The Reality of Customer Loyalty with The Freight Coach | Episode 7

Announcer: 0:07

Welcome to Tire Tracks, a Banyan Technology podcast driving the logistics industry. And now your host, Patrick Escolas.

Patrick Escolas: 0:15

Hey, how you doing, Freight Coach? For everybody out there that might be listening or watching, this is Patrick Escolas with the Banyan Technology podcast, Tire Tracks. I am delighted to have Chris Jolly, the Freight Coach. There's a hashtag in there somewhere. Chris, how you doing?

Chris Jolly: 0:33

I'm doing well. Thank you so much for coming on- inviting me on - to come and chat today. I'm really looking forward to it.

Patrick Escolas: 0:39

I am too. I watch your stuff as much as I can. Especially since now I'm deep in in the logistics industry. I did not come from it and I needed some sources of what what's going on, what am I getting myself into, and the orange shirt definitely was the way to go.

Chris Jolly: 0:58

It's it's funny because I went I went into business for myself. I, at that time, I'm like, alright, how do I stand out in a crowd? You've been to conferences before, I've been to conferences. Everybody's dressed the same, right? It's a it's that light blue undershirt with...

Patrick Escolas: 1:13

Yeah, like I work at Best Buy. I've got it right here. Yeah, I'm ready to go.

Chris Jolly: 1:17

Everywhere. And I was like, if I'm gonna go into business for myself, I got to stand out in a crowd. I'm like, I already wear polos because I come from a small town. So like, dude, I'm dressed up in a polo. Like, that's my mentality, right?

Patrick Escolas: 1:28

Well, plus, there's no there's no ironing needed. You don't know if you've worn it once or three times. It's ready to go.

Chris Jolly: 1:34

Yeah. So I bought six orange polos. And I'm like, really weird.

Patrick Escolas: 1:38

Separately, or did you get a nice little bulk-like Walmart pack?

Chris Jolly: 1:40

Nah, dude, I Under Armour. I got three there at first and then my wife's like, I'm sick of washing these during the week. She's like, you need to buy more and I'm like, alright! So, you know, splurge bought three more. And, you know, so yeah, I do actually change throughout the week. And dude, I just went orange because I'm just like, okay, I gotta stand out in a crowd. How am I going to get anybody to remember me, especially building a brand, building a company up? That's like, the biggest thing is it's like how do I get noticed? Well, blazers, polo, rock backwards hat and be willing to make a fool of yourself on camera.

Patrick Escolas: 2:16

Well, I have the make a fool of myself on camera thing down. I was just say the orange, we know you didn't pick it because you're a Browns fan, as we talked about before this. You were for the Twins and my Guardians, we get to play each other quite a bit. But, we'll put those put those aside just for a little. We'll have plenty of time to ask each other throughout the season, I'm sure. I'll pretend like I'm professional at this. So, wanted start since I've got you on here, nobody wants to hear about me. When you talked about starting the business on your own, making it stand out. Where do you come from? Like, I mean, I'm sure I could Wiki you in some bullet points, but give me give me your elevator pitch. What's the what's the Chris Jolly rags-to-riches story right here?

Chris Jolly: 2:59

Well, still in the rags phase...

Patrick Escolas: 3:02

Orange rags, though!

Chris Jolly: 3:03

Orange, orange rags. Riches are coming. But it's.. man, I come from the industry. So, I come from a family of truck drivers. When my great grandparents immigrated here from Germany back in the late '20s, early '30s They started a trucking company. And then that turned into my dad driving. He was an owner-op. He owned his own trucking company for about 40 years. And I got into the industry. I like I always wanted to drive growing up like ever since I was a little kid. But even still, to this day, the smell of diesel fuel and a jake brake are about the most nostalgic things ever for me because every time I hear a jake brake, because like we lived on a little hill, so like when my dad has come home from the road, he he'd smash his Jake brake to slow down his truck. So, I always think like Dad's home. It's really weird how that happens even to this day.

Patrick Escolas: 3:51

And I the rest of us on the road are like, Oh God, what's happening? Daddy?!

Chris Jolly: 3:58

And yeah, so I I got into it, you know? I wanted to drive and my dad, I think as most parents, don't want their kids to like, follow in their footsteps because my dad knew the reality of the industry. And he wanted more for me and his big line was is "I want you to work with your brain and not your back". That doesn't say that I didn't pick up a shovel at five years old because I did. I've done...

Patrick Escolas: 4:24

Children are great cheap labor, if any parent will tell you.

Chris Jolly: 4:27

Yeah, So you know, I've definitely done my fair share of manual labor throughout my life. And I got into the industry just in sales, and I wanted to just do anything and everything. And you know, at the end of the day, I was like, well, I want to work in sales. I'm like, I don't want to wear a suit. I hate suits, even to this day. My wife hates it that I hate suits, but she's she's accepted the fact that very rarely will I put one on.

Patrick Escolas: 4:56

You give her two, three days a year. Right?

