Everything is Logistics
Navigating the New American Dream with Chris Jolly The Freight Coach
In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe speaks with Chris Jolly, aka The Freight Coach. They discuss Jolly's motivation to become an entrepreneur after feeling unfulfilled in the corporate world. He shares his mindset shift from chasing vanity metrics to focusing on creating genuine impact. Jolly also reflects on the challenges of changing people's negative perceptions of freight brokers.
LINKS:
Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.
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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!
Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program.
Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you.
Trimble is transforming the way the world works through industry leading solutions that reduce cost and maximize productivity. Learn more about Trimble Technology here.
Digital Dispatch maximizes your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers. Check out our website services here.
In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe speaks with Chris Jolly, aka The Freight Coach. They discuss Jolly's motivation to become an entrepreneur after feeling unfulfilled in the corporate world. He shares his mindset shift from chasing vanity metrics to focusing on creating genuine impact. Jolly also reflects on the challenges of changing people's negative perceptions of freight brokers.
LINKS:
Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.
---------------------------------------------
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!
Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program.
Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you.
Trimble is transforming the way the world works through industry leading solutions that reduce cost and maximize productivity. Learn more about Trimble Technology here.
Digital Dispatch maximizes your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers. Check out our website services here.
There is no playbook to any of this stuff. You have to develop your own over time and when you break it down to small, attainable tasks, it's just like because there's always something to do, right, like there's always another task that you can work on and this and that, where I found that building up my own system and really forcing myself to keep it simple is the most effective way, because it's the long play.
Blythe Brumleve:Welcome into another episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers and freight. We are proudly presented by SPI Logistics and I'm your host, Blythe Brumleve. We've got a great episode for y'all today. It is going to be releasing you are listening to this, hopefully on July 4th. So we've got the perfect guest for y'all, and that's Chris Jolly, aka the Freight Coach. We're going to be talking about what the new American dream looks like. So, chris, welcome back to the show.
Chris Jolly:Blythe, thank you so much for having me on. I'm already fired up and ready just to get this rolling, because I always enjoy our conversations and I remember when we both started well, you had been doing social media stuff and podcasting for a long time, but when we first met back it was back in 2020. And it's like we've gotten to know each other over the years and it's like every time we're around like I love hanging out with you, but I'm like I wish we could hang out more because we just were aligned on so much and I'm ready to rock.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, I mean we were, we were, I think we were talking for a good you know 10 minutes and we probably could have kept it going before we hit record. But we started getting fired up about a few different things Jaguars, mostly about that. I'm trying to enjoy my summer before I have to start worrying about this team, so I'm still in like the summer mode, summer mindset. That's where I get a lot of my motivation is the downtime of where I can let my brain sort of rest and relax and think before I get into the thralls of, you know, the busy fall season. But I want to. I want to learn about where you find sort of motivation and that's where I want to kick this off is where because you are a very motivating person and I think anybody who has ever listened to your shows and knows that right off the jump. So I just want to jump into where do you find motivation? What motivates you?
Chris Jolly:It's something that you know. For me, I think now it's knowing how long I live below my potential, and I've realized that over these last couple of years, more than anything is, it's like, you know, I tried so long to just kind of like go with the flow and be liked by everybody. And, you know, just be a systems person, right, like work in the system, work for a corporation, knowing that I didn't actually want to do that. And then when I got out on my own, I'm like, holy shit, I have there's so much opportunities that are out there. And I'm like, if I want to accomplish what I know I can accomplish, I have to completely reinvent myself and I have to be committed to the fact that this is a lifelong thing. Like there, there isn't a end, an end zone for me, there isn't a goal line for me.
Chris Jolly:I want to look back and be like how much did I improve over my lifetime? And that's my ultimate motivator. And I also want to set an example for my son, most importantly, about what you can actually do if you really are willing to work for it day in and day out and deal with all the bullshit that comes your way. Because, just like with everybody. I have my bad days, just like fucking everybody, but I've built the discipline that I'm going to show up and I'm going to put in the work. Yeah, some days might not be as effective as others, but I'm going to show up and push through it, no matter what.
Blythe Brumleve:Now with that mindset, it's very entrepreneurial. So I'm curious as to why it sort of took you a while. Or did you always have maybe side hustles in addition to a full-time career? Because you worked in freight brokerage, if I remember correctly, for a long time, thought you were going to become an executive, maybe at a freight company, but then I think the market maybe shifted for you. And give me a glimpse of what that timeline looked like, because you sound like you've maybe always been this motivated, this passionate, which is like the core, I think, feature of every good entrepreneur. So I'm curious where the light bulb moment was for you to say I'm going to actually start my own business, I'm done working in this sort of corporate grind.
Chris Jolly:Yeah, no, it was back in 2020. I had just moved to Arizona with my wife and my son and I was looking. I just felt like I had accomplished everything I could in brokerage. I wanted to go try something new At least, that's that's what I thought and I went out there. I had a bunch of interviews lined up and I resigned from my job and then COVID became COVID and all the interviews went away.
Chris Jolly:I was out of a job, beginning of a pandemic and I'm like fuck, what am I going to do here? And you know, it was like I unapologetically talk about my faith. I'm a man of God. I'd been praying for a long time Like I want to be my own boss, I want to do my own thing. There was something that was speaking to me to to go out and do it Right, because I don't like I. I'm a. I will say I'm a great employee because I show up, I do my job and everything else. I might not be the easiest person to work with, but I show up every single day and I do my job to my best abilities. And I wanted to do it for myself.
Chris Jolly:I had saw a buddy of mine go out and start his own freight brokerage and I think like that was kind of the real driving thing behind it was is it was a little I'll call it what it was probably jealousy, at the time where I'm like, well, damn, if he can fucking do it, I can do it, why am I not doing it? You know, and you know again back to my faith God works in mysterious ways and I think that that was that time where he's like, ah, if you're serious about it, here's your opportunity. Nobody's hiring, no one's going to hire you for the next 90 days. You know, if you want to start a business, this is your time. And I and I truly feel that and you don't have to be uh, you know a person of faith or religious to feel this way I truly feel like you were given a couple of windows in your life to do what you were truly meant to do, and most people look past them. Most people don't see them for what it is, because it is hard. It's really hard to go out and essentially throw away the money that you could be making and get kicked in the fucking teeth repeatedly every single day.
Chris Jolly:But it's one of those things where it's like I have to find that motivation to figure it out, because if I don't, I truly feel like I'm going to have to answer to God one day when I go to heaven and he's going to be like, really, you, you had it all there, you, you were that close and you just went back to your old ways. So that scares me more than anything. And this is I've never told anybody this blithe. So this is full, brutal transparency, that that that's kind of one of those things that, like it really centered me and it made me think like, hey, if I'm going to do this, if I'm going to pursue it, this is my time, this is my moment and I have to go for it.
Blythe Brumleve:It's almost like you. You need faith in that timeframe of when you make the decision, of when you're going to go out on your own, because you have no idea where your next check is going to come from. And that just lights a different kind of fire underneath you, where you know it's going to happen, you know it's going to work out, and I think that there's a level of of faith but also a stubbornness to keep working at it until you figure it out. Is that the same? Do you find that that was the same for you?
