Everyone Has the Same Marketing Tools -- So Now What?

Everyone in freight has the same marketing tools now. Same AI writing assistants, same ability to produce a clean chart in ninety seconds, same well-formatted blog post. RJ Finnegan, Brand Manager at SPI Logistics, told me that once that happened, the stack stopped being anyone's advantage.

So he bought a DSLR camera. What he wanted on it was the new hire sharing a joke with one of SPI's senior client care managers, execs on trips, people actually speaking in a room. SPI had not been posting that kind of thing before, and his bet is that a generator can copy your polish but cannot manufacture a Tuesday afternoon in your office.

This is RJ's second time on the show after our TMSA Elevate recap, and he chairs TMSA's Recognition Committee. We get into the one filter he runs every idea through, what he watches instead of vanity metrics, why he thinks perfectly optimized blog content became the baseline rather than the advantage, and why SPI posts less for its agents rather than more.

Links: 

• RJ Finnegan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rjfinnegan
• RJ's first appearance, 5 Things We Learned at TMSA Elevate 2025: https://everythingislogistics.com/5-things-we-learned-at-tmsa-elevate-2025/
• Watch this episode on YouTube

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:37

Freight companies often say that their people are the differentiator. The harder question is how you actually turn that expertise into stories customers trust and content that helps sales without sounding like another great service post. RJ Finnegan is the brand manager at SPI Logistics, where he helps a long-running freight agent network tell its story through modern media, partnerships, and content built around the people doing the work. Today we're getting that practical advice on how SPI equips agents to participate, experiments with new formats, and decides where to put their time and budget. RJ, welcome back to Everything Is Logistics.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be back.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Absolutely. Now, you were first on an edition that we recorded right after TMSA Transportation Marketing and Sales Association. We had our annual conference about a year ago. We did a little bit of a roundtable of takeaways. And so for this conversation, I wanted to dive into a little bit more of what's changed in marketing since that conversation because it feels like everything has changed. So from a high level, what do you think was important a year ago in marketing that may not be important right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Wow, yeah. I mean, God, time honestly flies by so quickly. And to say uh what has changed in one sentence or even in our time, I feel like would be a disservice, but I'll do my best. Um what I even just from last year, I feel like one of the biggest um, I guess you could say, messages and marketing was uh how quick can you adapt, right? How quickly can you keep up with what's changing, whether it's a tool you're using or a specific process. Um but what now has definitely um become, I guess, modernized is everyone has the same tools, right? So it's no longer about feeling the FOMO of like, hey, I don't have the best CRM or I don't have the best software. Everyone has the same tools that essentially do the same thing, or you can even build your own little MVP version that works for you, which is kind of crazy to think about. Um, but what I would definitely say, yeah, what's modernized now is what is authentic, what is human, right? What is what is something that not everybody else is doing? And I feel like that's now more the leverage, opposed to, hey, what tools and what stack are you using that's making you fall behind or to keep up, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, it's almost like I I don't I don't know if you're it affected like I am with this because it feels like the more work that I'm able to get done now, especially from streamlining a lot of like the the admin side of things, I just that was supposed to free me up to be able to focus on more important things. And technically it has, but I just I feel like I'm working more than ever because these tools allow me to do so much more. Do you kind of feel that in your own world in your own role?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Yeah, for sure, 100%. Um, just the other day, I remember I was doing some uh basic admin work, uploading some receipts into our uh software here, and I I just put on some like lo-fi background music. And even though it's just repetitive, download the invoice, upload the receipt, type in the amount. It was it was it was work, and after I got it done after an hour, it felt accomplishing. But now that that can essentially be automated, I find, like you said, we are getting a lot of the busy work done, but then we're using our brain more to think of almost like a at a higher level, architecture-wise, of the whole entire picture, which keeps us constantly thinking about you know, how can we potentially improve our process or how can we be more efficient here and there, opposed to, hey, if you're spending an hour on busy admin work and you finish that, you still have that uh I don't want to say that high of completion, right? You still worked, but now that it's getting done so quickly, it's almost taken away. And then your brain kind of, you know, misses that dopamine hit of getting work done properly.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Yeah, I think that that's where I struggle with right now is the focus. I can have like yesterday, I had six different tabs open and Chat GPT is working on all of these different things. And then it was by the afternoon, I'm like, I am so mentally exhausted. You know, it's because I'm I'm code switching between each tab and I'm getting work, I'm getting a lot of really like bigger projects done. But to your point, it's just become, I get mentally taxed so much quicker, but it's also addicting because I can finally like take these back burner projects and cross them off the list as that's done. And I can move and the results from you know using these different tools are just night and day better today than what it was a year ago. A year ago, it wasn't even usable in a lot of sense. Um, but being able to take, you know, your library of content and turning it into six different types of social media posts that uses quotes from those conversations and promotes them out to the audience that might have missed them the first time around. I think, you know, being able to market your catalog has been so much more important, but focus has become something that I need to remind myself to do. Like, no, we were going to focus on one task at a time and then knock that out, and then maybe not have the six tabs open, maybe focus on one of those tabs at a time so then that way we're not so exhausted. We can do better work. And um, I I am curious as to how this all of these new tools, how do you know what to focus on and what you know, so what are I guess, maybe what are the the beacons that that SPI marketing is is focusing on, and then maybe how do the tools support that?