Email Essentials for Freight Brokers | Episode 292

Speaker 1: 0:19

All right, we're back. Episode 292, freight 360 podcast. Dude, I got to tell you, man, it was 81 degrees in western New York yesterday and it is Woke up. It was like in the upper 30s today. So back back in the hoodie weather for us, at least for today. We'll see, but anyway, welcome back. Another episode of our podcast. Here we're going to talk about some of the basics of email communication with shippers today the do's, the don'ts, the why's, the why not's, all that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Make sure you're checking out all of our other content. We get questions all the time like hey, how do I do this? How do I do that? We have a searchable library right on our website, freight360.net. Type in whatever you're trying to look for and you will get some feedback or some content podcast long form you got shorter videos, clips, blogs, etc. You'll also find the Freight Broker Basics course on our website and continue to share us. We've been growing and growing and growing. There's a lot of um rejuvenated interest in our industry this year, so very excited for Ben. What's going on in your neck of the woods? I know your battle. You were battling a little bit of uh feeling. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:37

COVID wasn't great. End of like pretty much symptoms. Kind of felt a little bit about three, four days ago but just going through like kind of clearing the fog out and trying to get on the other end of it. But yeah, feeling a lot better, anxious to dig into some of the stuff today. For sure, a lot in the news.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:56

I'll hit news first. A lot of this in our newsletter that came out earlier this week, but the English proficiency for CDL holders that was that's like been kind of the big one. We've been hearing this coming though for a while, so it wasn't like a surprise, and it's also nothing new, right Like, this is a law that's been on the books for a while. But I think that the big thing is Sean Duffy, the DOT secretary, is basically saying we're going to actually start to implement some of the regulation that's already in existence. Right so like, and I think the reason behind it this is not like a hey, we don't like people that speak a different language. It's, you know, when it comes to compliance and road signs and construction signs and talking with a DOT inspector being able to be proficient and understand the English language. I think that's where this is all coming from. What's your, what's your take on it?

Speaker 2: 2:57

Yeah, I think I had read and I never got a chance to dig into like the specific specifics, but it seems like it was rolled back a bit or eased, or enforcement was eased during like the Obama administration and again, like I do really think it also has a lot to do with the market. I mean, I don't think there's any way you could have put something like this in place beginning of the pandemic. It would have crushed the supply chain. So it's like, hey, when we need you, we need you. Well, oh, hey, the market's soft and we're about to enforce tariffs and we're going to put a giant freight recession into practice where there's not going to be anything to move. So like it's a convenient time for us to now crack down on this thing. So I mean, to me it's kind of I don't know, depending on the wind, the way the wind's blowing, on whether or not they want to enforce these things, which I feel like is maybe a little disingenuous.

Speaker 2: 3:49

Like there was a funny meme and freight caviar. I don't know if you saw it at the very bottom of it, Right, it was basically a picture of Trump and it said basically that he was doing this at the exact same time he was causing, you know, massive shortage. I don't like to read it. It's it's a picture of Trump dressed kind of like a Buddhist monk, with a yin yang in the front. It just says avoiding the oncoming freight recession by shutting down every truck carrier that can't speak English.

Speaker 1: 4:23

It gets pretty spot on I mean, oh man, so that that was like the big executive order that came out. Some other things, did you see the Amazon thing?

Speaker 2: 4:36

What's that? Did you see the Amazon thing? It was hysterical.

Speaker 1: 4:40

This is the Bezos talking to Trump.

Speaker 2: 4:43

Yeah, terrible. Uh, this is the bezos talking to trump, yeah. But so there was apparently a leaked article that was refuted later by amazon. That amazon, well, because kimu started putting in tariff charges on all the invoices and people started freaking out, right, yep. And then I guess it was leaked that amazon was going to do the same, putting a charge next to whatever products were bought from China and showing like, hey, this is your price increase related to the tariffs.

Speaker 2: 5:07

So the press secretary came out and said this is a hostile and political act by Amazon and is not a surprise, because Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm. And I'm like what? Like Dooner had a post and it was the first time I saw it. We were talking about it on LinkedIn and I was like wait a minute, like why is this a bad thing? If you wanted to be able to show Americans what they're buying from China and then incentivize them to buy American, don't you want them to see where the tariffs are doing this? It's like, hey, we're putting tariffs in place to make you buy American, but we don't want you to see where those tariffs are on which products Like.

Speaker 2: 5:50

To me, it made absolutely no sense why the White House would be opposed to it, other than the fact that, like, maybe they just didn't want people to know that this is actually going to make things more expensive. Because then the press secretary said, well, I don't know why Amazon didn't do this during the Biden administration, when inflation was the highest in 40 years. And I'm like I even said this. I was like, how would you have put that in Amazon? Like, this thing is vaguely more expensive because of government spending. Like, it's not exactly like a percentage in a dollar that you can attribute to a product in the same way you can a tariff.

Speaker 1: 6:26

And in a dollar that you can attribute to a product in the same way you can a tariff, and it was just kind of hysterical. Yeah, I think there's. There's definitely multiple ways to to look at it, you know, depending on what your motivation is. The other things too, and again, this is all like I feel like when we had the covid exhaustion and the you know tip fatigue. I feel like I'm getting tariff fatigue now, so like. But here's some other ones that came out in our news this week. Imports clearly are going down If you look at, let's see. So sea shipments fell 65 percent in just three weeks. According to Flexport, can't freighters canceled 80 voyages. That's an even higher spike than during the peak of COVID.

