Have you added carrier diversification to your freight strategy yet? With so many new players and economic changes on the horizon, it just might be time. To answer all your burning questions about diversifying, Scott and Greg sat down with RateLinx’s Shannon Vaillancourt and Nate Endicott. Tune in to hear their expert take on overcoming common hurdles like data and technology, how to separate truth from myth and what you need to do to get started and keep succeeding in a volatile market.

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 morning, Scott Luton and Greg White with you here on supply chain. Now. Welcome to today’s live stream Gregory. How we doing?

Greg White (00:41):

I’m doing great. Scott, how are you?

Scott Luton (00:43):

I’m doing wonderful. Did y’all have a big, uh, shin dig for your brother Mitch last night? Did you fly Indianapolis and back really quick?

Greg White (00:50):

<laugh> we had a great big shin dig on Facebook. Happy birthday, little brother. <laugh> right.

Scott Luton (00:57):

Well had a blast yesterday on the buzz really enjoyed, uh, Sylvia, Judy stopping in. We had a great conversation and today’s gonna be a continuation here in this monster week of programming at supply chain. Now, today, Greg, we’re gonna be talking about carrier diversification, the what the, why, the how, and we’re gonna be leaning on the expertise of a couple of repeat guests that we know and love, uh, from rate lengths should be a great conversation, right?

Greg White (01:22):

Yeah. I, it’s funny, you know, we’ve been talking about this topic a lot and just yesterday I posted about Joan stores. They don’t like to be called Joan fabrics anymore. Joanne stores and Abercrombie and Fitch making their own provisions for ocean carriers. Lots of companies are doing it for truckload and LTL. They’re becoming their own carrier. They’re broadening their contract base. Um, yeah, I’m really curious because this is an area where obviously Shannon and Nate, oh, sorry. They can <laugh> everybody knows. We’ve been promoting this. Scott we’ve been promoting it.

Scott Luton (01:55):

That’s true. That’s

Greg White (01:56):

True. But where Shannon and Nate can, you know, can really shine and, and bring a ton of expertise in terms of what’s going on in the marketplace today,

Scott Luton (02:05):

Tons by the truckload. Been there, done that, literally. So, and, and they’re doing it differently than all the other Johnny come Lately’s if that still, is that still a word? Is that still a phrase, Greg?

Greg White (02:17):

You know, it it’s often the phrase I use in regard to Shannon and the rate links team, because it seems like over the last several years, TMSs have been popping up all over the place, right? They’ve been doing it for a long time, have had a, a visionary point of view on the marketplace and it feels like the market is finally ready to adopt and adapt to what, to what rate links has been promoting and really enabling for over a decade. So that’s right.

Scott Luton (02:49):

So you’re gonna have the opportunity to learn from two supply chain OGs here today. TMS OGs here on supply chain. Now stay tuned and folks, Hey, buckle up, get ready. We, you know, bring it today. Cause we wanna hear from you too. You know, we’re, we’re about to bring on Shannon and Nate with rate links and we’ll formally welcome in them in just a second, but Hey, hopefully you packed your voice and a sandwich. And so you can share what’s on your mind of the next hour as we talk about the big topic of carrier diversification. Okay. So Greg let’s say hello to a few folks before we bring in our esteemed guest. Hey, look here, James Malley, uh, with Kar, we were just talking about James yesterday,

Greg White (03:29):

Right? Yeah. <laugh> always consolidating James Malley. Yo right?

Scott Luton (03:33):

Never, never

Greg White (03:36):

Make sure you use just the right size packaging for everything, including words.

Scott Luton (03:41):

Yes. You beat me to it, man. You beat me to it never a wasted syllable with uh, Mr. Malley, but James, great to see you. I think you’re tuned in from, uh, he lives in Brooklyn, right?

Greg White (03:53):

Bronx. Where’s it?

Scott Luton (03:53):

Brooklyn,

Greg White (03:54):

The Bronx New York. Let’s just say New York. That’s

Scott Luton (03:56):

Right. So James correct us, but great to have you here looking forward to your upcoming show with us here. Todd Burke has tuned in via LinkedIn. Hey Todd, I don’t know if you saw clearly you’ve got a real MBA I was sharing earlier or maybe in the weekend about John wooden and what he referred to when he talked about the NBA. Yeah, that is so coach wooden was about a mop bucket attitude. There was never two TA never any task two, uh, that was beneath any coach, any player, all, whatever it takes to win as a team. So I love that acronym, but Todd, great to have you here and let us know where you’re tuned in from Shahi is tuned in from the UAE Greg via LinkedIn,

Greg White (04:37):

Man. We have a big audience in, uh, the Emirates don’t we? Thanks probably in large part to Kim winner and his team at logistics. That’s right. Executive. Right. But

Scott Luton (04:46):

The one and only Kim winner, uh, Kumar is tune in via LinkedIn Kumar. Let us know where you’re tuned in from. We’d love to connect the dots, Libby. Hello, Libby. Via LinkedIn. Of course we couldn’t. Libby’s a, an outstanding advocate and facilitator, right? Greg?

Greg White (05:01):

Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. She keeps Nate and Shannon on those straight and narrow <laugh>

Scott Luton (05:07):

That’s right, Libby. Great to see you, Catherine. Of course, big. Thanks to Catherine and clay, Amanda and Chantel, all the folks behind the scenes help make, uh, the production happen today. Man, Josh goody is back from Seattle via LinkedIn. Josh has

Greg White (05:22):

Become the weather report today. So it must be back to normal. That’s what I’m guessing. Last couple times it’s been sunny in 70 or something like that. So

Scott Luton (05:30):

It’s too nice. Josh. Just Seattle. Yeah. Don’t paint us Seattle. Yeah. You gotta paint us that rainy picture that we come to know and love, but right. Kidding aside. Keep bringing that POV. Josh, we love your, uh, comments from our conversations, Greg. You’re just talking about just gentlem gentleman here, right?

Greg White (05:46):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean they’re doing great things and it’s interesting that he says from the middle east, because I think he just got back there. If I recall correctly, he was just in Europe. It’s so hard to keep up. Where the heck have you been Kim? Just make a short list just in the last week. Maybe

Scott Luton (06:05):

Carmen San Diego is easier to keep track of than Kim winter. That’s right. Where’s where’s

Greg White (06:09):

Right. That’s

Scott Luton (06:10):

Right. Where’s

Greg White (06:11):

Where’s winter.

Scott Luton (06:13):

Winter

Greg White (06:14):

Is coming.

Scott Luton (06:15):

Winter is coming and, and, and just wait, he’ll be in your neck of the woods, Kim. Great to see you appreciate what you do and hope to reconnect with you. Soon. A future buzz episode clay is confirming James Malley. It isn’t in Brooklyn. I thought

Greg White (06:28):

So. Okay.