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, um it's been through a lot of trial there for sure. Um, being in marketing or any type of media or any type of creative, you especially with the tools that we're given now, you can pretty much come up with an idea on the spot and try to implement it right away, which can seem good in the moment, but a lot of I I would like to think of it as like idea fatigue. Not every idea is a good idea and not everything needs to be worked on. So um what we've kind of tried to do when it comes to our marketing is it either has to be measurable or it has to elicit an emotion. And if it doesn't do either of those, um then most likely we won't put as much time into it. So in order for me to not have a gazillion tabs open, I now on my uh outlet calendar, I have to blank out specific hour blocks each single time. And and I also have like a what's the what? I'm gonna butcher the word Pomodador timer, Pomodoro timer.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Oh uh Pomodora, I think is yeah, I uh it's where you set like the you know 20 minutes focus and then you know a five-minute break. And then you do that three times or whatever, and then you take a longer break.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, exactly. So I end up doing that just because um one, I like to you know look at my phone, look at what the stats are, seeing what's up to date. But then also, you know, I I'm not somebody I can work through a straight hour and not feel exhausted afterwards. That's why I prefer that timer. But um, yeah, so the tools that again, the tools that we're using, it has to be measurable, but then also it has to elicit um a human emotion. So whether that is being able to um measure how a specific campaign's going on LinkedIn or how our blogs are being written, even if it is partially AI generated, um, we still feel like that it has to elicit a human emotion, whether it's through the proper CTA that's being written, the images, the stories that are being told. Um and once once I was kind of able to separate the noise and hype from what's effective and what's working and what keeps bringing people back, um, the process became a lot simpler. And again, I don't want to uh say my job is easier or harder than other people's, but I find we get there's a lot of meetings and there's a lot of busy work that doesn't need to happen throughout the day if you end up you know finding what's measurable and what's working and what um your customers want to hear and see from you.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And I'm sure for for you, it is it just you uh as far as marketing is concerned at at SBI? Or do you have you know teams or a team maybe that helps you?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, I have a couple of people with specific roles that do work remotely.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Okay, head office, it's just specifically me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And typically, I mean, it especially when I worked in-house at a brokerage, I was the receptionist, I was the executive assistant, and I was also in charge of marketing. So I was doing all of the things. And when you have to do all of the things, like it's kind of expected of marketing to be the copy editor, to be the graphic designer, to be the video editor, and to do all of these things. And to, and and I'm just uh wondering like what is important for for you to focus on right now? Is it more video? Is it uh more, you know, goal-driven campaigns? Is it email marketing? Um, what what are what is at top of mind for you?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah, so what's top of mind for me is um I don't want to reinvent the wheel and um try to come up with something that uh, you know, that needs to try to 10x what we're already doing. But what I what I focusing on right now specifically is how can we make SPI feel more human. So I'm the biggest um AI advocate. I love AI. I'm also the biggest critique of it, right? Um But again, in the past year, the shift and the dynamic towards AI has definitely changed. And people do crave you know human authenticity and human experiences. So, what did I end up doing? I'm buying uh a digital camera, right? A nice little DL DSLR camera that to be able to take, you know, in-house, you know, um office moments, right? People working, things that are human, right? We weren't posting necessarily things like that before, but people seem to appreciate when you know we post, you know, execs going on trips or you know, snippets of people speaking in real life. So it's moving away from the, hey, we can get really cool data and make it look good with an AI um generator and we can post that out. Yeah, everyone's doing that. But you know, what about the new hire and them sharing a joke with one of our uh senior client care managers? Can I get that moment on camera and can I share it with our community? And does it also um I don't know, bridge SPI towards our ideal customer, right? So just trying out different um, you can say different strategies along uh of what we're already doing. So we're not reinventing the wheel, but uh also being relevant and staying top of mind.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, related to this, you're also a board member of the TMSA Transportation Marketing and Sales Association for folks who don't know, and you are heading up the recognition committee. And so you have the ability to be able to see not just what you're working on at SBI, but from the lens of the entire industry that's a member of TMSA. Are there any are there any cool marketing initiatives going on with other companies that you've seen, maybe at TMSA or maybe just out in the wild that you think are really cool that more logistics companies should be taking advantage of?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, this past uh past conference at our TMSA LVA conference, gonna recommend anyone to go that's in logistics, sales, marketing, definitely check it out. Um, next year it's gonna be in Nashville. Typical board uh shout out there. Um But um what was cool this past conference was the embracement of AI. But uh Jeff Price, one of our members, um, he actually came up with his own in-house um offline, fully local AI assistant that processes data that previously had his um team doing. Um and it would end up taking a lot of time. There's some error pro mistakes. Sorry, Jeff, if I'm butchering this. I'm thinking top ahead. I wish I had it. But he essentially gave us a really good demonstration on how it runs locally and how it's able to save him so much time and also uh the accuracy behind it. And he ended up winning a really cool belt. You can check out the website or even just the LinkedIn page. Um, you want a really cool belt that showed he was like the top AI technologist.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