Chris Jolly:That is literally me in a nutshell. I could plan everything out and again, this isn't me saying go be reckless. There's a lot of value in planning and building a structure, but I'm the type of person where, for the overwhelming majority of my life, I always thought like there was a new way of doing it or there's a better way to lose weight or do this, and I overlooked how simple it actually truly is. Right, like it. It's. It's. It's not easy, but it's. It's simple in its concept. Right, like with work. I'm in a group called the RTA Syndicate. Andy Frisella and Ed Milet run this and like from a content perspective, from like a free business perspective. Those are the two individuals that you need to follow, because they've both built actual, real businesses and they talk about like having simple, effective tasks every single day inside of your business, and that's really what my days are.
Chris Jolly:Deduced down to now is I have core things that I have to accomplish every single day because I am managing a couple of things right now, so it's like I have to find all my own guests, so that's a critical task every single day. Find guests for your podcast Two guests a day is my thing, where I'll reach out to people via DM, email text. Whatever. I'll do that every single day. I got to meet with my sales rep that I hired. That's on my critical task list. I got to meet with my marketing guy every single day. That's my critical tasks list. So it's like making sure that I'm doing that, because there is no playbook to any of this stuff.
Chris Jolly:You have to develop your own over time, and when you break it down to small, attainable tasks, is it's just like cause there's always something to do, right, like there's always another task that you can work on and this and that where I found that building up my own system and really forcing myself to keep it simple is the most effective way because it's the long play, right Like it's same like with. You know cause I've really taken a lot of reinventing my health here here recently and I'll talk about it more in a later date in time about why I did it but for me it's like it's finding what works for me and sticking to that. Stop paying attention to the noise, stop paying attention to this, it's what works for me, and then doubling down on that and then making adjustments as I go. And you know again cause there's not an easier route. The easiest route is the route that you're avoiding most times than not.
Blythe Brumleve:Well said, and I think it's finding those little moments that you can check off of the day that makes you. It's like a psychological thing when you can mark something off of your to-do list and know that the most important task or tasks that you had to get done that day are done, and then that frees up your mind to be able to focus on other little things that are still important, but they're not as important as those critical tasks important, but they're not as important as the as those critical tasks. I'm curious to know when you, when you did back to to, when you first started out, what were the most important things for you to tap? How did you know what to tackle when you choose to be your own boss? I know you, obviously you started the podcast, but what were some of those other things that that that were those critical tasks at that moment that leads you to being able to hire other people?
Chris Jolly:I mean, to be honest, I Googled, I Googled a lot, I spent a lot of time I call it YouTube university, yes, and I just researched everything Because, again, I was just like, oh, I started a Gmail and then I'm like, oh, I need a business license. All right, how do I get a business license? So then I went to find that out through the state of Arizona and then getting my EIN, and then, a couple months later, getting a business bank account, and then finding a CPA, and you know, and then this is all not even including how do I create revenue. This is all like building the structure of it all. And you know, for for me, it was like I just listened to a lot of Gary Vee back in the day as well, and I still think he is probably the best resource for content creation out there if you're looking to do it, because he literally will tell you everything that you need to do in it. And it was just like, hey, create content and just post every single day. Just post every single day and then eventually you'll develop your flow.
Chris Jolly:And that's what I did, and I'm just a firm believer of. I want to do what other people aren't willing to do Not. A lot of people are going to post a video or do a video podcast or anything like that. They all want to hide behind a fake fucking profile pic and everything else and put on a facade that there's something that they're actually not profile pic and everything else and put on a facade that there's something that they're actually not where. I want to develop my own style and keep this going and just stay to my course, stay to my playbook and not really pay attention to any of the other noise out there, because I know the overwhelming majority of people the overwhelming majority of people are not anything that they fucking try and portray, that they are online.
Blythe Brumleve:Are you in freight sales with a book of business looking for a new home? Or perhaps you're a freight agent in need of a better partnership? These are the kinds of conversations we're exploring in our podcast interview series called the Freight Agent Trenches, sponsored by SPI Logistics. Now I can tell you all day by SPI Logistics. Now I can tell you all day that SPI is one of the most successful logistics firms in North America, who helps their agents with back office operations such as admin, finance, it and sales. But I would much rather you hear it directly from SPI's freight agents themselves.
Blythe Brumleve:And what better way to do that than by listening to the experienced freight agents tell their stories behind the how and the why they joined SPI? Hit the freight agent link in our show notes to listen to these conversations. Or, if you're ready to make the jump, visit spi3plcom. And so when you are, so you're going through this process and you're highly motivated at the time I mean you're just highly motivated in general. But then you know you're going to start that podcast and then so what was that first sort of light bulb moment for you that said, okay, I'm on the right track, like it's enough to you know, it's one thing to make the jump and to start doing it. But how do you know that it was? What was that first moment that you said?
Chris Jolly:okay, I'm definitely doing the right thing. I was probably a year in. It was probably a year in that I I went to a one of my first TIA conference and I had a bunch of people come up. They're like, dude, I see your shit, I love what you're doing. And I'm like, wait, people are listening month. They're like, dude, I see your shit, I love what you're doing. And I'm like, wait, people are listening. You know, because you know you start podcasting and it's like you might get a hundred downloads in a month for the first couple of months. And then I remember I was like four months in before I got my first like 300 downloads in a month and I'm like, dang, that's fucking sick.
Chris Jolly:And I like I didn't know that what I was doing and that I was getting noticed because like it's not like you get a ton of engagement on your post, right, like it's not like everybody likes it and comments on it and everything else. But people are watching and you know. So it's like and that's my whole thing of like developing your own style is is if there's one piece of advice I could give, don't fucking pay attention to any metrics early on. If your intentions are truly you want to post your perspective and put your story out there and do that, which I highly recommend everybody does. Don't pay attention to the metrics, because they're all vanity, and I know everybody in this industry because we're in freight, so I'm going to talk about freight.
Chris Jolly:I know everybody out there who just posts for vanity and that's why they've never been on my show and that's why they're not going to be on my show. It's not that they're bad people. I just I'm not. I don't want anybody who's just trying to be an influencer for the sake of being influencers, and when you're tagging other people in posts and you're calling out companies, it's like be a fucking adult. If I have a problem with the company, I'm going to address it with them behind closed doors. I'm like, holy fuck, this is real. Like this is real, real. This isn't just me in my bedroom. Like this is actually making a difference out there.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, I, I very well said I just spoke with um uh, kara Brown from uh lead coverage and she said that one of the I believe I'm paraphrasing correctly when she says that the um there was one gentleman that was very high up executive at at a company I think uh, I'm not exactly sure which companies, I don't want to say the wrong name, but he came up to her at a conference and had said how much that he loved all of her content that she was putting out.