Chris Jolly: 4:58

Yeah, absolutely -- at max. And so yeah, I just thought, you know what I want to do, I don't want to do something, but I want to be involved in a blue collar industry. Because like, those are my people. You know, like, I'm from a town of 1,800 in northern Wisconsin. Like, I only know blue collar people -- that's my entire family -- those are my people. So, I was like, alright, I'm gonna get into the industry this way. So, I was a broker. You know, like, I started off loading trucks in college, because like, they worked second shift, and they paid a lot of decent -- 12 bucks an hour. So to a 19-20 year old, that's a lot of money. Yeah, so...

Patrick Escolas: 5:32

UPS UPS came to my campus and tried to you know, our schedule was almost around the UPS season was like, hey, you want to have a big break when we need to hire all of your students? All right. And you can afford drinking in winter? If you Yes, yeah.

Chris Jolly: 5:47

Dude, absolutely. So, I did that. And then I graduated from college, and I got a job at a freight brokerage. So, I packed up my truck, I was living in northern Wisconsin. I packed up my truck, and I headed out to Reno, Nevada. My older, my older brother lived out there. And I went out to visit one summer in college. And I was like, this is not the cornfields of northern Wisconsin, I got here. Great, great time to get away, though, and experience life outside of the bubble. And I think that most people, even if you come back, even if you come back to your hometown, get out and explore a little bit, as you might find yourself along that journey. And you know, and so yeah, I just got in, and I was a broker for a long time. And then right at the beginning of the pandemic, I actually resigned from my job. It was, I resigned, because like, I wanted to go try something new. I felt like I had accomplished everything I could, as a broker. And I was like, I want to go work for a trucking company. I want to sell over there. I want to learn assets. And then I'll take my 15 to 17 years experience at that time, and I'll make a C-suite play one day.

Patrick Escolas: 6:58

Was that was that crazy? 'Cuz, you know, as we're looking back now, wasn't, isn't that like the height of broker games for a minute there during that COVID stretch? Like, we're there times when you're like, what did I do? Or, was it you were pretty solid with with your decision the whole time?

Chris Jolly: 7:17

Oh, no, I was terrified. Because I resigned before like, like, COVID was there, but it wasn't shut down.

Patrick Escolas: 7:26

Right.

Chris Jolly: 7:27

I resigned on a Monday and by Thursday, that's when things hit the fan. And then everything shut down that Friday in unison. Everybody who wanted to interview me -- hey, we got to shelve this 'till July.

Patrick Escolas: 7:38

Yeah, no one's hiring anything, yeah.

Chris Jolly: 7:39

I had just moved to Arizona with my wife and my son three months prior. So, I'm out of a job beginning of a pandemic and I'm like, what am I going to do here? Like, I don't know how this is going to go. Fortunately, I had a little bit of money saved up -- like not, hey, I'm good for four years, but like, I got six months.

Patrick Escolas: 7:58

Yeah.

Chris Jolly: 7:58

That's literally what it was man is like, I'm like, I got six months and I will take everything I've saved down to zero if I have to. But that's what I got involved on social media. And I was like, seeing a bunch of posts out there and I'm like, okay, this can't be real. I'm like, either, I was absolutely terrible at my job, or it's easiest call a shipper. They give you a million dollars, you find a trucking company, and you're a millionaire overnight. And I'm like this, this isn't right. And so I took it from there, and then I'm like, why is nobody talking about the realities of the industry? Why is it this cookie- cutter, just do this and everything will be alright. I'm like, what happens if you have a damaged product? Or what do you do if if a driver takes out a fence at a shipper? Or what do you do if there's a driver that gets shut down over the winter due to a road closure? Nobody's talking about that. So that's where I started angling my content is I'm like, alright, I wasn't that good at this job -- clearly. So I'm gonna start talking about my experience. Turns out a lot of people aligned with what I was saying. Because you know, what the struggle is in sales are real cold calling is not easy. Cold prospecting is not easy. And I was like, you know, I'm just gonna go out there and talk about this.

Patrick Escolas: 9:19

Now, and that's it. Amen to that, because that's what I look into. I come from the sales background before logistics. And one thing that I can tell you is that if you look at it, everybody with a podcast and everybody on LinkedIn is the most successful, easiest ride to success they've ever had and they got $48 million coming in, and they started just two years ago. And you're like, wow, you know, I've been calling 70 people a day and I'm still rent-- rent still sucks, but yeah, yeah, no, no, and that's what it was funny. I think I just answered a poll on something the other day. It was like, hey, would you watch a sales podcast on this and be like.. No, I want to see the losses and the shit show that happen in-between those crazy wins that somebody gets, because that's where that's where the real lessons are, or that's where the real knowledge like... I think you were saying, I watched one of them, were you talking about how the price has gone up from I think Tampa to Atlanta. And then you brought up the fact that, hey, but it's going to be cheaper going the other way. And that's one of those things that those little things that I who's-- who's talking in granular detail specifically about, hey, here's a way that you can gain something from here. And I think you do a great job with how you're talking and who you're talking to. Because you're not saying, Hey, look at me, I'm so good at this. You're like, no, here's the reality of it. Here's, here's the day in and day out. Here's what happens when shipments go bad. So it...