Scott Luton (06:30):

Uh, I think he’s a Mets fan Greg. And of course Matt’s got one over in the Braves last night, but that’s okay. Game two tonight. And then Todd from Portland, Oregon. So Todd, thank you, uh, west coast.

Greg White (06:41):

So I wonder if the weather’s the same in Portland as it is in Seattle, you know, they kind of compete for just about everything.

Scott Luton (06:49):

Okay. Maybe so we’ll have to check him out Dirk. Let’s see here. Let me make sure. So this is, so this is LinkedIn user. This is Dirk STT. So sometimes folks, if you comment and that you get this LinkedIn user, you just have a security setting on your profile that doesn’t share it with third party applications. So check that out, but Dirk, Hey, big high five, uh, from the Metro Atlanta area and appreciate what you’re doing in Germany. Great to have you here today. Okay. So Greg, are we ready to welcome in our two esteemed guests here today?

Greg White (07:20):

Yeah, let’s do it

Scott Luton (07:22):

With no further do wanna welcome in Shannon Valon court, president and founder of rate links and Nate inde cot, senior vice president for global sales, marketing and partnerships. Hey, Hey Shannon and Nate, how are we doing today?

Shannon Vaillancourt (07:35):

Good, great. How are you guys doing?

Scott Luton (07:39):

We are doing wonderful. We are doing wonderful. We’ve got the whole gang is with us coast to coast. Doesn’t do it. Justice. We’re going around the world and about a, and not even 180 days, not even 180 minutes over the next 60 minutes or so, but uh, Nate and Shannon. Great to have you back. We’ve enjoyed our previous conversations.

Shannon Vaillancourt (07:58):

That’s two. Thanks for having us on. We really appreciate

Scott Luton (08:00):

It. You bet. And Nate, we can, we’ll have to dive into some baseball analysis. You know, we might not get to it today, but as a former professional baseball player, I gotta get you to weigh in on, on what the Braves are missing to this point in the season. We’ll save that for later in the conversation.

Greg White (08:17):

We’re missing another 15 game winning streak. That’s for sure. Yeah. It comes down to W’s right.

Scott Luton (08:22):

That’s right. Every day. Okay. So speaking of playing to win, let’s talk about as we have a lot nice little forum, warm up conversation before we get to carrier diversification, Greg Shannon, Nate, and really the whole team on the production side, we had some passionate debate in the pre-show about this topic we’re gonna start with today. And that on that was, this is

Greg White (08:44):

Important. Yeah. This is very important.

Scott Luton (08:47):

That’s right. Let me have your undivided attention class as my third grade teacher, Ms. Green would like to say, and I never quite figured out what undivided meant for some reason until at least fifth grade, but Hey, let’s talk about the best fries, French fries ever known to humanity. And so Greg and I, we we’ve shared on previous shows. We’ll rethink, but I wanna start with Shannon. So Shannon way into this fierce debate, where is the best French fries you ever had?

Shannon Vaillancourt (09:17):

So I, you know, grew up in Chicago. So of course McDonald’s was right there, but I’m gonna go a little, little off the beaten path. So what we used to do as a kid growing up in Chicago is every once in a while for a treat, we ride our bikes to the tasty freeze and we would get a bucket, my gosh, a bucket of fries. Yeah. And we would just sit there and it’s like, I can’t even imagine eating that anymore. That was like the treat. We wouldn’t go to McDonald’s for the fries. We would go to tasty freeze.

Scott Luton (09:48):

Oh, Shannon. I think

Shannon Vaillancourt (09:49):

I’m gonna go with that

Scott Luton (09:51):

One. You did a little, I think

Greg White (09:52):

He had faked you in the pre-show

Scott Luton (09:54):

Say that little switcheroo, Shannon little switcheroo, but Hey,

Greg White (09:58):

He had time to think about it. Right? <laugh>

Scott Luton (10:01):

All right. So Tay fries gets Shannon’s vote and folks, whether you’re, uh, NA shot or, uh, SHA, uh, SHA you Josh, Todd, Hey, all y’all let us know where you find the best French fries known to humanity.

Greg White (10:15):

I wonder if they have French fries in the Himalayas

Scott Luton (10:18):

<laugh> Hey, NA shot. Hey, inquiring minds wanna know and that right. That’s not too often. You hear someone that’s dialed into a live stream from the Himalayas in the shot. Welcome.

Greg White (10:28):

Welcome. I didn’t know. You could get <laugh>. I did internet there. I mean you’re higher than anyone else. So I would think you’d be able to catch a signal somewhere. Right? <laugh>

Scott Luton (10:36):

It’s not how it worked. So Nate, best French fries ever your own. The world’s looking at you now,

Nate Endicott (10:44):

Man. I grew up in Southern California, big in and out fan, but I don’t know. I think like Greg, we were talking about, you said a little bit thicker steak fry. I’m gonna have to go a steak and shake.

Greg White (10:59):

Oh <laugh> those are skinny Nate. They

Nate Endicott (11:04):

Have, I mean, how big do you need

Scott Luton (11:06):

’em that’s that’s right.

Greg White (11:08):

Like a steak that’s <laugh>

Scott Luton (11:11):

Nate steak and shake are delicious and they’re stepping. Everybody has direction

Greg White (11:15):

Thought here. I like this. I mean, we’ve put some serious thought into this people. Yeah,

Scott Luton (11:19):

No kidding.

Greg White (11:19):

We’re getting different answers than when we had, as Scott said, a very spirited discussion prior to coming on

Scott Luton (11:25):

The air. Very spirited. Hey, really quick. Before we get Greg to weigh in and, and uh, put a front on my fun. Josh says zips fries are the best. And that’s followed closely by shop in south central Washington called mins. I love that. Todd says he’s going with what? A bigger fries Clay’s pointing out the curve ball that Bo Shannon and Nate just threw at us here better than, uh, what Scher was throwing last night. And Shahi says curly fries from Hardee’s. Now that’s a new interest. Hardee’s to the, the debate.

Greg White (11:57):

So Shahi, that’s clearly from the south of wherever he is from that’s right. He’s a Hardy fan,

Scott Luton (12:02):

Right? Amanda’s after my heart, she’s already got it. But Catherine loves water burger. So Greg way in best fries known demand.

Greg White (12:10):

So in, in a chain restaurant has to be in and out burger. It has to be their fries they’re made right there in the store fresh. You can literally see them slice the potato that your fries are coming from. I really value that, but I am to Nate’s point, I’m a steak fry guy, those thick, you know, fat. Oh man, that when I was a kid, you know, when we would go to bad restaurants and eat terrible steaks, right. That was what they had. Was those kind of

Scott Luton (12:40):

Sizzler.

