TONUs, Freight Rates, & More Q&A | Final Mile 84

Ben & Stephen answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:

• TONU Fees & Cancellations – Is it reasonable to charge a 24-hour cancellation fee on shipments? (Sounds like a TONU question.)
• Trucking Cost Per Mile – What’s the industry average for a trucking company? Comparing $1.80 vs. $2.07 per mile.
• Freight Broker vs. Sales Jobs – How does being a freight broker compare to other sales roles?
• Career Moves in Logistics – After two years in freight brokerage, what’s next? What was your next job after brokering? Is there a path in logistics beyond traditional brokerage?

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Chapters

• 19:46 Introduction to Freight360
• 36:03 Q&A Introduction with Listener Questions
• 39:59 Exploring 24
• 44:38 National Expense Ratios for Trucking
• 49:47 Freight Broker vs. Other Sales Jobs
• 4:50:56 Career Transitions in Logistics

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome to this week's episode of Freight360, the Final Mile, where we answer your weekly Q&A. We get a reminder. We get all these questions either from YouTube. You guys directly reach out whether you're emailing us directly at info at freight360.net. Man, we pulled someone from our Facebook group this week.

Speaker 1: 0:38

We've got four questions. We're going to talk about 24-hour cancellation fees. We're going to talk about the-hour cancellation fees. We're going to talk about the national averages for expense ratios per mile for trucking companies. We're going to talk about how do you think being a freight broker is different from other sales jobs. And the last question is going to be what to do next. Someone asked hey, got my first job out of college at a big brokerage, been there for a few years and contemplating next steps. Want to stay in the industry, but not sure which role. So stick with us as we dig into these. Just a quick reminder please share us with your friends likes, comments, any of the stuff on youtube. One helps with engagement and helps us understand which content matters to you guys so we can do more of it, which questions are helpful, and then again we try to answer them on a weekly episode. Nate is out again this week, but we got Steven with us, and how's your week going so far, man?

Speaker 2: 1:37

Good, good, it's been busy. We took the family to Great Wolf Lodge here in uh cincinnati, which was oh, nice fun the boys loved it, the water park and all that stuff. So it was. It was fun. Just hectic week still. I know if you listen to the last podcast, the uh, the theme came from because I'm dealing with some accounting issues at our current business and it's. The bags under my eyes are getting bigger every day so but we're getting there.

Speaker 1: 2:10

We're almost through it. Progress little by little, right, you work your way through it. All right, let's jump into the first one. I am new to the logistics business. I have managed medical facilities for 20 years and I'm now an operations manager for Malark companies, and I have a lot of questions. His question is, or her question would be would it be reasonable to charge a 24-hour cancellation fee on a shipment? What do you think, steven?

Speaker 2: 2:45

I'm just curious. I probably should have looked up Millard Companies to see what they are. It sounds like they're probably a shipper. And to charge a 24-hour cancellation fee on your vendor, the broker, the carrier, unless you're compensating them for the 24 hour notice, like if you cancel it, um, I just I don't see how that works. Uh, to get money from the carrier because they can't make it, I I never really I've seen people try to do that. I don't really.

Speaker 2: 3:21

I don't like it. I find it distasteful. But on the other end you know the shipper will usually like I've got a few customers that will give it a truck order not used within 24 hours if they cancel the shipping because the product's not ready.

Speaker 1: 3:46

So it just depends on if you're going to give it, are you going to take it or vice versa. Yeah, so typically right, like I would say, like industry standard is between a broker and a carrier is if that truck was dispatched and I'll define dispatched meaning not just had the rate con, but you spoke to that driver they are empty from their previous shipment and they are rolling towards your pickup. That is at which the point most brokerages will pay a truck order not used and the reason is, if the load is canceled prior to that, they're still technically working under their previous load and have not started working for you yet, which means they have the ability, if they're still waiting to unload their last load, to possibly find another load right, and then, once they're empty and literally driving towards your shipper to pick up for you, they are now currently working for you. So if you cancel that, that's where you pay that truck order not use, right. And I remember when I started in the industry I'd had the same question. It's like boy, this seems kind of ridiculous is that we've got to pay a truck for these situations, but our shipper never pays truck orders not used At least most of the customers. I had never paid those and I remember management and people saying the way the industry functions is shippers just don't typically pay truck orders not used. And the reason for that is because we operate right in kind of very short time frames, usually as brokerages. Yeah, you'll still have contract freight and there are different standards when you've got loads going weekly to the same places, right.