Speaker 2: 7:05

So here's the thing though the orders are decreasing, but we are still seeing an increase in containers arriving because orders spiked higher than they ever have pre-tariff. So right now and this is the thing, so for people wondering how this is impacting the freight market right now we are still at the peak of containers arriving. However, orders leaving China have decreased 80%. So we're right at the point between where they are the highest they've ever been and they're likely to fall to the lowest level they've ever been in the next 45 days yeah, ever been in the next 45 days.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Yeah. So when we say, like they're canceling voyages, this, this could be a voyage that was scheduled for a month from now, which wouldn't arrive for two months from now you know what I mean which we had the shelves for two and a half to three months from now. So the the big thing that they were saying is expect, unless things change but I mean especially with where things, how cancellations are happening right now I expect there to be like I don't want to say empty shelves that was the phrase that was used in the news articles but lesser of certain items that you would normally see that come from that area.

Speaker 2: 8:13

The other.

Speaker 1: 8:14

The other tariff related one was on was specific to yeah, imported medium and heavy duty trucks and their parts. Yeah, imported medium and heavy duty trucks and their parts. So again, this just depends on what the product is, where it's coming from.

Speaker 2: 8:31

This is open for public comment, which closes on May and steel, so they didn't get like multiple tariffs stacked on top was what I read. But here's another really interesting thing that I didn't know. I listened to an interview with Ryan Peterson. He's the CEO and founder of Flexport and he was explaining how the tariffs kind of play out. And this is really fascinating because so one tariffs are typically paid by the importer, meaning they're paid by the US company, typically right Now. The other thing he said is the United States is one of the few countries that doesn't require a company to be established in the United States for a foreign company to do business.

Speaker 2: 9:19

So, for example, a lot of companies that sell products on Amazon are Chinese businesses in China. Ok, and he said, here's why that matters Because one fraud became rampant, meaning like, ok, I'm shipping $80,000 in whatever toy robots, ok, they're just changing the paperwork and saying that's a $10,000 shipment to pay a smaller tariff. Now here's the second thing when they catch it and he's like it's a very small percentage that they do catch there are no repercussions Because what happens is they go oh, this company in wherever in China. You're now not allowed to ship into the United States because this is fraud. Right, that company just creates another shell company in China and they don't lose their Amazon listing. So like, literally, their customer facing store on Amazon doesn't change, just the company that shipped to fulfill it changed to another entity in China, and then they just ship more product in the next week China, and then they just ship more product in the next week.

Speaker 1: 10:23

What is like?

Speaker 2: 10:23

so you're literally not doing anything to impose these tariffs on the Chinese companies. It's all on the United States company.

Speaker 1: 10:31

What? This might be a little bit of a pivot here, but what's to stop a Chinese company from shipping to another country and like fraudulently just saying oh, it's shipping from Cambodia, now Nothing.

Speaker 2: 10:45

And here's the other thing. I was listening to another interview where they were talking about how this happens the other way. Like the chipsack, they're like oh, it's basically just a list of companies that you can't ship to in China, but there are some companies they can, and they were talking about instances where, like, company A is literally next to company B and they're like company A is on the band list, you can't ship chips to it, company B isn't. And they're like you can see on satellites that they just built a bridge between company A and company B, so like they're just shipping chips to the one company that isn't on the band list and literally taking them on a bridge and walking them over to the other company and company, the one that is on the band list.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:15

And they're like there are so many fools in this process that aren't being addressed, aren't being discussed, and it's just like this giant sweeping approach to a very complicated situation that has many, many aspects to it that just aren't being talked about.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Yep, all right, let's hit the sports here real quick. The big, the big uh ticket item was the nfl draft was last weekend and, uh, shadur sanders man, like I did not go to the steelers, I know right, you guys like still don't have a quarterback. Um, I guess you have Mason Rudolph, right, but he ends up. So Shador ends up going to Cleveland, who has Deshaun Watson, who's out all year with an injury and only has one more year left after that on his contract, so we'll see how that pans out. And then even Shiloh, his younger brother I can't remember which team, but he got signed as well.

Speaker 2: 13:16

So I when I was watching the draft call. Did you see the call? It was great.

Speaker 1: 13:23

They said it was from like New Orleans or whatever. But what I was laughing is I was like watching on Thursday and then Friday and I'm like this guy still hasn't been drafted and I thought about it. I was like, well, you got to think about it. I'm like if you're a GM or a front office executive for an organization, you know that with Shador Sanders comes the influence and the chirping of Deion Sanders. Right, yeah, ouch, prime. And I'm you're thinking like, do I really want this guy breathing down my neck or like influencing our organization, et cetera. So you got to wonder was there any of that thought process for?

Speaker 2: 14:05

any of you. Here's a question I have for you because, like, I don't follow college football that much but I mean everything that I had heard. And again, he was really picked to go to the Steelers by a lot of ESPN and a lot of commentators but everyone in Pittsburgh was like there's no chance he's coming here, at least in the Pittsburgh sports radio. And the thing they talked about a lot was they were like this guy isn't a first round pick. Like if he wasn't Deion's kid and he wasn't being hyped by the media because everybody wants to watch it and it's all these clickable articles there's no way he would have gone in the first round. And they were like, to be honest, he shouldn't have gone in the first round. Do you think it was all hype and just media because people wanted to see what happened with him related to Dion, or do you think he was actually good enough to go first round?

Speaker 1: 14:51

I watched Colorado almost every game last season.

