Cold Calls, Tight Lanes, and Government Freight with Garrett Bowers

Cold calls. Tight lanes. Government freight.

In this episode, I’m talking with Garrett Bowers, owner of Bowers Trucking and an SPI Logistics agency owner, about what it takes to build a steadier carrier business when the market is doing what it always does.

We get into why he swears by early-morning prospecting, how he thinks about tighter lanes and saying “no” to the wrong freight, and what changes when you stop treating sales like something you do only when you’re panicking.

Then we go into the rabbit hole most carriers ignore: government freight. Garrett breaks down how he found opportunities around Tinker Air Force Base, what the Defense Logistics Agency actually does, and the practical first steps to get started (yes, SAM.gov is involved). Plus, the kind of freight that makes for a great story later, including hauling the Air Force One staircase.

What we cover:
 ▪ Why early cold calls work
 ▪ How to choose lanes that keep trucks moving
 ▪ Government freight basics: where to start and what to expect
 ▪ The operational standard required for military shipments

Watch this episode on YouTube

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:37

You welcome

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 0:42

back to another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. I'm your host, Blythe Milligan, and we are proudly presented by SPI logistics. And today we are digging into the reality of scaling a modern logistics business. We talk a lot about the tension between carriers and brokers, but my guest today sits squarely in both seats. He's a third generation trucker who took his family fleet from 12 trucks to over 50, pivoted into government contracting during the pandemic, and is now an agency owner with our friends over at SPI logistics. He's a big believer that most ceilings are just the bottom of the next floor. So please welcome in, the owner of Bowers trucking. Garrett Bowers, welcome in.

Unknown: 1:20

Garrett Blythe, thanks so much for having me on the show. I've been an admirer for like, a long time, kind of secretly wondering what it was going to take to get an invite. So it was pretty cool to get that in my inbox earlier. The check

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:33

is in the mail. First of all, and then the second of all, I have had you on my list for a long time. We just had to, you know, go through the other guest priorities. But now here we are. We had to have some SPI execs on and some agents on, you know how it goes. And then, of course, the freight season is what it is, which is exactly what we're going to be talking about today, because it's been a little bit of a challenging one. But I don't want to go there just yet, because I was, we were talking before we hit record, and I was listening to a couple episodes that you had with friend of the show, Chris jolly. And you guys were talking about cold calling at 5am

Unknown: 2:10

well, okay, so first of all, when is freight on your freight customers mind? You know, typically, I mean, most people want and I mean, I don't know, I don't know how everybody's day is from from a logistic service provider standpoint, but I walk in, you know, typically at the office, between seven and 8am just like anybody else Central Time, and it is a stack of emails, basically asking, Where's this truck? What's this plan, right? And it's, I mean, it's natural to assume that all of these shipping managers just want to make sure that their day is lined out, or they need to figure out as early as possible what they need to do to pivot. So while you have that on their mind, go ahead and talk to them, because maybe they just got dumped on, you know what I mean by somebody, and they're like, hey, yeah, actually, my primary just fell off. What? What can you do? And I don't know. I've just had more success dealing with people in the morning. Not going to say that everybody out there in the freight world is a morning person, but you know, I think it's safe to assume that a lot of people, you know, if, if their shipments are lined up right, and it is the afternoon, and everything did go smoothly that day, your email is going to get ignored, right? Your call is like, I didn't have any problems today, and they're telling me I'm fine tomorrow. No, I don't need you, you know, and it's just been my experience with that, I don't know, huh?

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 3:42

Well, that I mean, I mean, that makes a ton of sense, because I think it was, I don't know who posed the question to who, but when you guys pose that question of, when do you find more success, when you're cold calling in the morning or the afternoon, my brain immediately went to the afternoon. I was like, Oh, the afternoon, when they first get to work, it's so busy they're trying to knock things out for the day. But then you that is a perfect explanation of why. I'm not

Unknown: 4:06

saying that's, that's like the rule book, you know? I mean, there's maybe, maybe it's just people in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, right? They're just nicer in the morning, I don't know, but, yeah, jolly and I, we like to, we were actually texting before I got on the show here today, like we were, we were going back and forth on, on what prospecting looked like, you know, even right now. And he had opened a couple doors this month, we had the opportunity to open some doors and like, again, we'd like to kind of spar back and forth on what works and what doesn't.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 4:39

Well, well, let's, let's continue that on that path of the conversation. Because, I mean, at the time of recording, we're in, you know, week away from Christmas. This will air sometime early in January of 2026, and so what does, what does the day to day business look like for you guys right now? Is it? Is it all busy as all heck? Is it? You know, the Christmas peak season is that kind of already passed? What does, I guess, sort of the status quo look like at the end of the year for Bowers trucking?

Unknown: 5:10

So yeah, for listeners that are going to be listening to this in January, this is today. Is Wednesday, 1217, right? And it is, it is hot. The market is hot. It's moving. People are pushing things out. We are even going as far as pre planning loads that have to load December 23 but can't deliver till December 29 or 26th right? You know? And we're trying to get those things lined up. We're. Are having our drivers sign kind of a roll sheet saying, Hey, I am willing to work over these particular times. Give me these times off for Christmas. And you know, all of those things, we're reaching out to other carrier partners saying, Hey, I have this. I know you have drivers that need to go home to this lane. What do you think about loading early, other things like that. And then, of course, there's always like that year in crunch, right? Because, I don't know, in the manufacturing world, it seems like the week of Christmas is like the apocalypse, right? I mean, we need to get all of these things done right away. And then I don't I, you know, shipping matter. I want to forget about you for a week. That's cool. We totally understand. But, yeah, there's a lot of pressure, I think, not just in the central United States, all over. I mean, different zones are going to be hot, if you're looking at the DAT map right now. Kansas, the state of Kansas, which is like never read for Van shipments, is bleeding right now. You know, just because it, you know, the market, the market is churning. Amazon is soaking up a great deal of capacity right now. Why wouldn't they? You know, here in a little bit, I'm about to hit Confirm on some other Christmas shopping that I've delayed, you know, to try to get done. So I'm guilty of adding to that UPS FedEx those particular line haul opportunities, they're soaking up outside capacity right now. And good, good for the owner operators in the small fleets that have the ability to pivot and take advantage of those things. Also you want to sit there and go enjoy it now. But you know some of the, some of the steady guys like, like us, you know, our customers, our shippers, and what they still need to be taken care of, too. So we have to figure those things out, right? And so we've had to onboard a few new carriers this week. We've had to kind of think outside the box, preload and repower later and other things like that, just to just to try to meet demands.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 7:37

And so it's actually because in my brain, I'm assuming, okay, well, most of the Christmas shopping season is done, all of the merch that is

Unknown: 7:46

maybe Blythe, I mean, you strike me as somebody who's probably more organized than other people, not me.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 7:54

Well, I just would have thought that maybe a lot of these shipments would have been delivered a month ago, like, I help me understand why, you know, the week before Christmas, or, you know, even over the holidays, that you know what kind of goods are being are being prioritized right now?