Speaker 1: 5:15

But most of the time the reason a shipper especially with new brokers and newer customers why that shipper's working with you is they just got that order, maybe an hour ago, maybe a half an hour ago, so like an order just appeared. That shipper's customer says I need an extra shipment. They reach out to you last minute ago. I didn't expect this order. Can you move it Right? So there's the positive side of it. But the drawback is those shippers also get cancellations on those orders where a shipper might have got an order last night for a load that picks up this morning but that customer might have called them at nine in the morning and said, hey, we actually don't need that product. We checked the inventory. We should be good till Friday when the next load comes in, right. And the reason for that right is it's the flexibility in the supply chain. I think it's for the exact same reason why, like, even if a large trucking company is working directly with a shipper say like Target for instance, right, they could contract for two loads a day on one shipping lane, every day, all year. But if Target doesn't sell enough product to need those shipments, they're not going to pay that trucking company anything because the orders just didn't come up right.

Speaker 1: 6:23

All RFPs are are really good. A shipper takes all their shipments they ran last year, all their lanes last year and then they guess at what they think they're going to sell, buy and need this year. But nobody actually knows what that is until consumers buy products and nobody has any idea exactly how much or when people are going to buy things. We have guesses but as the economy changes, people make more money, make less money, have changes in preferences to what they purchase. No company is able to predict with 100% certainty what and when they're going to need what. They do their best. But, like, you need flexibility in that system because it is all tied again to like what happens with the consumer at the end of the day, and I think that's probably the main reason why putting a 24 hour cancellation fee is likely not to work. I mean, theoretically you could put one in place, but what I think that shipper would probably do is, after a few orders that they had no control over, they got canceled and they got a fee.

Speaker 2: 7:30

They're just going to start working with another brokerage or another carrier because most aren't going to charge that fee is probably the bigger issue there, right, and I think if you look at the uh like the bigger picture, right, those, those shippers that are moving things a little more last minute, are typically going to work with more brokerages because of that flexibility and that that uh, that lack of you know coming back and say, hey, you, you canceled this, we should get a truck order to use that whatever, because they can go through carriers a little bit faster, whereas a shipper, their vendor setup process is a little more lengthy.

Speaker 2: 7:54

They've got more things to consider. Not so much consider, but their vetting process probably isn't as fine-tuned as a brokerage who does this all the time, probably isn't as fine-tuned as a brokerage who does this all the time. And the ones that have more consistent freight are willing to do those truck order not use, because they understand the value in that relationship with the carrier. And when you're detached from the carrier that much, you don't really see the cost associated with hey, I just drove 100 miles in this empty rig and you're just going to pay me nothing for it, you know.

Speaker 1: 8:29

So, yep, all right, this one is a pretty good question. We talked about this with Dean when I interviewed him yesterday. And what is the industry average for cost per mile for trucking company expenses? Right, and we had a comment a few weeks ago or whatever. It's pretty recent. It said hey, it cost me about $2. Cents a mile to run my truck with all my expenses, any load. I take less than that, I'm losing money. Right, and we dug into that question on a previous final mile, right.

Speaker 1: 9:02

The interesting thing and I didn't really know this, I've heard different reasons why this is the case, different reasons why this is the case, but Dean broke this down on our interview yesterday in the full-length podcast. It's like a tale, it's a book, like a tale of two cities. There are two different big groups of motor carriers in the market right now and one large bucket of carriers. Their breakeven expense number is about $1.80 a mile. There's a whole other section of the carrier market. They're about $2.07 to $2.10 a mile, roughly Okay, those numbers are based on a truck that drives 100,000 loaded miles a year, has, I think, 15,000 empty miles, right, and with driver pay of around I think he said $63,000. So that industry average for expenses, maintenance, all of those things, those mileage, those empty miles and that driver pay. The group this is what's interesting that can run loads for. Call it $1.80 a mile. Right, and again, it's worth listening to his explanation too. But the point is it's a much lower number than the other. Right is the takeaway and the much lower number call it $1.80, whether it's $1.70 for some or $1.85, right it is. Again, it was about 30 cents lower on one side than the other was there were a lot of motor carriers right that were in business prior to COVID, that were able to capitalize, meaning make.

