In this new episode of Supply Chain Now, the focus is on creating entrepreneurs through final-mile delivery. Hosts Scott and Greg welcome Sean Kelly, Principal Product Manager with Dispatch to discuss various topics related to last-mile delivery, including considerations for drivers, empowering drivers to expand their delivery business, and the opportunities for entrepreneurship in challenging times. The conversation also touches on the challenges of long-haul driving and the importance of driver safety and fair compensation.

Throughout the episode, they highlight the spirit of entrepreneurial enablement and the goal of helping drivers grow their businesses. They emphasize the resources and support available through Dispatch, which allows drivers to find work and expand their operations, from individual drivers with a single vehicle to companies with multiple trucks and vans.

Listen in as this episode provides valuable insights into the world of final-mile delivery and the opportunities for drivers to become successful entrepreneurs.

Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to Supply Chain. Now the voice of global supply chain Supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues, the challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from Those Making Global Business Happen right here on supply chain now.

Scott Luton (00:33):

Hey, good afternoon, good evening. Good morning, Greg, wherever you are, Scott Luton and Greg White with you here on Supply Chain. Now, welcome to our live stream, Greg. I, I kind of got those outta order today, didn’t I?

Greg White (00:45):

Try it again. Try it.

Scott Luton (00:46):

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. How about that?

Greg White (00:48):

There you go. <laugh>. It always reminds me of the Truman Show when you do that. I love that.

Scott Luton (00:54):

<laugh>. It’s kind of, well, you know what, it’s kind of representative. It’s been a busy start to a busy week, hadn’t it?

Greg White (01:01):

Yeah. And what an odd week, but in some ways, great. First of all, God, I know you celebrated this on LinkedIn. I did not get to, but I’m so excited the Coco Golf won the US Open man. She was this close at Wimbledon, and I was just like, it’s her time. I was a little concerned because she was going up against a big Russian and I thought maybe she would get overpowered, but definitely did not. And by the way, that was a classic shot.

Scott Luton (01:33):

Yes.

Greg White (01:34):

That that ended on. And if you haven’t seen it, uh, go Google, get eyes on it at some point because that was just an awesome shot, great tournament. She is a force to be reckoned with.

Scott Luton (01:47):

She’s a dynamo.

Greg White (01:47):

19 years old.

Scott Luton (01:49):

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Legendary. Well, from one Tennis pro to another, ’cause Greg White’s also a tennis champion. But switching gears, because today Greg more on sports at 11 today, Greg, we’re talking about two of our favorite topics beyond new legends in sports. We’re talking about entrepreneurs and Final Mile.

Greg White (02:07):

Yeah.

Scott Luton (02:07):

So we’re gonna be joined by a business leader from an award-winning organization that’s certainly on the move. And amongst other things, Greg, we’re gonna be talking about how a mix of independent contractors and couriers is powerfully enabling flawless fulfillment and customer-centric delivery. And hey, say that three times fast, right? Hey, we can continue to tennis theme a cause member one, Jim Courier, right? Jim Courier a champion back from the, uh, eighties and nineties.

Greg White (02:37):

You man, digging that out of the archive.

Scott Luton (02:39):

<laugh>, Greg, great conversation teed up here today, right?

Greg White (02:42):

Yeah. Unquestionably, I love this look. And if you saw my recent posts on LinkedIn, you only have one job as a retailer, as any kind of supplier or a, a direct to consumer brand. And that is deliver.

Scott Luton (02:56):

That’s right.

Greg White (02:57):

So you make all these promises and you have all these hopes and dreams established in your sales and your marketing process. But the final mile is where it’s proven. So you’ve gotta have every aspect of getting that product pleasingly into your customer’s hands.

Scott Luton (03:16):

That’s right. Right.

Greg White (03:17):

They have to be happy, right? Not just get a delivery, but they have to be happy about it.

Scott Luton (03:21):

Absolutely. Right. And while creating all of that, while creating opportunities for couriers across the country. So folks wanna hear from you as well. We’re gonna welcome our guests in just a second. We wanna hear from all of you. I see Maria, see him, is back from Delaware. Great to see you, Alan. You name it. We wanna hear from you throughout the hour. So with no further ado, wanna welcome in our featured guests here today. Sean Kelly, principal product manager with dispatch. Hey, Sean, how you doing?

Sean Kelly (03:49):

Doing well. How are you

Scott Luton (03:50):

Doing? Wonderful. Wonderful. You’re in beautiful Denver, which we established in the Green Room, and hopefully enjoying your, uh, journeys this week so far, huh?

Sean Kelly (04:02):

Absolutely. Yeah. The weather’s starting to change, but it’s still, still nice out,

Scott Luton (04:06):

But it’s cooler there than it is here. But you know what? So Greg and Sean, do y’all know what day it is today? It is National Video Game day. So Greg, as you know, and Sean, as you know now, my son Ben, he’s ready to throw a parade. Huge video game fan Fortnite, anything with Spider-Man and Mario Super Mario or Luigi, both of them. Some of his faves. As y’all know, video games have been around Guess, uh, believe it or not, since the 1950s. Some of the earliest were virtual Tic-tac toe. That sounds like a lot of fun. And something called Space War then came Pong and Atari. And then of course the Nintendo Entertainment System changed everything in the mid eighties. So won’t forget Arcade games. Yeah, that’s, that’s right. Grant. Remember those days? I do, I went through lots and lots of quarters. $5, Sean and Greg at the local mo arcade. You feel like a king or queen, you know. So my question for you and all the other folks out there ask Greg too, what has been, maybe as a kid, maybe as an adult, what’s one of your favorite all time video game shot?

