Training New Hires That Actually Stick | Episode 321

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

Welcome back. It's another episode of the Frey360 podcast, up to 321 here. And we're going to be we're going to be taking our discussion from last week on going from that solo broker to building out a small business. We're going to kind of pivot off of that and talk about training for new folks today. But first, check out all the other content at Frey360.net and at our YouTube channel. You can leave us comments, ask your questions, and we'll we'll answer them in our final mile segment. And share us with all your friends and colleagues in the industry. Sign up for the newsletter. Check out the Frey Broker Basics course if you're looking for a training option. Speaking of training. But yeah, Ben, what's uh what's new down in Florida, man? You got any more? I was just thinking about the cold weather and those uh those iguanas falling from the trees. But did it warm up finally?

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

It never really got that cold. Like honestly, at least where I'm at, it went down to like 40.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14

That's pretty cold though, I feel like for South Florida.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18

But it was also only like 40 until like 10 o'clock in the morning. Then it was back up into the 60s. I think it was like almost 70 by like lunchtime. I think the next morning it was like 55 and back up to like 80 highs up the next day.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

So brief a nice uh nice white layer of frost all over the grass today. So like the snow we had melted as expected, and but now we're just in that frost mode. So started getting started to winterize the house, you know, get the plow ready and get all the crap out from outside and into the into the house for the winter. So yeah, man, good stuff. Um sports.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

Uh there's a good Sunday, man.

SPEAKER_01: 2:00

This is a great Sunday for me to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 2:01

Watch both the games simultaneously. I was telling you, I'm like, I had the Steelers game on my iPad and I was watching the Bills game on like my actual TV. I watched more of the Bills game, I think, than the Steelers game. Nine lead changes, I think, which was like uh tied for the all-time record or second most lead changes ever.

SPEAKER_01: 2:17

Yep. And Josh Allen, six touchdowns. It was like three on the ground, three in the air. Bills are playing Thursday night this week, too, so a short week. By the time this comes out, that game will already have happened in Houston. Um should be a good matchup, though. Like Houston's no joke to play against, and they're the they're the home team. So um odds are pretty close on it. Let me see what we got here. It's uh yeah, I mean, it's well, it's a six-point, it's a six-point Buffalo favorite spread when they're on the road. So maybe I bite my tongue on that one. But hey, any given uh Sunday or Thursday night, I suppose. Steelers, man. Um looking good. And you guys are playing in Chicago this weekend. And Chicago is in first place in their division right now. It's seven and three. So all you Chicago landers out there that are listening, holy cow. I don't know what's going on in Chicago, but they are they are looking good.

SPEAKER_00: 3:13

So did you see any of the runs from Darnell Washington? It looked like an adult playing football against children. Like he was running down the sideline. Took three, four people to even slow him down, let alone tackle him every day.

SPEAKER_01: 3:29

So do you ever I don't know if you watched like uh Good Morning Football or anything with Kyle Brandt on the NFL network, but like Kyle Brandt does this Angry Runs segment where he like basically gives the player each week like the Angry Runs Award, and like literally uh Washington was like he was the he was all over the candidates for this week. There was like no debate over it. It's like it's like just which one do you want to use? And it's like to win the best angry run. But yeah, dude, he's a beast.

SPEAKER_00: 3:58

I was so much fun watching him play. I mean, Rogers has a broken left arm, so he's questionable for Sunday, but I think they're confident he's gonna play. Yeah. I don't think it's a fracture, yeah. He came out and um our backup, my mind's blanking, went in and he actually did pretty well. And he's been our backup and was on the team before. I I don't know why I can't remember his name or not. I could picture his face, but I can't picture it.

SPEAKER_01: 4:25

Well, it says it says Rogers is playing against the Bears. I almost said on Saturday, but it's Jeff Saturday saying Aaron Rodgers is playing versus the Bears this weekend.

SPEAKER_00: 4:35

So Mason Rudolph was shooting in the yeah, I think like around the fourth quarter. Um but he looked pretty good. Oh, he came in in the fourth quarter, okay. There's something around there. It was towards the end of the game, but he looked pretty good too.

SPEAKER_01: 4:47

Yeah, I'm a little uh I got some questions around the league when it comes to certain teams right now. Like you look at who's in the hunt for a playoff seat right now, and it's you know, it's it's teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans. These are guys that won their division last year and aren't even in a playoff spot right now. So it's a it's a very different year. When you got Bo Nixon, the uh Denver Broncos in first place, and just behind them tied is the New England Patriots. Like this kind of feels like we're back in the Tom Brady era, and it's not it's not the Mahomes era of football.

SPEAKER_00: 5:22

So what do they call it? Like Spitgate with Jamar Chase suspended for two games for spitting on um my mind's blanking again, too. They ejected uh Jalen Ramsey that he spit on Jalen Ramsey, and Jalen Ramsey kind of retaliated, but like he didn't punch him, he like put his arm out and like grabbed his face neck and let it go. But they ejected Jalen Ramsey, and after I guess the NFL reviewed it, and there was video everywhere, and everyone in Pittsburgh was basically sharing it that showed Jamar Chase spitting on Jalen Ramsey.

