How To Kickstart 2026 In Brokerage With CRM Discipline, Diversified Niches, And Better Follow-Ups

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

All right. We're back. Happy New Year 2026 Freight 360 podcast. Ben, it's uh we took a couple weeks off, you know, much needed time to recharge the batteries and you know get through the end of the year and the same way that a lot of shippers do their inventories and all that stuff. Um, a lot of just administrative tasks on the the brokerage side of things, and even Freight 360, you know, figuring out what we're gonna do this year and all that. But how was uh how was the holidays, man?

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

Nice son came into town, went off to eat, hung out with him for a little bit. My daughter played a bunch of tennis, Santa Claus came, the Tooth Fairy came, the elves came every night. It was pretty cute. I haven't gotten that yet. Ava lost uh tooth on Christmas Eve, so um she got too many girl creatures in one night. Yeah, and we we the tooth fairy left a note that said, Hey, this is the first time I've met Santa in a very long time. Really appreciated it. So it was super cute because she had like a note from the Tooth Fairy and then came down, and then the elves were here, and then Santa Claus was adorable. Nice.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23

Well, I will tell you, I was thrilled to take that uh damn elf on the shelf and throw it back in a box in my basement. So I was running out of ideas. You had some robots, though, man. I was seeing your guys' post on Facebook and uh yeah, pretty good. Yeah, and apparently the elves took over your podcasting area.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40

They did. They took over my office a few times, same, kind of ran out of some ideas, but made it work.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48

Well, anyway, we're back. Um, if you are brand new to us, you've got like five plus years of content in our uh back library or back catalog library, whatever you want to call it on our website, freight360.net, or just subscribe to the YouTube channel, um, share us with your friends. Make sure you sign up for our newsletter. Um, we started pumping that out again this week, took a little break off at the end of the year. Um, but a lot of great content. We've got market updates from DAT on rates for the market overall, and then dry, reefer, and flatbed. So you'll get insights every single week on kind of where things are moving. I know we've been in this like four-year, well, three to almost four-year like freight recession or whatever you want to call it. Um, so keep an eye on all that. You'll get all the latest news and stuff too. And if you're looking to grow your team and you look you want some training options, the freight broker basics course is out there on our website. You can get started for less than 50 bucks a month um to get right into that immediately. So check it out and um leave us the review. We take all your all your YouTube uh comments, we read and we pull a lot of them for our weekly QA session, the final model that comes out on Tuesday. So brand new year. We're gonna have a lot of good content. Um I'm excited, man. We're gonna today we're gonna talk about kind of like in that same same general vibe, right? How to how to kickstart your year the right way and some best practices to start off with because everyone's always about you know goals, right? Goals in the new year and resolutions and all that stuff. So we'll we'll hit on a lot of that. Um let's get some sports real quick, man. I want to start with the Steelers.

SPEAKER_00: 3:28

Yeah, I fell asleep and missed the end of the game. Oh my gosh. It was probably the end the best ending of a Steeler game in at least a handful of years, if not.

SPEAKER_01: 3:38

Dude, it was wild. So, because they were talking about it, because um, first of all, if you didn't see it, it was like one of the highest scoring fourth quarters that I, you know, had seen in a while. There's been a lot, like the the Bills Ravens week one was big. Uh, but to finish off the year and have I think it was 27 points scored in the last uh quarter of the game, and it was just Rodgers um looking like looking like you know old, old school young Aaron Rodgers, and then Lamar Jackson kind of feeding back the same stuff. And um, you know, I think it was uh Steelers end up going down at the end of the game, um, get a touchdown, miss the extra point, um, and they would have been up by three, which would have given them some, you know, some pad, right? To at worst, right? Like, you know, tie to go to overtime, miss it. So now Lamar Jackson and the Ravens are only down by two, just got to get in field goal range, and they do. And they get an easy field goal range, like 40-something yard.

SPEAKER_00: 4:39

And he hasn't missed a field goal less than 40 yards, I think, in five years or something. He's never he's never missed one from that range.

SPEAKER_01: 4:46

And they were, dude, if you were if you listen to like the I think it was Chris Collinsworth, it was like, and was it maybe Mike Tariko or whoever the announcers, the broadcasters were, they're talking about how like Justin Justin Tucker was the like best accurate kicker in the league, and the Ravens decided to go away from him, and they scouted like Harbaugh scouted everywhere and like found this guy. I forget the the kid's name that that is their kicker now, but and they set it up like he's he's got a chance now to hit a game-winning uh field goal and send his his team to the playoffs, and he missed it. Wide right, not even close. It was like 15 feet right. It's wide right are like two words that Buffalo Bills fans dread um from our our Super Bowl uh four in a row losses back in the early 90s. So a feel free, Ravens. Um, Harbaugh got fired yesterday.

SPEAKER_00: 5:37

Yeah, uh the funny thing they talked about on Pittsburgh Radio was all of the shorts, I guess, all over social media right before the field goal kick of Baltimore fans going, where are all the towels at now? Where are all the towels at now? Right. And then he misses the field goal and it just shows the stadium go nuts in the middle of the Baltimore fans.

