Hey, everybody. It's Patrick Escolas with another Banyan Technology’s Tire Tracks podcast. How you doing? I have with me a special guest, North Winship of Shiplify. How you doing, North?

I'm doing great, Patrick. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here. 

Hey, I’m probably not as excited as I am not to be making sales calls. But with a name like North Winship, and we'll take off the north part with winship in it, were you just destined to be in the logistic space from right out the womb? Well, that's amazing name. 

Yes, yes. I never even stood a chance. I never had a choice. Yes. 

Oh, it’s funny. 

My first name is North. I'm from the south. Then last name is Winship, and I'm just kind of like, “Ah, okay. Let's do some LTL.” 

That's fantastic. That's fantastic. You're with Shiplify. What's your position there?

I'm the President at Shiplify. I've been with the company for 11 years now, pretty much since we got it up and running. My dad is actually the founder, so nepotism is alive and well. 

We got North, the nepo baby of the LTL accessorial kingdom. Yes. 

Yes, exactly. 

But with a name like Winship, it makes sense to get the family into it. I get that completely. Shiplify has been at it for 11 years by the sound of it. What is Shiplify? It's a great name. What do you do? What's your whole –

Yes. Shiplify is – the easiest way to describe it is it is an accessorial identification service for LTL carriers, shippers, brokers, and tech providers really. 

What does that mean in reality? That sounds good. How does that play?

Yes. To put it in English, essentially, we help LTL carrier shippers, 3PLs identify three main kinds of accessorial fees which are, essentially, just extra charges that carriers apply to the bills for services performed over and above, just bumping a dock at pickup and bumping a dock at delivery. 

I'm sure those things haunt most of the people listening to this day in and day out. 

I would think a lot of people are not in their heads, but that's where we come in, I guess. But what we primarily help out with is identifying residential pickups and deliveries, identifying limited access pickups and deliveries, which is, essentially, shipments going to locations like schools or military bases or churches, things along those kinds of lines that carriers charge additional fees for because they have additional costs associated with those deliveries. 

Then we also help out with will this shipment require a liftgate. What we tell our customers is is there a loading dock present at this destination. If there's not, we'll take it one step further and tell you whether a forklift is present. If they don't have a dock, they don't have a forklift, shipments over 150 pounds will basically say, “Hey, you should go ahead and request a liftgate.” 

Yes. That's awesome because I know there's a lot of gray area, or the information isn't always at someone's fingertips as they're creating a shipment. Or someone executing a shipment may have no idea where it's going to. Someone just said, “Hey, get it to this address.” How does Shiplify get that information? I imagine you're not going door-to-door to every possible shipment location and writing down, “Nope, this is residential. No, I had to stop at a gate, and someone had to let me in, so it's limited access.” How do you get that data?

We really started building up this database with an angle trying to help carriers do a better job of identifying these things on their end. We thought they were leaving a lot of revenue on the table, and they were relying on shippers to proactively opt in to these additional fees. Then they would rely on drivers to notate that delivery. Or they would rely on their billers to see the fact that it said school in the name field, and they’d be like, “Oh, that’s a school.” 

And maybe put it in there. Yes. Exactly. 

And put it in there. 

It’s a crazy idea. 

There was no real – every carrier had their own process for identifying these things — knowing  what’s available. 

That sounds like carriers not having a uniform standard process. Yes. 

None of it had a whole lot of technology behind it, and it was just something that got thrown to the wayside. “Oh, we'll grab those fees when and where we can grab them.” Then we got pretty lucky. We got our service stood up right as ECOM and Amazon was really taken off. A lot more big and bulky stuff started going residential or going to schools, those kinds of things. 

That makes sense. 

As we gained subtraction with carriers, the problem really became a whole lot better, and we had a solution available for them. Now, we're really trying to help shippers and 3PLs access this up front at the time of quotes a whole lot earlier on in the process, so they can, hopefully, eliminate some of the variances and back and forth and disputes well. You charged me residential, but you didn't quote me residential. I don't want to pay that. 

