Preventing Freight Fraud with Quikskope | Episode 235

Speaker 1: 0:19

All right, welcome back for another episode of the Freight 360 podcast. I'm excited for today's episode. We're going to get into all the fun stuff in just a second here. It's episode 235. So if you're brand new here, make sure to check out all of our other content. There's 234 other episodes. Hit the subscribe button. If you're on YouTube, leave a comment. Let us know what your thoughts are. Feel free to ask questions in there too. That will answer as many of those questions as we can on our weekly Final Mile podcast that comes out on Tuesdays. And share this with all your friends in the industry. And make sure to check out all of our other content at Freight360.net, including the Freight Broker Basics course, to have all the information you need to start and launch a successful Freight Brokerage.

Speaker 1: 1:03

All right, so before we get into today's main topic, I wanted to introduce our guests. We've got two of them today. It's Mike Folam and Ed Mangino. They are the founders of a company called Quickscope. We'll get into Quickscope in a little bit here. But Mike and then Ed, feel free and for those who don't know you, I know you guys are starting to get out there on LinkedIn with your new product, but feel free, give us a little rundown on who you are and how you got in the industry.

Speaker 2: 1:30

Yeah, thanks, nate, we're excited to be here. So I've been in the industry for about 17 years now. I started with CH Robinson, was there for a little over 10 years, kind of the normal trajectory of a CH Robinson salesperson you start in operations, then get into carrier sales, you get a feel for everything, then some account management. So I did that kind of rotation the first five years and then after. That was really when I got into what I really enjoyed, which was developing end-to-end solutions for large customers, leveraging different modes, different types of authority to get the job done. Learned a ton, really enjoyed it. Left there after 10 years to join RETMS, which is now Warner. I was with them for three years pretty much managing the brokerage, doing everything from marketing to business analytics to managing the agents and the branches. Had a great time. But decided to start this business with a few partners and we're excited to talk about QuickScope today.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Awesome Ed. How about you?

Speaker 3: 2:41

Yeah, similar to Mike, we met at Robinson 17 years ago, so I've been in the business for 17 years. Started out looking trucks, playing your freight, had no idea what I was doing for the first six months, like answering the phone and trying to figure out what was happening. But I wound up with account management for a while and then moved into sales and implementation. Really really liked implementation, helping the idea that we pitch get to execution, and that was a lot of fun. But had an opportunity to move down to Florida with CH Robinson and took advantage of it. So I moved down to Tampa about six years ago and ran the floral consolidation program so a fresh caught floral consolidation warehouse at MIA down in Miami and then distributed throughout the entire country. Left that role and joined Mike and the team and decided to dive into QuickScope Something completely different but industry related and it's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 3:35

I love it. I always love when someone who's got the amount of experience and knowledge that you guys have applies that to a solution for the industry. I've seen a lot of like Ben you and I talk about it all the new stuff that comes out, and some of it's okay, some of it's not very good, and some of it, every now and then, is that there's a really good product but a lot of the junk out. There tends to be someone that was in it for six months, didn't do very well and was like, yeah, I'm going to go build something or sell some software, but yeah, I'm excited to talk about it with you guys.

Speaker 4: 4:05

So super hard to get customers. Let's go develop software and they didn't do the job long enough to know what is needed and what isn't needed or how you do things, and you end up with a bunch of interfaces that don't function Right, like, I'd say, nine out of 10 out there. So for sure.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Ben, how's Florida Doing?

Speaker 4: 4:23

well Weather's getting a little bit nicer, get a little bit warmer, you better keep it warm.

Speaker 1: 4:26

I'll be down there in less than two weeks, man.

Speaker 4: 4:28

Can't wait. It's up in the 80s again, so we're back up into normal spring weather.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Awesome, well, good stuff. We'll get through a little sports here. This is a. We're recording on a Wednesday, so it's officially free agency. I know, as of Monday, agents could start talking to one another, but I think the deals are all starting to have ink to paper today, so I like all right. So producer Stephen threw a little note in here Kurt Cousins' epic deal and his agents' ability to secure ridiculous guaranteed money. So what did he get? Was it $100 million contract, $50 million guaranteed or something like that. Does that sound right? Yeah?

Speaker 4: 5:06

Speaking of guaranteed money, Steelers picked up Russell Wilson. I saw that Denny's been picking up the tab yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:14

What's Mike? What are the Eagles doing? As a Philly guy, A lot.

Speaker 2: 5:18

A lot. It's been fun. I mean, they still got a lot of work to do on defense. They did pick up an edge rusher from the Jets, bryce Hough. Apparently he's really good, like really fast off the ball, young. I'm not sure what that means, though they might still trade Josh Schwett or Son Redick or both, so I don't know if that's a net zero or a plus long term, but they picked up Seguin. I'm pumped about that. I mean, get this hit play behind our line, even if it's not a good addition for the Eagles and that's saying it is or it isn't. With all the holes they got to fill just watching him play behind that O-line, it's going to be awesome.

Speaker 1: 5:58

So I'll head on the bills here. I made sure to wear a little bills of tire today, as I pretty much do every day anyway. But the bills biggest struggle going into this year's free or this year's free agent season and head into the draft is Capspace. So I think we were over between 15 and 20 million. So Josh Schall was able to restructure his contract to free up Capspace. Dawson Knox did the same thing. They cut Jordan or they released. Jordan Poirier, I think just signed with Miami, which I hate to see that one he's such a good safety. But they were able to sign Deon Dawkins, the snowman.