Sean Kelly (05:11):

Well, for me, I think it’s probably Guitar Hero. I love that. When that game came out, I just playing guitar with my friends in high school was never as good type real guitar as a guitar hero. But that game was a blast.

Scott Luton (05:22):

It was. Now, which, do you remember any songs in particular that you slayed on? Guitar Hero?

Sean Kelly (05:28):

Well, I really preferred like Beatles rock band when that came out. Like we kind of got to that point, but I mean, I don’t remember all the exact songs on regular Guitar Hero, but I remember we got really hard, had to use like the very bottom green button too, <laugh>. But yeah, that was absolute blast. All right. So

Scott Luton (05:44):

To all as Sean’s friends and family, if we can get any shots of him playing Guitar Hero and just ripping the guitar, please share. Okay. Greg, what about you, Greg?

Greg White (05:53):

First of all, that is a great draw guitar hero. That is fantastic. And Sean, it is sort of like, uh, putt putt golf for golfers. You know, if you’re a <laugh>, if you’re a real golfer, you’re terrible at putt putt golf <laugh>, likewise, if you’re a real guitar player, I mean a really good guitar player, they’ve really struggled to play guitar. So the better you are at air guitar, okay, better, you’re a guitar hero. But I’m going to with an ar arcade game one that I still have in my basement, Gallaga, I got that from my wife for Christmas one year, and she actually said when she came down with tears in her eyes, let’s, better than any jewelry <laugh>.

Scott Luton (06:34):

Oh, I love it, Greg. I love that. I love that story too. So Vicki, if you’re listening somewhere, I love that. Okay, well, Sean and Greg, we’ve got lots of, let’s see, Brandon, state of the K two, sorry, not sorry. He says Mario Kart. Lindsay says Mario Kart all the way. Jose Mortal Kombat. Amanda says, I’m not really into video games, but I used to play old school Nintendo with my brother all night long on Christmas Eve. And Jose Gallica is the best. All right, good stuff there. All right, so we’ll, we’ll save the parades and everything else for national video game, uh, day later. I wanna get into, we got a lot of good stuff to get into with you today, Sean. Really, we’ve enjoyed our conversations with dispatch. Of course, we had your colleague Alex, with us, uh, a few weeks ago. But today, uh, as we get started here, Greg and Sean, I wanna do some more level setting. We can’t get enough context in these challenging times we live in. So I wanna start, Sean, with this question, why does the final mile delivery space need to be improved and perhaps even more standardized?

Sean Kelly (07:35):

Yeah, thank you for that question. So I think the most important thing is to think about all the different stakeholders that operate within this environment, whether it’s the shipper, the driver, the courier, the person receiving information, even like the technology platforms that people interact with. And so standardization really allows things to operate more efficiently, to have everyone seeing the same information and to have a, you know, transparency into what’s expected from all parties. Hmm. And so when we could do that, it’ll lead to things like increased efficiencies, cost savings, savings, increased customer satisfaction, but, you know, standardization’s really about just transparency and everyone, um, operating underneath the same expectations. Hmm.

Scott Luton (08:18):

So what a great starting point, Greg. ’cause with transparency, man, that just builds trust. And with trust you can move mountains. But your thoughts, Greg, on what, where Sean started there?

Greg White (08:27):

Well, you know, the standardization also leads to reliability. And that’s as we kind of opened with, that’s so critical. But you know, that transparency is something we all seek. We don’t have to, we don’t have to speculate on this like you do with some, sometimes with B two B, supply chain concepts, everyone experiences this. Every time you’ve ordered from anyone. One of the most important things to know is, one, do they have it? And two, what you’ll get here. Hmm. So being able to understand that upfront and then throughout the process, if it’s a long process, is really critical. Yeah. I wish we’ve had way back when I was ordering stuff with box top from PIOs boxes, how long that model airplane gets there.

Scott Luton (09:14):

Oh, that just took me back, Greg. I’m with you, Sean, you were about to add a comment there.

Sean Kelly (09:19):

Yeah, I think it, I think it’s just really about like those expectations. Like we have those as consumers, but even like B two B deliveries, B two B fundamental deliveries, if you could track your food coming to you, if you could track like a box, you got like, um, online suber issue of track, like the resources you need to get a job done as well. And so I think just having like the end-to-end visibility and just information is gonna help like a business be able to execute on like their customer’s needs more too. As long as like, as long as information’s there and shared things can operate more effectively.

Scott Luton (09:52):

Yes. So we’re not in the, so we’re that we’re in the know and we can make decisions. Correct. Retirement decisions and better decisions, uh, to your point, do business better. I wanna switch gears here. So we’re of course, we’re gonna talk about the dispatch platform, uh, in a few minutes. And it sure sounds, by the way, it sure seems, Sean, you and your dispatch friends really enjoy working together. We’ve really noticed the culture and it just attracts people to you, it seems. But I wanna talk in particular about the drivers, right? This week, of course, which we’re gonna touch on later. We’re celebrating drivers that they keep the world truly not just in our country, every around the world. They keep us all moving forward. So Sean, you’ve got your finger on the pulse. So tell us in general, from your perspective, what’s important to drivers and couriers right now?

Sean Kelly (10:36):

Yeah, so I think that what’s important to drivers, you know, there’s a lot of things are the same. Some are different depending on full-time driver, part-time driver if they are doing this as their business or if they have multiple drivers. But some things are all pretty much shared and they wanna maximize their time and they wanna maximize their assets. They’re utilizing to pick things up and deliver them. So as you, you know, as an operative driver, you want to be driving and you want to be making sure that when you’re spending your time driving, that you’re doing it as efficiently as possible. And that if you are gonna dedicate six hours to driving, you would have six hours of orders to fulfill. It’s not just like making money and it’s not using your time wisely. And I talk to our drivers all the time and they just wanna know, is there gonna be enough demand for me today?

