Hi, everybody. I'm Patrick Escolas with another episode of Banyan's Podcast, Tire Tracks. With me today, I have Jennifer from TMSA, is here to talk to me about a lot of the logistics, a organization that's nearly a 100 years old and almost has three employees.

Yes.

Jennifer, let me start by asking, we talked a little bit ahead of time. You said you're from journalism is your background, what you went to school for. How do you make your way from journalism to –

I mean, it's a really solid –

logistics?

question. One, I love that this is tire tracks, because I was a tire reporter. I was like, “Ooh-huh” Combining all of my life together.

Hold on, tire reporter, like you now –

Wrote for tire business, because of crank communication.

 I assumed you were going to go up to tires and check the treading with a microphone?

Well, I interview them, and do tires not talk to you?

No. Well, if they do, I'm not listening. But they are –

Oh, you should listen.

Most of the ones I use are bald like me. Now –

You should get that fixed.

That was a bad joke.

The tires. Not your head.

No. You're doing tire reporting. Is that a first gig out of school, or was that something you looked for?

I started my career in community journalism. I wrote for Sun Newspapers, which is local to the Cleveland area. Then from there, I actually worked at PR News Wire. I really have been around every version of the written word, from writing, to then the PR side, to then sending things across the wire, to then marketing, and then now helping other people with their words, which clearly I do really well here.

As we know, I can't say words, but where did that love of words come from? You didn't wake up one day and said, “Man, this is where I'm going,” or was it –

I mean, I did. I mean, I wanted to be a journalist since I was a little kid. My number one goal in life, still to this day, I started when I was 10-years-old, was wanting to write a book. I had little floppy disks of books that –

For those of you who are too young, floppy disks are not just the save icon.

Correct. Correct. That was always just my goal. I love it. I feel like, I do feel like I can communicate well, but there's something different about being able to write it down. I started in journalism. Then after PR News Wire, I did start working for Crain Communications.

Okay.

I wrote for Tire Business and Rubber News, and I still freelance there on the side. I just love it. I know a lot of useless information about tires and rubber components, and it's just really funny. I was there, I then – tire business is geared towards independent tire dealers.

Okay.

This was when social media first started coming out in the sense of a business avenue.

Right. Somehow to get an ROI for it. Right.

I was like, there's so much that these independent tire dealers could be doing, because it was free. It was before you had to pay for ads and all that stuff.

Yes.

I started a webinar series. I started a twice monthly blog.

When was this timeframe was?

Like 2011, 2012.

Really? Doing webinars that early.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It was terrifying, because I remember being with my online manager and being like, “Ooh, if this goes bad.” No one else knew about the internet that we worked with in the same way. Yeah, it was experimental in a really big way.

How many free AOL disks do I need for this webinar to work? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so many. We did that. Actually, I teach, or I've taught social media at CCC, Cuyahoga Community College, for non-local folks. I actually say, yeah, I'm a social media dinosaur, because I did this before you had to do – I have a –

Also, CCC’s mascot is a triceratops, so you get that in both ways.

Yes, for sure. I did all that. That's really when I started to get into marketing.

Okay.

But I was on the editorial side, so there's a very distinct –

You're not coming up with the content. You're just cutting through and telling, or are you?

Well, I was doing it all, but because I was on the editorial side, it was really hard. It was like, I had done all this stuff, and then I could only take it so far, because I couldn't think about how to sell it, or advertisers or stuff, because I wasn't on that side of the business.

Oh, you were just making sure it was grammatically correct.

Well, I was creating all the content. I just wasn't able to monopolize it, or monetize it. But from there, I was like, I love journalism. I always will. But the idea of being able to help these tire dealers more, being able to help companies understand their differentiators, and how they're special, and tell their story, that became more of a passion, so then I switched over to marketing full-time.

Was that something that came about just from getting to know these independent tire dealers, or was it, I don't know, did your family have a company or something where you saw something there? Or was it just in making those relationships, and you're like, “Oh, I want to help”? Does that come from that journalism, where it's all finding the truth for a bigger mission?

I think that it comes from wanting to help people, and also understanding that not everyone has the same ability to tell their story, or understand, or write it down. I, over the course of my career, so then I – I mean, I started in journalism, but then I did content. I was a copywriter, a content writer, and all that stuff before then getting into where I am now, and realizing that skill set of writing, which is if we jump ahead to 2023, we talk about AI, it's a whole different ballgame, and how that skill set is different. I never realized how unique of a skill set that was, until I started going into companies, and people had all different types of skill sets, but I was the one person that could write it all down.