Speaker 1: 6:41

I know that was a big one that folks were worried about, but I don't know. I think the bills are going to have a very different team going into 2024 than what we've seen. The last kind of like the I don't want to call them the failed dynasty, but the crew that they've been that hasn't been able to go deep in the playoffs, besides the AFC championship that they lost a few years ago. But you're going to see a different dynamic this year and I don't know. I'm curious to see how it all pans out, how the draft is. I've heard rumors about crazy trays to get some first round draft position, but I don't know. I'm trying to. I think I'm fully recovered from the previous season. And, mike, I don't know how you feel because you're an Eagles fan and it was a rough one for both of our teams.

Speaker 2: 7:25

But we'll see, recovery is probably a strong word, you know, but I'm ready, you know I'm ready Moving on from Kelsey and Cox kind of.

Speaker 1: 7:35

You know, it was a little tough but yeah, kelsey just officially retired, was it last week? Yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 7:40

I mean we got all done.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Saw it was coming, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:44

And Fletcher Cox is done. So I mean it's, it's time probably for both of them. We're going to have to move on eventually. But replacing them as leaders, I think we're going to look way different too. Not just you know you have to. Still you have the same core on both teams. You're still a good team, but you know, not having those leaders, it's going to be different.

Speaker 1: 8:05

Yeah, ben, any idea on what Russell Wilson's deal is Like, what is?

Speaker 4: 8:11

one point three million earlier this week is what it was reported, basically the league minimum.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Really Didn't Denver?

Speaker 4: 8:19

Denver's pick up the whole town 50 or 80 million bucks, I think was a guarantee, I think 50 after it was like 80 guaranteed they're still paying.

Speaker 4: 8:29

It was a significant amount of money and that's all they've been talking about in Pittsburgh radio all week is just half of the city's like well, if you listen to Denver, this is a horrible deal and the other half of the city's like but it costs nothing. And if you bring somebody in and he might be a leader and be able to help Kenny Pickett learn, possibly get some competition. So I don't know. The very least it'll shake things up. Who knows if it'll be good or bad.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Yeah, cause Kenny Pickett's going into his third year now, isn't he?

Speaker 4: 8:55

Yeah, yep.

Speaker 1: 8:58

All right.

Speaker 4: 8:58

I mean that would be the end of Kenny Pickett though.

Speaker 3: 9:00

I mean if you're very well, wifey yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:04

But, they said money on Patrick Queen. I mean that's a huge addition.

Speaker 4: 9:08

Yeah, I do think they can 41 now. Yeah, and I think he might stick around. At least they were talking about this week that he may stick around his third string more than likely because there's not a whole lot of demand for him out. There is the sentiment, but I guess see how the rest of the free agency plays out.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Yeah, yeah, wild Ed, you got a sports guide all.

Speaker 3: 9:32

Yeah, I'm a birds fan as well, but I'm more focused on the Phillies right now being down here in next to Clearwater.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Is that what their spring training is?

Speaker 3: 9:43

Yeah, I'm about six miles from the stadium, so I'm going to my third game on Sunday. It's the same time. That's awesome. It's always a crazy game.

Speaker 1: 9:50

They set record like two weeks out from opening weekend. I can't wait. I'm a huge Red Sox fan, so at least I mean, I don't know, it's been a rough year. It's been rough to be a fan of any of the teams that I liked the last couple of years, apparently. But I don't even want to talk about the Sabres, we'll skip that. That's cool. I've always wanted to get to a spring training game. I've my parents lived down in Florida but I've never, never, made it down during the spring training time. I'm always there just afterwards, so that's cool. We got anything else, anything like that.

Speaker 4: 10:23

Yeah, not really. Bay Hill was last week. I looked it up. I don't even remember the guys name who actually won.

Speaker 1: 10:32

I got a little bit of whatever was on this past weekend, but you're on a lot.

Speaker 4: 10:35

Taylor Montgomery won Bay.

Speaker 1: 10:41

Hill. Fair enough Quick news. If you guys don't subscribe to the newsletter, go to our website for 8360.net. There's a quick sign up thing. We get two out a week Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Speaker 1: 10:54

One of the nothing too crazy, but there was the government legislation package for $460 billion Of that and I do want to talk about it for a minute here is that $1 billion has been allocated to the FMCSA for grants and operational services, and I'm quoting this alongside substantial funds for other key agencies, including the Federal Highway Administration, federal Aviation Administration and Federal Transit Administration.

Speaker 1: 11:23

So for anybody that has ever attended the TIA's policy forum in DC, in the fall the FMCSA had a couple of representatives from their or a couple of folks on their staff have a what we thought was going to be a Q&A session, but it was pretty staged. I had a time with pre-picked questions from people, but they talked about their plans to try and combat fraud and implement these new systems and whatnot, and a lot of the complaints it seemed like or I guess excuses over the years has been funding, manpower, et cetera. So they're getting a billion dollars. Let's see what they can waste it on, because I don't really have a whole lot of faith that they're going to do anything substantially beneficial for us in our industry. What do you guys any take on that?

Speaker 4: 13:25

I was reading some of the other data. I forget which grant they were talking about. It was some other big development and again it was approved like five years ago. And then the example I really wish I could remember what it was and they're like yeah, I don't think literally any money has been spent yet. So I mean I'm glad they're approving funds for it, but I mean I think the practical likelihood that they're going to spend it or get anything done anytime soon is pretty unlikely.

Speaker 1: 13:50

Yeah, there was a lot of money allocated towards electric vehicle charging to trying to have, like you know, the whole goal for zero emission transit with trucks. I think we're a very long way from that, but who knows, we'll see, we'll see. Well, good stuff, let's get into quick scope. So, mike, I'll let you kind of kick it off. So the you know I've talked with you about this a bit. I've seen it. It's an awesome product. We haven't really talked about anything, what it does so far, other than you guys have mentioned that. You guys had the idea to do this and really have poured a lot of energy and effort into it. But give us a little bit of a rundown on what quick scope is, where you're at in the process of it, and then we'll definitely peel back the layers on. You know different things going on in the industry and you know what quick scope is doing. That's really a first of its kind, unique to help protect freight brokers and their customers.