Unknown: 8:09

Well, okay, so let's maybe take a look at some of the inventory strategies from like, your big box shippers. Some of those have been strained a little bit from the from the tariffs, right, and all those things and and I would say that whoever really got it right on inventory planning, whenever it came to the goods, the the hard goods, the durable goods, and everything that everybody you know really wanted to buy for Christmas, whoever got good at ordering those things and actually hit it right? Is probably not feeling that crunch, but it's those that didn't plan for the the consumer demand to go complete other product direction, are probably the ones adding fuel to the fire for for the rise in spot markets that we're seeing, or spot market rates that we're seeing right now. We all know though, it's a bubble. I mean, this is a bubble that's going to last maybe another 10 days, and I know that that takes us a little bit beyond Christmas, but again, that that's just kind of my experience with it. It. I remember freight markets where, you know, 2014 to about 2018 we used to see a lot of activity right there between Christmas and New Year's, I don't predict that right now. I just, I don't see it. I think, I think that between van and reefer right now, they're hot. But if you look at open deck, which is something that we really pride ourselves on, open deck, freight is really staying pretty stagnant and moving loads, both in and out of our particular region, has has been really pretty readily available for our customers.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 9:45

So it's not, I guess that was going to be my next question. Is maybe the market turning a little bit, but it's hard to tell. I think in any of these something more sustained.

Unknown: 9:56

Blythe, if I knew the answers to that you would be writing me a check for this podcast. I don't, I don't know those things. I I would love to sit here and speculate, but, I mean, we are an industry driven by historical data and speculation, right? I mean that that is just what, what we are. The The cool thing about it is, over the last, and you might agree with this, 1015, years, there's been a truckload of technology just poured into this industry that is, I about cursed right there. I'm sorry. There's been a lot of of of technology just just poured into analyzing data to try to to get a grip. On those things, but again, with tariffs, with rising inflation, with all of those things, I just don't think that there is a rule book for seeing exactly when to anticipate and, you know, growth or any type of market correction, right? I don't think that growth is necessarily on anybody's vocabulary list right now for their business plan. I mean, we would all love to say that we're going to take on more loads, right? But we're going to do that as cheaply as possible, or we're going to figure out how to how to do that without adding any additional staff, or, you know, making sure that there are no sliding scale cost associated with those with the you know, taking those things online,

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 11:23

and as someone who you're, as we said in the intro, you're, you're a third generation trucking company owner, and so historically speaking, give the audience a sense of your the history of your family's company, and then kind of how it's evolved over the last, maybe since you've took over 10 years tenure,

Unknown: 11:41

yeah, so, something I'm really proud of. I mean, so my grandfather started Bowers trucking like a long like, he got our D O T number from, like, back in the 60s, right? And how we maintained that D O T and MC number, I'll never know, because, bless her heart, if you knew my grandmother, she is not the greatest at organization and paperwork, but hey, we still have it today. You know, it evolved a little bit from like sawmill hardwood lumber days back, back then, because really, that that's what my grandfather was, was really needing a D, o, t, number four at that time to rock, sand and gravel. As strange as that transition might be for a long time, I mean, nearly 20 years of rock, sand and gravel. So, I mean, we weren't really breaking that 150 air mile radius, right? Didn't have to run like, you know, the full, the full fledged log book. In fact, a few drivers I remember hiring back in the day didn't even know how to run that log book, you know, but they, they knew how to keep track of their hours, right? And, and that was, that was really all we needed. My dad had a great deal of contribution to that. He, he worked at a carbon refinery for a long time. They were, they were bought by by some other foreign entity that decided they really didn't need, you know, union workers or or really didn't want that union representation on their on their facilities anymore. And he was like, I've got somewhere else to go, and I've got some ideas. And so he really grew the the rock, sand, gravel side and and started dealing with the NRCS and some other government programs. And I think that's kind of what gave me the flavor to go, you know, okay, there, there, there's a way to figure out how we can be specialized and needed, and maybe curtain ourselves outside of just the open market, you know, demand, right? And how do you do that, right? How do you make it to where you set your own rates? That's, that's the big part, right? I mean, how do you make it to where somebody's not just always dictating to you what you get paid, you know, for your services? And I think, I think that's what we what we've always tried to do was, you know, while we do value a great deal of our broker, broker partnerships on the carrier side, and here I am speaking to you as, obviously, a broker, broker agency, you know, we, we appreciate good carriers. And there's a lot of things to be said about pricing and about spot pricing and other things like that. We try as much as possible to curtain those highs and lows that everybody sees to make sure that things just run, you know, pretty, pretty vanilla, right for everybody that that's involved. Because I don't have to tell you, if your customer is not screaming at you because the truck didn't show up, or this didn't break down, or whichever, and you know, you're able to do those things without really making any noise, then you're the most valuable to them, right?

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 14:52

As long as you're not a pain in the butt to them, then stick around.

Unknown: 14:56

That's right. That's right, but no, so in 2008 I think I am, like one year on the job of dispatch, slash, mechanicing, slash, being the safety director, slash, you know, just whatever, whatever, whatever needed done. Our largest customer sold out from producing asphalt. They had five rock quarries as well. I mean, they took like 10 of our trucks every day and kept them busy. And I mean, it was kind of devastating. They sold to a company that did not need us. They had their own trucks. They. They just, you know, they were going to rewrite the rule book on on that business. So I just had to kind of pivot and figure out, well, if you look at Ponca City, it is centrally located between Wichita, Kansas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Tulsa, Oklahoma. And if I look at that triangle, there are a lot of manufacturing hubs in those particular areas, and a lot of metros right there where, you know, I discovered its, I discovered D, A, T at that point. I mean, like, I'm really late to the game, right? I'm, I'm like 23 at this point, you know. I mean, like 2324 at this point. And I'm just like, well, I got to figure out what I'm going to do with these trucks. And so, yeah, we kind of started to diversify right there and figure out where, where we could do these things and what we could do. And through a whole lot of trial and error, and I mean emphasis on error, we we kind of pulled some strings together, and I think we've got a great set of customers today that just really kind of complete the package, not just for, you know, brokerage but but for carriers and owner operators, you know, to kind of come aboard and know that they're going to get loaded both ways. Or, you know, have route strategies that can actually make money and and support a family.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 17:01

And I think part of that big pivot for you guys was also going into the the government contracting side of things. Is that accurate?