Chris Jolly: 10:45

To me though, dude, it's because like, that's just what's missing in social media as a whole, like...

Patrick Escolas: 10:50

The reality?

Chris Jolly: 10:51

Yeah, real -- real life. And that's what I like, because that's what I started posting about stuff all the time and like, but that's also, at the same time, why I don't talk about the controversial this-and-that carriers against brokers against shippers, because people are so focused on vanity metrics, but I'm like, listen, I know, I'm not the only one out there struggling in sales. I know, I'm not the only one out there who didn't know how to freight read a freight market at one point in time. So, I want to put information out there that people can actually apply to their business, because there's so much opportunity that's out there, there's so much opportunity. But again, so many people are like to try and be so polarizing. It's either they're -- they're the best, or it's the Debbie Downer effect, where they're just posting like, what you think of like, Eeyore, you know? Like, oh, it's the worst day of the week. It's not, you know?

Patrick Escolas: 11:44

That that could mean me. I could be Eeyore or the guy right in the sunshine, depending on what time of the day you catch me. And somewhere in between. That's the average. But I mean, you're, you're so right with it. It's the middle. Like, what happened to being in the middle and being just not average, but finding the happy medium, being the enemy somehow? You don't have to be at either side of it.

Chris Jolly: 12:09

Yeah, dude. Because it's like, I guess there's also me just talking about what I'm going through. Because I bootstrap everything, I'm self funded. I don't have investors, I don't have a golden parachute, like everything.

Patrick Escolas: 12:21

So you don't have an agenda that you're trying to push while you're doing.

Chris Jolly: 12:24

No, not at all. I'm talking about what I go through out there. Because, you know, at the end of the day, not everybody has investor capital. Not everybody has, you know, venture capitalists willing to throw millions and millions of dollars at them. But that doesn't mean that you need that to succeed, right? You know, and I am just out here legitimately, putting out what I'm going through every single day on every phase of everything, because I started in my bedroom. And this is why I leave all of my early content up there. I want people to see where it started.

Patrick Escolas: 12:59

Right!

Chris Jolly: 12:59

Because that's like one of the things like a DM that I've been getting a lot. Like, Fortunately, I have advertisers and you know, for my content, and everything, but like I get I get DMs from people. and they're like, hey, I want to start a podcast, how do I get advertising? And it's like, man, it's not that easy. You know, like, go back to day one and look at how for a year straight, I put out podcast, videos content every single day -- before I got my first advertiser. And even then, thankfully, they were like, we love what you're doing. We see the future value of what you're doing. And they and they and they got on board with that, you know? So it's like Trucker Tools was my first advertiser and Emerge came on shortly after that, and I am forever grateful for those because they kept me going. If it wasn't for those people, if it wasn't for Prasad and Andrew Leto believing in what I was on for my mission, I don't know if I'd be here today.

Patrick Escolas: 14:01

You'd still be like, I got something else to do. This isn't this isn't gonna bring the bills and pay the bills.

Chris Jolly: 14:07

Exactly. Because dude, I broke even every single... No, I broke even. I lost money for the first six months I broke even from months 7 to 13 or 14.

Patrick Escolas: 14:22

Okay.

Chris Jolly: 14:22

And then I made a little bit of money after that fact. Like, up until last year and 2022, that was the first year I actually made a little bit of money and I still haven't like, actually taken money from this. Like...

Patrick Escolas: 14:36

You're like, I'm still not paying me. I'm still the most underpaid employee at the Freight Coach.

Chris Jolly: 14:41

Yeah! But that's just what happens out there, though. And it's like, if you want to achieve these things, you know, it's a lot harder than you think. But it is so much more rewarding at the exact same time. And it's the same thing in sales to man and like when you you're building your book of business is, it takes so much longer than you want it to. And that is why you have to value every single customer that pays you. Because now, man, that's how I like, that's how I feed my family. That's how I put a roof over my kid's head. I don't take any relationship for granted, I can't just find another advertiser or find another shipper to work with. That's, that's, that's food on my son's plate right there.

Patrick Escolas: 15:28

Yeah, so much, so much of it is is that true relationship to like, you know, you, you have who you are. And as those people supported you, it wasn't they -- and I assume-- that they weren't coming in and saying, hey, man, we need you to turn your podcast into a full Trucker Tools, that needs to be everything you talked to, they're liking what you're doing, and it's gonna grow with you.

Chris Jolly: 15:50

Fortunately, that's exactly what it was. And, you know, I've always had the stance of this, where it's like, I'm going to speak my mind on things like I don't play the the extreme game on either side, I'm just going to put my honest opinion out there on stuff. And I believe in the First Amendment-- if you listen to my stuff, you clearly understand that I do. But you know, like, my whole thing is, is this like, I just want to put an unfiltered opinion out there that somebody can't look at it and say, and that's coming from somewhere else.

Patrick Escolas: 16:24

Right! It's just Chris Jolly.