Okay.

Then when you go into these companies, they don't think what they do is special.

No. Because it's every day to them.

It's every day. When I then started working for a marketing agency, I had clients that were predominantly in manufacturing, some in rubber. I remember specifically going to a rubber manufacturer, and I was with my marketing agency team, and they were scanning, and they were like, “What are they doing?” I'm like, “Oh, they're checking the cure temperature to make sure that that temperature is curing it the right. Because if you don't, it won't be able – the rubber lining won’t be able to work correctly.”

It doesn't work like it should. Yeah.

My whole team looked at me and they're like, “You make us sound so smart.” I'm like, “Oh, you –”

You are smart. Yeah.

For us, like that’s just what they're doing. You got to do a temp check, man. It's just really funny. Yes, it's companies every day. It's what they do. It's their brand. It's who they are, but they don't know how to put that into the market. So, that I love, and it's still part of what I love about being able to help TMSA companies and help them. That's part of what marketing is. It's part of sales. I can go on these huge tangents about brand alignment and how too often, we're only having brand conversations and marketing, but there's so many people that are actually part of that story. And having those touch points with your customers and how do they know their part of the story.

Yeah, that's how I got – and I guess how I got here was, so after I worked at a marketing agency, then I worked at a software integration firm that focused in transportation. I was actually a member –

Now you got two checkboxes from the logistics world right there.

Yes. Well, I was a member of TMSA. I came into TMSA in 2017. Went to my first annual conference, fell in love with it. Immediately joined the education committee. Served on there for years. Took over the marketing committee for TMSA in 2021. Joined the board of directors. Found out that they were looking for new management. Was not like, “Sign me up.”

Okay.

But I was like, okay what do we need? What does TMSA need?

Yeah. What does that entail? Yeah.

Yeah. What does that entail? How do we evolve this? How do we make sure that in a post-COVID world, we're hitting all the markers for our members? Who are our members? All of that stuff. Towards the end of 2021, I was like, “Okay. I actually think I really care about this and I care about the membership and I care about what this organization can be, that I actually want to take that on.” I left my job. That was just slightly terrifying, but I did.

Always. Always. If you're not scared, then you're probably not doing it right, right?

Right. I mean, it's been about 19 months-ish, but this is the most challenging and rewarding job I've ever had, because the association means so much to so many people and we're getting so many new people in, and they have needs and how do you accomplish all of that. It keeps me on my toes for sure.

There you go. No, I love the story. I love just hearing about how it's really about trying to help people tell stories that they don't realize is worth telling even some of the times. We dropped TMSA, now that I can finally say it right. But transportation, marketing and sales association. I'm assuming A, it's a non-profit. And B, we just talked about a little bit before that you guys are about to a 100 years, and jokingly, maybe even get a third employee.

Yes.

What is the mission of TMSA? What is the goal? At the end of the day, what's a win? Especially –

A lot of questions you just rolled out there.

I know. I know. You answer a lot of them as you go. But also, add in, because from my marketing team's perspective, it's leads and that equals sales. From a non-profit, is it more outreach, or championing – I can't speak. Championing a cause. Yeah, so now I'll let you actually answer those.

Sure. Let me jump in. We are a trade non-profit. Our whole goal is to uplift our members, uplift the industry, the roles that they serve. Our main membership is going to be the sales and marketing professionals that work inside of transportation and logistics. People that are working at the port authorities, at the trucking companies, at the freight brokerages, all of that. Then we have a partnership network as well that are going to be sales coaches, recruitment firms, marketing service agencies, all of those kinds of people who are serving and helping the sales and marketing professionals inside the space.

Got you.

We try to help them learn and grow and network and adapt. Especially on the marketing side, we find that there's a lot of transportation and logistics firm who have a marketing person. Even the sales teams can be really small, until you get to that really big level of company. Where are those people going to be able to brainstorm and to network and not feel like a crazy person when you're trying to meet your ROI and your KPIs? What does that look like? That's where we try to be. We want to be the place for people to have a safe space, to talk about what they're really going through. That authenticity and the real organic conversations that happen at TMSA is why I fell in love with it. I was a director of marketing and I wanted to create really awesome sales collateral that actually mattered to my sales team. But I didn't want to ask them

We don't bite. I mean, we might.

Well, you want to help them. You don't want to hinder their process by taking up too much of their time. We had conversations. I would go on sales calls with them. I would give ideas. I would go to TMSA and be like, “Here is what you should talk to these people about. Here's the five things I learned. This is what you should do.” Having people that were in my network, that were salespeople, that I could have that dialogue with, that there wasn't a –

Almost outside the house, you can get that information and bring it in.

