Ep. #28: Corey Ritenour

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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 .

I committed to myself at least , and in my mind , to all of you , that I would produce an episode every week moving forward , and I failed to do that last week . Produce an episode every week moving forward , and I failed to do that last week . And even this week's episode is going to be coming late .

We're recording it on Wednesday , but I'm going to get it out to you Thursday morning . My goal every week is to get them out on Tuesday mornings . Frankly , if I'm being honest , I started taking . I just learned , not even three , four weeks ago , that I have ADHD and it's an interesting thing , I guess , to learn at 34 years old .

But I'm really glad I did and I'm actually going to do an episode specifically about that . But I started taking some medicine for it and along with ADHD I also have Tourette's . That's something I've talked about before and the challenge is , most people for ADHD will take like Adderall or Ritalin , which is a stimulant .

That's no bueno with Tourette's because I'll just be ticking all over the place . Um , even more so than I normally do . You may , if you're watching this episode versus listening , you may notice me tick a little bit more . I'm not taking a stimulant . I little bit more . I'm not taking a stimulant . I'm taking a different medicine , but it has .

It has challenged my tics a little bit . So I've just been dealing with some side effects , some headaches and stuff that has made it hard to just sit and do something like this , but I'm those are wearing off and we're going to battle through it here today because I have a great guest , mr cory rittenhour .

This is , uh , actually our second time trying to record . We did have some technical difficulties our first time , about a month ago , and so we're doing a round two here , which will make it even better . Corey , welcome to the show . How are you doing ?

I'm realizing I think one of the challenges I have in these episodes is I don't do a great job of getting the guest introduced well and letting them give kind of a brief bio before we jump into all the hard-hitting questions . So we're going to try that today .

Why don't you , corey , just kick us off , tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of your career and your journey to the industry ?

So from a from a career standpoint , most of my career so coming up just over 20 years actually now that I look at the date so just about 20 years ago started with ConAgra Foods , really transportation planner role , really transportation planner role .

They were going through the centralization efforts bringing a bunch of load planning roles into their supply chain office in the Chicagoland area .

Won't bore you guys with all the details , but apparently performed fairly well doing that and was promoted into a transportation procurement role early in my 20s and a couple of minutes or a couple of months after that occurred , hurricane Katrina hit .

So I quickly learned how little I know about the transportation markets you know and how little influence one organization may have on it . So great experience , tough time to go through for many people , but great opportunity there .

Exited ConAgra , supported their transition as they moved everything back to Omaha , moved over to Quaker Tropicana Gatorade , part of Pepsi , kind of a three-headed role there . Everything back to Omaha , moved over to Quaker Tropicana Gatorade , part of Pepsi , kind of a three-headed role there .

Transportation procurement , peak season operational support and then SAP implementation support as well , again performed fairly well . There at Pierce I was promoted to my first people management role there as a customer supply chain supervisor role . People management role there as a customer supply chain supervisor role had 13 people on my team .

Two of them had been alive longer or , I'm sorry , two of them had worked for the organization longer than I'd been alive . But I do give Pepsi a lot of credit . I mean they did a great job of putting me in a role that I wasn't the subject matter expert in .

So it was really a great opportunity for me to learn how to really get results through people instead of being the one doing it right . Then I was ultimately recruited away from Pepsi over to Smurfit Stone .

That was ultimately purchased by Rock 10 , now part of Westrock , and so similarly , you know , just from a transportation standpoint helped them emerge from bankruptcy successfully . We were purchased by Rock . Dan declined to move down to Norcross . Then wife and I left Chicago .

We moved to Nashville leading the supply chain for the Neutral Company , which is a natural pet food division within Mars Pet Care .

Did that for about three years , moved here to Kansas City , spent five years with Dairy Farmers of America , helping the team here really stand up a global logistics platform and then five years ago left DFAFA , joined Lent and Sprungly , specifically Lent and Sprungly North America .

We're a shared service organization that delivers value through collaboration with our three brands here in the US , being Lent , ghirardelli as well as Russell Stover . So I lead the transportation team here and actually have an interim role for the next nine-ish months where I'm the interim head of supply chain for the Lint Canada team .

So great company to be a part of great opportunities that I've had all along the way and looking forward to sharing a little bit of my insights along the way here . Looking forward to sharing a little bit of my insights along the way here .

You know , from a customer standpoint , it's really about making sure that the plants are remaining up and operational , getting the roll stock or corrugate out of the building to allow the machines to continue to operate .

So a little bit of a different strategy , but having the understanding around what different options there are in terms of executing that transportation or broader supply chain strategy has been pivotal . Not a one-size-fits-all answer for each organization , that's for sure .

Two , every couple of years you're going through a market cycle adjustment and each market cycle is going to be different than the last . So , yes , you can apply some of your learnings . Yes , you can prepare for it . You know the old adage of you know , fix your roof when it's sunny , not you know when it's raining , not you know when it's raining .

So , you know , I enjoy that aspect of you know , yes , the market cycles suck . Yes , they're not great , but it does give you a chance to really find out . You know , and learn from your plans that you set forth in terms of your overall strategy . And also , you know , test how you are from an execution standpoint .

So , you know , I think those shorter cycles give you a chance to really assess what is your , you know , broader perspective and kind of business acumen on being able to tackle some of those things you know , while supporting company goals time on this recent current market cycle .

like a , you know , frontline planner role ? How do you think about the changes and decisions you've made to get to where you are today and kind of what could you spin that into ? Maybe advice for kind of young entrants to the industry to , you know , one day see that kind of progress .

question . I think you know the best advice that I would give is you know , try to get a breadth of experience early in your career . You know , for me it was you know transportation operations but you know we were supporting . You know transportation operations but you know we were supporting . You know an SAP implementation . So you get some of that .