Unknown: 17:07

So that was, that was a great experience. I think that was a huge feather in our cap, I think on our website, and I probably need to change that verbiage. But the website. We were the first, right? We were the only there for a little bit. I don't think that we are. Now, I've had a couple of copycats come in that, but that's okay, right? To do those things. But yeah, I had so one thing about me, I will, I will spend a lot of hours after five o'clock at work, and usually when the phones are off and other things like that, I am cruising. And I really like looking at the different resources and the different things out there that involve freight. So I'm looking at the Oklahoma City markets, for instance, and I'm really trying to pour over what I can do, because there's just so many things that I am coming into Oklahoma City with that, like it's 90 miles to get back to Ponca City, and every time that is just empty for me, and it's always taking up all day for my trucks, and I'm just trying to figure out how to prospect something. Well, Tinker Air Force Base is right outside of there, and I'm realizing not only is that Oklahoma's largest employer, but there is absolutely no Oklahoma interest. As far as fleets brokerages, you know, trucking companies that pulling in and out of their gates. These are all being posted by brokers that are like, out of Virginia or out of, you know, the northeast, or something like that. I mean, not, not even, not even close. Well, Tinker Air Force Base is, like, one of the big three. And I don't know how much you might know about DoD work, but like, there's Hill Air Force Base, let's see Scott Air Force Base, I'm sorry, in Illinois, Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, and then Hill Air Force Base in Utah. And it's those three that that the DLA operate Defense Logistics Agency operates Wow, and makes most of their decisions out of those particular hubs. And it's not the necessarily the the most freight goes through there, but the decisions are made between those three bases on just about everything, especially when it comes to domestic transportation for the military. And I mean, yes, they're Air Force bases, but they are making the decisions for all branches of the of the military. And so having that pretty, you know, pretty close to where we're from, I thought was, you know, something to bring up to maybe some elected officials and just people that might help me. And, yeah, they, they had the opportunity to do so, we've got a chance to do some cool stuff. I mean, we've hauled the Air Force One staircase a number of times. We hold the fuel truck for Air Force One to the g7 summit back when it took place in Quebec. I mean, there was just some, you know, just neat, neat things. And I don't have to tell you, from a driver's standpoint, a lot of them are pretty patriotic in nature. I don't know how many truck drivers, you know, but you're going to definitely see a whole lot of American flags, okay, on on the sides of trucks, right? You'll see a lot of veterans. You'll see things like that. And, yeah, you know, it's pretty cool.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 20:19

Yeah, I've got for the people who are watching, I got your website pulled up here, which is what the number one tip I always give people on their trucking website or just brokerage website, is that show pictures of you hauling cool stuff is exactly what you're showing on.

Unknown: 20:37

Picks up there. Yeah, yeah, that, yeah. That was a helicopter, I think, out of Wright Air Force Base in Missouri, which, by the way, that's where the b2 both, both launches its missions out of hubs, out of so even when it goes to Afghanistan, that thing's coming out of Missouri and going back to Missouri the same night, yeah, and

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 20:58

that's, I, I guess I'm getting caught in a little bit of ignorance here, but I had no idea that there was a Defense Logistics Agency as well.

Unknown: 21:07

Yeah, yeah. No, they're, they're and they're pretty fright savvy people. I mean, you have to the military. First of all, they are a No BS operation. They are not somebody that loves to hear Garrett's aw shucks charm all the time. You know when, when something's when something you know might might go differently than planned or differently than ordered. They are there somebody that you you need to have your stuff in a row at least 24 hours in advance and be ready to report all details or don't pass go, you know? I mean, just don't even try, because they just don't want

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 21:43

to hear it. So did you cold call them at 5am

Unknown: 21:47

do you take a little bit of cold calling? Well, one thing I will tell you, yeah, military officers, transportation officers, they're up pretty early too, yeah, but don't ruin their day. Yeah, don't do that. I have, yeah, I have received a few of those phone calls when things did not go as planned, and they're not fun.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 22:10

So how does one start to work with the guy? Is it just, I mean,

Unknown: 22:15

yeah, you know, I don't this is not, I mean this, this is pretty well known information. So the the biggest thing somebody has got to get registered on sam.gov okay? And through sam.gov you're going to get what they call a unique entity identifier, okay? And that, that is quite a process. They're going to, they're going to want to know all of that. You know stuff about your business, all of those particular numbers that you never knew you had. You know you're you're going to have to be able to plug those into the computer and and get registered, right? And then you have to wait for an open enrollment and period for what they call the SDDC, which is the surface. There's a lot of acronyms in the military, but, like, this is, like, surplus, right? Yeah, domestic distribution center, anyway, that that open enrollment takes place, like every two years, okay, unless you can get, like, a special case, which, which is what we were able to get congressionally for from Oklahoma, whenever I brought this up to a few elected officials, and they, they kind of rushed our stuff in there because there was an imminent need. I mean, talking to some of these transportation officers, you have people bidding freight, and they, I don't know, we're all we've all seen it through brokerages, right? You try to plug somebody in there who has no background in freight at all, right? I mean, maybe they, maybe they were great at selling insurance. Maybe they were great at doing, you know, something else. But right, they may not even know the difference between a flatbed and a step deck, you know. And you've got them sitting there spot bidding these particular military contracts, and they're, you know, they're sending dry vans in for something that needed a stretch flatbed, you know. I mean, like, they just, it happens. I mean, it truthfully happens. And that's what these to the transportation officers. That's what they were sick of. They, you know, just really, really tired of saying, Yeah, I have this, you know, military vehicle that's oversized, and all those things. And I would really like somebody to not send saya in here to pick that up. You know, yeah,

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 24:28

that's super interesting. And so, so you go through the administration or administrative process, but I'm also curious about, like, talking to some of the government officials, were you going to like networking meetings or like business journals or

Unknown: 24:43

conferences for those things? Yeah. And I think the deeper that you get into it, the more you realize so Tinker has an annual conference that I would suggest, really, anybody that's interested in it to go, and you don't even have to be afraid. You can be in anything. Just think about what the government like might want to buy. One of our good customers is out of Oklahoma City, and they make specialty crates and pallets and other things like that. And they're like a prime contractor now for the government, and which, which is really awesome to see their success and how they've grown, you know, over the years. But again, you just think about like, whatever the government needs, they have to purchase it somehow, and it has to be purchased a certain way. And if you have the stamina to pull, you know, pour through all of the jargon, and, you know, try to Google what acronyms mean, you know, for the military and other things like that. So. You can sound somewhat, you know, educated when, when you're talking to these folks there, there are conferences and other things to go to where you can make connections. And the biggest thing is it's, it's almost like the military is one company, but you never really know who's in charge of what. And that's not to say that that that's disorganized. It's just we're the outside right as as civilians and and service providers. So I there's so many people that you are going to connect with that just don't have any decision making authority, but they're going to refer you to somebody who's going to refer you to somebody, and then finally, you're going to reach that person, and they're going to be in charge of a lot of things, and maybe more than what you realized, right? And if you can maybe impress them a certain way, or keep them on your mind, you will start to see how the military will use certain, certain guidelines to basically route around their bid process and start awarding you, you know, freight services, you know, purchases from their vantage point that are outside the norm, and just kind of a name, your name, your quote, treat me where I and we'll make this happen, you know. And being on that call list for Tinker outside of their prime tractor, their prime contractor is Crowley logistics, which I think everybody knows Crowley. I mean, they're Jason jacks, yeah, there you go. You're huge, yeah. And that's very old company too, and very deeply, deeply interwoven into government contracting. But let's just say Crowley ever drops the ball, we're on that call list, at least for Tinker Air Force Base. And that's neat, because when, when you have those transportation officers that have your cell phone number, and they just say, Garrett, now it's got to move. I need a truck here by four, you know, or I need a truck here by 10pm tonight. That it that's a great place to be. And I think that's really what we wanted out of it was somebody to just see the value of what we offer, know that it'll get done, or know that we're the bat phone, right, of doing those things. And I don't think the ambition was ever to grow really, in truck numbers. I know that everybody is like, Oh, you run a trucking company. Well, the first question is, how many trucks do you have, you know? And it's like, I'm measuring you against other, you know, just just by truck numbers. And it's, it's unfortunate. It's really just about value, you know, for us. And I don't really care about the number of trucks, I do, you know, when we start talking about volume, I like to, I like to talk about volume of loads, but it's also about making sure that we're talking about the good stuff, right, not just the the small margin, you know, other other things like that that are can get loads or loads that anybody can ship, right? I mean, like, what? Why? Why do that? They're, they're just going to price shop all the time, you know, getting into a customer niche that sees the value in you, and you see the value in them, and then it's pretty hard to fall out