Blythe Brumleve:And she's like what the hell? Like you've never engaged with it, you've never liked it, you've never commented on it. And he was like no, I see it all. He's like I don't, I don't, you know, engage with anything. I just see it. And I think that that's an overwhelming amount of people who are active on social media. They just don't actively engage and you don't really know until, like you said, you're at a conference and then you're getting the, the in-person impact of all of the you know, sort of the blood, sweat and tears that you've been putting in and sleepless nights over the past year.
Chris Jolly:Yeah, and that's exactly it. Right, like I can and I'm not saying this to brag I've never made an outbound advertiser sales pitch. All of my advertisers have been inbound, you know. And it's because of pushing through that like first year, when nobody was engaging on my shit, right, like, I don't think I even I don't even think I've ever had like a viral post or anything like that. I think, like I had one that kind of took off, but it wasn't like a viral and viral standards or anything like that.
Chris Jolly:I just consistently show up every day and I'm going to say my piece. And it was cause I think, like it was around that time, that I think I got like a post that had, like you know, I don't know, a couple 20, I think it was like 20, 000 forms of engagement on the post. Remember I'm in 20 000 likes I. I don't remember what it was, but I remember the next day I was like I had that moment where I'm like, oh, fucking, this is it. I'm then everything's gonna blow up and I put something out the next day and like it fell flat and I'm like, fuck, okay, never mind, I'm not as cool as I think I am. After that one post and and I'm like you know and then after due time it was probably a couple of years in, I was just like you know what I don't want to, like I just want to help people, right, like I just want to put content out there that people can apply to their business and see a difference. Like I say before every single podcast that I do, and I truly feel that way, I just want to help people. So it's like I don't care if 10,000 people don't comment on a post or like a post that I do. I care about the DMs that I get and I won't mention their names. I care about the weekly, sometimes daily, dms that I get from the people who are like, hey, I've been struggling in sales, I applied what you said and I landed a customer. And those are the messages that mean something to me, because that is the impact that I'm chasing.
Chris Jolly:I'm not trying to chase after me becoming famous by any stretch of the imagination, because that's not what my mission is. My mission is to fundamentally change the transportation industry. My mission is to help others with what I truly feel like is one of my blessings and my gifts in life from God is my voice. I truly feel that and when I've shifted that perspective, blythe, everything fucking shot up. Everything shot up because it's like you get it. You're a creator.
Chris Jolly:I can't control the algorithms, right. I can't control if iTunes, because iTunes massively shook everything up with their downloads and how they track downloads here. Everybody's downloads were cut by 80% because of this change. Same thing with Spotify. I can't control what Spotify does, youtube, any of the social media platforms. But if my intentions are pure, I'm gonna win long-term. And that's what it is, because it's not about how many people, it's about helping that one person every day. And it's like, if I look back now, like I've done 950 plus episodes. If I've helped 950 people, that's a fucking lot of people. If you put a thousand people in a room, that's a lot of people.
Blythe Brumleve:That's so. I I'm a co-founder of a uh, the group called Jack is a group called Jack's podcasters unite in in here in in North Northeast Florida, and we would tell people and we would have speakers come to some of our events. And one of the speakers that said something one time that really resonated with me and it coincides with what you're saying, is that if you have maybe, like I don't know, 30 views on a video or 30 downloads on a podcast, like imagine you're standing in a room and those 30 people are there to listen to you and to hear you, wouldn't you feel incredibly proud of that moment? But yet we're, so, I think, just disillusioned when we see the number 30 on a YouTube video or something and we think, oh my God, we're failing.
Chris Jolly:Yeah, I think so. Another really good follow out there is Alex Hermosi, and he talks about one of his. I think the company that he invests in, like the founder of it, has like a multi-seven figure social media following, has like a multi seven figure social media following and they only have like less than 5,000 followers because it's a hundred percent targeted to their target market and everything like that. So it's like not everybody is going to be a top 1% in forms of followers and everything else. But here here's a harsh truth out there that a lot of people might not know or don't want to admit.
Chris Jolly:You can buy followers, you can buy comments, you can buy downloads on your podcast. I don't pay for any of those things, but I get approached by this shit all the fucking time. So a lot of what you see out there is fake. Okay, it truly is. The amount of downloads can be inflated, the amount of followers can be inflated, the amount of engagements can be inflated, but your impact can't be inflated because there's a lot of people out there who just post mindless, empty bullshit and it's not making a difference. And again, I'm a capitalist at heart. I'm not here to knock anybody's hustle, but you're going to eventually have to wake up one day and realize I'm a phony motherfucker.
Blythe Brumleve:So give us a glimpse into what. So we've talked a lot with your career starting out. Let's talk a little bit about what it looks like present day. So you have the podcast, you're a freight agent for SPI, which we're going to definitely talk about here in a minute, but I think you are also involved in a couple of other companies. Give us a layup of what's in your landscape, of what you got going on, because it's a lot, I think.
Chris Jolly:It is a lot and I would never, ever, ever recommend anybody do this, because I just said yes to too much and fortunately I've been able to condense it down to a couple of core things and fortunately it's all in the exact same vertical. But again, I wouldn't recommend any of this, right? Because I started out doing sales consulting. I started the podcast to market my services going on out there and then eventually I stopped doing sales consulting and I just started the brokerage and I went through SPI. Fortunately, spi took a chance on me because I didn't have an existing book of business. I don't have anything to bring to the table outside of this pretty face was really all I had to bring to the table and a work ethic, right, and they took a chance on me and we were able to run with that and they've been a phenomenal partner from that perspective. So it's like I have the podcast, which is it's a machine now, right, like I have a system. It might look like it is a lot of work, don't get me wrong, but it's very tested at this point where I have it down to a science on, like how much effort it actually takes to put an episode out there. And now, fortunately, I have a full-time almost a full-time uh marketer marketing staff. That it's not staff, it's one guy, but the dude's g, right, he has it down and he's built it up, so we look so much bigger than we really are. There's just two of us who are doing that, and I got involved in a SaaS company Broker Carrier but it's more of my IP that the co-founder needs, so it's not like I'm doing a ton of in-person meetings and stuff like that. It's a lot of. You know, he's not a uh, I don't want to say that he's not a people person, but, like, he loves to communicate via email and text. So it's like, boom, we just fire off messages back and forth to each other. But you know, the the brokerage is the third one, um, that that I do and that takes up 85% of my time and there's a lot of that that's built in it, because that's where all the competition is, is inside of the brokerage space, right, and there's a lot of shitty brokers that are out there, so there's a lot more garbage that you have to fight through. It's not easier. Like the media stuff isn't easier because I truly feel like we're trailblazing and writing the script, so there's going to be people who come behind us in five years, who are just going to have boom. They're going to be able to copy and build successful companies based off of the work that we're forging through right now, which I love.
Chris Jolly:But I think throughout my day it's really been about systemizing it, where from 6.30 till probably 1 o'clock in the afternoon is all brokerage stuff. I sprinkle my live show in there. But it's a system. I'm in 30 minutes, I'm out, I send the video file over, post-production takes over at that point and then I go back to running freight and I've turned it into a. I don't want to call it a game, but on my live show I'll stop in the middle of my show and I'll respond to customers and I'll quote loads and do everything. Because, again, I always tell people there's a real side of freight right and I want to show people like, hey, this is what you got to do out there. So I don't want to call it like I made a game out of it, but I built it into my day.