It's like a wrestling belt, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, exactly. Right. Um, and we also had two other speakers speaking on how they integrate um AI into it so they competed against each other, but um definitely just the openness of having AI agents in their workplace, but also doing it locally and safely, I think is definitely a trend because we're now seeing that big companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, they're now starting to watermark text and code. So it's like, hey, with the product or the thing I'm typing into it is my idea, right? But say, I don't know, tender for horses, right? If it's my idea, then does anthropic and open AI now own that or can start making their own version, even though it was me that came up with that idea, right? So that's why I don't think there's a big push on local AI agents and localization with companies and businesses. But again, infrastructure costs, GPUs, all that kind of crap is the big hurdle, but uh sweat of trends I saw for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah, that that's definitely Jeff has always been, for folks who don't know, he's the head of marketing over at Jack's Port. Um, so big fan of Jeff. And he's he's been involved in AI for as long as I can remember. I can I was in a marketing AI summit like four years ago, and he randomly was in it too. And so that it was a nice uh, you know, sort of a a Jacksonville connection, you know, for the two of us. But it's cool to see how he is still evolving his approach when it comes to AI because that is something that has been, you know, a backburner item that it's like, okay, well, now this is moving in this direction, and I want to protect my own proprietary data and information. And I don't want, you know, a situation like what happened with Figma, where there was an anthropic employee that was on the board at Figma and three days before Claude dropped their Claude design, uh part of their their AI, and uh that that board member left. Um it's just the the amount of uh, I don't want to say um, what do they call it? It's like a corporate espionage going on. It's something you really have to keep top of mind because it if they did it once, what's to say they're not gonna do it again? You know, even though they kind of say in their terms of service, oh, your data is protected. Is it really? Uh and I guess the only way to guarantee that is to take the approach that Jeff did.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, exactly. I mean, your data is protected, that they won't necessarily sell it off to data brokers, even though they still might be. But um, it doesn't say that, hey, any idea that you have, we can't release an updating feature, right? Coldwork or computers or whatever that might be. My chances, my my gut feeling is that wasn't necessarily original idea. It was based off of, you know, what users had created and used those platforms for. Um, and then they integrate it into their software.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

