Freight 360

Mastering Difficult Conversations and Broker Communication | Episode 277

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Mastering Tough Conversations
Transform your communication skills with insights from economics, business, and freight.

  • Explore the impact of cultural communication differences in business.
  • Learn how economic trends shape the freight and logistics industry.
  • Discover the power of honest conversations in building trust and stronger partnerships.

Listen now to turn tough discussions into valuable connections!

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Speaker 1:

All right, welcome back. Take two of episode 277 of the Freight Broker or the Freight 360 podcast. I'm all over the place today. We just started recording a couple of minutes ago. My mic was wrong, but anyway, episode 277, we're going to have a good conversation today about how to have hard conversations and we'll talk about some news as well, with the upcoming inauguration here. But first make sure to check out all of our other content. Freight360.net is the website. We've got all of our full length podcast videos, clips, blogs. Youtube's a great spot as well for all of our content. Share us with your friends, leave us comments and questions in the YouTube comments section there, and you can email us as well. There's a contact form around the website. And while you're over there, check out the Freight Booker Basics course. If you're looking for a full length educational piece that we did in conjunction with DAT, there we go. How's the mic sound this time? Is that better?

Speaker 2:

Crystal clear buddy.

Speaker 1:

Boom Love it. We're going to get into it today. Ben, what's going on down in Florida? Do you guys warm up?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but it's chilly again. It was down in the 50s today. So again, relative to you, not freezing, but enough that I had to throw a long sleeve shirt on for a moment or two this morning.

Speaker 1:

There you go. So it's playoff football and I unfortunately was not able to attend the game last weekend when the bills hosted the Broncos. I was at drill for the army. I did catch most of it through my phone and then I had to rewatch, like the highlights, but a nice 31 to seven when Steelers had a different outcome, Unfortunately. What do you think is what's going to be next for, like Mike Tomlin and the team? You know what I think it is is like big Ben right, you guys were a playoff team for years and I think it's like I think it's the quarterback situation right now. Like I feel like Mike Tomlin is such a he's such a good coach. He just doesn't have the quarterback he needs right now is kind of where I'm looking at. What do you think?

Speaker 2:

I agree. I think you know, obviously Russell Wilson looked great first half of the season, but also like he had some receivers that were playing well early in the season and then, you know, obviously he got hurt. My mind's blanking on the number one receiver for whatever reason. Right now I could picture it, yes, so after he got hurt, when he kind of came back, he was hit or miss and I think Russell Wilson needed a very good receiver to open up other options. Once he wasn't on the field they just couldn't open up the run as much or even the shorter passes, and I don't think they sign Russell again next year. I think probably Justin Fields maybe ends up being the quarterback. I don't think Justin Fields looked good enough this year to be the solution, even if he might be the only option next year. But I definitely think again and like the other stuff they're talking about like because I listen to Pittsburgh radio is like you know, I think even if they drop Tomlin which I definitely don't think they will he would get picked up immediately Like he's a very effective coach.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of the issues maybe seem to be related to coaching, but also I don't know. It's really hard to draw the line because you don't even know who's responsible. Was it like the new offensive coordinator that was determining who was on the field and who wasn't? There were a lot of, I think, bad decisions and play calls related to like who was literally in the game for some of these plays that were called and it was like, yeah, tomlin's call, was it? I think it's Arthur Smith was at his call. So there's so many unknowns as to, I think, what caused it.

Speaker 2:

But I think, at the end of the day, you haven't won a playoff game since 2016 and play, and Tomlin has this saying that he says over and over again the standard is the standard, and the standard is not just to win regular season games. And they were saying this morning listen, these are your words and guess what? All of the fans are holding you to the standard. You said you held everyone to and you failed to meet it by a long shot. So something needs to be changing and I think they tried to switch things up this year. To his defense, I mean brought in two quarterbacks. They definitely seemed to make some bets that other teams weren't willing to to make that happen. I don't think Russell Wilson either had the tools or is getting too old to be able to do that over the long run? He played great early and just didn't peak at the right time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, here's, I think, the issue I struggle with on the quarterback side. For you guys is, every year, you're good enough that you're not going to get a high draft pick. Yes, but you're not getting far enough. You know what I mean, like it's. Here's the argument, though.

Speaker 2:

Here's what I heard. So the guy Pittsburgh that does Pittsburgh sports every day forever was saying he was like they were arguing that same point. He and he named and I don't follow the NFL well enough to know what they were, but he named like four or five really good quarterbacks that were picked very low in the draft.

Speaker 1:

That Tom Brady didn't need round six yeah but even um, I think.

Speaker 2:

Brock Purdy was Mr Irrelevant there there were, like he named, like three or four that were picked way down in the draft or, like you know, were picked up late and you didn't need the high draft pick to get it. His point was you need to put the effort into the scouting to get that person and he didn't feel the Steelers were putting enough effort to finding them and picking through whatever options weren't just the you know top three picks. Every year you got it, yep, but it's a valid point. I mean, I think that's a lot of. What I've always felt is like they're good enough in the regular season.

Speaker 1:

They don't get great draft picks, so they're never really getting up there to get them and yeah, who knows, man, we'll see what happens, but we're entering divis regional round this weekend Chiefs hosting the Texans, bills hosting the Ravens. I'll be at that game. It's supposed to be like single digits and I'm going to say something that I don't want to jinx anything here. But I have not seen the Bills have. I Wait, I could be wrong here. So I haven't seen the B bills lose at home since before COVID. But I, I, actually I might've been to a, might've been to a losing game in the last year, cause I feel like I said that and I broke the curse, but anyway it's gonna be a tight game, baltimore's favored by a point on the road. So that's a. I like the Bills, what's that?

Speaker 2:

I said I like the Bills in that one.