You know kind of project management implementation items . You know , and then over into the you know the procurement space and then you know you know still fairly early in my career , you know , get that . You know customer supply chain , customer facing experience . You know some of the procurement stuff .

Of course you're managing , you know as well as operations , but you're you know managing your . You know performance against what was budgeted , against right . So think about you know what do you want to do . You know when you grow up , you know what is it going to take to be there , going to take to be there .

So for me , wanting to get into a VP of supply chain role , you need to have multiple disciplines along the way . So transportation , warehousing , planning , customer service , financial exposure , things like that .

So it's much easier to do that earlier in your career than what it is later Now , later , right now , everybody , you know , I think , as a natural tendency , you want to try to climb that corporate ladder , which , which is fair and it makes sense .

But if you have a very , you know , a pretty strong base in terms of , you know , breadth of experience , then you can really build off of that as you , as you , you know , start that career climbing journey .

So it wasn't like you just got in for three to six months and then like , oh , I got all the answers and then went to the next thing . That's like a significant amount of time , enough to really get enough experience that you know I don't know about the word expert , but that you like are dangerous and you know enough .

And I like that idea of early in your career making those changes , because I do think people are so afraid of change in general . Um , but in your early 20s , especially even mid-20s , there's just a lot less .

There typically is a lot less on the table for you , and most people at that point don't yet have , um , they're not yet married necessarily , or have kids that they're responsible for . So it's just easier to take those chances .

And I just kind of like the way you frame that , because you know you don't know what , you're not willing to put yourself in a position to try and do , and you know I especially like it in the context of going from a place like ConAgra to Pepsi , to Smurfit to Mars . Like those are large companies where there'surfit to Mars .

Like those are large companies where there's a lot to do and a lot to learn , and putting two years , three years in at each one , I think , sets you up to get to where you are today . Does that kind of make sense ? Absolutely .

know good , strong value to the organization right , and then you know , as you're making those progressions , you're able to apply what you've learned previously , you know , to really try to make sure you're making the best you know decision from an organizational standpoint , which is you , you know , kind of demonstrate that .

Then you know people are willing to take some more chances on you and other roles as well .

But in trying to get a little bit of a lesson from because these are very important great companies in our industry that have an impact across a lot of carriers and brokers and whatnot , and I'm just curious , as you kind of look at those first few companies you worked at Conagra , pepsi , smurfit , mars what would you say are things that you learned that were

kind of unique to those companies and you don't have to necessarily do each one , but if you know just a couple of things that that really stuck out from those experiences , that people you know our audience who isn't as familiar with those companies would would , I think that you think they'd appreciate hearing .

You know a KPI , you know a performance management standpoint , you know , are we just aware of what our score is ? Do we understand ? You know how we're performing , you know , are we asking the right questions ? You how we're performing ? Are we asking the right questions ? Are we collaborating ?

Are we sharing learnings , not only across the transportation organization but more broadly , from a supply chain component to where we can try to deliver that total cost and , I think , to build on that just a little bit further .

What I also learned is that most of the large savings opportunities that are netted out from a company standpoint is mostly operationally driven and making sure that we're finding the right suppliers and providers that are willing to go on that journey with us .

Right , and if we're able to work through those strategies from a broader supply chain standpoint , we have the right carrier partners with us to help us on that , then we're able to net out that savings opportunity through operational improvements and efficiencies , not just from an industry standpoint , I think , or you know , even different strategies need to apply to

different business units within an organization as well .

Right , so these very large companies , you know they have different , you know needs , they have different businesses , you know within it and you know having and being able to demonstrate that you know flexibility with our carrier partners as well has been , you know , very , very important and I think you know partnering with the right carriers to kind of talk through

what those you know challenges are you know , has been , has been very powerful .

Farmers of America like that supply chain looks like and how just that business is set up in a way that's unique . Just so our audience has an understanding before we talk about some of the strategic things there Absolutely yeah .

You know us from a DFA standpoint and you know it's a you know it's a cool kind of fun story to be part of . That . You know on the commercial investment side , or you know more of the kind of the branded business . You know what we're doing . We're trying to deliver value so that we can , you know more of the kind of the branded business .

You know what we're doing . We're trying to deliver value so that we can , you know , provide money back to the farmers that can then , you know , reinvest in their operations , which you know then we'll provide the milk feeding into our plants , which then will , you know , feed into that . You know end product as well .

So overall , I mean it's , you know , very , you know vertically integrated . You know organization all the way from the farmer through , you know , total distribution to the , to the customer standpoint and it's , you know , pretty , pretty unique , I think in that .

The branding has changed since then , but where all of the more of the finished goods or the products that we're selling from a consumer standpoint , that was more centralized , but we did have a number of companies that we had half ownership in or majority ownership in , but they still had their kind of legacy . You know teams in place as well .

So you know it was very much . You know influencing . You know and working through hey , here's what a best practice is , here's what we're , you know , understanding and recognizing through the area that we're responsible for , we're responsible for , and then , just , you know , working with them on what makes sense for their portion of the organization , for them to .

You know leverage , maybe it's through a procurement event , maybe it's leveraging the TMS platform , maybe it's . You know , standardizing . You know in terms of the , you know the contracts that we have in place .

