Hey everybody, it’s Patrick Escolas with another Banyan Technologies Tire Tracks podcast. I am joined with me today by Jill Schmieg of Sol. Hi Jill, how are you doing?

I'm good, thanks for having me today.

Hey, I'm happy to have you. So, before we get too deep into the meat of everything, as I always like to do, Jill, who are you? How do you apply to logistics as an industry, technology, marketing? We'll start there and then we'll get into who is Sol. Jill, who's Jill Schmieg?

Well, Jill Schmieg today, anyway, is a really happy mom because my kids went back to school.

Already?

So, today is a big day in my household, especially for me, I am doing this podcast with you and celebrating a little bit of having the kids out of the nest back in the classroom. There's got to be a lot of people out there that are going through that, right? Now and over the next couple of weeks, I would think.

I'm one of them. I have a four at home and summer is great, but it's a little too long. I know as a child, I would have never said that, but we need school so badly.

Amen. So, I'm extra smiling today because of that. Thanks for having me. You got me on a really good day.

That's awesome.

In my professional life with my kids, thankfully, back in the classroom today, I run a marketing services firm based out of Naples, Florida. I have run the firm for about 10 years. I founded it in 2015.

Awesome.

I’m here today to just talk about some of the types of marketing out, reaching growth strategies that companies in transportation and in logistics are using.

And is that specifically your niche or do you touch other –

Yes. So, about 70% of my client base is in the transportation logistics space, clients of varying sizes. I do exclusively B2B marketing. Then even those that are not directly in the transportation logistics space, the other 30% or so, only do B2B sales, B2B outreach and customer acquisition.

And then, is that something where you just found the industry? Or is that somewhere you came from originally? Why logistics?

Yes. So, I grew up in this space. I spent the first 10 years or so of my career at Ryder based out of Miami, Florida.

That’s a good name.

They're a really large truck rental, leasing. And while they made their made their brand around those services, they actually have a really large multi-billion-dollar division for supply chain slash 3PL. So, I grew up actually in their supply chain 3PL division, grew up professionally, so to speak. I did that for the first 10 years of my career before I founded my own company.

Okay. And then as far as, is that something where you always had a love for marketing or did you see a gap in that industry?

Yes. So, funny story. I actually, my degrees in college are an international business in Spanish. So, did I think I was going to end up in marketing and in transportation logistics? Not really. When you think about transportation logistics, they're fairly local. I mean, some companies are local, right? But I mean, a huge number, like something like 92%, 93% of all carriers in our market are like small mom-and-pop shop type operators, right?

Right.

So, you think about how localized our industry is compared to my fluffy college degree in international business. It's like a dichotomy in a way.

As a former pre-med and then graduated with a pre-law degree that does none of those things, I completely understand.

Yes, right. So, I did manage to stay in the business field. That was really good.

That's fair. You got that over me.

Yes. And especially during my time at Ryder in Miami, there's a lot of Spanish-speaking folks. So, the Spanish part worked out in Miami a little bit. But I mean, I didn't, I didn't really think I would land here in my college days, but loved once I got exposed to the industry through Ryder, but then through some other associations, I'll talk about that in a few minutes. But once I got exposed to the industry, I just really appreciated how down to earth and how friendly the people in the industry are. It was just a good fit. Personality-wise, and for my bringing in background, it felt like a good fit for me after those many years kind of growing up and getting used to the networks and the things that happen in the space.

So, I'm a small-town girl from Michigan.

We'll try not to hold that against you. From the Buckeye State here, but it's okay. I went to –

I do know that about you guys. I do know that about you guys. So, you know, going from that to Miami, and then trying to find my niche, right, in what was a global company in the transportation logistics space, which is its own kind of unique kind of culture and space in and of itself.

It's a big world with a small pool, right?

Yes. So, the industry in general felt like a good match with more of my traditional country roads upbringing. 

Well, that's awesome. I've talked with a few other marketing professionals as it comes to logistics and the space before. I guess that is this something that you realize too, or maybe this is a perception I have, is that within logistics or within the brokerage space, there's not a whole lot of marketing going on that I see. Sure, the carriers might get an advertisement here and there, but I'm not flipping through the game and seeing, “Hey, Joe's brokerage commercial coming on or a pop-up.” There had to be – what is about that space that is either, is are they against? I don't want to say against marketing, but or is it just not perceived as that important? 