If you're in freight sales with the book of business and you're tired of building someone else's company, this one is for you. SPI Logistics helps experienced freight agents run their business with real back office support behind them. That means help with admin, finance, tech, and the day-to-day stuff that eats into your time and your sanity. So instead of getting buried in receivables, payables, and internal nonsense, you get to focus on what actually grows your business, serving customers, and bringing in freight. If you've been thinking about making a move, go check out SPI Logistics. That's SPI3PL.com. That's SPI the number threepl.com. So let's talk a little bit about uh analytics or KPIs, key performance indicators. What do you think is is our stats or KPIs that folks should be paying more attention to, maybe more than previously?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Um I would probably say it depends on what you're running, right? It depends uh if you're running a video campaign or if you're running um, you know, uh web page analytics, things like that. Um, but for example, I guess for our video, for um, you know, podcasts and shorts that we post, um, we definitely look at watch through time, right? Where's the watch through time when at what point are they um dropping off or scrolling through? Um, so um what's interesting is when people typically drop off, it's because it's not it's not that the content's boring, it's just that it lost their uh it lost their attention. So even adding, you know, a motion graphic or something in the middle of it, right, can keep people's attention uh inside the video or inside that content that you're writing. Um but then also um if you're running, let's say, an ad campaign or um, like I said, um website analytics, you want to know what your click-through rate is, right? Where are people coming from? Um, how are they interacting with the blog? What's the scroll rate? We have all that kind of nerdy stuff on our um on our uh on our website analytics. It's funny, I was on YouTube and I right-clicked um a video and it said uh stats for nerds, and I clicked it. And it's like frame rate and all this other stuff. I was like, oh my God, I had no idea. This is here. They should do that for like uh all marketing. I think that would be uh amazing. Um, but KPI is honestly depending on what type of campaign you're right uh going for, what's the goal, and then also what's the platform that is being delivered on.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Are there any uh marketing, I guess, sort of strategy or movement that you think is kind of on the way out? Uh, you know, I think people have talked about the death of Google, the death of SEO, you know, for years, but it even, you know, a few years ago, I was saying like the death of Google. But I I think that they're actually have pivoted to a point where they could be sitting uh in a massively advantaged spot because they're not wasting a ton of money like OpenAI and Anthropic are with building out their LLMs. They're kind of playing the Apple role where they're sitting back and kind of waiting to see where the market moves and then maybe choosing to strike. But Google searches I have, you know, they're uh they've never been more or never never been higher. They still control, I think it's about 88, 89% of the search market. Um, but I'm curious if you've seen uh things that are kind of on the way out, especially in the the AI world that we live in now.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, I'd say for sure the first thing that's on the way out is perfectly optimized um blog content because that's now the norm, right? There's no reason why you can't have a really good looking article because um an AI can do that for you and it can format it. Now the content that's in it, completely different story, and the way that the wording is completely different. But um, I would say the focus on that type of SEO is on the way out. Um, people will throw on words like AEO and GEO. Um, while certainly it is important, it's a little bit dangerous just because um, depending on what you're searching, whether it's historical or um fact-based, uh, depending where you live, they might be omitting some certain facts instead of allowing you to look at all the sources, right? Which I think citation has citations that have been really important when it comes to um fact-checking, especially AI searches. You know, because they could be just um researching an article that I wrote saying how Tabasco sauce or spicy sauce was made in Russia, even though it wasn't, right? So um I was yeah, so SEO is definitely not on the way out, it's become the norm. I don't think anything's on the way out, it's just a lot of it has become the norm because everyone has access to the same tools regardless of budget. But one thing I will say again is like people are valuing um human-written work that has mistakes, right? Because AI always tries to be perfect at everything that it does. So even it's like I always like to joke, my spelling is probably that of someone in grade five. Like, if I didn't have grammarly or you know, being able to right-click and fix my spelling errors, a lot of what I say probably wouldn't even be English. So when I write, um, yeah, it might seem a little bit perfect, but I always try to put in a little bit of humor, a little bit of an uh analogies, things that AI just definitely doesn't even understand. I remember I asked it to make a speech about war, and it just completely was way off. There's no emotion, there was no struggle, there's no, there's no heart in it. So um that content such as that, whether it's written or um digitally produced, is really uh being valued, especially by LLMs, because you see things like Reddit and other forums being used as a truth of source, because um it's really hard to get an opinion that is authentic because most opinions are emotionally charged, not grammatically perfect or sentence-driven perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