Speaker 1: 10:30

A lot of motor carriers right that were in business prior to COVID that were able to capitalize, meaning make a lot of money when rates went up. So from the beginning, all the way to the end of that really peak period where rates were really high, those groups of carriers took that extra money they were making and paid off their trucks, paid off their leases. So on the other side of COVID, when rates came down, they're able to technically operate right with lower expenses because they don't have truck payments to make or lease payments on their trailers. So, and then the whole other group and this is the other extreme. Not only does the other group also have a truck payment that one group doesn't, whether it's a trailer or a tractor, right, but they also paid like three times what the other group paid for that truck Because, if you remember, at the end of COVID it was so hard to get a truck and a trailer that the cost to buy a tractor was two to three times as much as it was at the beginning of COVID. So not only does the second group have a truck payment that the other one hasn't. For the past few years it's a much higher truck payment because they bought at the peak of the market for that asset, right.

Speaker 1: 11:37

So what he really explained, it's a really good section of that interview. If you haven't heard it is like okay, that has been about three years from now since COVID was over, right, three, three and a half give or take right. Since COVID was over, right, three, three and a half give or take right. So what you're seeing now is the carriers right that were at the higher end or the more expensive ones. Rates have been depressed for so long that they're starting to go out of business faster. We were seeing this towards the end of last year. The thing that is starting to happen this year, though, is the carriers that had no truck payments since COVID, right Maintenance is starting to build up.

Speaker 1: 12:12

So, even though for the past few years they were theoretically undercutting the other carriers, and carriers have been yelling at brokers saying it's rates and it's our fault, but the reality was is half, or I don't know what the percentage is, but a good portion of the trucking companies were undercutting the other trucking companies because, one, they bought trucks for cheaper rates and, two, they saved enough money and paid off those trucks before the other ones did, before COVID was over, so they had like a much larger advantage for the next few years.

Speaker 1: 12:43

The kicker, though, going into this year, is that after about three, three and a half years, the maintenance now bill is starting to come due on those trucks that were paid off Right, and I think Dean said you know, for a total like frame up rebuild, you're looking 30 to 50 grand, depending on what kind of tractor you're driving.

Speaker 1: 13:03

So, as the carriers that have been able to undercut the more expensive ones and it's not really more expensive having higher expense ratios as they get, you know, a maintenance or they go in for service and they find out they need an entire rebuild, they're just opting not to fix the truck and leaving the industry right.

Speaker 1: 13:21

So you're now saying not only the ones that have higher expenses leaving the market faster because they can't keep up with it, because the rates have been so low for so long, but the lower side of expense carriers are also starting to get hit with those maintenance costs, which means they are at the end of that advantage.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Basically, both of them will kind of collapse on each other where you'll see one really standard expense ratio where kind of all of them need to be at and that's going to kind of level that playing field. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens this year with the tariffs and things, because most of the economists believe like freight volumes are certainly going to suffer in the short run. I think Craig Fuller's eating his words on the freight recession was over towards the end of last year because it looks like it's going to be a much bumpier road this year, a much longer road to recovery, and now people are thinking it might be into 2026 before we see any type of recovery on rates. So I mean it is going to be a difficult market this year. But I thought it was a really good thing to break down from a question standpoint, because we get this a lot.

Speaker 2: 14:23

Yeah, one of the one of the things I want to add to that and I don't know if Dean touched on that yesterday or not but, like for us, I know I know we're not alone as the only company that did this, but during that time we, we also paid off trucks, but we also built up our cash reserves to break ties with our factory company, um, which saves you, you know, one to 3% a year. Yeah, yeah, per per invoice. Right, it's a large number. And then, and then, on top of that, we built a brand new facility to um be able to do more maintenance on our vehicles. So we invest I think it was like $2 million or something into a brand new facility, uh, for our, our main terminal, um, um, and that has significantly reduced I wouldn't say significant, but it's, it's done a good uh job of reducing our, our overhead yeah, and your operating costs?

Speaker 1: 15:19

yeah, yep, yeah, so it's taking that money you make in the short run to help you in the long term to make your business less risky to weather storms, right, like there's tons of cliches about, you know, saving in the good times to be able to do better in the survive in the bad times. Right, human beings have been doing that forever. Right, you put a bunch of grain away from your farm to survive the winter. The people that ate more and didn't put any away either had a very difficult winter or didn't make it to summer, right, the next year? Right, it's very similar in a business.