Where we come in is we're really the ground truth of what is actually at a location, right? What type of location is it? Do they have a dock? Do they have a forklift? We do some cool things from a tech standpoint and that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, it's a really simple solution. 

I have to ask. Is this something that as you're putting it out to shippers, executors, and 3PLs that the carriers are going like, “Hey, man. What are you doing? That's – I've been able to make an extra 50 bucks on every load that goes to a place that they didn't realize was a retail shopping center or a parking lot that most trucks can't get into.” Is that just something that naturally makes sense for the carriers and the shippers because they'd rather be more accurate than get those accessorial fees?

Yes. I think what we're bringing to the table is a level of accuracy and consistency and reliability. A lot of our carrier customers have experienced that over the last 9 or 10 years. They actually are pretty thrilled that we're making this available for their customers because what it winds up doing is it provides a better experience for their customers. It's like if they know about it upfront, they're not necessarily arguing, “Hey, this isn't a residence or whatever else,” because it is. 

I was just thinking. Anything they could do to minimize the negative PR of we have to call and argue about our bill every time. Or they've got the people in their department. Their entire job is to get these phone calls of why are you charging me for this when that's not what I should be paying. 

Yes, exactly. It’s a better experience for their customers because if they're passing their freight charges along to their customers, then it's not killing their margin on the product that's being moved anyway. That's ultimately where this is going. It's interesting just from the industry perspective. Traditionally, you can quote LTL zip to zip, weight pieces, class, that kind of thing, and all the carriers will give you a quote. 

For us to perform our service and tell you about some of these location-related attributes, we got to have a full address. I know there's a big push industry-wide. The more data you can give your carriers upfront, the more accurate pricing you can get from them. That's a big piece. Here we play into a portion of that. We're not helping with reways and misclassifications and things like that. But we can help them on some of these assets [inaudible 00:08:48]. 

Yes. That’s a game I advise staying away from. No. That makes a lot of sense. I know that within the Banyan system, with carrier connections, we see that some carriers don't require dimensions. You might get a similar rate if you go zip to zip or if you put the granular address. But one thing that has always stood out to me is if I don't put an address in, then there's a lot of variation in one stop in a zip code versus any other stop in that same zip code. It’s a naturally –needing more information is going to make it more accurate. 

To me, maybe it's because I come from a technology firm, so I see it through that perspective. But to have not had that and just assumed all stops in the zip code are the same stop was a crazy idea in the first place. 

Yes, yes. I think technology has enabled a lot of this. As carriers catch up, and shippers catch up, and 3PLs are improving their technologies, and you've got more and more freight tech providers entering the space doing all sorts of cool things, I think that there's going to be a lot more progress on this. The pricing, although it's complicated and carriers covering their costs and that sort of thing, it's going to continue to improve and, hopefully, there'll be a lot more visibility as the weeks and months and years go on. Everything in LTL just continues getting a little bit better. 

Yes. No. You made a point there, I think, before that, yes, sure, that the carriers are cool with it because they want more accuracy. But one thing I hear from my clients, and I don't know if this is a perception from my clients or something that you might be able to have seen, too. But say in the past six months, the LTL game, the amount of accessorial disputes has gone up. I don't know and, obviously, we'll assume they're not using the Shiplify system right now. As we're going in, is that something you've seen? Or is that anything that you've heard of from your side, just the amount of variation due to accessorials from the awarded quote versus the invoice?

I think there is. I think we play maybe a small part in that. But we've also got a solution to a portion of that as well. What we're trying to do is make that solution available. Bring some brand awareness to it for shameless Shiplify plug but ultimately –

It's okay. We're all very biased in our motives. It's okay. 

Yes. I mean, ultimately, what we're trying to do, we've got a good mousetrap for this. It's a good solution, and it can solve problems, and it is solving some problems today. What we want to do is just make people aware that, hey, this is available. If you're dealing with a whole lot of disputes relating to liftgate or limited access or residential, we can help out there. We can help you get aligned with your carriers. We're this third-party data solution and data source that a lot of the carriers are relying on, and so you can really get aligned with your carriers. If we have bad data and we're flowing bad data out into the market, you can let us know. We get it corrected, so it's corrected for everybody. Then we move on. 