That's almost like we have to start giving the LLMs directions to add grammatical errors to this place. Sounds more human.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

I don't even know if it can. That's actually a good test to see how many, right, you know, write how many sentences and see how many of them uh promote uh write grammatical errors, but what those errors are. Is it just uh simple not capitalizing something or not adding a period? Or they actually, you know, write in what is that, uh restaurant. If you told me to spell restaurant right now online, I'll probably I would not be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Guarantee is my word that I I spell it wrong every time. I I don't know what it is. It's it's been 20 years of misspelling guarantee. Um I I I get it. It's it's one of those, it's just the I I guess it's a complication of the the world that we find ourselves in where you want to use these tools. These tools are technically AI, but when people are talking about AI, there's just such a visceral reaction now to it that I think is also something that we have to navigate those waters as well. Because before we started recording, We talked about how LinkedIn just introduced, you know, it this looks like AI swap. Um, as far as, you know, a post that you see if it has, you know, one of those images that looks like it was AI generated or, you know, a post that uses the AI isms. It's not this, it's that, or uh, you know, different AI phrases that it just loves to use. You have that option now on LinkedIn. And they're the only channel that I know of that uses this option, but you can report something as AI slot. And so these platforms are trying to keep up with how to even identify if this stuff is AI or not. And you know, it it's like a cat and mouse game. Um, are you seeing, you know, what are you seeing as far as the market is concerned on all of these different social channels? Is LinkedIn uniquely positioned to have a lot of AI slot? I think they probably are versus other channels, or or how, or do you have a maybe a channel preference right now?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

