Juan Baena, the visionary behind Savant, joins us to unpack his remarkable journey from managing phones to steering a leading company. His candid account is a masterclass in entrepreneurship, revealing the gritty realities and sky-high triumphs of launching a startup in the complex Colombian business terrain.
A word about our sponsors:
Sponsored by SPI Logistics. If you're looking for back-office support such as admin, finance, IT, and sales as a freight broker - reach out to SPI Logistics today! Learn more about becoming an agent here: https://success.spi3pl.com/
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
Juan Baena, the visionary behind Savant, joins us to unpack his remarkable journey from managing phones to steering a leading company. His candid account is a masterclass in entrepreneurship, revealing the gritty realities and sky-high triumphs of launching a startup in the complex Colombian business terrain.
A word about our sponsors:
Sponsored by SPI Logistics. If you're looking for back-office support such as admin, finance, IT, and sales as a freight broker - reach out to SPI Logistics today! Learn more about becoming an agent here: https://success.spi3pl.com/
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
What's up everybody and welcome to another episode of Standing Out, a podcast about sales, marketing and leadership. I'm Trey Griggs, your host, glad to have you with us today. I'm also the CEO and founder of Beta Consulting Group and I'll tell you what. We are having a great time helping companies in our industry to message and to create marketing deliverables to help with sales. That's what we're all about helping salespeople drive more sales through great marketing. Check us out at betaconsultinggroupcom. Tell us your story and we will help you write yours. Just click on that button that says schedule a call and that will be with yours. Truly Can't wait to meet you and hear your company story and help you write yours. Also want to tell you about a couple of things that they're going on.
Speaker 1:First of all, it is time to turn our attention to the Broker Carrier Summit that's coming October 23rd through 25th down in Fort Worth Texas. This is going to be the fourth iteration. I can't believe it. The fourth one that we've had so far had almost 400 people in Kansas City back in April. We're looking to get over 500 people down in Fort Worth Texas. If you are a small to medium-sized broker or carrier, this is your opportunity to find business partners that are like-minded. Have a good time, maybe play a little golf. It's going to be a great event Again October 23 through 25 in Fort Worth, texas. Make sure you go to BrokerCarrierSummitcom and get registered right away. If your company is interested in sponsoring the event or the golf tournament, make sure you reach out to us and we'll talk to you about that.
Speaker 1:Also want to give a shout out to our friends over at Wreaths Across America. This organization is phenomenal. We are so honored to be syndicated on their radio program every Tuesday night. If you're listening to us on Wreaths Across America radio right now, thank you so much. You can tune in every Tuesday night to their Trucking Tuesday lineup at 6 pm and hear episodes of Standing Out on the radio. And again, we appreciate their partnership. Phenomenal organization. Take a moment and go and sponsor a wreath for the upcoming event in December. It's just an incredible organization to help the next generation learn and understand the sacrifices that so many have made so that we can have our freedoms here in America. Also, be sure to follow us on YouTube. Make sure you subscribe and turn on the notifications so you always get your episodes of Standing Out and the other content that we have available on the Beta Podcast Network.
Speaker 1:And finally, thank you to our friends over at SPI logistics. Listen, if you're a freight broker and you're just tired of the back office and just all the admin that goes on with running your business, you just want to stay focused on selling to customers and booking loads with trucks, check them out. They're doing a great job helping companies become agents and just stay in their sweet spot. They've got the technology, the systems, the back office support that you need to succeed. Check them out at successspi3plcom. Again, that's successspi3plcom, and be sure to let them know. You heard about it right here on Standing Out. All right, hey, listen, our guest is a good friend of mine. He's from another country, got some new experiences that I've had. I love his city, his hometown my little question there at the opener was a little montage to him and truly my favorite international city down in Colombia, south America. He is the founder and CEO of Savant.
Speaker 2:Please welcome to the show my good friend and a regular on the word on the street, juan Baez. Where is Juan there? I am there's Juan, there he is. What's up, buddy, how you doing.
Speaker 1:Dude, where's your music? I don't know if we have your song. Oh man, we missed it. Listen.
Speaker 2:We can give you a song.
