Ep. #21: Jim Steger

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We look forward to working with you To our listeners . That's it . Let's get the show on the road . Welcome back to another episode of FreightPod . I'm your host , Andrew Silver . I am joined today by CEO of Integrity Express Logistics , mr Jim Steger . Welcome to the show , jim . How are you doing today ? Doing great . How are you ? I'm fantastic , I'm excited .

This is , you know , the last couple episodes I've done have largely been with I guess you know tech vendors , but not really the traditional freight broker as kind of my personal background .

So I'm excited to have you on because I think your story is really interesting , first with your kind of naval background and then just the idea of starting a brokerage in your basement and 17 years later that being a top 25 company on the transport topics , top 100 brokers , billion-dollar revenue organization .

I mean it's just a very cool story that I'm excited to dive into . So , jim , let's start with the background . So you mentioned you had a uh , a history in the Navy . Can you give me some , some background there on why you joined , what , what kind of brought you there ?

Plus , he gave you a job right out of college with a ton of experience , and you know that was my why . And then , next thing , you know 9-11 hits and then you know your why becomes something completely different . And you know you just knew like you were going to get ready to go to war or get deployed somewhere or something like that .

So you know , uh , pretty quickly in the military , and when that happened it was , uh , it was life-changing , life altering , Um .

So you know , at that point in time everybody knew like that day , like we're gearing up for some type of military action through more trainings in school and you graduate and you become a commissioned officer and then you go through more training because they love training , and then you get to your final station and then you kind of figure out what your role is

and your plan is . There . It was a crazy seven years with the active duty and then ROTC stuff , all that combined . But I wouldn't trade it for the world . It's really the reason why I'm where I'm at now . What was your role ? I was a maintenance and logistics officer and was tied to the , the global Hawk program , which was a drone program .

Okay , so you know it was very much in the test phase . And then you know , you know the Iraq and Afghanistan operations kicked off . It was forced into , you know , more of an active role . There was only and it was a huge logistical problem because there was only three active jets in the entire fleet .

So if a part breaks , you kind of have to mobilize and cannibalize a jet in California , ship that part to Edwards Air Force Base , get it tested , then ship that part into theater wherever we were at whether it was Iraq , afghanistan , uae , qatar , wherever the jet was broke down .

You kind of have to fly in , diagnose the problem , figure out what part you need and then really get that part over into theater into Afghanistan or Iraq and then fix it and then launch it again , and then you kind of go back to your home base within the theater there .

We operate strictly at night , but when the jet kind of loses its link and it auto lands into a middle of an airfield for one example , we had to auto land in Kabul and then the jet's just sitting on the runway you got to talk people through to kind of get it off the runway so that runway can be active .

Then we fly in , diagnose what was wrong with it mechanically or , you know , could be a software issue , because it's basically just a flying computer , right ? Yeah , so you know you hook into it and you're all on a laptop and trying to diagnose this thing . So you know you hook into it and you're all on a laptop and trying to diagnose this thing .

So it's , you know it's crazy , it happens crazy fast . You get up on a C-130 , you land , diagnose it , figure out what part had to come in . Sometimes that part could take a week , sometimes it could take three weeks . You know kind of go through the testing of the part , then you fly it in . You know through got to go .

So that's how I learned about team trucks was it had to come from El Segundo , which is San Diego , california team it all the way over to Dover , maine , and that truck cannot start because it's got a classified part on it right , so it cannot stop and it's Dover Maine .

Then it gets into the Air Force Network and then we fly it , you know , through Germany and to where Iraq or Afghanistan , wherever that issue was at . So that's where you know you figure out this whole world of logistics of like , oh , this is what , like , this is what the real problems are .

You know , uh , you know they say soldiers talk tactics , generals talk logistics , and then you figure out a reason why that is so interesting .

You know , and that's to you know you get back to the basics of logistics . That's what it is and that's how you service . You know your customers right , like you know , yeah , that's great that there's two . You know problems with these pickups and you got to reroute the whole truck .