Speaker 2: 14:56

They have a mediocre season.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Well, yeah, I mean they had a mediocre season but they have some really good players on their team, Like, for example, travis Hunter, the second overall pick, who the Jaguars swap or like traded up for the dude plays like 150 snaps a game. He plays cornerback and wide receiver Like he is hands down. I was like he. He could have gone number one overall if cam award wasn't like on the board and the Titans didn't need a quarterback but should do her Like. I think he is a very talented quarterback but I think and I I legitimate thought, legitimately thought he would have gone top 10 but definitely first round um, just based on what teams needed and his, his talent and the just like the energy that and fan base that he'll bring to a team. I thought like you know one of these, you know like I thought the giants for sure were going to snag him. But regardless, there's a reason that I don't get paid to make those decisions for an NFL organization, because I am a fan who watches the games at home and has my own opinion Right. It's not my expertise, but watching him play, I think he's a really talented quarterback but at the same time I also loved tim tebow in college.

Speaker 1: 16:15

I was a florida gators fan throughout that entire uh, you know that entire four years that he was there and the dynasty that they had with the you know champion. They did like an nfl or a netflix series the swamp, I think it was called on that team. It was pretty good but, like tebow, not a good fit for the nfl, like very different in college versus. So I don't know, I don't know. Um, you know, I think you could argue that he could have been a first round pick. I think you could argue that he could have gone undrafted and I think you can argue anything in between. So it's just there's a lot of dynamics with him, um, with the family and the spotlight and you know who knows you get. You put these guys up against an NFL defense versus a college defense and it is two different games. So yeah, but anyway, um, yeah, I didn't see the draft card like the draft, uh, uh grade for the Steelers. I don't know if you saw any of that.

Speaker 2: 17:19

They did pretty good. I can't remember off the top of my head. I mean, obviously they got a big defensive lineman I think I can't remember what it was my mind's blanking. They had a couple two, I think really good picks. One guy they had to let go after his medical evaluation and I think they picked up somebody recently, right after that. But overall the sentiment was that they had a pretty good draft. But again, you don't know until the season plays out and those guys start to play. Because, to your point and this is what they were talking about this morning like college versus the NFL, you're talking top 1%, like it's not even close the way the game's played, the speed, who you're playing against, the defenses, the offenses. Like it's not. It's literally 1% or 2% of it, might even be less than it might even be like 0.2%. Right in college make it and have like more than a one-year career or even a one-year career in the NFL. Like it's a very, very small percentage.

Speaker 1: 18:13

Yep. So the Pittsburgh Steelers were rated an overall a um with your picks. The bills Um, I believe we got a, b. What did we get? B minus, yeah, or B plus, all right, here's what I loved about it Um, uh.

Speaker 1: 18:29

So the Bills picked up Maxwell Hairston in the first round and he's a cornerback. So the Bills very much needed some stronger defense. So Ray Davis a running back for the Bills that was drafted last year is from Kentucky. Our first overall pick is Maxwell Hairston. The guy basically comes up all excited and he's like tell Ray Davis, I'm moving into his house and then, like literally three rounds later, they picked Dion Walker, who's a defensive tackle from Kentucky. So we got all these Kentucky boys now on the Bills squad Also picked up defensive tackle, edge, cornerback, and then there actually was a receiver tight end in there as well, but very, very focused on the defense, which I think is good.

Speaker 1: 19:18

I don't think the Bills did anything to increase their offense at all in the draft. I really don't. Even with late offensive picks like wide receiver and tight end, I don't think the offense was the problem last year. They just let too many points scored against them. So we'll see. Man, it's like you know we got the draft done. Next thing you know it's going to be training camp and then we have preseason before you know it. So but I definitely want to be able to enjoy some warm weather in summertime before I think about falling football. So, anyway, anything else in sports before we jump into shift gears back to freight from sports.

Speaker 1: 19:55

So today's topic we're going to we're going to talk through email communication with shippers, right, so I don't want to focus on email prospecting unless you you want to go down that road. But more so I have seen, I've seen customers lost because of bad email. I have seen like ridiculous amount of time wasted because of poor email management and we'll kind of break down a lot of this stuff. But what made you think because this idea was yours what made you think email communication? Did you have something happen recently? Or Nothing has happened.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Just spent a lot of time on this. We've brought in a couple of new sales guys and some of the older ones and we were really digging into how they were communicating and just saw lots of I don't want to say lots of, but like it was really apparent Some of the folks that weren't getting traction weren't getting traction because of poor email communication. Yeah, Like, when you read them it was either you know, grammar wasn't checked, they weren't, they weren't succinct, Right, or like simple. Like it needs to be simple, direct, easily readable, Otherwise no one's paying attention. And, to be honest, like I love the one note in there. It's like it's kind of like a handshake. It'd be like if you went over.

Speaker 2: 21:15

Your first impression is so important, right, Like we don't need to go through how important it's. Like there's tons of stats, there's tons of things that would tell you like that first. It's like milliseconds. So when you meet somebody in person, you are generating your opinion of them. You're assessing whether or not you like them, want to do business with them, can trust them, Even what everything that they say after. That is a function of where you start. And, like, when you start on that poor footing and you give someone a poor impression. It is such a steep hill to climb if you're ever able to get it back, Because people are just like, yeah, like I'm not doing, like. It just gives you a bad feeling and you're like, yeah, OK, I got enough choices, I'm not going to go back to this one.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Dude. I'll give you examples. Right, like it, because I don't want to drive right past this first impression thing. Because think about, like emails that you get, right, I'll speak from my personal experience, whether it is someone that we're looking to do business with or if it's someone that's, trying to, like, sell to us, right, whatever the case might be, the things that I that stand out to me right away is like no subject line, bad grammar or spelling in a subject line. And then I get into the actual email. Is it too long, is it confusing? Is it too short? Is there grammar, grammar errors? You know all of that. And here's the deal Like, literally, when I go to compose an email, I have three opportunities to utilize AI without having to spend too much time.