Speaker 1:

Is that just because the Steelers lost to the Ravens last week? No, I do too. I do too. I think there's like the, the PTSD that Bills have of like. Earlier on this season, when the Ravens came or we, the bills, went to M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and just got like steamrolled Derrick Henry, like opening play of the game, ran for like 90 yards for a touchdown. The dude's a tank, but we had like a super unhealthy defense at the time. We got Matt Milano back as a linebacker and he's you know, that dude's a stud. So we'll see.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, I'm going to pick the Bills because they're my team, but it's going to be a tough game. It really will be. I think it's going to be a matter of can the Bills fire off on all caliber? Can they just go off right Like defense, offense, special teams? Can they get takeaways, not turn the ball over, et cetera. On the NFC side, you got the Eagles hosting the Rams. That'll be a good one to watch as well. The Rams are looking really good right now, but Phillies at home. They got a five and a half point spread in their favor there. And then you got the Lions hosting the Redskins or the Commanders. They're always the Redskins in my mind, but should be interesting.

Speaker 2:

It should be another sports, did you? Uh, I watched the tgl last night, the indoor golf league that they just launched. It was really pretty interesting like simulators. So they built yeah, they built a huge facility just north of me and so it was on the local news and it's what I'm like. I know they were talking about it, but like Tiger played last night, so it's like three guys versus three guys. I think there's eight teams in total. The Palm beach team or the Jupiter team played the LA team. Tiger's team got spanked by the LA team, justin Rose, morikawa and I can't remember who. The third guy was Saheeth Tagal, I think, was the third guy on the LA team, but it was pretty cool because it's a simulator, right, and then there's two tee boxes.

Speaker 2:

So, based on where you are on your shot, you're either close to the screen or far from the screen. They hit off real grass. When they hit the rough, they drop the ball and a patch of fairway it looks like a driving range and then there's sand. So there's like three things in each line sand, fairway and rough, and then, once they hit the approach shot like it goes into the screen, but then there's a red light that lights up on the real green that is behind them. So so it's a big stadium and the fans are super close. All the players are mic'd, which was cool, so they're playing music. It was kind of like an NBA game, right. Vibe with like very close fans into the action and then a red light drops on the green to show them where the ball should be. Based on what the simulator put the ball on the real green and then they play around the real green and then the hole moves literally on the real green that has rough and a sand trap next to it I'm looking at pictures, man, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

I start, I'm, my winter simulator league starts next monday and I'm like really excited. I haven't, I haven't played in a few months and I'm seeing pictures of this tgl and now I'm like just kind of getting my dreams crushed. I'm like, ah, I'm going to play on a track. Man, it was cool, honestly, and this thing looks pretty sweet.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the things they were saying is obviously chipping out of the fake grass was very different, because you couldn't get the right spin so they were really having to change the game, but there was a shot clock so the whole thing I think was an hour, maybe an hour and a half, like it's a very fast pace. It was like three versus three for the first nine holes and they play one guy versus one guy for like the next set of holes and then like through the season. I mean it was pretty cool, like it was definitely different, was not like watching real golf? Yeah, and there were definitely shots that I don't think the simulator was accurate on.

Speaker 2:

Like there there was a couple of balls that like literally hit the sand and kind of rolled out and they're like yes, I think that somebody was like yeah, that was Tiger Woods 2000 golf where, like you, hit a bunker and the ball rolled up onto the green. Yeah, again, it's something different and something pretty cool to watch. I thought it was pretty entertaining. I like it.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's go. Let's take a look at the news here for freight and transportation. So, supreme Court, if you remember the TQL liability case from a while back with a crash where someone was killed, so this now, for the third time, the Supreme Court is declining to address that broker liability issue. So they're not taking it up on their level. I didn't realize it was. This is the third time. I remember like once, but we've had, like I feel like CH Robinson had one recently, I think Werner was one, ch Global Trans maybe, yeah, anyway, so yeah, but I think that I think the precedent there is good, because by by definition, as freight brokers, we are intermediaries. We cannot control what that driver does. We can vet the carrier. That's about as far as we can go is to vet them and do our diligence there. But as far as selecting the driver and controlling what that driver does, that's out of our purview.

Speaker 2:

We don't even have any influence over it. You can't, we don't even have our. The industry doesn't have visibility into the driver level, even with the LDs, to know what drivers experience.

Speaker 1:

You're just put on an individual right.

Speaker 2:

That's correct. And even there it's somewhat you can and can't Like. There's some things you can see, but there's subjective things you couldn't see if you were.

Speaker 1:

I think a trucking company. I see a driver's motor vehicle record.

Speaker 2:

No, and I looked into that for a couple of tech companies where I like did a dive on it and like you've got to pay for that, like it is like held through the FMCSA, you've got to pay to get that report and I believe the driver has to sign off on the trucking company getting that report, for, obviously, like I don't know confidentiality reasons, like you can't just access the database of an individual driver's record.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, other news supply chain trends to watch in 2025. And you guys can get a recap of all the news in our newsletter If you sign up at Freight360.net. It goes out every Tuesday and Thursday. Big things to look out for this year. Obviously, the inauguration of Donald Trump is going to be on the 20th, so that's Monday of next week.

Speaker 1:

Hot topics to look out for. There is potential rising tariffs, geopolitical tensions, potential rising tariffs, geopolitical tensions. Now here's something that my boss made. He made a cautionary comment that I think is very valid and I think it's obvious to anybody that follows the economy and follows news at a high level. But you get a lot of young people that just think like, oh, trump's back, it's going to be a great economy and a great freight market. And the reality is the short term. If you, if you raise tariffs like the short term could lead to like a short term weakened economy like you could define that numerous ways but increased inflation, you could have slow, a slowing market, possible mini recession in there. You could have a slowing market, possible mini recession in there. You might have longer. You know, based on how policies are changed, you might have some long term improvement, but the short term, it might be a tough beginning of 2025. What do you think?