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Blythe Brumleve:Backslash battle stations and we also have a link for you in the show notes to sign up for a demo. And I think that that is where people probably resonate the most with you is that you're not just talking about. You know there's a lot of like you know, sort of TikTok influencers or you know they popped up during the pandemic and so for especially like trucking schools and things like that, like these people who are teaching freight broker basics and things like that, and you can tell that they probably have never worked in the industry, so I imagine them seeing you doing that live. It's just that added layer of trust in a world that is seems very untrustworthy yeah.
Chris Jolly:I mean, and I try and do my best to tell people like hey, you guys, I'm not as big as you think. I am in business. Right Like I, we are bootstrapping everything. Right Like it is straight dollar in, dollar out, and I'm not going to sit here and try and make it sound like we're something that we're not. Because sit here and try and make it sound like we're something that we're not, because nothing's fucking guaranteed. Right Like I have to, like I have to hunt every fucking day for revenue, every single day for revenue, and there are days where we don't make a fucking dollar. All right, that's the reality of it. And you know, you're right Like that.
Chris Jolly:That influencer culture that is out there and it's not just the thing in transportation, it's every fucking industry but there are so many fake motherfuckers that are out there trying to and they're stealing from these people by trying to create a course and everything else. And that's why I tell people all the time, like my stuff will never be behind a paywall, ever it will never be behind a paywall. I'm very fortunate to have advertisers and if it all went away, I'm still going to show up. I'm still going to show up and create content because I fucking love it. I love talking shit every day. It's so much fun. But I want to scream from the mountaintops and I want to bring on very successful people onto my show who've built 80, 100, $200 million companies from a bedroom. And bring them on my show Because I truly feel like if we put out that high quality of content at scale, everybody will get drowned. All the bad shit will get drowned.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, I feel like I've said well, said seven times already in this conversation, but I'm probably going to say it a lot more, so so, hopefully, um, you can, you can turn it into a game or something for the listeners at home. I, I am curious. So you were, you were born and raised in wisconsin, right, and then you moved to reno and then reno to phoenix yes why phoenix?
Chris Jolly:uh, my wife's hometown is like three hours from here, so she's from Northern Mexico originally and a shout out Puerto Penasco, um, it's a little ocean or it's like a shipping town or shrimping town, just three hours South of Phoenix.
Chris Jolly:And we, you know, I wanted to get out of Reno. It was Reno's fun, but it's just like it was kind of my uh, get out of Wisconsin experience. And then we were looking at, you know it was either going to be Texas or or Phoenix, and I, you know cause my whole thing was I just want to be within 30 minutes of an airport, um and from, and then we just found it, where she's like, hey, I just want to be closer to my mom and dad and I'm like, well, fuck it, I don't want to wear pants, I wear shorts in Arizona. I'm like I don't want to wear pants ever again, I don't want to deal with the cold weather. So Arizona is about as fucking perfect as you can get for that and I love it down here. I don't ever see myself moving away from here, not full time Anyways, I will always have a permanent residence in Arizona.
Blythe Brumleve:And yeah, it's been great ever since. Well, phoenix, and the reason why I asked is that Phoenix has kind of emerged as like a Chicago 2.0 in the freight world, where it's a very like logistics hub. I was curious if that was the reason why you chose Phoenix and maybe some insight into why Phoenix isenix is considered that, this strong logistics hub that it is now well, I mean, we can go political here.
Chris Jolly:It's because california is a fucking nightmare for taxes and arizona's not, you know, like that. That's what a lot to do with it. And same with nevada. So nevada is also really, uh, benefiting from all the corporations leaving um california. And it's not just the taxes, it's also what it costs to rent a building. Benefiting from all the corporations leaving California. And it's not just the taxes, it's also what it costs to rent a building. So a lot of these shippers are I know brokers can have a hard time, but they are smart and brokers don't think that shippers are smart. Brokers think they're the smartest ones, but they look at everything and it's cheaper to import and truck it into Arizona and truck it into Nevada than it is to truck it into Arizona and truck it into Nevada, than it is to truck it into the Inland Empire in SoCal and then store it in a warehouse there. It's just the cost of good is everything. It's a lot more cost effective to do it that way.
Blythe Brumleve:Wow, okay. So I was always wondering. I thought, maybe, okay, well, maybe cross-border trade has had an impact there. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense as to why businesses are not just people, because Florida is experiencing the same thing, with a lot of people moving to the state. We can't really handle it right now, or it's taking some time to really adjust to the influx of people moving to the state. So that would make a ton of sense, though, if it was happening to the surrounding states, because California is so bad. It just, you know, for small business owners, and I mean, it sounds like it's not just small business, it's large enterprises as well who are getting out.
Chris Jolly:Yeah, it's everything. And like Arizona is literally built to bring on the population because there's there's nothing out here, right Like 20 miles outside of Phoenix, it is barren desert. There is nothing out here, right Like 20 miles outside of Phoenix, it is barren desert. There is nothing out there. My bold prediction is is Phoenix and Tucson at some point are going to merge. They're like currently like 100 miles apart, but there is nothing but like small little manufacturing hubs that are bubbling up in between there. I wouldn't be surprised where it's, because it's just like in California, right In SoCal, between Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. It's like 90 miles. So from there I wouldn't be surprised if eventually Phoenix and Tucson merge at that point because there's so much of vacant land in between them.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, and people love vacant land to be able to do whatever they want with and build it up how they see fit. So let's talk a little bit more about the freight world, because obviously it's a challenging time. There are many people that will say we've been in a freight recession for a while now. Where are you seeing the opportunities for growth, or are they kind of difficult to find?
Chris Jolly:I think it's always difficult to find business. I think that I'll say it's difficult to find sustainable business because I think that you know the reality about freight brokerage is that not a lot of people talk about is. There's so many shitty providers that are out there that have burnt so many people that that's the biggest obstacle when you're going out there and trying to develop this. It's not your service, it's not your pitch. It's the fact that people fucking despise freight brokers is what it is, because freight brokers are notorious for everything that they're known for. Stereotypes are there for a reason at the end of the day, and brokers are their own worst enemies. They truly are, and I think that the market that we've been in has been so inflated and it's been so easy for brokers out there that they don't think that things are ever going to change. They're getting. This is some of the boldest fucking things that I've seen out there.
Blythe Brumleve:Like what.
Chris Jolly:About like the way that they treat drivers and all the fines that they try and bake into rate confirmations and everything else. I'm about like the way that they treat drivers and all the fines that they try and bake into rate confirmations and and everything else. I'm like where are you getting this from? You know, and I'm just like how, how dare you treat somebody like that? You know, but I'm also, you know, knowing that the free market is what it is and me being a fan of it's only a matter of time before I'm in your customer's ears and it's only a matter of time before you fuck that opportunity up and I'm going to capitalize on it.