Like , yeah , figure it out , that's what we're , that's what we're contracting you to do . You know .

curious . So clearly there were some lessons learned and I'm curious from your perspective , what are a few things that you took from that experience that you've now kind of put into your business or into your leadership style ? What do ?

And then you learn like , okay , responsibility , the buck stops here . You know you kind of go back to the training and you fast forward and be like , okay , this is the lessons , how do I put that into practice for this ? So one of the big things we started early on was developing a training program at Integrity .

When you would honor new people , I would sit with them and I had a three-ring binder and I would just go over all the basics of picking up a load and delivering a load and check calls and all that good stuff Just the basics of moving a load . Training was the big thing . It's like understanding how much training people need .

Now there's no substitute for on-the-job training , but giving them some basic tools early on , because training really that is your brand , right ? Our websites , it's nice and it's good , but all your employees are calling out on customers and calling out on vendors , they're really representing your brand . So that's kind of the lesson one .

There was training From a leadership style . There's many ways to skin that cat right . I mean I'm more of a servant leader . I like to kind of have a collaboration . Before a decision is made . I'm constantly asking people what can I help you with , how to help you solve your problems , right ?

And so we always say the brokers are our customers as management , so if we treat them like that , they're going to treat their customers well and it's just got a trickle down effect , right . So yeah , so I mean that's . You know I've always gravitated towards that , that style .

Not everybody has that style and you know , whatever works for you works , but you know it seems to work out well for us .

I remember , um , you know , we had this kind of when we were thinking of a name for molo , we , there was a point where we almost named it three b . Well , I wouldn't say we almost named it this , but we contemplated the name 3BL , the three Bs being best , best , best and those three Bs being the best .

We were thinking about the three kind of customers that we wanted to be best for the drivers obviously , the shippers obviously .

And then I guess what is less obvious for a lot of people is the employee , is less obvious for a lot of people is the employee , and arguably the employee is the most important customer because at the end of the day , if you don't treat your employee well , how can you expect they're going to treat your drivers or your shippers well ?

That was something that seemed very basic and rudimentary to me . It seems like you also understand that and have tried to ingrain that in your business and your team .

The other direction is they're treating their employee like a customer that they are serving . The other direction is they're treating their employee like someone who works for them and if they don't do what they what they're told , then you know they're out of here .

It's okay to hold you should hold people accountable and whatnot , but but my point is , if you don't treat people well over time , they will not treat other people well . It just is how the world works . If you do treat them well , it's way more likely they will as well . It doesn't mean there aren't bad apples who will look to scheme the system or whatever .

I'm just in terms of the impact you can have as the key leader in the business . Which path you take is pretty important .

I got to be here 15 minutes early , right Earlier than that . So you know , just setting that example is part of setting the tone and you know that all bleeds down and you know , hopefully we set a good example within our executive leadership team and we continue to grow and thrive in this industry .

That fell through . And this whole time when I was deployed I kept reading just these entrepreneurial books and you start , you just kind of get this different mindset of like , okay , I'm transitioning out of the military , what is the next steps ?

And I thought staying with the Global Hawk program would be fascinating , takes you around the world , it's high-tech technology . So when that fell through it was like , oh , okay , I got to figure something else out and you had a logistics background , so other logistics companies are calling on you and you just you figure out .

Like if I got back from deployment and deployments , well , it's crazy , it's busy , but you get tax-free money , hazard duty pay . I didn't have an apartment that I was paying rent on , so I just saved up a ton of cash and normally people get out and they buy a nice big truck . I didn't do that .

I took all that money and started Integrity Express and you didn't realize how much money you needed to start a business until you start actually doing sales and then you have to pay carriers before they pick up a load , 50% before they pick up a load , and and then 50% once they deliver and you're just churning through cash , so really not getting that opportunity

. Closing with part of the DOD opened up this opportunity for myself and also one of my partners , matt . We come from a big Italian Catholic family , so he's the baby of 13 . He's my uncle , my mom's , one of the older ones and he was kind of transitioning out of his company at the same time .