Speaker 2:

Yes, because I think there's a lot of conflating what can and can't be done to influence and not influence certain things right? The thing that I was reading going into this year that I think lots of folks overlook when they think that any administration could change anything that much related to business. Right is two things it is the cost of money, which the Treasury has some influence over with interest rates, but also what I think people don't necessarily understand the president, the treasury department, correct.

Speaker 2:

And not only that, and there's some influence over that in some ways. However, like those are not real interest rates, and I also don't think everyone understands what that means, because the treasury department can change what the Fed right rate is, charging other banks to borrow money, like the overnight rate. However, what actually determines, like your mortgage rate or your bond, your ability to borrow money? It's a. It's a free trading market, so everybody in the world that either buys Treasury bonds determines the risk of the US government to pay it, and they either buy more of them or less than that market tends to be a correlation, but it's not correctly tied to.

Speaker 2:

It is not and like again earlier this year in the real estate market, like rates dropped but real interest rates did not and they call it like the inverted inverted yield curve because the short-term bonds were paying more interest than long-term bonds, which shouldn't happen. Like you should get more money if you lock it up longer than if you lock it up shorter. But the risk and what they felt because of our budget getting blown up, like we're spending so much money that the amount of money it costs to service that debt is skyrocketing. So the US government is becoming a riskier bet for other countries to invest in those bills. So just because that rate went down didn't mean you got a cheaper commercial mortgage, or that your mortgage for your house got cheaper, or that your credit cards went down or, for the most part, that your businesses could borrow money cheaper to have more inventory, to have more goods that we all ship looks like. Because the recent jobs report was expected to be like 165,000 new jobs and it was like 250,000.

Speaker 2:

And when there are more jobs being created, that is the number one indicator that the Fed looks at to drop interest rates. Because when people can't find work, that's when they bring them down to stimulate the economy so that everybody can go get a job and survive. But when there's lots of jobs being created and interest rates are high, the Fed doesn't drop interest rates, and that's really what we need to happen. We need inflation to come down first and then interest rates fall. Then the economy starts to grow again. But that retraction and contraction is being elongated because of COVID and what happened during then and it's just taking far longer to work out than anyone expected. And no matter what administration you put in there, they're not really going to be able to influence the prices that individual companies charge for individual goods from widgets to cars, to refrigerators, to hats, to anything else we buy and those are really the things that determine how quickly a thing grows or shrinks right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So let's look at freight brokerages the last couple of years and a lot of this comes from brush pass research. Kevin Hill shout out his recent this is from about a week ago. I want to say, in twenty twenty four, thirty one, roughly thirty one hundred fewer brokerages than the previous year. So that's how many net we lost and that adds on to the about 2,400 net loss from 2023. You got about 5,500 exits since January of 2022. So there were 25,000 new MCs launched between 2020 and 2022.

Speaker 1:

So that you know we had that massive growth and then we've had it kind of tapering off. So we're still at a the. The compound annual growth was still three, about three and a half percent annually. So that's and that's, I think, a healthy growth trend overall. But we had that like, if you zoom in to those like recent years, it was crazy and we all remember it Right, the post shutdown era when just like, everybody got into it and it started to taper off.

Speaker 1:

So I'm optimistic about 2025. So so, weird man, do you remember like the end of 2023 and we were like, all right, 2024, it's gonna be like a great year, and like we got through it? I'm just like, yeah, I'm like burnt out, so whatever. Anyway, let's talk about how to have some hard conversations here. Um, yes, and the reason I wanted to, the reason I wanted to have this talk today, is we're you and I were talking off air beforehand this morning about like just the differences, like culturally around the around the world and even like around the country, about how and this is not like we can't generalize everybody, but there tends to be like norms in how we communicate, depending on where, where you live and how everyone else around you is.

Speaker 1:

And you know, northeasterners, for example, tend to talk faster, be less patient and more just like direct to the point in a lot of cases, whereas, like, you go to the West Coast, you go down south on the whole, you know, generally speaking, it tends to be a little more laissez faire, a little bit like looser and slower and whatnot. And you go to other countries and we have a lot, of, a lot of our workforce in the logistics field is is offshore, right, you get South America, you get Asia, you get parts of Europe, and it is like night and day for some of these folks Like.

Speaker 2:

I remember.

Speaker 1:

I worked with some folks in South America and it was like if I email somebody like Well, somebody emails me, I like I either respond right away that I'm like hey, I'm working on it, or I give them an answer.

Speaker 1:

I don't let an email sit for like two weeks or just never respond to it, like I don't know how some people think that's like acceptable, but like that's just how I operate. But we were talking about it. It's like sometimes there are hard conversations to have and if you just like break the ice, call off the elephant in the room on whatever the issue is, and you start that hard conversation. Everything after that is easy, or it gets easier and this is good. We talk about like customers that aren't paying their invoice, employees that aren't performing at the level that they should, a carrier that's having an issue and it's going to be a delay for your customer, right? These are, these are the things that I've used. The phrase before that we use in the in the army is a bad news gets worse with time, right, if you don't just deliver the bad news.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, Two things too, like one. I mean. Throughout human history there were cultural addition, cultural differences in communications, and manners and protocols that become habits that are different. That's just always been true, right? In fact, the thing I was telling someone else, we were talking about this last week is like there's a scene in Wolf of Wall Street where this happens, where he goes over to Switzerland to go negotiate a deal.

Speaker 2:

And the guy's like no, we have tea first, or it was like tea or coffee, we first need to talk about, like you know, social normities before we do business. And he gets real frustrated. Right, he's a stock trader from New York where he's like, no, like let's just do this, and he's like no, you're being rude, we need to do this first. Like I'm not comfortable doing that until we do this. And you see that conflict in those differences, right, and I think that is absolutely one thing. Right, they're the social norms. Right, and like kind of what you're the way you just initiate or start something Right, where, like I think in the Northeast you're preferencing your you are Not preferencing, but like you're prioritizing, like effectiveness and speed over manners. Where I think in the South it's more of the hospitality and hospitality and then to not that one is better or worse than the other. They're just different cultural ways of approaching those things.