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 28:57

of, yeah, if I'm reading between the lines, it sounds like you really put a strong focus on building for the long haul, for lack of a better phrase, but

Unknown: 29:06

I'm gonna tag on that one.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 29:10

But it's really about doing the hard day to day work that you don't necessarily see that work line up in the balance sheet for today, but it might be there in six months from now, or even two years from now, because you've made those connections and laid that groundwork that I

Unknown: 29:27

think that's a really good way to put it. I mean, everybody can see the value in instant gratification, but if you start getting, you know, price gouging on people, and they start sending out RFPs, or, you know, somebody changes roles on in the transportation setting, and they they all of a sudden say, Well, I just want to check your prices and, you know, against somebody. And I don't have to tell you, you know, a lot of a lot of customers are knocking on every or not of freight providers are locking on a lot of customer doors right now, every single day. And if they can, just simply, I mean, I'll, I'll tell you this, I'm guilty, like I can look at the trucking side or the asset side of of any load board, right? See, see freight moving. See a posted rate, right? And just know that's probably so and so I haven't got a load from them in a while, or they've never really answered my call if I was new the contact there, and I just happened to say, Hey, I could move this for this what you know that's yeah. It happens, right? And why wouldn't you, you know, look at that research and know what they're dealing with, or know what you know, know what, what somebody is able to do something for, if you, if you have the capacity to fulfill the promise you know, to be able to, you know, get into a customer's door, or freight strategy that you know is going to add value to your company. The biggest thing for us is always trying to find flatbed loads to Houston. And we will, we will work painstakingly hard to try to find the best paying loads that get us in and out of Houston. I think it's probably my most favorite truck market to work with, because it, while it does have its highs and lows, there's a lot of import, export volume and whatnot that's involved right there. It usually is a huge supplier to anything Midwest, and I don't know. We've just had the opportunity to work with some really great carriers and had some really great customers and products that ship out of

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 32:37

that area, as you have, you know, you've taken over the business. You've seen some of these, you know, kind of weak spots and and started, you know, diversifying your customer portfolio. How have you adjusted, especially over the last couple of years, it's no secret that we've been in a freight recession, and it's been an incredibly challenging market for the majority of the industry, and so knowing that, how have you adjusted your business to start building or laying the groundwork for an even maybe a different path in that long haul?

Unknown: 33:10

So yeah, we, we've done a great deal of adjustment here. And I will tell you, humility has entered my vocabulary quite a bit over the last two and a half years. And I don't know, you know, how much longer we're kind of into this. You know, operating costs are really outweighing what, what people are willing to pay in freight, or what your, you know, what your competitor is willing to do it for, really, is what it comes down to in freight right now. But we have scaled back tremendously on our asset side. You know, I know you opened the show saying that we, we had over, over 50 units, and we did. I mean, in 2022, I think we were running at 68 units today. I stand here telling you we're running 24 that is a tremendous amount of downsizing, right? We have really tried to perfect our operating ratio to have not only everything kind of dissected down to the penny per mile of what it takes to operate, but also rate per mile is not a profit and loss statement, right? A profit and loss statement is money over time. And so we have to both, you know, kind of, kind of weigh out, okay, is this rate per mile? Yes, that's the cost of operating. But also, you know what? What does a profit and loss statement tell us over the month? You know? And you have to take per mile into consideration more and more, because a P and L is just a snapshot, right? And while a P and L is going to look horrible one month and great the next month and whatnot, then you can start to really figure out what your what your averages are. And I think those are things that I I would tell you that even now I'm still a little cloudy, but we really had a rear view mirror on our on our financial ability to project. And these are blind spots of mine. I mean, for goodness sakes, I'm more of a freight salesman than I am an accountant, and thankfully, you know, I've got people like my wife, who is very well versed in finances. I mean, she's, she's got a master's degree in finance, and she's nice, yeah, she's, she's way smarter than I am. I've got my sister now in the operation, who's who's been doing a great job helping bring value, you know, to that department. We have the same bookkeeper, controller that we've that we've had now, I think, for nine years, and she has, as well, you know, trained her mindset right there. She's also the person that knows the most about our TMS, so we really try to be nice to her. It's always, hey, can you fix this? When, when we when we mess it up? Right? And then, of course, our dispatch team, you know, figuring out what to what, what we're going to have to outsource, what we're going to have to broker, and what we're going to carry, you know, each day, and keeping that in mind so that we don't a feel the tendency that we have to buy more trucks, right, or or hire more drivers, which is always, you know, one thing is a hell of a lot easier to do than the other. And you know, they sell trucks every day. And I don't have to tell you use trucks are you. On their tails right now. I mean that the price of a used trucks is just, gosh, incredibly low, you know. And price of new trucks kind of starting to soften, you know, as well. So when you take that into consideration, and you figure out, you know, what your drivers need, want, and what it's going to take to stay with you, you know, growing the asset side, it's just not been anybody's plan right now. And I think, I think just figuring out how you can hoard cash, stay efficient, keep cash flow going, and concentrate on profit, concentrate on percentages. And that's what's going to, you know, carry you through these particular times, staying busy, not the not the play, not the play at all. You know, you've got to know these things. And I probably preaching to the choir from anybody that would listen to your show right now and hear those things. But sometimes, you know, it does help to hear things that you already know again from somebody else.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 37:42

Yeah, especially from the aspect of being so open and vulnerable about, you know, the losing trucks, or not necessarily losing trucks, but making that difficult decision to maybe let some people go. And that's all decisions, and especially when I worked in house at a at an asset based brokerage, I remember when our company started hitting, you know, tough times, and the first things to go that the entire intermodal department laid off. We went from 300 trucks down to less than 80 and, you know, and it was a big turning point, and that probably should have been a warning sign, you know, for a lot of us, because the company did end up going out of business. But we had some, we had a little bit of runway, because we had, you know, guaranteed contracts with, I think was the American Red Cross, you know, we had all of the water loads that were being delivered all over the country in that particular year. We, you know, had a few hurricanes. I think it was Hurricane Sandy that had hit New York. We had had that contract. And, you know, we're in the middle of, are we going to stay open or are we going to close our doors while these water loads need to get delivered to the people who need them? And so it's just, you know, it's a lot of these different fluctuations where you're trying to make those decisions, to keep taking the freight, but is it the right freight to take, and will that lead to the longer runway? And unfortunately, it didn't lead to that for us. But it sounds like you're making those tough decisions, and it's