That's a great question. First of all, I think it varies widely in the industry. In terms of like, especially founders and some of the family-owned companies, how much of a density and kind of exposure to marketing that they've had along the way.

Fair point.

So, I'll say that there is a large spectrum. What I will say always makes me smile a lot is when I talk to a potential customer for the first time. I'll ask them, what have you been doing for your marketing? They'll say, oh, my daughter is going through graphic design class at the local community college. So, she's been ginning up our marketing stuff.

That always makes me laugh because I think there is a kind of an immediate need. We know we need a little bit of a brand and maybe a little bit of a logo, maybe a quick website. But then the idea is like, okay, path of least resistance. Maybe this is a good intern opportunity, right? And then they realize at some point in that journey that, yes, this might not be the level of professionalism and like kind of delivering the kind of support to the business that we actually really need, right?

Right.

And they typically end up landing and talking to me. But I can probably, need all my fingers and all my toes to tell you the number of times I have heard the – I'm using my daughter, who's in a graphic design class at the local community college to make me a logo, right?

Yes. Like you said, that might fit in the short, but you don't really have a strategy with that. I think that I would assume that's part of where your game value at and what you do. So, let me ask you this, kind of a hypothetical. Say I'm a new broker and you're talking to me as a potential client or maybe a new client. Where do I start? What's the most important thing to do. I got enough with picking up the phones and finding the loads and getting them covered. What am I supposed to do about marketing?

Yes. So, that's a million-dollar question with a for a person that probably doesn't have a million dollars to spend on marketing, right?

Yes, exactly.

So, I think that, there's varying levels of how new you are. Let's start with somebody that's new-ish in the industry. You've built a little bit of a customer base, right? And maybe you're more than just a one-person show. You've actually moved into having maybe a few other agents, maybe some administrative staff. Let's say, say, 8 to 12 people on the team, more or less.

Perfect.

Let's take that size of a company and then we'll go back to the new, new, like I'm trying to go out on my own and I need to do some stuff. Okay?

That sounds good.

Let's assume that you've been in operation for about a year or so, you've got maybe 10 to 12 folks on the staff. Let's start there. What I recommend that that affirm that kind of meets that kind of a profile due is take a few minutes and really do some critical thinking around who are your current customers? And how do they profile out? What's the same about them? And typically, when you figure out what's the same about them, you start to be able to answer the question about why they're using you or how you're different as a broker that's really appealing to these commonalities that say 6 or 8 or 10 of your customers have.

Now, are you looking for something like industry or just off the being a smart guy? I'm going to say, “Well, they give me money and they have shipments they need moved.” What kind of details are they looking like?

Think like specialization. So, you're right. Industry can be a specialization commodity, type of commodity that you're moving. It could be a specialization. Mode can be a specialization. So, when I say mode, sometimes that actually translates into the kinds of carriers that you have relationships with that are that are loyal and dependable in your network. It could be any of those things. It could be geographical.

Right. That makes sense.

It could be, gosh, my brokerage is located near this particular inland port or this particular major railway center. We're able to do certain kinds of transportation tied in with that geographical local presence in a certain market.

That makes sense.

So, it could be some combination of all of those things. It could be you have most of your customers by size. Maybe you're really good at serving a really certain size kind of company in a certain industry with a certain service.

So, we've got those things in common.

Yes. Think about J.B. Hunt on a big scale. I use this example because I think it's fairly well-known in the industry. Think of J.B. Hunt on a big scale. They're kind of like credited with being the inventor of this whole term around Final Mile, back in the day. This goes back. Now, when you think about everybody uses Final Mile nowadays, right? But when they first invented it, that kind of started tagging that term on so many things. Well, what did it really mean? Well, it meant like this last leg with kind of a white glove delivery, typically tied in with like a full-truck load or some kind of partial truckload delivery that they were making.