Speaker 1:Where is it? Well, which one? How about this one? Okay, okay, I can live with that. How are you doing, my friend? Everything good, doing good, doing good, glad to be here Good, good, good. Oh, Lil Nas, that's your one.
Speaker 2:You know what's weird?
Speaker 1:I don't know what's going on, but I actually can't hear the music. But you can, so whatever. It's all good, it's all good, but glad to have you on the program today. Is this the first time you've been on Standing Out? Yes, oh my gosh, it's been a long time.
Speaker 2:I can't believe I wasn't invited before.
Speaker 1:I know it's terrible man. It's terrible. You need better friends, you need better friends, but you're in Medellin, colombia, as a lot do you say it, medellin medellin. Yeah, we put that j yeah, there's no no sh, no, it's just medellin all right, tell everybody a little bit about savant. What you got going on, man well um, we're in.
Speaker 2:We are in the near short staffing uh industry. We've been around for around eight to nine years. At this point, I think we're heading into year nine. Um we're, we're born out of the town of sawaneta, which is a lovely little town at the south of managing. I think you stayed there, I remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you stayed over the last over.
Speaker 2:Um, nice, lovely, lovely haven at the south of the city. Um, we're a company that was I was funny enough. Yesterday I was back at my university where we were founded and accelerated for the first two years of our existence, uh, and we've been servicing logistics industries ever since we and we, we conceived the company in itself. Um, that's all we do technology and talent solutions for uh brokers and carriers in the us yep, and it's a great need.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, um, having been a part of that industry myself for a while, and we have a lot of similar context in that it's a great need and it's a great option for companies, especially in transportation logistics. It's hard to find really good talent for the price point in the United States, so it makes a ton of sense and obviously, with technology being such a big play, you got a lot of good things happening in in terms of what you're doing we're gonna get to that here in just a little bit.
Speaker 1:Juan, get started though. Uh, a little fun fact that I I love about you. I did not notice about you, I don't know if I knew this, but we're gonna have to. We're gonna have to cap, uh, capitalize on this at some point. You're a good barbecue cook. Yeah, dude, this is big because I'm from missouri man barbecue isbecue is big here. How do you cook your barbecue and what do you really like to cook?
Speaker 2:I like Texan barbecue so I work a lot on my rub and that's not something that's pretty common down here. As you remember, our food is pretty neutral, it's a little bit of salt and I focus more on the picanha part of beef. I obviously do barbecue for chicharron and all that type of like our other more traditional stuff, but I really do focus on our, on our, on our picanha, which is, like we call it here, punta yanca, and I just make it whole, I rub it real good the day before, make the rub myself, um, prep it up, beer it up and just take good care of it for a few hours, maybe two, three, four hours, and we have as close to as American barbecue as you can get in Medellin Do you like more like the sweet type barbecue, or more of the tangy or spicy?
Speaker 1:What flavors do you like to go with?
Speaker 2:Go to the spicy flavor-y area. Very thick on, the pepper, very loaded on. Black pepper very loaded on more of a dry rub.
Speaker 1:Yeah, saucy barbecue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'll send you some pics later because it's like well, we've cooked down here. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:Like you wouldn't think you would get that type of man, I don't want pigs, I want to actually taste it. Pigs is just going to make my mouth water. I want to actually taste it. So I got to get back down there the last time I was in Columbia. You actually were gracious enough to let me stay at your apartment there and and B, and got to enjoy that. You took me out for breakfast. It was the first time that I'd ever had Eggs Benedict, believe it or not. I don't know why it was so good. It was so good to have that down there. I didn't know you wouldn't expect it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's pretty common here In the US it's pretty common, especially in the North.
Speaker 1:I was the best getting gravy guy growing up. I wouldn't blame you.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't blame you.
Speaker 1:If I had a cracker barrel around a corner, I'd be eating there every morning.
Speaker 2:Nothing beats good gravy and mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I know I got into that too much, but it was really good down there and the food is phenomenal. I'm telling you, medellin is my favorite international city. A close second would be Vancouver, british Columbia, beautiful city, but Medellin is amazing. I love being down there. It's just feels like I don't know it's weird. It feels like home and I know that's weird, but it just feels very comfortable.
Speaker 2:It's cozy.
Speaker 1:It's welcoming.