Speaker 2: 14:51

Yeah, sure. So quick scope is a fraud protection tool designed to protect the carrier and the broker amidst the chain of custody from things like cargo theft, fraud, which you know. There's probably three or four different buckets of double brokerage. Now there's the identity theft, the fishing scams, there's all types of things that threaten the carrier and threaten the broker.

Speaker 2: 15:18

You know, either the broker, you know, hurts the relationship with their customer because they've become a victim of fraud and either lost the product or, you know, don't know where the truck is. Or the carrier the actual carrier doesn't get paid because the wrong carrier was paid, the fraudulent actor was paid, or the broker has to pay both, or the shipper has to pay both, so you're paying for the order twice to make sure that the right carrier got paid. And this problem has always existed. I mean, like Ed and I said, we've been in the industry quite a while now. Double brokerage and cargo theft has always existed, but probably since more of these public load boards became available and the more digitized the industry became, you started to see more and more of it. And then I'd say, over the past four or five years, it's gotten crazy. I mean it's insane how often it's happening. You could post a load tomorrow and if you're the one posting the load, you're going to get a ton of fraudulent calls, more fraudulent calls than you'll get legit. And then, alternatively, if you're a carrier looking for a spot load, there's plenty of bad actors impersonating quality brokers. I mean we saw it happen with PLCI, which is Pepsi. It happens to brokers every day where they're being impersonated. So our primary business is working with 3PLs shippers and carriers doing different forms of consulting, and we're made aware of this issue constantly. And it got to the point where we said you know what? There might be an avenue to do something here at the load level. There's a lot of things that are being done whether it's carrier metting and qualification, different types of tracking tools, et cetera that can help mitigate the risk. But we really needed something at the load level that could be deployed transactionally, similar to a macro point or a tracker tools that's providing tracking at the load level, but instead this would protect the broker and the carrier from fraud. So we started to conceptualize the idea and eventually put it together. So what QuickScope does is it can be deployed by the broker at the load level.

Speaker 2: 17:37

A message will be sent to the driver. It will require no application download. There's no app. This is all web-based. We felt like there was a little bit of app fatigue in the market, so we decided to go around that.

Speaker 2: 17:52

The driver receives a text message. They're going to go to their shipper. On the way to the shipper, when they hit a two-mile geofence, they're going to have access to that link that was provided in the text message. That link is going to bring them to a verification portal. In that portal it's going to upload their location from that one point in time. Again, it's not a tracking tool, it's just tracking where they're at that moment in time and it's going to request them to take a picture of the side of their truck and that's going to capture your basic information, right DOT number, mc number, potentially the tractor number, tractor trailer number, the name of the company, et cetera. That's sent back to the QuickScope platform almost immediately. It's cross-referenced against the information that was provided from the broker. If the MC matches, if the phone number matches, if the DOT number matches, et cetera, they clear a verification. At that point we will release the pickup numbers or any relevant pickup information to that driver.

Speaker 2: 18:59

If they don't pass the verification, they won't get access to the pickup numbers and will notify the broker. So, in a positive interaction, they'll receive the text message on their way to the shipper. They'll clear. It takes like literally 10, 20 seconds max. They'll get the pickup numbers. It'll populate in their phone, all itemized at the shipper and then they'll go to the shipper to pick up.

Speaker 2: 19:27

And when you catch fraud which we've had happen as recent as this week you'll notice that the pictures you can get when they're fraudulent actors are pretty bad at times. Sometimes it's not just the wrong MC or the wrong DOT, sometimes it's a washing machine, but they won't get the pickup number. The broker will be immediately notified. This can all happen up to 12 hours in advance of pickup, so you'll have time to find another truck and then we'll notify that there's a fraudulent actor. The broker can do what they want with that information. But let's say that they do pass pickup verification After they get loaded, and this concept will progress through multiple picks.

Speaker 2: 20:11

Let's say they get through all their picks. They can upload their BOLs by literally taking a picture of them in the same portal, same portal they took as the side of the truck. They can take a picture of the BOLs and the broker will receive them immediately Throughout transit. You can perform a verified update. So pharmaceuticals electronics maybe you're worried that it's been double brokered after the load has been picked up, which often happens, you can push request update and they'll ask for a verified update. Same process, same phone has to use a secure portal. Take a picture of the side of the truck, cross-reference the information and clear it. Same concept can be repeated at delivery, by withholding the delivery number and making sure that you're paying the right carrier before it's loaded, Can you walk back a second right?

Speaker 4: 21:00

So can you walk through an example of how a load's been double brokered after pickup. Well, it's a mistake. Like how that plays out.

Speaker 1: 21:07

So my thought there was they could grab it, go to a warehouse and just re-brokered after they've driven five miles right. Or is there another use case there?

Speaker 2: 21:18

There's actually a surprising amount of use cases and, like I don't know I'm ashamed to say it some of them I wasn't even aware of as a company that we're trying to attack this. There are some issues that we weren't even aware of and one came up yesterday with one of our customers. They said we really wanna perform a verification after pickup, but on the first leg of the trip they said, of course. They said what was happening last year was all of our loads were being taken and brokered to an intermodal carrier and they were consolidating multiple loads onto and they weren't knowing that that's pretty common.

Speaker 2: 21:58

So that's one. But another case is, yeah, exchanging it at his warehouse or taking it back to their local facility and let's say LA, and then just brokering it and have the carrier pick it up with power or crosstalk it. So there's definitely application. I think it's more specific to high value goods or controlled substances that you really wanna make sure that that specific driver is still with that truck but on the delivery side, if it were to somehow pass a verification or did exchange hands after the fact, or maybe it was crosstalked mid transit prior to delivery, if you perform that verification and you recognize that it's not the carrier you hired, well, you still want that carrier to deliver the product right. So you give them the delivery number, you make sure they deliver, you've confirmed their location at minimum, and then you pay the right carrier and you just don't double pay the wrong carrier. So there's some application, just on the basic avoidance of the damages caused by fraud.

