. As soon as you think, you know, the direction that things are going, they may turn. So I think that there's been a lot of talk to people, especially in the direct mail industry about like, hey, like are we going to be open on Saturdays to deliver mail? Like does that, does it affect or impact our business or, you know, a lot of people are used to doing drop shipments. You know, that's like a big component of that as well. So there's just a lot of. I didn't realize like how important the United States Postal Service was in getting all of these things out as other than just getting my like monthly bills to mail.
Yeah, I know, I hear you there, Sam. It is, it's a pretty intricate thing but man, we'll have to shade save that conversation for another show, man. I really appreciate your time today, Sam. How does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you guys have going on?
So like I said before, ITF Group, it's ITF Group.com. Visit our website, we've got our socials, Facebook, LinkedIn. Hauler Hub is also another one of our technology arms and it's haulerhub.com and it's spelled exactly as it sounds. H A U L E R H U V And if you've got like freight to move and you want like a digital platform to manage it all, we can definitely help you there. And then we have board now which is anything that you're moving to overseas. So all the tariff talk that we've been discussing, our professionals will be able to help you get through things to this country and we can basically help streamline all that for you as well. And that's fwd-now.com so those are our, our main sites to visit. Again, ITF Group is our parent company.
We're here to help you regardless of where you are in your freight journey.
Perfect. Sam, thank you so much for that and thank you so much for your time. If you guys are a company out there and you guys in the CPG space or anything like that and you guys need a solid partner, hit up my guy Sam here. He, I did they. I'm convinced at this point you guys go with them that he can, he's got that end to end solution and I think a lot of young and even mature companies out there need to look into and utilize. So Sam, thank you so much for that. That is going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. We got guests coming on literally every day this week, as we always do. But as always, you guys, if you got value in which you heard, subscribe to the show.
If you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, and you haven't ranked the show yet, rank the show on itunes and Spotify because if you saw value, that's how 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. And the.