Speaker 2:

And then I think in the second bucket you have a fear of actually having difficult conversations. Because when I think of fear, right, like whether it's fear to make a cold call, fear to go meet somebody in a business meeting you've never met a fear to go speak in public. The solution to that is always action. The more you think about it, the harder it gets. It does not get easier. And the analogy they use in psychology is like if you are a 10, 11 year old on a high dive and you want to jump off this high dive for the first time, the longer you stand there it does not get easier. It's easier if you go and take action and jump and to your point. Once you've jumped, the second time is easy. It's the same reason why cold calling like you get the momentum the first call is always the hardest, but once you make that first call and your body gets used to overcoming that fear, the second one gets easier, third, fourth, fifth, and it goes downhill. Right, but I think there are lots of folks that have a lot of difficulty related to that fear, to having a difficult conversation and you mentioned the customers.

Speaker 2:

But it's also right like accountability with employees or staff, right, where somebody is like a performer as a salesperson and then you move them into a role where they got people reporting to them and sometimes there's like incredible hesitancy to any accountability. Just hey, have you had this conversation with your team? You're telling us that like they're not able to do this thing and this mistake keeps happening. What have you talked to them about? And then we'll hear oh well, they should know, it's in the document, it's in their training, we've talked about this when we hired them. Why don't they know this?

Speaker 2:

Right, and it's like, yes, that is partially true, but like it is your job as a manager and a leader that you need to be able to hold people accountable and remind them of, sometimes, the difficult things that need to be done, not just leading and showing. That's part of it, but the other piece is helping. You've got to hold people accountable in some ways to doing the things that you expect of them Because, like human nature is, people tend to divert to the easiest way forward, the path of least resistance right, Exactly the path of least resistance right, exactly the path of least resistance, and sometimes that finds more efficiency.

Speaker 2:

There's nothing wrong with human nature's ability or need to find the path of least resistance. That's survival, right. I'm not going to climb a 40-foot tree to find something to eat if the next day I can find one in a 10-foot tree and the next day find it on the ground. That is survival. However, some things require having those difficult conversations in order to be effective. And again, I just think general accountability for any managers and leaders is one of the harder things for new leaders to do, because they don't have that happen, and then they just expect things to be done, and then they get frustrated when they don't get done, and then they get angry, and then they resent that person, and now you have conflict and toxic culture within an organization, all going back to the same point of well, why aren't we having these conversations with our team day in and day out on what the expectations are?

Speaker 2:

Are we calling our drivers to make sure loads are picked up? Well, no, the dispatcher sent me an email. Well, okay, two of them didn't get picked up and you didn't find out until after the load was supposed to be picked up. Well, okay, well, that's the dispatcher's fault. Well, yes, and that may be true. However, that doesn't mean it's not your responsibility to get ahead of it, to let your customer know, long before they expected that truck, that he couldn't make it because he was still at his previous delivery. Right, and those are just like a few that immediately come to mind.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I want to. I want to kind of lean in on the service failure part. While we're on that note is if you have, you know, let's say someone's going to be late, right, and if you try to like avoid the conversation with your shipper, things can snowball negatively and it could end up way worse for you if you don't get ahead of it.

Speaker 2:

It almost always does.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you think about it like we'll play this through as a scenario, right, let's say well, okay, winter weather, we've had that as a hot topic lately. Right, we had a big snow. Well, this whole week we have a big snowstorm here in western New York and it's impacted I-90, both westbound and eastbound. It doesn't make a difference, the snow doesn't care which direction you're going. But that means things going east towards Albany, new York City, new England, and stuff going south and west to Pittsburgh, cincinnati, the Midwest, all all that stuff, right?

Speaker 1:

So if you have a truck that gets delayed for it could be they, the loading was delayed, they got delayed just in the weather, traffic, whatever the case might be, if you don't let your cut and you can replace the weather thing with any other incident, like a breakdown or whatnot, right, if you don't relay that information to your customer, like or the receiver or whatever it's going to be. Think about the snowball effect. Ok, if they show up four hours late and now they miss their appointment and they're going to be first come, first serve and they might roll the next day. Worst case scenario. Think about every other operational piece beyond that point that's going to matter, and it's the carrier and it's the customer Right, so it could be the customer there, you customer, their customer needs an update on something.

Speaker 2:

Well, go back a second.

Speaker 1:

How many hours they have go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Go back to the original piece. Right is that shipper might have people literally staffed there with the load staged waiting for this driver that they are paying, and if that load doesn't pick up when it was supposed to, they might have to unstage that load, put it back in a warehouse which the company has to pay for. Those warehouse staff are calling and emailing the logistics person, going what are we doing? We just spent an hour staging this load. Now we've got to unstage this and get the next one stage where this one is at right now. That's going to take us twice the amount of time to do this for nothing Like what is going on. And then the logistics person goes I don't know, the broker hasn't emailed me back or answered my phone call. I'm not sure where the truck is. So now they're arguing with each other at your customer, creating your customer, giving them a headache just internally at their company, and then go beyond that so very simply like how can you approach the conversation?

Speaker 1:

It could sound something like this, like calling hey, mr Customer, hey, I got bad news, but I think we're gonna be able to work through this. Right, I start right up front with All right, this is going to be a hard conversation, but I'm optimistic about how we can work through it. And you could like to your example. Let's say it's going to be four hours late. They've got people that. Or let's say it's going to be a day late. Right, let's go like a extreme scenario.

Speaker 1:

Hey, I know this was supposed to get there today. The driver got held up for X, y, Z reason, whether a breakdown, slow loading, whatever the case might be. I know you guys were expecting to need, you know people in place, a crane, you know whatever. I want to make sure that we're not wasting your resources. They're not going to be able to get there until tomorrow, most likely now. Is there any way we can get that rescheduled? Right, I'm up front.