Yeah. Because you don't want to look stupid at work. You want.

I can't help myself with that. But no, no.

Well, I mean, typically that's an objective. I think, A, having a perspective of knowing that your perspective might be different is good. I actually really liked that. It took me a while in my career to understand that my perspective, even if it's different, could be great. I worked at that software integration company and everyone was so techy and smart in a way that I just wasn't. Then one day I'm like, “Hmm, but we're selling to sales and marketing people.”

They need a bridge to go from their smart, techy to common layperson terms, so someone can know whether or not they should be looking at it or buying.

Like, if I don't understand something, our customer is not going to understand it. Me admitting that I don't understand what you're talking about doesn't make me – I mean, it might make me look silly, but it's, okay, but how can we then prepare better content and better collateral and explain things better to our customers in a way that's going to make sense for them?

See, salespeople rarely, or at least we don't hear it the first time from the tech. Let me peel that back, or we have fun ways of saying, please say that again, because I have no idea what that was.

Yeah. I just think that that's great. At TMSA, we're having those types of conversations. We just had our Elevate Conference in June. One of the biggest things that we do is called lunch round tables. It's based on topics. Whatever trending topics are going on in the industry, if that's the one you want to talk about, there's 10 people at a table, they're going to have a conversation around that.

That’s awesome.

Is that driver recruitment? Is that SEO? Is that how to get your sales teams to be more efficient? Is that how to get your sale unstock? Whatever that looks like, there's people who are having those same issues and you can have a real conversation about it.

I assume those targets, or topics on arbitrary that those might be even member driven of what you want to talk to, or what the common problems are across the board that you're polling and polls checking from your members?

Absolutely. We do joke that we do have a really small headquarters right now. When I took on the executive director role in 2021, we changed how TMSA was run. We had the executive director and now we're building out a staff. But we are a membership-driven organization. I might be in the leadership seat, but I would not exist and TMSA would not exist without our members.

We have a board of directors. We have a bunch of different committees and that's where so much work goes on. The education committee is made up of sales and marketing professionals that are part of TMSA, and that's where we do pulse checks. I just came from an education committee meeting where we were talking about what our facilitated conversation should be for the executive summit, which is our event that's coming up in October? What are leaders needing to talk about? In that event, it's in October, so it's right at budget season. What are people considering for what they want to invest in next year, in an economy where people aren't sure if they want to invest? What topics are really trending? We have that.

What's going to be relevant? What's going to be helpful? No. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I love about the committees is because it is filled with members who are supporting the organization and helping us uplift. I just had a call with someone today, too, that was like, “I am excited to join a committee, because I want to be a servant and give back to the industry and help other people uplift. This is the community I want to be a part of.”

It's more than just getting something out of it for yourself. It's putting that out to everybody, and the same boat you might be in.

Yeah. It's really great to find the community and then to be a part of it in a really constructive way that helps. That's even at the end of the conference, I'm like, “Please, fill out the survey. Please, tell me what you thought.

Yeah, I really need to know.

I really need to know. I can't –

I can't guess how either, how we can make it better. I need you to tell me. No, I like that. Actually, that's awesome. It also brings up, so I've been talking to a lot of people from across the industry and Banyan is the technology provider. But logistics is a whole, seems to be like, the redheaded step child that gets the technology last. Finance gets it real fast. Obviously, there's other industries, too, but there's – I don't know if it's a pushback, or just that we'll get around to it. You talked about having one marketing person, or maybe one or two salespeople. Why do you think and with marketing, is that a similar thing in that some of that technology and the marketing, I don't know, if campaign or strategies is slower to hit the logistics industry, like technology? Or is that not what you've seen?

Yeah. No. We actually do a metric study at TMSA every other year that's available just for our members. Part of this is asking those types of questions and even looking at marketing budget. The predominant thing that's in a marketing budget is the marketing employee salary, which that’s insane.

They’re like, “Our budget. We pay her. What else do you want from me?”

We have this huge budget. She's good, right? I feel like, that was, I mean, surprising, but not surprising to me. Then just thinking through, “Okay. Well, then are you going to hire more employees, or are you going to outsource? What are you going to outsource?”

Right.

We ask all those questions, too. I definitely think when people are looking for investments, or what are we spending money on, marketing budgets are just cut. When you think about that conversation around brand and your differentiator, when you are unsure about how things are going to go, isn't this the time to focus on putting your name out there and having a positive experience? I think there's ways to do that with a budget and without. I get nervous for people when they just completely cut that out and they don't support.