Speaker 1: 22:39

There's no copy and paste involved in these steps. I've got three options to use AI to proofread, to rewrite it, to shorten it, to lengthen it, to change the tone. I've got the Outlook AI plugin. I've got the Mac ai or apple intelligence plugin and I've got the hub spot. Uh, whatever, I don't know what hub spot calls. It's like a little star that pops up that you can, you know, use their ai and like there's almost no excuse now to to write a poorly, not to mention their spell check, it's like yes and grammar check and Outlook. So and Gmail, if you're using Gmail, and to your point, like very basics, right?

Speaker 2: 23:19

I think here's the other thing that I've noticed that we were working on with some folks like cradle to grave brokers, clients that do this right. There's a very different speed of which you talk to a company you're doing business with and when you're prospecting. So, for instance, if you and I have been doing business together for a year or two and you need an update as soon as you email me, getting information back to you timely is very, very important, so I'm going to respond quickly and as accurately as I can. But again, it is a different tone because you know and trust me, we have a relationship. My call it. Like the penalty I pay if I make a mistake is pretty low because we've been doing business a long time, we've talked together, we know each other. Like if I misspelled a word, you'll forgive that in order to get a little faster. Like you'll take it with a grain of salt If it's somebody I don't know.

Speaker 2: 24:12

And I'm trying to establish a relationship with one of the things I've seen with brokers that are doing both, and this is why it's hard. You're talking all day long to your customers and then you get a prospect that emails you and you just jump in at the same speed and fire off that response. And then and I've done this too, especially early on I went oh shit, that's not what I wanted to say. I didn't want to say it like that, I misspelled that and I kind of quoted that lane without asking another question. Then you send another email and go hey, sorry, just to clarify this is what I meant.

Speaker 2: 24:42

And can you answer this question? Like it shows them you're not slowing down enough and you're creating this impression that, like you just care about moving fast and not about details. Well, in our world, details are the most important thing. So when you're setting that first impression, if you're sending back either incoherent details or confusing messages or a sentence that contradicts the next sentence, and then it kind of doesn't make any sense, and then you've got to clarify, and they get three emails in the next 35 seconds, that is giving them a very poor impression that you don't take your time with the work you're doing, and it is a very bad taste in their mouth. So you need to be able to slow down or speed up, kind of based on who you're talking to, and I think that is just one of those basic things that's very helpful in this.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Yeah, so to kind of like also give a broad overview on email. Email is arguably the most relevant communication style in our industry. Right, people make phone calls, but those phone calls are not always documented. They might be recorded on one end and not the other, they may not be recorded at all. But if you record a phone call then you got to go back and listen to it or read a transcript.

Speaker 1: 25:54

Emails like boom it's, it's going to live there forever, even if it's in your deleted box or you know whatever the case might be in that regard. But it's quick, it's efficient. You can hit 10 people in the same email with copying and BCC or as a phone call. You wait for it to ring. You might get a voicemail. You wait for the greeting of the voicemail and then you wait for the beep and then you leave your voicemail and you don't know if they're going to even listen to the voicemail for hours, right?

Speaker 1: 26:20

Whereas email, like we all got it on our phone, we're all, we're all in our email all day long. It is just quick and very, very much relevant in our industry. So that's why we're. You know we talk a lot about calling and cold calling and all of that. But there are, legitimately, people that I have done business with for years, um within organizations that I've worked at, external Um, and this is in like not even just in freight, like in any other dealings in my life that, like it could be, I'm doing my taxes or I'm dealing with something in the army.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Like I can't stand when someone does not know how to properly email and I'm like how, like we grew up with this, you know what I mean and if you're, if you're a bit older, it's still been around and part of our you know ecosystem for decades. At this point, 30 years almost at this point, give or take, yeah, so this is just basic stuff that we want to point out because a lot of times you don't know what you don't know and if someone hasn't told you that, hey, your emails suck. We're going to try and make you think about that stuff today so you can have an honest personal reflection on it.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Here's one more just as a tip before we kind of dig into it. Here's one more just as a tip, for we kind of dig into it is like if you're emailing a prospect, do one of two things either save it into a draft and read it five or 10 minutes later again before you send it, or at the very least I'll hit the pop out, so it pops the email out and sits at the bottom of my screen. I'll do something else, come back and read it again because you want to read it. Most of us write and talk the way we're thinking, not the way it's being received. So it's really helpful to write the way you wanted to do something else and come back Because for a prospecting email like it usually doesn't need to be back unless it's like hey, can you give me a quote on this and you need to get a number back.

Speaker 2: 28:10

Okay, I would say, pick up the phone anyway, but regardless, like you want to be able to read that email with kind of a clear mind and then read it and go like does this make sense to me is the first question I ask. The second is do I have any unnecessary words or sentences? Can I trim this down. You don't want any unnecessary words, like you're not writing a paper for college or high school where you're getting points for making it longer and fancier Word count. Yeah, your points are coming through, is it? Are you concise? Did you say it as clear and as short as possible to get your message across? And is it confusing or does it make sense the first time you read it?