Yes. I would imagine you at Shiplify have some sort of – what kind of ROI have you seen from a shipper’s perspective? Is this – obviously, there's going to be variance in how many shipments and where and what we're doing. But what do you say when you put the marketing material together? What's someone looking to gain from this not just from the peace of mind of knowing you're doing it right? But what's to gain?

Well, it depends –

It’s okay if I put you on the spot. You go, “I'll take the ball part.” It's okay. 

No. There's a different ROI really and different benefits for each portion of the industry. With the carriers, it just helps them collect the revenue that they're rightfully owed for their rules, tariffs, right? Then it can help them operationally, making sure that they're getting shipments that are going to require a liftgate onto a trailer. With a liftgate, reduces ring backs, reduces redeliveries, all of that sort of thing. Then it really – that actually improves the customer experience for shippers. 

Absolutely, it does. 

We've had – the conference table that I'm sitting at right now got delivered on an LTL carrier. They showed up. We had requested a liftgate. I won't name who it was. They showed up. It was on a 53-foot trailer without a liftgate. They then brought it back four days later, so we got our conference table four days later. But think about that. If you're a manufacturer, something else and you've got a time-sensitive –

It’s such a great example right to your door. Just, yes, exactly. 

Oh, yes. 100%. We were like, “I think we're on to something here with this liftgate stuff.” But, no, I mean, if you've got a time-sensitive thing that you need to get, and then all of a sudden carrier shows up without the proper equipment, that's a bad customer experience, right?

Absolutely. It’s going to wreck your day.

Then on the shipper and the 3PL side of things, for shippers, it's really, hey, know about it upfront. You've got orders coming in to your order management system or ERP. You don't know anything about who that is, where that's going, nothing like that. So you don't know and you also don't know necessarily what your freight charges are going to be. You have what's quoted to you, but you don't know if there's going to be accessorials.

If you're a small to medium-sized business, you can get [inaudible 00:14:56] on these accessorials, and you can go from a profitable order. Then all of a sudden, you get hit with a $150 accessorial. Now, you're losing money. It's cutting into your margins, all of that sort of thing. 

Yes. You can't go back to the customer and be like, “By the way, you owe me another $75, and it's not your fault.” Yes. 

Yes, exactly. Yes. They’re like, “Well, guess what. My grill is already set up. It's on my deck. I'm not paying you another dime.” Yes. 

That’s a great call out. I think on top of all of that is just the pure time savings of being able to negate some of that dispute and even just looking through those variant pieces. Was this legitimate? Wasn't it? Because every time you see a difference, somebody's got to do something. That's time, one, an employee has to spend going through it. 

I know that's going to be different for whoever is using it. But as you're doing this, I assume this is kind of a real-time data you're pulling from. If you went in and got new information today or that this place is actually a limited access, you'd put that in. If I shipped it yesterday and that information wasn't known, it might not be there. But if I went and execute it today, that would drop in. 

Yes, yes. Absolutely. All of this is available in real time. We've, obviously, got a very large database with these attributes labeled at different locations within there. But then we also slap on some machine learning. To throw the buzzwords out there, we use them. We have used them for a while. 

I know. I’ve never heard this. It’s a word with an AI. 

Am I going to say AI. 

AI. Yes, yes. 

We do utilize that, and we factor in some satellite imagery and a lot of other data points to really figure out, hey, what is at this particular location. What are the attributes that are meaningful as it relates to accessorials? How can we get that into the hands of the people that need it at the point in their process, when they need it, right? That's really what we're doing It’s all available on the fly. We've got a little tool you could plug your house into. I don't know if you've ever gotten an LTL shipment, but we’d probably call it a residence without a docket, without a forklift. 