Speaker 2:The weather's different. It's not so harsh, the air is not so dry.
Speaker 1:The views are amazing, like I've never been in a place where you you look up mountains and you just see high rise buildings going up the mountains.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely incredible, you know you don't know what you know. What I think it is about our spring is that we don't have that massive Pauling situation in spring, so you get spring without the allergies, and I think that's what makes it so nice.
Speaker 1:It's that right on the temperature, yeah.
Speaker 2:But our trees aren't pollinating once a year, so they're not loaded you. But our trees aren't pollinating once a year, so they're not loaded. You know they're not letting out nine months of waiting Like here. That's not so, yeah, and I used to. I used to make. My sister lives in Atlanta and my niece lives in Atlanta and live in Atlanta and I make fun of them because I was like since when are you allergic to gluten and since when are you allergic to pollen? I grew up in northern Hudson area in New York. I never had allergy issues and ever since they moved from here to Columbia over there, they started having that and I'm like why we have spring here all year long. What's going on? It's just the difference, the amount of pollen that you know. These trees, just suddenly, just if you shake them, it's just like just blow out.
Speaker 1:It gets pretty wild here. You know I grew up not really thinking about allergies too much, but I definitely noticed them now a little bit more as an adult. But you're right, every time that I've been down to Medellin it doesn't matter the time of year I never feel that way. Um, it's just so pleasant, so comfortable. It truly is eternal spring. And um, it's just a great. It's a great city I.
Speaker 2:I miss the spice. We don't have that much spice. I'm a spicy guy, so it's like that's. That's just one of the. I've been to mexican restaurants where they serve me pepsi and I'm like mexicans don't drink pepsi.
Speaker 1:Starting, with that.
Speaker 2:Two, is this the hottest thing you have, and it's very disappointing, isn't that funny? We often just miss what we don't have you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't get sushi with fruit on it up here, so I tend to miss that and you miss the spicy stuff. So I guess that's human nature Kind of how it works. All right, let's talk a little bit about Savant man. You've been doing this for a while, been in the transportation space for a long time, getting into tech as well. What was it about transportation? How did you get into this man? How did this happen 10 years ago?
Speaker 2:industry, not in it, in it but, you know, orbiting around it. So I'd show, I would sell commercial auto monoline for companies like Progressive Titan Insurance, Great West American you know a bunch of a bunch of companies. So I I had a very big Latino portfolio in Texas and I'd sell them their 18 wheeler, their dump truck. Then I sold them their personal, their home insurance, their GL, their OBOP insurance, that business owner's policy. I was around that for a while and when I was doing this it was probably 2010, 2013. I moved out of that space and I went back into the traditional call center roles, which were more sales oriented work that AT&T and some other big band names and I got to a point where, like, I got tired of that and I tried to get away from the industry. So I tried to, you know, get away from outsourcing and, funny enough, and something that happened to me and it was hilarious I would show up to interviews for the national companies that were internationally present, but my experience for them wasn't transverse, it mattered nothing. I came from managing a team that did a million and a half dollars a week in sales and up sales because we used to manage the billing department for AT&T and we had angry customers, angry about their billing, because nobody calls billing, because they're happy. Right, you guys are doing a great job with my invoice, thank you so much. And somehow somehow every week, weekly, we were pumping out a million and a half dollars of new sales. But to colombian companies that wasn't like oh, I mean, that's that's call center. You know that's gone.
Speaker 2:So I wasn't able to get away from it and, long story short, I started. I started getting contacted to do as a, as a consultant, to create contact centers for American companies, and I did that like two or three times and I felt I got to a point, when I was doing that, that I felt that I wasn't going. I wasn't going anywhere. I was on a boat, it was floating, it was comfortable, but it wasn't heading anywhere, it was just there. So by like the fourth time that that happened, I just deflected that opportunity to somebody else in the industry, somebody that was managing a large call center here, and the client went three, four different companies and they came back and was like no, juan, we want to work with you. And I told them well, you know, I don't work like that, no more. If you want to do that, you have to do with my company.