Again, that goes back a long time, right? Probably 15 years, but it's a good, easy-to-understand example. There are certain kinds of products and certain kinds of companies that Final Mile is absolutely a critical service that J.B. Hunt carved a niche in that market, right? Now, they're a big player, I get that. But the same concept applies to some of the, a smaller type brokerage firm that does on employees. What are those things that you're good at that you have commonalities with your current customers with? If you can nail down those things and then go and find more customers like them.

Okay. Yes. And then, is that all it is? I'm just finding the things in common, defining my differentiator and then going after my, what do we call it, the ideal customer profile, that ICP. Or I assume you got to put a spin on it or the logo or the story, because I've talked to people before and it's about storytelling, right? A lot of marketing is, how do I decide how to tell that story? Is it just me with an axe and the big blue ox? I'm as big as a myth or what? How does that go? How do you decide what that looks like?

Yes. Kind of audience first, right? The most basic rule of marketing is know your audience, right? So, that's kind of where you understand your audience, you understand what your differentiators and specializations are that are important to that audience. Then you got to wrap your brand around that. You have got to think about how are you going to fundamentally present yourself. When you talk about brand, now you're talking about the intangibles, right? A little bit more about what do you stand for, right? So, are you the flashy, fast, kind of trendsetter in the marketplace? Is that going to be what you represent and put forward?

You can imagine lots of fast move – or graphics looking like they're fast moving and that kind of thing appended to that kind of an image. Or maybe you are the steady, reliable, dependable, trustworthy.

Kind of got your rabbit and the turtle here. Tortoise and the hare within that.

Yes. So, I think you have to spend some time defining what do you want to project to that audience that that fits with how they also view you and your specializations and your differentiators.

And make that probably match up with your culture or make your culture match up with whatever you decide.

Yes. Then you got to start to really – brand can be hard in this industry to kind of understand because it can feel very intangible. There's a lot of like reputation wrapped up in these brands, right? I like to get very, very specific with some priorities in terms of what to do with that brand once you have figured out what going to be. And that is start with some very specific things. One is your website. Is your brand well projected on your website? And are your messages on your website consistent with your brand?

Fair.

Consistent with the specialization differentiators that you know matter the most to the customers you're trying to acquire.

That makes sense. Seems pretty straightforward, but yes, I can see where that could be overlooked at times.

Second thing, and this is where I see companies start to really – they'll project the right brand in one place, but then what they need to understand is that customers do more than just come to your website. They see you in a lot of other places. So, is your brand consistent in the other places where customers are going to see you. Second place that I recommend you really sharpen up your brand, make sure it matches and is consistent with the work you've done on your website is whatever social media platforms you've decided to be in.

Big one in this industry is LinkedIn, on a professional networking standpoint, but increasingly we see more going on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. I don't think you have to do all of them. Pick one that you're going to have a presence in, that you think is going to be your primary place to acquire customers.

And you want to make sure your customers are there. That's the medium they live in.

Make sure your customers are there. And then make sure you are projecting that brand consistency that you had on your website into those social media channels.

Okay.

Last one. This is going to sound crazy.

I already like it.

Because I think people don't think about this anymore, but I think it's actually very important. For brokers in particular. Is your brand projected into your V card, which is the electronic version of a business card?

Okay, gotcha.

So, a lot of people, you know, they leave their email signature, their business card, and increasingly vCard. Think I scanned it with a QR code to be able to add you to my phone Rolodex, right?

Exactly. 

Are those basic ways that people are going to find your contact information and get in touch with you? Well-branded. Simple, right? Three things, those three things.

You have that and it all sounds like we're working backwards a lot from that ideal customer. Now, we're going to work backwards and we're going to identify what our brand is and we're going to make sure our brand's kind of across the board, like you said, at the website, social media, and on the signature, vCard, business card. Is this something, and this is, this is probably something you either struggle or overcome all the time. How fat I take these steps? Is that something I'm going to see an ROI with immediately? Because somebody in brokerage is saying, I'm putting this money aside for marketing. How do I get that to turn back into more money? Is that something that I shouldn't expect as a hard ROI? Or I should see more clients coming to me? What does success look like once I've taken these steps?