So we had kind of like the idea we knew the industry was kind of catching fire and you know he had sales experience , I had operational experience , um , and , you know , had some cash saved up . So it was like , okay , let's just go bang on this for a while and see if we can figure it out . And it was just . You know it was . You know I miss .

I still go back to like the days in the basement like just pure grinding , just pure grinding it out , fumbling over all these mistakes that you have to learn for on the fly and this is 2007 , so the freight industry wasn't really on fire and then fast forward .

I can remember coming up from the basement and you hear George Bush trying to explain mortgage-backed securities and you just knew the economy was going into recession and you're like , oh great , we got this new company , we're starting to catch a little bit of ground . And then you got this whole situation unfolding .

But at the end of the day , we told ourselves , what else are we going to do ? Is he give up ? No , you just keep working . You keep working on the problem . Going to do , is you give up ? Now , like , you just keep working , you keep working on the problem . Um , it was a very much a hang and bang . You know , feel down there .

Um , you know , when you and we didn't pay ourselves for a first year and a half , two years , like we just kept putting money back into the company , um , and you know , you , just , you just grind it out and you figure it out on the fly . And it's funny because we kind of grew up in a recession .

The only freight that we were able to get opportunities were was produce , or it was fresh chicken or onions or whatever , it was tomatoes . And you've built a book of business before . They only give you the toughest opportunity to work on right , whatever their headache is the toughest or the worst . Yeah , right , yeah .

However you want to define that , the stuff nobody wants Correct . So I remember not the first , but one of the first big opportunities we got was tomatoes coming out of Homestead in Immokalee , florida , multi-pick going all the way up to Vancouver , bc . So we got Beautiful , the longest run available , plus , you're crossing a border .

You know , my girlfriend at the time now my wife was our first accounting rep . You know , then it's all referrals from there where you know you kind of move into , we moved into the house or a house where it was kind of gutted and redone and we kind of just built an office at that house .

Then you move into a warehouse with like a fun office and you know , and then I think it was 2012 where we of just built an office in that house . Then you move into a warehouse with like a fun office and you know , and then I think it was 2012 where we actually moved into an office office .

Okay , a lot of you know figured it out on the fly , but you know , and as you gain momentum , more people within the industry kind of get it . You know that you got customer service , you got carrier service , you got employee service and you keep that service mindset .

I mean , at the end of the day , we are in a service business , right , we're in a service industry . It's B2B , 100% yeah .

Frankly , years that you know , as I built my own book , I started with this produce company and um was probably doing five to 10 loads a day by the end of it for them and it was a pain in the ass , a lot of work .

And you know , three years into my sales career I was probably doing one to two loads a day for them because I'd replaced them with like better I don't want to say better , but easier customers to work with that did a lot of my , did a lot of my freight , and then I would .

What I would actually do is I would pass that company to uh new reps and say this is how you're going to learn how to move freight , because if you can figure out how to navigate all the issues you're going to deal with produce , then you can move anything .

I mean whether it was getting short paid because the potatoes you picked up lost water weight during transit , which has nothing to do with the driver I hired . That's just kind of the way potatoes work .

Whatever it was , there were a lot more issues in produce , so it did teach you how to navigate problems and manage through them without losing your head , especially because a lot of produce brokers tend to lose their head pretty easily .

They do it really well and I think it ultimately goes back to when we were starting in those first four or five years where so many people were moving food and beverage , because that's really the opportunities that we were able to get our hands on because of the recession and so it's been a blessing in disguise there .

Yeah , you took so we train people off of our freight , right ? Yeah , so you train people off of your freight . And then , next thing , you know , they know tomatoes so they can go cold call somebody that's moving tomato and they know their product . If you know your customer's product , that is such a value add to the customer .

Even you've built a niche , um , as , as you know , I think you know , as a percentage of your total freight , your , your refrigerated freight , is way higher than the average broker . So it is kind of cool how , um , that you know it speaks to that kind of idea we were talking about before , about like kind of as goes the leader , goes the pack .

