The Biggest Marketing and Sales Takeaways from TMSA's Elevate Conference

In this episode of Everything is Logistics, we're recapping takeaways from TMSA in New Orleans, held from June 5-7, 2024. Recorded live, this roundtable discussion features insights from an in-house marketer, a marketing agency leader, and a company founder, offering valuable perspectives on marketing and sales strategy.GUESTS:Aaron Dunn: Director of Sales & Marketing, PDQ America, and Co-Host of  Trucking for Millennials podcastLeigh Sauter: Director of Operations & Strategy, Virago MarketingKameel Gaines: Founder, CEO, and Director of Recruitment, Rig On Wheels Broker & Recruitment ServicesLINKS:Transportation Marketing and Sales Association WebsiteFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe speaks with Sheldon Mydat, CEO and Founder at Suppeco. They discuss the importance of relationship-driven resilience in procurement, and how Suppeco's platform facilitates collaboration and transparency between suppliers and customers. Mydat explains how the platform incorporates live data, automation, and AI to provide actionable insights and streamline processes. He also shares his journey of launching Suppeco during the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges he faced.LINKS: Sheldon MydatSuppeco WebsiteWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe reflects on her podcasting journey and the importance of being a lifelong learner. She discusses leveraging online resources, understanding business fundamentals, and reverse-engineering successful content strategies to help your podcast stand the test of time.QUESTIONS ASKED:What was your entry into podcasting and podcast production?What is your educational background? And has it been helpful in your endeavors?What is the most helpful skill you've brought with you into your projects? And how has it assisted you?What does your day-to-day look like as a Podcast Producer both individually on your own project and in your role at JPGU?What is your favorite aspect of this work?What is your least favorite aspect?What are some challenges you've met throughout your career journey?What does your marketing mix look like? What kind of marketing has been the most successful for your brand?Do you feel you're able to maintain a good work-life balance through your work?How does today compare to your first day or first few months of entering into podcast production?Any recommendations for those aspiring to enter into a role like yours?LINKS:Digital Dispatch WebsiteJax Podcasters United WebsiteMeetings Are Wasting Your Time: Here's How To Get It BackWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe speaks with Dave Gulas, a former pharmaceutical sales executive who co-founded EZDC 3PL, an e-commerce fulfillment company. Dave talks about pivoting to the logistics industry during the COVID-19 boom, partnering with SPI Logistics as a freight agent, and the value of networking and building relationships. He also offers insights into his content marketing strategy and the impact of his "Beyond Fulfillment" podcast.QUOTES:"If you just start and keep showing up, good things are gonna happen. And that's really the secret. If you want even call that a secret. And so I just decided to do it and kept doing it. And now we have a real podcast, we've dropped 38 episodes and have a bunch more recorded and continue to book more." - Dave Gulas on persisting with his podcast"You really never know where they're going to come from, or wet. Or right, it's got to be the right time as well, right? It's got to be the right, the right fit at the right time. So the more you can be visible out there with your online presence. And for me, it's through the podcast, or it's being a guest on a podcast like this." - Dave GulasLINKS:EZDC 3PLBeyond Fulfillment PodcastDavid's LinkedInDavid's TwitterDavid's WebsiteWATCH THE FULL EPISODEFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode we're talking with Jennie Malafarina, CEO of Virago Marketing on the common pitfalls companies make with freight marketing, including failing to research their target market, using overused stock imagery, and neglecting to embrace new channels like podcasting. Malafarina stresses the importance of building a personal brand and shares insights into creating a strategic revenue generation plan.LINKS:Jennie's LinkedInViraago Marketing's WebsiteEd Burns' Post on ImagesJennie's new Freight Marketing PodcastMatt Silver Cargado's Email NewsletterWhitney's Mediocre Marketer PodcastQUOTES:"I find that this industry sucks you in, and you never leave. More importantly, it's good that the industry sucks you in and that you move around the industry because we need that knowledge. We need people to understand the different nuances of the industry and be able to quickly apply solutions versus some of the greenroom people that are coming into the space." - Jennie Malafarina"There's never just this one path for every company. It's really about having a conversation and saying, what is the business trying to accomplish? What are the sales objectives? And how can marketing support that? So it's always going to be different based on that response." - Jennie Malafarina"Don't just start doing things to check boxes. Don't be like, we want a blog, so we're going to have a blog every week. Or we want to podcast so we're going to build a podcast. Who's your audience? Why is there a gap there?" - Jennie MalafarinaWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe explains the reasons behind her decision to separate her podcast from her web design company, Digital Dispatch. She discusses the need for better communication with clients, upgrading her financial acumen, and streamlining processes to maintain profitability and sustainability.QUOTES:"I went through and I wrote down every part of the process for onboarding, off-boarding, what happens during lead conversations, what happens when somebody becomes a customer, what happens when they move into an active opportunity. I ripped it all down and built it back up from the ashes of those flames from the previous processes." - Blythe Brumleve"I'm a process junkie, and I would not be able to figure out my prices, I would not be able to develop a stronger financial acumen, if I didn't take all of my processes and just tear them down and start almost from like a zero-based budgeting perspective, but start as zero-base processing perspective." - Blythe Brumleve"I thought if I was giving a fair price to me 10 years ago, me then, that was good enough. And that shouldn't be good enough. But I was creating this perception of myself and of my work and of my business, that I was cheap." - Blythe Brumleve"If you never hear from me, it's a good thing; everything is running smoothly. If you hear from me, things are a little shaky. The problem is that my tech team does a really great job. So the clients never heard from me. And that was a gap in our communications." - Blythe BrumleveLINKS:Digital Dispatch WebsiteWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode of Everything is Logistics, Blythe speaks with Jennifer Miller, Vice President Integrated Transportation at DHL Supply Chain. They discuss DHL's history as a parcel delivery pioneer, its evolution into a global logistics powerhouse, and its early adoption of digital technologies. Jennifer shares insights into DHL's use of robotics, AI, and sustainable vehicles to drive innovation and meet evolving customer needs.QUOTES:"When you have men and women in an organization, you're inherently going to be better when they can part if you only have women, you only have men that can be effective, but I generally find if you have different perspectives, different walks of life, and you can all come together and approach these problems and innovations differently, you're gonna get to a better place." - Jennifer Miller"Visibility, I would say visibility of what is happening in their supply chain. And the ability to look at exception management through that visibility. So you know, I don't necessarily your customers don't necessarily want to go out and look at everything, but I want to see, tell me what I need to know and tell me in a really efficient digital way." - Jennifer Miller"We have very large operations in both Latin America, both in Mexico and South America, as well as Central America. Mexico has a very large operational footprint for us. as well as cross border services, you know, either starting in Mexico or starting in the US. So that's something that we're very comfortable with and something we do, you know, extensively today." - Jennifer Miller"When I started in supply chain, there weren't very many of us, I'll be honest, and certainly almost none in leadership. DHL has made a huge commitment to women in leadership. I would just tell [others] to be fearless. Just don't hold yourself back. This is a great industry." - Jennifer MillerLINKS:Jennifer's LinkedInDHL Supply Chain's WebsiteWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