SPEAKER_01: 5:57

Dude, the video's hilarious. Yeah, because the guy's like, watch it with me, watch it with me. He's like, the Steelers are out of the playoffs, their season's over, and then they miss, and he's just like, uh. So yeah, that was that was good. So needless to say, uh, the Steelers, because you won your division, you guys will be hosting the Texans on Monday night football. It looks like, yeah. 8 15 Monday night. Um, Houston's scary. Um, they're actually a three-point favorite on the road. Just depends on what team you're gonna get on both sides of that one. Um, their defense is really good. I mean, they sacked Josh Allen earlier in the year like eight times. Um, so good luck to the Steelers. They tend to play better as well. I'm just hoping, yeah, hoping we get to see some good caliber Aaron Rodgers for all you terrible towel yinzers out there. So we went to the Bills final game at High Mark Stadium in Orchard Park this past Sunday afternoon. Josh Allen took the first snap on offense, handed it off to James Cook, left the game just to keep his like starting streak going, and then Ms. Travisky, one of your old quarterbacks, um had a dominant game. Bills Bills put on a nice one there for the for the finale 5'14 or something like that, or fifty fifteen, sixteen, I don't know. Um great game, a lot of fun. They gave out some commemorative stuff for everyone leaving, and um we're heading to Jacksonville. I'm not watching Bills are on the road to Jacksonville this weekend.

SPEAKER_00: 7:32

I watched that whole game, and I was texting you, and I kind of figured you were at the game, but like Tom Brady had one glove on for the entire calling the entire game. Like really, he just had one leather glove on for some reason the whole game. I was texting you because I thought you were watching it, and I'm I knew you were watching it. I just thought maybe you were watching it on TV, and I'm like, TV. I just don't understand why. Like it's so funny to me.

SPEAKER_01: 7:56

I didn't even know who was calling the game. I had no idea. I I haven't watched a recap or anything. So um, fun times though. We got uh a good matchup here. Seahawks took the the top seed for the NFC. Um games I'm looking forward to. I'm really looking forward to the Eagles 49ers game this weekend. Bears, Packers will be a good one. I think the Rams are gonna do just fine against the Panthers, but we'll see. Um Steelers, Texans, Bills, Jags, and Patriots, Chargers. So Broncos got the bye in the AFC. Should be good. Um who do you I mean, who do you got going to like the Super Bowl this year? You got any thoughts, or is it way too early still?

SPEAKER_00: 8:37

I think it's still too early. They did the the they ranked them. They were talking about it. I think Steelers were ranked 13 out of 14.

SPEAKER_01: 8:44

Um be the 14th out of 14.

SPEAKER_00: 8:49

I think the Eagles were second or third. I think New England was like second or third. I can't even I can't remember who they were.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

They look pretty good. The Patriots look really good.

SPEAKER_00: 8:57

I think the Seahawks are ranked one. Is that who is it?

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

That sounds right. Seahawks. Oh, that's probably yeah, that's probably who it is. Yeah, because actually the the Rams were looking like the best team for a while, and then I don't know what it is about Sam Darnold in uh Seattle there, but damn, they got a good looking squad, man. Um we'll see. We'll see how that pans out. I I'm hoping the big thing with my Bills is like you never know what version of the offense and defense you're gonna get. Their defense is definitely tightened things up, and um, you just gotta have a strong, strong offense. So I'm uh obviously rooting hard for for Bill's mafia, but we'll uh we'll see. The Sabres, uh, they've they have I'm not like a big hockey guy, but I'm kinda hopping on the hockey bandwagon because the the Sabres like won 10 straight, then lost one, and they won last night. Um they're looking they're looking good. They're they're they have the longest playoff drought of any professional sports team in the United States right now, if I have that stat correct.

SPEAKER_00: 9:58

So really longer than the Browns?

SPEAKER_01: 10:00

The sorry, the longest current longest current drought. How long has it been since the Browns made? Well, let me fact check here. Longest current pro sports playoff drought. Um Buffalo Sabres. You've got oh no, hold on, hold on. This just happened. The Jets just surpassed the Sabres with uh because the seasons are offset, right? So the Jets officially have 15 consecutive seasons without a postseason, and the Sabres are at 14. So we'll see. Anywho, what's what what's going on with news? Um I put a little so actually ironically, I put I put a little news piece out yesterday that I think it came from like transport topics, but the whole Venezuela thing, they highlighted the impact on the ports. So basically, like you know what you would expect to be a one-day what what a one day of one day's worth of efficiency in the United States ports is like three to four days in Venezuela ports right now. So um big issues with like I'm not I I don't even know what they ship in and out. Um but I couldn't that was something that I was like never thought would be tied into that was like the logistics and transportation side of it. Um but freight, I mean what do we got?

SPEAKER_00: 11:29

Uh Did you see about the$400,000 load of lobster that got stolen going to Costco? That was pretty big news.