Greg White (12:42):

Well, we, we had local bad steaks by the way, which is ironic growing up in Kansas. Isn’t it? But yes

Scott Luton (12:48):

It is.

Greg White (12:49):

But they always had those, those steak fries, I guess I was just brought up wrong Scott, cuz I know what your answer is gonna be and probably the answer of billion. Billions. Right.

Scott Luton (12:59):

Served. Yes. Go ahead

Greg White (13:01):

Ahead. Tell us Scott.

Scott Luton (13:02):

Yes. So we’re gonna bring an end to the debate and, and throw out there that the answer to this question, the righteous answer to this question is McDonald’s French fries as the world has spoken time and time again. So for the sake of <laugh> for the sake of time, by the way, uh, Monica’s got a great point. Homemade fries, regardless, especially I think in my, uh, my Nan and anyone that’s that’s, you know, putting love into recipe, making those homemade fries. Monica, you got a great point. So great to have you back here today and uh, thanks for that answer. Okay. So for the second time, as much as we could, we could have the French fry hour given all the passion and fervor over the topic, but I would of

Greg White (13:42):

All of that. Yeah.

Scott Luton (13:43):

All of it. You know what? We should have planned better and had French fries here in the home studio, but Hey, another day, another day, Greg, where are we? If, if, since a French fry conversation and debate has been settled, where are we going next with our esteem guest, Shannon and Nate.

Greg White (13:58):

Yeah. I think we ought to take it down a notch from changing your life to just changing your business. Right. Talk about the topic that we’ve promised the audience, which is talking about carrier diversification. I let off talking about some of the, some of the discussions we’ve had. Some of the articles we’ve seen that, you know, in talking about this, it’s a huge topic right now, because even if you’ve got your carriers lined up, you may not have enough carriers lined up or the right carriers lined up or the right lanes covered or whatever. So I’d love to start with you. Shannon kind of get an idea of, I mean, what do you see other than the obvious or maybe including the obvious mm-hmm <affirmative> of having this diversified carrier network for companies,

Shannon Vaillancourt (14:42):

You know, what’s interesting is if you go back to, so I think about when I first started in the industry, way back when we would go install a system and we would put in, uh, ups, FedEx, RPS, airborne, postal and DHL. Hmm Hmm. So it was like, we knew, we kind of knew all that stuff. And then all of a sudden it became two. It was, you know, you’re either primarily one or the other. So, you know, now you look at what’s happening with the regional parcel guys and you know, of course what, what’s the obvious thing what’s carry diversification gonna give you, it’s gonna give you more options with more options. You’re gonna get, you know, potentially better service. You’re gonna get better price. You know, you look at the other modes, we’ve been doing this for, you know, for years on the LTL side, because you’ve got, you know, the top 25 carriers hall over 90% of the LTL rate, you’ve got choices.

Shannon Vaillancourt (15:42):

Well, right. And now we’re coming out of that phase with parcel where you really only had two choices. And you know, when DHL went out of business here in the United States, they stopped calling domestically. That was the last big challenge and the last big opportunity for diversification. And now at the regional players, it’s, it’s real. And it’s gonna allow companies to really pinpoint the areas that they want to have a different type of service. And because of the competition, uh, they’re gonna be able to get it at a good price, which is gonna make sense for both them and the carrier. And I think that’s, that’s what we finally have shifted back. So what’s, what’s new was old, what’s old is new again is kind of where we’re at today is how I feel.

Greg White (16:31):

Mm. There are a ton of niche players. And as you said, Shannon, regional players, people who carry larger, smaller, or more hyper local, or, you know, only in a, only in a specific region, only for specific industries, you know, I, we see it every day, right. So I think that’s, it’s really interesting. And I think we can address this maybe later, but I think that the large carriers have they’ve really done it to themselves because, you know, part, uh, part, one of the options now is Amazon, right? Amazon has parcel because the largest carriers failed them back in 2014 and 2017. And they just felt obligated to build their own network. And I think as prices and, and selective customer engagement to put it politely is, you know, has come to ups and some of these other carriers it’s really opened the door for a lot of these regionals. Nate, what do you, what are you thinking?

Nate Endicott (17:28):

Yeah. I mean, to echo what you guys are saying. I mean, I think the biggest thing we see across, you know, potentials or customers is just the customer experience. Like how do you go deliver that experience to your customer and then deliver on performance and cost. And I think the, even whether it’s new e-commerce carriers, you know, whether it’s same day, you know, on demand careers, whether it’s the big bulky guys that are trying to take some of that stuff away from the big two. I mean, you just see, you know, new carriers, it seems like popping up all the time with all the tech money and they come up with a new idea. Um, but you’re also seeing a lot of retailers, not guys do it themselves and figure out ways to, Hey, if you know, they can do it, we can do it.

Nate Endicott (18:11):

But I, I think it’s, you know, now more than ever, you have a choice mm-hmm <affirmative> and if you don’t execute on that choice, you know, missing out, I mean, those that have just kind of, you know, later fallen with, Hey, we’re just primarily FedEx or we’re primarily ups, you’re single source. So you might have one or two or there’s all these myths or, um, I guess call ’em excuses of why they haven’t done it yet. But, uh, customer experience is huge right now, especially, you know, with volumes as high as they’re they got last year right now, post pandemic, right? Like, holy cow, where are they going? So mm-hmm <affirmative> they can’t take it. What are you gonna do? And how you gonna do it?

Scott Luton (18:54):

Yep. Hey really quick, Greg, before we get into some of the hurdles that, that, uh, Shannon and Nate are seeing one quick point and a couple comments, it’d be interesting to see what the new FedEx leadership does. There’s there’s already been some, some takes out there. So that’ll be really interesting in the weeks and months to come. And then of course, back to the important stuff Lamont says, don’t forget about five guys.

Greg White (19:14):

Excellent point,

Scott Luton (19:15):

Excellent point. Right now, Sean says they do have French fries near the, near the Himalayas. He prefers McDonald’s thumbs up there and he says, Hey, I’m not exactly sitting at Mount Everest, but quite near to him, Emily in range <laugh> and then finally Josh says, you’re entitled to your wrong opinion, Scott, thank you for that, Josh. And by the way, Lamont’s back with us from of course, San Diego, California. So Lamont can have you back.

Greg White (19:41):

So it’s July. So there’s a new we’re back to the usual weather reports in San Diego, right? That’s sunny, right? No, should be no Marine inversions after June. So I’m curious if that’s actually the case.