Unknown: 39:10

okay to yeah, we've had to fire some customers. And then, of course, we've had some customers that have just, you know, over the the case of losing capacity, they were just like, well, you know, I mean, if you can't provide your trucks, we've got to go, we've got to look elsewhere. And, you know, that's okay. We've just, that's, that's market share, sure, but is market share strength, not necessarily. You know, you have to. You have to sit here and weigh out. What does it cost to do business? You know, for that customer, one podcast that I really liked listening to the other day was James lemon, and you where he was talking about the quote that I've I've taken out of that, which I thought was really good, you can't control your revenue, but you can't control your cost. Yes, wow, that poof from us. You know somebody that considers themselves a freight salesman, like you can't control your revenue. What? Yeah, yeah, but yeah, exactly speaking, from somebody that has had a hard time of trying to figure out how to control the cost, you know, other things like that, and has learned a lot of you know, lessons in that particular regard. The both both good lessons, both very tough, you know, lessons to overcome that that is a profound and extremely accurate statement. And I have tried to work my tail off to figure out how to be friends with James lemon, right, like he is so black and white and too and smart and all those things. And it's like, yeah, man, I want to know a little bit more about what you know and what you look at, what you see, you know. And so, yeah, he's, I really enjoyed listening to that one. But a lot of the scenarios that he was talking about, I mean, I don't know if you know, but I had, we had a brokerage before that was that was just under our camp, right under our MC and Blythe, I will tell you, I threw a lot of balance sheet Money, Money earned, money generated out of my brokerage to try to save my my my asset company from a free fall. And a lot of that. That, you know, was also for the reason for downsizing and other things like that. And, you know, we, we were experiencing those times where our days to pay, we're getting stretched out. And, you know, especially in freight markets right now, if your days to pay is not 30 or under now, I mean, what, what carrier wants to take that risk with you. They don't, they shouldn't. They don't need to. You know, I lost a lot of good people over that. I mean, people that, you know, were strong people, people that I had taught the business, you know, from day one. And you know, they've got other, other opportunities and all those things, and I'm grateful for those things, but that that was tough learning exactly you know how to how to make sure that these costs can, you know, sustain and prop up their own entity and and make sure that that both things could be served because that, you know, brokerage, a lot of freight brokerages are really just banks for the transportation sides of these companies. And if you look at it and operate in that particular mindset, I think you're going to run a very successful operation. But who doesn't tell you to save money? Right? I mean, everybody tells you to save money. Save money. Save money. What is the economy ever look like when people are like, No, spend, grow, go, you know, you know, do those things. It's always in hindsight, right, right when you look at those things. But I think if you look at the money market right now, you look at consumer demand, or consumer spending, and these households that are carrying, you know, a certain amount of debt and all those things. And here we are. We're going through the holiday season where everybody kind of usually spends more than they probably should. Right? We're going to see some some economic pitfalls here. I think, I'm not an economist, but, you know, I think here next year, that could really set some more trends for the transportation industry that we we might not be really looking forward to.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 43:35

Yeah, I kind of would echo a lot of those statements, because it especially from a consumerism mindset. Because just in my own purchasing habits, you know, ever since covid, you know, there were a lot of things that, you know, we were just or I say we as a household friends like we would just purchase at a whim, because money was still I was fortunate enough that money was still flowing pretty freely during that time frame. And, you know, investments were sky high, and, you know, spending was still sky high. But especially since all of this, you know, tariff drama that has started entering into the realm of conversation, it's kind of made me snap back a little bit from a lot of those purchasing habits that I didn't realize that I had developed, like purchasing, you know, from like temu and Shein and 200 bucks, and you'd get a million things, and if you didn't like it, you just return it. And a lot of those purchasing habits are just not sustainable, then the products crap. And, you know, it's, it was a lot of like the that kind of consumerism that I think has been reeled in slightly, but I also think that there is a large swath of the American public that is still in that spending, consumerism mindset. We've seen it with, you know, sort of record credit card balances and things like that, that where the Buy Now pay laters reckoning is going to come for all of those different things. And I, part of me, is like, it's kind of good that we're all kind of address some of those spending habits, kind of, you know, mirror in front of your face a little bit, but it's also bad for business too. So it is, I guess the messy middle is where I you know, when do we get to that messy middle?

Unknown: 45:22

Consumer, yeah, consumer spending, I think, is really what's kept us out of the economy crashing or hitting a recession, I think, any sooner than what we might or are in currently, however you you know, view it right now. You know, through the pandemic, through all of those things, you know, people are sitting at home, you know, buying a lot of things because they just needed it, right?

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 45:50

Or they couldn't go anywhere. And that was how they, you know, got their little dopamine hit.

Unknown: 45:55

And that's right, and I think that that's how prepping, you know, the movement of prepping, really, really started about too. You might have been a little bit of a prepper before, but then, you know, the news of the pandemic and all the unknowns and all of those things, right? That, if that didn't make you want to, you know, buy a shelter, build a shelter, do something.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 46:19

Because that is like, I have a bug out bag and underneath the the bed right now, it's just something I've always had got. I used to watch the show Doomsday Preppers, and I was like, You know what this sounds? Like something. I need to know

Unknown: 46:31

what it sounds it sounds logical, right? Totally sounds logical. My wife put her foot down. She's from Georgia, and she told me she was not going through another Oklahoma storm season without a storm shelter. And guess what? The storm shelter is turned into somewhat of a, somewhat of an area where we're going to keep MREs and other things like that, right? And anybody in Oklahoma knows, like, if you're in a tornado shelter, you may be in there five to 10 minutes, right? I mean, maybe, you know, but we could probably live out of that thing for a month if we wanted to.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 47:04

That's actually, I mean, coming from Florida, you know, hurricane season, we have to do sort of the same preps on our side of thing, but we have a little bit more time to prepare when, when those things are,

Unknown: 47:15

yeah, you Florida folks. I mean, like, golly, you get like, a week, like, hey, hurricane, such and such is gonna hit land by whatever.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 47:24

And if it's like a, you know, a category one or two, we're just throwing a party three, four and five. It's like, all right, maybe we should take this a little

Unknown: 47:32

seriously, like you are just adding to the stereotypes. I'm gonna stop you for your listeners, okay,

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 47:39

well, I will, I will say I had a little bit of a sidebar, and then we'll get right back to, you know, talking about the brokerage side of things. But I had a girlfriends all went out for Christmas dinner last week, and we had this other woman join us that had just moved from Las Vegas, and she told us she was like, Florida is unhinged. You are the craziest group of people that I've ever been around. And she came from Vegas,

Unknown: 48:04

I couldn't that is saying something. That is saying something, wow, I don't, I don't know if I've gone that far. I haven't spent, like, a great deal of time, I guess, in Florida. So maybe I don't know,

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 48:17

it's multicultural. There's so many things going on in this state. You know, we could have a whole episode on that. So maybe we'll have to have you back, and we can talk about the crazy cultural parts of Florida versus Oklahoma. And then we can talk about doomsday prepping.