Speaker 2: 30:06

If you got to pause, read your own email and go wait a minute, then you got to start over or go back and trim it and reformat it. Cause like I'll find that, like I'm like, oh, that second sentence should probably be first, my first should probably be third, and the way I finished that makes more sense up here. Cause you want it to flow like information. You don't want it to bounce all over the place, like, ah, I'm talking about this lane, then I'm asking about your insurance, and I'm talking about the lane again, then I ask about the date for the lane, then I'm talking about your insurance again. Like kind of think about how this makes sense on a topic Like you would talk about this, then talk about this, then ask this right.

Speaker 1: 30:43

Yeah, one of the things that we were always taught in the army is it's called bluff bottom line up front and that's kind of like if there's a big, if there's a long discussion or a long email and it's necessary to be long, put the like the tldr too long didn't read. Or the bluff bottom line up front, put that at the beginning like it could be um, you know, bottom line up front is like need to um, need to discuss rate adjustment for this lane boom. Here's why right, like don't, don't start with five minutes like setting the scene.

Speaker 1: 31:19

You're not like you know, you're not writing a script to get to the final point of what you wanted to say tarantino bottom out front and then, you know, reverse engineer it.

Speaker 1: 31:28

So, um, one of the things that I, you know, I I absolutely cannot stand is like the overly wordy emails like just terribly too long. And I'm with you like concise, short, because you gotta remember, like if you've got, let's say, you send an email and it's four paragraphs long and there's 12 people on it because it's about an issue, all right, you just took, you know, possibly five minutes out of 12 people's work life. That's an hour's worth of like time that you just consume because you just wrote the longest email. That was not necessary. You know, time is finite in our world.

Speaker 2: 32:10

And you need to be considerate of that right necessary. You know time is finite in our world, so, and you need to be considerate of that right. Like every time you're sending an email, you're asking somebody to take time out of their day to read this. It's literally a request. You're making a polite request that, hey, can you please read this for me? Right? Would you type this out and walk over and hand it to somebody you didn't know and go hey, can you please read this one page typed message to this person I don't know and expect them to read it? He would never do that. Right? If you're going to hand it to him, you would write it as short and as concise as possible and be like hey, this is interesting enough to you, I'd like to talk more, right?

Speaker 2: 32:43

The one last thing that, too, that I wanted to say is like is like first, principles of emails, and this is one thing that I don't think people think a lot about. It is they did a study on, like, where your time goes, and it's funny because everyone thought when email came out, that we would get more done in less time, but the opposite happened. We literally then now have more messages because they're easier to send. And what most people don't think about is like every time you send an email, on average it turns into three. You respond and I respond again, and maybe four you're responding back again. Right, and then I got to stop what I'm doing to read your email. Then you got to stop what you're doing to read my response back.

Speaker 2: 33:22

And in shipping, where I see this most common is if you have a load and you need the details to be able to book the load or quote the load, write all of the questions in your first email. Do not send six emails asking details about a load. Hey, when does this pick up? You tell me hey, what's the wait on this? You tell me hey, what is the delivery time? Is it by appointment or first come, first serve? You tell me oh, hey, what's the value?

Speaker 2: 33:49

That's like nine emails when I could have sent you one and said and you just bullet point them hey, what is the appointment pickup or delivery? What is the weight on this? What is the commodity? What is the value on this? What is the equipment type we can load and are there any other requirements I need to be aware of? I put it all just in one. You send me one response. I saved you time, you saved me time. I'm not sending nine emails, you're not getting nine, and it sets the tone that like I'm professional and I know how to ask you everything I need to and one question. I don't need to walk over and tap you on the shoulder, proverbially like nine times every time I've got a question, to just finish one load.

Speaker 1: 34:30

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And, um, this is about email. But sometimes you just got to get on the phone right, like if it's, if it's, you know, going to be a lot of back and forth, like more like, hey, when do you have a few minutes so we can just hop on the phone and talk through all these details?

Speaker 2: 34:52

And then you can send a summarized email afterward to document it. Like, sometimes email is not the best. Here's the other knot. The other knot I see a lot is people prospecting with email and then somebody emails back and they go hey, what's the average volume on this lane? Like that is not a question you want to ask in writing, because one, it's like proprietary information about a company that they're not going to want to put in writing and two, that should be handled verbally. So much of prospecting should not be done over email. If they are emailing you back, they're thinking about you. That's when you just pick up the phone and call. You also shouldn't email them and go when's a good time for us to schedule a call? They don't know what their days look like. The same way you don't as a freight broker. A shipper doesn't either. So if they're emailing you, you're top of mind. Pick up the phone and just call. Yep, don't send nine emails asking these questions because you're scared to pick up the phone and have a conversation.

Speaker 1: 35:38

Here's a thing, too, that I've really liked in the past is, like, if you're going to use an email integration into a CRM like HubSpot we talk about a lot there's a lot of other CRMs out there but I used to use the tool on HubSpot when you could see it would pop up on your desktop like John Doe just opened your message. Yeah, Now, I know, Right, Like HubSpot will do it, It'll track it internally, but it'll literally practically tell you like he's reading it right now. Pick up the phone, Call him, Right. Same thing if you like, send a proposal over like hey, here's a. If you get a project of like hey, we got to move 25 flatbeds from here to here over the next seven days, I sent it over.