Speaker 2:I didn't have a company at that moment, but we started negotiating the terms of what they needed, what was the end result they were expecting and how much they were willing to pay for it, and, based on that, we drafted up a contract and a month later we signed it. And the next day September 1st 2016, I went to Chamber of Commerce and established Savant, and that's how Savant came to be. It was an opportunity that came. I deflected it. It came back, and I've always said things don't come back to you two times in a row for nothing and it's been life-changing since then. One thing was one before Savant, another thing is one after, so on. That's definitely a pivot point for me in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's a great story. I don't even know if I've ever heard that whole story. Have you sharing that story which, uh, it's almost like you fell into entrepreneurship a little bit. The opportunity came up and, uh, and you just couldn't pass it up because at some point you're like wait a minute, I know how to do this. I'll just do this for myself, I'll just help. You know, set this up.
Speaker 2:I can't leave this part I out either. Um, I had a business plan for setting up savant since 2013 and savant was. I put the company through every single angel investor venture capital hedge fund that existed in columbia at that point and nobody financed. Nobody said like I'm gonna invest in your idea, juan, I'm not gonna. I'm gonna venture capital hedge fund that existed in Colombia at that point and nobody financed. Nobody said like I'm going to invest in your idea, juan, I'm going to invest in this. This sounds great, because nobody understood how is it that this guy is going to do logistics from Colombia, things that are happening in the US? They couldn't conceive the idea. It didn't matter how I explained it to them, it didn't matter how well portrayed it was. I had a 90-page business project paper for them, for them to read and go in detail. Nobody ever invested in the company.
Speaker 2:And when this opportunity came, I had the paperwork somewhere on a shelf, but I didn't have the capital to start it off either. But when we started talking the customer and I, my client and I started talking about it. I started putting you know warranties for me to like oh, this, I can do this, but we need a setup cost right. We need a, we need a, we need a startup cost. And I leveraged myself into a position where we can start doing this, even though we don't have capital, and we can get it running. I did have the plan.
Speaker 2:I just the opportunity for it to start was. I mean, I think our blocker was we don't have the capital to start the company. And it got to the point where, like, I don't care if we don't have the capital, we're going to start the company. This is the opportunity to start it and we started it like that. This is the opportunity to start it and we started it like that. The first calls we started receiving, I was in my bedroom, in my house, in a plastic chair. I have the picture. I had a printer table and that was my desk. So and a laptop and that's it A hundred dollar Walmart debit card, one of those preloaded ones, and let's go.
Speaker 1:And that's how we started those early days of entrepreneurship, very humble beginnings. I remember the first kind of the first day that I was kind of on my own when this whole thing started and it was kind of a weird feeling, you know, is this going to work? Is this not going to work? Did you ever? Are you somebody who has doubts? Do you ever have a doubt about this? Or were you just so confident you're going to figure this out? I mean, there have been times where you're like I'm just going to hang it up and not do this. What's that journey been like for you as an entrepreneur? I mean, nine years is a long time. Kudos to you, because a lot of people don't make it that long.
Speaker 2:Well, when you start a business and you become a business owner and you have an extra set of responsibilities because you now are responsible for everybody that works for you right and for their well-being and their family's well-being, there have been moments where, like I had to adjust to the new levels of stress and I got to a point where, like, I kind of like grew some callus in that area where, like, oh, like I'm not for me to get stressed, like it has to be real bad, like real bad, because if not, like I've already been in that area swimming in that cortisol pool for so long that it just doesn't feel like that. It has to be something really bad for me to lose my temper or to lose my cool. And I put myself in a position from day one. There was no plan B for me. That's number one. I wasn't going to go back to the industry as an agent, as a supervisor, as a manager Once I said I started this company. I'm not going back to that industry as an agent, as a supervisor, as a manager. Once I said I started this company, I'm not going back to that industry, I'll go work in construction. There is no plan B for me. So I went and pardon the balls to the wall when I started and I had moments where I thought it was going to collapse, that it wasn't going to work Very stressful moments.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the biggest fears that I I I faced early on and it stressed me the most was the first time I I I set out an invoice for twenty thousand dollars and I was like this is am I doing this right? Is am I I mean, my numbers, are they correct? Am I overbilling my customer? And it was because I've never got, never sent out an invoice that size, that size. And it happened multiple times. When the invoice became 100K, 200k, 300k, I start I was in that was am I making a mistake? Is there something wrong in my numbers? But no, it's just getting adapted to. That new situation is like, hey, if there's a claim on this, the zero on the side is getting bigger and bigger. So the collateral is bigger and bigger also for me, but it's it's just been like getting adapted to it to a certain degree.