Unknown: 48:30

I was going to say Oklahoma. You know, we have tiger King out there, right? And so if you, if you benched on that one during the pandemic, then you see exactly what southern Oklahoma is all about, right? I could

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 48:40

have sworn he was from Florida. I don't know why. Maybe the one, I think one of the other people, Carol, Carol, that's right. What was her name? Carol, Carol Gaskins, I

Unknown: 48:54

think something like that. Yeah, yeah, there were songs, right? There's Florida ties. There was a Florida tie nonetheless.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 49:03

No, I do want to so obviously it's not a very good like tonal switch, but you were talking about making the difficult decision to shut down the brokerage, or maybe pivot the brokerage into something new. And that eventually is what brought you to SPI and so I kind of wanted to figure out, you know, while you're running the asset division in figure out, you know, what makes it work, and the finances and the, you know, sort of the customer diversification that you need to make that side of the business work on the brokerage side of things, how did you figure out that pivoting into agency or an agency owner was the right move to take?

Unknown: 49:43

So looking at the business, you know, stepping out of the business and you know, being, being the person that's supposed to work on the business, instead of in the business, which is really hard for me to do some days, right? There, there's folks that come into my office, you know, even this morning, and I'm like, covering a load, and you know, we're actually making a pretty pivotal decision, right? And I'm like, Yeah, hold on, I gotta talk to this person, right? So it is one of those things, Blythe, where I'm looking at our days to pay. I'm, I'm, you know, losing good key members of the company, I'm threatening the business service ability to really good legacy customers, and I've got to figure something out. And so I was one of those freight coach podcast listeners from like, you know, long time ago. Hey, Chris, you know I need, I need paid for this one too. No, I'll put a plug in. Like, I really enjoyed listening to to those things and whatnot. And, you know, bam, all of a sudden he announces, like he is starting freight coats logistics, and he's, you know, working with SPI and I'm, I'm looking at these things, and I'm like, alright, you know, let's look at these agency models, let's look at these things and whatnot. And SPI just just kind of kept popping up, right? And so I give jolly a call, and I'm like, Listen, I'm going to cry on your shoulder a little bit like, I just need a I just need an hour to, like, talk to you. You talk to me. And like, let's, let's just. You know. And he goes, Man, everything that you're telling me, I really think that you need to talk to Mike michili. I'm like, Alright, who's that? You know? Tell me about that. And Mike calls me when he is on vacation, and which I thought said a lot, you know about it, because not a lot of people want to entertain a talk, you know, taking on another freight agent, which is, you know, quasi, you call me like an employee, right, you know. So, I mean, who really wants to take time to do that when they're when they're away, you know, from work, or, you know, trying to, trying to get that, that, you know, mind reset time in but b just how he talked to me over the phone, like he was just like, so easy to just sit there and strike a conversation up with. And so I kind of think back to that moment, and I'm going, man, is this what I want to do? Is this, you know what? Not? Well, we get to looking at the contracts, and we're getting to look at things. And Mike goes, Hey, come to rendezvous boots. Like, don't care if you made a decision or not. Just Just come. You know, we're going to fly you up here their annual conference for folks, yeah, yeah, exactly there. And so it was in British Columbia. And mind you, I haven't signed anything with them yet, which I ended up doing before I went, because I was, like, really, kind of fell out, like, here they are. They're spending money on me already, you know. And so it's like, alright, let's, let's go up here and let's talk. Let's, I pride from the other agencies that obviously they're the very successful agencies up there, or you, you know, you wouldn't be at rendezvous, but like, you're talking to these guys, I pride for them to tell, alright, what's, what's what everybody doesn't talk about, right? Like, tell me the horror stories, you know, what? Couldn't get it. I mean, it was just the payments there. They do what they say they're going to do. They're going to back you up 100% of the way. If you don't, you know, engage with home office, that's your fault. I mean, if you don't ask for the resource, that's your fault. You know, like you need to just, just be open. Feel free to engage and and, you know, trust. And what's really great about looking back and seeing this is the amount of carriers that we are able to work with that even my little brokerage at that time, you know, what wasn't touching or wasn't doing things, and I was proud of what we were able to accomplish and build. But this is another level the technology, the tech stack that is just given to you, okay, the the other resources that you have within other agencies to reach out and not only provide, you know, rates for our own trucks, right to to other SPI agents, but but to really Get people's feel on sharing, carrier information, sharing, you know, rate, you know, we're collaborating. I mean, there are a few agents that I'm reaching out to today, even just going back and forth. Hey, what do you see here? What's going on here? Hey, I have this customer in Oklahoma. What should I wear, you know, before I go visit them, and it's, you know, one of those things that it's just like that is invaluable, I think, for the direction that I always wanted to take the company and just didn't know it. I think there are a lot of things to be said about being able to hang your own particular shingle on the door, but when it came to this particular partnership, and the way that it came about, and the deal that they were able and willing to talk to me about and do. Blythe, I can't say enough good. It was, it was just, it's been great, and I am less than Golly. I'm going on nine months with them. So, you know, it's pretty it's pretty fun. My team each day, I say each day. I mean, like, you know, once a month or so, they're like, you know, being on boarded with SPI was probably one of the best decisions you've made in quite a while, you know, which is to say, I probably make a lot of bad decisions, but they're like, You got that one, right?

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 55:57

You know, if you are still operating a trucking company in 2025 and, you know, it was still, you know, carving that path for 2026 and beyond that, you were obviously making a lot of good decisions, well, decisions, but they're,

Unknown: 56:10

yeah, tough, and that's it. You know what? We were all wanting to throw parties in 2020 and 21 and 22 right? I mean, like, free, you know, you had name, your name, your price out there. There wasn't a customer door out there that you couldn't go, you know, hit talk to because, hell. Everybody's starving for capacity. I don't know, this guy can't provide me a truck, can you, you know? I mean, that was just the way it was. RFPs were just going through the roof, because that's, that's how, you know? I mean, when you see all these RFPs, that's when, that's when shippers want to try to start controlling cost, right? And it's when you don't see RFPs that shippers are like, kind of like where we're at right now. Let's try to see if we can go keep it going.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 56:55

Yeah. So what was that onboarding process like for you and the team and to fully, you know, get up to speed,