There's a number of different avenues and , you know , levers that could be pulled by those other logistics functions that I think we were kind of the center of excellence , if you will , from a transportation and broader logistics piece .

If there was one that was able to bring them all in-house and take the hundreds total volume and , you know , manage it as one thing , you would think that that could be more efficient . Is that kind of what your team was trying to do ?

It was to provide our team from a support standpoint or take ownership of it , if that was what the P&L owner really wanted . Right , I mean , there's definitely a financial benefit to your point of , hey , if we do centralize them , then there's probably an opportunity to reduce some redundancies and we can quicker implement items , share best practices , et cetera .

The easy other argument is that is that , well , you just don't know my business as well , right , because it is centralized , you're not ingrained in the business . You are probably making more of a decision from a transportation and logistics lens versus , you know , from a total business standpoint .

So we may be able to save a little bit in overhead , you know , and a little bit from a strategy , bit in overhead , you know , a little bit from a strategy standpoint .

But you know , again , going back to what I mentioned before , you know a single strategy doesn't always work across all the organizations and I think that's probably one of the biggest arguments from a centralization standpoint is normally .

You have a single strategy that's then pushed out and a lot of people don't feel that their voice is heard or , um , you know , don't don't feel like they're fully supported . So , again , our approach was to then try to balance balance both of those right . So how can we share best practices ? How can we leverage the technology that we've implemented ? Leverage the .

You know the . You know the contracting that we had in place . Um , you know leverage the . Uh , you know the procurement in place . You know leverage the . You know the procurement event and you know the spend events .

You know that we had going on , all while trying to make sure that you know each one of the P&L owners had , you know , the best service and , overall , you know structure for their business .

You know the DFA component , right , I mean , you are owned by the farmers , right , and the farmers are best represented by the area in which they're farming . So you know , beyond that , you know it just doesn't make sense to standardize again for the sake of standardizing .

You're not going to have a single voice coming down from the top to say that this must happen , right . So it's , you know , really much more again , very , very collaborative . You know , while trying to make sure you're delivering the , you know the right results for each one of those different companies .

You know , if there was a large contract that was coming up to bid , we may . We a few things that we're doing from a centralized standpoint , but very little interaction with a direct farmer .

So you know , for me what I learned is that you know it's really important to level set on what is the goal of the team

. You know what does success look like for that P&L owner and making sure that we align on what our overarching priorities are going to be , while also spending a bit of time increasing that awareness around . Why is their business costing a little bit more or less ? Why is their service a little bit better , maybe a little bit worse , right ?

So you know , if they have , you know , smaller orders , which you know are shipping more LTL , you're traditionally going to spend a little bit more on a per pound basis . You know your service is probably going to be a little bit lower .

Or if you're servicing the entire country out of one origin point , you know your transportation is going to be higher but theoretically your inventory may be able to be a little bit lower , right ? So really making sure that they understood from a , you know , a broader supply chain standpoint .

What are the different levers that we may be able to pull , you know , to ultimately try to try to hit the goal that they have ?

But why don't you kind of start , I'll give you a softball here , kind of just walk me through the business , like what makes Lent , and give me what you got .

What's even a little bit unique , I think , from a Lent standpoint is we also have three brands , as I previously mentioned here in the US , where we do compete against ourselves on the shelf a little bit along with the other chocolate manufacturers out there , which can create a little bit of interesting conversations at times internally , but between Lindt , ghirardelli

and Russell Stover . What really was identified , probably seven-ish years ago I think , is when the project kicked off , is how do we best collaborate , how do we best execute in areas where a shared service organization makes sense ?

So that's what founded Lent and Sprungly North America , which is the business unit that I'm in , and from transportation , a warehousing , an indirect procurement , some legal services , some tax , some finance stuff , all of that I mean there's probably IT , probably a few others that I'm missing , but there's a number of shared service type offerings that we can leverage

through that centralization , right . And so from a , you know , from a LISNA standpoint , you know , our main goal over the last five years has really been okay . How do we make sure that you know , when we're delivering to a customer , that we have all three products on that truck if we don't have full truckload quantities from any one of the single brands ?

So we have , you know , a shared distribution center network . We have a shared you know network in terms of shipping to our customers and , you know , shared TMS platform , shared , you know load planner . So all of that is done within LISNA .

You know , and I think it's really helped , you know , drive's really helped drive overall supply chain efficiencies across the three organizations .

But could there be situations where you know someone in the russell stover business is looking at the parent or you know the shared service like you and you know you own transportation for all of it and feel like , hey , you know these costs look high . I'm not being treated special enough . I , I'm special , is that ?

Whatever it may be Right and again , I think that's that's one of the big things I learned from a DFA standpoint that I was able to bring to Lent was that every business is going to be different . Every business has a different , different priority , different priority .

That said , how do we make sure that every business , having their own priority , doesn't kind of break down and erode the benefit of what that centralized model is ? So there's a number of standard best practices that are really hard to argue right Again , as an example , like let's have inventory in the five DCs that we have across the US .

Let's ship on the same truck when we have less than full truckload quantities going to the same customer . Let's try to leverage the same technology , try to leverage the same contracts , et cetera , et cetera , right . So , particularly when we stick with the very high-level supply chain basics , it's really hard to argue those .

And then how do we have those collaborative discussions around , what do they need from us and , conversely , what do we need from them to help achieve that ? So it may mean that , well , we aren't operating within the network as well as we should . Maybe we don't have the right order profile .