Chris Jolly: 16:26

Yeah. And, you know, again, I'm just, I've taken that stance. And fortunately, I think that when people don't put out that facade, you know, that, hey, I'm, I'm perfect at everything. When you actually go with who you are as a person, without fear of repercussion, like, yeah, I get it. I swear a lot, okay? I'm very aware of that. I don't need anybody to tell me. But this is who I am. If you had...

Patrick Escolas: 16:55

Nobody, nobody doubts that. No, like, there's no, there's no thought that man, there's a team of five guys writing-up what he's saying day-in and day-out and putting on this persona. Absolutely. No-- that the real comes through.

Chris Jolly: 17:07

Yeah. And you know, because again, like, I just think like, that's what you, you just need to unapologetically be yourself, you know? And it's, and it's always so simple to say it in this setting, right? Like when you say that nothing is alive.

Patrick Escolas: 17:24

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Jolly: 17:25

But I promise you, if you live that life every single day, it is so liberating, man. Like, I just like everybody, I'm a human being I struggled with confidence. I struggled with everything for a long time, until I stopped caring, like I care very much about other people I truly do. But, what somebody else's opinion is, is not going to deter me anymore, and it used to so much.

Patrick Escolas: 17:51

You can only control what you can control, and usually, that's just you.

Chris Jolly: 17:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Patrick Escolas: 17:56

So and I appreciate all that. How does all of this on your podcast, how does that translate to your brokerage? Like, does that go hand-in-hand with that? Or, is there a time where you've got to kind of turn your brain one way to social and one way to brokerage or give me a look, give me an idea of has it helped you grow it? I mean, in my thought, that's an easy, you know, softball, of course, but at the same time, what are some of the other obstacles with being both things?

Chris Jolly: 18:25

Um, I think that you're going to attract your tribe, no matter what. Like, the only obstacle that there is at times is like, if I get an email when I'm live or something like that, and I'm like, I'm like, he, like, want to look at it...

Patrick Escolas: 18:42

You're like, podcast, please hold on. I need to make money over here. One second.

Chris Jolly: 18:46

That's the thing, man is, like, when I'm an independent, I can do that. And my audience would love that.

Patrick Escolas: 18:53

Phil, understand...

Chris Jolly: 18:54

Yeah!

Patrick Escolas: 18:55

Yeah. Hold on, I've got an email. We're gonna book a live load right now. Yeah, exactly.

Chris Jolly: 18:59

That's, that's exactly it. But that's also one of the main driving forces why I stopped consulting got back into it. Because like, I was going back and forth for a long time, and like, how do I bring more validity to what I'm saying? Because I wasn't, I wasn't second guessing myself. But I'm like, I don't want anybody to ever listen to my stuff and be like, yeah, clearly, you know what you're talking about, but you're a consultant -- like you don't really get it.

Patrick Escolas: 19:27

You You don't want to talk too much in the hypotheticals. You want it to be grounded in a very real examples of what someone could do today if they picked up the phone 20 seconds from now.

Chris Jolly: 19:37

Absolutely. So I legitimately put my money where my mouth was and I started Freight Coach Logistics, and I'm going for it and everything I talk about is literally what I'm doing inside of my business. So when I hit $25 million in revenue, you guys are going to witness it. You guys are going to hear everything that I'm doing the entire time. When I go from $25 to $100. Same situation. When I go from $100 to a billion in the first 10 years, same situation you guys. Everything that I am delivering is what I'm applying. But that's the hard part of it all man is the application of it. You know, because I interview shippers all the time on my stuff like fortunate. Fortunately, these shippers, I have a secret shipper audience that runs deep. I can't say who they are.

Patrick Escolas: 20:22

Or else everybody would be calling them to be like, hey, hear you're working with the Freight Coach-- we can do better than that.

Chris Jolly: 20:27

Yeah, but no, it's not even that. It's just they love my content. Because they'll ask me questions. They're like, hey, I saw your video I had this happen. What did this actually mean? So I'm like, alright, here you go. But, I've been able to interview actual large, large shippers on my stuff. I am very fortunate to have friends that are on that side of the fence that are willing to come on and they lay out literally everything you need to do. Like just this past week, I had two enterprise shippers on my podcast. They, if you apply everything that they say it's going to take time, you will build a seven-figure business based off of the information that they gave you and that and those two episodes that are about a total of an hour and a half of your time.

Patrick Escolas: 21:10

Damn.

Chris Jolly: 21:11

Like, no joke, man. Like, these guys laid out how to prospect better, how to grow with an enterprise level account better, how to position yourself to break in with a shipper with 75 nationwide facilities -- they laid it all out there. All out there -- and you just have to apply with what they say.

Patrick Escolas: 21:29

That's crazy. And that's awesome that you can you offer that as a kind of a value add through not only anybody listening, but at the same time, you're hearing that. So as you're talking to your shippers, you're like saying hey, shipper, big, big shipper A here did this. Or is that something you're going to be going down in the future? Kind of, though you're like you said you're not consulting you kind of are from a very vague and general perspective, through the podcast.