Yes. So, I think that if you think about a social media, so when you think about like a typical broker, we'll keep on the 10 to 12 people path. If you're an individual single-person show, we can talk about that maybe towards the end and I can give you some advice there too. But I think, if you think about, okay, I have a social media channel, I'm active in that channel and I'm generating leads and building relationships there, okay? That's touch point number one that a customer is likely going to see you, consider you. And if you're doing it right, they're going to visit your website.

Right. Okay.

Touch point number two, your website, right? Now, I see your website, I see that you're legit, you're talking my language because your specializations and differentiators are things that I need and appreciate. Now, I'm going to contact you through your website, and I'm going to get an email reply most likely to the message that came through the website, okay? That email reply, guess what it's signed by, your vCard. So now, there's my consistent brand starting that conversation with a new customer and I've hit them in all three places with the right type of message, with the consistent branding that makes me look professional, and just putting forward a good experience for that customer.

Okay. So, I just kind of did that three very simple things together. Now, you want to go bigger and you want to get more leads. Maybe you say, “Okay, yes, I'm getting some stuff through LinkedIn. I'm getting some inquiries through my website.” Starting to do this, how do you find where your customers are? Where are they going? Is it conferences? Is it local networking groups in your area?

Right. Where are they gathering?

Are they searching to get a quote for a shipment that they might have? Now, start thinking about, again, put the customer front and center. Where do you find them in more places? I recommend you take it, because this can get very involved and it can also become a lot of work. Before you know it, you’re doing a full-time job doing marketing. You’re no longer talking to customers.

Yes, exactly.

But I recommend choosing one additional channel at a time for a company of this size.

Got you.

Maybe you say, “I have an amazing Rolodex. I have so many people in my Rolodex, I can’t even get a courtesy call out to all them,” say, one courtesy call a month. That's where email comes in. So, maybe your one channel is email marketing.

That makes sense to me.

Maybe your one channel is Google search. I want to be found when new customers are searching. So, slowly add one channel at a time and start doing those well, brand them well, create a cadence and only add one channel at a time and to expand. So, before you know it, if you say, “Okay, I'm going to add one channel every six months.” After two years, you now have five channels. You have your original social channel that you set up. Then every six months, you're adding a channel. Now, you have five channels.

Guess what? One last comment. This is really important, I think, especially for brokers. A customer will engage with you, on average, six to nine times before you ever find out who they are.

Really? Okay.

So, think they did a Google search, they saw me on LinkedIn, they hit my website, but maybe didn't submit the form, right? They might have got an auto-response email from me. They liked one of my social posts again a month later. On average, six to nine times someone will see you before they're willing to have that first conversation.

So, channels become very important, right? How am I going to be available for them to see and engage with? I call this the marketing ecosystem, engage and be seen that six to nine times before I'm going to hear from that person.

I mean, that makes sense, why you got to make sure that your marketing and messaging is on point, because as they go through the different channels, they want to see the consistency in that each way. But I wonder is the 69 times, is that something that's kind of always been about, or has technology made it so we have a more, I don't want to say intelligent consumer, but a more research-happy consumer with more tools at their disposal?

One hundred percent, much more research-happy. In fact, what data shows is that people will disqualify you if you aren't relevant to them in those six to nine touch points pretty quickly.

So, before you even know that you've got someone on the hook, it might go the other way if you if you're not hitting the right spots.

Which funny enough, brings us back to the specializations and differentiators. Are you talking about the things that matter –

To your customers

– the kinds of customers you're trying to acquire? Because if you haven't defined that and you're just saying, talking, either talking all about yourself, we're trying to be everything to everybody. People are going to look at you and say, “Oh, they didn't have anything relevant to say that clicked with me. So, not interested, not someone for me. Not a good fit for me.” That relevancy of understanding your audience, having specialization differentiators to make sure that of it when they do see you is critical.

Speaking of critical and through a lot of these channels, we're talking about different technology pieces. I mean, email has been around for a while, Google, a good amount too, but some of these social media platforms are new. How does technology affect how you go about with marketing, with things like AI and ChatGPT out there? Are those tools that anybody should be grabbing at? I mean, how do you feel about that as you're talking to your clients, kind of putting a plan and strategy in place?