Blythe Brumleve:That's what I was gonna say is probably a great opportunity for the honest brokers out there to see situations like this be able to speak on it in a public setting or in a social media setting. And then that's how you I mean as long as it's not just walking the walk, but you know, or not talking the talk, but also walking the walk as well so you have to be able to, to prove that, that you're valuable as well.
Chris Jolly:I think a lot of people out there are also cause like selling sucks, right, like I love selling, but it's fucking sucks. Okay, you know, because I really really care about the service that I provide. I, I really care about the service that I provide. I really care about other people's businesses, you know, maybe to a fault, right, maybe that fucks me up, but I think that the rejection it beats down anybody, no matter what, because the reality is is you lose. 99% of the time you lose, you will get told no, you will get hung up on. You will hear every form of rejection known to the sales you know of any industry, right, and if you watch any of the like very successful sales reps out there, they will all tell you that. So it's emotionally taxing, right, like I have confidence issue, I get like self-conscious about shit, because eventually I'm like fuck, am I this bad, you know?
Chris Jolly:And I think that it's one of those things that you just really got to fight through it and not a lot of people are willing to do it, right, not a lot of people are willing to put in the work required.
Chris Jolly:You know, I saw a quote about everybody wants the top spot but nobody wants to go through what that individual went through to get there, and I feel like the exact same thing is applicable in every form of business. A lot of people want to be successful. They just don't want to go through what's required to be successful. It's easier to sit back and blame the world for your problems. It's easier to sit back and say it's somebody else's fault that I'm an alcoholic or it's you know, it's because I had my dad was an asshole growing up. That's why I drink and I'm overweight because of this and my world sucks because of that. It's a lot easier to do that, and I'm using my own examples of how I thought for a very long time it was so much easier to blame the world for my problems as opposed to looking at myself and being in the mirror and saying I'm the fucking problem, I'm the constant in all of my problems and not a lot of people want to have that.
Blythe Brumleve:So what are those little moments that, when you're going through, when you're having bad days or maybe even bad stretches where it goes on for weeks, maybe months? What are the little moments that you found that have said, okay, I'm still on the right track, like I'm not as much of an asshole as I thought I was, or I'm not doing a bad job? What are those little moments that have worked for you to make you keep going?
Chris Jolly:A lot of it comes in the messages that I'll get from people who are like hey, we love what you say, please keep doing that. Um, a lot of it is holding myself accountable throughout the day, right, because, again, you're, you know you're, you're vocal in the industry, I'm vocal in the industry, I'm at a lot of stuff, but I'm also like, 99% of the time, I do the same shit every single day, right, Like if I strapped a GoPro to me, you guys would be like you are the most boring motherfucker on earth. Because I do the same shit and I've developed that process, blythe, that I know if I eat the right foods every day, if I get my workouts in, if I do my reading, if I, you know, drink my water, if I do that, I know that even in the shittiest of days, I won, I still won that day. Know that even in the shittiest of days, I won, I still won that day. And that that's what keeps me going is it's deducing it down to a single day and looking at it like that Because you know it's.
Chris Jolly:And I go back to like when I first started my business, like I had I bought this little Walmart dry erase board. It was just a little one that I wrote out my schedule of my day and every hour from 7am till 3pm, I put those eight hours down and for the first, like three months, it was post morning video at 7am, create video for following day at 2pm and there was nothing else on that board, nothing at all. And I was sitting there mindlessly, just like with every early entrepreneur, trying to figure out what the fuck am I supposed to do, you know, and I do everything yeah.
Chris Jolly:But I've also found that as long as I hold myself to higher standards, as long as I do that, even when I'm not winning that business deal or closing that new client or you know, I know that I won as a person. That day.
Blythe Brumleve:So you start the podcast after leaving brokerage. You kind of have a you know, your, your dream has kind of evolved a little. So what was the catalyst to take it to the next moment and say I want to be a freight agent and I want to do it for SPI.
Chris Jolly:Oh yeah, it was like me being me. I'm like I got to get more bold, I can't theorize anymore. And I didn't want anybody like and again, and I was probably making this up in my head. And I didn't want anybody like and again, and I was probably making this up in my head, right, like I didn't want anybody to be like well, you're not actually moving freight, so, and again, I make up a lot of shit in my head, just like a lot of people do.
Chris Jolly:But I'm like I'm also trying to be like from a content perspective. I'm like all right, how can I really blaze my own fucking path and know that no other motherfucker is going to take that route? So I'm like fuck it, I'm just going to broker. I'm going to do it all over again. I'm going to start from zero zero revenue, zero customers, zero everything and I'm going to build it up and I'm going to look back in five years and when I'm doing a billion plus dollars in revenue and I'm going to look back and be like I fucking showed you. I've been telling you guys this for eight years. This is what you got to do. And I went with SPI because they believed in me before most people believed in me and I love Mike and James and I love fucking Anita and Joe.
Blythe Brumleve:I love Mike and James and I love fucking Anita and Joe I love everybody, rj, everybody, rj, everybody.
Chris Jolly:And that to me is you know, and anybody could take what I'm about to say and be like oh, it's easy for you to say that because they're paying you or this, and that they are the best group of people I have ever worked with in the entirety of my life, from a marketing partnership, but from a freight brokerage standpoint. They are truly committed to success and I cannot say enough positive about them, and that was my first thing. They could have easily said, no man, like dude, we love you, but like that's a big risk for us. And without hesitation they're like yeah, absolutely, the freight coach starts an agency with us. How much better of an opportunity would that be? And I'm like, holy shit, you guys are really on board with that and that's why I went with it. And they are more than advertised. They are better than I thought that they were going to be.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, I cannot co-sign that enough because when I so I don't know if I've told the story publicly yet, but when my deal, when my show Cyberly on FreightWaves ended, it ended on day one, so it was November 1st. Well, I guess the contract technically ended October 31st. November 1st was the start of a Freight. Technically ended October 31st, november 1st was the start of a Freightways conference that I was already planning on going to. I was already there in Chattanooga for this conference and Mike from SPI sought me out. He had already been trying to talk to me at the TMSA conference and I remember connecting with you there and we talked for quite a long time about what you know what pathways to take. It was mostly me just venting of, like, what path do I go? Like, what do I do? And so when my contract ended November 1st, mike sought me out, he talked to you first to make sure that it was okay with you, because he didn't want to like step on anybody's toes.
Chris Jolly:And I was like whoa.
Blythe Brumleve:But the fact that he did that told me everything that I needed to know. And then cause he wanted to, he didn't want to burn any bridges with you if he were to also work with me and he sat down and he told me he's like, look, we believe in you, we believe in your content, let's do this. They were the first advertiser on the show and they remain, you know, the the advertiser still on this show. So I completely echo you know, everything you've said between James and Anita and Joe RJ everybody that that's been super helpful to us.
Blythe Brumleve:Like it's not just a I don't consider it as just a sponsorship. Like I consider it a friendship, a business relationship as well. Like it's definitely a lot of really great and friendship too it's. It's one of those things that it's been the biggest blessing I think in my business life is is working with them, because it's opened up, it's allowed me to be able to hire somebody to help me with the show production so I can focus on other high revenue things, and it's allowed me that extra flexibility to be able to systematize my business, create those processes, and it sounds like that's exactly what. You know how it's. It's helped you too.