Chris Jolly: 21:54

In a sense, it's, you know, to me, it's it's putting that information, again, it's putting that information out there for people that need it. That, you know, actually have everything on the line just like I do, you know. Because I view whether it's an entrepreneur who goes out and starts their own trucking company or their own brokerage, if you have everything on the line, to try and live your American dream, like the right information, because there's I'm not trying to sell a course, right? Like, I'm not trying to sell a course to anybody at all.

Patrick Escolas: 22:24

You're not coming to the Holiday Inn and talking here?

Chris Jolly: 22:27

Absolutely not. And I refuse. I've been approached numerous times, like -- you should create a course. I said, absolutely not. I'm gonna continue to give away everything for free. T

Patrick Escolas: 22:34

There's a few hypnotists I know that that you guys could team up, you could lose weight, quit smoking, and and increase your freight efficiency at the same time, you know?

Chris Jolly: 22:44

100%? Because I, for me, it's like, nothing I'm doing is proprietary, right? Like at the end day, nothing's proprietary.

Patrick Escolas: 22:53

This is the Freight Coach secret -- dial dial in now, two easy payments of $19.99 and we'll give you the, the real gems.

Chris Jolly: 23:02

Yeah, absolutely not. And I'm just on, like putting that information out there. Again, yes, I have advertisers. I hope you guys all go to Trucker Tools, and vHub and SPI Logistics. You guys do all of that and support them. Um, but I'm gonna put this out no matter what. Like, again, back to what I was saying earlier, I did this for free for a long time. It won't happen. But if it did, and everything went away tomorrow, I'm going to continue to do this because my mission isn't what can I gain from this because if it was, I would only be posting controversial stuff that would drive my metrics through the roof.

Patrick Escolas: 23:36

And you'd have sold out, you'd have picked up whoever's paying your bill and they're pushing their agenda early on. Exactly.

Chris Jolly: 23:43

I could easily, easily 10x My engagement if I took that route, but I'm not going to. Like, I've already seen the growth. I already have a legitimately a ranked podcast on iTunes. I don't, I don't need to do anything different than what I'm doing. And I'm going to continue to do that, because there are hard working men and women of this industry that listen to my stuff that actually are able to make decisions that are going to benefit them at no cost to them outside of listening to this voice for about 35 minutes or whatever.

Patrick Escolas: 24:16

It's a high cost. But no, no, no. But yes, the blue collar are your people. And that's that's what you're doing it for No, I I respect that. And I you see that in the content you put out. So you're talking about like 10x-ing something and you talked about those, those shippers that are you know, that could really show you that way forward, if you were listening or watching. What are some of the innovations or some of the technology that they're doing? As you say, you know, we're not pushing something specifically, what are some of the common denominators that you're seeing in these growth for the shippers? What are, from a technological perspective? Hi, I'm from Banyan-- we're going to talk about at some point. But right now, just from from that, but what does that look like to you? Like, what are what are three you know, three things that are innovative in the logistics or transportation industry right now that that are worth worth looking out for are already here, they're just gonna get bigger?

Chris Jolly: 25:09

I personally think so I've said this. I said this with Alan when Alan was on my podcast, that as...

Patrick Escolas: 25:16

He's bald, but he talks a little more than I do. But, I love him for it. If it wasn't, if it wasn't for the fact that he'd be talking a little more, you might, you might think we're the same. No, you'd never -- I've got a much better beard than he does. He's my boss, I'm just ripping...

Chris Jolly: 25:33

I have to say this. I have to say this while I can. Yeah. But no, man -- I think like, I was talking with him about this, like, 95% of my day as a freight broker should be automated, right? Like, legitimately, I shouldn't be manually building loads, I shouldn't be manually accepting tenders, load updates through tracking should be automatically sent over. API integrations, whatever you want to do to automate everything you should-- except for those intangible moments that customers need to hear from you, right? Like, a customer should never call my brokerage, or my business and get a busy tone, or a no answer, or a voicemail, Right? Because they should hear from me, first. No matter what, as crappy as the situation might be, they should hear from me first -- just like my carriers. Right? If there's a delay, they should hear from me.

Patrick Escolas: 26:33

Is that something you've always had in place, since you were a broker? Before everything

Chris Jolly: 26:36

No.

Patrick Escolas: 26:36

Is that something? Yeah. When did when that thought process come for you?

Chris Jolly: 26:41

I learned the hard way, man. I just like with everything. Like, you know, there's a lot of value in adversity -- there really is.

Patrick Escolas: 26:49

The trial and error of life and the wisdom gained by getting through it.

Chris Jolly: 26:53

Absolutely, man, because you'll never know until you lose a customer because of something you failed to do. Right? And it's never the situation that upsets them, because -- especially in trucking -- anybody who's been in this industry for a long time... fully aware. Even if you're newer... fully aware. Things happen. But what nobody can ever tolerate is why they never were notified that something happened, right?

Patrick Escolas: 27:23

It's the expectation of communication.