Speaker 1:I guess I like how you said that different levels of stress and it's interesting because I'm teaching my kids that right now my daughter just completed her sophomore year of high school. This year was harder than last year academically. Next year is going to be even more difficult. So she's learning to kind of deal with these additional levels of stress and I keep telling her, like it's only going to I mean, I said, add a relationship into this, add a job into this, add a child into this Like it only just keeps ratcheting itself up a little bit more.
Speaker 1:And I think that's true with entrepreneurship as well. You just, you just get used to more pressure, you get used to more difficult situations, you get used to bigger numbers. You know and just what that looks like. And so it's all a process of just getting better and better. And oh, along the way, you're leading people as well and trying to be a great leader for others who are depending upon you. So let's turn our attention for a second and talk about leadership. I think this is really important. You have a team now and you're leading your team and you're obviously working with a lot of clients in the industry. You know what's your general focus on how to be a great leader, like what do you focus on, what do you try to do, what do you feel like really makes someone a great leader?
Speaker 2:I I learned my version of leadership is um came from, not is the counterpart of the of that which I saw that I didn't want to be. I had leader. I had bosses that I mean. I was part of probably one of the first call centers here in Columbia back in 2007. And my first boss was a Marine or an ex-Marine Lieutenant, and that guy was an ass and I know I remember one of the first tweets and I think I go back on my Twitter and look for that.
Speaker 2:I was like I think one of the first lessons in business that I learned is like how not to treat your employees, and I learned that from a really bad boss I had, and a few others that were assholes too on the way. And so my blueprint, I think, is two things One who I don't want to be or who I don't want to be related to, and the second is when I started the company, the first thing I asked myself was would I work here? Would I want to work here? And if the answer to that question is no, something needs to change for positive, and it's something that we ask ourselves every other quarter when we meet with the entire staff. It's like what needs to improve. We do a 360 review internally and with our customers every quarter, and every quarter we receive feedback and we look what can change, what can we add, how can we make it better. And that started from. For example, my first job was in a home center desk with a plastic garden chair Can't get more Mexican than that, sorry. So it was a hot environment, fans, uncomfortable with those big butt screens, it was loud. Our bosses were screaming at us. So I was like no, I don't want anything like that. So if you go to our offices you'll see that you have a nice wide desk, a lot of distance. If you lift your elbow you're not going to hit somebody next to you in the face with it. It's clean, it has good illum clean, it has good illumination, it has good equipment and I mean nothing stresses me out more than a slow computer. So that's not something my employees are suffering from. So that's been like more or less the formula of how our leadership goes.
Speaker 2:And I'm a very friendly person and I'm with everyone in my company. I can sit down and have a conversation one-on-one, and the boss can stay outside of that conversation, right. But I'm also the that person that can. Hey the boss, your friend, just stayed outside of this room. We're about to have an uncomfortable conversation, and I tell them upfront we're about to have an uncomfortable conversation because I'm setting the stage for like, hey, I'm your friend, but we need to address the situation. And someone told me maybe like six months or a year ago Juan, you have the skill of going into a room to talk about something that, generally speaking, would make a person very uncomfortable, but they leave that room after speaking with you with a smile and I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:But people improve and I guess the approach that I have works in that, in that area, and some people improve and some people don't.
Speaker 2:And when they don't, hey, I'll do you a favor and I'll do myself a favor and I'll do the person that wants to come and work with us a favor, because you're that, people that don't work, they affect three, they affect the company, they affect themselves because they're denying themselves an opportunity somewhere else where they could be happy or they could be having progress, and they're denying a person that wants to be in that position, to be there for that opportunity. So, um, that's kind of how like I approach my leadership there friendly to the point and with, you know, trying to be that. Um, what do you call transformative leader? So people get better every day? Uh, be it if they do it with us or they go somewhere else, but that that happens a lot. People graduate from so on. That's what I call it. They graduate from so on and they go find another job in a different area, maybe in a different industry or maybe in a different company, but they usually always go for something better. They never go for something equal or less.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of sounds like parenting a little bit. We often parent either the way our parents parented us that we liked, or we parent our kids the way our parents parented us we didn't like. We go the other way and do it totally differently. In fact, we found your tweet, so here it is right, there from there it is.