Speaker 1: 36:21

John Doe just opened your, you know, RFP. Pick up the phone. You know that's the optimal time to do it and I'm like not afraid to be like hey, I just saw you were taking a look at blah, blah, blah. Like. A lot of times people think, oh, these like you know, email tracking tools and HubSpot and Salesforce they're just kind of like you know behind the scenes, Intel, so I know what they're doing, but they don't know that I know what they're doing. It's like no, I'm more than happy to be like hey, I noticed you just read the email I wanted to call you. While it's top of mind, that's simple Yep.

Speaker 2: 36:51

Right, here's my. My intro is always the same it's hey, just wanted to give you a buzz. Didn't want to send you a handful of emails, thought I'd be faster. Most people appreciate that, right? Hey, I'm calling you to save you some time and I thought, while you were looking at it, I could just ask you a couple of quick questions. Get out of your hair and get to work on this for you, right? People appreciate not having another nine emails that they've got to read. Everyone's got too many to get through every day, no matter where you're at every day, no matter where you're at.

Speaker 1: 37:27

Yeah, oh, to that point over copying people right, like or the opposite, like, not. So there's, we'll take a minute to go through this one. Who's on the email? How long are they on the thread? Um, reply all or just reply. So, like some, the some of the like things that can really cause annoying annoyances and headaches is copying 20 people when they don't all have to be on there Right. Another one is someone sends an email and there's a couple of a couple of people copied because they need to be on there. The person responds and doesn't reply.

Speaker 2: 38:00

Reply all and it's like now salespeople do that to us, Like as an executive, I can't tell you how many times a week, maybe a day where I'll send some email with our CEO and to the salesperson I'm like, hey, send a calendar invite. And they send it to me. And then I got to stop what I'm doing and go hey, please add everybody. I put in copy to this calendar invite. Or please reply all to everybody. There's a reason I added three people, because they all need your response, and then they just reply to me and now I'm going to stop what I'm doing to tell them to pay attention to the first email I sent.

Speaker 1: 38:38

Drives me nuts To that point. The way you just described. That is great, because you didn't directly tell them that hey, you just took a ding on my level of impression of you. But the reality is they just got dinged on their impression that you've got of them Right Because that happens with me a lot too is like, and I've got like repeat offenders and I tell them over and over like hey, um, please reply all and so, and that like then I know the people that I'm emailing, I'll send my email and I'll I'll like add in there, like, please reply all when you get a chance. Uh, but uh, I will tell you this too.

Speaker 1: 39:18

Like there are, there are folks in so at my company, pierce Worldwide, that are really, really good at like. They have like blanketed statements at the bottom of all their emails, sometimes for customers, sometimes internally, sometimes just for operations, but it's like really really good. We're like they just have a couple of like bulleted things like for blah, blah, blah I'll just make it generic Like for X, y, z email. You know this address for questions about X. You know ABC. You know, get to this one. If you don't hear back from us within 10 minutes, feel free to double tap. That's our expected response time, like setting clear expectations just to save the unknown. What's going on? That's service right.

Speaker 2: 40:08

That is service. You're saving your customer time from having to look around guests and have to think about it. That is service, right? Here's another one of my huge pet peeves in our industry If we are talking about a purchase order or a load number, keep talking in the same email thread.

Speaker 2: 40:29

I cannot stand when I'm talking about a load or a situation, right, especially in like project and then either the shipper or the carrier starts a new thread and doesn't change the subject line. But it is a different subject line. So now they're talking about PO 1, 2, 3, 4, and there's a whole thread we're talking about it. Then something happens two days later and they start responding about PO 1, 2, 3, 4 on an email about another order and they're like oh yeah, hey, this order too. And you're like wait a minute, you're talking about this order and this thread.

Speaker 2: 41:00

So when I go to research things, when I got to figure out what happened, I've got like six different email threads where it talks about one load, then a different load, then this load, and then there's a whole thread over here that only talks about that load. Like if you were talking about one subject, keep talking about it in that subject, which means okay, even if that load was three days ago or two weeks ago, if something else comes up that you need to address accessorials, an additional charge, a claim go to your search bar, put that order number in first, find the last email thread with it and then hit reply all and ask it there, do not start a whole other email thread. So you have disjointed conversations, everywhere talking about the same load and all these different conversations. It makes it impossible to try to understand what actually happened chronologically throughout time, because it's just everywhere.

Speaker 1: 41:53

Yeah, we had an issue. It was a trend that was getting worse and worse. Where and this is like back office related stuff, so like if there was a um, a load in question or a carrier in question or a customer's credit or just a customer in question, um, what would happen is like we, you know, we would say, hey, we've got an email address for credit, for claims, for carriers. Um, you know, please keep one issue to each email chain. Please identify the MC number in the subject line, whatever, right? And people feel like, no matter how much you tell them what to do, they mess it up.

Speaker 2: 42:32

So I was going to get to.

Speaker 1: 42:33

So we created, I built out a like a help desk, like an agent portal, essentially on our website, where our brokers can go in and it'll say, like this is a carrier related request.

Speaker 1: 42:47

They click on it, they fill out the necessary fields and then it uses a Zapier integration which is like a back, it's like a back connection tool, it's like a tool that connects multiple things. So what it does is like Zapier sees oh, a form was filled out and it says what do I do next? All right, when this form is filled out, I need to generate an email. So then it generates an email and it sends it to the proper person, and then it pulls out pertinent information and formats the subject line the exact way the recipient wants it. It copies the requester on it, it and then it sends a very clean, organized message of just what's necessary to that person and it starts the thread and then, as they reply, everything's in one you know clean, uh thread there and we always say, like, for any new issue, fill out a new ticket or whatever you want to call it, and it keeps them all clean and organized.