Chris Jolly: 27:25

Yeah, in the same thing. And as brokers, you know, to me, it's like, we have to play both sides. Carriers and customers are just as important-- they're one A and one B to me. And if there's a delay at a shipper, for whatever reason or a receiver, the driver should never have to reach out to me every 30 minutes to find out what's going on. I should be reaching out to them, right? Hey, listen, no update is still an update, right? They still hear from you. Because again, people need to know that you actually care, right? Like, it doesn't matter if it's a weekend pickup, like, man, I've had weekend, which we call it pickups, you know, 6am 7am driver arrives, the weekend crew was late to load, you know? For whatever reason. Chances are they you know, closed an establishment down the night before.

Patrick Escolas: 28:15

Yeah.

Chris Jolly: 28:16

But I have to be there to answer their calls and to call them to let them know, like, hey, I'm on it, we're working on it. Just like if there's a delay going into a shipper for whatever reason, you know? Hey, listen -- we're in contact with the driver, this is where they are, you know, whether whatever it is. it's going to be okay. That's all they need. They don't need to have them reach out to you to find out, uh, let me look into that quick. Those are like your your committing just like the biggest egregious act at that moment in their eyes.

Patrick Escolas: 28:52

No, and that's where, so that's it's funny, you bring that up. It's not necessarily knowing if shit's going wrong, or if something's gone wrong, it's letting them know ahead of time that, hey, I'm on it. Or this is what this is what needs to happen, or there's something going on -- I'm looking into it.

Chris Jolly: 29:10

Yeah.

Patrick Escolas: 29:11

And that kind of brings me to another point I wanted to bring up. You know, visibility is such this key word throughout the entire industry, whether it's on the technology, whether it's on the broker side, and everybody talks about visibility as just far as that like, hey, where's your truck? Where's your load? Everything like that. But one of the things that we've been doing or looking into is, more importantly, what about the visibility on getting towards that, like those decisions. The more, you know how in manufacturing, you're, you're moving towards lean manufacturing. Where's the visibility there that's going to bring it towards lean distribution or lean transportation? Because sure, yeah, all right --it's late, whatever, big deal. I know where it is, you know? More looking back at it, where are we -- where are we spending those dollars and why are we spending them that way? Is is one one thing that I think within because like you're saying, on the automation, sure, it's there on a few of these, you want to know, the the exceptions or the hey, there's a fire I gotta put out somewhere. But, where are from the grand scheme of things are we making these decisions? What are and what are you seeing within that that not only, you know, from day to day, it's really easy to get lost, and I just gotta move this load, but as you look back at it from a quarter to a year, how, how do you look at it? Or how does the industry look at it as what kind of visibility are we trying to get from that? What kind of decisions can be made better?

Chris Jolly: 30:38

So this might be controversial to say, but I don't think it's ever...

Patrick Escolas: 30:42

From you, Chris?

Chris Jolly: 30:43

I know, right? I don't think it's ever as volatile as people want to proclaim.

Patrick Escolas: 30:49

Okay.

Chris Jolly: 30:50

I think that it's what's volatile is your emotion in the moment of not wanting to lose money.

Patrick Escolas: 30:58

Amen to that.

Chris Jolly: 30:59

I think that's the biggest driving force behind a lot of things. Or you miss-quoted a load and you don't want to take that L. So, you give the load back, you make up some BS excuse about how a truck broke down, or, you know, they blew a tire or they're not well, whatever. You know, I personally think 95% of the problems that brokers have are self-inflicted, you know? I truly do. And I think that the markets, even through COVID, the market operated identically, dang near identically as it has over the last 10 years. 18-month cycle. The only thing that was volatile was the extreme that the rates went up. That was the only thing that was different.

Patrick Escolas: 31:41

That is controversial, Chris.

Chris Jolly: 31:43

I know it is. I know it is, because here's the

thing: 31:46

'19, 2019, was not the best freight market, right? Overall. 2020, things bottomed out, right? But, after everything started opening back up, the market went up, right? If you look at that, you could argue, you know, September to November of 2020, is when rates started really starting to shoot up. They held firm all of '21. And beginning phase, you know, I would say it held onto about May of 2022. So, what does that equal -- 18 to 20 some months?

Patrick Escolas: 32:23

Yeah.

Chris Jolly: 32:24

If you look back at any freight market, it's anywhere from 18 to 24 months is how long it lasts. The only volatility of it was the rates shot through the roof. That's where the biggest thing lied. And that's because it blew analysts budgets, everybody's out the door because it was like, Oh, my gosh, when there is pandemonium, people acted the way that people do, right? You want me to do that? $8 mile shippers like I gotta have this on the shelves. All right, pay it. And then it just kept going and kept going and kept going. And then about May June of 2022. All of a sudden, there's not a backup at the port anymore. Customers are realizing that oh, wow -- we panic bought our inventories sky high. We're not going to send out a 10-pallet full truckload anymore. We're going to go back to LTL, or we're going to partial that. And things started to calm down. And the thing is, is most people rode that high, right? When it's easy, man, everyone can sell, right? Anyone can sell when the markets like that. But the fact of the matter is, is it operated the way that it always does. The only outlier was the how high prices were for equipment and everything else, and how high the rates shot up. But the market performed the way that the market always performs.