Maybe , you know something else is going on that's really driving more of the , you know , the cost or service challenge . And , again , that's really what our job is is to make sure we're communicating very clearly what those opportunities are , you know , and then holding ourselves , as well as them , you know , accountable to ultimately , you know , delivering that .

First and foremost you , you listen to them , you have empathy for the situation they're in , but you're also trying to educate and communicate in an effective way where , hey , okay , yes , russell Stover , you have have 10 000 pounds that delivered to walmart in gas city , indiana next tuesday .

I could ship that full truck on its own and you'll spend two thousand dollars from our dc . Or I could pair it with the 12 000 pounds that giardelli has and your cost is cut in half Like , come on , let's do the math here Exactly , and then they get aligned .

You know what will they benefit from by , you know , following through with whatever my ask may be right . So , smaller orders we're asking those to be sailing schedule compliant . We want lead time on our order so that we have the ability to consolidate those and get those , you know appointments scheduled . You know we want to make sure that .

You know we have understanding of can pallet stack , you know , on top of each other or not , right , so we know how to best utilize that . You know trailer that's coming in . So you know there's a number of things that we've , you know , asked for over the years and you know , really , we continue to deliver . You know , exactly as we've .

You know , really we continue to deliver exactly as we've promised , as we've gained that you know , more collaborative partnership with them .

It Particularly with the ingredient deck within quite a bit of our products it will melt a little bit earlier than some other products out there . So , yeah , quality and temperature control is very , very important . So we're always looking at that . We actually had a call earlier today looking at our performance from a temperature maintenance standpoint .

What learnings can we apply ? How can we share that with our carrier community and make sure that they're helping us as well ? Second point our business is highly , highly seasonal . I mean it ramps up very , very quickly .

We're in our valley right now and then , as we get into September , october , november , we just kind of double our volume almost every month and we're shipping Christmas , really September , october timeframe , maybe a little bit in August , october timeframe , maybe a little bit in August .

You know , as we get into , you know the late October through November , early December , we're starting to ship Valentine's Day , you know Easter then really starts to kick off . You know December and January , you know .

So we have all this product that's getting , you know , getting pushed into our distribution centers that are not sized , probably , to fully support the peak season . So we're always trying to get ideally most Well , I mean the argument as well is , no matter how big it is , you're always going to find product to put in it , right , yeah , yeah .

But again , you know , with our , with our seasonal nature , I mean we may be , um , you know , 50% utilized in , you know , june , but then come , you know , october , september . We're , like , you know , a hundred plus percent of , you know really what we want to be , um , you know .

So it can really start to impact our operations , right , um , as such , you know we're really trying to leverage the drop trailer capability . You know the warehousing team , from a business standpoint , does a fantastic job of making sure that , you know , those inbound trailers into the DC is not sitting there for days on end .

You know those are offloaded within 24 hours of the appointment . You know we are having a lot of drop trailers on the outbound side as well .

Um , you know we are having a lot of drop trailers on the outbound side as well , so we can pre-load those , keep the you know the warehouse efficient to where they're not having to pick and stage and then wait for the truck to get there and then and then load .

If they're able to pick and , you know , load directly on that , you know , drop trailer really starts to drive some of that operational efficiency for them as well . Um , yeah , so you know those . Those I think are probably the two biggest nuances of our business , is the temperature sensitivity and then the highly seasonal nature .

The other challenge is that as we approach our customers so in addition to leading the transportation team , I also am a part of the customer collaboration team from a broader perspective and ultimately what we're trying to do is work with our customers as much as we can to drive efficiencies with them .

So how can we potentially get standing appointments , if you know securing appointments with them is a challenge ? How can we work with them to try to get you know truckload quantities ordered , you know on a weekly or on a biweekly basis ? You know ?

How can we work with them on phasing , on some of the seasonality , you know , instead of you know having 40 loads go into one distribution center for one you know delivery date , how can we kind of spread that out over two or three weeks , so really working with them again through a number of broader supply chain programs ?

The challenge , of course , is now we're approaching them as three different brands and really four different organizations . I actually have the three brands plus a Lisna and we're all trying to , you know , collaborate with somebody , to to , to , you know , drive that supply chain efficiency .

Yeah so , it is , it is a little bit different than what I'm sure many of the other you know . Standard food and beverage companies are out there . Certainly that I've experienced .

So I guess I should ask the first question , which is how do you manage RFPs and contracts Like , are they annual ? How do you think about that ?

You know , for those new , you know , entrance to our business , and that we're , you know , fully preparing for that peak season because really , starting July , you know we're starting to pump a lot of volume into our distribution centers and then , starting in , you know , september , we're starting to ship very , very heavy .

So we just want to make sure we're really ahead of the curve and then by the time we're on the back end of our peak season , which is , you know , tailing off in January into mid-February , just want to make sure that you know we're then kind of leading into some of the you know the award decisions from our annual RFP as well .

So you know , for me , like doing something in the middle of our peak season would be very very difficult . Yeah . So annual RFP , and you know , from an RFP standpoint we do show our you know seasonality right . So we show by month what is our volume down to the lane level .

You know we do show some of our you know poor performing receivers , right , that take a little bit longer to unload , you know .

But even within our you know monthly volume we will show what's the max volume that we have in any one week , because sometimes we do have , you know , one week out of the four weeks of a month that is , you know , larger than others .

So again , we try to be as transparent as possible on that .