Speaker 4: 23:03

The other thing too, at the very beginning that struck me when you were saying this, and it's not related to fraud, but it's something Nate and I talked about a lot like as a matter of practice. We used to do a TQL. It was just like withholding pickup number, right, until your location is literally set at pickup. And the thing we always ran into in practice was even the carriers that wanted to like they wouldn't typically accept your macro point or whatever your tracking was until they were done with their last load.

Speaker 4: 23:30

And our issue would be like well, to be honest, like we just didn't really know where they were and they're like yeah, I'm on my way and everybody that's brokered freight has heard this, right, and you're like telling your customer and you're giving them the pickup number. Now you're stuck with that carrier. Meanwhile they're still at their receiver, right, and I was like that is a great way to standardize, even just knowing where they're at before they're even able to pick it up, so that you've got a really good idea. When they're telling you, hey, I'm five minutes out and you hear that for the next 45 minutes, right, like again, it's a lot easier to make them accept it once they're loaded. It's a lot harder in the transit to the pickup, that I think that also really helps I don't know. Just make our lives easier.

Speaker 1: 24:11

Yeah, I think as well as like. Obviously I think back to like 10 years ago, when double brokering existed, but not in its capacity. A common practice that we would use is like oh, I just won't give the full pickup address until I have confirmed the driver is in route or whatever the case might be. And now, as it's gotten so prevalent, we've gone to the practice of withholding that pickup number. But you'll have carriers that'll tell you like I'm not signing a rate confirmation until I have the pickup details in full. But if you give them like a contingent, like, hey, here's your text, it will release it to you as soon as you're within that geo fence and your picture is authenticated. But to be clear, they're not waiting on like a human being to look at the picture, right, isn't it? Is there a computer recognition in there?

Speaker 2: 25:00

Oh, yeah, it takes less than 10 seconds. Yeah, there's some intelligence in the system that cross references the information and if it's not enough of quality picture, it'll ask for another one. Okay, but that's a good point. Like we're not tech technology people, we're not tech bros, we're logistics people first. So for us to develop a software, we really had the mindset of creating it in a way where it was built around operations we currently understand, which are broker and carrier operations.

Speaker 2: 25:38

So we wanted one to make this super carrier friendly. We wanted them to want to use it and not to fight against it, and we also wanted to make it very simple for a broker to implement. Myself, alex, our whole team was basically at the front end of macro point integrations. Then came along trucker tools, then came along for kites and we've implemented that across huge teams at two different companies and I can't say that either of them were exciting or fun. They were really difficult to implement. Those things. Worth it, but difficult to implement, and one of the things that we found in doing this is that the consistent and new applications have kind of trained the carrier base that this isn't going away. There's always gonna be a new tool to use.

Speaker 2: 26:26

We definitely wanted to stay away from it being an application, but we were very confident that the carriers would absorb it. What we weren't so sure about is if the broker was sending a rate confirmation without the pickup number, could they get action from that carrier? Because back in the day you wouldn't get any action. It would be a fake load. The carriers are smart enough to know that game, but this problem has gotten so significant and it's affected the carriers so much. We get carriers reaching out constantly to us how do I get it on my fleet? How do I get it on my fleet? They want to use it. They love the idea that their carrier or their driver is the only one to get the pickup information, and some of our customers. You can make this work, however. Your operations work, but most of them are just supplementing the word quick scope order in the pickup information column so that the drivers understand that they should be expecting this from quick scope, and it's working.

Speaker 4: 27:27

So you have the same product or is it a different, like if I'm an asset company? To your point, I'm like, even in the past month, three stolen loads to three clients we worked with in the past two weeks and two carriers in the past month similar scenario, right, and there's a huge use case for both. Is it the same product? Like if I'm a carrier, right, and Nate's my broker, I just give him a lot, Like how does he use it? If I want him to use it, I guess if I'm an asset company.

Speaker 2: 27:59

Yeah. So there's still some discussions on how we're going to make this interface from the carrier being the power user. Right now we've built it entirely around the broker being the power user, mostly because the broker controls the money on both ends. They control the money to the carrier, they control the money to the shipper. They can push and pull the cost of this products in any way. Some of the brokers are actually marking this up and selling it to their customers that hey, if you want increased security, it's X amount of dollars per load.

Speaker 2: 28:31

What we recommend the carriers do right now is you can't get into our system as a broker without being verified by us and it's pretty stringent. We're asking for, you know, w9, cois emails. We're calling to confirm the email. We're having conversations with people. You can't just create a login. You can't have multiple logins. There's a lot of security to get the broker in. So if you're a carrier that wants to use the load board this produce season and you know you're gonna be you see Scotland post some loads. You see X post some loads, y post some loads and you're gonna be active there. Call us, tell them whoever your broker is to onboard us and then deploy all of your specific loads through Quickscope and they can push and pull the cost of Quickscope in either direction. So long term I think we do wanna make this, or the carrier could be the power user.

Speaker 4: 30:43

Walk in the market.

Speaker 1: 30:44

I was gonna say well, I think it makes sense because, based on your background, like you and Ed, and what your experience is, in the main thing was let's start with solving a problem that we've identified ourselves. But I think, quickly, as you go down that path, you're gonna realize that if you've got a large asset-based fleet who has direct customer freight and they wanna make sure that their drivers whether they're leased on or whatever the arrangement is they wanna make sure that they're protecting who gets the pickup number as well, right, so they're, because if you have a leased on on a operator who's gonna get a pickup number, you wanna make sure that they're not gonna rebroker it out or something along those lines. So, but again, that comes with time. You guys are well, I guess.