Speaker 1: 15:48

If there's very good times and you said, hey, this is going to last forever, and spent all the cash when things got tough, you don't have any of those cash reserves to be able to sustain the downturns. Or, in your case, like you said, reducing operating costs by making capital investments into your business, whether it's warehousing, whether it's maintenance reserves, whether it's reducing your reliance on factoring to make sure that you can operate on thinner margins when the market moves in that direction. And again, the market always cycles. It is like the seasons of a year, right, you are always going to have summers and winters. If you think summer is going to last forever, you're going to have a very difficult winter. If at least when it's summer and you're, you're making what is it Making hay when the sun shines like at least in the winter, then you know you have something to feed yourself when things get difficult.

Speaker 1: 16:37

So I think it's really good, solid advice for any business owner. Yep, I agree, all right. Number three how do you think being a freight broker is different from other sales jobs? A?

Speaker 2: 16:51

freight broker is different from other sales jobs. So I have I've talked a lot about this and I love this topic because my my father-in-law he sells ATMs.

Speaker 2: 17:02

That's what he does for a living, and the conversation me and him have always had was, you know, not discrediting his ability to do sales, but when you have a tangible thing to sell, you don't have to so much rely on the relationship. Not entirely, but there's an aspect to being a freight broker where I feel like it is the ultimate sales challenge, because the only thing you have to sell is your trust and your word. Yes, and there are ways, there are slight ways to get around it with, you know, referrals and people giving a good word for you and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, I don't have a widget to sell. I don't have something that someone is looking for.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Shippers are not, especially in this market. Shippers are not looking for brokers, they're looking for trucks, and I got to convince them that my lack of assets is better than this person with a truck. And I have to do that while building a relationship, gaining trust, and typically the people I'm talking to could be hundreds of miles away. I mean, I mean I have a. I have a couple of customers that I've never met face to face, um, and I think they've been my customer for years and in a role like my father-in-law. He's on the road all the time cause he's got a region and he constantly sees his customers face to face, um, which is another thing that this industry doesn't always um give you that opportunity. You can go to conferences and stuff like that and you can make that trip, which is a good thing to do, but it's not always a viable option.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Yeah, I'd say it's far less common to meet customers face-to-face. I do think it helps establish a bond faster, which is an advantage when you can do it. I think if you're selling anything that is a commodity, price is going to be important always and service is going to be important, right. Like. Take insurance, for example. Like if you are selling insurance as an insurance agent, right, most products are fairly comparable from a price standpoint. The differentiator is does that customer or prospect trust you enough to know that when they buy insurance from you, if something goes wrong, you'll be there to help them with them? Right? And I think better sales people in insurance, for example, develop enough of a relationship and trust that they make that an important differentiator above price. So if state farms whatever $1,000 a month for this policy and all state is eleven hundred, the person in the relationship and the trust should be able to make up that price difference if you, to your point, ask the right questions and find the right needs, right, I think that's true. And auto sales a lot of the time. I mean most cars you can find in different places. You can find the same car online versus going to a dealership. So price then becomes pretty important unless you've got a relationship with that person.

Speaker 1: 20:04

The thing that I always saw that is very different about our industry than most sales is most sales. You get one sale per customer, meaning like I got to find a customer, I closed that deal. I get a commission, I got to find another customer. Right In freight brokerage you can have multiple years right Of business under the same shippers right. Once you have that trust, you keep being able to generate more sales and shipments under one. And that was the biggest reason like I enjoyed this at first was I'm like man. I lived in a sales world where, like I'm constantly and doing nothing but finding new customers, new clients, new relationships, to close a few of those every day, every week, month, whatever the sales cycle is Right.

Speaker 1: 20:51

And this industry I always looked at as like the financial equivalent of like a perpetuity. It doesn't technically last forever. Every company gets bought, sold, goes out of business and changes at some point, whether it's in a year or six months or five years or 10 years from now. But they're much longer and there's much more upside for every customer you get. Like one customer could be worth a couple hundred thousand dollars, a couple million dollars in gross profit, right. There are very few other sales jobs where you're going to have that much upside for one new customer is like. I think one of the other big differentiators and I think the other one right is depending on where you work for sure, but most rate brokerage jobs don't have capped commission. Now there's lots of other sales jobs that will tell you you're uncapped commission but the reality is the infrastructure of the company, the support, your admin support. There's usually a number where you really can't get above it because you are doing other unrelated sales things to support that and you just can't ever generate much more than that.