Patrick Escolas: 34:03

That's, I like your perspective on that. And I expect nothing less as far as controversial, and then backed up with some, some good data there. I like that.

Chris Jolly: 34:12

Yeah.

Patrick Escolas: 34:13

So as you were saying, and this is you're talking about, you know, you're not moving in a truck anymore. Maybe you are moving an LTL or looking at parcel. I mean, how, you know, within that kind of the different modes you're going through within like multi-mode management, what, what do you see with that? Is that something where, you know, there's still times where it's going to be because within our process here, that's something that we've, we've taken a big a big swing at. And we do because ideally and one day, we want to look at we want to look at load, you know, load management, where there's some automation and going, hey, how should you be moving this versus just going, hey, let me look at it at Truckload. Now that's a little too much -- we're looking at a partial load, but then in reality, there might have been, you move half of it in LTL, and a little bit of it in parcel. And that might be the smartest, fastest way. So as far as now that we've got, you know, capacities out there, and we have what, you know, on any given day three modes for if, depending on how you break it up? How do you define how you send things out? How do you from a brokerage standpoint, look at it as the Freight Coach? How do you think about these different modes from get to point A to point B?

Chris Jolly: 35:30

I think as a broker, you need to look at what is the most beneficial to your customer, not what's the most beneficial to what you're paying out. People base decisions based off of how much money they can make in a lot of situations, right?And you know, I'll use a prime prime example here. This literally just happened to me last week. I had a customer come to me rush order, very tight transit, very much like I had to tell the customer like, hey, this is a perfect world scenario, this is no traffic, this is no delays, this is nothing. All right? Like, this is it can be done -- I just need to let you know, though, that that's a lot of driving and not a lot of time. And they can't hit traffic.

Patrick Escolas: 36:14

The Red Sea has to part and the sun has to hit on that truck the entire time.

Chris Jolly: 36:19

Without a doubt.

Patrick Escolas: 36:20

But if those things happen, sure.

Chris Jolly: 36:22

Yeah. So, I quoted him out and everything, and he calls me back 20 minutes later-- hey, just for how hot this shipment is, we're actually going to send one of our own drivers, employees, down. And then we're going to from Virginia, and we're going to send the guy up from Florida who works for us and they're just going to meet in the middle and swap out. We just this is what we want to do in this situation. Alright, cool, man -- no harm, no foul, right? Fast-forward

three hours. It's 9: 36:48

30 Eastern Time, and I got a phone call for my customer. And hey, is there driver available still? Let me go check it out. Yeah, give me a give me a minute. Call him, drive'rs like yeah, absolutely-- I need to get home, like, please. And then they're like, are we sure this is a thing now? Like yes, yes. It's a thing. Customer wouldn't be calling me at this time right now. If it wasn't, he's like, cool, right? I will be there at 7am. I'm like, perfect. So I call my customer back. Let them know. Yeah, my driver can be there at 7am. He's like, alright, what's your price? I said the exact same price I quoted you three hours ago? And the customers like, wait, really? I'm like, yeah -- the driver didn't get more expensive now. And it's in those moments, where some people would take that and be like, yeah, man, it's gonna be $800 more now. Like, if you do they do like they play to the situation, right?

Patrick Escolas: 37:42

Let's just say, did you have one of those moments where like, dang, I knew it should ask for more? No, or you know what I mean? Like...

Chris Jolly: 37:47

No, didn't at all.

Patrick Escolas: 37:47

That was way too easy, yeah.

Chris Jolly: 37:49

I didn't at all. Because, you know, again, man, this is how I feed my family. I don't I don't roll the dice with that stuff.

Patrick Escolas: 37:54

Right!

Chris Jolly: 37:54

Because I look at it from a long term perspective here, man, where it's like, if that, what if that customer came to my competition with another opportunity because he didn't want to put all their eggs in one basket? I upcharge, my competition doesn't.

Patrick Escolas: 38:11

You lose it, you get you get all of nothing.

Chris Jolly: 38:13

They're gonna they're gonna let it go on this one, but if there's four rush-order shipments that come available the next day, guess what I'm not seeing? Four rush-order shipments the next day.

Patrick Escolas: 38:23

You lose that confidence.

Chris Jolly: 38:25

You know?

Patrick Escolas: 38:25

Yeah.

Chris Jolly: 38:25

And to tie that into your initial question about the equipment and everything else and the combined shipping, it's providing that solution to your customer, no matter what. What is the most effective and valuable option for your customer? Because if you're focused on how much you can make in that situation -- because again, people play into the volatility of stuff all the time. And when I say people, you guys, I'm using myself as an example early on in my career, alright? Because I've actually done this job for a very long

Patrick Escolas: 38:53

I will just say, it's probably just like any time. any sales job. That's how you're that's how you're taught to do it, initially. You're all Wall Street and Boiler Room and you're going, yeah, all right. It's you know, I don't know who the guy is on the end of this phone. Let's just get it get it done fast and for as much money as possible. And then you you know, you'll learn you grow and you realize, oh, I need long-term partnerships.