I would say um most platforms are definitely trying to hammer down on AI-driven accounts or driven work, uh, things like that. They want to keep it authentic as possible. LinkedIn's a little bit tough just because the platform encourages conversations with people, but I don't know when, but perhaps at some point um it just became a pitching, pitching platform, right? You add a connection and then immediately you're getting asked how your day is, and then they're trying to sell you something, right? So um, and then people got rejected tired of being rejected on LinkedIn, so then they offsourced it to AI, and then you end up getting the same AI written messages and pitches to every single individual, right? So the I think the I think the thing with AI too, though, especially on social media, is if it was, I think if the leaders positioned it not as something that was going to take people's jobs and it was going to, you know, replace workers and things like that, they changed their messaging and instead say, hey, you know, it's gonna be a speed tool, it's gonna get you a little bit more efficient, but we can't necessarily promise you. I know that doesn't sell dollars to investors, but if their messaging wasn't that, hey, it's going to take your job and you're gonna be broke and poor, I think the reaction would be a little bit more positive opposed to the negativity that is getting um on these platforms as well. Um, and then also I was gonna say, um, oh my god, I lost my train of thought.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Well, I I do think you're you're on on uh you know a good message there because especially with the messaging in the United States or in North America, it's it's just such doom and gloom. Where I saw a commercial the other day of like, this is the AI, the pro AI commercials that are being shown in China. And it's it's just a vastly different message of what's being preached here. So to your point, it's it's uh it's the fault of these companies. And there probably is some you know maneuvering going on with them wanting to you know be the only players in AI and get rid of the open source companies. Uh, but it's just remarkable on how much different the the messaging is in China versus the US. And then you have all everyone is freaked out about it that they're gonna lose their job. There's gonna be a data center built right next to their house, and you know, their electricity bills are gonna shoot through the roof. And it's just so much fear. And I think it kind of has to do with maybe the rate of change over the last, you know, since 2019, that rate of change has been so uncomfortable for so long. And it's the rate of change is just gonna keep increasing versus you know, maybe settling down a little bit. I think folks keep waiting for things to settle down and it's just not the case anymore. We have a, you know, it's a new information era, it's a new industrial revolution that you kind of have to get on board and and you know, plant your flag of where you're gonna stand. Because I have this theory that for a lot of folks, they don't care that they've engaged or watched with or watched AI content, but they care if you are creating AI content. And so if they've developed this relationship with the creator and a certain style, they don't want to see that from that person. But they might watch uh, you know, history of olive oil video that is done, you know, specifically around you know AI and AI generated images, and it's an AI voice, and you know, it's actually a really good voice. And you know, I don't care about that lens, but if you make it, I do care, and I probably won't waste my time watching your stuff anymore. What do you think of that theory?

SPEAKER_01 28:00

It's really kind of it's it's it's honestly a fire like so it's a double, it's like a double standard, it's really interesting, right? Depending on the topic is and whoever the creator there is, you know, I'm going to react a certain way because it feels like you cheated me on my viewing experience because you used AI. Um, I would I think people should be using AI, right? It should be embraced and welcomed, but it should not be replacing human creativity or human authenticity. I always like to say, especially with generative AI and um, you know, video, images, or even writing. Um, one of the main questions that I think reason why it's not being adopted as well as quickly is why should I care? Why should I care that you just generated a commercial, you just generated this 10-second clip, right? Why should I care about that? Unless there's a story, a meaning, a growth, or some sort of value behind it, why should I care about this? Oh my goodness, Gemini just 3.5 dropped just dropped in. It's super real. Okay, great, it's super real, but now what? Right now, oh wow, they can now write and sound more like humans. Okay, now what, right? There's no, there's no um, there's no emotional triggers or pulls to make people really care about what's being posted with AI, opposed to just wow, look what it's doing. And then people, I think, are also again frustrated at the point that creators, because they're like, Well, you used to write everything by hand and you did it yourself, but then why won't you pay someone or outsource them, even though there were complaints about outsourcing work and saying, Oh, you're not paying them American dollars, you're not paying them the same as that, all that, right? So I think a lot of people like to complain for the sake of complaining. If you're gonna be okay with uh history of an olive uh olive oil video, but then be mad that your creator used AI on a motion graphic. At the end of the day, did the message deliver? Is it the same? Did you gain value from it? Then who cares, right? Right. But I do understand the backlash because again, I honestly through a lot of platforms I go through, I also answer your question there. I I usually now more on X or Twitter, because I find it's what's really nice is like it's really um refreshed. And if you comment something, I don't know, not getting off topic, but let's say the uh uh I don't know if you watch uh WMBA, but like the Indiana fever and the hardfoul and all that. If you comment about something on that, then that's on your timelines for five, 10 minutes, and then it's something new. It's not like it's just populated and that's what stays. That's kind of what I liked about the um X algorithm. But regardless, um, I feel like uh people yeah, like to complain for the sake of complaining, but they definitely uh I think they'll come around to it once people start to understand, okay, why should I care about this? Then the work speaks with that as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah. I I think what you're you're kind of hinting at is just developing a taste, like developing a style. And if you develop both of those things, which I heard an interesting debate uh the other day around all of this and you know what creators should use AI for and what they shouldn't use the it for. And it was two hosts, and they had their team, like their editing team, their graphic designer, their illustrator, their uh podcast editor, uh the thumbnail designer. They had all of them commenting on the the taste aspect. And but it was interesting because each of them used AI and their job in their own way, but they had a lot of opinions on how other creators should should or should not be using AI. And I I one interesting point that that came from that discussion is I think it was a New York Times article that said, if you are over the age of 40, then you have developed taste. You've written content from the depths of your soul in your 20s and in your 30s, maybe, to where now at you know 40 or above, then you kind of have that idea of taste and what reads well, what works well. Whereas, you know, if you're in your early 20s, you haven't really developed what maybe what that taste looks like, or even teenagers have developed what that taste looks like. Uh, so I think that there's definitely something to be said of, you know, should we maybe limit the use of these products or maybe encourage the limited use of these products until you have done the grunt work. And I don't know how you implement that. I don't know how you put that into practice, but I thought that that would, that was something that really resonated with me because it it I have been there at 2 a.m. and you know, writing until it feels like your heart is bleeding. Uh, but uh and I don't know that I would be able to determine what that taste looks like today if I hadn't gone through that, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