It's interesting, you bring up like AI, ChatGPT. Some folks out there maybe are using intent-based tools, like a ZoomInfo’s intent service.

Familiar with that. Yes.

6sense is kind of the leader in this space. They work more, what I would say B2C, more in the consumer realm. But it's this idea that there's these you can call them like a monitoring service that is keeping track of what people are searching on, what people are doing. ZoomInfo is the kind of an up-and-coming platform. Apollo, some of you may have heard of Apollo. I mentioned 6sense a few minutes ago, kind of the leader and kind of more of the consumer space.

But what intent-based tools do is they monitor behaviors, digital behaviors that are going out online. If a person is searching by terms that are consistent with your business, if they are visiting websites that match up with your industry and the types of services you provide. And this is across all types of digital footprints and digital buyers. These services will actually tell you who those people are.

So, in a way, it's basically marrying up what people are doing with who you want to talk to, telling you that they're consistent with who you want to talk to and then passing you that person's information. What is really interesting about these kinds of tools, also about AI and so on, is that I view them very much as support tools for sales and marketing to get more focused in on who they should talk to and what they should do.

Got you.

Regardless of how you find out who your potential buyers are and what they're doing online, as a salesperson, it's just prudent to ask yourself, when does it make sense for me to try to contact people?

Right.

I need to be a little bit sensitive to the fact that I could be creepy by contacting a person who doesn't know me, has never heard of my company, and has no idea that I know that they are looking to make a shipment for X, Y, Z type of freight.

Sure. You don't want to give them the big brother spiel right away?

I think the nature of what the tools provide is great insight. But what you do with that insight and how aggressive you may behave, you could really be shooting yourself in the foot in terms of a person legitimately saying to you, “How did you get my name? And why are you calling me about this?” So, I say use those tools with caution. The insight and the intelligence is good. What you do with it though, be careful. Be very careful.

That's kind of the intent-based side of things. Let's switch gears and talk about AI and ChatGPT, and it's awesome.

They're huge right now, yes.

They're amazing in what they do. They're also, for our world, especially transportation logistics, very generic. So, here's what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to take you back again to specializations and differentiators. What are they for you and your company? Now, go over to ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to write you something about 3PLs and brokerage in X, Y, Z industry and see what it says back to you.

What are you we looking for?

Now, take back what it spit out to you, which I can promise you, because I've done the experiment enough times now, what it spits out to you will be non-differentiated, right? It could be the website of any broker or 3PL in the whole industry could have written what it what it gives back to you. Now, take your specializations and differentiators, differentiators, which you had ready over here, and blend it with what you got out of the ChatGPT.

Okay.

Okay. So, it's a good starting point, like I said, a good support tool, but should not be used lock, stock, and barrel to substitute from just doing good marketing.

Now, you say there's a good substitute and you don't want to do that. Is that something a new broker or someone on a time crunch would want to utilize? Or are there different steps that you would take? I would assume identifying that ideal customer and working backwards from that is always the first step. But let's say, I'm just getting into business. I am that brand-new broker like we talked about before. What should I be doing? Should I be going and doing just what you said on ChatGPT to get started? Or is there some other path I should be going down?

So, I think if you're newer in the space and or you're a 10 to 12-person company, I think it's really important to level set and think about what am I trying to get to? What is my objective? Then how do I use this tool to help me fulfill my objective? Let me give you an example. So, you have your specializations and differentiators. You now say, okay, I want a website that is going to produce a lot of leads and a lot of quotes. Okay, right. So, I know that to track people to my website, I have to make it friendly to how people search and eventually find me. Now, you need to have an SEO strategy for your website. How do people – what sort of terms do people, my kinds of buyers search for so they're going to come to my website?

Of course.

Once you know those terms, okay, let's go back to the differentiators. Let's say it is freight bid to move X, Y, Z freight from Inland Port A to Charlotte, North Carolina. That's something somebody searches for. You want your website to be found –

When they search for that.