Chris Jolly:Oh yeah, straight up, I, I, I can't, I can't speak enough of them, I truly can't. They're, they're just, they are like I just think, like anybody out there, because like the agency thing was kind of a uh, I didn't know enough about it and I like the. What I did hear about it, I didn't like and, but after I met them and talk with them, like it is truly, it is truly a license to print money, like, like, if you have customers and you are a w2 again, I'm not saying everybody needs to go out and start their own business, because it's not for fucking everybody, right? If you need that comfort, stay a W-2. Straight up, don't do it. But if you have the itch to go out and start your own, look at the agency model, look at SPI. They have everything you need as a broker to succeed Hands down, you truly as a startup agent, whatever you truly are able to flex like you're a couple hundred million dollar organization because you are with them. You are a couple hundred million dollar organization.
Blythe Brumleve:They have everything at your disposal have everything at your disposal and I with that I have. I have told other people, especially on um we I do a monthly show with grace as well, but great sharky from from freightways. We host a show or an episode series together called freight friends and on that I've told her before like I think the freight agent model is the future of freight brokerage. I think it's the hidden gem as far as entrepreneurial ship and in just all of logistics. I think it's the hidden gem as far as entrepreneurship and in just all of logistics I think. Do you think that I'm accurate in that statement as the future of freight brokerage?
Chris Jolly:I straight up do. I think there's going to be a definite rise in it and I think that a lot of companies are going, I mean because a lot of companies are already exploring it. And I think that what better opportunity, because I think most people that they want the flexibility of doing it on their own. They just don't want the financial risk of doing it on their own. I think that really what it is, really what it boils down to and, like SPI takes on all the financial risk.
Chris Jolly:They do everything and, yeah, there's a revenue share, as it should be, because they give you everything that you need, right and from like a startup perspective because here's another thing that nobody talks about you know fucking expensive insurances. You know expensive technology is. You're literally just for like a bare bones startup tech stack with insurance. You're going to run probably $5,000 a month as a solo person. If you want all the bells and whistles, it pales in comparison to what it is to have. And then, on top of that, you might not be invoicing people properly, you might not get paid, your customers might default on their bills because, ironically, their bills Cause ironically you guys not all business is good business. I hate to break it to you, ladies and gentlemen. Motherfuckers will use you and not pay you. All right Harsh reality of life. Um, they take on all that risk. They vet everybody for you. Like, you can literally unplug on a Friday and plug in that with them on a Monday and you have access to fucking everything that you need.
Blythe Brumleve:And that is that's consistently what I hear from all of SPI's freight agents, and because we do a regular series every month where we feature a freight agent and that's just sort of the resounding sentiment that I hear from them, I felt supported from day one, abounding sentiment that I hear from them.
Blythe Brumleve:I felt supported from day one.
Blythe Brumleve:There's never been a reason to even look anywhere else at other agency programs, because as soon as they sign on the dotted line, then they have everything that they've ever needed.
Blythe Brumleve:Plus, they're continuously investing in the newer technology to fight against fraud and payment issues and all of those different things that this evolving industry is dealing with on a daily basis. And so I think it's very much like entrepreneurship, like business in a box type of experience, but they do try to focus on like you're in a unique situation where you didn't have a book of business but you would have been a freight broker before and you had already created content. So I think that that's why that they made the exception for you. But I'm also curious as to what kind of advice you would give to somebody who is already a freight broker right now and is thinking about becoming a freight agent. How do you go about maybe moving your book of business? Are non-competes still a thing? How do you protect yourself but also maybe not screw over the company you're currently with, but set yourself up for the future?
Chris Jolly:Yeah, I truly believe in doing everything the right way. If you're under a non-compete out there again, this isn't legal advice at all I would try and negotiate your way out of it. I really would. I would try my absolute best to put some exclusions on there. I would go everything's fucking negotiable at the end of the day, um. And if they don't allow you to do it, I look at it like this you signed the document again. You're an adult. You need to accept responsibility for your actions, no matter what it's. You got to deal with it, right, Um. I also think that there are ways that if you want to like say you get released, right Cause I don't want to make this sound like I'm telling people the fucking backdoor, anybody, or anything like that If you are free to go out there and and really do it, I think that one thing that most people need to understand is that it is probably 100 times harder than you truly can even think right now.
Chris Jolly:You're going to have customers who might come with you but they're not going to stay with you and you have to constantly fight for the next customer. You can't miss on your sales outreach. Yeah, you can. You know, like everybody has bad days and stuff like that, but like it is a lot harder than you think it really is and you are in a position when you're out on your own, where you don't have a boss anymore, and that's not always a good thing. It's not always a good thing to have all the freedom in the world, because not a lot of people can function outside of structure. Structure is a good thing. And then when you have those parameters to operate in because not everybody's an entrepreneur, not everybody truly wants it. They think they do.
Chris Jolly:But I think, like, if you are like, hey, I have to do it, I can't look back when I'm 40 or 50 years old and say I should have at least tried. What's the harm in giving it two years? Get a part-time job and if your spouse, if you're married and if they're supportive of it, go for it. You don't need any of the shit. It's nice, right. It's nice having cool stuff.
Chris Jolly:Like if push came to shove, I'd get rid of this office. If push came to shove, I'd get rid of shit. Like, but that's like what you need to be willing to do, to kind of like make it long term if you're committed to it, right, because you're going to get punched in the face repeatedly, sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes multiple times a day for multiple weeks on ends, which turns into multiple months on end. That's a reality, right Like it's fucking hard, but it is so worth it for you to look back. For me now to look back and be like my worst month now is better than my best month when I first started.
Chris Jolly:When you can have that comparison, you're like, fuck okay, I'm way further ahead than I thought. Like I'm not joking when I tell people like I was lucky to get 100 downloads in a month when I first started. Maybe my first six months, my record was like 350. I do that in a day sometimes Like I do that in an hour sometimes, right. So it's like when you're having a challenging time with this shit, if you pull back the lens and look over the last couple of years, you're like, fuck yeah, I am way further ahead and I built this shit Right. Like yes, I had help. Right Like I have mentors, I have people around it, but like I fucking did this, that to me. Like that, that's what it's worth it.
Blythe Brumleve:So, if you are, you mentioned earlier about freight sales tips and how you've been helping other folks with their, with their journey. What are some of the I guess the practical, uh, tactical level tips that you could give somebody who may be struggling in their freight sales role, whether they're working in-house at a brokerage or they're already an agent? What are some of those tactics that you think could work for a good majority of people in those positions?
Chris Jolly:Research your prospects, for the love of God, research your prospects. Don't just call somebody for the sake of calling them and asking can I be added to your RFP? Um, can I be added to your quote list? Don't don't do that, right? Like?
Chris Jolly:I talk about a niche often and I truly feel like this is for those sales reps who are like they've never done anything at a high level. They're just getting started out. Choose one freight type, right? You want the biggest net to cast? Drive-in freight accounts for 70% of the freight market. All right, literally, 70% of the freight market is drive-in freight. Even, take it down and even further notch right.