Speaker 1: 21:49

As a freight broker, you could work at a company right, build your team underneath it right and you could theoretically go from making 40 grand to 100 grand to 500 grand to a million to 5 million to 10 million Like. I've known freight brokers that have literally been doing 10, 20 million dollars a month in GP as a W-2. I've met them that are doing it as agents. You know, as an agent you got your own team. You're paying out of those expenses.

Speaker 1: 22:14

As a W-2, you're paying some portion of your team, but you can theoretically keep delegating responsibilities, adding customers and expanding and growing, and growing, and growing, and I have not seen any other sales job and any other industry that allows you to continually progress, to keep increasing your income in the way that our industry allows you to do it. Again, it is not easy. There are different skill sets to get from one number to the next. You've got to be a better manager, a better hire, a better trainer, better oversight as opposed to just sales, and you never get to take your foot off the gas on selling. It just changes how you do it. But to me that was the biggest, the two biggest reasons why I really like this industry over every other sales job I've worked in or coached with.

Speaker 2: 22:55

Yeah, no, I would agree to that. The other thing I would just highlight is in like the insurance and auto sales that you mentioned, you know the idea of inbound leads as a freight broker Does not exist Laughable and non-existent. Whereas like an insurance, you know people need insurance, people need cars, people need things, and so those are going to naturally create inbound leads. Yes, not only do people not necessarily need a freight broker, but sometimes they don't even want a freight broker, and navigating that landscape is just a different world. It's just a different world. And if you think, if you think, as a company, that you're going to come into the industry and you're just going to generate a bunch of inbound leads and make warm calls because you've got, you know, a killer website and SEO and all these other things, like it ain't going to happen. I mean, bless, bless your heart, but it's just not going to happen.

Speaker 1: 23:57

I laughed really hard the other day. I was in a meeting with zoom info and they were talking about oh, we have Byron. They said we have Byron scraping cookies and activity to see when your potential prospect is searching for 3PLs and freight brokers. And I was like I don't think that works. And he's like what do you mean? Like we have this case study that showed this one company increased sales by this much. And I'm like, well, first off, every shipper in the country that needs a broker has one at least. They're probably working with, or multiple, brokers. Is the reality, right? The reason you get a broker to work with a new shipper is because you establish enough trust to be able to get them to open up to you. Once they open up to you, you found a need that wasn't being met by their current providers and you were able to do that better than they are. And that is a process. Shippers aren't typically sitting there scouring LinkedIn and going, boy, let me just see what other freight brokers are out there. Like it's just not a thing that happens. And I just kind of laughed right and I'm just like, yeah, I mean like I think it's. I think ZoomInfo is a good product, but I don't think that that is nearly as applicable in our industry.

Speaker 1: 25:15

There's not buyer intent To your point. If you need insurance, you are buying insurance for a reason. I just bought a new house, I got a new car, or my last policy got so expensive or my last insurance carrier didn't cover my claim and I want a new one. There's a need. I look to solve that need. Somebody grabs that lead and calls them and almost every other business, that's true. Need a new refrigerator? Mine broke. Need a new car? My maintenance bill got too expensive, I don't like it anymore or it can't do what I need it to do. Right, I'm looking for a new home. There is some reason you're looking for a new home, right. Almost every other purchasing decision that is being made involving sales, there's a need that precedes that purchase In our world. You have to find that need, and the person you're talking to might not even realize they have a need until you ask them enough questions and they realize oh, wait a minute.

Speaker 1: 26:03

I didn't know that you could do this differently than the way they did. I thought everyone did it like that. Oh no, we'd be happy to be able to do that differently. That is why I think it takes. There's more nuance to it. It takes a little bit of a higher skill set or more practice to get better at it, but I also think the upside is worth the additional effort to being able to do those things. Yep, all right. Last one what to do next? My first job out of college was with a big name brokerage. Being in it for two years now, I'm wondering what I want to do next. What was your next job after being a freight broker? I don't think I want to stay in this specific role, but I like logistics in this industry.