Sean Kelly (11:23):

Is it gonna be in the right area for me today? And how can they, you know, maximize their time working and driving so they can also maximize their time not working right? Have time to enjoy themselves. So that work-life balance is important to them. Safety is important to them. And if we think about right now, like at a broader scale, it’s a tough time to be a driver right now. Insurance is up, gas is up, rates are kind of down like in the broader trucking market. So again, being able to make sure that you’re, you’re maximizing your time and your asset as sufficiently as possible are the things that I hear every day talking to our drivers.

Scott Luton (12:00):

Sean, what a great list, Greg. We’re out of all of the lists of things that are important to drivers that Sean shared there, what sticks out to you? Well, I mean, there are a lot that get expressed, right? Every, every driver wants to be treated with respect, which I can tell you can be a challenge at times. Every driver, you know, wants to have work-life balance. But the truth is they do this for economic benefit. And I think the thing that maximizes their economic benefit helps them feel respected, helps them appreciate that work-life balance and balance. As Sean said, it helps them believe that their time is being respected by being routed and managed wisely, right? Mm. To me, you can feel a lot more respected when your economic needs are met. And I mean, let’s face it is their job and it is probably their livelihood in a lot of cases. So I think that’s one of the things that really has to stand out. And it’s also one of the most difficult to accomplish because, you know, as we talked about, those routes could be anywhere. They could be everywhere, or they could be really, really organized and efficient for them as well. So I, I like this, I like the spirit. I still go back to this. I like the spirit of the way you guys approach this stuff, Sean, of, you know, thinking about what makes this a beneficial relationship for everybody involved.

Sean Kelly (13:20):

Totally. Yeah. And that’s a, oh, go, go ahead Scott.

Scott Luton (13:23):

No, Sean, please.

Sean Kelly (13:25):

I’ll just say like, for us, especially dispatch, like we’re a very people first organization of our core values and drivers are a key person in that equation, right? So you have to respect the drivers and like, to your point, make sure that if they’re gonna come to your platform, they’re gonna get filled up and they’re gonna get busy, paid fairly, pay quickly. And those are just things that are, everyone shares those those wants as a driver. Hmm.

Scott Luton (13:51):

Sean, well said. Uh, you and Greg both, and you mentioned safety, Greg, as, as for years now we’ve been talking about driver safety, finding places to pull over and rest and that’s well lit, that’s secure. I mean, these things are just, they’re in a blind spot for so many consumers. So Sean, I really liked your holistic approach to clearly the voice of the driver, which again, y’all really treated as North Star, which is important.

Greg White (14:13):

Well, and I think when you’re talking about last mile, you’re talking about whole different breadth of security, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, because it could be, you’re in the last mile, you could be on dirt roads one minute, right? And unimproved roads, another minute and paved roads, another minute in good areas and bad areas and industrial areas and in residential areas, in high traffic areas, um, all of which can create risk for these drivers. So, um, understanding that and managing to that is critical, you know, ages ago, um, to eliminate risk, one company made only right turns and Right. And I mean that I think that there’s simple things you can do, but the world, especially for Final Mile is so much more complex now.

Scott Luton (14:59):

Excellent point, Greg. And context, again, the world can’t get enough context these days in global supply chain for sure. Sean and Greg, so let’s do this. I want to, as we continue to represent and amplify the voice of the driver, so to speak. So when it comes to picking a load board or a platform, Sean, what are drivers looking for there?

Sean Kelly (15:19):

Yeah, so I, I think that when it comes to like, you know, a load board, uh, marketplace, a gig app, whatever it is that someone’s gonna go to to find work, that they’re going there to find work that’s relevant to them that is gonna meet their needs, right? And there’s different marketplaces or load boards or apps to use from final mile or over the road. You know, there’s the traditional load boards where you kind of post the load and call and negotiate where the rate and then do a lot of things kind of off platform. But I think that what’s important to them is it’s easy to use technology, that it’s the right type of freight or delivery profile for them based on where they are, the timeframes, the type of vehicle that they use, whether they have a cargo van or a box truck, or even it’s like their own personal car.

Sean Kelly (16:04):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s gonna need to fit their needs and people wanna get paid early and quickly and that if they go to a place to get work, that there’s actually work for them there to take. So I think that just understanding what it is you’re looking for. And then when you go to these platforms, like do they meet your needs to be able to keep you busy and kind of get those driver expectations we talked about, are you gonna come there and make money or you’re gonna come to maybe an empty marketplace like ghost orders or something, you know, <laugh>,

Scott Luton (16:33):

Right? Casper orders. Well, so Greg, I’m get your comments here, but one of the things I heard, uh, Sean speak to there is the load board of the platform’s gotta be really effective at the matchmaking that goes on, but your thoughts Greg?

Greg White (16:46):

Yeah, well, you know, I may or may not have invested in a few supply chain tech companies over the years and whenever you have a marketplace solution, that’s what I would call it. Whenever you have a marketplace solution like this, it’s incredibly critical and very difficult to maintain that balance of enough, right? Enough drivers to bring the shippers and enough shippers to bring the drivers. And, you know, you have to get to kind of a critical mass relatively quickly or your entire future as a marketplace is at risk. So if you can maintain that balance early, early on, obviously you can get to the kind of volume and capacity that Sean and his team have. But it, I, I mean, I don’t wanna understate how hard that is to do and it takes a very, very conscious effort to maintain that balance in the early years. But once you get to that level, it’s incredibly powerful for both parties.

Scott Luton (17:42):

Right? Yep. Well said. And Sean, I’m gonna give you the last word and I’m gonna bring in some folks from the audience before we move on. Any, any final, uh, when as we talk about the voice of the drivers and you really laid a lot of stuff out there, Sean, any final word you wanna add?