Speaker 1:

I call it the elephant in the room. I think one of the things to point out here is like we all put our pants on the same way. Right, like a job is a job At the end of the day you got to, you can separate business from, like the emotion and the person that's working in the business OK, so that the person on the other end might just be like all right, cool, we'll get it rescheduled, whereas if you don't tell them and then they've got all these people here waiting and they have all these costs end up getting wasted, their boss gets pissed at them and then they're going to, in turn, have resentment towards you because you didn't give them an update when they could have easily rescheduled or shovel things around to make it work better. Like we said before, bad news gets worse with time. If you don't just address it up front, it's going to snowball into a worse situation. What do you got?

Speaker 2:

And that's a really big fear that shippers tell us all the time with working with new brokers. Is they that is an unknown? It's not an unknown that somebody can find them a truck. What they're really worried about is are you going to tell them and update them when it's difficult to do?

Speaker 1:

That's the thing they're scared about. Correct, these are external factors.

Speaker 2:

Right, they're worried, they're going to work with a new broker and the new broker is just going to be too scared to call them or let them know when something doesn't go well. And then they are going to have this whole bunch of things that they've got to get either deal with, get yelled at, be responsible for. At the end of the day, that person's job is to choose the provider that's going to pick the load up. If it doesn't get picked up, it falls on them because you didn't let them know ahead of time, right? And then the thing that is crazy is that it's like, okay, yes, there are scenarios where, like, that customer absolutely might be upset. They very well might yell at you, they might be like this is ridiculous. I can't believe it. And it might be because they know they're about to get yelled at and they're scared. They're going to get yelled at, so they take it out on you. And that is just part of business, right? Not everything is going to go perfectly, and that's a legitimate concern.

Speaker 2:

Going into that phone call, the thing I would say is that in every one of those early in my career, I was terrified to make that phone call. I was scared that they were going to. Not just I didn't necessarily care if they yelled at me. That's not really been like just me personally a bother. I was worried they were just never going to do business with me again and I was going to lose all the work, energy and effort I built into building the relationship. Learning this company supply chain, getting trucks lined up and all that was just going to go to zero was really like my fear right. The thing I learned after doing them right was, I think almost in a hundred percent of those situations after I had that conversation, even when I've gotten yelled at like literally yelled at, and been told like I don't know if we can work with you anymore, like this is ridiculous, I am going to get yelled at by my customer, we might lose business because of this. It's unacceptable that once that person calmed down right Sometimes it was in the same conversation Once they got it out of their system, their demeanor changed and they're like look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get upset at you, I just know I have a lot I'm going to have to deal with because of this. Sometimes it was the next day, sometimes it was later that day when I spoke to them again, and every single one of them. I ended up with a better relationship with my customer and I ended up with more business, and I think it's for two reasons.

Speaker 2:

One people there's like a saying it's like you, it's like don't tell me, show me Right. Or like you see somebody's true colors when things get difficult, not when it's easy. Anybody can just be a nice person when everything's easy. You see who somebody is and what they're willing to do. When it's difficult, anybody can just be a nice person when everything's easy. You see who somebody is and what they're willing to do when it's difficult to do.

Speaker 2:

And when you do that and you have that conversation and that person realizes one that you did it even though they knew you were likely scared and didn't want to give them the update.

Speaker 2:

Furthermore, when they yell at you, it ends up even better, because then that person feels guilty, because they know it wasn't your fault, they know you still did it and they know you took their shit when they yelled at you that they felt worse about it. And then on the other end, they usually will say hey, look, man, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to overreact. I appreciate you telling me ahead of time. It did help me save some of the issues I would have had to deal with if I didn't know what are you working on next week? And, like I've always ended up with more business, because that was the fear they had when they started working with me and once they knew they could trust that I would tell them not just the good news but also the difficult things. They were willing to give me more business, because that's really where their hesitancy was in the first place.

Speaker 1:

I had. This literally happened last week to me where I had to have a hard conversation with somebody and you know kind of approach with, like here's the issue, I'm going to help you work through it. It's going to cause a little more work, but we're going to take care of and this person was like really pissed and like I became a verbal punching bag and I'm getting yelled at Yada, yada, yada. I got a phone call the next day and they're like hey, I'm sorry, I kind of went off on you yesterday and I was like it's OK, it's all right, I'm like we worked through it, but you're absolutely right. Like that that's exactly what happens. And I want to I want to kind of pose it this way too Like if you think about turn the tables here, right, if it's, if you're afraid to tell your customer bad news, flip it around. Think about the times when your customer has bad news for you, like a slow payment, right. How does it make you feel when you can't get a straight answer out of them?

Speaker 2:

like no, hey checks in the mail. Yeah, every week like it.

Speaker 1:

It's one thing to like to not tell you anything at all. It's another level to straight up, lie to you about it, like I have how many times right, have as a customer like, oh, checks in the mail, or oh, we might have had the wrong address, I'm gonna have to do a stop payment on that check. It's like that's not true. You've paid us dozens of times before. Um literally had one. If you go, this is probably like 10 years ago we had a lettuce shipper that was like an hour from our office and we couldn't get updates. Couldn't get updates. We friggin sent people down to their office and showed up there and the whole point was like we're not leaving there until we have a check in our hand. And then I don't know, they did pay something to, like you know, show some sort of good faith.

Speaker 1:

But it's like if you can't just communicate the information, whether it's good or bad, can't just communicate the information, whether it's good or bad, that's a big problem there.