SPEAKER_01: 11:34

A couple weeks ago, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 11:36

Yeah, maybe it was two weeks ago now.

SPEAKER_01: 11:38

Yeah. It was funny. Uh I was texting with uh our boy Freight Broker guy. Um we were just kind of shooting the shit on New Year's Eve, and I was showing him I was making ribey's and lobster tails. He's like, ah, he's like, so clearly you guys were the culprit behind that load of stolen lobster. But yeah, that's uh that's crazy. And so we I mean we had one that we didn't have it stolen from us. We had a fraudster trying to impersonate our company and um tried to steal a load of tried to use our authority to double broker load and have a a load of it was like this something for sushi. And it wasn't it was like uh it was a very small shipment, but they were trying to get it to like a warehouse in the Bronx to sell in the black market to a bunch of like sushi restaurants in the city. So didn't get away with it though. We caught them. Anyway, um I'm trying to think what else we put in the newsletter. There's uh there were I think one of the big brokerages that's agent-based, I think it was Trinity, bought one of their bought like their largest agency and acquired them, something that Global Trends has done for years. Um yeah, I'm curious to see. Any predictions on 2026, what we're gonna see in the in the industry?

SPEAKER_00: 13:41

I have no idea. I think the Supreme Court ruling on the tariffs is gonna be a big question mark as to what everything looks like. The Fed looks like it's gonna cut rates, which will maybe stimulate the economy.

SPEAKER_01: 13:51

But all I've done is like what do you think? A couple times, two or three?

SPEAKER_00: 13:55

They said maybe up to like a full percentage point in 2026. But the other thing, and again, I like I haven't spent I didn't have the time to really dig into a lot of it, but I am getting news articles like every day on factory shuts down shutdowns. Factory shutdowns in Pennsylvania. I think there was a trailer manufacturer, like a big wire manufacturer. GM shut down a bunch of electric vehicle plants for batteries. There was a large LTL carrier in, I think it was in Illinois that went out of business, can't remember the name, um, related to the tariffs on like auto parts. I'm just getting like literally news articles every day of some factory shutting down or one of them going out of business. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

Let me show let me show something interesting here.

SPEAKER_00: 14:41

Um I'm gonna share, let's see if I can share a FedEx layoff article, like the largest layoff they've had to date. I literally just opened the news. Tem seed plant closure GM close two plants.

SPEAKER_01: 14:55

Take a look at this, right? If you're not on YouTube, I'll explain it. This is a the dashboard from um rate view from DAT or dat IQ. Take a look at rates from November up into January here. This is pretty significant, right? So here if we're looking at um, I'll I'll go with fuel included, all right. Broker spot rates with fuel in November were$2. I'm going dry van just to give a rough estimate here.$209 in November, December,$229, January,$238. That is a massive spike in two months.

unknown: 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:35

Okay. Um, I'm curious if we look at reefer, same thing. Obviously, you got fuel if you're going without fuel. Uh see. It's all the same thing. Is that just fuel prices going up? What are we looking at here?

SPEAKER_00: 15:49

No, because I think diesel's down, but I can tell you like what we saw in spot rates and like the larger clients I work with, like, they all saw something like 30-40% increases in some spot lanes. And design, I mean, obviously, there's a holiday spike, and a lot of the brokerages I work with do a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

So yeah, that's what it is. So fuel's down. So it's it's almost like rates your line haul rates are going up, and your fuel is uh I don't know what I'm looking at.

SPEAKER_00: 16:20

And I think tender rejections are still up, even into January.

SPEAKER_01: 16:23

I can't remember, but I did see something related to that recently where like this is this is kind of an optimistic uh view here. Um interesting. That's kind of cool. Um, we'll have to look into more of the I guess tender rejection, but it did peak over 10%. Um in I think it was like mid to later December. And that's kind of like a threshold. I remember like when I started in Brokerage, like that was the that was the threshold that I was taught was like 10% is kind of like a normal, if you looked at the average across all the market cycles, like 10% is kind of like the median. And when it's above 10%, you've got that rate um increase. If it's below 10%, you're gonna have rate compression.

SPEAKER_00: 17:09

13 and a quarter. Tender rejections topped out at 13. As of by end of year.

SPEAKER_01: 17:20

Is that from uh freight waves?

SPEAKER_00: 17:23

From freight waves, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:24

Gotcha. Yeah. Craig Fuller's put out a lot of really good content. I I feel like I just turned into a pumpkin over the holidays and didn't really stay that in tune with a lot of stuff much needed. Um, but I got to catch up on on what's been going on. You know, a lot of the same stuff with like um brokers are starting to crack down on requirements for carriers, and DOT is starting to crack down on enforcement of certain things. We're seeing more and more carriers exit the market. The one missing piece to all of this is gonna be demand, right? And that's kind of where you may see if you know geopolitics could play a lot into it, um, interest rates will play a lot into it. Um so we'll see. I I hope uh I mean, I feel like I said this the last two years at the beginning of the year, like, yeah, I think the end of the year is gonna look different. And I'm like, it really hasn't. So um outside of we had we had a little bit of a push at the end of 2025, obviously, with we just showed some rates. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:26

Well, it'll be interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 18:29

That's the uh that's where the news is at. I gotta let my dog out real quick.