Sean Kelly (17:56):

Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, especially like in this week or this time is to, you know, realize that these are people running a business. They have the same needs that you would when you wanna be safe, you wanna be paid fairly, you wanna maximize your time and you wanna be able to operate in an environment to where the services that you have to offer are being utilized in a way that’s gonna make sense for you.

Scott Luton (18:18):

Yeah, well said. So before we move on, we’re about to dive into more about dispatch and some of the cool things. You’re up to memory. Greg Memory is stuck in traffic from conference and she wants our help to keep her from losing it. So <laugh>, I love that memory. Hope to start.

Greg White (18:34):

It’s funny that we’re talking about final mile, isn’t it? Memory <laugh>? Um,

Scott Luton (18:38):

it is. I hope we’re not on the monitor in our car,

Greg White (18:41):

just over the radio. Do we even call it a radio? We’ll, audio only. There you go. Memory,

Scott Luton (18:47):

see him says I shadowed a dispatch for a day as a student in Charleston and while is at high tempo and the drivers are funny, hey, we appreciate good senses of humor for sure. And hey PB Peter Bole all night and all day, great to have you back. Hope this finds you well. Uh, we know that you continue to do big things across global supply chain. Alright, so Greg and Sean, Sean really enjoy, we don’t have enough shows. The industry doesn’t have enough conversations focused on drivers of all sorts in a holistic manner, even though they form the core of supply chain. It’s so interesting. Let’s talk about what dispatch does. So this is important context. So in a nutshell, what does your organization do?

Sean Kelly (19:26):

Right? So dispatch, we operate on demand, final mile delivery marketplace for the most part. So you have shippers who will post an order and then we have a network of drivers and courier partners to fulfill those orders. We operate all over North America or all over the US in about 75 plus markets. And so it’s really focused on that final mile B two B delivery for primarily B two B. So businesses to businesses, but also B two B two C environments. And so the way our platform operates is that orders come in to our network, right? Whether it’s a car to a cargo van, to a box truck, we would then find the best fit driver or courier for that order offer to them. They’ll pick it up, they’ll deliver it and they’ll get paid. And so historically dispatch operated would just independent contractors like one-to-one. So maybe I have a cargo van in Denver,

Scott Luton (20:24):

Right?

Sean Kelly (20:25):

I could come get on the platform and if there’s cargo van orders in Denver, I’d be able to leverage dispatch app, get all the details I need on that app from pick up delivery timeframes, all the information they need, they bring it to the destination, they drop it off, they take a photo of it, job’s done. What we are doing now is that we are opening up the platform to have an independent contractor could then grow their business by hiring more drivers. And for example, we have our independent contractor network. They have like our courier and carrier network. And so we’ve had drivers that worked with us for years. And so now as a driver, let’s say I’m in Denver, but I have drivers that are maybe in Phoenix that worked for my company. I can now get them orders in Phoenix and be able to grow my business using dispatches platform, but not having to physically actually be there. Hmm. So yeah, so that’s kinda we do in a nutshell.

Scott Luton (21:26):

I love Sean, appreciate that. And Greg, I wanna bring you in here man, if it works that easy, that’s just too, almost too good to be true. Greg, your comments there on, as Sean kind of walks us through how it works.

Greg White (21:36):

Yeah. Well I’d love to open with a question. So to be clear, you not only put shippers and delivery companies or couriers together, right? Or even individuals, but also facilitate them to grow their staff either, what do I wanna say as employees or as contractors to help expand their own reach?

Sean Kelly (21:59):

Totally. Yeah. So you can come to dispatch, just a one, like you have a cargo van or you have a car, right? Maybe you’re using another delivery app to make like food deliveries. You just have a car, you can come to our platform and find work. If you have, um, a company with like three box trucks, two cargo vans, and a pickup truck, you can also come to our platform. And so going from having one vehicle to having 10 right? Doesn’t happen overnight, right? But dispatch is a platform that you can use to expand your own business, your own footprint just by going from an IC to side one cargo van and then expanding from there. So we offer that up to our drivers. We want to empower our drivers to be able to work with dispatch and then grow their company and hire other people to work for them.

Scott Luton (22:48):

Greg, you wrote no joke. I did not know that I had one of those moments. Scott, does anyone else know about this? That is such a genius tie in and I think what this really tells me is your focus is on, as you said, it’s in the title of the show, right? <laugh>. It, it really is more than just the technology to put these companies together. It is to allow them to expand their businesses, both the shippers and the carriers and that facilitation aside from just the load board marketplace, right? But that facilitation is really powerful.

Scott Luton (23:22):

Yes.

Sean Kelly (23:22):

Yeah. Unlike other platforms that could be like a load board or whatever, like our orders come to us and the shipper is placing their trust in us to get this fulfilled, right? So any, any order that comes into our platform, it’s not like a bid on that thing. We offer the drivers transparent and fair pay for those orders that we have for them, and then we do our best to route and optimize them and maximize their time. Well,

Greg White (23:46):

On,

Sean Kelly (23:46):

On the other side of that, like you’re like an established courier company in a certain market, you can also come and work with us and take orders as well. And I talked to a bunch of couriers every day as we’re work on these products and they all come to the same thing. It’s like no one has a hundred percent supply and demand. There’s sometimes when these couriers have you say, Sean, I have more orders than drivers today, or I’ll have more drivers than orders, right? And so we’re trying to create this mutually beneficial platform for them to where if you’re a courier, you can come to us and get some of our demand and keep your drivers busy. If you have an order to fulfill for your customer, be maybe it’s in a network that you don’t operate in or someone calls out sick, you could pass us orders and have that be fulfilled by our drivers.