I would hope not. That would be – yes. It would be [inaudible 00:17:22]. Yes. No. Little do you know, I actually live in the back of a manufacturing plant. No, I'm not kidding. Yes. But within that and one of the things that I find so awesome as we at Banyan have integrated to Shiplify is when executing from example our CloudTMS screen, if I go to hit somewhere, a location, it's limited accessorial or limited access accessorial, but I don't select it. Once it hits Shiplify, it doesn't tell me anything. It just automatically selects it. So when I get my rates, it's right there automatically. 

It’s almost idiot-proof, and Patrick-proof would be the really accurate one within that. But I think more, it just adds this more and more of all of the things happening behind the scenes that you don't know ensuring that when you get an actionable piece of information, be that rate, you're working on the best information possible. 

Exactly. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. I think anybody who's shipped LTL in the past, especially if you're keying up shipments into an interface, you're probably very familiar with checking the box for liftgate, looking at the long list of all the limited access location types. You've got to select that. The best way to think of this integration between Banyan and Shiplify is we basically automatically check that box, so you just don't have to worry about it. 

Yes. It's awesome. I probably could have asked this earlier and if you don't have it in front of you, but like what – I know that depending on what carrier you go to and who you ask, there's a different number of limited access. What does Shiplify recognize?

We base everything on our – we basically have our own definitions for what is a residence, what is a military base, what's a school, what's not a school, right? Something could say school in name, but it's actually a school district office or school district warehouse. 

It’s a beauty school in Maple Heights, and it really could just be a convenience store, depending on the build and the access to it. Yes. 

Exactly. We classify these things as all these different location types. Then we use that essentially as a trigger. We can be carrier-specific with this because you may have carrier A considers a car dealership to be limited access. Then carrier B doesn't and whatever else. 

That’s awesome. 

Basically, we monitor all the carrier rules, tariffs, and we have them set up within our system, so we know carrier A charges for these 30 location types. Carrier B may charge for these 15 carrier. C May charge for 45. We can help you through an API integration. Basically be like, “Okay, this carrier is going to ding you for limited access. This one doesn't consider a car dealership limited access.” You can factor that in. We don't do anything with the actual rating. We're just providing the underlying data. But you can factor that in if you're a low-cost carrier shop, and you can see that. 

You're not going to get an apples to oranges anymore. You’re going to get as much of an apples to apples with these accessorials in mind as possible. 

Now, at the time of quote, you may not have selected a carrier yet, but you can still pass as, “Hey, these are my four preferred carriers. I want to know what they're going to charge for.” That’s fine, too. 

Yes. Okay. We've tackled the accessorial game here. What are you doing next to get into reways? No, I'm kidding, so no. 

I was like, “Don't put me on the spot.”

No. You’ve started with carriers which makes sense. Once you got the carriers on board it, it makes sense to come to everybody executing and say, “Hey, this is what they're using. Why don't you use the same book? Let's match up.” I've seen Shiplify more and more in different systems, Banyan being mine. Here, not personally, I just work here. I did not create or own it. I'd have somebody else doing the podcast but –

Am I that boring?

No, no, no. 

Are accessorials glazing your eyes over that much?

They really aren't which is terrifying me about how enthusiastic I am. If I could talk to myself about four years ago and be like, “One day, you're going to talk about accessorials.” Yes, I know. Microsoft Word still thinks you've spelled it incorrectly. That's your next step. You got to go make sure it’s a legitimate word that all of the spell checkers don't immediately say are spelled wrong. 

With that, what's next for Shiplify? Do you guys have future initiatives? Or what are you looking at doing next? Or you're just buried right now into getting what you have to as many people in systems as possible. 

Well, Patrick, if I told you, I might have to kill you. No, I'm just kidding. 

I like that. It's a great response. 

No. We want to get the word out that this is available for shippers, 3PLs, tech providers, really anybody shipping LTL. If you're experiencing the pain in the accessorial that we all know, then we've got a solution for you, and we think it can really help. Our road map, we like to work with people and see what their problems are and see if we're well-positioned to really create a solution and go to market with it. Anything accessorial-related, anything location-related, we've got our ear to the ground on that. We're constantly trying to find new use cases or have discussions with people. 