Speaker 1: 31:25

Where are you in the process here? And I feel, like Ed, I apologize, we haven't given you a chance to talk yet very much some brief baseball chat, but either one of you guys feel free. Where are you guys at in the process here? I know you're already at market, but what has it looked like? You guys have already had some customers. What does it look like up to this point? Where? What's the near future looking like?

Speaker 3: 31:50

Yeah, so we spent about a year developing the product. We've had the Sandbox live for probably about three months now and we've been playing in the Sandbox for a while, really make it sure that the product was sterile, vetted before we went to market. But we've had the developer I'm sorry, the production version of the product for about a month now been doing a ton of demos. The demos have been really fun because of the amount of feedback we're getting, like features we didn't think about or things that might add value. Those types of feedback loops have been really helpful in us to think about what our math is going to be right and where we take the product. So we're really open to those types of conversations. But we've got a few customers on board already. We continue to schedule and set up and deliver the demos and so things are going pretty well both far.

Speaker 2: 32:40

That's awesome Good stuff. I think there's some, you know, to Ed's point about the feedback and the new functionality that we could potentially introduce. I think the next stage of QuickScope, after we kind of address the fraud issue, is kind of some of the stuff that you alluded to. At the front end, Ben, is hey, it's really nice to know that this verified carrier is in position to pick up the load and ready to go. There's confirmation there, right.

Speaker 2: 33:10

But the carrier doesn't have to be at the shipper. They could be at a truck stop or around the corner or at a restaurant eating and because we know the carrier is ready to load, they're within striking distance. They're not waiting at the shipper, so they're technically not eating into their free hours at the shipper. They're not congesting the shipper with a bunch of trucks waiting. Maybe the shipper has a bunch of product stage and that's the truck that we'll know called NoShop. Now you have to get that out of the way to load the truck that's ready. So what happens in this next generation of quickscope if we're able to have the truck wait without eating the other hours, producing, you know, detention or jamming up the shipper? Maybe we can simply have the shipper text the driver and say you know what? Come on in now, the door 11,. We're ready for it.

Speaker 1: 34:04

You're also saving their on duty time for their hours of service too. Yeah, that's huge. I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 2: 34:11

There's a lot of things like again, we're logistics people first. So the fraud issue is a problem that irritates us all. Personally, because I think people hear that you have a career in brokerage, you know you're, you're less than I think sometimes. The fraud ruins what we do as brokers. It makes it cheapens what we do as arrangers of transportation. So for us it was like you know, let's just, let's be the ones to help make this go away. But, moving forward, how do we continue to make it better between the chain of custody in the shipper, the carrier and the broker, become more efficient to gain more value through this platform? So we're pumped about some of the ideas we're getting from our core customers. So I want to add this Go ahead.

Speaker 1: 35:00

All right, I'll go first. So you mentioned this a little bit ago is that you guys are not tech pros, and I liked it. You pointed out that you're approaching this from the usability of the operator. You know the 3PL there are, like Ben, we have seen so many tech platforms and startups out there that they had. They don't like the developers, do not have a background in freight, so they build out a tool the way that they think it's supposed to work because that's how they think it's like.

Speaker 1: 35:31

You've never worked in this industry before. You've never been on the asset side or, even more importantly, the brokerage side, where this is going to be deployed and used by the operator level. So I'm curious how? I know you're not tech pros you've said it twice already but what has that process been like? Learning how to work with developers and be like well, no, you might think that that's how it should be, but it really needs to be this way. Has there been kind of like pushback or just any bumping of heads on philosophical? You know how you want it to roll out.

Speaker 2: 36:06

Yeah, it's not my first swing at dealing with developers. I'd worked with quite a few companies during my career days where we were developing unique tools using software engineers from another company and the biggest hurdle was really a language barrier not speaking a different language literally, but their software language, their code language, versus our visionary value proposition language. There was a complete barrier. So learning how to kind of plot things out, spec things out before you move forward was a big part of it, and we've been fortunate to have a lot of people in our corner helping us. I think we've made some friends along the way that have helped us as consultants or just. This issue is annoying me too. Let me direct you here or there, even one. But Ed is actually very good at translating business speak to engineering speak, so Ed kind of leads the charge there.

Speaker 2: 37:15

Ed is your background?

Speaker 1: 37:16

do you have a background with that side of the business, or what?

Speaker 3: 37:21

No, just a really strong way to take a high level concept and break it down for somebody to understand it and then build them back up to where we need them to be. But all of those means where the people are drawing on the back of the person in front of them and the developers at the end and they mess up the picture. We did have plenty of that need. I'm not going to paint a picture of everything was great, because it was definitely a learning curve on my end, but I think the project management side of my capabilities is what really led to me figuring it out quick and then leaning on Mike and some of the other people that gave us that advice.

Speaker 1: 37:58

It's funny that, mike, you called it like a foreign language, because the same way that Frey Brokers don't really understand the technical language is kind of the way that most of our wives don't understand what Frey Broker is, even if they've been married to us for five years or longer, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 38:15

The reality is, when you work in a certain field for so long, you get used to the lingo and the people around you tend to speak the same lingo. When we try to cross over from one industry to another, it's very different. I have friends that work in forwarding and the conversations are you think there'd be some overlap. There's a little bit, but it's very, very different. The same goes with asset-based companies and brokerage. Obviously, we work together with one another, but there's a lot of things that Frey Brokers don't always put themselves in a driver's shoes and think, oh, they have to think about what their break-even cost per mile is when they're considering maintenance fuel and everything else that goes into running an asset-based company. I think it's interesting how you had to navigate that space. Hey, props to you guys for not being tech bros and actually being brokerage operators and bringing this to the light. Ben, back to you, whatever you were going to add in before.