Speaker 2: 26:43

What? I don't think I want to stay in this specific role, but I like logistics in this industry. What do you think? So I've thought about this a lot recently. Mainly, you know, I'm very like, I'm very deep into the AI, I love tech and that kind of stuff world where, maybe not anytime soon but probably in my lifetime, where brokerages will still exist but there'll be very thin, like the idea of a, an actual digital brokerage like convoy. While it will still need humans, um, it won't need as many, and that puts, you know, my career at risk.

Speaker 2: 27:26

So what do I do next as a freight broker that still loves the industry? Well, I mean, honestly, if you can sell freight and you're successful at it, you could probably sell freight tech to people just like you. That's one thought that I've always had. If I were to leave here, I would go call DAT, I'd call Truckstop, I'd call anyone that's providing software in the industry. So then I can go and cold call my peers, because I already know all their pain points, I know what their headaches are and especially if you can find new ones I could be wrong, but that seems like an easy sell to me is selling freight tech. I could be wrong, but that seems like an easy sell to me is selling freight tech Other things.

Speaker 2: 28:02

You know, if you like, most of the shippers that I've talked to. They don't really have like a commission base but if you go into their transportation side you could probably get a nice, somewhat comfortable salary and still manage freight. But now you're dealing with all the issues that you cause shippers. You're now dealing with that. So can you handle that issue? And is that something that excites you, that you know that ever changing landscape of a freight broker's day? Would you want to be able to handle that on the shipper side? Maybe other options, you know going and working for a carrier on the asset side it has. I can tell you from personal experience. It has its own headaches. Managing drivers and equipment and all that kind of stuff can be a whole new challenge. But it can be rewarding as well. So those are. I mean there's definitely avenues outside of freight broker that work could pique your interest if that's what you want to do to stay in the industry.

Speaker 1: 29:03

I think the answer for this person lies in the last statement. I enjoy logistics in the industry. What I would give advice to somebody that is in that situation is to ask themselves more specific questions what are the specific tasks or aspects of the logistics industry that you find rewarding? Is it solving problems? Is it the relationships with people? Is it, even more specifically, the relationships you have with your shippers and solving their problems? Or is it relationships you've established with your carriers, helping them solve their problems? Is it the detail oriented aspect of the black and white of POs need to be correct, loads need to be scheduled correctly, orders need to be put in correctly.

Speaker 1: 29:54

There are lots of people have different personality types and affinities for different roles. When you can answer that question for yourself better, I think that's going to point you in the direction of the next role right, because to your point, you can go kind of anywhere Like you could go into a sales specific role where you're just hunting business if that's the part you like, and we've interviewed people and hired people like that. There are folks that have done cradle to grave and they really just like the carrier side and then they become great carrier sales reps. There are folks that have done all of it and they really just like the planning side, the scheduling, the organization side. We've created roles for that. There are folks that like the invoicing side and want to stay more on that side because they just like doing that type of work all day. And then there are folks that kind of like all of it but not doing all of it at once and they maybe are a better fit for a manager or a team leader and they're better at training and communicating with team members to pass that knowledge on and to get the most out of them, to lead them, to encourage them. And then there's ancillary roles, right where, like hey, working with tech companies as a consultant, there are things where you can work as a logistics. You know industry. What am I looking for? Like, like in industry expert that was the word that was just not coming to me Like, where you work and you're working with a bunch of programmers and sales folks. They're developing a product, but they need that you know fundamental practical knowledge of what it's like to do the job, to communicate that with them.

Speaker 1: 31:23

Like, for me, I liked all of these things and I like to do lots of different things, which is why I went into consulting. Then I do both and then I get to sit on boards with some tech companies, but I also get to manage teams, hire and train, I get to broker a little bit here and there and I like doing lots of different things. Right, and I think this is a really good question for anybody out there, whether you're in logistics or not, because, like there are lots of jobs, we do lots of things and everybody kind of gets to the end of their two or three years and goes I do like some of these things, but I really hate these. I don't want to leave the job, necessarily, but I want to find something that I enjoy more of the time. Right? These are the questions I think we should always be asking ourselves, because what was a fit for you at 25 might not be a 30. The things I like to do at 35 certainly weren't the things that I enjoyed doing at 38 or 40, right. Like, the things I enjoy now aren't the same things I liked two or three years ago. Right?