Unknown: 57:03

that that was something that I think that probably made me realize a little bit more of my unique ability to for the company, and I think it's maybe where I serve the company in the best capacity. I'm trying to surround myself now with people that really take my my blind spots. They can really, they can really help me with those things, which I mean number one thing you should do in leadership, right? And here I am, 18 years in, and trying to figure, you know, kind of finally, thinking that maybe I have a few things figured out, okay, but onboarding with SPI, their training online, all of those things. It's pretty awesome. And you're, you're dangerous at that point, right? And you're able to book a load their customer qualification process. And doing those things actually forced me to go re engage with customers that I truthfully hadn't in a long time, and sitting there telling our story, having that face to face talk, traveling, you know quite a bit more. You know being, being, whether it's on the road or in an airplane, you know, going somewhere and making, making those stops. It forced me to reengage. It forced me to resell. You know what we do and what we should be known for, and what, why we need them, right? You know, to make this work, that part has been crucial. That part has been very, very critical. And, and I think that that's, you know, you look at how they do those things, they just want to make sure that everything is streamlined, so that we don't have to go back through and fix a whole bunch of things that might be wrong or whatever, that I think anybody in the freight industry might know. You know through if you're in another setting, like, yeah, you might have the load chip, you might have the pod, but this and this and this is wrong, and we're not going to get paid until That's right. You know, they they just make sure that all of those things are in place beforehand. It's not knee jerky. It's not hey, we'll set them up later. You know, give me a line of Cree, you know, line of credit on this deal or whatnot. You know, which it's it's just slow down process. If they want you bad enough they will wait on this. And I've and I've learned, I've had to learn that for myself. Like, okay, yeah, it's great to be wanted at that moment, because maybe some shipper got dumped on and they're like, You know what, Bowers, you back in? Okay, okay, awesome. I don't have anything lined up with you. And while I may have sent you this, this billing instruction sheet from a month ago. Let's pull that back up in the old inbox, and let's, let's figure that out. And I think that that has probably allowed us to not only harvest more quality business, but a lot less of our customers are spotty, whereas before, I think if you were to graph my customers, you would have seen so many, you know, looking at accounts and a bar graph, it would have been up, you know, this, this one's, you know, using us for everything. This one uses us once a year, you know, and and all of those things where now it's pretty steady, right? And we're able to encompass not only inbound and outbound volume, but, I mean, we're able to do it to such a degree of quality that even the back office is liking what SPI does, because the invoices are all correct, the POS match, everything is right in line. And when you start making the back office happy, you can bet the decision makers also are influenced a little bit on their decisions.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:01:00

Yeah, one, 100% and it sounds like you know that, especially just on the podcasting side of things, I can speak to the helpfulness that that SBI has has given me. And even, you know, betting on me before I fully, you know, sort of bet on myself. And, you know, just having that sort of, like invisible hand of support and then genuine friendship and relationships with these people who you you happen to work together with and and that, I think, is like the, the best blessing I know, a lot of people will sort of poo poo on. Know, the companies that say, you know, we treat everyone like family. But I think that that's very important, that if you at least attempt to try to treat people around you good, and that's what SPI does,

Unknown: 1:01:43

Mike, Mike and Joe, you know, took some time to come to Tonka city and spend some time here with us. And, well, you know, we went out to eat, we toured the town a little bit. I got to show them around our truck yard and things like that. And, I mean, what does that say? You know, these, these guys obviously have a hell of a lot more to do running this now. You know, 300 plus million dollar brokerage, I mean, like, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing to see, you know what? What value they've been able to create just by having a model that says, Let's partner, like, let's you do. You do what you're good at. We're going to do what we're good at. Now, let's go get it, you know? And it's pretty great Anita too, like somebody that just absolutely does a fantastic job making sure that you have what you need, you have the answers, and you know, just knows her stuff. I can't, can't say enough good about the leadership there. And what's really cool, if you want to get on Joe's good side, is start talking about A and M, right? And they're, they're having a great football season right now, so it's been pretty easy to go ahead and connect with them in that regard. Yeah, yeah.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:02:58

I think it's probably important, especially for any sports fans, to check the record of the team before you start.

Unknown: 1:03:04

Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Oklahoma State is just oh, we'll see

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:03:12

well, knowing all of these, these things with you know, everything that you've gone through with your customer history, or not customer history, but company history, and being able to kind of take a look in the mirror and try some new things and try a new partnership. How do you think that you know identifying those gaps that you had in your own business. How do you think that that is setting you up for 2026, and beyond?

Unknown: 1:03:36

So the cool thing about where I think that's setting us up, especially for the market that we're in right now, is we feel very confident in being able to supply capacity that I know that we would have had a great deal of apprehension before, or before would have just been a gamble, right? There is so much more confidence when it comes to supplying rates, figuring out exactly what I know that we should be able to offer, rather than just, you know, I said, you know, blanketing, you know, three bucks a mile, you know. And that's what we need, okay. Well, where did you pull that number from? You know, and you could be a loser. You could be a huge winner, you know, at that rate or whatnot. We know just exactly that we need to stay within that 10 to 12% realm to to to harvest freight and do well. And we know that if we go beyond that, great, but we might want to make sure that you know nobody else is knocking on the door and stealing, stealing other lanes for us, right? And then we know that before the if it goes below that, it's really not worth our time, because it is like, I said, before I can get load, and three other brokerages are working on it. And why bother, you know? Why? Why do it? It's probably going to take you twice the amount of phone calls to book loads like that and qualify carriers for loads like that than it is going to worry about your steady, your steady profit customers.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:05:10

I mean, it sounds like you have really, especially over the course of this conversation, you know, really talked about a lot of the fundamentals that you need to have on the asset side and on the brokerage side, and then moving into an agency role. It sounds like it could have been, you know, the the perfect sort of, you know, leg up in a

Unknown: 1:05:32

begin with, right? It was definitely the storm to begin with. But, yeah, no, I we, we sink, we seek a lot of comfort in the in the future direction with the SPI partnership, and I think the future direction for our, for the asset company, and really, you know, how big do we really need to be and, you know, to service what we have. And are there strategies outside of our asset company, or strategies with the brokerage that could complement our asset company right to make sure that again, you know, keeping drivers in the seat driver turnover is expensive. That is the most expensive thing, I think that, you know, we can all talk about insurance, we can all talk about fuel, we can all talk about that hidden expensive turnover is just, it's a killer. And those are one of those things that I think getting to a smaller number has allowed us to really safeguard. Against and allow us to be picky about about who we take more. So it's not about necessarily feeling trucks as much as it is making sure that we got the right person in there or the people that we know that we can depend on.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:06:46

Yeah, it's really the fundamentals and the quality over quantity. Yes, I think that's what is going to help, you know, not just the freight industry, but really that a lot of industry, yeah, in this market,

Unknown: 1:06:57

that applies across the board, right? Whether you're running any type of business, yeah, that that really should apply across the board.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:07:06

Any advice for potential agents out there that might be considering SPI. Maybe they're running their own brokerage right now and feeling the pain. What advice would you give them?