Speaker 1:

So, you know, I encourage you to put yourself in that person's shoes and it's the way you'll feel. If you have bad news coming towards you, you'd rather just like, have the bad news instead of the uncertainty right like uncertainty will drive you mad. Like if I think about the customer, if they're waiting there and they're waiting and the truck's not showing up and you're not giving them straight updates on it, their customer is going to be pissed and they're going to, they're going to, they're going to associate working with you and feeling like that versus like all right, they just know straight up, straight up, like it's going to be late. They might have to have a hard conversation with their customer, but this is business. We know things are going to go wrong, but the way that you handle the adverse situations is going to speak way you know volumes way more about your character and the kind of person you are than what the actual situation is.

Speaker 1:

It's that simple.

Speaker 2:

There's a quote I love about this. It's your success in life is determined by how many difficult conversations you're willing to have. Like you can't do big things. You sure as shit can't start a company and get it to success. You can't grow a company. I don't even think you can have successful personal relationships with other friends, or even in a marriage or with your children.

Speaker 2:

I don't think there's an aspect in life that you can improve and make progress on without being willing to have difficult conversations and listening to the other person. And like to me, like it's fundamental to having not just a successful business but like successful relationships in life. Is the willingness to do that, even when it's difficult. Right, and I think there's just so many implications. Right, Like what do you call it? Like the golden rule treat people the way you would want to be treated. Right, Like you said. I heard my coach this the other day. He's like the level above. That is the platinum rule, and the platinum rule is you learn enough about the other person that you treat them the way they want to be treated, not just the way you want to be treated right, because they might have different. You know preferences to how and when this communication and when I kind of want to segue into too is another thing I see a lot of I like in my head. I think of it like the Twitter effect, which is I'll just send an email about bad news instead of picking up the phone and having a conversation right Like one. That is nowhere near the same thing and you telling yourself that getting that information to them via email is the same as calling them and owning up to it are not the same. I totally agree that it takes far more energy to do this on the phone, because it's scary, because there's an emotional toll to doing the thing. That's difficult because you have to listen to them after you tell them and you've got to be there and be present and feel that, which is also hard.

Speaker 2:

That I think we've moved so much with trying to streamline logistics that people are optimizing for like oh, I'm just going to work over email and customers shippers do this, brokers do this, carriers do this and this is one of the things that, like I try to move back the other way with everybody we work with is like we need to be talking to everybody, because brokers will treat carriers far poorly when they hide behind emails and there's no personal recourse, Right. And the same way, people are meaner on Twitter when nobody knows who they are and they don't have to talk to somebody. If you put that person face to face with that other person, nine times out of 10, they wouldn't say anything close to what they would say behind a computer, because they've got to feel what it's like. When that person receives that information, You're just firing it off, letting them deal with it. Whatever Like to me that is a coward Like and it it irritates me more than anything. And again, I'm not.

Speaker 2:

I'm not arguing the fact that it isn't more work and in some ways it is more efficient to send emails, but I think most of the industry needs to move more back towards communications, because you can't have a relationship with a carrier as a broker if you're not talking to that person, Like that's just information going back and forth. That is not a relationship. The same thing with your shippers and it's the same thing with your employees, Right. The whole.

Speaker 2:

All of capitalism functions on relationships. Our industry especially. All the contracts are worth nothing. I don't care if you're Walmart giving a contract to Werner or Schneider. If Walmart doesn't have the freight to move, they can't sue that company, Like there's no recourse. The only reason those companies work together is because two people trust each other, or multiple people trust each other as individuals. Right, and we've moved in this way to trying to be more efficient, to do more with less, and I think we create less value. I think we do less actually at the end of the day, and I think both sides suffer. I think if every driver was looking face to face theoretically with a broker they worked with, they would treat each other differently and I think shippers would do the same thing with brokers and I think across the board, they would treat each other differently and I think shippers would do the same thing with brokers and I think across the board, all companies would be improving if they optimized for more conversations and less written transit. Written communication.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll take it a step further too. Like, if you have a hard conversation to have or bad news to deliver and this was taught to me years ago in the army was like I had a, a, a supervisor or someone that was in charge of me that basically said hey cross, if you, if you're going to come to me with bad news or a problem, I need you to also come to me with, like a couple of possible solutions to it. Right, they might be off the wall, they might be wild, but there's probably going to be one or two that are like actual, you know options here and that you know. If you translate that to freight, it could be. Let's say it's. You know you're not.

Speaker 1:

The issue is you're, let's say, a customer, you quoted them and you're not going to be able to get a truck in because the market tightened up, right, or you misquoted or whatever the case might be. So you could, you know you have possible solutions. You could take a loss on it, you could try to delay it, you could, you know you could try to find other options. But if I go score, let's just say you're my customer. I'm like hey, ben, sorry, you know I can't cover this and that's it. You're like dude, what the hell man Like you committed to me.

Speaker 1:

But if I'm like, if I come into it more like, hey, ben, I know I know I quoted this to you at two thousand dollars, A lot of things happened out of, out of our control. The market's tightened up, we've had some bad weather. I've got a couple options here I wanted to talk through with you. You know, if it's possible that we can delay this for a day or two, we, it's very likely, we can still get somebody in there at that level. If you're willing to pay a little bit more, we might be able to get some capacity. And today, as we requested, I'll try to, I'll try to meet you in the middle and take a loss on it myself to try and share that with you. But those two examples right there, right, those are me coming to you with a problem and a couple of possible solutions.

Speaker 2:

Right, yes, samples right there. Right, those are me coming to you with a problem and a couple of possible solutions. Right, yes, and I'll add two more to that, because in that conversation I almost have the same thing over and over again. Because when you that's the thing that you were saying earlier right, like, once you start doing this, it gets easier and then it becomes a habit and then it's not as scary, and then you kind of already know how you're going to approach it because you've done it so many times. Right, so, like, for me, same two things. Hey, look, man, I know this load that was coming out of whatever Euclid, minnesota, heading down to South Florida. Like we were able to cover all of them yesterday for the rate we looked at you needed. You needed two more picked up. There's no trucks up there today, like we started working on it and like there's literally not anybody with the equipment you need that can make your pickup time.