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

Yeah, take a look. I gotta let my dog out real quick. I'm pretty sure I saw in the news it was I'm I think it might have been UPS. Yeah, UPS.

SPEAKER_01: 18:45

I'm seeing um uh yeah, key a lot although it's like well over Yeah. Wow. That's a lot of UPS 48,000 jobs being cut as a major cost cutting and turnaround strategy, impacting both management and operational roles to boost profits, streamline its network after reduced Amazon volume, and increase efficiency through automation. Interesting. Well, we shall see. Um, all right. Well, it is a a new year, it's a great time to think about you know setting some goals for yourself. We talked about it at the end of last year, um, all the metrics you can really get granular on. Um, I would encourage you to also take a look at how you're using a lot of your systems and processes and the use of your time really as well to be the most effective. I I was going through picking questions for our QA for final mile um for next Tuesday. And what I found, Ben, is that like so many of the questions on our Facebook group and on Reddit and on YouTube were people that had just gotten hired entry level in the brokerage, and they're like just struggling. Like they're like, I'm making all these calls, and I don't really know what I'm, you know, people are telling me that they're good and blah, blah, blah. And it's it takes me back to like a timeless concept that we've got of prospecting with a purpose. And it's it's not just how you, it's not just like how you're prospecting, but how are you tracking and managing the activity? And we were talking about it off air before this, and I kind of wanted you to to dig a little bit into it, but like CRM, for example. Uh, you were sharing a story. Uh, feel free and share that, and I want to share one as well with a couple examples from folks from our company in the last few months. But give us the rundown on on CRM usage or I might say lack of usage for that matter.

SPEAKER_00: 20:43

Share my personal experience with it, right? Which was when I first got into the industry, right, and was prospecting. Like I was using Excel and I was using the CRM and I worked at a big brokerage, right? So you had to like use the CRM to find out if you could actually work with a company, right? Or a customer. But like it wasn't that fast, at least in my opinion, when I started. So I went and used other sources to pull large lists. I would either throw them into Excel or I would just put them on my desk because other sales jobs, like I could dial the phone real fast, and I'm like, I can get through these numbers quicker this way. And then if there's if it's worth it, then I'll go to the CRM. And I thought that was going to be way more efficient, right? And I did that for probably like three weeks. I'll never forget it because Jason, my manager, came up behind me because, like, you have quotas you got to hit on call volume and call time at first. But in your second month, you got to start either getting quotes or moving loads, and you got pretty strict metrics to keep your seat there. And he came up and I'll never forget it because his office was behind my desk. So he could see my computer all day. And he's like, you know, sat down, was like, hey, how are things going? And I was like, Yeah, you know, they're going pretty well. My call numbers were really good. I'm making, you know, 120 to 150 calls a day. I'm getting there an hour early, staying there an hour late. I'm like, you know, it just takes time. I'll figure this out. And he goes, uh he's like, I'll tell you one thing that I noticed. And I go, what? And he goes, I think you have paralysis analysis. And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, I watch you and he's like, you spend a lot of time choosing which company to call. And he's like, also, like, how are you managing your follow-ups? Like when to call a company back? Like how often to follow up. And I'm like, oh, well, I'm kind of just picking whichever lead I think is the best one to call every single time all day. And he's like, well, yeah. And he's like, hey, I commend you. You're here 10, 12 hours a day. So you're still getting your numbers in. He's like, but I think if you just use the CRM, you could probably get the same call volume inside of like eight or nine hours a day. And I'm like, yeah, but it's so slow. It's going to take me a long time to like get used to this. I don't want my calls to go down while I'm learning this. And I'm like, it's just not as fast as like a piece of paper or Excel, right? And I'll never forget it because he goes, Do you trust me? And I went, Yeah. And I'm like, because he had been there like 17 years and like had a good career as a broker. And like honestly, I really liked him as a person. He was a really good mentor. I'm like, yeah, I trust you. Why? He goes, pick three categories, put those categories in the CRM. And he's like, just pick one every day. And he's like, just run with it. Just make as many calls as you can between 7 and 5 30 every day. And he's like, my guess is you'll get more calls done. And he's like, use the follow-up button so you can schedule when to call these companies back so you don't have to think about it. He's like, I think you're going to be really good at sales because you sound well on the phone, you understand logistics, you're just not managing your follow-ups well, and you're spending a lot of effort and time choosing who to call. And I honestly didn't believe him, but I trusted him. And I was like, Well, I'm like, I don't really have anything to lose. Cause if I trust my boss and it doesn't work, I can at least blame him and buy some more time. Right. So I'm like, I'm like, it's kind of a win-win situation. I'm like, if it works, great. If it doesn't work, I can go back and be like, well, I tried it, it didn't work. Let me go back to my way. And I still almost remember the numbers because it was right around five weeks of me doing this. Because I started this in like the beginning of November. Because I'll never forget it was like the second week in December. And one of the categories I chose was other freight brokers. Because back then, like nobody really co-brokered. You could do it if you had an agreement. And like nobody prospected them. So I'm like, I had huge lists of like other freight brokers. And I'm like, well, I'm at a big company. So if I find a smaller freight broker that has more business than they can handle, I can support them. And then when they hire more people, they can give me more business and I'll basically just operate as support for them while they keep growing without having to hire people. I'm like, I feel like I can sell somebody on this. And also like talking to freight brokers was easy because I'm like, we just talk about the same thing. So my call time's gonna go up even if I don't get a hit. And worst case, like I'll learn about what they're moving and maybe find another category to go after. So I'm like, I feel like this is at least a good bucket. And uh I remember the company was Builders Transportation, which is no longer that company anymore. But I called this guy, he's like second week of December, and I could hear in his voice, he was just frantic, like busy, but busy almost in a good way, like not irritated, but like didn't have time, but like I could tell he had like a lot of business. And he's like, you know what? Like, I don't have time, but you know, give me a call back when you get a chance. Maybe we can see whatever, right? The guy's name was Rick Hamlet, actually. And I followed up with him like a week later, and he's like, Yeah, he's like, I got like 50 to 75 loads a day to move, and it's just me. And I'm like, it's just you? He's like, Yeah, I am the entire brokerage department for this company. There was a guy that had been here 25 years. He's like, I learned from him, I've been at this job for like a year and a half, and he's like, I just can't get as many of these loads moved as like we should be able to. And his budget on the loads were good. Like he was like pretty transparent. He's like, Look, like, I got enough money to move them. I just don't have enough time and enough carriers. If we can find a way to work together, like I think we can make this work. And that was like my first customer.