Of course. 

You see what their problems are and see if we can come up with a solution. But for now, we are pretty focused on getting the word out on the accessorial game. 

No. That makes sense to me, especially with you're getting into it, and it's something that's constantly involving, just by definition itself, as more and more information gets fed to you as more users and/or carriers take advantage of it. It's going to be an evolving ecosystem of, “Hey, we need to mark that,” or, “Hey. When you go here, you need this.” Like I said, very enthusiastic for my clients about the integration within Banyan. 

Other than calling me immediately, how does someone get more information on Shiplify? If they liked everything they heard here and they want to go, they want to learn a little more, where are you housed at, North? 

You can go to Shiplify.com. You can Google us. I'll jump on the grenade and put my email out there as well, so all the bots can come and hit me up. But you can contact me directly at northw@shiplify.com. Find me on LinkedIn, whatever. If you can't tell right now, I could talk about this for four hours a day till my eyes bleed, whatever else. 

No. I love that because if you're enthusiastic about your product and the value that it has, then there's really something there. But if you came out and be like, “Yes, accessorials. There's maps, and sometimes the maps aren't –,” we'd all be going, “What's going on? Who made this guy talk about this?” 

Yes. It's funny. When I was when was about eight years old, I dreamed of growing up to help solve some accessorial problems. Yes.

That’s it. That’s it. 

Everybody else wanted to be an astronaut or fireman. I'm like, “No. I’m going to be the accessorial guy.” 

Oh. I immediately just went to a terrible superhero origin story where his parents were killed by accessorials. Now, he swears vengeance. 

Yes. I'm basically Batman. 

Yes, exactly. Minus the orphan, the technology, the money, and the cool gadgets, it's the same thing. Yes. 

Yes. Minus Wayne Manor. 

Exactly. No. Well, I just – North, I wanted to thank you so much for joining us today and just as importantly to anybody listening here. Do you have anything else to say? This is – it's my platform with as many listeners I may or may not have. But here's your chance to talk to them openly, whether it's from Shiplify, from North, or you just really want to tell who did the wave painting behind you and tell them thanks. 

I kind of forgot about that. 

I like it. 

But, no, I mean, we love chatting about this kind of thing. If it's something that's interesting to you and you've made it this far in the podcast, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. That's me with my Shiplify hat on. North is – all I want to say is rise up. Go birds. That's where I'm at. Big news, out of Falcons Camp over the last two days, so –

You guys do have some good stuff going on. As a Cleveland Browns fan, I'm also in a good spot, especially considering my lifetime. We'll just put it at that without getting into any particulars. 

Luckily, you've avoided any sort of 28 to 3 debacle in Cleveland, so I don’t know what’s worse. 

We’d be real happy to be there to do the debacle. I know that a lot of people might disagree, but I'd be happy to be at the stage and then have a crushing defeat because then at least I've got some paraphernalia that says Browns and Super Bowl on it. It isn't immediately a parody comic or a hell freezing over reference. Yes. 

Oh, yes. Yes. 

No. But thanks again, North. I appreciate it. Appreciate the time and really excited about the integration and just everything Shiplify is doing. To anyone out and anyone still watching and listening, and I hope there's a few of you, make sure to like, comment, subscribe. This is another great point to bring up the Banyan Connect Conference. Not only are we having it in tropical downtown Cleveland in September, but we're also hitting Atlanta and Vegas in October. North, are you going to be able to join us in any of those?

We're going to be at all three, the trifecta. 

There we go. Come bother North about accessorials and make him talk to you about him for three or four hours. Then tell them how awesome it was to watch the Patriots beat the birds. No. 

See, I can't live it down. I can't live it down. 

No, no. Again, again, it's better to have been there and lost than to have not been there at all. Take it from someone who knows just wanting to be in the door. No. But thanks again for everybody listening. Thanks again, North, and we'll see you with the next episode. 

Thanks so much for having me, Patrick. 

Bye, everybody.