Speaker 2:

I took a look at the market. I do think we can deadhead a guy in maybe from a couple hundred miles away. The two things that are gonna be an issue is, like I would need maybe some flexibility on picking up a little later to get a guy into the market to pick up. And the second is like I'm probably going to be looking at like an extra four or 500 on this Again, I know I quoted it for whatever two grand. Do you have any room to be able to help me out on this right now? Maybe they come back and they go. Listen, man, one or two. Sometimes I'd be like, yeah, let me see what I can do. Option two look, man, you committed to this. We just started working together. I need you to honor that rate. Okay, now I have a decision to make. Right, is me standing up and doing what I said I would do, right, and honoring that commitment worth the value of the whole relationship? All right, maybe I take it in the chin, but now they know what I'm willing to do if I decide to do that. So let's say I do do that and I take that loss right.

Speaker 2:

The next thing I'm usually asking is hey, man, look, like I said, kind of fell out of the norm, took, you know, a $500 loss in this one. Hey, do you have any other loads you might be able to give me to help make up for that loss on this one? Because that question alone has paid off more than any other thing I've asked, because what happens is is they didn't have to lose more money on that load is the first thing. Secondly, they learned that I did something for them that hurt me, that cost me pain and money. So the most powerful thing in human nature is reciprocity. If I do something for you and I do something difficult for you, there is an overwhelming ability or likelihood that you will now do something for me. And I'm not asking you to give me more money, I'm just asking you to send a couple other loads over so I could make up the loss on this one. Because this situation happened. It was outside my control. I'm willing to stand behind it. I'll do what's necessary. I'll even take the loss. Do that and then ask if there's any way they can help you out with some more business to make up for this. 80, 90% of the time they give you more loads. I've had customers that are like, hey man, look, 80, 90% of the time they give you more loads. Like I've had customers that are like hey man, look, I've got a couple of California to New Jersey's that you should be able to make a decent margin on. Can I send you two of those to make up for the $500 loss.

Speaker 2:

I've ended up with relationships with shippers. We used to call it horse trading and, like I don't really know the origin of that term, I remember the guy I used to work with used to say that all the time but he would have loads that were priced too low, that he needed to move and what he would do is like I got two or three of these that nobody will take because the rate's too low. Can I give you five of these loads that I think are priced better to make up for these and what we like? I worked with that guy for years. At the end of every week, if I averaged out my margin between the losses and the wins, they all ended up kind of right in the middle, where they needed to be.

Speaker 2:

And when you have that reciprocal relationship which is the key word there right, there's trust. You're both working together to help each other out and to work together towards the common goal. That is the thing I think you don't ever get a chance or a shot at. When you're sending emails on rates and just taking orders to move a load and never talking to that person, you don't have feedback. They don't know you. There's no reason for them to use you other than that you had a cheap truck that day and it is inevitable before another broker or carrier comes along with a cheaper truck and you lose it. There's no longevity to that relationship. You can't build a business around those customers and it sucks to go to work working on shipments like that, right, where, like, you're just constantly trying to fight for a lower rate instead of finding optimal solutions over the long run. Like it's always a give and take in life and in business, but you can't ever get to the give and take without real communication, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think a really good tip here is, if you think about the turnover in like traffic managers, a lot of times you get like someone young or fairly inexperienced. That and again, this is your customer we're talking about here and they're gonna make mistakes, right. So some of the best customer relationships that I've seen are the ones where you're not just getting them a truck and getting them a rate that's gonna work for them. You're helping them succeed in their career and really create a dynamic, successful logistics operation within that organization that makes them look good, which helps build trust and rapport between you and them and helps you secure business long term because you're a trusted partner. So things like and I've seen it, depending on the customer it can vary, but hey, hey, guy that works at this, you know, hey, traffic manager like FYI, you know, I realize that this shipment, this is worth $200,000 and you didn't secure any extra insurance on it. You didn't ask me to do it. We didn't find a truck for it like this one slid by. But we got to make sure that we're aware of the value of this product because if there's a claim and it gets denied partially by the insurance company, it's not going to look very good for you, right, it could be that one I've seen where, like the, the, the shipping manager like thinks they have the right equipment.

Speaker 1:

Like open deck is classic. It's like notorious, for, like they think they ask for the right equipment type but they didn't And't, and you know, a flatbed shows up and they realize they don't have enough uh height on the deck. Uh, they needed a low boy or a double drop or something like that. Um step deck. I've seen it with um the temperature on a or the reefer setting in general. Um, I've seen it on almost everything, like literally probably every situation.

Speaker 1:

Like a customer can make an error, right, uh, you can become an extension of that supply chain. Like think about with um detention, like the way that they operate with scheduling appointments and how they're, they're the flow of their yard for trucks getting in and out. Um, they can be the the cause of their own problems. And if you can help identify, get ahead of that hat like have the hard conversation. Just because they're your customer and they're paying the bills to you, it doesn't mean you can't go and have a constructive conversation about. Hey, here's a couple of things that I've noticed and here's a few ways that I think we can improve upon this to make it better for you guys and ultimately, better for everybody, and those are some of the best long term relationships I've seen.

Speaker 2:

A hundred percent right, I think OpenDeck. I've seen so many of those where, like I got a new customer and they tell you to move this, I run the DIMMs and I look at it and I'm like, well hey the length of this doesn't look like this will work on a step deck.

Speaker 2:

I think you maybe need a 53 footer on this, or I think you need this other equipment. Do you want to check on those DIMMs real quick to make sure we're sending in the right stuff, right? Just want to make sure you don't end up with an issue with a rejection. Hey, I've worked with that receiver or that shipper before. I'm pretty sure they need a headache rack to load. I think it's one of their PP&E requirements. Can you check real quick before we send this guy in? I want to make sure this guy doesn't get rejected at your vendor, right? Or the simple one? Hey, saw this tender come over the transit times don't look doable to meet this appointment. Do we have the ability to move this? Like, as I'm looking at the mileage and I don't think we can get a solo to make this pickup and delivery. Do you want me to look at a team or do we want to look at another option? Right? Like, hey, reefer temp. I'm pretty sure every time we've moved this commodity, this says this is fresh and you're asking me on the tender to set it at 25. We don't want to freeze this, do we? Do we want to double check this again.