SPEAKER_01: 26:02

And then you are at a brokerage that has a massive database.

SPEAKER_00: 26:07

And support. So I honestly, it only took me like two weeks to get on board. And we got a co-brokerage in place, and I went from like zero loads, zero dollars, to doing like 10 to 15k a week inside of like two weeks because he just had so much freight to move and just didn't have the support. And it just like worked perfectly. And even in hindsight, right, like I never would have known which category I was gonna find that person, right? And I've I thought about that a lot over the years is like, was that luck? Was it effort? And like, I do think it's both. But I just kept doing that. And like, no matter what happened, I would just pick categories, focus on them, learn about them, and then just keep working that large bucket of leads, right, in that category until I found the company that like needed help, or found the company they did need help. And then they would call me two weeks later and be like, hey, my other brokerage dropped the ball. Can you guys help me out with this load? And like over and over, like it always made me kind of worried because I'm like, is this really just luck? But it does just keep happening. So like I'm gonna keep doing it. And even after like three or four years of doing it in hindsight, I thought about that after I left. Was like, was that really just luck? Was it more effort? Was it skill? Was it the way I talked? Like, was it all of it? Cause since we've been doing the show, I've even been I've thought about that a lot. Like, what really was it? Was it more skill? Was it more effort? Was it more like organization? I genuinely think it's all three. But why that really matters is like in all the clients we've worked with since we've been doing this, the biggest thing I see with really good salespeople that have had books of business that have either shrunk or have had one or two really large customers and they want to grow. When I ask them how many active prospects they're working, it's usually like somewhere between like a handful and maybe two dozen. And those are the companies they're following up with. And then I would think about I'm like, well, when I'm managing a bucket, right? Like at TQL, I think you're capped at 80 back then. Maybe it was like 120 after a certain 10 year, you could work a number of active leads. And the thing that that forces you to do is when you can only have a hundred active leads, you have to keep following up because like you can't just call any company because other brokers are working those leads. So like those artificial constraints also force you to keep following up, and you have to be organized to follow up with a hundred different companies. Because if you got a hundred different leads you're working, like companies, there's two or three people that work at some of those companies. You're actually following up with like two or three hundred people. It is impossible, right, to remember what they've told you, what's important to them, what lanes they run, when their RFP is coming up, when their busy season is, all the things you kind of need to be able to move a lead from prospect to customer in your head at that number. Yep. But when you use a CRM, like, and again, we can talk about this in a minute, but like you don't have to remember any of that. All you have to do is establish the habit of typing while you're talking or right when you get off the phone. And it like doesn't slow you down at all. And it makes you one, sound like a genius because you remember everything everybody's ever said, if you just get really good with like shorthand notes on what's important. And third, like it's the statistics of sales, right? Like if you're working 10 leads and I'm working a hundred, I have 10 times the odds you do, right? If I can work 200 active prospects at the same time and you're working 20, I still have 10 times more, right? Yep. It's like playing the lottery for free at a scale of 10 or 20 to a person using Excel or a spreadsheet, right? Using these tools. And to me, that is the number one thing that allows you to get more customers every month is you just need a bigger bucket of leads, you're able to actively work every day. And it is, I I've never found any other way other than using a CRM to be able to keep up with that many conversations with that many companies and that many people over the course of a year.