Join Grace Sharkey and Blythe for the latest installment of Freight Friends, where they give some love to the unsung modes of shipping: tugboats and barges. Grace also gives us insight into Uber's third annual Carrier Summit, and gals close out the show by talking about the illegal ivory supply chain, Hubble Network, and good freight marketing. QUOTES:"Conventionally, tugboat captains move close to the assisted vessel to be able to grab the messenger line from the assisted vessels troops, often even under the bow or in the turbulent. A minor floor in the maneuvering can result in major damage or injuries of the deck crew of both the tugboat and the assisted ship." - From the video"Most of the sales processes are very manual, and you got to talk to a lot of people, depending on what you're doing, you may be coordinating across 3456 different parties, each of which you have to communicate individually, depending on your use case. And that creates a really high barrier of entry for shippers." - From the Open Tug video"So we simplify that we're the first digital marketplace to connect bulk and Breakbulk shippers with transportation and terminal capacity. Customers simply search for their requirements or destinations or cargo and their timeline, they booked that shipment and they track it to their destination." - From the Open Tug videoLINKS:Grace's LinktreeNational Geographic’s “Warlords of Ivory”Uber Freight Tugboat mug on Everything is Logistics OpenTugSSBadgerBoatNerdA Crash Course in Freight AI with Garrett AllenLessons from 15 Years at TQL with Chris FieldsTenney GroupHubble NetworkWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode, Blythe and Oana Jinga, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial and Product Officer at Dexory, discuss the company's tall, autonomous robotics solution that collects granular data from warehouses to create a dynamic digital twin environment. Jinga shares insights on leveraging this data for optimization, consolidating product locations, identifying discrepancies with WMS systems, and orchestrating other robotics operations.LINKS:Oana's LinkedInDexory's WebsiteQUOTES:"The way we look at a digital twin is like it's a dynamic and living and breathing digital object. So it needs to be able to show you at any point in time, what's the latest that's happening in the physical world [of your warehouse], how that's evolving, and what factors are influencing that change." - Oana Jinga "The robot is there to collect information. But what you can do with that information, is pretty much limitless. You can extract data and different points, you can compare it with other data sources, you can crunch it, you can use it for simulation for forecasting, and so on." - Oana Jinga "So when we say a digital twin of a warehouse, we literally mean like this digital environment that changes continuously as the warehouse changes, and that you can also then use in the future, like if you do want to simulate and try different scenarios." - Oana Jinga "From our perspective, we use the robot to get data continuously from warehouses to push them into that digital twin and show as close to reality as possible what's going on." - Oana Jinga "We take continuous pictures of the racks, and then we deconstruct those and can use computer vision. And again, some elements of machine learning to see what we're seeing in that data." - Oana JingaWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.

In this episode of Everything is Logistics, we talk with Steve Burroughs, agency owner at SPI Logistics, who exclusively hires family members to work at his freight agency. Hear how this approach has shaped the dynamics of his business, from maintaining work-life balance to building a resilient and loyal team. Steve shares personal anecdotes and lessons learned from integrating family into his professional world and navigating the intricacies of the freight market.LINKS:Steve's LinkedInSPI Logistics' WebsiteWATCH THE FULL EPISODE HEREFeedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.---------------------------------------------THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interview series powered by SPI Logistics to hear directly from the company's agents on how they took the leap and found a home with SPI freight agent program. Tai TMS is designed to streamline your brokerage operations and propel growth for both FTL and LTL shipment cycles. Book a demo with the Tai team today and tell them Everything is Logistics sent you. Maximize your website’s performance as a sales tool with Digital Dispatch’s website management.