Speaker 1:Back in November of 2022,. First business lesson I learned from my last job was how to not treat an employee, and I take the same approach to it as when I started standing out is I thought I want to be the leader that I always wanted. I always wished that I'd had, and what does that look like? What does that look like? And so that's really important to understand what you don't want to be and what you do want to be and to figure that out. That's really critical to do that. We're part of startups. You and I, we're kind of living in the same world. What do you feel like is the hardest part about being a leader within a startup environment? A lot of people that watch this are doing startups, maybe a little further along, some maybe just getting started. What's been the hardest thing for you in terms of being a leader of a startup?
Speaker 2:So that's a good question and that one, the deep breath, is because that gave me anxiety, that gave me stress, because it hits close and the reason is sometimes the expectation of the leader of an organization or what people can do are very high and they're maybe not connected to reality of what people can and cannot do. So we're very tech oriented nowadays, right, and I know there's a learning curve and I have to wait for my guys to get to that learning curve because we hire in different capacities. When it comes to tech positions, I'll hire a junior if I see he has talent and I'll work with a junior and I'll make him a senior. But I also have to, and I have to accept myself as like, hey, you took that decision. You have to be patient with him while he comes up to speed and he can start speaking your same language and developing and delivering at the speed that you want them to, because not not everybody runs at the same speed when it comes to different skill sets and so on.
Speaker 2:So, um, I guess for me that's like that's one of those, those ones expecting something from someone because they're smart and having it like, without necessarily saying it, have them do it 100% on the mark, where you want it to be, and the reality of it is one you have to be very clear with your communications and your expectations and you have to be very clear with what your goal that those three things come together. People will do the job and they'll deliver it. As is Now, the time frames, that's a whole different story. But if you can't get it fast, hire more people. That's kind of like how it works. So that's more or less how I approach that situation.
Speaker 1:In that area, yeah, and it's hard to know if somebody's going to be really going to be an a player before they join your team. Like you think they might be an a player, but you have to find out. Is this actually the right fit? You know, is their skill set actually going to be um valued here the way that maybe you anticipate to be valued? Are they going to, you know, fit in as well? So I think that's that's a tough part as well that you're kind of speaking to as well. Hr and recruiting in general is is a challenge um everybody's perfect on the in the interview, everybody is right.
Speaker 1:Right, everybody's perfect, except me. I'm a terrible like interview because I just tell everybody how bad I'm. Like, listen, I'm not organized at all, like, if you come here, you just have to deal with that. All right, sorry about that, it's just the way it is. We have other people that are very organized. You can enjoy that from them. But, um, but we all have, you know, we have weeks and weaknesses and strengths and try to play off of those. Uh, all those things are really it's just difficult.
Speaker 1:I always I kind of um, we were talking about this in our team today. You joke around about it, but you're building a cruise ship in the middle of an ocean, but right now it's a, it's a life preserver, it's just a raft. So you got to go from a raft and, just like you said, just like being in a boat and surviving to then building this, this thing, that's actually, uh, you know, going somewhere and um, that's, it's a challenge, you know it's a. It's definitely a challenge, that's for sure. So, uh, all right, we're going to pause for a second, cause we always like to have a little bit of fun on the show one, and so today we have a random question of the day. Our producer creates this and I haven't seen it awesome. I don't know. Let's see what it is All right. The random question of the day today for you is what superhero villain would make the best therapist? What?
Speaker 2:superhero or villain would be the best listener.
Speaker 1:The Joker, the Joker, the Joker would make you laugh and stop thinking about the problems of life. I like that. That's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's if you think you're going down the wrong road. You think you're going a little bit cray cray and you speak with the Joker. You're like I'm fucking good yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm good. I'm good After, after listening to that guy, we're good. We're not as bad as we thought we were. That's a good.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go with that.