Scott Luton (19:53):

Sunny cool and classy in San Diego. Hey,

Greg White (19:56):

You know, something, something you both said made me harken back to this article. Walmart just jacked up the stock price of a company called canoe by 80% today by ordering 4,500 of their bots, for lack of a better term. Right. And getting it first option on 10,000 more for direct to home delivery. Right? And these are specialty talk about specialty. These are specially built for, you know, multi-stop and that sort of thing. So a really interesting development that, uh, you know, care, you know, whether it’s your own carrier or whether it’s somebody else’s carrier, but we’re really rethinking how things are being done, including drones or ground drones to air drones. Right. They’re talking about how to get over the fence if somebody’s got a fence. So, so air drone and picks it up off the ground drone and takes it to your front door.

Greg White (20:50):

I mean, there’s just a thousand ways to get there. The big carriers, there are some big carriers getting into delivery. I just got a delivery from a company called am trucking because it was a kind of a refrigerator size thing. So there’s just all kinds of, of options out there. So, but there are all kinds of hindrances and hurdles, you know, for shippers and for carriers. So what do you guys see in, in terms of the hurdles that a lot of these companies are facing and, and how they’re overcoming them, Nate? You wanna tackle that or,

Nate Endicott (21:27):

Yeah, I think I don’t, whether it’s

Greg White (21:29):

They swing at it, you should take a swing at it cuz you’re a baseball player.

Nate Endicott (21:32):

Right. I mean, whether it’s, you know, the hurdles are always they’re opportunities too. Like how do you overcome it? How do you give wins? How do you deliver on initiatives? I mean data and technology, I think are the two, you know, things either lack the data and the insights of, Hey, where can we go optimize and get better? Hey, we don’t know about these other guys, you know? Right. So how do you go get your arms around data, become data driven or you lack technology, you know, or just the buy-in internally with the culture, um, where you feel like you can’t add anymore carriers, but mostly it’s either data or technology. I feel like are the biggest hurdles that we run into and it’s something you absolutely can overcome and it’s not really difficult to go integrate to these carriers. So I think those are the two biggest ones, but I think, you know, hurdles of getting, you know, you know, getting, uh, away from being naive thinking, you know, you got the best rate or maybe, uh, the, the fear of, you know, Hey, they tell me I have the best rate or the fear of, I, I don’t, you know, what if I move away from these guys that have been around for years, right?

Nate Endicott (22:40):

And we trust these other guys to deliver on performance and cost for us. But I would say data and technology, I think is what we run into the biggest for hurdles.

Greg White (22:50):

Yeah. That’s a good point. It’s, it’s difficult to shift the switching cost is potentially high to a new carrier. Isn’t it? I mean, cuz the risk is frankly, the unknown can, can they literally deliver Shannon? What are you seeing?

Shannon Vaillancourt (23:05):

I think it’s everything that we see. I mean, yeah, you’ve got technology, all that good stuff, but really it’s the fear of change is what I, I think it is. It’s the, you know, a lot of people are okay with the devil, you know, don’t really, you know, it’s like, boy, I don’t know what happens, you know, what will happen? It’s it is the fear of the unknown because we’ve been through, you know, all these companies and all these folks in charge out there have made change. They’ve done it. They’ve made technology changes. They’ve put the business cases together to show that this is the right thing to do. Uh, and usually what they’re doing is something that they’ve done before because it’s a known entity. And I think that’s where with all these new, what look like new carriers, even though a lot of these carriers are not new, uh, it’s that fear of the unknown.

Shannon Vaillancourt (23:56):

And then, you know, it’s just, you know, how do I, how do I measure that? How do I monitor that? What do I do? You know, if it doesn’t work out, you know, everybody’s pretty fearless when there’s a net. So how do they, how do they move forward with this? And that’s where I think the technology comes into play, you know, and it’s the speed to change. You know, what, if it doesn’t work, can I quickly switch back? So I think that’s really what we’re seeing and the more that it gets adopted, I think it’s gonna get overcome here pretty quickly.

Scott Luton (24:30):

Well said, well said I’m gonna share a couple of quick comments here. Todd says, going back to what we’re talking about, uh, the major carriers, uh, duopoly is never good. Todd says service, declines and pricing increases in, uh, perpetuity innovation as hard and costly as it is, is necessary. Amazon continues to say with their infrastructure and capital will continue to take market share excellent point there. Todd gets to good stuff there and Shahi says price. War is a huge concern as the services decline. And especially with old pricing going higher and higher Shahi says delivery performance will receive the dent any, before we get shift gears into myths that Nate alluded to earlier. Any comments there on both Todd and SHA were talking about the service declines, right? Shannon, Nate, any, any comments in terms of how you may have seen that play out, out in the market?

Shannon Vaillancourt (25:26):

Well, I mean, I think the service decline is just based on the fact that it’s just too much volume. You know, it’s not necessarily that it’s a duopoly. If the duopoly could handle the volume, we’d be fine. I mean, that’s ultimately what caused the service issues that everybody’s experience is volumes went to, to uh, 10 X. Yep. It wasn’t like, it’s just, uh, the carriers have decided, you know what, I’m just not gonna do it anymore. You know, it’s, that was an old, old one that I used to hear back in the day when companies would be like, yeah, but I don’t want the carrier to handle my freight differently. And it’s like, look, they’re handling billions of packages a year. They’re not gonna see yours on the convey. They don’t even know it’s yours. Right. Hey, not that one off because they’re not paying us enough. That’s not the case. I mean, and that’s where I think the duopoly is fed into just over capacity. Mm that’s what I think it boils down to plain and simple,

Scott Luton (26:24):

Well said, Nate, anything to add before we talk about myths?

Nate Endicott (26:27):

No, I think, I mean, yeah. I mean, volumes were astronomically, you know, just through the roof, you know? Yeah. It’s just insane when you see volumes and even with our current customers in the volume, you know, you wake up one night and you kind of look at what’s going on. You’re like, holy crap. <laugh> their volumes are high

Shannon Vaillancourt (26:49):

<laugh>. Mm. Well, let me put it in context for you guys real quick. So we had a customer who showed us their graph of volume and they, and in a two week period they went, so this was for COVID, you know, when COVID hit and everything in a two week period, they went from their normal levels to above their peak volumes. And they said normally an increase like that. We would have 18 months to plan for. We had two weeks.

Greg White (27:20):

Dang. Yeah.

Shannon Vaillancourt (27:21):

So now put yourself in the shoes of the carriers experiencing all that. It’s just, it’s not

Greg White (27:29):

Wow. Blindsided basically. Yeah.