Speaker 4: 39:14

Yeah, the first thing I was going to say was what you guys were talking about. It's like there's just different points of view. If you're on the development side, when they're using a tool, they're also not under external pressure, it seems to work fine. Then when you have a conversation, you're like, okay, but you don't have six people screaming at you for the number you've got to get to. That's buried four tabs behind this. That's the context. To communicate. That isn't always the easiest thing. Getting in both ways right, like being able to take this concept, break it down into its simplest principles and then build up from it, is absolutely super effective in being able to work through this. The other thing, too, that I mean about this product is Nate, and I have been talking about this a lot.

Speaker 4: 40:01

Everybody has fraud and just how prevalent it is. I don't know if everybody realizes how prevalent it is, but it's like everybody I know and talked to runs into this once a month. They either get caught or catch somebody, or catch a load and hopefully it doesn't get stolen. It's like again to that point of breaking things down very simply okay, there's a database at the FMCSA. We know criminals have infiltrated it. You can't verify to the database that isn't protected or being overlooked or watched or enforced in any way. At the very least, you need to be able to know very simply that MCI vetted with whatever to why vetted with is the one that picked up my load. Right, because all the fraud happens between those two things. I love that you guys took a simple approach of let's verify at that point against this, because it really doesn't matter what happens in between. If I know that MC picked that up, then I've at least covered my ass and my shippers ass right.

Speaker 4: 41:01

At the end of the day, the simplest solutions tend to be the most effective. I don't need to know everything else in between if I know that's the carrier I want to use. That's the biggest problem. Right, in banking, you've got to know your customer. You've got IDs, you've got multi-factor authentication and all the stuff we do, but yet in shipping it's like hope that that's the carrier right. And two, you guys are the only ones addressing it from that side, and Nate and I have been talking about this. I'm like if there was a sensor or anything to be able to verify that this person that I am booked is the one that is showing up and picking up my freight. It mitigates all of that risk, right.

Speaker 1: 41:39

Yeah, you can think about a lot of the other tools. There's other tools out there that can be used proactively to vet carriers based off of previous inspection history and reports against them, and there's plenty of Excel files go around of reported on MC numbers. But the process to verify on-site identification has been so manual for so long and every company and every broker chooses to handle it whichever way they see fit. Like I from hey the customer, I'm going to call my customer and verify that there's a red MAC truck there or a red Peterbilt with. You know here's the number of the truck and trailer to drivers got to take a video of them like walking around showing the signage on the front of the building and showing their truck Like that stuff. Sure it can work but it can be manipulated and it's a huge ask of other people besides ourselves as brokers, whereas asking your customer right to do more things to make you know the thing we're getting hired to do.

Speaker 4: 42:46

Right, it's simple. Like they pay us to go hire trucks, they want us to hire the trucks. Those trucks should show up and now you're asking them to verify the truck you hired and it just kind of seems asinine and it makes us look incompetent and I think a lot of brokers like.

Speaker 1: 43:00

They just think, well, I think there's probably some more. So some owner operators think this are brokers and all we do is go out there and find a truck and make money off it. But the reality is we're an added, we're an extension of the, of that shippers, logistics, operations and their supply chain. So when they come to us to to get them capacity, it's not just any capacity, it's the right capacity at the right time at the right price. And when I say the right capacity, it doesn't just mean the right equipment type, it's going to be quality, it's going to be that they are who they say they are and they're going to be. That person's going to actually show up and it's our duty to do that to protect our customer. We shouldn't have to be asking them hey, I'm going to bug you every time I send a truck in there to verify that this actual truck and trailer showed up. And can oh, by the way, can you give me their VIN number two so I can make sure it's on their COI? Like no, that's, that's not the way that we operate. Well, it's the way that some people operate Like.

Speaker 1: 43:52

This is obviously a solution that takes a lot of the manual Monday in process. It just makes it like, you know, a snap of a finger very, very quick and like so what's? You said it was like 10 seconds. They snap a photo and boom, as long as it doesn't require like a manual correction or second look due to pixelation or something like that Exactly. Do you guys have any like funny stories of someone either in the sandbox like a model or actually in production model of someone trying to scam it and try to see how far they can push the system before it detects? No, this is not an authentic photo.

Speaker 3: 44:33

The washing machine is probably the funniest one.

Speaker 1: 44:35

Oh, that's actually a real thing.

Speaker 2: 44:37

Yeah, yeah, you'd be surprised, though. I mean you're getting individuals that don't have any lettering on the side of the truck, numbers on the side of truck, any identifiers. The other thing is you get to see a bit into the condition of the truck, which is cool. But to your point about you know we all in a way to your original point before the comment about something funny as brokers, at some point we all got access to the same trucks at some point. I don't know if it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, but at some point CH Robinson lost their advantage of controlling all the trucks into their load board and being able to go to market and say that we have more capacity than the next person. But we continue to compete on the level of capacity in the eyes of a shipper. Shippers will tell you they don't want you to partake in the entire RFP. That's how many carriers you have, and you're probably going to say somewhere between 35,000 and 65,000. It depends what the last number on your marketing material is, but we all have the same carriers. When you start to deploy tools like this that allow you to get down to the level of this is a confirmed driver phone number with a confirmed name and a confirmed truck. He's picking up here and he's going here. That should give you the ability to now make that connection with the carrier, run the carrier, help build the carrier's business, triangulate them across different loads and hold that data and not share it back to the overarching market which we're all sharing the same information For me to your point earlier.

Speaker 2: 46:12

I think that's really important to mention because we really are just over the past 10 years. At some point we all just started slinging free. That wasn't the intent of brokerage. We all don't do it I'm not suggesting that many companies do it but when brokers went huge during the pandemic, we all started slinging and posting and taking whatever truck we can. We didn't really build capacity anymore. I think that tools like this can take us back to that world where, as a broker, you can compete and as a carrier, you can compete with proprietary information, proprietary relationships, capacity, if you will, and go to market with it.