SPEAKER_01: 30:03

Yeah. So it's funny you I hear and you talk about the CRM like that. I remember my first sales job uh that was not retail, uh, my first like office sales job, I worked for a distribution company and they had their own like internal CRM operation system, like all in one. And that was like my first exposure to anything like that. And then I went to uh Conway, where uh Conway used Salesforce. And then when I moved to a brokerage, um, it was a CRM that I it was like Microsoft dynamics, and it was like, you know, it was new to me, and it probably could have got the job done. And but I was just like resistant to it. And so it's funny, and I've I see this with a lot of a lot of other brokers, I was like, I'm gonna do it my own way. So I'm like, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna write stuff down. I even had at one point, like in my cubicle, I had like sticky notes up there, and I like would move people up and down if if they were a hot, hot lead versus not. And then I was like, no, you know what? I'm gonna go to a spreadsheet and color code it. I was just so resistant to it. Yes, and you know, those tactics are better than doing nothing, but like all they do is have limited amount of information that you can look at, but they don't have any kind of automation behind them where like if you use and I finally started to use the CRM, um, which then led me to uh requesting that we explore other CRMs, which we eventually did, and we we landed on a new system that to this day I still use HubSpot. That's what it was like 10 years ago that I came across it. But but with the CRM, it's like not only can I see all the information that I had on my sticky notes or my Excel sheet, um, but I can see like 10X the data, right? And make that many more calls because I'm not having to worry to think about what you know, what was that last call like? When when was it? What was my what's my reason for making my next call? That's what like you know, tasks and follow-up notes and stuff like that are are great at. And then um finally moving to like a um HubSpot, or there's a ton of them out there now, but when you can have email integration, and I even learned something new from one of the guys I work with now. I learned from a couple weeks ago, is like you can go in and just there's a certain page in HubSpot where you can see all the activity from anybody in your in the CRM. Like it'll show in chronological order, like this person opened this email, this person like I I knew the record and see what they opened up, but now I can see you know dashboard. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. Um, but it you know, when you finally just take the time to learn the system, um, it might you know reduce your productivity in the short term because you got to learn something new and figure out the best way to implement it with your process, um, but it's gonna make you way more efficient in the long term. Like I had a guy um a couple months back, and he's been an agent for our company for a few years now, and he came from like a um a pretty standard like W-2 model company, and he was kind of going through like his plans for the future and all this, and was like wanting to talk about like how to organize leads and CRM and stuff like that. And I was like, Holy shit, this guy's been doing this for years and has still not been doing it like the most efficient way possible. But it's kind of like you know, you you don't know what you don't know. And if like, for example, if you worked at a company that told you here's how we do things, and then you go work for another company and they just tell you like you can do it however you want, and that's how the agent model works. Um, until somebody either nudges you and gives you like a little tip to hey, why don't you try this, or you ask, like, you're not gonna do anything different. You're just gonna keep doing things the way you've been doing them.

SPEAKER_00: 35:08

And there's two things that you said that this reminded me of. One is the CRM that I used in brokerage when I started didn't have your email there. So every time you talk to a lead, I could see my notes and I could see other brokers' notes throughout time that had reached out to that lead. So I could see what they said, but I always still had to open my email to see did this prospect send me a couple of loads? Did I quote them? What did I quote them? I needed that piece of information along with the phone call conversations, right? Which kind of slowed me down a little bit. So when they've launched that, right, where most CRMs connect your email, to me, I'm like, that is huge. I'm like, because I can remember talking to prospects where they would be like, You didn't get that email, the loads? I'm like, hey, what are you guys working on or whatever after a bit of you know, chit chat? And they're like, I sent you 10 loads last Tuesday. You didn't get them. And then I would go and look and be like, oh yeah, I got them. And then I look like I'm disorganized, don't know what's going on. I'm trying to get their business. And I'm like, I just shot myself in the foot because I didn't have this information in front of me. So to me, like that was a huge one time saver and two, helped me close more deals. But the other thing that you said really made me think about this, which is what is the main reason people don't uh take the time to invest in learning the new tool? It's just human beings' nature of like maximizing the short term and avoiding the long term, right? And there's two big buckets in our industry where I see this. One is yes, to learn any CRM, even if you've used a different one, and even if you've used that one and haven't used it for a while and you're getting back into it. Like, I remember when I got back into HubSpot and didn't use it for a while, like it took me a good seven to 10 days to get familiar with where things were, to get as quick as I had been. And like that took time and it took an investment. But why most people don't do that is like they just are so scared of not making as many calls today that they just keep doing the same thing every day and never getting a benefit in the future. When you take time away from today to invest in the future, like a tool like learning how to use a CRM, for example, you get more efficient forever. So, like, yeah, there's a short-term cost, but there is a benefit in perpetuity. Forever, you will get better at this, more organized, faster, and close more deals. But human beings have a really hard time at prioritizing the future over the present, right? Like, and that's all throughout all of life, right? The other one is in delegation, right? Most we how many company owners have we seen that are like, I'm working 14 hours a day and I don't have time to train somebody? And we're like, well, you're gonna have to make an investment of time in the short run to be able to solve this problem in the future. Because you've been doing it the same way for three years. You can only move 12 loads a day by yourself. In order for you to train someone on your customer's freight, you're probably gonna have to talk to your customer about doing a little less business with them for a couple of weeks, invest in training this new person, then you'll be able to do 25 loads a day, right? But human beings, that is probably one of the hardest things for us to do psychologically, is to make a sacrifice in the short run to get a benefit in the long run, even though the long run is technically forever and today is just today. People just wake up, rinse, and repeat, and it's the definition of insanity of doing the same shit every day and having the same problem tomorrow because they're not willing to invest in tomorrow by making a sacrifice today. Like that is the hurdle why I think most people, like you said, just keep doing it the way they've always done it and keep complaining that they can't get more done.