Unknown: 1:07:17

So during my months with SPI, I've actually had the opportunity, Mike has set me up with a couple people that have considered SPI, and I've had that opportunity to maybe do like that recruiting call, I guess is what you would call it, to try to see if I could tell them my story. And you know what, what I think of the benefits are right now, there is a lot of compression in the industry where I think things, money, all of those things are going to be taken into huge consideration. And there's going to be a lot of those closed door meetings, whether you're in the company setting, or you're in the agent setting or or any of that that are taking place, trying to figure out what what is the next move if you feel as an agent that your book of business. Could it all be, you know, threatened by something financial or, you know, something, something that is hindering your ability to to move freight? Gosh. Look at this company. You know, look at SPI the way that they assert themselves in the market is truly eye opening to me. And I'm not just talking about, you know, just D, a T and Ansonia and trans credit and whatnot. It's the ability to book with mega fleets that we have that run on such a, you know, a very professional operational level that I have had now have the opportunity to really engage with and and talk to and see how they they operate their business. You know, I mean, the old adage is, big companies do those little things right? And it's, it's really interesting to see the difference between those dispatchers, and your smaller fleet dispatchers, and how they conduct themselves. And SPI has access to those trucks, right? They, they have the access to provide those, those particular things. And the last thing you know that I'll that I'll add to that, is their non domicile rule. I think anybody that owns trucks is probably pretty happy to see a lot of that legislation pass and and see some of that enforcement taking place. You know, whether it's a Gestapo tactic or not, you know, it's, it's one of those things where we do have to sit here and look at, is this something that truly needs to be done for public safety and other other other economic factors. Right? In Canada, you're not allowed to be a United States citizen and a United States company and haul Canada intra Canada, or Hall freight intra Canada. You know? I mean, you're just not allowed to do that. So in the United States, something could be said that that's probably a pretty good play here too, right, to do that. And so SPI taking that stance, I thought, you know, I had a lump in my throat, or I kind of gulped or whatever, when Joe came across with that announcement, but it's also like he's right. I mean, the leadership team's right. We sit here and we We pound our chest on on cargo safety, you know, fraud prevention, all of these things that are plaguing the industry right now, and things that you got to watch, you know, having a small brokerage as a service provider, because there's a great deal of risk if they don't have these particular resources to really comb through, carriers, you're going to lose some things, and you're going to be coming to customers with your hat in your hand and your wallet out, trying to figure out how you're going to make this right. These are things that if going through the proper steps with SPI we can sleep better knowing that freight is on the road and it's going where it's supposed to go. And I mean, it's not to say that my customer network necessarily deals with a whole lot of those things that need to be stolen and. You know, or look that to be stolen. But again, anything can has a value, you know, and if it's not showing up, or it's not doing that, or, you know, you've got these particular carriers, or just simply don't follow directions and have absolutely no regard for brokerages or or consider brokers customers, you know, that's what they're safeguarding against to provide a complete different layer and level of service. And, yeah, sucks whenever you get on highway. And, oh, hey, wanted to book you, but you fail. And I, I mean, you're, do you're dnu, I can't, you know, you're gonna have to contact them. I can't. I gotta move on, you know? I We can't. We can't do this. You probably saved yourself a hell of a lot more headache than if you tried to go seek an override, you know. And it's just not worth it. Move on. Figure, figure those things out. And we've had just so much smoother operations. I mean, a truck not showing up or or, you know, trucks being late or not being it's so rare now that I remember from running my own camp, you know, at that time, how frequent those things were. Now granted, obviously, maybe dealing with a little bit different truck market during during the the peaks of that deal. But it's just amazing now how much smoother things are, and I have to attribute that to the carrier onboarding process. I do. I really do.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:12:57

Yeah, I think, you know, echoing everything you just said, I think shippers and customers, too are becoming more aware of the things that they should require about the freight that's moving. Because no one wants to be a news story.

Unknown: 1:13:10

No, they don't. That's exactly right. You don't want to be the next Netflix documentary, right? It's, I have gone as far as to even have customers write like letters of recommendations. Since the Bowers SPI strategy, you know, went and went to place and they they have thrown metrics out there that compare our our OTD scores, which is a staggering difference, and something that I I will tell you, I don't know that I was the best at tracking that stuff before I thought I had an idea, but there, you know, your customers are tracking those things, probably whether you realize it or not, and it allowed us to onboard with a company I never thought we had a shot at for brokerage and and now, I mean, today, we're handling like seven loads for them, just, just today and and we'll continue to be their first call on overages and other things that are outside of their of their contract carriers. So I'm grateful, you know, for those things and the resources that we have now.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:14:16

Yeah, and I think too, from just talking with them on past episodes and just understanding the dynamics within just the agency model in general, I think for SBI to have that, you know, that low concentration or low competition rate for different areas of the country, different areas of North America. They don't want a lot of overlap with a lot of their age. Yeah, they don't. And then them providing all of the resources for you, so you can, to your earlier point, focus on the things that you're good at, and maybe they can be the ones to shine some lights on some weaknesses that you didn't even know you had. And so being able to reset a lot of those, those foundations, I think, is just the best business model, maybe in all of you know, talking and brokerage, because I don't know why more people aren't going out and becoming an agent

Unknown: 1:15:08

well, and something's to be said about that, right? I mean, there's protection and comfortability within w2 but then there's, there's other risks and and rewards involved into 99 okay? But I think the lucky or the fortunate part about the US onboarding with SBI is there was nobody in our region, and they, you know, seeing that and wanting to, you know, take time and have a partnership right there. I man, we, we struck while the iron was hot. You know, we Right place, right time, I guess, you know, for those things. And you know, just nine months in, I'm seeing a whole lot of things that I wish that we would have done before, but, you know, hey, we're doing it now. And Blythe, you know, as it leads into 2026, in the future, it's just really solidified, I think, what we need to be as a company and as a service provider, and I think who our identity is in the freight market, what we want to be known for, and I'm I just, I couldn't be more pleased, not not just with with my team, for hanging with me, those, those that hung with me during these difficult times. I I owe them everything, and I'll never forget it. You know, those were some dark, difficult days that we were going through. But I. I think seeing the light right here, it's just been so much more fun right to get back out there on offense, rather than, you know, coming up with excuses or playing defense. You know, it's just so much more fun to get out there and attack and start, start getting back a lot of the things that we had before,

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:16:50

that's awesome to hear gonna and I think that that's a perfect place to end it, as, you know, sort of SPI being the flashlight in the dark when you need it the most. And I think for you have a really, you know, inspiring story, you know, the trials and tribulations of working in logistics. And that's, you know, that's the nature of this industry, of this beast that we're all in is, you know, you got to be willing to solve difficult problems and do it a lot and do it over over again. But luckily, you have great partners and in that respect. And so Garrett, for anyone who is listening, and maybe they want to reach out to you and see how, you know, working with SPI is, or, you know, maybe even do business with you. Or maybe there's some other, you know, government bases that are listening and they want you to haul their freight to. Where Can folks reach out to you, get in contact with you all

Unknown: 1:17:37

that good stuff. Yeah, well, so I use LinkedIn a lot. That's that's like a really great engagement tool, I believe, for our industry, a really good networking tool. So please find me on LinkedIn. Garrett@bowerstrucks.com.com garrett@bowerstrucks.com.com it's two R's, 2t in the spelling. Please feel free to email. And you know, I love to connect, and I love to talk freight Awesome.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:18:03

Well, I will put all of that in the show notes, just to make it easy for folks. But this is a great conversation, Garrett, and I hope others enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you again.

Unknown: 1:18:11

Hey, Blythe, thank you so much.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:18:16

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of everything is logistics, where we talk all things supply chain for the thinkers in freight, if you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube, just by searching everything as logistics. And if you're working in freight logistics or supply chain marketing, check out my company, digital dispatch. We help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzzwords. Head on over to cargorex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions. All the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the Next episode, in go jags. You you.