The other thing that I'm seeing a lot is when we talk about customer support, customer experience, sales, marketing, HR, these type of software, a lot of times they'll purchase the software and then they'll be like, “Oh, well, there's marketing automation. Just use that. Isn't that good?” They're not really asking the marketing people, what do you guys need from a system? Then there's also now a visibility into what marketing is doing that didn't exist before either. Because if they were working in their own system and there wasn't a software integration. Now people have visibility into all the emails that you're sending us up, but they still don’t understand what it means.

What to do with it.

Or what to do with it.

And how to maybe change, or alter course, depending on what those results they get back are.

It's a really interesting time, because I think more people are seeing what marketing could do. But then, they're not necessarily supporting those initiatives either.

I got you. Is it within that marketing to me, and maybe that's just because I'm in sales, is that it's a soft ROI for a lot of things. You're not, “Hey, I put $10 into marketing and it put these three deals on my table, because a lot of it is just getting the brand recognition out there.” Do you think is that one of the harder things and why they're just like, “Well, we pay a marketing person. That's good enough”? Especially in logistics where it's, “Hey, I'm moving this truck. This is how much I'm making on it. I know exactly where my profit is.”

I think some of it is soft, where you're saying like, “Okay, we're boosting the brand. This is all the initiatives that we've done here.” But if with that integration piece and if you are aligning your sales software and your marketing software, you should be able to actually tell where those marketing dollars are going.

Okay.

If you have a campaign and you brought in – that campaign say, brought in 10 solid leads and then you see who actually gets sold to by sales, you can see what MQLs are coming in, actually going to SQLs and what's being closed. There's a loop that you should –

We're starting to get a lot more, and starting to be less of a gray game and a lot more black and white about where those dollars are going and how you're getting a return from it.

Mm-hmm. Then something that I recommend to all sales and marketing people is, so there should be a collaboration between those departments. You should be helping each other, not hating each other. Whether it is the marketing person that goes back, or the sales person or whatever, ask when you close a client, ask them how they found you.

Yeah.

Because your software and theory should tell you.

But.

But if their answer is different, then –

You're going to want to know what they say, versus what the computer, or the integration is saying.

Because even if you have the most perfect integration, like technology changes, the facilities changes.

It goes, I sent them an email. It was an email, when in fact, it was, they caught a webinar one day and that was the real differentiator.

Right. It's just good to have a full conversation around that. I do think it's a way for marketing people to prove that they are, like yes, we do so much stuff and here's how we're doing that and here's what that looks like. I just think that's really important. I also recommend marketing people going into sales calls.

Okay. Well, I like that. As I've said before, here at Banyan’s, one of the first times I didn't directly fight with my marketing team and it was great to work with them and they help me in everything. We're talking where it's common, where it is now. We talked with Trey Griggs, who I know works with TMSA as well. We talked a little bit about the future of logistics and marketing and where do you see that going? Is it more of the same, or you touched on AI a little bit and I know that could probably be a whole segment of itself, but where do you see as far as the future for A, TMSA and B, just marketing the industry as a whole?

One of the most interesting trends that I'm seeing is actually the alignment between marketing and HR, because of recruiting. That was something –

Oh, so it's brand recognition, just to keep bodies in there. Okay.

Yeah. When you are recruiting, who's in charge of recruiting at your company, especially when you're talking in terms of email promotion, social media, events? I saw a lot of people coming in to elevate and coming to our conferences and looking at our content that are HR-specific, which was really interesting. I think that alignment between those departments will continue to grow, because recruitment is a whole thing, whether you're recruiting drivers, or whether you're recruiting employees, or whatever.

It's not easy.

No. When you think about that budget, whose budget is it? When you think about, okay, so we like to post X amount of times on social media as a company brand. Well, how many of that is then a marketing initiative, versus an HR initiative?

Right.

Who's in charge of those posts? How do you make sure that those posts are part of –

Putting out the message from what department. Yeah.

The right brand. The right brand alignment. Then how does that filter into whatever department? That is a really interesting trend that I've been seeing.

Okay.

In terms of overall marketing for the industry, I mean, I think that, like you said, logistics seems to be a last stop, but the tire industry was similar. I think that the industrial spaces are a little slower, but they'll get there in time. We just got to be ready for it. I do think –

Maybe give it a push, too.

Yeah. I do think the more that people embrace it and really think through how do I do this? Where are you getting leads from? Or if we're talking about recruitment, where are people? Who are you trying to recruit? If it's a younger person, like are you on TikTok.