SPEAKER_01: 38:44

It's a interesting point too, because if you think about, and we've we've kind of like alluded to this over our other content, but if you know the majority of brokers um either start at a brokerage and learn from the way people around them do things, um, or they start their own company at home and they just watch YouTube videos and learn how other people do things and think that's just the way to do it. When the reality is there are best practices, but there's also like finding the way that works best for you. And that could be um, we could say like at the at the macro level, like, yes, using a CRM is a or prospecting with a purpose, our general idea of it is is a good best practice. But the way in which you implement that process or the way in which you personally use a CRM and the and the categories and fields and and the data points that you use and how you schedule follow-ups, you need to find your own way that works best for you because everyone has a very different level of organization. Some like I I've talked to you, hot air, about people that I that I work with that like require a little bit extra um, you know, some extra processes to make sure that they stay organized, right? Whereas like people like um you and I tend to have all our brains work in in um different ways than each other and different ways than people around us, right? So like everyone's process and methods are gonna be a little bit different in how they do things. Um actually it's funny. One of the guys, when I when I started at a brokerage a while ago, um he is like one of the most disorganized, one of the most disorganized guys I know, but like one of the best sales guys I know. And it's the way that he found how to overcome his lack of organization by forcing himself to do certain things, so he was like legitimately unable to forget, allowed him to get the right people on the call at the right time, and then he just did his thing because he can talk to anybody about anything and like make them feel like your friend and all that stuff, but he had to force himself to be super organized in order to like know when who to call and when to call them. Whereas like I've always been super organized, very detail-oriented. It took me it took me like more work on the um developing like a level of personal tact with people over over the years. And I think I really learned it through the army and leadership and whatnot. Um versus I was always like the kind of like the the nerdy good at math and science guy in school growing up, but like, you know, I wasn't like a you know that I didn't play on the football team or anything like that. Um and I had to learn like the social the social part of it and the sales part of it over time. Um, so it's kind of like everyone's got their different, you know, areas of strength or weakness or areas to to improve on. And um, I'll tell you that I have seen some of the best, or I shouldn't say best, I'll use the word highest producing freight brokers that have lost it all like that because of disorganization, because they missed an email, because they they dropped the ball or they they missed one thing on a big bid or quote that they did, and it screwed them over and they lost a customer over it. Um so not to like discourage anybody from correct, you know, getting into brokerage, but like there are there are so many different ways as you head into this year, right? Like have that look in the mirror and figure out where where is it that I need to you know tweak things or here's swap.