Scott Luton (27:32):

18 months to two weeks of time to put a plan together. Okay. So I’ll shift gears here for a minute. I appreciate the perspective y’all sharing and the freight perspective y’all are sharing. It’s such a fascinating time to be in supply chain, but certainly the freight side, right? The core of what supply chain does is, is it’s it’s intriguing. So the pride of Brooklyn, New York is beyond James Malley is also Barbara Streisand and Barbara ststan had this quote, she said, myths are waste of time. They prevent progression in quote. So with that in mind, with that segue in mind, Shannon, I wanna ask you, what’s the biggest myth related to carrier diversification?

Shannon Vaillancourt (28:13):

Boy, that’s a good question. I would say, you know, here’s the obvious stuff, of course, that, you know, the carriers can’t, these carriers don’t have the sophistication. They don’t have the technology, all that stuff. But I would say, I don’t know if it’s necessarily myth, but an unknown is if you think, if you don’t think that you have lanes that are subsidizing other lanes of your own freight, you are not thinking about this correctly. So by putting all of your freight, you know, cuz volume, that’s how you used to buy rates is I have all this volume I’m gonna go to market with, well, there’s a pocket of that volume that is expensive to the carrier and they have to recoup their cost on the pocket of the freight. That’s not expensive to them. And that’s why you’re, you’re subsidizing your own lanes. And to think that you’re not, you’re either a fool or you’re not paying attention, <laugh> one or the other. So,

Greg White (29:19):

So what can you do about that, Shannon? I mean, do you think that this I’m curious, do you think that this new broader spectrum of carriers, does it allow you to pigeonhole some of that more costly freight?

Shannon Vaillancourt (29:33):

Absolutely. And I we’ve, you know, and this is what I’ve seen on the LTL side, the LTL side was the same thing. Customers would have huge volumes of freight with a carrier and they’re like, Hey, our ORs are upside down and it’s like, yeah, you’re using ’em wrong. Uh, and you know, you go back to, you know, I don’t really wanna name the parcel carrier, but you know, when they increased residential delivery, they said, look, we don’t want it, but if you’re gonna have us do it, you’re gonna pay for it and we’re gonna make money off it. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so there you go. It’s like, that’s a great example of where, you know, not every lane is a good lane, not every type of shipment. And you think about parcel. What makes them very unique is that, you know, where you live, Greg, your zone, two, one pound package costs the same amount undiscounted as where I live my zone, two, one pound package.

Shannon Vaillancourt (30:29):

Hmm. But you know, they’re not the same. I’ve got different volumes going here. I’ different freight densities than you do. So to think that I’m not subsidizing my own freight, if I have a DC in your area, that zone two cost is being subsidized, maybe by my zone, two cost here in my Phoenix location. And it’s like, so that’s where a regional guy would maybe make more sense because maybe in your footprint they’re incredibly optimal and it’s like that to me. It’s so I dunno if you wanna call that a myth, um, and unknown, whatever you want to call that. Yep.

Scott Luton (31:11):

Hey really quick. And then we’ll get you to

Greg White (31:13):

Take’s. Yeah. I think that’s a really good, that’s a really good exposure because I think people forget that suppliers, vendors of any kind, they’re gonna get their money out of you one way or the other. Right. And that they have to have a viable business as well. It’s only fair. Right?

Shannon Vaillancourt (31:31):

Right. One, one of the big two carriers. I remember going on a tour this was years ago when they had, they have 13 PhD mathematicians on staff. Wow. And I’ll give you a hint. It’s not to help you.

Greg White (31:45):

<laugh> yeah. Right,

Scott Luton (31:48):

Man. That’s gotta be,

Greg White (31:49):

Let me make a note of that. Shannon.

Shannon Vaillancourt (31:52):

Talk to a PhD mathematician. I’ve had the good fortune of talking to one once and whoa

Scott Luton (31:58):

Man.

Greg White (31:59):

Just couple way confused.

Scott Luton (32:01):

Those were the

Shannon Vaillancourt (32:01):

Folks I thought I knew something.

Greg White (32:04):

Yeah.

Scott Luton (32:04):

Those are the folks that are working on the James web, uh, telescope, which those images have started to come in since yesterday. I don’t know if y’all have seen that, but man, out of your league, Shannon, that’s interesting to know kind of what you’re up against there. Uh, and by the way, and they’re coming to you next, but by the way, Todd, and Shahi big fans of what the points you’re making there. Todd talks about this golden package when he was at FedEx, he says, my package is the only package kind like golden package thinking. Uh, your point is valid. Shannon volume has outpaced capacity. Great point. Okay. So Nate we’re talking myths, right? Myths. And, and also maybe beyond myths, I’ve got a tough time saying that word for whatever reason. It’s almost like a three syllable word, but myths anyway, maybe head trash for keeping you from making some changes. Right. And, and actually facing these assumptions that, that probably a lot of folks, you know, they set it and forget it and put their, put their head in their bandwidth on other parts of business. But what else out there you wanna call attention to as myths when it comes to carrier diversification?

Nate Endicott (33:04):

Yeah. I mean, I think with all the new carriers that are popping up, I mean, you still hear it is these regional guys. They just can’t, you know, take this for me because we’re not in there, you know, area it’s like this national carrier. But I mean, if you think about again, if you have data and you have technology that you can plug and play, um, you can absolutely get creative and these carriers will get creative. And I think we’re seeing this now, you know, more than ever with, you know, recent acquisitions of even some of the regional guys, you absolutely can do it differently, but the, you know, the, the still we still hear it all the time is I have the best, you know, I have great rate. It’s like, you’re single source with one of the big two, you know, and you’re a $20 million small parcel shipper. You know, you don’t have,

Greg White (33:50):

You don’t have a great rate. Is that what you’re saying, Nate? <laugh>

Nate Endicott (33:52):

Yeah. I mean, I, we’ve got, you know, some of the calls we’ve gotten to sit on where it’s like, Hey, unless you spend 700 million in small par you know, in parcel spend, you know, you might start getting a good rate, but like let’s face it. You know? So I don’t know. There’s, there’s so many, I think, you know, that we hear that we come across. Um, and I, again, it comes down to the fear of the unknown and fear of change and, you know, Hey, what if I bring in new carrier? Is it gonna totally mess up my pricing with this one? Am I gonna get in trouble? And it’s like, Hey, there’s definitely someone today that can haul your package and do it probably at, you know, hit service and cost for you if you need it.

Scott Luton (34:37):

Huh?

Greg White (34:37):

How do you verify that service? I’m curious. I mean, that fear both of you. I think we all acknowledge it, but both of you have mentioned it. So how do you, how do you believe that it’s okay to use deliver or part runner or whoever else is out there? There’s hundreds, maybe thousands of them out there now, how do you verify that it’s safe to switch to one of those

Shannon Vaillancourt (34:59):

<laugh> what’s your definition of safe?