Chris Jolly:Like, call shippers in your area and ask to stop by and introduce yourself. Like, just do anything. That what you're currently doing, but keep it simple, right? Like the kiss thing. Keep a simple stupid Is that. Is that a? That's the thing, right, it's truly applicable. Keep it simple.
Chris Jolly:Call one thing repeatedly, because what you're missing is reps. All right, I hate rejection as much as the next one. I hate getting hung up on as much as the next one, and I've been doing this for a long time and it still bothers me because I fucking, I am competitive. Do the same thing day in and day out and then make changes. What's working right, like if you're calling somebody and you notice the tone is different. Use that for a while. Be okay with changing up your approach.
Chris Jolly:There is no set way that it's like hey, say this on every call, then every shipper is going to love you and get you stuff. That's not the case. You're going to make thousands and thousands of calls before you find a handful of shippers that you can grow with. So I think, keep it simple Do the same thing day in and day out, and volume is your friend. Fuck up, fuck up often, and then you learn what not to do. At this point in my life again, I'm not old, but I'm also not young either. There's a lot of value in the mistakes that you experience, because they teach you lessons that success never will teach you, because success is a. I love succeeding, but success gives you a false sense of what it takes. And then you start drinking your own Kool-Aid, where failure is one of those things where it's like I hate losing as much as the next person, but I also love what knowing what not to do.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, I think it's. It's the athletes who you always hear about, like the one coach in high school or you know in college that didn't believe in you, or the one reporter that said something bad about you, and they use it for motivation for all season long, for years even. And I think that that is is finding the I don't know like the, maybe the revenge factor of somebody not believing in you, somebody turning you down and you saying I'm going to prove you wrong, I'm going to prove you wrong and I'm going to prove you wrong over and over again.
Chris Jolly:I got a bag of Doritos on my shoulder, of chips. Like I got a laundry list of motherfuckers who I am like long-term, I'm proving myself right, like ultimately. But I got a lot of motherfuckers who I am here to show that you fucked with the wrong person. You know all, all, all of those people who are, like you know, talking about, like, oh, that little podcast or this and that, oh, you're doing that. Still, I'm just like I just show people like if you're going to compete with me, you better be willing to show up every day, cause I don't miss. I don't really miss often, like I might miss a couple of days here and there, because you know I I have other shit going on and you know you did. But, like, I've put out, like, if you want to compete with me, I got a long fucking runway of episodes you got to put out before you get caught up, you know.
Blythe Brumleve:I love that quote, that little podcast.
Chris Jolly:Yeah, that little that you know. I'm just a little announcer on social media, I fucking know. And if you're listening to this, I hope like yeah, I love it. I love it so much. Those comments now I laugh at them. I'm like you have no idea. I'll at them. I'm like you have no idea. I'll show you Blythe, I'll text you because one day something will happen when I hit it. I'm not speaking about this publicly yet, but I'll text you. Watch this and then you'll know.
Blythe Brumleve:I can't wait. We have talked. We've talked about accountability. We've talked about what sort of the freight world looks like, freight landscape looks like, especially from a sales perspective. I'm also curious to know, because I'm wondering, if you're maybe in the same boat as me but it wasn't last year but the year before. I think that I went to too many. It was actually last year. I went to too many conferences for me. It was, I think I went to eight total in one year and, as you know, a very small business. You know small but growing. I will say it was very tough to deal with the workload that comes along with going to conferences and the you know sort of the time structure that you've been that you've been talking about in this episode so far. So I'm curious as to how you balance, you know, sort of the in-person networking and conferences and education and things like that versus like the real day-to-day job.
Chris Jolly:Yeah, I'm a. I'm a student of the game at the end of the day, and when I'm not at work, I'm doing something to move my business forward, whether it's listening to podcasts, audiobooks, reading. I choose my time wisely in what I will do and I have come to the realization like there are a couple of core conferences that I won't miss, no matter what, because I love what they do. That I won't miss no matter what because I love what they do. But the overwhelming majority of the conferences that I went to, I feel like it's the same crowd of people who are there at all of them and they're all talking about the exact same shit. That is not applicable to my business. With all due respect, nobody is going to teach me anything new about selling freight at this point. They're not going to tell me something that I'm like, holy shit, why didn't I think to cold call? That's not going to happen and that's where my business is. I need to fucking build revenue.
Chris Jolly:I think that there are a lot of great intentions behind some of these conferences that are out there and there's a lot of great information that's out there.
Chris Jolly:It's just not what I need in my business right now and that's just kind of where I'm at, where it's like I'm going to scale back and then again, if I'm going to shut down anything for a couple of days, I'm at a point where again I need revenue. So it's like if you want me to come to your show, it's going to cost you money, like I, again I need. I'm at a position in my business where you are asking me to take away from my business and Fly out there, pay to fly out there, pay for a hotel, pay for all my meals, do all of that for free. Like again, I'm not trying to make myself sound more important than I'm not, but I'm not at that point in my business. In a couple of years yeah, you know what Fuck? I'll come out and speak at your conference. I'll pay for my own flight. Don't worry about it. I'm not there revenue-wise right now where I can shut it down.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, I think it's easy for the folks who work at a company, where they're the ones footing the bill and they're the ones you know you can't wait to get out of the office. But for me, I, I love what I do and it's costing me money, not just going to the, to the event, but the pre-planning ahead of time, the follow up afterwards. It's you know, some of the networking I, I, I would say that it is worth it to not only build relationships but solidify some of those relationships as well. But for a lot of them it's now becoming more of, I guess, a choice and a leisure choice. If I'm going to go, there's some companies that have multiple conferences a year. I'm sorry I'm not going to multiple conferences a year. You get one out of me and you're lucky to get that, and I's just and I think of it as you know lucky from the sense of I have to pull myself away from this and it needs to still keep moving without me.
Chris Jolly:I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but when you are the expense account, like I'm the expense account, I have to pick and choose wisely on that. And again, like I'm trying to grow a fucking business, right, like I'm not trying to play business here. Right, like I'm not trying to play fucking freight influencer or anything, like I'm building a, like I got a fucking family to feed, I got bills to pay. You know I can't shut shit down for a week to go fucking bump elbows with people. You know I like I have to be strategic about my time, how I allocate it and what I do.
Chris Jolly:Because, again, this is a system, this is a machine and I need to be a part of this right now, at this current juncture of my business. Again, two, three years from now probably will look a lot different because I will have 15, 20, 30 employees. At that time I will have a leadership team in place where hey chris can shut down and go to this event for a couple of days and my priorities will be different. My priorities right now add shippers, add revenue, hire.
Blythe Brumleve:That's my priorities in business. Amen to that, I mean, except for the shipper part. I don't have to worry about that, but add new companies to work with.