– as a broker for that scenario, right? Now, you go over to ChatGPT and you say, “What are the types of characteristics I should look for in a 3PL broker who knows how to move freight from Inland Port A, B, C to Charlotte, North Carolina?”

Okay.

You use ChatGPT to generate an initial set of content for you. You go back through that content and edit it for your own specializations and differentiators and that becomes a blog post on your website.

Perfect. That's going to help you get that search come up to you when someone types in that exact situation.

Exactly, but in the absence of your objective, which is attract more traffic to my website to get more leads coming into me, in the absence of that objective, you're be goofing around with chat GPT and have no idea what you're doing with the output, right?

No, it's a much better surgical approach than kind of the shotgun that you could find yourself in and go in a bunch of different directions and not getting the traction that you truly need. So that makes a lot of sense, especially working back from, yes, this is what I do, this is what I do well, or this is what I'd like to do even. All right, let's focus on people who'd go for that.

Let's stop there for a second. I want to back up to objectives because I think this is actually really important for brokers. A lot of brokers have like, I just want to get customers in the door and I want to generate leads, right? And I get that and I just gave you a really good scenario on one technique to use your website with an SEO strategy with ChatGPT to get some of that work done.

Absolutely. 

Let's do another objective though. One of the things I think sometimes brokers overlook or they don't capitalize on enough is they don't really think about repeat customers. How do I get them coming back, right? They're very transactional. So, it's like, “Okay, I got that customer in the door. I got the tender. Boom. I'm good.”

And in theory, it should be cheaper to go after the repeat customers from marketing standpoint. 

It is. And data, well-researched data for many, many decades has pointed to, it's much less expensive to keep a customer than it is to acquire a new one. Like 5x. I mean, it's a big number, right?

Yes.

So, you might say, I know I want to get a lot of leads in the door and I understand what my strategy is going to be to go do that and what my objective is in terms of number of customers knew that I want to get in. But I also have an objective where I want to have repeat customers coming back. It's not just a one-and-done shipment. If they have that kind of a shipment every other month, or every three weeks –

I want them to consider me for everything they got.

I want them to look at me for that every single time, right? That is a different objective and a different strategy in terms of what you're going to do, okay? You probably need to have some kind of consistent approach to keeping in front of that customer and continuing to nurture the relationship over time. So, when that next shipment is coming down the pike, your top of mind, and they know that they can use you. That is probably more of an email marketing or newsletter kind of approach. So, you say, “Okay, I want customers to keep coming back. I'm going to share with them like you guys do with your podcast series.” Funny enough. “I'm going to put, share educational content with them, help them continue to be successful in their positions, give them tips and tricks on how to get the best quote through the best process. And I'm going to continue to keep in touch with them and nurture them until that next shipment comes along, okay?

Makes a lot of sense to me.

Now, you're going to ChatGPT, and you're asking ChatGPT to help you write that newsletter, or write that email marketing message. Very different, right? Having your objective in mind before you go and start trying to use some of these tools is so important.

Yes. That's a great point there that a lot of these tools, and this is just another theme that I've gotten from some of the other people I've talked to is it's great to have the data, it's great to have these tools, but how you use it differentiates the good from the great and how to really be effective with all of the tools and data and opportunities at your fingertips.

So, we talked a little bit about what you would talk to that 12 to 18 brokerage getting into it, what a time crunch or new brokerage would do to get effective SEO results while utilizing some ChatGPT. Within that, and that's kind of where we're at now, I always like to look forward a bit. Where is the market or technology within this space, within marketing for the industry going? Is there going to be any great big changes? We're going to have a hologram Transformer, be my mascot, talking to my customers? I mean, that's kind of absurd. But yes, I'd love to – is Optimus Prime going to be the new little AI bot that comes in and says, “Hey, I hear you got a shipment.” What do you think the future looks like, whether that's a year down the road or five years or do you not know?

Yes. So, It's hard to predict the future. If anybody asks you –

Don't worry, we won't put it. There’s an asterisk.

If anybody asked you March 1st, 2020, what's going to happen to the world in the next year, we would have all been wrong. We would have all been totally wrong, right?

Absolutely.