Um , you know , that's what you guys started with , that's what people saw you moving and that's what people learned how to move themselves . And then , 15 years later , 17 years later , you guys are one of the top refrigerated brokerage providers . So , um , it's cool how that kind of story builds out . Yeah , um , I'm curious , you know .

Let's go back to the name for a second . How did we come up with integrity ?

Whether it's drivers lying to you or dispatchers just you deal with that are just trying to , you know , carve out their , you know their niche and they're not always going to be fully force coming with all the stuff that you know you kind of need to help solve the customer's problem Right . So you know that world .

You know it's important for us to have integrity when we go to our customers . That world , it's important for us to have integrity when we go to our customers . One of the things that we pride ourselves in is if we quote a load , we're not going to give that back . We're going to figure it out , we're going to take it on the chin .

If it's a loss , you know what , we'll take the loss . We'll fix it in the future if it's a pricing issue , but for right now we're not going to give you a load back to you . So that's one of the core values we give to our customers is if I take a load , it's going to get picked up . So is there going to be problems ?

We knew a lot of the challenges we were going to run into right . We knew about , um , you know , carriers with no inspections and the risk that it would take to work with companies like that . We knew that carriers would lie about ready times for shipments coming out of highly desired areas because there weren't a ton of other good loads for them to take .

So they might lie and just to make it work , so they could still pick up a load even if they were going to be late things like that which are important to know . But , as I'm thinking about it , when you started your business you didn't have five , 10 years of true freight brokerage experience .

So I'm curious what that was like , where you were kind of having to learn on the fly what this business even was .

And then that carrier calls me and says trucks can't pick up your load , truck broke down . So I immediately call the customer and just completely being upfront and honest with him , like hey , truck broke down , I'm not going to be able to pick up the load , maybe tomorrow . And he's like , no , that's not how this works , son . He's like lose my number .

So you learn it that way . And that's the first couple of years . But kind of , once we get some mojo going , you're able to get people from other freight companies and then they bring in a lot of experience . The third partner is my cousin Pete .

He came over from another logistics company , sat out , then he went to be a produce broker so he got to learn all that game as well and then came to us so he brought a ton of experience . Then you start attracting talent with logistics experience so they bring in experience with you and fast forward . Today .

Some of those guys are our president of sales or VP of sales , coo . The early group , the early core group , is still intact and is in senior management and are a big part of why we're here . It's very much a team effort .

When it was just Matt and I in the basement , we had to learn the hard way Whether it's claims or whether it's people falling out on you all that good stuff . So you quickly learn the game , with opportunities , of course , and you guys have chosen to do the cradle to grave pod model correct customer . And then when we hire people , I'll bring in somebody .

They'll be my assistant , they'll train on my freight , they'll do the track and trace , set up appointments , then they'll start booking carriers for me and help me manage it while I continue to build my book . And then eventually that person gets spun off and then they're building their book .

And that's a big reason why we're 50% reefer freight or 70% 75% food and beverage . It's just because you come in , you train under a product and then you typically , when you go build your own book , you gravitate towards that product , of course . So , yeah , that ended a notch . That's the silo model .

Now , eventually your freight gets so big that you're building a team or a pod and what I've come to learn is some people call it tables . You build a table where you just got a scheduler , you got people that are just covering the freight , you got people that are just dealing with exceptions and then you got people that are just dealing with the customer .

So it's kind of it morphs right .

So you guys are kind of moving to the Chicago model you're suggesting or it's something you're looking at . No , well .

You can be a company within a company .

It's phenomenal , very cool . And what I'm curious is , as you look at the growth over time , what do you kind of believe are some of the most important factors or decisions that your team has made that have kind of catalyzed that growth ?

Where you're all right , let's take it , I'm going to come off the floor and I'm going to run , start up the building out the accounting department and the carrier department and the IT department , kind of taking those steps back and investing back into the business from a structural standpoint that have the capacity to be able to go from sales to IT early on , or

sales to operations , and handing some of that stuff off to those folks that are , quite frankly , just more capable at it but can also focus on it . So , investing into your management staff and investing into that , you know often , or every couple of years .