SPEAKER_01: 5:57

Just wonderful when they were supposed to be playing uh New England this weekend. So and I I have a feeling that Joe Burrow is gonna come back. Like I don't I don't know, I don't know if uh that decision has been made or anything yet, but I don't know. They got some issues. We should add Steven on to come talk about his his Bengal. So yeah. Who knows? What's going on in the news?

SPEAKER_00: 6:21

I'm just like a whole lot of companies under hit missing earnings reports. Home Depot was pretty much in the news saying like home sales down, home improvements down. They adjusted their next quarter's sales estimates down, target down. I mean, basically you're just kind of seeing what everyone kind of knows already in the freight market. Like we see what things are shipping. And it's always funny to me because it's like I've been saying that since we got in the industry, is like it's super interesting that like most of what you kind of read in the quarterly earnings reports, like you can for sure see on our side of things long before those happened, right? Like shipping volumes on and Genlogs is putting a lot of this information out now, too. And it's something I've been working working on with them as well of like showing trends in shipping volumes for at the very least, major retailers. Ryan's been putting a lot of that on LinkedIn. So, like, I don't think this is news to anybody in the industry. I don't think it bodes well for the administration's line of the economy's doing fantastic when that's not going well. And the other thing that's interesting was my cousin's really involved in healthcare. Like, he works for one of the major um healthcare companies up in the Northeast, and they rolled back the incentive for next year, the uh tax incentive for the ACA. So everybody's health insurance is just gonna cost more in about two months, which is gonna be really interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 7:50

I mean the incentive for the ACA.

SPEAKER_00: 7:53

So when you get your health insurance right, there's like a tax, I don't know if it's called a tax credit or tax rebate, but basically the government subsidizes a portion of everyone's health care through the ACA. Then when you do your taxes, if you like make too much, you basically pay it back. If you don't, the government pays for a portion of it, but it's just gone. So like everybody is talking about the fact that like when their health insurance kicks in in January, you're gonna see significant increases across the entire country. At a time when people are making less money, things are more expensive, their health insurance is gonna become a much bigger chunk of their budget, which is not gonna bode well for the economy or people buying things that we ship.

SPEAKER_01: 8:36

So oh, this is the Obamacare thing that's expiring, right?

SPEAKER_00: 8:41

Correct.

SPEAKER_01: 8:42

Okay, gotcha. Interesting. Um yeah, I mean, it's been a it's been a weird year. And what's interesting too to me to like to like throw a freight spin at it is like people oftentimes like think that like, oh, just because like the stock market is performing in a certain way that that like every economy is you know kind of in the same realm, and it's like, dude, no, like it's not an option.

SPEAKER_00: 9:08

And for the first time, it always has been that way, which is interesting. This is the first time the stock market is doing well and consumer sentiment has gone in the opposite direction. And secondly, like somebody was talking about this, and they're like, okay, well, all this money's being spent in AI on data centers, which is creating some jobs, but like, are everybody that's not making money or doesn't have a job, what are they gonna do? Go work in construction to go build a data center? Like, how likely is that to happen, right? Some people will, but like you're just not seeing the correlation because it's very concentrated in one very small niche where all of the stock market gains are, and it is not equally distributed amongst all the companies and the even SP 500. So like most companies aren't doing well, most people aren't making more money, most people are spending more money, and pointing at the stock market and saying, Oh, that's good news, is kind of I don't know. Yeah, it's just not what it has been, and it's not what it seems, and it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 10:09