Speaker 1: 46:53

That's interesting.

Speaker 4: 46:56

I have so many thoughts, and some of which I don't even want to share on air, to what you said. There's four or five things I'm really excited to talk about offline. From that point. I'm curious. So anyone out there how do they use it? Is it pay per load For somebody that wants to look at this or evaluate it? What are the steps scheduled for the demo? Do you have pricing out there? What does that look like for brokers out there?

Speaker 2: 47:23

Do you want to take this one Ed?

Speaker 3: 47:25

We like to leave with the demo and have a conversation with the broker. If they're interested in the product they've seen some of the marketing, some of the podcasts we've been on then reach out. We'd like to schedule a demo and have a conversation. How do you see this product fitting into your business? What type of freight are you going to use it on? How much volume are you looking at? Then we like to give them the demo of the product. Show them the product itself, walk through how loads flow through the system, what the different statuses are, and show them what the driver sees. Make sure that they understand how the product works. Then we can offer free trials. We've done a bunch of free trials up to a week. Then from there, if you find that the product is useful and it does what it says it does, then we sign you up for a pricing model. That could be a per load basis or if you're going to move a ton of volume through the system and it makes sense, then we move into a subscription model. It's really based on how the customer wants to use it.

Speaker 3: 48:19

Two things that I've comments that I will make that you guys kind of alluded to. One, the vetting process is important. The broker still have to do the vetting process. It doesn't replace vetting. This is a bolt-on to make sure that your vetting process works and the carrier that you've vetted and hired is the carrier that's at the shipper. It's a really important note to make, I think one and two the fact that we come from the background of the industry. We help the customer develop the SOPs and build it into their dispatching process. We're willing to hold your hand through. Hey, how do I make Quick Scope work for me? Where does it fit into my process? Can you help me train some of my tracking trace folks to do this and implement it? We're willing to do that. We want to make sure that we provide that high-level customer service and that the Quick Scope is as successful in their process as it is for us.

Speaker 1: 49:10

I want to add in because I have had the chance to see this firsthand and it's really cool. The thing that I like is that you guys, it's not like you got to use it on everything. I think there's so many different brokerage models out there that you might have. Let's say, hey, for all of our new reps, we're going to want you to use Quick Scope as an extra layer of protection for a certain period of time. Or for everybody new carriers that we don't have a trusted history with yet, we're going to want to use Quick Scope on all their loads for a little bit If you get to a point where you've got a level of trust with a customer.

Speaker 1: 49:52

It's not like you're forced to have to use Quick Scope if you don't feel you need to. It's kind of like a use it when you find it adding value, but it's not a model where you're forced to use it on everything. This is a system where you can go in there and give more detail that says this is your product, but you can tell it which loads you want to. You're going to go in there and say, hey, here's the load information boom. It's not like it's stealing every bit of data out of your TMS and you guys are sending it out to everybody.

Speaker 2: 50:33

The data collection is super minimal. I mean, really we're just taking the critical elements the MC, the DOT, the origin, the destination, tractor, trailer number, a few other key ingredients to make sure that your crop's referencing it accurately. But this product does not live inside your TMS. We can integrate we're trying to avoid that for a variety of reasons but it lives outside the TMS. You can use it when you want to use it. We do have recommendations on how to use it. We're actually going to go through a campaign here in the next few weeks kind of broadcasting suggested ways to use it. But you could deploy it on specific commodities, specific geographical regions that are more susceptible to versions of fraud or cargo theft. Maybe it's after a carrier is onboarded for your first 10 loads or anytime there's a new driver phone number. You have to use it.

Speaker 2: 51:26

And what's different about this than some of the vetting tools is, as a leader or an executive, you can set those standards on how to use QuickScope and hold the desk level accountable. You can't necessarily prove that they properly vetted by looking into the tools that they have and making sure they checked all the inspections and safer ratings and all that. What you can do is make sure that they put QuickScope on load if it's a requirement for that commodity or that geographical region or whatever. But yeah, we do not. As people who have purchased these products for a good portion of their careers, I didn't want to have to tell anybody. Yeah, it's this much upfront investment, this much for an integration, and all you have to do is buy a year's worth of subscriptions like no, just use it when you need it. If you like it, keep using it, and that's what we're going for here.

Speaker 1: 52:15

That's awesome. Well, I want to pick your guys' brain on something at the tail end of your brain. Anything else you want to hit on on this topic or anything relevant to the conversation that you haven't gotten to yet.

Speaker 2: 52:31

I think one thing to mention for anybody that's considering calling us to give us an opportunity to use our product is we do have a runway with new functionality that will be unique to the industry and make a big difference, and if you join us now, hopefully we can make it work throughout when we have new functionality.

Speaker 1: 52:54

Definitely. That's awesome. Here's my unrelated quicksqop question. I tend to get this question twice a week from random people I talk to. But where's the free market going to go in 2024 and when's the market going to flip back to the good old days? What do you think Go?

Speaker 2: 53:13

ahead, then you can take this one.

Speaker 3: 53:17

I'll give the old tagline of this projection is correct until it isn't right, or this forecast is right until it's not. I think it's the way it goes. I don't know, Nate. Everybody keeps saying back into this year, I'm not saying it. There's got to be something from the demand side. I think that triggers the need for a market shift. We know the supply is definitely decreasing, but not at a rapid rate. I saw a Jason Miller post today speaking directly to that around how the erosion of the supply side isn't as quick as we've seen in the past. I think we really need both of the knobs to turn in opposite directions in order to process anything. I don't see it on 24. I might eat these words later.