Then investing into IT . So we were renting a couple of TMSs for a while and in 2014 , you know , I had an IT intern convince me to build our own TMS and it would only take four months . So we didn't launch that until the end of 2006 . Time out .

You can fumble around and make mistakes as long as the sales are holding up and the sales crew was doing phenomenal , so you could kind of fumble a little bit more in the IT space . There , where we have our own proprietary TMS , allowed us to be so much more nimble and cost-effective in the IT space . Fast forward to now .

The next biggest thing is we're in Cincinnati . It's a great city . It's a family-oriented city . There's not a lot of young folks moving to Cincinnati because it's a great downtown area . So we realized that if you want to really grow this thing , we have to get outside of Cincinnati .

Just for talent's sake , if we want to seek some of the best broker talent out there , we have to kind of get outside of Cincinnati . So we opened up the Tampa office in February or March of 2014 . Or no , yeah , 2014 .

But fast forward to today , it's 250 employees in Tampa . So it's been a great thing . And now we have 17 different offices throughout the country .

And we couldn't have done that if we didn't invest into the technology that allowed us to kind of do all these sites , because the old TMSs we were on were just , they were old right , it was old technology , it was not flexible .

And so , you know , investing in people , investing in technology , you know , and getting outside of your comfort zone and getting outside of Cincinnati were probably the three big catalysts for our growth .

I think that , whether it's TMS or carrier identity and onboarding , um , or load board type stuff , I mean , there's a solution for everyone that you can build it yourself or you can buy it off the shelf . So , um , I'm curious as , as you think about you know , TMS was obviously the decision you made . It was a 2014 . You said that you started building that .

Yeah , have there been any doubts ? Like you know , is it too expensive to be carrying the cost of all the IT people ? Or like , have you considered the other route ever ? Or it's like this is what works for us . We know this is the answer .

But then you look at all the onboarding costs , how long it's going to take , and then just the year-over-year cost and from a cost-saving standpoint it's been better to build it . I mean just hands down . Now I feel like our IT team . They do a really good job of being lean .

And we're able to be lean because we have our approach and we're actually doubling down on it and we're building a new TMS Now .

It'll have a lot of the same functionality , but the theme there is to build a really strong backbone TMS and do what we do , do what our current TMS is doing , but then make it really flexible to integrate all these new technologies . And then we have a ton of integrations already , whether it's EDI or all the carrier onboarding stuff .

All those tools are already integrated . But we want to build a platform that's even easier to integrate , because what's naturally going to happen in the tech space is hey , here's a subscription model and now I'm going to increase it 30% , now I'm going to increase it 40% .

So we have to be able to be nimble enough on the integration piece to say , okay , you've increased your cost . There's another platform that we can have at a cheaper cost and solve the same issues , whether it's payments , whether it's load boards , whether it's whatever .

It's kind of a combination is what we've done , because we consistently have that build versus buy conversation within all the other vendors that we have . That we're going to integrate with Yep . Can we build a scanning AI tool that kind of helps do with all of our document management ? Yeah , but I can outsource that .

I can get it up going in three months versus a year and long-term it's not going to cost me that much , right , yeah , so I think what you're saying is really fascinating .

I think the idea of , hey , we're committed to what we're building , but every year or every other year we're just going to see what's out there , compare it and contemplate and weigh all the pros and cons and think long term and then make a decision I think that's really smart .

The more flexible and nimble you can be as a business , especially with respect to technology and your partners , the faster you can improve things and change things and you're not as beholden . I mean , the worst case scenario is you find yourself stuck with this like clunky TMS .

That's like really messy and challenging to navigate , and if you want to make a change , it's a two-year thing and it's expensive and you don't know the possible risks of , if something goes wrong , how you're going to navigate . It's just that , that concern that's concerning to me in general . So , um , I like the way you're thinking about it .