Anybody who is in the brokerage world, which we're talking about today, right? Anybody that's in the brokerage world that plays in the spot market, pre-COVID and played in the spot market post-COVID, you know what I'm talking about. Very unpredictable. You can have a really amazing couple of weeks and then a really quiet couple of months. Or a really amazing year and then a really quiet couple of years, okay?

So, what I'm going to say next is not intended to be offensive to, but I'm going to say it because every person that is listening to this is going to relate with what I'm saying. The spot market can be brutal. So, when times are good, you need to really double down, invest, save and prepare for when times will be bad because they will come. We see what happens to people that don't have that strategy. We have a rapid entry of new brokers and new players in the market when times are good, looking to make a fast buck, and then when times go bad, guess what? They go out of business. Again, not saying that to be offensive to anybody, but that is how the spot market works in this industry.

I think it's a great call out.

What is important to recognize in that environment is as you are standing up your company, how are you doing things that are customer-centric and sustainable for the long term? That has to do with financial management, but it also has to do with leveraging the diversity of technology and talent that is in the marketplace so that you don't get left behind. I can promise you that the brokers that were just sitting with a phone and a Rolodex 10 years ago, most of them are no longer in business. Why? Not because they didn't change, but because their buyers changed and their buyers wanted to be able to self-serve decoding. Thus, the birth of load boards.

An adapt or die type culture.

Right. So, it's really important to say, “Okay, I see that the next generation of buyers, how they're going to want to engage is not just with a phone call and a handshake, or the swing of a golf club, they want that, but they also want to be able to self-serve to a quick quote and tender that load and never have to talk to me again, if they're on their way out the door to take their kids to their first day of school.

That's the truth. That’s a great point.

So, I cannot impress enough. It's important to recognize that your buyers are changing what they want and how they want to have the things that they need at the tips of their fingers in whatever way that they want them. Yes, a lot of that has to do with technology and self-service technology in particular. You got to adapt to that. And your Rolodex is valuable, but only to the extent that you behave with the people at your Rolodex, the way that they want to have that experience and the way that they want to get quoted and book tenders.

That is a very, very important point you made there. Jill, thank you for a lot of this. This is a lot for me to think about. I’m not broker, but it’s something that goes in and I speak to a lot of people in this space, and I appreciate a lot of the insight and kind of the points and even how you can kind of get off the ground running and what you need to look at to evaluate where to position yourself.

So, for anyone watching, where does someone get in touch with you, Jill? How does someone find Sol? What's a great way to start a conversation, because I'm a broker that wants to start utilizing your services?

Yes. So, my website is Sol de Naples. I'm going to spell it out S-O-L-D -E-N-A-P-L-E-S, soldenaples.com. You probably can see my name on the screen right about now. If you just Google search my name, you'll also find my website popping 2up. I do want to give one last shout-out to an industry entity that has been a significant part of my career, and that is the Transportation Marketing and Sales Association. I haven’t had a chance to mention them until now, but if you are a new broker or an established broker, you have a team of salespeople and marketers, this is the only industry association of its kind that can help you specifically with sales and marketing.

I do a lot of educational delivery, like this podcast, through TMSA, helping brokers and carriers alike succeed in sales and marketing. So, beyond my own website, and certainly you can go there, but you can find a whole lot more resources about the things that I talked about at tmsatoday.org.

Tmsatoday.org. That's awesome. Jill, thank you so much. For everybody watching, this has been Jill Schmieg with Sol, also representing TMSA. Find her and work backwards from who your ideal customers are and get services like hers or just get started. Start telling the story, start getting yourself out there so you can really identify what your brand needs to be. And as it sounds like, be consistent. They're looking for you already. So, make sure they've got something to find there.

Jill, thank you so much for the time today. I appreciate you and all you had to say. And for anyone watching, this has been another episode of Banyan's Tire Tracks. Like, comment, subscribe. Jill, thank you so much again for your time.

Thanks for having me. Good luck to Banyan during the rest of the year. Take care, everybody. Thanks for listening.

I appreciate you so much and enjoy the rest of the day without kids in the house. I am still looking forward to it right now and can't wait to join you there.

Awesome.

Bye.

See you later. Thank you.

Bye, Jill.