Speaker 2: 43:45

So here's I want to piggyback on that because this is one of the jobs I think as a freight broker call it service-related that customers appreciate. I had a carrier that was really pretty reliable but very disorganized on the dispatch side, meaning they would send emails in all different places about orders with updates in this order and then another update about a different order in the same thread, and was very confusing, right? What I've seen some brokers do is they just forward that right to their customer and then the customer looks at the subject and goes wait a minute, this is an update about this PO, but the subject is this PO. I'm confused, right. What I think is service and what good brokers do is you need to take that information coming from your carrier that is disorganized. You need to organize it into the same thread and then send it to your customer in an organized fashion, digestible manner. Yeah, right, what you're doing is you're repackaging what is confusing into something that is concise, only has the information your customer needs and is in the same thread, and then your customer goes oh, this subject line, this is the update. This is the rest of the communication with that load.

Speaker 2: 44:57

Every time I get an update about a different order. I got to go back, find that thread, create it, reply all, add my customer again and go. Here's your update on this and I'll adjust the subject line because that is the repackaging right. Like this is what we do for lots of smaller carriers, for our shippers, because our shippers don't want that headache trying to use the Rosetta stone to try to figure out exactly what the hell load they're talking about and which communication piece A, b and C together. And also this creates tons of headaches and invoice issues with updates in your customer updating a different load because the subject was different than the body of the email. You need to slow down, look at that information and put it in a concise and accurate communication email to your customer so they're not confused. That is part of our job. That is the service that our shippers expect from us um, how often do you?

Speaker 1: 45:49

well, I'll start with um. I have been the recipient of the email where it's just forwarded to me with no context and I used to like be like I gotta read this whole freaking thing. I just copy and paste and chat GBT and I'm like summarize this and it'll tell me like here's what this email thread's about. Because sometimes, like, I've had it with a claim where, like, the first email in the chain is from four months ago and I'm like huh, like yeah, so I use that a lot. I'll just say, hey, summarize this for me If somebody sent me just forwarded a random um thread. But the other thing too that I I really love to use with, like technology is like hubspot. I try to email as much as I can from hubspot and if I'm doing it from outlook, I'll copy it like you just have the out, the hubSpot like connection, so it gets logged, and I'll have a little note like check the box, like follow up in how, whenever you set the date or you know whether it's tomorrow or in a month or a week, and then I'll make sure I put like a the title of the task regarding whatever it is. So, like a lot, a lot of what I do on the like managing an agent program is a lot of kind of like, just random things that come up, whether it is dealing with an office's numbers, looking at costs for a certain team, dealing with, you know, hanging issues of like claims, repeated issues of failing to follow processes, or big bids that are coming up like whatever it might be.

Speaker 1: 47:30

I hate, I would hate, to send an email and then either never hear back and I forget about it, or I want to follow up but I forget about it. So I'm all for like, document everything while I'm, while I'm sending it, take the two seconds to check a box and save a task to follow up that, and I get my email every morning from hubspot. Here's your to-do list for today. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know what I mean. So, um, there's technology out there like there is no reason to be forgetting things, to be over complicating things. Um, if we, if you spend money for this technology, use it right, like you're, like, like I was saying before, like, if you have a license for microsoft 365, well, guess what the outlook portion of it now has? Microsoft's was a co-pilot right built in for like, um, you know rewriting and grammar and spell checking and shortening, lengthening, whatever right your emails.

Speaker 2: 48:27

Same with Gmail. Here's the other one. And again this is kind of email. But, like, keeping email threads with the same load, even on the carrier side, is incredibly important because here's what happens right, like when we have invoicing issues that we've got to work through, especially if it's from a month ago right or 45 days ago. I find it a few times where we were working through like very trivial things like a truck order not used or like a detention charge or something right, and trying to figure out what actually happened, we've got to go into the inbox, like the team inboxes.

Speaker 2: 49:00

It will take us sometimes 45 minutes to an hour to find every email about that load with that carrier, piece them together and try to understand what actually happened in that situation so we can make sure the right company gets paid for the right thing Right. And again, all of that would be unnecessary if it was just one thread. First of all, and secondly, like it's a really good habit to right click and save an email as an attachment and upload it to your TMS, because if we could just go into the TMS and see all the communication with the carrier on a load and just look at the PDF that's saved in your TMS. It saves your admin team anyone else so much time by trying to research and understand what happened. Remember, like every single load, we expect to go right, so we kind of overlook these things. But in every instance where they don't go the way you expect, a lot of times you've got to work backwards through what happened, and when they're in lots of different emails it is very difficult to piece together what happened in that scenario.

Speaker 1: 50:04

Yeah, 100 percent, 100 percent. What else do we got on here? I feel like we went down a rabbit hole on email. I think, like the key, like takeaway on all of this is like email is probably not going anywhere anytime soon as like the primary method of communication for us in brokerage and um. You know, use it to your advantage, don't use it to create headaches, I think I.