Greg White (35:03):

Well, okay. So, I mean, is there any, any indication I guess that should give us or is there any, anything that should give us an indication of whatever the someone’s definition of safety is? I mean, I, I think about it this way too. And I think this talk about a myth. The myth is you’re getting the best service you could from your carrier. We’ve just talked about that this entire time that you’re not right, because even they are over capacity. So, you know, I think about it as what have we got to lose. We’re paying too much in, in many cases and getting subpar service. So what do we really have to lose? Unless they just absolutely can’t deliver. So to me it feels like the devil, you know, maybe more dangerous than the devil you don’t

Shannon Vaillancourt (35:51):

Well, and I always laugh when, you know, the reason why I ask what’s your definition is safe. Is if I, if we’re talking about truckload, let’s say this is a truckload move. So it’s a full truck. Mm-hmm <affirmative> of stuff. Most truckload carriers are owner operators. They own what less than, you know, two to three on 90%

Greg White (36:10):

Are, are fewer than six vehicles. Yeah.

Shannon Vaillancourt (36:12):

How do you know that’s safe? Why are you okay with that? You have a full truck.

Shannon Vaillancourt (36:19):

Yeah. Isn’t that riskier, help me understand your question a little bit better. Why there’s one little package going with this carrier with thousands of other packages? Isn’t it safety in numbers up to a point, right? As we’ve said with capacity, but that’s why I’m like, you know, how do you, you know, you know, these guys, these carriers all have the latest technology and these, you know, with, with cloud, um, and all that computing that’s lowered the, the cost barrier to have technology, first of all. And they all use the same basic backbone anyways, for technology, you know, unless you’re, you’re one of the big two where you have your own, you know, unique device or Amazon with their own unique devices and even Amazon, they’re using a backbone, that’s a basic, uh, you know, smartphone app and stuff like that. So that’s why to me now today, things have changed drastically because the technology barrier’s gone just doesn’t exist anymore. But yet think about that truckload carrier, no technology, no visibility. I’m giving him a full 53 feet trailer full of stuff. Right. I’m okay with that.

Scott Luton (37:39):

So if I can, I wanna add this, this comment, great comment in from John, John, thank you. And, and folks we’d invite, everybody’s take on our observations much like John’s sharing here, especially as it relates to, uh, what we’ve seen evolve and play out in recent years, John says we track on time performance for all the regional and national carriers on our network, as well as claims and other service metrics. He finds that some regionals perform very well in relation to the national carriers. Thank you, uh, for that, John. All right. So I wanna switch over to, uh, and Greg, I, I love your follow up question there in terms of, you know, defining safe and, and chaning your follow up comments there, cuz it’s all about context, right? One person’s safe. Shipping is the next person’s nightmare. Uh, I may, I’m being a little bit dramatic, but you know, we all have our different definitions and different risk appetites and, and different operations. But I wanna start with getting a better sense of outcomes, outcomes with y’all speaking from personal experience like Shannon, you’ve already shared a couple Nate, when you look at some, some successful carrier diversification programs, what comes to mind as really, you know, folks that were just over the moon with, with where it has landed their organization.

Nate Endicott (38:50):

Yeah. And I could think of a recent one, you know, retailer, you know, you call it dinosaur or prehistoric and technology, you know, and I think that single sourced, you know, with one of the big two and trying to become, you know, data driven, um, and how do you to leverage this, you know, technology to go out and, you know, have a shot to, to play at a carrier diversification strategy? Um, I mean they, they had it constraints. We had to move pretty quick to help them to be able to hit, you know, some stuff with peak. Uh, but I want to say that I think it was, you know, within 60 days, some of it was up in 30 to 45, but 60 days were able to quickly deploy a strategy where they had not just the data, helping them, but also technology to be able to have a, you know, a carry diversification strategy in place where they can finally go out and swing the bat and have a conversation with the big two to say, Hey, look, now that we have this technology in place, we can use anybody.

Nate Endicott (40:00):

So that gives ’em a win, but now they can figure out, okay, Hey, how are we gonna do this differently when you have technology that can go do it. So I wanna say, I think just doing that with a 22% savings and again for them that that’s a huge win. Yes, wow. That doesn’t account for, you know, it and having to maintain stuff or all the data time trying to figure this stuff out and Excel and Hey, how are we gonna go have solid conversations and win sitting at the table with the big two. Yeah. Um, but I mean that, those are kind of the conversations we have daily, but that’s, you know, a recent one, I would say that, that we could speak to that, you know, is a, a pretty big deal.

Scott Luton (40:44):

Yeah. Agreed. And, and beyond the savings, I wonder how you could quantify that incredible flexibility that you referenced on the front end to the operation. That that’s, that’s huge. Right. It’s huge. And, and, and what that flexibility means moving forward. Yeah. Right. Speaking about, you know, going back to Shannon’s point, Shannon, I’d love to know kinda a good case that it comes to your mind, going back to Shannon’s earlier point of how sometimes we put our own constraints on, on, on, on options and possibilities. Yeah. In just from a comfort standpoint, maybe, but Shannon, speak to, um, speak to what you’ve seen in terms of really successful case studies.

Shannon Vaillancourt (41:22):

Well, I mean, you know, we’ve had, you know, lots of customers where, you know, carriers been coming in to give ’em a big price increase. And by having the data, we were able to find, you know, the right opportunities to plug that gap carriers still got volume that they wanted. Again, this is the subsidizing of the lanes. That’s why they were coming in with a big price increase, cuz it just didn’t fit. You know, they were, they were heavy in a certain area that the carrier was just very expensive in and that’s where they were able to bring in other carriers to haul that freight, that fit them better. And really what happens is yes, you get a great year one on it, but then year 2, 3, 4, 5, and beyond what happens is the carrier now realizes and your carriers realize that you’re taking this more, uh, quantitative approach.

Shannon Vaillancourt (42:18):

So when you tell them that this is what you’re going to get, they actually get it. And this is not what you’re gonna get. They actually don’t get it. Um, that really gives you credibility. So then when you’re sitting down with the carrier, just completely changes the conversation. Uh, you know, we actually had a carrier go up on the whiteboard with one of our customers and they just explained, you know, why it’s like, look, here’s why that freight is expensive to us. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and they drew a little picture of their truck and they’re like, cuz here’s everything on the truck and here’s, and that’s all yours. And it’s just really bulky and what we want <laugh> but now if you had freight in this other area, right, that would be better. So that’s ultimately what we end up seeing from a, from a result.