Scott Luton (24:34):

Yeah. So I wanna spike the football in two things here because you, you, you, yeah. You’ve, you’ve touched on a couple things I wanna kind of back up and make sure we amplify these points because you’re talking really one of the major themes here today has been how you and your team empower drivers and as Greg pointed out to grow and expand their footprint. Anything before we get into, eliminate all the worrying that goes on in terms of making sure you get all the customers covered, no orders covered. Anything else you wanna touch on in terms of how you truly empower drivers to grow their business and grow a successful business? Anything else you wanna add there, Sean?

Sean Kelly (25:10):

Yeah, I think, and we have like some case studies on this that we sharing out as well, but like I said, like you can start with dispatch with just one vehicle, right? And as we start to provide you enough value to hire additional drivers, you can then leverage our app, right? I’m Sean, I’m a driver. I’m gonna use a dispatch app to take orders and then I can also use Dispatches platform to get orders for my other drivers and assign those to them. Real

Scott Luton (25:39):

Orders, not ghost to orders, right?

Sean Kelly (25:42):

Real, yeah, real, real orders, real demand that depending on the market and the type of vehicle that you have, we can keep these drivers busy and help them. There can be two of you, right? If you’re a cargo van driver and you only have one band, you can only do so much <laugh>. But then if you’re able to hire more people, we can get you more income to help scale up your business. Alright,

Scott Luton (26:04):

Greg, we’re signing up today. You ready to do you ready? <laugh>? Too bad. We, we just got rid of our van, man.

Greg White (26:09):

Do you have a route where I could leave Atlanta and stop several places on the way to Savannah or Hilton Head? Yes, absolutely. <laugh> Sean, right?

Sean Kelly (26:21):

We we may

Scott Luton (26:22):

Luck Gas money, <laugh>. Yeah,

Sean Kelly (26:24):

We do operate in those markets. Yeah.

Scott Luton (26:27):

Okay. Well and that’s,

Greg White (26:28):

wow, really, that’s pretty cool.

Scott Luton (26:29):

And because Shawnee mentioned 75 or 76 different markets, do you get a chance to get out there and visit a lot of those? Is that part of what you do?

Sean Kelly (26:37):

Well, I definitely, I mean, before I started working dispatch, I downloaded the app and did some deliveries myself to kind of see what it was all about <laugh>. Oh really? Yeah. So that, that was good. But you know, over like the past like 10 years, I’ve definitely been inside of every kind of different delivery vehicle. Whether it’s like a full truckload driving around New York doing drop offs or, you know, sitting in the back of a truck while sitting unloaded. I haven’t gone out as much outside of Denver, but I definitely keep a strong pulse on our drivers on different markets to make sure that what is they’re doing is actually achievable. Yep. And that they’re, that the physical environment they’re working in is more a safe one. Mm-hmm. So I think it’s super important like to get in the driver’s shoes and actually do the job that they do as you’re building technology for them. I’m gonna say, yeah, I, I think it’s super important to like, to become like the driver and to go do the work that they do. ’cause I build technology like for them and with them. Mm-hmm. But until you’re actually doing their job, you can’t fully appreciate all that goes into it.

Scott Luton (27:34):

Greg, that’s that what Sean just said over, over the last two minutes. Especially the fact that he signed up and made deliveries, you know, before his current role and how really putting, putting on the eyes and ears of the driver as you’re building technology for drivers, that is, that’s my favorite part of the interview thus far. But your thoughts, Greg, before we talk about the, some of the things.

Greg White (27:56):

Yeah, I, so it’s funny because we’ve talked to your colleagues before Sean, right? And it’s interesting kind of all the focuses that, that you all have, right? I mean, we talked about transparency and those sorts of things, but I think what’s interesting about your take on this is the, you know, the real focus on the drivers. But when you put it all together, it’s a really interesting con uh, comparison of the transparency, which enables the drivers to have a better experience along with all these other things that you’ve mentioned. Hmm. It’s super powerful. I, I’m curious, I’m gonna go off script here. Okay. Sean, prepare yourself.

Scott Luton (28:35):

I’m good.

Greg White (28:36):

I’m curious, like we’re on script <laugh>, but have you seen bus I we predicted lots of people have predicted more and more business moving to what, I don’t know what to call, call it, other than niche or smaller kind of last mile drivers. We predicted that would be the case. Are you seeing the market moving that direction just ’cause of how much is getting delivered to homes these days?

Sean Kelly (29:03):

I mean, yeah, like there’s, there’s trucking companies. Yeah, there’s trucking companies. Like, we’re not like, we’re not like a traditional like full truckload marketplace or anything like that. We’re definitely like a smaller equal types, like box trucks are the biggest that we go right now. But we have like trucking companies who come to dispatch to sign up to start doing more of those intra market deliveries. So yeah, to answer your question, like there is like a migration from like maybe over the road trucking, like long haul to more localized deliveries just depending on what’s to make sense to that driver or that company.

Scott Luton (29:35):

Yep. Speaking of box trucks, Greg, I shared this with you, Sean hadn’t shared this with you. Drove a box two ago from Atlanta to Aiken, South Carolina and it taught me to appreciate a cruise control more than any lesson in my life. I went the cheap route evidently and did not have a cruise control and I needed a bigger engine. But <laugh>, I’ll save that story for another day. I wanted to talk, Sean, how does dispatch eliminate, there’s a ton of worrying out there to make sure you’ve got what you need. You’ve got the drivers you need to cover not just one or two, but all of your customer orders. So Sean, how does your platform ensure that worry is unfounded?