No, I I 100% agree. It's uh it's an interesting, it's an interesting proposal, but I would also then argue it's just like, okay, well, yeah, the 40-year-old that's done the grunt work, but what about the 20-year-old that's been uh music producer and has made you know 500 songs that has been signed and worked with big artists, that still requires taste and different levels of creativity that those skills are transferable that that I don't know, 40-year-old would have never even um been put in those situations too, right? Because if you're working at music, you got to work with designers, choreographers, artists, all of that, right? They all have different tastes. So it's an interesting proposal for sure. Um, I'll say I'll kind of lean it more towards like teenagers, maybe, right? People that are teenagers still need to develop and uh struggle, go through those struggle hours and struggle years for sure. Um, but yeah, it's uh it's pretty cool though that people are looking at it at a deeper level like that too.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah, I I thought it was just super interesting how the the creatives were using it in their own workflow. So they had plenty of opinions on how other creatives should be using it or should not be using it. I was like, well, this is just gonna be a debate we have for the rest of our lives, I think.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Exactly. Exactly. There's gonna be no end to it.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Now, I I I am curious from the the agent side of things, uh are you finding yourself, you know, creating more content for the SBI agents, or are you kind of maybe having to, you know, put guardrails up of, you know, maybe people can create too much now. And so you have to kind of make sure that they're aligned with the brand and the overall messaging. How do you balance the those two things of allowing people creativity, but then you know, trying to corral them into the a brand focus goals?

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Um, so when I first started out, I was just posting left, right, and center as much as possible. Um, but that would often dilute the message and also create fatigue, especially on people's timelines. So uh, especially with the agents, I find again that people, um, when they're gonna make a decision to join a company, they're going to do their research, they're going to look at many different channels, different avenues, um, especially if it's a life-changing decision, such as joining a brokerage. Um, so we find that less is more, but make that less count, right? So whether it is an interview, whether it is um a thought piece or you know, a photo attending a conference, less is more, and then have the questions be answered during the um talking process or on the phone or whatever, right? Because I find a lot of content tries to um what is it, uh handle objections and uh worries with um in their messaging, but uh you want to also welcome those questions because it also adds um adds more depth in the conversation. Because I I'm not I'm not on the sales team, but you know, if we said, you know, hey, we figured we figured this out and we pay our drivers an X amount of time, and then if we just put that on um a post, then that doesn't get them the question to ask, hey, well, how quickly do you pay your drivers? Right. They read about the experience, but then they want to ask their ask their own questions and build that rapport. So less is more than I'm finding um in the long term.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah, it's kind of interesting how things have shifted so quickly back to quality over quantity. Yeah. And just being able to vote, like to your point, less is more. And I I was listening to your your conversation with Chris Jolly, friend of the show. Um, and and you guys were talking about how you even help with the agents when they come on board with optimizing their LinkedIn profile, just a very simple approach, but could mean could could really mean getting business or not getting business.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yep, exactly. We even um with along with optimizing our LinkedIn profiles for some of our agents to have their own personal websites as well. Remember, one agent said that he uh lost the deal because he didn't have um a website or a presence or even a Google My Business profile. And uh we were able to do that for him uh to ensure it didn't happen again. But you know, so small things like that that definitely go a long way too.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Now, you know, last couple questions here. Uh, you know, I'm curious what what do you maybe have coming down the pipeline? I mean, I know we're we're heading into the holiday season. Are there different kinds of marketing efforts? Are you setting anything up for 2027 without giving away, you know, all of the the in-house trade secrets? But what do you guys have going on that that uh for the agents that you uh are pretty pumped about?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