Blythe Brumleve:Add revenue and then we can talk and we can sort of socialize at the conferences at a later date. I have no problem going to them, um, but I have to be able to financially justify it, and that sell to me is way different than somebody who is, you know, just a VP at a company, that their company is paying for it and you can't wait to get out of the office. I love what I do and you need to almost like drag me away from it and I'm still thinking about it nonstop, like while I'm at the conference as well. So it's, it's one of those things where I think it just, you know, some people are entrepreneurial and then some people aren't, and you have to be able. I think it's the power.
Blythe Brumleve:You actually said it in the Freight Caviar podcast, because I listened to that. I know it was a little bit older of an episode in a couple years, but you mentioned the power of saying no. A little bit older of an episode in a couple of years, but you mentioned the power of saying no, and that really resonated with me, because it's challenging to say no to some of these people and to tell them I'm sorry, I can't do this. I have to prioritize this other thing, because it can feel a little bit like an ego boost that, oh, you want me to come and speak, like, yeah, let me try and make it work, but you have to keep things in priority and whatever you are saying yes to, you're saying no to something else, and so it's almost like thinking of it in the inverse as well.
Chris Jolly:That perfectly summarizes it to me, blythe. Because it is, because here's the reality. When you're building anything whether it's a media, whether it's a brokerage, it doesn't matter what it is you are definitely slow. When you first start, nobody wants to talk to you, nobody gives a fuck about what you're doing, nobody fucking cares. Right, some people will, right, but, like the overwhelming majority of people do not fucking care about what you're trying to do, what you're trying to build, because it's earned right, like time is money, like truly, and you want to say yes to everything, and I think, every business, naturally. Because how do you know what's going to be beneficial and what's going to not be beneficial unless you go.
Chris Jolly:And I think after you go to a bunch of events or you do a bunch of things, you start again back to the systems thing. It's all about volume. And then you realize like, hey, this doesn't move the needle, this work, this does not. And then you got to every quarter or every 30 days you got to look back and say like, all right, what worked, what didn't? All right, cut the shit that didn't work, double down on what worked. And then the next 30 days all right, what worked, what didn't you know. So I think that that's a lot. Say yes, you want anybody to give you attention, and then you get a little attention and then you're like, then you start feeling bad, but again don't feel bad. No is a complete sentence and you have to look out does this actually move the needle for your business? And if it is not a resounding 1000% yes, say no. I appreciate the opportunity. Maybe next time.
Blythe Brumleve:Well said that one. The last thing is sort of another. Well said again for this episode.
Chris Jolly:The no is a complete sentence. Andy Frisella says that all the time on his podcast because he does a bunch of shows. Again, follow him. I try and make sure that I give him a lot of credit, because the dude gives away pure gold all the time for free on his podcast and he said that. And that's where it hit me. I'm like no is a complete sentence. And then, frankly, I don't owe anybody anything. I'm not in debt to anybody where I need to pay somebody a favor or anything like that, and neither does anybody else. If you don't want to do something, don't.
Blythe Brumleve:Well said again.
Chris Jolly:I hope somebody made a shot game out of this.
Blythe Brumleve:They'd be hammered by the time they finish this episode, Especially if you listen to this show on, you know like with a 1.25 or 1.5 speed, or if you're a psychopath and listen to anything two or more, which is just insane.
Blythe Brumleve:All right, last couple questions here, because I know time is money, I know you got to get back to moving freight, but sort of last piece of advice for someone who is seeking out, you know, sort of the new American dream. If you're a founder looking to market yourself or maybe you are, you know, a broker looking to become a freight agent, what does the new American dream look like and what advice would you give to them?
Chris Jolly:Be very selective on who you take advice from. I think that, with it being a digital world, you can vet people who you follow, right. Like again back to Andy Fursella. He says this on a show Do they have an actual website? Do they have a business? Do they have a building? Do they sell a product? What have they built?
Chris Jolly:In today's day and age, you can see there's digital track records of people, right. So I think, be careful on who you take advice from. Definitely don't take advice from people who have less money than you, don't have a business, don't have a podcast, don't have what you're trying to do. Don't take advice from them. And then I think, at the end of the day you got to start. Everybody sucks. I still suck to this day.
Chris Jolly:I'm still figuring things out every single day and I also realized that, at the end of the day, what truly matters to me and to me, I look at it as who's going to be there, and not to try and sound morbid, but like, like, who's gonna be there when I'm on my deathbed, really, when it fundamentally, who's gonna be there unless my wife kicks me to the curb? I'm just kidding, but like my wife, my son, my future children, that that'll probably be it. You, you know maybe a couple more. That's who I'm worried about. I, like I love people. I want to do the best that I possibly can, but I don't give weight to 99.9% of the opinions that people have of me Like A. They don't say it to my face. If they saw me in real, they're not going to say a fucking word to me in person. And if they did, I'll probably going to laugh at them and be like really, you know, I think that's what it is.
Chris Jolly:You got to find what it is. What? What do you want to do every day to deal with the, the rejection, the constant battles that you're going to have? Is it worth it, is it not? Not? When you're down to your last couple of dollars and you don't have anybody to reach out to, you can't get financing, you can't do anything. You got to think in those moments, who am I really doing this for? And I think like that, that's the new age of things, because it I think that the more that technology comes about, the less people are going to adopt it. I truly think that. I think that more people are going to want, they're going to crave real conversations. They're not going to cause like. It's going to get to a point where it's like is this an AI bot or is this a real person? You know?
Blythe Brumleve:I had a question for you that I was going to ask you if you were nervous about AI influencers, but I feel like I already know the answer to that.
Chris Jolly:No, I'm not I'm not worried about any of that shit. I'm not because, like, I'm not competing against that.
Blythe Brumleve:I'm truly not well, let's add another uh, well said to the end of this conversation, because I know you got to get back to work and so and this episode is sponsored by Tito Well.
Blythe Brumleve:I think if we, if Mike, had it his way, it would be a very particular kind of tequila that that he would pick to sponsor this show. So well, well, well, thank you, chris. Where can folks if they're not? I'm, I'm I'm assuming that they're not already following you, but if they're not, where can they follow you? The podcast, all of your work, all that good stuff.
Chris Jolly:Just literally, look for the Freight Coach on anything, and that was another piece of advice. I would say own your brand right away and own it on every social media channel out there. But yeah, the Freight Coach, you can look for me iTunes, spotify, linkedin, instagram, anything like that. You can find it.
Blythe Brumleve:Awesome, Well, that you can find it Awesome. Well, this was an incredible conversation, Perfect for you know, a July 4th release, so hopefully it gives folks you know some motivation, some inspiration to think about it. And maybe you're on a summer break and you're looking for making a shift in your career. So take advice, take accountability and start building. So thank you, Chris, for all the useful advice.
Chris Jolly:Anytime, black, we'll talk to you soon all the useful advice.
Blythe Brumleve:Anytime, black, we'll talk to you soon. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show, sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everythingislogisticscom. And in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let y'all know about another company I operate, and that's Digital Dispatch, where we help you build a better website.
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Blythe Brumleve:Well, that doesn't happen at Digital Dispatch. We've been building online since 2009, but we're also early adopters of AI, automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as $1,500, along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus freight, marketing and sales content similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digitaldispatchio. Just check out the pricing page once you arrive and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go Jags.