Sean Kelly (30:13):

Yeah, so this is like, you know, the, the other side of the equation for us to where when we work with like courier trucking companies, we want to be, uh, a demand driver for them, right? But also to be a supply driver for them. So there’s an example, there’s a, a courier that’s actually based in Denver who they had a ton of orders for their, their customer who has like a tire shop around town. And so they had five drivers, right? But they had like 20 to 30 different orders that day. So they’d cover some of them with their own assets. And then the ones they couldn’t or they weren’t like as efficient for them, they’ll pass those to us and then we’ll cover those with our drivers. We wanna create like a closed loop to where you need more demand, come to us if you have like overflow shipments, pass them to us and we’ll help you get them fulfilled. So we want to create that kinda like closed loop to where we’re both a, a supply provider and a demand driver for our, our partners

Scott Luton (31:11):

Walk it demand, uh, dynamic demand enablement. Greg, comment on what you heard there and how we can eliminate all that worrying.

Greg White (31:19):

Well, I mean, I, yeah, I mean I think we’ve, we’ve covered that pretty efficiently, haven’t we? I mean that and efficiency is the key, right? I mean, making it a viable business for these small couriers all the way to fully established courier companies, but also helping these shippers get their goods to where they need ’em to be. I just think there’s so much, there’s just so much opportunity now because especially in the times that we’re having and we’re gonna see a lot more people become entrepreneurs, right? Right. I mean, we hear about it every day. I just heard the true truest, the third biggest bank in the, in the states is gonna lay off a huge portion of their, those people are gonna become entrepreneurs. So having tools like this, I wanted to say vehicles, you don’t provide the actual vehicles, Sean, do you kidding? I know you don’t. Or do you

Sean Kelly (32:11):

We we don’t have any, any assets anymore. We did started they had their own cargo van. Yeah,

Greg White (32:16):

Yeah, yeah. Okay. The, it’s important to have these kind of enablement platforms as entrepreneurs can start their businesses or evolve their businesses. And I think there’s an aspect of this that is really, really powerful for entrepreneurs. I’m just saying, Sean, if you guys wanted to connect people with available cargo vehicles, I’m sure you haven’t thought of that <laugh>.

Sean Kelly (32:43):

No, but I think this like, like our, what dispatch is trying to do is to really, uh, create those efficiencies throughout the local deliveries, right? So we obviously want to fulfill our shipper’s orders, right? But then we wanna focus on like the quality of service to connect those two, whether it’s an independent contractor or a courier partner, to make sure that we’re getting the right orders to the right person at the right time so that the shipper’s happy, their orders can be picked up and delivered on time. We can match the drivers with an efficient route to potentially bundle it down orders and create a good use of their time so that they can staple, get deliveries done and get paid. But then we also want to tap into the courier network so that we can expand our footprint and also help them expand theirs.

Scott Luton (33:32):

Everybody can win for sure. And Tomcat ask a great question ’cause I, and I think I know the answer but Sean let you answer. ’cause you’re taking new drivers all the time, right Sean?

Sean Kelly (33:45):

Yeah, I mean you couldn’t, you, there’s two ways to sign up if you are independent contractor, we have a, a path that if you’re like a courier company with two or more drivers, there’s a path for that. So just come in, tell us where you work, what kind of vehicles you have, and we’ll get you onto the platform and try to start driving some demand your way.

Scott Luton (34:07):

Man, Botta, batta, bing, botta, bottom, boom, it’s done. It’s just that easy. I love it.

Greg White (34:12):

It’s right.

Scott Luton (34:13):

Yeah.

Greg White (34:14):

And when you need to expand, there’s a way to do that as well. I mean, if you wanna expand outside markets or even within your markets I’m sure, right? Mm-hmm.

Sean Kelly (34:22):

Totally.

Scott Luton (34:24):

Alright. No wonder y’all are growing left and right. And I, I wanna say too, especially when, because we’re gonna, we’re about to talk about the National Truck Driver Appreciation week, which is this week, we’re gonna talk about that in just a second. But the culture that we’ve observed, I mean, it seems like y’all are really welcoming, easy to, easy to work with, uh, inclusive, wanna wanna protect and help these drivers grow their, have good business that matches their operations and their footprint and grow that good business. I love that. Alright, before I switch gears, I’ve got a kindred spirit here in the audience that feels my pain on my story off talking about ago.

Greg White (35:00):

Yeah, I saw that.

Scott Luton (35:01):

<laugh> Peter says, Hey, I know the feeling. Move my buddy from Montreal to Halifax with a U-Haul rental truck, 13 hours straight, easy to long-haul drive. Yeah. Pain the leg without cruise control. Peter, man, I am with you and I know that might be a a, a first world complaint or, or problem, but man, my right leg was killing me, uh, when I pulled up. Okay. So I wanna, you know, listen to me complaining about a two and a half hour trip with little traffic and, and an easy, you know, an easy move. And that’s part of the, you know, the blind spot is so many consumers, even practitioners have around what drivers fight through day in and day out, right? So I wanna, before we get into making sure folks can connect with Sean and connect with these resources and stuff, answering Tom Kat’s question a little bit more. Always think of Top Gun when I hear Tom Katt that good old F 14, but National Truck driver appreciation week 2023 in your view, Sean, and clearly you’ve got your finger on the pulse. You’re, you’re, uh, very passionate about serving the driver community and helping them grow their business and, and be appreciated. And why, beyond all of that, why is it important that we set this week aside and and recognize these folks that make global supply chains happen? Yeah,

Sean Kelly (36:13):

I mean, I think it’s important to appreciate that every day, kinda like Mother’s Day. We don’t only love her on Father’s Day, but, but to your, to your point, I think that in, maybe in 2020, people se finally start to appreciate during the pandemic that these are essential workers and that without them we would have food, we would have electricity, anything that’s actually moving from point A to point B. And I think it’s important to appreciate maybe not even just the truck drivers, of course truck drivers, but a cargo van driver, a car driver, anyone who’s actually getting behind the wheel. Yeah. And making deliveries happen is important to appreciate. And even to, to your point, one of the most stressful things that I do in my life is drive. It’s I, whether I’m trying to find parking or changing lanes. And so it’s important to appreciate like when you’re driving next to these trucks on the freeway or something, slow down, let them over.