Speaker 1: 50:33

I think I brought this up like last week or two weeks ago, one of the examples we're talking about, like carrier setups and whatnot, and there was like 200 emails sent um regarding carrier things. Um, and then, like, out of that, like 30 carriers were like actually onboarded. So it was like for every one carrier that was being set up, there was like I don't know eight or something like that emails. And it's like why? Why so many emails that everyone's reading um to accomplish so little? So, like back to your point at the beginning. Like it's you, you think we get more done in less time, but when done the wrong way, um get more work for yourself. Yeah, so, and there's another yeah, go ahead, go ahead. I was going to hit on like um documenting certain like important load details.

Speaker 2: 51:26

I was just going to say this. What I was going to say is like an overlook thing is like changing the subject line to match what you're asking for. Well, is service for your customer, right? I might talk about a PO if I'm talking to the person tendering the load to me, but if I'm emailing the facility where I'm picking up for an appointment request, I'm going to put a colon and write appointment request in the subject line. Why? Because it allows that person to prioritize their emails. They want to get the appointment request as they come in. They're probably not working from the oldest to the newest. If they see a subject line that says appointment request, they'll probably jump on that to throw that in the system quicker, right, Helps them, helps me, right. And then again, if I'm talking about going back to the shipper on that same PO and now I've got to request detention, I'll adjust the subject line. You keep the PO in there and you just change the end of the subject and you write detention request because it allows them to prioritize that request based on the subject.

Speaker 2: 52:27

The subject of the email is exactly that. What is the subject of the email? Why are you emailing me? So like, don't overthink it, keep it simple but like this is what it's for. Don't have misleading. Or like incredibly wordy subject lines that are entire sentences that people look at and go like what are they talking about? Like it's supposed to give them an idea of what you're talking about in the body of the email yep 100 um.

Speaker 1: 52:56

Last thing I'll I'll add in here, and we probably like alluded to it if we didn't directly say it either today or in recent episodes. It's like the things that can cause you to run into trouble on a load and result in claims or late, you know whatever. Right, documenting an email is great, like temperature for a reefer, setting appointment times and appointment requirements, the open or the available arrival and load times at different facilities, requirements for a specific shipment, whether it be you know to strap and brace it whatever. You know to strap and brace it whatever. Liftgate driver assist, all of this stuff right, very, very important. And this is what we have, like a dispatch checklist that runs through a lot of this. But just getting it over the phone with your customer is OK, but I would recommend an email afterward just saying hey, just to verify.

Speaker 1: 54:04

Boom, boom, boom. You know, now it's documented.

Speaker 2: 54:07

It's as simple as replying with like yep, confirmed, confirmed yeah, best habit ever, one of the most important things, I think, for any freight broker. If there's anything you take away from this episode, anything you do over the phone should be followed up with an email that has those details and just right at the top please confirm. I write per our conversation. Again, it seems a little wordy, but it just lets them know. Hey, we just talked, this is what we talked about. Just respond, confirm, because now you have it in writing. Right, whether it's a rate, whether it's an appointment, I can't tell you how many loads that I've worked through where an appointment person called, did their job. That person answered, said I've got you in for this appointment, and then a truck arrived and they go we don't have you on the schedule because that person got taken away and just didn't get in the system. At least, if you have it in writing, you now covered yourself and your driver so you can get them paid. Hey spoke to Sally. Hey for our conversation.

Speaker 2: 55:04

Appointment time is tomorrow for this PO at 8 am. Please confirm. Boom, they say confirm. I save that email again in my TMS because we need that for invoicing If the driver arrives and my accounting team is going to use that email to compare it to the bill of lading and make sure that the POD had a check-in time that was prior to that appointment. Give them everything they need to do their job. If you confirmed it in writing, put it in the tms. It's the proof the appointment was made, because if the driver makes it there on time and gets detention, this is what your accounting team needs to make sure they get paid and the driver gets paid for these things.

Speaker 1: 55:52

Absolutely All right. Good email discussion here. Sometimes we have some niche podcast episodes and this one is very much relevant. So if you, you know if you're listening to this and you're unsure if your emails are being written correctly or if maybe you need to improve them, this is a good opportunity to just think twice when you're writing that next email. Is this does this have everything in it that it needs to have? Is it going to the right people? Am I including people or information that's a waste or unnecessary? Is this worthy of a phone call instead of just an email? You know, just think about things like that Cause. Um, we all get hundreds of emails every day. Like it is, it is overwhelming when you come back from a day off and you're like what happened?

Speaker 1: 56:34

Oh like so, uh, good stuff, I think. Uh, I know another topic we were talking about doing um as a follow-up to our last couple was going through the manual, like old school process of um, you know, vetting carriers. Vetting a carrier, like literally, like without all the fun bells and whistles that exist now Um, so we can definitely do something like that Also on our coming up this year. We'll have to get these ones scheduled. I'm showing Sal Mercogliano we're going to do another water, or was it? Yeah, water transport right, we did with him.

Speaker 1: 57:15

Ken from DAT we'd love to have on talk about the market. Steve Sporrell from was it factory on freight, yeah, comfrey, comfrey. Yep, matt Leffler, armchair attorney. So, yeah, well, we'll hope to get some. If you guys have any suggestions or recommendations for a guest or a topic, let us know. We get a lot of junk requests like people, people that just want to get a free advertisement for their company. We're not going to do that, we don't operate that way. But good content is what we're looking to deliver to you guys consistently and we like to talk about the things that you want to hear and the things that are relevant. So keep your feedback and comments and all that stuff coming Ben. Closing final thoughts here.

Speaker 2: 58:03

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

Speaker 1: 58:08

And until next time. Now that the draft is over, go Bills.