Like, for I remember talking, I think it was like last summer, last fall, and we were talking about like, oh yeah, like the end of 2025 is gonna look so different for freight, and like, dude, here we are still. So yeah, yeah, just wild. But anyway, some companies are growing, some people are switching jobs, and we're gonna talk about training today because um that's the best segue I can do from depressing news to how to how to train employees. So this actually came up the the idea for this. Um we've had I was I was talking to you off air a little bit about um you know having to train new people and some of the like the um the struggles with it, and like so at at uh Pierce, we have uh guy that primarily does most of the training, and like you know, if he's out for you know one reason or another, then it kind of like it falls onto my lap or someone else's lap. So I actually did some of the trainings for our new folks the last couple of weeks, and it got me um I used to always train the new people and I really enjoyed it. And I went through it this past time and I was like, man, I was like, I've almost so like a little rusty, but I have a a really good um, I've got a good like standard operating procedure, like literally for how to train someone new and like every step of what they need to learn, whether it's a procedural thing, a technology thing, um, you know, just the way that we operate as far as like the culture of the company. Um, but I think you can't stress enough how important it is to properly train somebody when you're gonna grow your team because we talked about last week the amount of you know, people think, oh, I'll just hire somebody and you know they'll be able to come in and do the job and no one's gonna care about your business as much as you do, right? And proper training and having time for them to learn the things that you want them to be doing is extremely important for multiple reasons. Number one, um, they're not gonna be successful if you don't give them a chance to learn. And number two, like we've probably all done it, right? Like you very badly want to be good at something, but you have not been given the tools to do the right thing, right? Like if you've um, you know, if you ever you ever worked a job or like the first week or whatever, like somebody was dropping the ball on like who you're supposed to shadow or whatnot, and you're just sitting there like, what am I supposed to do? I don't like I don't know anything, or I don't, you know, I don't have the the skill set or the knowledge or whatever. And those are, you know, that's another another crucial point there. So um man, it's funny. Like when I I I like to I I like to think to like the TQL model, and I I know because you you were there for a bit, like I think they have somewhat perfected the just that model of training, and they're not the only ones that that that does it, um but you know they get a a high volume of people, they put them all through the same sort of training and figure out who's strong in this area and who's who's succeeding at it, and that too becomes like their brokers down the road, and the rest the rest get washed out, but um yeah, just to kind of like set the stage there, training I think is super important. I'm curious what um you've been at a ton of different companies of different shapes and sizes. What's what would you say people do good at training versus not good? And then I'm gonna kind of go through um some of the points of you know what I hit on when bringing somebody in.

SPEAKER_00: 14:26

Well, I think the one of the most important things is like culture, which seems like woo-woo-y, like, oh, what is culture? What does that even mean? And very few companies I think are intentional about developing the culture and maintaining the culture, right? And I think some of the simple things in take TQL, for example, is that like they have a very consistent culture and mentality across the company, where I would definitely say that like management really looks at training specifically, is their job is to support, not to tell people what to do, which is a very distinct difference, right? When one person is going, you need to do this, and then holding you accountable, and the other person is saying, Hey, what do you need? What can I help support you with so that you can reach your goal is a very different approach and usually a much different outcome, right? The other thing is what you said is like being able to train a lot of people, right, at scale, which is TQ is a really good example of it, is the thing that I think really increases the speed of learning, like your learning curve, right? Like how steep, meaning what you learn over what period of time, the steeper that is, the faster you're learning, right? Sitting next to somebody and working in proximity to other people to me is the fastest way to do it. Like literally shadowing, sitting next to the people doing the job, and then doing that job while the person that is training you and working with you is also sitting next to you and aware of what you're doing well, where you need help, because there are so many things that are intangible that are hard to do when somebody isn't around you. And an example of that is like, okay, I train somebody that is through a computer far away. The only thing I know about what they need help with is what they're telling me. Yep. And ironically, the person learning the job doesn't use it, it's they don't know what they don't know. So it's like, okay, like there is just an inherent issue with the fact of like, if you aren't really effective at asking questions to understand where the person you're training is in their learning curve, right? Like, what have they learned? Where do they need help? It's far less, because I did a training on this yesterday, it's far less about telling somebody how to do something and what to do. It's far more about asking questions and learning where the person you're training is in their journey and meeting them where they are to help them progress, as opposed to just going, this is how I do it, catch up to me. What are you doing wrong? Why can't you do this? And I've done both, right? Like for sure, when I was younger, that was my approach when I was like a sales manager in my 20s, is like tell people how you do it, tell them to do it over and over again. And then to be honest, hold them accountable when they're not doing the thing you told them, which is really ineffective, creates a lot of conflict. Nobody enjoys it, not the person training, not the person being trained, and it creates more conflict. And I would say is like it's pushing culture in a negative way, right? Like you're not improving it for sure. Like it inherently just makes things harder for everybody, as opposed to asking questions and understanding where they're at and then helping them move step by step because behavioral change is hard in anything. Take somebody that's never exercised and they need to go get an exercise routine, right? Whatever it is, everybody really progresses step by step in change, not in leaps and bounds. And if you really want to train somebody effectively and literally doing anything, you got to know where they're at and you've got to move them step by step to where they want to go. And you can't do that unless you're really aware of where they're at in that path or journey.