Speaker 1: 32:13

If you are evolving and progressing as a human being, your tastes change, that your interests change. What you find fulfillment in doing changes, I think, the great part about our industry is it is so wide reaching. There are so many different roles, so many different aspects of the industry that you can work into, to do different things, that you can almost always find one of those roles, whether it's an ocean, air, warehousing, whatever it is. There's just so many different paths that you could choose. But that is the question I think you would want to ask yourself more of, and I heard something recently that I really like this, because they really explained it well.

Speaker 1: 32:46

There was a woman who was really at the end of her like she was in mergers and acquisitions, so she negotiated lots of deals with lots of different businesses to either buy, merge right, acquire or sell, and she said this statement. She said the grass is always greener but it's covered in fertilizer, and what she meant was in every business there are the things you know and the things you don't know, and every time you leave one business, whether you were successful and buy another one, sell yours or want to get into another one, it's that transition is you will focus and you will be the first stage in entrepreneurship or even business ownership. Is what do they call it? It is unwitting optimism, meaning like you really don't know what you don't know, but you're really optimistic about what you think. And then, once you're in it, you start to learn the things that are the problems.

Speaker 1: 33:39

And then you become like a informed pessimist and then, if you stick with it long enough, you realize every business and any job is going to have shit with it. Like there's going to be things you don't like, right. And you know somebody that is, like you know, in her 60s, about to retire, that has done this for 40 years. Like there aren't any businesses out there. I don't care if you talk about Apple, microsoft, down to an ice cream shop all of them have some aspect you're not going to like and you're not going to know about, right. So if you keep just changing, trying to hope to find this role or business you can own or run or start, that is somehow all going to be fun and enjoyable with no downside, like you're really just chasing a mirage, like something that literally doesn't exist, right. So even before, I think you will make a change once you ask these questions, you really need to be realistic. That like there is no perfect role where you just get to do everything you enjoy every single day without any frustrations, headaches or problems.

Speaker 2: 34:37

Yeah, yeah, and that's something that I've thought about. So I've been doing this for five years and I think this holds true with most of the people who have been in for a little while that I've talked to. There's a certain level especially cradle to grave brokers like myself. There's a certain level of required ADHD that you need to have to like stick to this job because it's there's so many different aspects that have to be managed and controlled and you know I I worked in safety at amazon prior to this for a year and my biggest issue is I would just get all these ideas that I would like to do that, but you'd have to, um, you know, submit a request, order or whatever to get that approved for a chain. You know it'd have to go all the way to Seattle and come back and it would take forever, whereas in, like this industry, you can move very fast and kind of you have this autonomy. But you were talking about the tech side and I mean one of my, one of my favorite things is looking at different pieces of tech like trucker tools, dat, all that kind of stuff, and be like I wish I could do this. How can I make it? Do this Like if somebody could just make me a project manager, like I'll take, you know, a base salary, just give me some ideas. If it works, let me know I can't code at all, but you know AI is slowly. If it works, let me know I can't code at all, but you know AI is slowly changing it.

Speaker 2: 36:05

But I mean, yeah, the whole tech side, the freight industry. The issue that I've noticed, especially with the carrier side, is they're like a decade behind the rest of the world and they're the largest stakeholder. So to move tech into our space you have to get that stakeholder on board and most of them still run around with flip phones and beepers, you know, and, uh, a lot of the people that are coming into this freight tech space because there's a ton of opportunity to make things. They have no freight experience and they make. They might make a great product, but it makes no sense to the carrier or the broker or the shipper that's trying to utilize it and they end up flopping. And yeah, I think there's in the next few years there's going to be an opportunity for people like brokers and stuff that are really deep in the industry that could become advisors to some of these tech platforms and if you're one of them, shoot me an email. I'll be glad to talk to you about it. But yeah, that's uh, that's an interesting landscape sweet man.

Speaker 1: 37:18

Any final thoughts?

Speaker 2: 37:22

Uh, no, I mean, you know, um, check out the website, look at, watch the videos on our YouTube channel, make sure to like, share and subscribe. Um, keep your eyes out. Hopefully there'll be some, uh, some good changes coming soon to the website. It'll be a little more user friendly, Um, and if you have any suggestions, topics, ideas, you know, let us know, shoot us an email, leave a comment and you know we read all of them.

Speaker 1: 37:48

So and whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.