Right. Yeah. How many TikTok dances have you done for TMSA?

I don't do that. That is Trey's job. I'm a professional lady.

I have done none either, but I cannot claim to be a professional lady. But I like –

Yeah. That’s fair.

I like your reasoning, though.

I do think thinking through. I think, one of the best things that I learned in journalism school, and I take this in my personal and professional life, but number one rule is know your audience. Who are you trying to appeal to?

Yeah. Then find their medium.

Right. I mean, I say this like, when me and my husband were looking to buy a house and he was like, “Oh, we can have a chicken coop and ride RVs, or whatever, ATVs in the backyard.” I'm like, “Who do you think you're talking to? Where is the Starbucks? Where is the grocery store? Know your audience, dear.” I just think that whether it's personal, or professional, that's really important. I think that's going to be the key for sales and for marketing, I think, as we go into this questionable markets. Just think through that and really think –

Every market's questionable.

I know. It's very true. Just think through your value prop and who is that – when was the last time you checked in with that? With all of the key players and how is that going?

Is what you said last six months. Accurate for what you should be saying in the messages you should be putting out.

Right. I think through that, if we're talking about, oh, sales have been slow, well, when was the last time you checked in your value prop, or –

Look internally.

Yes. There's work to be done there, just to make sure that you're being consistent with who your brand is and the piece of that. I do think that that's a big piece of it in making sure that you're having those conversations, and that those conversations are being trickled down to whoever is part of the process.

Right.

And that you're hearing from the sales reps, too. What is their experience? What are they hearing from the people that they're talking to?

Yea. They’re the first line, or the front line. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, too often, we cut those people out of the conversation, when really, they should be a big piece of it, you know?

Right. Yeah. If you didn’t signed in, we don't care what you care to say, Mr. Salesman. No. Yeah, no. They have input, just whether you want to listen to them.

It's the same, like sometimes people will put the marketing person off the table, but it's like, their entire job is to be paying attention to trends and what's coming in the market, and so –

Utilize them. Take advantage of it. Yeah. No, I love that. I don't know why I wouldn't have thought, but HR makes a lot of sense in just trying to fill seats and get the word out there, so it's very similar to a product-based marketing, or even your services, or value ad. We're wrapping up here. Not that I want to push you on your way, but so now, I give everybody I talk to an opportunity, or soapbox. What's your message to either your members at TMSA, or the industry as a whole? Here's your opportunity to say whatever you got to say.

Sure. No pressure.

Yeah.

Just quick hits. Okay. One, I would say, I love TMSA and what it represents. We are a full membership. We have resources for people all year round. We're not just a three-day conference in June, even though Elevate is awesome.

Apparently, a lot of fun and they got to see the Savannah Bananas.

Yeah. I got to throw the first banana at the Savannah Bananas game.

Oh. I'm jealous.

Thank you. No. But, and then we have an executive summit coming up October 11th through 12th in Chicago.

Okay.

That one is really geared towards executives. But we do direct, or hire the people who are going to be making budget decisions. Are you in charge of staff? Whether that's people, or your outsource staff, what does that look like? Our keynote speaker is going to be talking about using empirical evidence to build trust in your organization, which is such a strong, important topic with the people you should be talking about. Then we're ending that with Jennifer Kobus, who's the VP of Transportation at Ulta Beauty. Hearing directly from a shipper and at a big company and hear what she cares about. That's going to be a fireside chat. Then we do have facilitated conversation –

Would be very enlightening.

- with other leaders, because that's what I heard from the leaders at transportation companies is they want a space to be able to talk to each other.

Hey, now you're giving it to them.

Yup. We have that. You can find all that information. Our main website is tmsatoday.org. If you want more information about the executive summit, you can go to events.tmsatoday.org.

I love the voice change there. That was very nice. I like that.

I needed it to be soothing, so people would go to the website.

Soft sounds of TMSA and their website. Please come. No. Jennifer, thank you very much. This has been an awesome conversation. We could probably go on for another hour, and maybe David will let us next time. David.

Good thing, I'm just up the road. I can come back.

That's right. That's right. Thank you very much. For anybody listening, watching, thanks for tuning in. Check out TMSA's website. Be a part of their membership and get something back, while giving something to the rest of the community there. Thank you, Jennifer. I really –

Thank you.

It was great to have somebody in person. They don't let me talk to people in person as much for legal reasons. No. Thank you for watching and listening to Tire Tracks and catch our next one.