SPEAKER_01: 18:08

I think a lot of it too is gonna come, what's their background and experience? Like, I I have um I'm thinking of like people that I've trained in like over the years, and like I had a guy that I trained that like had a ton of years in sales, but like he just didn't know anything about like the freight industry. So it was like the biggest thing we had to work on was like understanding not how to build relationships because he was he already had that down, but it was like what do we do in in freight and transportation that's different from what he was used to, right? Then you get someone that um has cut like I had a guy that worked for a um an LTL-based brokerage, but was never on the sales side of it. And so like he knew the industry very well, at least you know, the concept of of transportation, maybe not full truckle very well, but like had to really focus on um not the operational stuff, but more of the the sales, the sales portion of it. And I also want to I want to circle back to something you said, which is culture. All right, so I pulled up going back to the culture thing that you were mentioning, I just pulled up the the like step-by-step training outline that I've got for anyone that's new at our company, and like um culture's up there. So, like, you know, I've got the basic, like, here's our hey, we're a freight brokerage, we've got a trucking company too, like the the basics, and then right below that um is culture. And we talk about things like professionalism and how we expect everyone to treat each other and that we, you know, we want to run a tight chip, and um, you know, basically just non-industry related things that will set you up for success within our organization because you know, on paper, with like highways, you know, we talk about highway and care vetting a lot. Like, you could look at a brokerage or a motor carrier on paper, and like you get none of this objective when you look at those objective stats, right? And I think the culture and when you talk to somebody and you when you actually get to deal with them and work with them, that will differentiate one brokerage from another or one carrier from another, just the way that you do business. Like we've had we've had plenty of people that have um, you know, left reviews or just give given feedback, like just really was a pleasure just just to work with you guys compared to some of the other folks in the past, et cetera. Um, remember what we say, like people do business with those that they like and they know and they trust. But like, but liking that person and trusting that person is like, those are two big things there that that is culture alone. Like you could teach somebody all day long how many calls to make to be successful, or what you know, on average what it takes, and you know, how to properly vet a carrier and the things you got to do operationally to to keep your your shipment safe. But I think that culture part is extremely huge because you might have somebody that's a stud at sales and has big numbers and blah blah blah, right? And they're just not a cultural fit for your company, right? And I've seen this in all different in all different facets, like, and I'll give a couple examples, and I'm curious if you have any, but like I've worked with people that are like they're huge on the being like the veteran-owned company and all that, and like you hire someone that doesn't have that connection and they just never feel like they're really part of the team, or a small, like, family-owned business, and someone comes in with a big corporate mindset, right? Or someone that um doesn't want the big corporate mindset and wants the small, the small family business, feel like those are cultural differences that are gonna shape just about everything you do. So I think during that training part, the portion there to outline those those cultural parts is is is gonna be you know kind of a pillar to everything else. What'd you have there to add though?

SPEAKER_00: 21:49

I agree. I mean, I I look back at like companies that like, and I think everybody can probably relate to this at some point in your life. It's like you've worked at places you just despised having to drive to work, right? And it wasn't the it wasn't the job you were doing, it was just being there, right? Like, and it's like almost this intangible like energy of like it just doesn't feel like I don't want to say like it had to be when I when I worked for Conway, man, like it was such a large carrier that like literally, yeah, you could be cool with like you know the the group you had at your at in your area, your region, but like then you realize like you're just one of like hundreds of people doing the exact same job as you, um or thousands for that matter, right?

SPEAKER_01: 22:39

We had like you know, thousands of trucks. Um, but I I really did like I remember I learned so much, but I remember times like making a phone call and just being like, Man, like what a shitty day at work. Like that was not fun. I didn't like I don't want to go to work tomorrow. And then like you know, you you kind of snap out of it sometimes. But and then I went to when I when I went into brokerage and I worked for a company that was much smaller and I got to experience the growth through it, like I knew the owner. Like I I got I had a good relationship with my boss and I knew who owned the company, and like like it's just so different when you have those those changes like that because you kind of feel more like bought into the the mission and the purpose um when you're not just a cog in the machine, right?

SPEAKER_00: 23:24

And I think two of two things, right? One is like I've worked at very big companies where like it still was enjoyable and I liked being there. Like TQL happened to be one of them. And like it was for sure the most stressful job that I've ever had. Emotional ups and downs of super high highs, very lows, where like things go wrong, you think you're gonna lose everything you built. But like the people I worked with, I genuinely enjoyed being there every day. And like how the company made some decisions I had issues with with a very large company. But honestly, like, even in hindsight, I absolutely have a different perspective of the things I thought were negative while I was there. Now that I'm on the other end and have managed and owned companies, I'm like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. And like there's certain things that you just need to do to get a ship that big moving in a direction. So completely have even a different perspective on what I thought at the time was negative, right? So like I think it's achievable at scale or in a small company to be able to create that, create that. Because the one thing I always thought of, like, really what differentiated that company from other large companies I worked in was it really was the managers and your direct boss that absolutely didn't just treat you like a colleague. They treated you as if their job was to support you. And it wasn't just saying that, it was literally in the actions, right? Like knowing or noticing when you're needing help, helping you get support to get loads covered, helping shift resources around. Like they genuinely did the things that made you know that was true. It's like, what bullshit walk um that saying of like talk is cheap, like your actions are what matter, right?