For the agents, you know what? That would be a better question for the leadership because they're deciding what's going on for the agents. So I can't necessarily um speak on that. Um yeah, that definitely a better question for them.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

So, what about for for you personally? What are you going to be working on for the rest of this year leading into 2027? That are are you gonna be experimenting more with different content types or maybe short form versus long form video? Where are you kind of focusing your efforts?

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah, I definitely will be uh, I guess you'd say experimenting on different um processes, especially again, learning with uh how AI is working too, um getting staying up to date for sure, so that way it can separate uh noise from hype as well, too. Um but uh yeah, I think it's it's going to be keeping steady, but also focusing on um what's our overall image image is like, right? I feel like we have a good process, but still, what is our what is the first thing people think about when they think of SPI, right? What do they feel? And um, if I can't get that in a simple sentence, then I feel like I haven't done a good job as a marketer.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

It's a never-ending battle, I feel like, for marketing. Like brand consistency, quality over quantity. And I think um if I if I had to round out the conversation, it would definitely be the the power of not just quality, but the power of focus. And for other folks who might be, you know, kind of feeling overwhelmed with all of these different tools and capabilities, just know you're you're not alone.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Oh, you're never alone.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

And that's you know, I guess to the the earlier point, that's the value of you know an association like TMSA where you can kind of be a sounding board uh to or and be able to connect with other people who are going through the same issues that you're going through. So um definitely appreciate your time today and and sharing your insight and perspectives. Is there anything important that you feel uh that we should mention that we haven't already talked about?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Um, you know what? No, I think honestly, uh we can tackle quite a bit. Um I'm trying to not uh jumble over my words here, but no, honestly just uh stay focused, stay locked in. Don't uh when the internet, I I would actually leave with this. When the internet reacts over something um and it's generally negative at the first go, give it at least two, four weeks for all the facts to come out before uh coming to a decision. So whether as this looks like AI slop or whether open open AI or anthropic is water watermarking text, give it two, four weeks for it to actually marinate so you can look at all the facts and make a healthy decision whether to adopt or not.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, because that that focused mindset is not just where you're working, but where you're spending your attention, because some of these platforms are basically not some of them, all of them are supercomputers and they're designed to, you know, keep you there and keep you engaged, and they'll do that, you know, with a variety of different content styles. Um, but you can make a conscious choice of what you spend your your time and attention on, and if you're gonna be part of that, that problem, or if you're going to to be the person that that creates the content that you you want people to remember you for. Um so RJ, this was a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for for coming on. Uh, where can I send folks? Where can they connect with you? Uh all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Yeah, for sure. So you can check us out at SPI or SPI3PL.com on our website if you're an agent, want to sign up. Um, and then also if you want to connect on LinkedIn, you can reach me on LinkedIn, RJ Finnegan, or check out our uh SPI Logistics.com page as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Perfect. I'll add all of those to the show notes and uh thank you again for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

And thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

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