And for some it's really hard to do , some they don't have the ability to forecast it well , but in some cases you've got to rely on historical data and then you have to make some hedges or almost some bets , and I think the ideal partner is one that makes a commitment on the front and then says okay , listen , the most in a week you should ever have is 10

, and it should be during this time period , but I'd like you to agree to take up to 12 or 11 , or even it can just be 10 , and then , after 10 , we can talk about X , y , z .

But make some kind of agreement on the front end with your carriers and your brokers and I think that you are way better off in terms of the partnership you can develop over time . So , first and foremost , just the more info the better to get more accurate pricing .

That will prevent you being , or anyone being , in a position where six months down the road , when the freight is hardest to move because you're at your peak season , six months down the road , when the freight is hardest to move because you're at your peak season , someone's going to come back and point at that rfp and be like , yeah , and maybe they're doing it

because they were kind of not intentionally , but they were misinformed or deceived I don't know which word you want to use but or they're just realizing hey , you know , I wasn't really giving the information and I'm not going to lose money for this because it's not my fault .

But I just think the more transparent you can be and you know , making that kind of commitment on the front end of this is my expectation just puts you in a way better position as a shipper of choice , so to speak , to use that kind of terminology . Do you kind of agree with that ?

Now it may not be executed , depending on where you're at in the market cycle and how long those carriers or brokers have been in your business , things like that . I think the other approach is okay . Let's be as transparent as possible . Show them the good , the bad , the ugly .

But here's our business , right , price it and then you know , there's much less deviation against what your you know RFP results may show . You know , and you know , I think there's pros and cons of both . I think I prefer the latter .

You know , if I need to deliver bad news from a rate standpoint versus what I budgeted , I'd rather do that once you know , saying , hey , from an RFP standpoint , we just aren't going to deliver this right . But you know , here's what we look like going forward and there's , you know , little deviation that we should expect against that right .

Now our job is to go after how do we try to expedite some of the operational savings that we thought that we can deliver through these different initiatives internally because it's not going to be delivered through rate .

And again , I'd rather have that conversation once so that I can then go focus on executing the business and making sure that our carriers are performing the plan .

Asset carriers want you to tell them it's going to be five a week every year and they'll line up at your door to take it . But if you tell them there's going to be a few months where it's two a week and there's going to be a few months where it's 12 a week , their networks aren't designed to manage that very effectively , right ?

I think the well-ran operations teams within you know the , you know the asset , um divisions , um , you also understand , like , well , there's other customers that are seasonal as well , right so whose , whose , whose seasonality can complement ours , right so ?

Is there a produce , is there an ice cream that is running , you know , heavy in the spring and summer and then starts to tail off in the fall , right ?

So how do we make sure that we're aligning on some of this stuff early on so that , honestly , they're not wasting their time and we're not wasting ours ?

Ideally , we've identified that early and then we start talking about , you know , more of the details of how , how it could work and how you know from a , from a business to business standpoint , that their business compliments ours , ours compliments you know theirs , and that's you know .

Ultimately , when it's a you know mutual relationship like that , it's , you know , traditionally better for both organizations .

It seems like this business would naturally be broker heavy because of that . But the challenge is you also said there's a lot of drop trailer and brokers are just now figuring out how to do that and most of them are not , but some are getting good at that .

But that combination of a heavy need for drop trailer plus a lot of volatility and seasonality just makes for a messy kind of challenging supply chain . So I'm curious if you could talk about , as we move into this next piece , let's talk about the carrier network and kind of strategy . So what is your kind of approach to a carrier network ?

How do you think about brokers versus assets and even now this kind of hybrid that is showing up in the industry between assets that have brokerage arms or brokers that have their own trailers and such ? How do you think about that ?

Like , what's the right number of carriers in a network and you don't need to be like exact , but I'm curious your thoughts on all this stuff .

But there is , without a doubt , space for brokers within our business and we absolutely have a handful that we do a decent bit of business with . What's important is making sure that we're setting them up for success and they're supporting us as well . Right , setting them up for success and they're supporting us as well .

Right , and so what we don't do is we don't have 20 or 30 brokers in our network .

We have really five or six , and that's really meant to try to consolidate some of that spend , try to maintain that relevance with them so that , as our volume is lighter and our off peak , that the brokers are able to kind of step up and swell with us , whether that's from a staffing standpoint or just grinding a little bit harder , whatever the case may be ,

right , and I think , from a overall standpoint , a minimum spend I think should be , you know , no less than probably a half a million dollars with a carrier or a broker . I think , below that you just aren't really getting too much . You know traction or not , not even enough .

You know relevance right and you know 500,000 is always a little bit low as well for me , but that's more of kind of the entrance right . Prove yourself with this . I'm not going to be overexposed , but it's enough business where you can ride it out and you can prove your value and then we can kind of grow from there .

So as our business continues to grow , you have that opportunity to grow with us . If somebody migrates out due to performance , whatever the case may be , then you have that opportunity to grow . But we also are not just thinking about $500,000 spend across our entire network . We're trying to drive some of that density within our regions as well .

So how do we have a number of regional , asset-based carriers that know the region very well , know those customers really well , and so our total carrier network I'll just make this up is call it 50 carriers . We have five distribution centers . We have roughly 10 carriers per DC .

It doesn't work out exactly that way , but that's kind of the general theme there is how do we have enough business with our carriers within a particular market to where , if one lane is 12 this week , when it was two last week . Well , probably the inverse is happening on a similar lane .