I do think one of the things I always thought about so , mola , we weren't building our own stuff . I mean , we had couple guys in our IT team who built some nifty things to make things a little easier , but we weren't going to go build our own TMS or anything of that nature , because I just didn't think that was our wheelhouse .

I was like , hey , we are exceptional at moving loads and we are really really good at that and we know how to train people to do it , and we could hire another thousand people over the next five years and then a thousand after that , and I know we can get them good at moving loads .

Do I know that we know how to build some AI tool better than the company out there that that's their whole business . Like , I just didn't think that that was what we were good at , so that's why we went that route . That was what we were good at , so that's why we went that route .

But I like the way you're thinking about the integration piece , because it does give you that freedom to say , hey , okay , yeah , this EDI partner has had me locked in for 10 years . They just raised their cost per character by 30% . They think they have me by the ball .

I shouldn't say about they think they have me and that I have no choice but to stick with them . But boom , there's this new provider that just popped up , and because of how I've created my integration station , as I'll call it , within my TMS , I can get you out and get you in here in a month and boom , I'm saving 20% .

So I do like the way you're thinking about that and I think that's .

So we felt comfortable hey , you guys run that , I'm going to figure out everything else how to build the management team , how to do technology All right . If we want to go to Tampa , all right , let's figure out how to accomplish that .

So I was blessed in that regard with they could focus there and I was able to really work with the IT team and trip over ourselves and learn on the fly and make that investment . And the goal was always not this year , but three years from now . Are we going to be better off than where we were ? And the answer was yes , right , so it was .

You know , taking that long-term view is helpful when making that decision , for at least for myself . But also , having the partners that you didn't have to think about that and you could focus over here is just truly a blessing .

This is going to be huge for us , um , but it's going to take us a while to build and it's going to be expensive to build whatever Um , and then a market like this one comes and kicks you in the ass . And it just keeps kicking you in the ass month over month for what is now , I don't know , two years , seemingly , or almost .

And I'm just curious yeah , we're in our 26th month . Okay , yep , just over two years .

And it's like how do you think about allocating resources when something like this comes about ? And do you pivot ? Do you get more focused on cutting costs or doing certain things to batten the hatches ? Or I'm just curious how , as a management team , you think about big decisions like that in a down market that really is at least this one's unprecedented .

It feels unprecedented .

And people have goals and they have seat costs and stuff like that that they have to cover and if they're not , you get put on a plan and you get a last opportunity to get out of it , and if not , we have to have the unfortunate conversation and we slowed down our hiring .

We didn't completely turn it off until , I want to say , the last half of last year . What are your strategic projects ? Right ? What are your goals from three to five years , while the pendulum is in a shipper's market right now ? We know- .

You get really disciplined on spending , but at the same time , if you have these strategic projects , you still want to press forward on those and that's just been kind of our logic over the past 25 months or so . But I'm sure other people have things . So we didn't take any outside money to fund our growth .

We've been all bootstrapped here , so we've been lean on managing all of the support personnel or all the yeah , yeah , I mean all the , all the costs , the fixed costs , um , over our years and um yeah .

You have to be really smart with the decisions you make , especially the big strategic project ones . So I think that's really interesting .

But you also explain to them the history and all that stuff kind of just trickles throughout the sales floor for the sales managers to , you know , to the brokers , that especially the brokers that have seen these swings before . You know we have a lot of , still have a lot of , like 10-year brokers or 12-year brokers . Those guys are pivotal .

You know of championing change and then also kind of helping us with the culture of yeah , yeah , you know like made a ton of money in two years ago . Now I'm not doing that great , but it'll come back .

You know just having those stories on the sales floor and really kind of you know having everybody into the office and you know still kind of having that culture . It has been huge and you know , but it hasn't been easy . I mean , yeah , it's a lot easier in 2021 , 22 , but it is what it is .

And you know it goes back to like really just the basics of managing is , you know , have a good culture , have some good training , treat your employees like customers and communicate , and you'll have the wherewithal to kind of see through this .