SPEAKER_01: 25:03

Actions louder than words, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:06

It was the actions that like let you and created that culture, and you knew you had that support. And honestly, that came from the top down. Like, I've used this story, but like when I was there, and I don't know if this still happens, but one, Ken Oaks, which is the CEO, up until like 2015 or 14, like they were for sure over a billion-dollar company. He was still brokering freight. So, like, there were stories where like he's managing this giant company and he literally still would talk to his customers and dealt with their loads and the situation. And the other thing he did was, and again, I don't know that this is true anymore, but like back then, he never took any more in a salary than the highest performing salesperson. So he would benchmark how much money he would make for a very long time with whatever the top broker was making and wouldn't take any more out, right? And that sets a tone for the entire organization, right? That like that person that high up that has the ability to do whatever they want, to sell the company, retire, whatever, is literally on the ground doing the things that they're expecting of you, right? Because the other thing in training is like it is, I don't want to say impossible, but it is incredibly difficult to manage somebody or lead somebody to do something you either haven't done or aren't willing to do, right? Like that is the definition of leading, right? And a sales manager talked about this of like, hey, like there was another company I worked at where like the sales manager was holding the sales team accountable and the sales team didn't want to listen because they're like, he never put up the numbers that they're asking me to do. Like he never made that amount of phone calls, but yet he's telling me to do it every day. It's that sense of hypocrisy, whether it's true or not. Like you need to be able to do the things that you're leading somebody else to do. And like the other thing that they used to talk about, and I watched Ken do this, is if the phone would ring a third time, he would literally pick up the phone and cover a load and just answer whatever the issue was. Talk to a carrier, talk to a customer, and he would walk around the offices. And if a phone rang three times and nobody grabbed it, he would literally answer the phone, right? And then just deal with the issue. That is some of the things that I think really create that culture that is super important. And on the other end of this, the other thing I want to tie into this is it's not just the positives, but you also need to, I would say, like fire fast. And here's what I mean by that, which is like there's all these cliches about like a bad apple spoils the entire barrel. But I think that's a really good analogy because you could have a team of 150 people. And if you have one negative Nancy in there that is doing nothing but complaining, but makes a lot of money, that has a far more negative impact on everybody than somebody that is really good and positive. Like there's the and like mathematics.

SPEAKER_01: 27:55

I feel like every company has it too. Like there's that one person that like, and if if you don't know who that person is, it's probably you.

SPEAKER_00: 28:03

Right. And the thing is, like, and I'm sure at points in my time I was that person in different organizations that I eventually left because it wasn't a fit. But I can say for sure, like I've had clients that have had that top performing salesperson and they have been scared to fire them for years because they're worried, oh, well, how are we going to keep the accounts? Are we gonna lose the money? Can we afford to get rid of it? And what you see is nobody around them is performing. So it's like, okay, you got like five salespeople, one person that does nothing but complain. The other four people just don't have the energy because that other person just sucks it out of the room. And sales is one of those jobs where like it is emotionally taxing when you're doing it well and when you're around people you like. Now, you put a negative person in that mix, it makes that job 10 times as hard. And everybody just looks for reasons to complain, make excuses. Oh, I'm not gonna get a customer, I don't need to make another call today. And the person next to you is just complaining all day long. You're far more likely to feed off some of that negative energy. And like it really does bring an entire company down. So when you identify that, the fastest thing you can do or the thing you can do that is most effective is getting them, getting rid of them as soon as possible. Yeah. Because every day they're there, everyone else in your company is paying for that, right? In one way or another. And some way or another, you're also paying for it in the bottom line. It's the short term versus long term. You will grow larger faster by getting rid of them, but most people are too scared of what the next week's revenue looks like to actually make that hard decision.

SPEAKER_01: 29:34

Yeah. And I would say you could arguably you could probably get rid of somebody before they're even producing revenue, right? That would be ideal. You don't want to get to a point where you're afraid to let them go because of the revenue they're producing, right? Like, so one of the things I think back to like when I was trained at different companies. Um I had a really good boss at a company I worked at that, you know, he was like he was the VP and literally like he didn't have to. We we had a corporate trainer, right? He didn't have to, but he sat down with me and did the training. He knew he knew that my my background was a little bit different than the average person that was starting there in that role. And he sat down and like did a lot of the training with me and kind of related it to me. But he made it a point to like every at the end of every week, those first bunch of weeks, like to spend time and just be like, where are you at with things? How does, you know, how do you feel about everything? Where do you think that you want to lean more in on to you know, where do you need more focus on or more help? What do you need more help with? Things like that. And I think that's that's huge. Um, and that and that's a leadership thing, honestly, right? Because a a corporate trainer or a trainer, whatever you want to call them, might be really good at training somebody on a certain system or process, but the leadership part of it is going to be totally different as far as how to guide somebody to be successful. And one of the things that, you know, that I always do with somebody that's new is I like, and this kind of relates to what you said, um, I want to show them what right looks like. So what what does success look like? What does a, you know, if you if you do X, Y, and Z, you know, in X amount of time, that's what we consider successful. If not, you know, we're gonna consider that an area to improve or whatnot. But if you don't give somebody that um, you know, kind of like that benchmark or that what right looks like or what success looks like thing, you're doing them a disservice because they have no idea where they stand against, you know, um everybody else. So and then I also tell them what right what wrong looks like, right? So if you have somebody shadow or sit with like a bunch of different people, assuming they're in person, um, you can usually point out certain things that they shouldn't want to do, right? Or it could just be the more people that you sit with, you might pick up things that you liked about how they operate and you kind of mix them together and you create your own version of it. Like I remember it's one of the things I did when I first um moved over to 3PL roles, I just sat and I listened on phone calls from everybody, and like, oh, I like what he's doing there, um, and I like what he's doing in this regard over there. You kind of create your own your own version of it.