So , instead of Chicago to Minneapolis , it may have been 12 last week and now it's gonna be two this week . Well , chicago to Mankato may be 12 this week , and it was only two last week . So we do try to think about that as we're going through the RFP process lane by lane , making sure we understand what the carrier network looks like .

What does their wish list look like ? And then how can we best try to match up all of that , applying a lot of our operational knowledge around our seasonality , the volume spikes and valleys , to really make sure that we're setting our carriers and brokers up for success .

You know the nuances , you know at it and you know our customer locations and at that point they can actually start to share some insights back to us from a transportation standpoint as well . So who are those ? You know receivers that are challenging to get appointments with .

You know , maybe they have identified a little bit of you know flexibility or a little kind of you know way to grease the sleds a little bit , getting into a customer right . So how do we work with that right ?

And as they're sharing some of those ideas with us , that's when we're thinking about okay , how can we operationalize some of this to improve service , lower cost , and again , most of that's coming from an operational improvement , not just from rate .

That's a good way to tell if they're a potential fit For brokers , though the network isn't as committed or static and there's also so many I mean I don't know what the number is 20 , 25,000 , whatever people use , it's a lot .

So I'm sure your business is highly sought after and I'm sure after this episode releases , however many solicitations you have been getting , there will be more . Let's talk about that for a minute . This highly saturated space , highly competitive , highly , maybe even undifferentiated how do you think about brokers pursuing your business Like for one ?

How many solicitations are you and your team getting on a daily , weekly basis , like ? What does that look like ?

You know . I mean obviously all the . You know the salespeople have their , have their jobs to do , right , and that's that's , that's how , uh , new , uh , you know businesses generated . I think .

I think the challenge for me is , you know sometimes how it's , um , how it's approached , right , Like there's , there's how it's approached , right , like there's , there's , I would say a vast majority is not necessarily interested in in my business beyond having the . You know the revenue from the business .

So you know we , we have offices in Kansas city , but I don't , I don't , I don't need a truck in Kansas city . Yeah , so you know , leading in with you know they have a truck in my area , right , I don't really know what that means . I don't know really what the value is , right .

Or telling me how many carrier partners that they have under contract is great , but how many of those are temperature controlled ? That's what I care about . I I appreciate that you put on your you know signature line that you're available 24-7 , right , but ideally I'm not calling you you know 24-7 .

Like , what structures and programs do you have in your business that helps prevent me having to call you on a you know 24-7 availability standpoint right . You know 24 seven availability standpoint Right . So I think I think there's you know different ways that people can approach it .

That uh , um , you know as as uh uh lacking for for a vast majority of the uh . You know that blanketed sales pitches that hit our inbox .

Somebody emailed me and their whole thing was we will respond to any of your quotes within two minutes . We will respond to any of your quotes within two minutes . And now that I think about it , that would be possible today with kind of the API pricing model , if you could connect it into your email effectively . But that wasn't the case .

This was 2017 , and that wasn't around . And I just saw the email and I was like this is interesting , I'm going to test this guy , but I'm not going to test him for like a month .

So I made a note , I put it on my calendar for a month from then and a month later I sent him an email and I sent him a quote and he responded in 48 minutes and I just responded he's like did we win ? And I was like no , you didn't win . I didn't even look at the rate . All no , you didn't win , I didn't even look at the rate .

All I was looking at was the time . You said you'd respond in two minutes . He was like , well , I was in a meeting . I was like , well then , why the hell did you tell me you'd always respond in two minutes ? That was a ridiculous expectation to create for me , and if you had responded within two minutes I probably would have given you a load .

But it speaks to your point . I mean , it's so hard to stand out today in selling brokerage , so there is a need to be creative , but you can't be over the top to a point where it's just a lie or you're going to get yourself in trouble . Because what are examples ? Have you had some funny , like creative solicitations that you recall that I don't know what ?

What are some interesting ?

yeah . So you know , I think the most uh , you know fun and interesting one was , um , you know a uh song and dance that was uh um videotaped and you know sent to me . Um , you know , around the product we to me , around the product we're shipping , that's good . Again right , clever right , I mean you put effort into it , A little self-deprecation .

Um , you know , I wouldn't be interested in a , you know , a two minute response on a quote , because you probably don't even understand what the heck you're quoting . If you're responding in two minutes , right , but again , like , that's not what's going to get , get you into the door with me .

Like , understanding our business , being a little clever , you know , and I , I , I , I need to actually see if I still have that email out there . That one was a , that one was a good one .

But I loved that , like just how can we get creative to get this person's attention and get their interest ? Because , yes , I mean everybody , I think at this point has learned to talk the talk . That was something I always , at Molo , I had to tell my team .

Like I think it's a bless I maybe I've said this before on this podcast but like it's a blessing and curse to be us the . The curse is what we're selling . We're not going to make up a bunch of BS . We're not going to claim to have invented some new mode of transportation . We're not going to pretend we have some fancy technology that we don't have .

We're going to be pretty straightforward and we're just going to focus on service and execution . The challenge is everyone is going to a lot of people are emailing and focusing on service and execution . The challenge is everyone is going to .

A lot of people are emailing and focusing on service and execution , and they're talking about communication and all those things . So the curse is it takes us a little bit longer to get in with good shippers than you might like . The blessing , though , for us for a very long time was , once we finally got in .

The fact that we followed through on the things that we had committed to allowed us to grow very quickly with a lot of our shippers . It's just a matter of setting expectations that meet the needs of the potential customer and then following through on them .