Sean Kelly (36:58):

There’s a person in there, right? So I think it’s, it’s important to appreciate them not just this week, but always. And I do appreciate the theme this week, like miles of gratitude, it’s important to appreciate people who are doing something that’s going to help you live your life. And obviously people say it’s the backbone of the economy and it’s totally true. So just like think taking a moment, appreciating there’s someone in that vehicle and whether you’re getting something delivered to your door, like an extra thank you, you’re driving on the highway, slow down. All right. I think it’s important. You and I definitely spent a lot of time, like even in the big 53 foot trucks, like driving along with them, it’s intense. It’s like, it’s really, really intense job. Again, it’s important to me because I work with these people every day and I have like a really close relationship with a lot of them. So yeah, that’s kind of my take on it

Scott Luton (37:49):

And yeah, thank you Sean. I really appreciate that take and more folks need to hear that take and act on that take. Right? Uh, Greg, I wanna get you to comment before we go any further.

Greg White (37:59):

I’m gonna start this week. I had, I do have a long highway drive between a couple places that I try not to do fairly frequently. Also try not to do when I’m hangry <laugh>, but I mean, it, it, you know, I get it and I think I’m gonna run your comment here on Loop while I’m driving, um, because it can be hard to do and you have to recognize that they’re out there in some way for you, right? To deliver something that’s going to you or somebody like you or whatever, right? There is a person at every step of every sale, delivery, shipment, all of that. So I, I think you have to recognize that you, it’s all about you <laugh>, except that to get it to you, it has to also be about them, right?

Sean Kelly (38:46):

Yeah. I think the best way to show gratitude is by actually like doing something that’s like gracious, you know, showing appreciation is one thing, but like doing an act that contributes to that is another thing, you know? Yeah, yeah,

Greg White (38:58):

Yeah. Well said. I think they might settle in some cases just for people not to yell at them through the car window while they’re <laugh>,

Sean Kelly (39:06):

Right? Yeah.

Greg White (39:07):

Honestly, um,

Sean Kelly (39:08):

A little nice goes a long way for sure.

Greg White (39:10):

Yeah, it does. You’re right. And if you have kids in the car, they love <laugh>.

Sean Kelly (39:16):

They love it. Yeah.

Greg White (39:17):

And I love it. So

Sean Kelly (39:19):

I love it too.

Scott Luton (39:20):

Beyond all of this, which I think is very important, I should add that intangibles of gratitude, what’s I believe is equally if not more important is what you were talking about earlier, Sean, which is you’re focused and you’re passionate about growing good business for all of these drivers. And that is, you know, that is such a, and and it sounds like, and, and I’m gonna have to sign up, I wanted to give it a try ’cause it sounds like it’s just as easy as it maybe should be and should have been for years. So let’s do this. First off, Sean, I got a couple things y’all, y’all got some resources we’re gonna share with folks in just a second. And you’ve got something coming out this week, which is we’ll shed more details on, I’ll call it the power of dispatch. But first off Sean, how can folks connect with you? Yeah,

Sean Kelly (40:04):

So I’m on LinkedIn, Sean, I think there’s about 10,000 of me out there, but if Sean Kelly dispatch, pretty common name. Sean Kelly. But yeah, then I’m just a seanKelly@dispatchat.com. Yeah, I’d love to connect with anyone, but anything, anytime, especially we talked about today <laugh>. Um,

Scott Luton (40:23):

Well clearly though we’re kind of kidding here, but you are very, I mean, you’re from the Green Room pre-show as Greg, Greg and I picked up on our earlier calls last couple weeks. This is something that is in your bones, you are passionate about serving this driver ecosystem. And I, I think that is, that is the, uh, really good news, uh, to me here today. ’cause that ecosystem needs advocates like you that’s looking out for them and not trying to take advantage of them, which has been done time and time and time again. Okay. So we’ve got resources, we love resources. Uh, first off, yes, uh, you can connect with Sean there. You’re one click away from connecting with at least one of the 10,000 Sean Kelly that Sean put out there, but you’ve got this blog. Let’s see, four benefits of being a courier partner with dispatch. I bet we covered at least three of them today and Yeah. Right. Uh, let’s see here. We’ve got a landing, what I’ll call a resource landing page on Becoming a Courier today. And I bet that will go to Tom Kat’s question, right? Where that’s where you can get involved and, and basically join the family. Is that right Sean?

Sean Kelly (41:30):

Yep, absolutely. And uh, yeah, there’s, and there’s a lot of other, other resources on there too and like testimonials from some of our drivers who became couriers and couriers who have joined our network just to help with some extra demand, right? So it’s like there’s, there’s probably a place for you at dispatch depending on what you’re looking for.

Scott Luton (41:49):

Yep. Love that. And of course there’s no guarantees in life, right? There’s no guarantees in life. So there probably is a place there’s probably Sure

Sean Kelly (41:56):

<laugh>. Yeah,

Scott Luton (41:56):

Certainly lots of opportunity undeniably. Alright. And then Greg, we got the goods and I checked with Sean double check with Sean that we’re not gonna get in trouble with letting the cat outta the bag, but there’s a case study coming out this week with that focuses, I think, Sean on dispatches good work and relationship and partnership with point to point Logistics outta Houston, is that right?