Chris Jolly: 39:14

It is exactly how you handle it with equipment types -- you don't try and oversell anything and being like, oh well! Because like, I say that with equipment types because I work in open deck and heavy haul, right? Like that's, that's that's my wheelhouse, man. And there are certain things that I do I can easily upcharge in certain situations and people aren't gonna bat an eye at it. But I believe in karma man, I believe in the universe. I believe in doing the right thing now. Fortunately, again, I've had a lot of stuff happened to me where it's like, no, no, I don't need to do that. Like, this is actually how we can ship it. This is actually more cost effective to you. And again, I'll use another real-world example. Brand new customer that I just onboarded a couple of months ago, like earlier this year, last month...

Patrick Escolas: 39:57

Do you send them orange shirts once they...

Chris Jolly: 39:59

Not yet, but I will.

Patrick Escolas: 40:00

As part of the package?

Chris Jolly: 40:01

It'll come. I got to earn the right to send them orange shirts, but I will. Um, and but you know, same same thing like I quoted them out -- flatbed load. He then calls me back after he's, you know, he awards me the load and the load picks up. He's like, I gotta ask, he's like, did you give me a sweetheart entry level? Like, we'll just break even on this rate on this one, you know?

Patrick Escolas: 40:24

Get them hooked in cheap and then you know, what are they gonna do later, right?

Chris Jolly: 40:27

Yeah. I'm like, no, not at all -- that's the rate. Because this was a flatbed load. He's like, just so you're aware, you were $400 under what we've been paying dry vans on this lane. And, that right there, again, selling the mode selling the volatility of it all, that's why it's like I know if I apply and stay with these principles, the long term I'll win. I will have customer loyalty that goes very deep with that. Because one those loads that can go on a step deck, I'm going to ship them on a step deck. I'm not going to push them to ship and and and RGN to upcharge. Why would I do that? Why would I do that? Who wins there? Me short term -- and it's going to come back eventually. You'll never get punished for doing the right thing, man.

Patrick Escolas: 41:14

You are. You are speaking my language, my friend. I love it. No, I love everything you had to say here. I'm gonna cut it down here. Give you a chance. I want you to plug. Where do I find the Freight Coach? Other than just search orange shirt? Google

Chris Jolly: 41:33

Shirt gang!

Patrick Escolas: 41:33

Yeah, that's right. I know we've you've had a chance to drop some of your advertisers. Now, let's drop some drop some plugs for you yourself here.

Chris Jolly: 41:41

Yeah, you can iTunes Spotify, Coffee w/ The Freight Coach. You can just put the Freight Coach on YouTube. If you guys go to those platforms, do me a solid, subscribe and share. Rank that show out there. And then if you just search the Feight Coach on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it'll go right -- and TikTok, too. I post stuff on TikTok as well.

Patrick Escolas: 42:03

So, we'll see you dancing shortly?

Chris Jolly: 42:05

No, not I just post my clips out there. I don't think anybody you people I want to keep growing. I don't want to get like kicked to the curb. That's not gonna happen.

Patrick Escolas: 42:15

No, I really appreciate you having taken the time and speaking with me, Chris. Like I said, I love watching your stuff. I do it on LinkedIn just because it looks like I'm working if you don't look too closely. But yeah. Now that I've said that everybody knows. That's what I do at my desk all day. No, but but no, Chris -- great to hear from you here. Love having the conversation and I really liked the message you put out. You may call it you know, controversial at times, I think as we've talked about, it is real. And most importantly for me, it's about doing things, right, because it needs to be done right for both you and your partner. And I think that as Banyan-y as I'll get here -- that's something that we always look to do. And something that from uh, you know, from any sales perspective that I've ever been in that I do now is when you shake someone's hand, you got to know it goes both ways, because you know you you're the person there and they trust you so it's worth giving it back to them. But, I'll end with go Guardians! The Twins ain't got nothing! No, no! We'll, I'll have to I'll have to give you you we'll have to get a cell phone number so that way we can give each other some real hate back and forth. As with the pitch count, they might actually be short games. Who knows?

Chris Jolly: 43:37

Yeah, exactly. But we'll be out in July as we are every year.

Patrick Escolas: 43:42

Well, here's to you being in till the end. So, it's a fun rivalry. Because you know, if it's, if it's not up to the if it's not hard enough to break your heart, then it's not close enough to be a rivalry.

Chris Jolly: 43:53

Yeah, that's very true.

Patrick Escolas: 43:55

No, Chris, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Yeah, if you ever need another bald guy to blind people on your on your with the glare, you know who to call.

Chris Jolly: 44:05

Yeah, absolutely. We'll do it.

Patrick Escolas: 44:07

Thanks Chris. You have a great one, man.

Announcer: 44:13

Thank you for listening to Tire Tracks. Watch for new episodes dropping monthly and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast apps. For more information about Banyan Technology, visit banyantechnology.com