It wasn't just the standard hey , let me follow up with Corey once every week , once every two weeks , once a month , whatever it may be , because it seemed more genuine that there was an interest in our business , right , it's like , okay , so now there's interest beyond just meeting a sales quota , trying to do whatever's needed to check the box on that side .

And then to your point , I mean , live up to what you say you're going to do , and I feel that we need to make sure that we do that as well from a shipper standpoint , right ? So this is not just , you know , directed towards carriers and brokers .

We must do the same , you know , and I'm always asking for that feedback from our you know from the people that we're doing business with is are we doing what we committed to do ? Because , again , from a mutual relationship standpoint , it should be that we can hold each other accountable to that .

We changed it just so we could get your business , and so we can make that work .

There was a tie between that and the way that you followed through on your commitments and the things that you committed to us and said to us and kind of promised to us . There are very few companies that I ever quote unquote fired or decided like we don't want to work with anymore , but the reason was always , always tied to they .

Just , we can't trust that they are going to do what they said , and it's not right for us to put the amount of effort that we put into servicing this business if they're not going to return that favor and treat us with that same level of respect and commitment . And I understand things change and you need to make changes for your business .

You've got a bottom line to worry about . You've got a job to worry about . That's all fair and good , but it's how you communicate and it's how you make those decisions and it's how you collaborate with us along the way . That puts me in a position where I can say okay , I understand why you're doing this , I'm on board with you .

Let's do it together , let's figure this out , let's get from A to Sunday and make this work .

So , whether it's you know a late load , or whether you know it's a change within you know your network , or you know it's a change within our network , whatever it is that's going to impact somebody else , communicate it , right , because the earlier somebody is aware of it , the traditionally softer it's going to land .

Like if I'm sitting in the seat of Cordwood now or you know , as a broker , I can't see . All I see is the freight you're tendering right . So what are those things that you're constantly dealing with , the challenges in your work day , your work week ?

But how do you get a third party to care as much about your business as you do and ultimately you're never going to really get there , right ? I mean because you're going to care about your business more than others , right , and that's understandable .

That said , like from a you know day-to-day , week-to-week , you know month-to-month operational standpoint , our biggest ask is , you know , how do we get communication timely ? Something is , you know , running late for a pickup , something is running late for a delivery . You know I thought I had capacity for you know the balance of week and now I don't .

You know getting that communication early . Or you know I'm having , you know troubles , you know , securing a pickup or a delivery appointment , whatever the case may be .

You know , I think that our you know biggest challenge and I think you know the Lent team has done a fantastic job on this , you know is really working with our carriers and brokers on a day-to-day basis . Is really working with our carriers and brokers on a day-to-day basis , asking how does our capacity look like for today ?

How did deliveries and pickups look like for yesterday and today ? Capacity over the next couple of days , how are we looking for appointments , all of the very , very tactical stuff . But the team knows that early in the day and they know exactly how the rest of their day is going to go right .

If all of those are good , then really you're just kind of managing the day and you're just working ahead . You know if you've got a big gap , then you know we're going to be playing , you know , catch up quite a bit throughout the day . So I think you know again to you know , really , really try to wrap it up , is is our biggest , you know .

Can you know , concern in our challenge , you know , day to day , week to week , is truly making sure that we're executing our business , you know , and that we're , you know , as we're coming into our peak season , that we deliver our peak season , and you know , making sure that , you know , operationally , we are , we are , you know , set up to do so and that not

only occurs from our operations team standpoint but you know , as we're thinking about , you know , strategically sourcing our carriers and we are , you know , having conversations with them on a weekly , bi-weekly basis on , you know , scorecard performance . How are they doing ? What is our level of comfort that we can execute with excellence through the peak season ?

Two , our customers are scorecarding us as well . So so it's not just that the carrier has a bad scorecard , it's that we have a bad scorecard with our customer and that can impact our ability to sell in different programs . It can impact a buyer's decision on whether to have a joint promotion with us or with somebody else during a period of time .

So you know there's top line impacts to our business as well , you know . Third , just you know , from a warehouse standpoint , if we aren't picking up , as I mentioned before , you know DCs can be crazy busy during the peak season and we missed that load that was supposed to pick up yesterday and now it can't deliver until next Tuesday .

We missed that load that was supposed to pick up yesterday and now it can't deliver until next Tuesday . Well , now I've got product that either has to sit on the dock for a full week which takes up outbound capacity , or I pay the labor to put that away and then , once I pay the labor to pick it , stage it .

And now put it away , I have to pay them again to pick it and stage it to then load you when you decide to show up on time next time and again understand that things happen .

But those are some of the broader impacts with our customers , with us financially , with our distribution centers , which then they start to have a you know , a feeling , you know towards that carrier or broker that you know oh great , you know so-and-so missed again . Right , corey's carrier company is , you know , terrible . They never pick up on time .

Right , you know you start to get that you know commentary around your name and it's really hard to , you know , claw back from that yep so I think I want to talk a little bit about the cycles .

So , covid , we saw the first two years of just chaos , where , you know , the pendulum really swung in the favor of carriers and brokers and I'm curious , you know what that experience was like for you .

And then these last two years where you , the shipper , have had all the power and you know is is it necessary to play the game of tit for tat or are there other ways to do this ? Like just let's talk about that for a bit yep , yep , yeah .

right . So yeah , you know , first , first half of the last two years , um , you know , call , call it the first two quarters . If it's a four-quarter game , it was really , really in the carrier broker's hands , right .