SPEAKER_00: 33:04

So yeah. Well, and there's a whole bunch of research on this. I haven't read it in a long time. I read it a few years ago, but like it it makes a lot of sense. It was a it was a couple books I read on like just how human beings learn anything, right? And like the analogy is a kid, right? And what they use in this analogy, and it kind of always stuck with me, is like a little kid does not learn how to walk through interpreting language. You do not sit next to a little kid and say, put your left foot in front of your right foot, pick your heel up, move that leg in front of that leg, then do that again, right? A kid learns to walk by watching you do it, and they will just pick up on it, right? That is literally built into our heart. Correct. And that and it's hard your job to protect them so that you know they're not walking in a dangerous area. But the point is, like, we have inherently built into us the ability to learn through experiencing, watching, and hearing others, right? That is the fastest path. Oh, I remember the book was related to tennis because this tennis guy in like the 70s discovered this was like what most people think learning is is like they take how they know how to do it, then either write it down or put it into words, give those words to somebody else. That person reads those words, interprets them differently, and then tries to do what you're doing. If you really want to teach someone to do it, you just show them how to do it, right? Because they will pick it up. And like the the thing on where this relates in training is like, that's why shadowing is so much faster. That's why what you said, which is what made me think of it, is like, I got so much better at sales sitting in a sales floor with 30 other people making sales calls. Because you hear everybody periodically throughout the day, and you don't even realize you're learning. You just pick it up and then try it. And then you try it a few times, you're like, oh, that kind of worked, but it doesn't feel like me. And then 20 minutes later, you hear something else, and you're like, ah, you just tried in a phone call and you're like, oh, that really worked. That seems like my style. And little by little, you're learning the way we, I don't want to say we were meant to learn, but the way we've always learned. Yeah. Where academia and what you learn in school is kind of counterintuitive to the way we actually learn. And in some ways, like, doesn't, I mean, I think everybody has an example of some class you had in high school or middle school where you were forced to memorize something that I guarantee you you have no idea what that was, right? Like most of schooling is that. And we retain none of it. We can regurgitate it on a test and we will forget it right after because it's no longer important. And there's tons of research that shows exactly that thing is that your brain will retain it until the point where it knows it takes a test and then will literally let it go because it goes, well, I don't need this anymore. And then just do a whole bunch of work for nothing.

SPEAKER_01: 35:45

Like there's literally no So the you may I think about a lot of things there, and I think like, you know, the the way that I perform now I think has nothing to do with anything I've ever learned in high school or college, right? I think the way that I operate now is all based on like on the job experience, right? And that's why back to that controlled environment thing for how I kid learners to walk. The sooner you can get a new hire into the habit of repetitions, again, in a controlled environment where you're there and you can kind of be a set of guardrails, right? The better. So like I when I when I had trained somebody, uh this is like probably three or four years ago at this point. First thing we did was like went through basic like education on brokerage, right? And it was on their own, doing some um, actually using some of our Freight 360 stuff because it's packaged great for someone who doesn't have any experience to kind of like get them over the hump. And then it was all right, we're gonna get right into this, right? We're gonna get right into operating on a TMS and um dispatching and everything related to the operations, but in a manner where I could make the quick correction if there was an issue, right? The same thing goes with like I I've done call blitzes with people where like, you know, and again, like I guess the worst thing that happens on a cold call is like it just doesn't go good. So it's there you just make another downside. But we do it in a way that like the person is they're they're doing the dials, I'm muted, and but like right after a call, we can take a tactical pause and like I give my feedback on it before they get into the next one. So it's that controlled environment review, AAR, yeah, the AAR, after action review, right? Um, or the hot wash, um, all the all the friggin' military lingo here, but but doing that in a controlled environment, I think, is great. And when you're in person, it's super easy to be able to do all of that, right? Yes. I remember um had this is I'm this I'm going back probably 10 years now, right? I had somebody that listened in on one of my calls like on their first day, and it just happened to be like a really good call that like is unusual, and she's like, Oh, this is great. I I'm like super easy. I'm like, I want to be clear, like that is like the very uncommon call that you're gonna have um like right away. So two things had to set that expectation up front, and then like after a few more days, um she quickly realized, like, no, this isn't for me. She like had a pre-planned vacation with her husband and like went on this cruise and like came back and resigned, was like, Yeah, put a lot of thought into it and like had this other offer, I'm gonna end up going and do this instead. So, like, but to your point, the sooner you can figure out if someone's not a fit, whether it's them deciding or you deciding, the better. And that's why I typically like I recommend, and we talked about this a little bit last week, when you're training somebody, like set an expectation of like, hey, we're gonna have we're gonna have some benchmarks at like the first month, the second month, the third month, whatever, depending on what the role is and whatnot, and just say like this needs to be a two-way agreement. So if if you feel like at any point you're not like inspired by what you're doing or feeling thrilled about what you're doing, like I need to know that because I don't want you to quit on me one day unexpectedly, and vice versa. Like, if I don't I'm not going to fire you. If you get if you ever get fired or let go, you're gonna, there's never gonna be a question as to why. It'll be very crystal clear to you as to why you're why you're being let go. And I've always stuck by that point. Like I had um a guy uh a couple years ago that like he was like, hey, like, does is the workload gonna pick up? Like it's you know, it just kind of feels like I I don't have a whole lot to do. And I'm like, I'm glad you brought that up because I he's remote and like I how do I know what he's doing all day long? But he told me, like, hey, I basically don't have enough on my plate, and we were able to adjust workload until you know um more of his regular business or more of his regular uh tasks were on his plate. So I think having that like feedback and regular routine um, you know, communication about the how the new training and the new hire and you know all that stuff's going is gonna be crucial.