Sean Kelly (42:20):

Yeah, so one of, one of our drivers out there just is a case study with him. He, he’s been dispatch driver since, uh, I think like September of 2022. He also has a number of, uh, drivers he works with in Austin and Dallas. Yeah. And so now there’s a pretty much will be a case study articulating what we talked about, stating these different use cases around, start as a driver, hire some more people, then you can start to take orders in places where you’re not physically there.

Scott Luton (42:48):

Okay.

Sean Kelly (42:48):

With your other, very cool with your other drivers. Yeah.

Greg White (42:52):

They get that from you or do they, I mean, when that’s available, how would you like people that it

Sean Kelly (42:57):

Should be available? How would you like

Scott Luton (42:59):

To

Sean Kelly (42:59):

Add that to me? Sean

Greg White (43:00):

Is mostly best’s my,

Sean Kelly (43:01):

I’ll send it to you and if you on our website, you could share it on LinkedIn and we’ll make sure it’s, it’s available.

Greg White (43:07):

Okay. Awesome.

Scott Luton (43:08):

My hunch is that folks out there that are listening or watching this, if you connect with Sean, I bet Sean will be throwing out there on the LinkedIn channel, right? Sean <crosstalk>. Okay. Absolutely. Let me back up for a second. Awesome. I’m refraining from doing the dad joke, the beep beep beat back up. I’ve, there’s been opportunities for that a couple times to the hour, but in the end.

Greg White (43:30):

you didn’t refrain, did you?

Scott Luton (43:30):

That’s right. I didn’t, I guess I didn’t. Uh, alright, but this, we’ve talked a lot about the benefits of becoming a courier partner in dispatch throughout the hour, but is there one maybe Sean, in that, that, that blog article, the four benefits of being a partner? Is there one maybe we didn’t play up enough that you think more folks should know about? Or I guess maybe why should folks check that article out maybe?

Sean Kelly (43:53):

I mean, I think that that the most important thing is that like we want to be both a provider of demand to career companies and also provider of supply to where, like I said earlier, it’s hard to maintain a hundred percent supply and demand every single day with your operation when you have multiple drivers, multiple vehicles. And so working with dispatch will help you to get that driver maybe a few more orders on their order existing route ’cause you can match them with orders. Yep. And then if someone is potentially not available or you don’t wanna say no to your customer, that you can then utilize our network of drivers to get those fulfilled. So that’s probably the most important takeaway here is that we just don’t want you to come post your trucks on our load board. We want you to come to us to get actual orders and trust us to help you fulfill your overflow orders.

Scott Luton (44:48):

Wonderful. Love that Sean. Okay, so before we sign off here today, Greg, we’ve covered a lot of ground. Clearly Greg has become a fan. Sean, you can see that I, you can see the lights in his eyes.

Greg White (45:01):

You probably watch me clicking on some of this stuff. Leave it for reading later, <laugh>.

Scott Luton (45:07):

So Greg, totally out of all that we covered and we’ve got resources out there, but of all that we’ve covered here with Sean, with dispatch, what is one of your favorite things that we’ve talked about and Sean shared here today? Greg,

Greg White (45:19):

I just love the spirit of entrepreneurial enablement. Entrepreneur enablement, right? I mean, it, it’s so core to what they do. It’s that it’s not that they built a technology, right? That we’re not a hammer looking for a nail maybe in, initially they were a carrier, but this is obviously a company that’s pivot, pivoted to non-asset and are enabling not just connections, but actual entrepreneurs. And so that sort of north star of enabling these entrepreneurs to build their businesses and other entrepreneurs to fulfill their orders. By taking that approach, they’re filling in those logical things that enable those people. So they’re creating a stickiness that is greater than the load board, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it is the, you can remain on the platform and it can help you grow, not just by getting more loads, but expanding where you provide services. Right? I bet there’s gonna be some element of that in this coming case study for point to point, right? Yeah, totally. Um, so I’m really looking forward to reading that because I, I think that is a really very unique approach to tackling this business problem is tackle the highest level you problem you can, and then fill in those services and capabilities and capacities that you have to meet that much, much higher goal rather than taking such a tactical approach as just finding places, finding orders, and then finding people to carry ’em. So,

Scott Luton (46:53):

good stuff, man. Good stuff. Well Sean, really appreciate your time here today. Appreciate again what you’re doing at dispatch. Congrats on all the growth and the, the accolades that comes, including what we talked on we touched on a couple weeks ago with Alex. And that’s been a really cool place. Well recognized by third parties. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> place to work. We see that in the interactions, so congrats. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, well, well appreciate your carving some time out. Sean, speak with us here today.

Sean Kelly (47:19):

Absolutely. Thank you both. I really appreciate your time too.

Scott Luton (47:22):

All right. So Greg, always a pleasure knocking this with you.

Greg White (47:25):

Likewise.

Scott Luton (47:25):

of course, Greg. We’ve been talking with Sean Kelly, principal, product manager with dispatch, folks, connect with Sean, check out those resources, don’t take our word for it. Check out the four benefits of being a courier partner with dispatch and have just how easy it is to become a courier today with the company and stay tuned for that case study coming out. Thanks all of y’all for coming out in the comments. Some of the questions we couldn’t get to really appreciate that. Whatever you do folks, hey, you gotta be like Sean Kelly, man, be passionate about the folks making it happen, whether they’re drivers, whether they’re frontline workforce members, machine operators, you name it. That’s what we need more of. So find something that Sean or Greg shared here today. Put it in action. Deed’s not work. That’s what it’s all about. And on behalf of our entire team here, Scott Luton challenge, you do good, give forward and be the change that’s needed. And we’ll see you next time right back here at Supply Chain now. Thanks everybody.

Intro/Outro (48:17):

Thanks for being a part of our supply chain now, community. Check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to Supply Chain now, anywhere you listen to podcasts. And follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on Supply Chain. Now.