We were just trying to get capacity in the overall market . So , that said , we had a number of carriers that performed well , honored their commitments and really , really stood up . We had some that didn't right , some that did fire us because one of their larger shippers , you know , bought up all their capacity .

And you know , again , we understand that from a business standpoint . But it does impact what happens in the second half , right . So the you know the third and fourth quarter , ie the last two years , you know some of those carriers and brokers reached out , you know , asking to get back in our , you know , business .

And I'm not , I'm not real , real interested , right , Because they've , they've , they've , they've shown their true colors , right , and again , understand that businesses needed to make some , some of their decisions . You know , at that time , just , unfortunately , you need to live with those .

You know there were , you know a couple of carriers that you know carriers slash brokers that came in mid-cycle , you know , forced rate increases on us . We were in a position where either we take them or we spend more by going to somebody else , right , you know ?

And , as you know , deion Sanders famously said last year football season right , he , you know , keeps his receipts . We kept ours as well . Right , so you know , we kept those carriers and brokers in our business and we've since clawed back every penny of that . Um , they didn't enjoy that . We didn't enjoy it at the time .

Um , you know , most of those who've had the conversation of , okay , let's now . Now , let's not do that to each other again , right , um , but it you know the ones that did stand up are the ones that have grown significantly with us over the last you know two years as well .

Um , you know , you asked me earlier what is our general RFP strategy and practice . It is 12 months .

That said , some of the carriers that performed well for us during peak , you know we have agreed to two year terms with them , with the fact that we're potentially paying a little above market on a pure line haul standpoint , but we know that they're going to be there to serve us , our business , if the market tightens .

They know our business from a seasonality standpoint . They know our multi-stops . They know our customers . They're providing additional value-added services that are well beyond just the rate in and of itself . So that's that's that's really been . You know , some of our approach over the last you know couple of years , as it as it relates to the carriers .

You know and that's and that's also what we're just trying to figure out you know when that next you know market cycle is going to hit and what are the things that we're doing today to prepare ourselves for for that next market cycle ?

Yeah , and I think there will probably be either enough lift from a demand side or enough , you know , exits on the on the on the supply side . That starting in , you know , mid , mid 2025 , I think we'll start to . You know , feel it from an industry standpoint .

I'm hearing about some green shoots that some assets are seeing in the market and I'm hopeful , just because we've gotten to a , not so you can go through the pain , but more so just to get to a place where assets can run their businesses at a profitable number . We're below that point right now and it's just , I don't .

My question , I guess , with respect to that is is there anything that can change the way this works , the way these market dynamics works , the way that carriers and shippers operate with one another , way these market dynamics works , the way that carriers and shippers operate with one another ?

I mean , I definitely agree with your approach and philosophy on kind of partnership and I think that's why I think you've got great partners and great carriers and brokers that want to offer you , and that might be it . That might be the most that we can do . But I'm curious is there a way to disrupt this whole thing and and do it differently ?

Do you think that's you ?

Every year we can plan on 4% , but every year I can work with the carriers to try to offset that through operational efficiencies and minimize what the inflationary impact is from a rate standpoint , et cetera . That'd be okay , That'd be less stressful from my standpoint .

Unfortunately , I think there are way too many shippers , way too many carriers , way too many brokers and all of those different interactions , as fragmented as it is , it's really not going to allow that to occur .

I mean , you know , I've , you know , teased with a few people , right , that you know are like , why do you , the shipper , always drive down the rates ? Like , well , I mean , the carriers and the brokers drive up the rates as well , right , you know . So I , you know somewhat kind of you know , up the rates as well , Right , Uh , you know .

So I I you know somewhat kind of you know jokingly said well , let's , let's agree to a 10 year term , Right , and let's , and let's agree on what that you know , annual increase would look like over a 10 year cycle , Um and uh . You know , of course that's not going to work , right , Because that's not going to .

You know , fulfill the need of their , of their organization , their boards , things like that . I just again , I think , going back to what I mentioned before , how do you get a third party company to care as much about your business as you do ? It's just not going to happen because everybody has their own interest , which makes sense .

I think the best that you can do is try to navigate through those peaks and valleys . Really make sure that you're working with the right shipper , working with the right carrier and broker that is willing to weather some of those storms .

So if we are paying above market a little bit and the market softens , mid-bid year , that we're not going after the carrier and broker , mid-bid year that we're not going after the carrier and broker and , conversely , the same for us , right , Because it's relatively easy to do it when the market's in your favor , but you're going to feel it the next time around .

So again , long-winded answer there , but I just don't see it happening . Sucks , but only way to get around it right is probably a dedicated or private fleet with very long-term approach . But even then , you're still faced with what type of operational efficiencies can you gain based on what's going on in the market ?

So I appreciate you very much . Before we finish , any parting thoughts or anything else you want to talk about , we could jam on for a minute before we go .

Andrew , right , I mean it's great , you know whether it's you or you know number of people that you've worked with you know others in the industry as well , that you know it's , you know it truly is the relationships , the you know the trust being able to have open , you know conversations with each other , being able to bounce , bounce ideas , share best practices

and all of that .

I didn't get into that a whole lot in terms of what I , you know what I enjoy about the transportation marketplace , but I think that is different than other other aspects of the supply chain , right , as I think , I think there's , you know , a core group of people that are really , really good , good people and want to do the right thing overall and , you know ,

happy to be you know part of that with a number of others and appreciate the time here . Hope you know was valuable for those that stuck along the you know the podcast this long and you know I look forward to having a 300% uplift in carrier solicitations over the next few weeks .