SPEAKER_00: 40:04

So well, two things, right? Yeah. Feedback loop, right? Just any learned behavior, you need feedback to improve. And the tighter that loop is, meaning like the closer the feedback is to when you're doing it, the faster you learn, right? Like if you're shooting a basketball, you see as soon as it leaves your hand, did it hit the rim, did it go in, and where did you miss? And you adjust. If you put a blindfold on and try to keep shooting without the feedback, it might take you three days before you put a ball in the hoop because you literally don't know how to adjust because there's no feedback, right? And I think the fastest way to improve in sales specifically, because you were talking about like shadows and calls, is one, somebody sitting next to you and being able to give you feedback right after that call. Because it's literally right then, and you can improve on the next phone call. But that's not always feasible. I would say the next best thing, and I used to do this a lot when I started in sales. I happen to work with like my closest childhood friend. So after work, we would do this every day. We would pick our best and worst calls every day, like five of your best, five of your worst. And we would just sit there, and mostly because we want to avoid traffic, but we'd just hang out at work and we would listen to each other's calls together. And the first thing is like, I would pick up so much that I didn't realize happened, hearing it later, because you're not emotionally engaged and you're not focused on the person. You're just listening to it like third party, and you're like, Yeah, oh wow, I didn't know I said that then. Oh, I said that, and that person's voice tone changed completely, where I absolutely shifted all the energy and didn't realize that. I could have said it this way, it would have done this right. And my buddy would go, dude, you had that person right there to close. You had them at the buying line and you just kept talking. You literally talked your way out of a sale, and then the call went into no man's land and you had to schedule a follow-up. So he would hear things I didn't, and I certainly heard things I didn't, and vice versa, which allowed me to get so much better, so much faster because like it's the feedback. Are you missing? Are you hitting? Where most people treat feedback in sales is did I make money? Well, whether you make money and what happened on your first call to that company are so far apart that it is almost impossible to figure out what went well and what didn't go well. Because you call somebody once, you have to talk to them for two to three months before you're even going to get onboarded, let alone get a load, let alone make money, right? You're talking months between result and action. You need to tighten the loop in a way where like you are hearing how and what is going on, ideally with another person to give you another perspective. But even if you're by yourself, you should at the very least pick one or two good calls and one or two bad calls every day, listen to them after work or the next morning when you're having coffee, lining up your leads to call the next day. You will get so much better at this so much faster, right? Which was the other thought I wanted to wrap with, which is a really good way to interview people, because you mentioned something like this, which remind me of this, at that same company. What the boss would do is at the interview, he would just go, like literally before anybody asked you any questions, he would say, Hey, I want you to make a are you comfortable making cold calls? Like, okay. He's like, Well, here's a script if you need it, super short, like a couple lines, right? And here's a list of phone numbers. I want you to make these phone calls. Because he wanted to do two things. See how willing you are to actually pick up the phone when you're kind of scared and nervous and actually do it, right? The second thing is he would be in the other office and he was one of the phone numbers, and he would act and you didn't know him that well. So, like you didn't know you were talking to him, and he would just throw a couple of objections and just see, not like if you're really good. He mostly wanted to gauge your willingness to make the phone call and your willingness to try, because that's usually where people wash out in sales. Like to your point with the woman who started and left, is like most people, why they realize they're not a fit for sales is like they just don't enjoy doing it enough to continue doing it. And you can find that out pretty quickly just by seeing baptism by fire. Like, just go make some calls. What's the worst thing that happens? You get hung up on a bunch of times. Who cares? I just want to see if you're willing to do the thing, your resume and your whole speech and your first interview is gonna tell me. Like, show me, don't tell me, right? Let's see if you're willing to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 44:26

A hundred percent. And to kind of to wrap this up, I think you can um you can get a lot of that. Is this person gonna be a good fit? You can get a lot of that before the hire begins. Like you said, like um in the interview process. I've even heard of people that would suggest doing like a um a dinner interview, and sometimes like bring the spouse because you want to see how somebody acts a good one.