So whenever that change comes and whenever it kind of switches back and it won't be some , just switch , it'll be very gradual over time . You got to find your opportunities in this market and tomorrow's market . We'll deal with tomorrow's market , today's today .

And that's how we're going to kind of continue to manage forward here . But from a prediction standpoint , is it this spring , Is it this fall , Is it next year ? I don't know . But we're positioned well to capitalize on it when it does .

But we knew if there were some specialties and some different modes out there that we wanted to capitalize on . The fastest way to do that is through acquisitions and really build that up came . Last year was Toronto . Early last year was Toronto . We purchased a great company in Toronto .

They do a ton of produce , just like we do Canada to Canada , us to Canada , canada to US . So really kind of able to build out that . Canadians , you know , they want to deal with Canadians , right ?

Canadian truck drivers want to deal with Canadian brokerages , canadian receivers want to deal with Canadian folks and that's great and we've been able to kind of realize some cross-selling opportunities there and some purchasing power that they bring we bring to them . So that's been a great fit . They have a great team up there .

And then shortly after that , we closed a company that had four locations two in Texas Dallas and El Paso and then two in Mexico Quetetero in Mexico City and we've been integrating those two companies over this past year and kind of got to a pretty good spot where now we're starting to capitalize on the cross-selling and all that good stuff .

So it's really just building out that North American footprint was this first wave of acquisitions and we'll continue to look at the acquisition strategy and where different modes can kind of fit in and help us scale faster . Because we have 550 sales reps cold calling and doing all that stuff , getting opportunities .

I feel like it's my job to be able to put more arrows in their quivers , to be able to say yes to those opportunities 100% , and I think I'm 100% aligned on the strategy and the reasoning .

And you know so we have a young culture here . It's very hungry , it's very , you know , focused on growth , right , right . So is that the you know that owner's . Is that his same culture that he has ?

And , luckily for both , it's been a great culture fit for both acquisitions there and we've said no to a number of deals where it's like , yeah , that's just not going to , you know , fit with us .

You know , you see some of these brokers and brokerages and everybody's got an office and if there is a floor it's all high wall cubes and it's like that's just not a culture fit for us .

Right , it was in a great location , they did different things than we did , but you kind of have to pass on that , right , and there's been a number of those that you've passed on . But yeah , that's been a huge challenge . And now we're working on the integration piece and cross-selling , but then also the operational opportunities .

There has kind of been part of that integration that we're working on now

.

And we've really in 2021 , we also partnered with Eve Partners . They're a private equity .

They bought a small share of the company and a minority share into the company , but their role is really our acquisition arm and so they've been really doing the heavy lifting over there , because I didn't have any acquisition you know expertise needing anybody in our business , anybody in our business but if we were able to find a partner , take some chips off the

table , but then they also brought in a value add to our business and I get to work with them on the acquisition piece and then , once we do the acquisition , our team comes in and does the integration and so far it's been pretty good .

I mean , there's been definitely situation , personality conflicts that come up and when there's multiple owners and you get to pull behind the curtain a little bit after the acquisition , be like , oh , this guy's got a problem with this guy or whatever there's . Just this accounting person is this person's sister .

So you have to kind of navigate all those stuff and you don't really get to see that until after the acquisition is done .

So we'll continue to define cities that kind of match our cultural fit and grow those out . The acquisition piece just adds another growth strategy to how we're going to continue to do it and what we're looking for .

There is either new cities that we're not in but it's a culture fit or new modes of transportation , whether it's we do do LTL now , but maybe we can scale that even 10 times faster through an acquisition , or freight forwarding or intermogul . So we're constantly looking at adding those arrows to the broker's quiver to be able to kind of fire in .

What we want to be is a solutions provider , not just a full truckload provider and LTL provider . We want to be a logistics solutions provider . So when we go to these conversations and it's like , yes , we can handle that , handle this .