SPEAKER_00: 42:19

Because what you said about like your career and believing you had a better way to do it, right? And you've had success in sales going all the way back to which You started it, right? All the way even back to like Best Buy, right? Yep. And the thing is, if I look back at my trajectory of professional life, right, I absolutely had that trait of like, and it's funny because this is what I say at the end of every show is like I believed I could find a way that was faster and more efficient than anybody else. And I had the confidence that I was going to do it, which made me inherently good at sales, but also created this problem where I had to learn everything the hard way. Right. Like it took literally the situation, a boss, the economy to force me to have to do it a different way for me to learn that now I just learned to do it the hard way and then find my way because I'm like, well, there's something to learn here, and then I finesse it. But like, even going back to like my first real sales job, I remember I worked there with my best friend. I've talked about this on the show before, but like we had a script, a sales script. But like that industry, a script worked very well because it's the same sales cycle. You have the same type of leads coming from the same place. So it's all very structured. And they'd been in business 25 years. And my buddy had been working there for like two years, and this is 20-some years ago. He was making well into six figures and doing really well. So he's like, Oh, you know, come on, I think you'll be good at this. You're good at talking to people. And I'm like, okay. But I refused to use their script for like six months. I did a little better than average and was making decent money, but I'll never forget arguing because this is like my childhood best friend, like arguing with him on the way home from work. He's like, dude, why won't you just use the script? He's like, I'm making twice the amount of money of you. He's like, you're working harder trying to figure out what to say. I'm just reading this. And I remember arguing with him for weeks going. I'm like, no, because that's not me. And what makes me me is saying what I think when I think it, and that's what's going to make me better. He's like, Well, you've been doing this six months. I'm still making twice the amount of money as you. So why don't you just try this for a month and see how it works? Literally the same thing that happened at TQL, right? So followed his direction for a month, and I'm like, well, it's my best friend. If I'm gonna trust anybody, I'll trust him. And I went from being like a little bit above the middle of the pack to him and I were like top one and top two in the company for like the next two years, right? So it's funny because when you said like learning the CRM, like you kind of had to learn it the hard way. I'm like, I think almost everything I've learned in my life, I was super stubborn, super confident that I could do it a better way. And then something forced me. And then when I was forced to do it, I went, oh wow, like I probably should have just done this from the beginning. So, like I personally get why most people have an issue with it because I think that's why most people are really just inherently good at sales. You need the confidence, you need to believe that you are a good fit for your prospect for them to believe they should work with you. And that a lot of time goes hand in hand with being stubborn and wanting to do it your own way, which I think is like most people's biggest hurdle into growth. And I want to dovetail this into one last thing before we wrap up. I think this is the same reason why companies that get to a million in profit a year have a very hard time getting to five. And then I think the companies getting to five have a hard time getting to 15 and then 15 or 20 to the next step of 30 million a year is a brokerage. It's because they did it their own way to get to a certain point. Yep. And in order to get to the next point, they need different operating procedures, they need different habits, they need different delegation skills. They have to learn different ways of doing it because managing a company of two people and five people is different than 25, which is different than 50, which is different than 100, and so on, right? And I think that's the same thing, right? Because when I talk to owners, it's the same thing. It's like, well, this is the way we've always done it. Like we need to do it this way. And I'm like, well, that's why you can only move 30 loads a day. Like you could do 60 loads a day, but you would need everybody to follow certain procedures. Everybody would need to kind of stay in their lane. You need to structure things in a way because you can't just have a free-for-all in a$25 million company and expect things not to get missed, to your point, of really successful brokers that tend to lose very large customers because they just don't want to change their organizational habits.

SPEAKER_01: 46:30

Yeah. Um, and the other point I'll I'll add on that, and we can wrap it up, is um we I use the example of someone, you know, very disorganized and all it took was dropping the ball once and they lost everything. Um, it's also because they didn't have a diversified book of business too. And this is a great time to take everything that we just said, right? Like to try and find um a niche to lean in on and you know, hammer that for three or four weeks, right? If if you if either it's not working or you're just not really interested in it or finding it's not really jiving, find another niche. Just pivot. Pivot a little bit, pivot a lot, it doesn't make a difference. Just pivot, try something different and lean in on it and give it an actual chance. Um but you'll find yourself very vulnerable if you're if your book of business consists of either just one customer or maybe it's one sector of the market that would all be vulnerable at the same time, given a certain thing. Like I've seen people, I I I know a guy right now that um he finally like turned the corner on this, but for like the last three years, he has always done seasonal, uh a seasonal commodity, and he gets to like the end of that season and he's like, I don't know what to do until it starts back up next year because he didn't do any prospecting, right? And he finally um this year, or actually it was late last year, was able to get um some new business to offset him during the downtimes because you know, if you're living on like high off the hog when things are great, and then you start making zero dollar paychecks because the season's over, um, you know, good luck managing your uh your money there and your finances. So it's a great time to take a look at your year and forecast out where you want to lean in. Look at the trends around the industry, what's gonna impact what, and you know, where do you want to lean in? That's my my big takeaway for today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:25

And there was, I don't even remember who said this, but somebody simplified all of this into like one easy decision that basically almost works all the time. Is basically your brain is almost always gonna direct you to do the thing you're comfortable with and you've been used to doing because growth and change is hard and uncomfortable, right? So in anything you do, there's almost always two choices like, can I send an email? Can I pick up the phone? And if your brain is going, send the email, you should almost always do the opposite. Because your brain is always gonna point to the easy, comfortable thing. And the difficult thing is probably the thing you need to grow, right? And in that center, it's like every day that person's looking at loads coming in and money coming in. And in the back of their mind, there's probably that voice going, you should probably make prospecting calls. But instead they call their customer, have another conversation to get one more load. And then the next day, their brain goes, You should probably prospect for the slow season. And then every single day they go, Well, I can get one or two more loads to make a couple extra hundred bucks today. So like I'm gonna do that. Right. And if you just think about what you're doing all day and go, like, do I have two choices? Which one don't I want to do? Do the one you don't want to do. Because the more you do that, the more you're diversifying your skill set and the more likely you are to be able to grow towards what your potential is.

SPEAKER_01: 49:37

Yep. Good stuff. Well, hopefully this gives everybody a a good, a good rejuvenation and start to the year. Let us know what you think. And if you got comments or feedback, let us know in the uh the YouTube comments or shoot us a message right at our website, freight360.net. Ben, first one of the year in the books, final thoughts.

SPEAKER_00: 49:57

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

SPEAKER_01: 50:02

And until next time, heading down to Jacksonville, all you Duval folks, go bills.