SPEAKER_00: 44:56

Yes. In a different way. Southwestern, they used to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 44:59

Really? Okay, one of the interviews was a spousal interview. How do you act when there's booze around you? How do you act in a you know, in a non-war?

SPEAKER_00: 45:07

How do you treat the wait staff?

SPEAKER_01: 45:08

Exactly. What is your what does your wife have to say about you? Or like just like all that stuff, there's there's ways to do it. I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of grabbing lunch with somebody or dinner. I'm a bit I'm a big lunch guy, but like in just sitting down and having that conversation, because then it tells me like, do I want to spend time around this person? You know what I mean? Like, and then do they and then they can decide like I want to spend time around him? You know what I mean? Yeah, because think about it.

SPEAKER_00: 45:36

Like, that's the decision. Hey, do I want to spend eight hours a day, five days a week with this person? Like, do I just enjoy interacting? Do we have a good vibe? Is there good energy? Like, do they seem like somebody you would want to spend this much time with? Because that is for sure way more overlooked, where most people focus on like, well, what's on the resume? Well, what did he do? Where are the gaps in his work history? And it's like, okay, like that tells me almost nothing, to be honest. Like, I've seen resumes that seem outstanding and you're just like in huge duds when they actually get to the job. And you're like, where's all this stuff that you had on this piece of paper that you said you did and can do?

SPEAKER_01: 46:15

Yeah. I mean, you can when you spend an hour or you know, even half an hour around somebody in a setting where they're gonna be interacting with you and other people, like you could tell pretty quick if somebody is full of shit or if they're smart or if they're polite, like all of the above, right? You can tell all those things that are gonna in turn help you make a decision on do you want to spend the time to train them and you know trust that they're gonna take the training seriously because eventually they're gonna be um you know, they're gonna be impacting your business, hopefully in a positive way. So what do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 46:47

Yeah, just think about this. The last thing is like if you're hiring somebody for sales, their whole job is to get people to know them, like them, and trust them and to represent your business. If they can't do that with you over an hour lunch, what's the likelihood they're gonna do it over the phone with people they don't know? Right, pretty low.

SPEAKER_01: 47:06

Very good point. You you also might realize that someone's a really good, you know, ops, like non-customer facing, right? But very detailed, organized, etc. More like type is that type B versus type A or whatever. It's one of them.

SPEAKER_00: 47:21

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:22

And I think, or you might find that they maybe it's a mix. They're really good at some certain things, but not others, and you kind of, you know, you can kind of best use them based on their strengths and all that stuff. So yeah, that's that's good stuff. Um, and ultimately sometimes you just you know, you don't have to give anybody like uh, hey, you're not qualified. You just say, hey, like, I just don't think we're gonna be the best fit. Like it's just that's a real thing, you know. I I've told people before that have have applied to peers and they want to come. Um, we've had people that they're like, hey, I have a a book of business already. I, you know, I want to come be an agent for you guys. And I have literally talked to them on the phone, and I can just tell, like, this is not going to work out because there's gonna be butting of heads with um, you know, whether it's a personality thing or an authority thing. And I'm just like, I don't, I can just tell you right now, I don't think we're gonna be a good fit. And I hate to turn away, you know, potential good business, but you know, I'd rather have this conversation now instead of two months. Yeah. Sometimes those are hard, those are hard things to turn down. Like it looks seems like a shiny object in front of you, but um you gotta do that sometimes. Cool, man. Good uh that's good. Good discussion. Let us know if you guys have questions on training or you know, maybe what roles or how to train different specific roles, but definitely check out the Frey Broker basics course, man. Anytime one of my uh agents is hiring a new rep, I'm like, dude, put them through the training. Like obviously I give them access to it, like at you know, no cost or whatnot. Tested, true, one-on-one level. Like, here's your here's your intro to Freight Brokering, right? And you could skip all the stuff about like, you know, setting up your broker, like how to actually get your authority and all that stuff. But there's the sales and operations modules in there are just it is so so good to just go through the basics of it and like it's a good conversation starter because then people usually have questions afterward and they're like, well, you know, what do you think about X, Y, and Z? So check that out if you guys uh are training anybody new or looking for training material, and definitely, you know, you get that new hire, make sure you plug them into the Frey360 podcast and our YouTube channel, all that good stuff. So anything else on training, Ben?

SPEAKER_00: 49:36

If you're interested in consulting, reach out, give us a call. We do that on a one-on-one basis, company level, whatever you need. Absolutely. Final thoughts. Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right. And until next time, go bells.