So looking at those different modes that you can cross sell with is the key and that we can integrate with right , because you can buy 50 companies but if you're not going to be able to integrate those and capitalize on the cross selling , you're just not going to drive the value that you need .

So , as you think about your own kind of ambitions and goals , what do you kind of see like what's a big goal you have for the business , like long-term , like what's something that in your mind you've set like the team knows , like you're rallying the team to say , hey , we're going to , this is who we're going to be , or this is what we want to do , or

whatever .

We want to be able to double our locations and be able to provide all the solutions to our customers that they need , right , and then just keep growing and keep having fun and keep doing what we like to do .

The most rewarding part about being a business owner is you see folks that come in , they start with you , then they meet a girl , they get married , then they have kids and they buy this nice house and like just seeing people be able to live the American dream and just being a part of that or connected to that somehow is the most rewarding thing that I've

been able to kind of enjoy it . It's just , you know , we've always had just a growth mindset , like continue to grow , continue to find ways to grow , you know we've always had just a growth mindset , like continue to grow , continue to find ways to grow .

You ran right through it , right , you earned every cent , you earned every dollar , you worked for it . All I did was say , hey , you can have this opportunity , go make the most of it .

That to me , I mean , I've gotten a lot of messages like that over time and it's , it's a really , really incredible feeling Like that is the thing that you know , just makes you feel a little warmer inside and better about what you're doing .

When you recruit folks , it's like , hey , this is just an opportunity . Whatever you do with it is on you right , and a lot of people seize that opportunity and then are able to capitalize on it .

You don't have to be a doctor or a lawyer , but you do have to have grit and you have to be able to figure it out and have drive to kind of go seize that opportunity . So it's awesome to see .

You talk about the young , hungry , gritty culture very similar things . I'm curious . We did it different ways , different approaches , but both of our organizations reached high levels of success and I guess my question to you is do you think anybody can do it at this point ?

I mean , is there still room for anyone to come in with the right mindset and start a new brokerage tomorrow and build it to be a billion-dollar revenue organization , whether it's in 10 years or 15 years , with that model , or is there a point where it's it's the , the , the . The well is dry .

I mean , to your statement , is there room for another broker to come up ? They'd have to be pretty special just because of all the competition out there , right ? I mean , there is just a lot more competition . There's a lot more intelligent competition too .

There's a ton of tech coming into our space and then being able to choose the right tech that fits your needs . So there's just it's going to be tougher , but do I think ? Sure , I think the American entrepreneur will find a way .

And , um , what will the industry even look like in three years ? Like , what role will ai be playing in in the space for brokers ? And I saw a company just came out with an ai bot that , uh , that that actually gets on the phone and tries to sell loads to carriers and did I think it sounded as effective or intuitive as an actual broker ? Not even close .

But where will that technology be in two to three years ? Who knows ?

It can present data faster , it can do some small eliminations there , but you know , when you're on the phone with that driver and he hesitates when you say are you empty ? Oh , there's something here right . Yeah , boss , you got to be able to . Yeah , yeah , when you book the team and he's like oh , I'm a strong single , all right , here we go .

The Chicago carriers were always great at that . Uh , but , like you know , you have to be able to . Uh , you know , vet those guys and . And AI , you know you have , that has to . That action has to be performed before it can actually you figure out a new problem .

And we view technology as a huge part of our success and our future . It's so important but at the end of the day , you got to be able to do . Technology is there to do more loads with less overhead , and if it doesn't do that , then it's a waste . So technology has got to add efficiencies for it to be a good technology 100% .

And you're not going to replace the relationship piece , sorry . We take our job extremely seriously in managing the customer's freight because at the end of the day , we know that customer , our relationship with that customer matters because that's their job on the line .

If they pick a wrong , a bad vendor , and then something blows up in the face , they get terminated too . So it's an extremely important decision to them and that relationship matters .

So wishing you all the success in the future and hoping this market turns around for you and the rest of our friends in the industry sooner than later . So thanks so much for being on the rest of our friends in the industry sooner than later . Yeah , thanks so much for being on the show .