Scott Luton (43:11):

So I wanna pick on something that Shannon just shared there, Greg, and get your take because big part of the advantage, big part of the power and, and diverse and, and being able to diversify your carrier network is being able to change the conversations. If you walk into a room and you got 13 PhDs, which already gives me a heart attack, Shannon, and to begin with what you were saying earlier, goodness knows you better have the data and, and, and have a lot more answers than they think you have. As you try to negotiate those conversations, the conversation’s gotta be different. But Greg, your take on the, on the examples that Nate and Shannon, uh, spoke to there.

Greg White (43:46):

Yeah. Some of it is not really negotiation is that it’s just, it’s not a fit for their business and they don’t have any choice. They’re gonna be inefficient because they’re not built to carry that kind of, of freight. And they have to charge more because of that inefficiency. So if you can find someone like Nate and Shannon are talking about that is efficient at delivering overrun, one roadway to an island or delivering, you know, delivering a certain kind of product, they can build economies of scale that allow them to charge you less. And you have to think about it from that perspective. And I think the risk is much less. If you’ve got a specialty carrier that specializes in an area and can build economies of scale there or specializes in a type of freight or whatever, and can build economies of scale and trying to jam it all into ups or FedEx or the postal service. Yep. Right. So I, I, I think if you think about it from that perspective, then you realize you’re likely, it seems like you’re likely to get more effective and timely and cost effective service from, from a niche carrier. If you’ve got really oddball or, you know, large or whatever, regionally specific, uh, deliveries. Yes.

Shannon Vaillancourt (45:03):

Yeah. It’s usually more geography related is what I’ve seen. Cause you know, we’ve got another customer that ships right in the sweet spot of a carrier and it’s like, yeah, it doesn’t make any sense, no

Scott Luton (45:15):

Brainer

Shannon Vaillancourt (45:16):

To diversify, but again, you gotta have the information, gotta have the data to make a real informed decision. That’s what it really boils down to

Scott Luton (45:23):

That’s right. Okay. I’m gonna put, we’re gonna talk about the next steps for any of our listeners that wanna maybe, you know, uh, lean into the expertise that Nate and Shannon offer an easy way to do that. But first Dan, good afternoon. I’m gonna pose this question and we could always take this offline, but uh, Dan ask a good question here, cuz uh, does the group have a perspective on a best practice cost of parcel shipments as a percentage of cost of good sold Shannon may any commentary there to Dan’s question

Shannon Vaillancourt (45:54):

That’s a loaded one. <laugh> uh, is yeah. Well possible obviously.

Greg White (45:59):

Yeah. And usually parcel, usually shipping would be below the line. It wouldn’t be part of cost of goods sold, but if you’re thinking of, if you’re, if you wanna roll it together to compare it to retail, I can tell you this a, a, an in store on premise retailer needs to make 26% gross margin just to break even so, and that’s arguably the delivered cost. So you need to have at least 26% gross margin left over once you’ve paid for shipping. I would think exactly maybe a little bit less if you don’t own your own facilities or whatnot. Shannon.

Shannon Vaillancourt (46:36):

Cause I think back back in the old days, we used to look at, uh, companies, revenue and look at their freight costs as about 10% ish of top line revenue was like a rule of thumb that we used to use. I don’t know how, I dunno how that still applies today

Greg White (46:52):

With that was all inbound though. Wasn’t it then? Or what it include outbound.

Shannon Vaillancourt (46:57):

It was usually so, you know, when we were going to like a, a billion dollar year company, we were looking at a hundred million dollar, usually outbound spend.

Greg White (47:07):

Oh, okay.

Shannon Vaillancourt (47:08):

We would be doing our rules of thumb, usually back in the olden days.

Scott Luton (47:12):

<laugh> reminiscing our next podcast series,

Greg White (47:16):

Thumb

Scott Luton (47:17):

Remini rules of thumb with Shannon ball court.

Greg White (47:20):

We’re evolving past thumbs now.

Scott Luton (47:21):

Yes, that’s right. Well Dan, thanks for tuned in and thanks for that question. Uh, Shannon, uh, Greg, thanks for taking a stab at it, but Nate, I wanna talk, you know, we really enjoyed multiple conversations. One of the easiest ways that folks, I know y’all encouraged them to kick the tires on trying something new you to, to steal one of my favorite Nate Indico isms is you gotta get outta that Lazyboy quitting donuts and do something, man. I love what Nate shared that a couple live streams back, but Nate, just how easy is it, you know, to join you and maybe the rate links team, do a demo, see if it’s a good fit for what these business leaders are trying to do. And, and especially if some of what y’all have shared here today, appeals to them, Nate, how, how can folks do that?

Nate Endicott (48:05):

Yeah, no, absolutely. They can go to sales, send us an email at sales, ravings.com. And um, you can start there. We’d love to have a conversation. Um, you know, a lot of people have been, you know, calling in, checking in lately and trying to figure out, Hey, peaks around the corner. So how do we, how do we do this? You know, a lot of times you can’t pull out the technology, um, you just don’t have time to maybe do that. Maybe you do, but how do you from a data side gather all your insights, um, so that you can go and do this better and be more prepared to deliver on your initiatives. But uh, yeah. Sales rate links.com and we are very responsive and we will get back to you.

Scott Luton (48:49):

It’s just, just that easy. And I promise you folks, uh, beyond talking all things freighted and some Nate can share, you can compare notes from a baseball perspective. I love Nate’s, uh, experiences playing minor league ball. And while we may Nate, who’s your favorite major league team? I don’t know if I’ve we’ve ever talked about this.

Nate Endicott (49:08):

You I’m a coast fan Cubs

Scott Luton (49:10):

Cubs fan that’s right. Well, the Cubs are kind of rebuilding a little bit <laugh> but Hey, they broke through finally a couple years back, right? Yeah. I think all of us, everybody was pulling for the Cubs, uh, back then. Well, Nate whole world. So the whole world that’s right. Folks, check out sales rate links.com. The book that, that demo you’ll enjoy the time spent. It’ll be, it’ll be Frank feedback. Who knows. Maybe you can take advantage of some of what Shannon and Nate have shared here today, Greg, before we, uh, round it out and make sure folks know how to connect with Shannon and Nate, LinkedIn, and elsewhere, your thoughts, especially as it relates to, you know, kind of one of those undertones as part of this conversation, you can’t keep doing things the way we’ve always been doing things based on all the market changes that everyone here has been speaking to. You know, you gotta confront that fear of, of change, right? To, to better the operation.