Speaker 2: 54:06

It's not a traditional cycle. I think that's the big argument is a lot of people are looking at this like well, this is how transportation cycles and freight cycles go. It's not that the COVID pandemic changed the way people procured, bought stuff. It changed the way that they spent their disposable income. They weren't going out to eat, they weren't driving to work. They had all this extra money. They're spending it on household goods or food to eat. Then supply chased. All the inbound goods from overseas was completely different ordering patterns, completely different products, the way it was manufactured and shipped, completely different. Now you have us settling back into this new reality. I don't think you're going to have this return to now. The next cycle is going to be great. It's going to be really tight and everybody's going to eat a ton. I just don't think so. I think we're going to slowly climb back into some sort of equilibrium. That'll be the norm and then new cycles will begin.

Speaker 1: 55:14

Yeah, I think I had this conversation earlier today with somebody. I love that you pointed out that you got to turn this on both knobs. For anyone that's new and doesn't really know what we're talking about, we're talking about the supply side and the demand side, supply being the amount of trucks out there. We call that capacity. There definitely are players exiting the market, both on the 3PL and the asset side, but not at a massively rapid pace. I know Dean Crowe from DAT puts out a lot of data you mentioned was it Jason Miller? He's done some stuff with the folks at DAT, in conjunction with them. The other knob is that demand. How much is there for goods? What is the demand to get those trucks?

Speaker 1: 56:01

Mike, you made a good point that the way we consumed or spent our money and consumption during the peak of COVID is way different than it was prior to that. Like you said, building materials or building a house, for that matter, a lot of new constructions for homes and people buying stuff versus going on vacation and things of that nature. I think you take that, coupled with federal interest rates and it's an election year. All those together, I think, goes to Ed's prediction of you're not going to see anything drastic in 2024. I agree, I think you might have a little bit of uptick in rates based off of slight decrease in capacity.

Speaker 1: 56:44

But barring anything out of political realm interest rates, it would take a pandemic, literally. It would take a COVID level event. That could be like a massive war that the US was involved in on a high scale versus lesser involvement that we have in a couple of different conflicts right now. It takes spending to create products that need to get shipped. There's a lot of factors that go into that. Just curious, I know you guys have been around the industry for a while. You guys are both pretty intelligent gentlemen, and I wanted to get your take, ben, do you have anything you want to add in on the market?

Speaker 4: 57:29

I agree with Mosah's sentiment. I think maybe it's more my hopes than I guess what I expect, but I do think when we see some interest rate cuts, I think some of the companies are going to increase some of their inventory. I think and again, this massive bullwhip after COVID you saw a massive increase in inventory and then massive fallouts from them. I do think some companies again it's more expensive to keep inventory at higher interest rates. There's interest rates come down.

Speaker 4: 57:54

I think some of these numbers might change and if fuel stays down, maybe you don't see the exit. If fuel goes up, maybe you start seeing trucking companies exit this market a little faster To an endpoint. One conflict drives fuel up to where it was a year or so ago. You could start seeing these trucks go out of business a lot quicker. I think the thing that won't change back is we have awareness to our industry that had never existed and will now go away. Everybody sat and listened to and learned about supply chains for years during the pandemic and learned some of the industry's opportunities Massive increases in freight brokerages, massive increases in truckers. The awareness isn't going to go away. I think also you were playing with a larger amount of people who either will opt out but can also opt right back in. If the market does pick up Again, we might see different market cycles moving forward. Because of that, I think all of it are question marks.

Speaker 1: 58:50

You made a good point. It's unrelated, but everybody learned something about supply chain during the pandemic In the past and I'm guilty of this too, before I got into logistics a while back. But you would buy something at the store and you don't know how it got there. A phrase used in the army was PFM pure effing magic. Then you realize and we hear all about it during the pandemic early on that oh, there's these big container ships and there's these ports and there's only so much that it can go through the port at one time. Workers are only allowed to work so many hours without emergency changes to those policies. Now people have a little bit more understanding to it, especially those within the industry. As time goes on they move up into leadership roles. They're going to have a higher visibility and just awareness of that.

Speaker 1: 59:42

Back to your first point, wishful thinking. Yeah, we all want to go back because we're a margin-based industry. As much as we want to see rates go up for profitability, we also hate to see our carriers struggling. We're not these bad brokers that hate carriers. We want carriers to get paid too. We don't want it to hurt the American consumer just based off of added cost for transportation. But we'll see. We'll see how 2024 pans out and all that good stuff Back to Quixco. As we wrap up here, We'll make sure we've got a link in our description box or show notes or the description on YouTube for your website and your guys' LinkedIn and everything. Is there any preferred way to reach out or anything you guys want to finish off with?

Speaker 2: 1:00:36

Yeah, I think you can go to Quixscopecom. It's Q-U-I-K-S-K-O-P-E. You can contact us through there. You can go on LinkedIn. Most of our marketing is done through LinkedIn at the moment, or X now, not Twitter. The best way to reach us is email us at info at Quixscopecom. We'll reach out to you. It's going to be one of us communicating with you. We're not going to pass you off. We're going to make sure that it works for you. We're there to help you onboard it. Reach out to one of us and we'll get going.

Speaker 3: 1:01:17

This painless plug. We've got a video on YouTube as well. It's an explainer video a minute 30. It's a really good high-level overview of the product. Check that out as well.

Speaker 1: 1:01:28

I'll make sure I get the link from you guys. I'll plug it into the description setting so people can just make sure you scroll down or hit the description on a podcast and hit that link. You guys can get a quick little view of it. Mike and Ed, we appreciate you having on the show. We're definitely going to have to get you on down the road, whether it's talking about Quixscope or does anything else industry related, because you guys are a wealth of knowledge. Thanks for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Speaker 4: 1:01:54

Ben, any final thoughts, Whether you believe you can or believe you can you're right, and until next time, go bills.