Speaker 2:

These are the things that brokers add value to their shipper beyond just providing a truck right, and again one you need to have conversations to be able to do this. Second, you need to be able to ask questions and be comfortable doing that to provide that value and you don't need to come across like confrontational Like these are why shippers work with certain number of brokers for as long as they can and why they don't want to switch them out, because it also takes some time for their brokers to understand the nuances of their customers, their receivers, their pickups, their warehouses right. These things are so valuable back to a shipper that that's why they want to work with brokers right, and a lot of scenarios I mean I could list a dozen of these in the tanker side that I've learned in the past year where I'm like I know that shipper can't load that truck full stop. I'm like, and I know what the issue is and I know what you do need and I know what requirements and inspections you need on the tanker and I also know the issues that you'll run into when you're trying to secure this.

Speaker 2:

Being able to have those conversations again makes that person's life easier. And two makes them look better, because now, when they go to the purchasing manager and go, hey look, I know we said this, but like, can you take a look at this? They're not going to say our broker pointed this out. They're going to be like hey, look what I noticed. Hey, they get a pat on the back. You're making them look better, like. These are the intangibles that I think get missed when we treat the whole industry transactionally and try to move to this place where every load is exactly the same and every piece of equipment and driver is exactly the same and are all interchangeable, which, to me, is again why those things don't function that way in the first place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. I think the last thing I'll put here too, is like there is a time and a place to sugarcoat something. No, let me, let me rephrase that there is a difference between softening a blow and sugarcoating something. Right, and there's a time and a place to soften a blow versus just being direct. So, like sugarcoating, I wouldn't recommend like it.

Speaker 1:

If, if you know full stop, a truck is going to be late, don't approach your customer and be like, yeah, you know, I think he's probably going to be on time.

Speaker 1:

Uh, yeah, you know, I, I think he's probably gonna be on time. We're not sure, you know, there's a chance there might be. Like, if you know he's gonna be like, hey, the driver's gonna be four hours late, right, you can soften the blow and be like you know, here's what happened, here's what we're gonna do about it, but the driver's gonna be late. But don't like dance around it or like skirt the edges and and sugarcoat it. Like if you can just be direct and move on to the next step to make this situation better or, you know, get past the hard part, it's gonna just do everybody good in the long run. If, because if I have bad news coming towards me and somebody sugarcoats it and doesn't tell me how bad it really is. And then I find out after the fact that they that they knew and they didn't tell me and I had no heads up to try and prepare for it. I'm going to be pissed at that person.

Speaker 2:

So any scenario let your buddy borrow your car. I mean, I think there's a little scratch on it, must have been a shopping cart, no worries. And then you get home and you're like my fender's hanging off the car, like what in the world? Like it does not make you feel better, that somebody led you to believe something wasn't as bad as it was For sure.

Speaker 1:

For sure. So well, good conversation Anything else on, I know we talked on, like, the conversations with customers. Oh, one last thing too I want to add in. When you're building relationships with your driver or dispatcher and say something like hey, you know, if you guys are going to run into any issues or delays, or if there's a breakdown, please let me know ASAP, right, I'm not going to be mad about it, we'll work through it. But the sooner you let me know, the faster we can work through it together to find a solution here.

Speaker 1:

Right, and we've all had that driver that like just dodges your calls, dodges your calls. They'll send you a text update, but they won't actually answer your phone call. I had one where literally they, you know, they're like oh yeah, we're, we're at this truck stop and it happened to be like 30 minutes for me and I drove down there because I couldn't get an update and they weren't there. Had you just told me that you were three hours delayed, I could have left the customer now, because now they're having a like the whole board's getting together having a meeting in the conference room trying to figure out the shipment, and I can't give them updates because you're not telling me. So yeah, you know, request that that same communication both ways. Remember this is business and the human being behind it. Is it necessarily a bad person? Bad, you know, things can happen. It's how you deal with it that really matters.

Speaker 2:

The thing I would add to that is I think the thing that helps get carriers to be more willing to is to tell them the same thing we just talked about in this episode.

Speaker 2:

Like the thing I will always say drivers when I'm talking to them is like hey, man, look, if you are running behind or you do have an issue, please don't hesitate to let me know. I am not going to get upset, I'm not going to get angry or yell like I know shit happens. But again, if I can let my shipper know, I can rearrange things and let them know. I know you're expecting to get unloaded in an hour, but hey, if they're running slow and they can't get you unloaded and you don't think you'll make the appointment, just give me a heads up Again. I know that's not on you, but the sooner I know, the sooner I can make your life easier. When you get there to load right, reassuring them that you won't be upset if things don't go as planned makes them. They start to get more hesitant to talk to any broker. You've got to bridge that gap and go over that and have that conversation before you need it to make sure they're comfortable to let you know when things aren't going the way they're supposed to Precisely.

Speaker 1:

Precisely Good stuff, man. Good episode. Yeah, have the hard conversation. You know it gets easier every every second after you you start that the bad news. So it'll help you grow too. You know what I mean. Like I truly think that you're going to be a transactional broker if you're afraid to have these conversations, the ones that truly can have, you know you can celebrate the wins together. You could talk about the bad things together. Those are your true value add relationships. They're going to take you, you know, take you the distance and go very, very far versus that one didn't work out. I guess I'm on to the next customer. So good stuff, any final thoughts.

Speaker 2:

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

Speaker 1:

And until next time go bills.

People on this episode

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Benjamin Kowalski

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Nate Cross

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