Greg White (50:04):

Well, you have to embrace it. You absolutely have to embrace it now because the, the disruptions that we’ve had in the past are about to be inverted. And just about the time, talk about a bull whip effect just about the time you’re ready to handle greater volume than your capacity can handle the curve is gonna invert. And, and you’re gonna have a downturn in sales. Recession is coming, right. Sounds like game of Thrones. Doesn’t it? <laugh> recession is coming arguably or inarguably. It is, it is technically here, right? We’ve had two quarters of down GDP. So it, technically we are in recession. Now we’re talking about global recessions and things like that. So you can’t, you can’t keep up with these kind of disruptions without technology and Shannon built this technology. We’ve long vetch over this particular thing. Both of us idiotically started companies in, in recessions, somehow built a company that was resilient enough to survive those recessions technology companies, which in the old days when Shannon and I started companies, companies usually went away from technology, right? As, as business went down. Now that now many of the highest performing companies have, have realized that, that this is a way to eliminate fragility in your company, by having technology that allows you to predict, allows you to respond rapidly, right. And enables your people to deal with things in nonlinear fashion. Right. Right. Because what was the truth yesterday may not be the truth tomorrow and technology can see through that and, and help you understand how to navigate the truth of today.

Scott Luton (51:49):

Well said that was a Hollywood script. You just shared this, Greg, I would just add, it would equip you to go into battle with against those 13 data scientists that we’ve had so much fun with over the last hour and when, and when really quick, we, we know that Shannon’s had some big fans throughout the conversation. Todd, get this. Todd says Nate’s a beast, good stuff today. Gent. So Nate, you’ve got a big fan there. Uh, and Todd Burke, Todd, thank you. Thanks for sharing throughout the conversation here today. Shahi also adds great topic, guys, more relevant to the current disruptions and, and yeah, absolutely agree there. Okay. Shannon, let’s start with you. How can folks connect with the one only Shannon Valin court and learn more?

Shannon Vaillancourt (52:34):

Probably just hit me up on LinkedIn. It’s probably the best way to get ahold of me or, you know, if you reach out sales@ratelinks.com, it’ll get back to me eventually. <laugh> I’m connected on all that stuff. Anyhow.

Scott Luton (52:45):

That’s right. That is right. The finger on the pulse. Uh, Shannon, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for your time today. And Nate, the beast Indico Hey, really have enjoyed as always your, your contributions here and all that you do out there in industry. How can folks connect with you, Nate?

Nate Endicott (53:02):

LinkedIn? You can message me there. I think if you click on my contact details on LinkedIn, it’s all there. So

Scott Luton (53:09):

It’s all there

Nate Endicott (53:10):

Without giving away phone numbers and social security numbers here. Yeah.

Greg White (53:17):

And if you send the sales at rate links, it definitely goes to Nate before Shannon

Scott Luton (53:22):

<laugh> well, Hey folks, y’all check it out. Make sure you at a minimum, you connect with Shannon and Nate check out that demo. It’ll be worth awhile. At least explore something new right change that is perhaps best good thing for your organization. So big, thanks to Shannon ballon court and Nate in the cot, both with rate links. We’ll see y’all guys again very soon.

Greg White (53:43):

Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Thanks Carlos. Appreciate it.

Scott Luton (53:47):

All right. Whoa. Hey, the, uh, the swoosh sometimes does wait for some folks. How about that, Greg? Uh, love, you know, I let, just to know nonsense both Shannon and Nate taking these conversations.

Greg White (54:00):

You’ve got tiny inkling of nonsense from Shannon today, right? I mean, you know, he’s, it’s clear he has experienced this for a long time and feels really strongly about it. And I think, you know, I can definitely relate with where these folks are. They have been promoting, advancing and using technology to solve these problems and to not just solve them, but prevent these problems for decades. And, you know, I’m sure there’s, you know, there’s certain aspect of this that’s old hat, particularly for Shannon. And he sees it as a really simple, a really simple solution. And because they have, and I’ve, I’ve looked into what they’ve built because they have such a robust and mature technology. I can verify that, that it is that. Yeah. Right. So that’s right clay zero days since our last nonsense sense.

Scott Luton (54:57):

<laugh> I love that diesel zero days since our last nonsense. Hey, as we all know, the power of a sense of humor has been something that we’ve all needed to cling to over the last couple years is so important. But clay, I love that. Uh, I appreciate this. This might be Dirk perhaps, uh, a great session today with valuable insights. Thank you for that. Hey, Joe Boyle. I appreciate your comment here as well. Super info. Yeah. I agree with folks that have been there and done that. Okay. Well, uh, as we’ve suggested, Hey, check out. Hey, take action. Uh, check out, uh, sales, great links.com. Check out that demo. See if it’s a good fit for your organization, but whatever you do, right whatever you do stealing the Nam. We identified earlier, you gotta do something right. You can’t sit there and, and wallow in the current state man. Cause the market is changing. Whether you like it or not. And whether you acknowledge it or not. Right Greg,

Greg White (55:52):

Big time,

Scott Luton (55:53):

Kim winter. Appreciate ya. Top show. Always. Yes. Keep ’em coming. We’re we’re cranking. ’em out like donuts around here, Kim, but Hey with great guests, right. You know, great guests equal great content and Shannon and Nate are two of our FAS okay. Folks big. Thanks for production team for knocking it out again today. Big, thanks to our guests from rate link, Shannon and Nate. Big. Thanks to Greg white. Who puts it out there as eloquently as it can be told. Greg, I’ll tell you, I think you got a Hollywood script writer in that poem studio of yours there.

Greg White (56:24):

Well, I gotta tell you, I feel thank you. By the way, I feel a lot of affinity for what particularly Shannon has done with rate lengths because he has done it the right way. I mean, he built a long lasting company and as you said, uh, you can’t rest on your laurels. You can’t rest on been there, done that either. It’s, it’s a unique, it’s a unique culture. When a comp, when a, a group of professionals have been there and done that, and yet they are able to flex and change with evolving and, and innovative times. So that’s right. That’s a very rare combination. And those are always special companies when, when, when people can do that,

Scott Luton (57:05):

Agreed. And there’s lots of reindeer games out in the space and, and you know, we’ve, we’ve known rub Del Bowes with rate links for quite some time. And, and there’s no replacement for folks that do things the right way. So no doubt. Hey, thanks for joining us, everybody. Thanks for all the comments from Todd to Shahi to, uh, all the, the, the French rock, uh, votes and opinions that came in earlier. Hopefully now

Greg White (57:26):

I know where to get French fries in the Himalayas. That’s good

Scott Luton (57:28):

News. That is right. But whatever you do, folks. Yeah. Take a page from, uh, Shannon and Nate and your rate links and all the comments here. Hey, do good give forward and be the change that’s needed on that note. Next time, right back here on supply chain now. Thanks everybody.

Intro/Outro (57:47):

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