Speaker 1:We're going to go Joker. That's a good answer they. I'm not a huge superhero villain kind of guy, but I think Joker's the best answer there. So congratulations on that. All right, let's talk Savant just a little bit more. You got a new logo, new branding. You showed it off at the Post and Pray Classic at the Broker Care Summit. Last time you played golf at the Post and Pray Classic for the first time in your life. I'm just letting you know I'm a friend, okay, so I did not bring any video to share with our audience about this, but thank you why?
Speaker 1:don't you give us a little summary of your first trip around a golf course? What was that like?
Speaker 2:Well, uh, I always thought the golf gloves were just like for show, Um, but those clubs start. They start digging into your hand. So next time I'll probably just buy some just for that.
Speaker 1:And they get slick, like if you're playing in the summer. Your hands get sweaty, they start to get slick, so the glove gives you more grip there too, I had not thought about that. It's that and it protects you from calluses and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another that you can get injured playing golf because I almost broke my wrist hitting the ground with a driver too hard.
Speaker 1:Well, you're not supposed to hit the ground with a driver.
Speaker 2:I felt the torsion. I felt the torsion. After that I was like I'm not, I'm not clubbing after this and that was like hole 13. So it was like five holes where my buddy was the only one hitting the. You know, hitting the clubs, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, is it harder than you thought it would be Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It requires. It requires like it. You have to have the talent, the muscle memory I think it's the muscle memory and knowing, like, how to grab, how to pose, how to position yourself, because I remember when we were doing this in top golf in vegas, it was much easier to actually hit it when someone was telling me you have to stand with this club, you have to stand like this, the other one, you have to, like, go a little bit further, just ahead of it, and all that.
Speaker 2:I didn't have no pointers that day, it was just just me and my other guy, kevin, is also as rookie as I am when it comes to golf. Golf is not popular here in Columbia, but it was hard. The fun part, though, was driving the caddy car and the cars and drinking that was obviously it.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest, that's what most people go to play golf for actually Drink a little bit, drive the cart, maybe hit a ball. But it's funny because golf is one of those games where the ball is just sitting there, it's not even moving, and yet it's a really hard game. It's a really hard game to play, but it's a lot of fun. Well, I was glad that you participated with that. You showed off some of your new swag. I like the font that you got going there. I like the swag. You've got some cool swag items. Sw swag's important man. So you guys have a nice hoodie. You got a hat. What else? What other swag items did you guys?
Speaker 2:uh, sure we ran out of stock but I was taking. Also, we have a really nice notebook, a notepad like big notepad, you know, like college, like multi-subject notepad, um, with personalized paper and all that. We have pens. We have mugs um, mugs run out real quick. We we make special mugs for, like, valentine's day and stuff like that. I'll send you a pic later. Uh, we did one where it's like um forever, if you ever played legends of zelda, we grabbed the little hearts and we just filled it up and it's like drink to fill up um, you know life and um. No, we have a lot of. We have a lot of swag hoodies, we got the shirts, we got the hats, the notepads. Now, last time, since Scott showed that box, we're definitely going to get a box. So when new people come in, they get a box with all the goodies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's important, man, like swag just shows off what you guys care about as a company and the value of your company. Better to have no swag than bad swag, that's for sure. And you guys definitely passed the test. But I love the font. It's super clean. It's just nice and sharp, nice and clean. So done a good job on that, my friend. What's next for savant? What are you guys working on?
Speaker 2:well, we are moving in for 2030. That's what we're doing.
Speaker 1:We're gearing up for 2030 uh, we're in an industry that, yeah, that's five years away. You're giving us your five-year plan right now. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Well, for me, like what we do and the industry in general and this is my pessimist speaking so AI and automation are probably the most detrimental things to happen to the industry and to industries in general. So we're getting ahead of that curve.
Speaker 1:What do you mean by that? The most detrimental things that have happened to industry? Tell me about that.
Speaker 2:So there are companies outside right now that are making valet robots. So you go, you park and this skateboard-looking robot, flat dude, comes in, gets under your car, picks it up, takes it to a parking lot. It's just a matter of time till somebody adapts it to containers and those driving positions over there at the port. You know they're like what are you going to do? Are you going to repair the bots? Are you going to operate them? How is this going to work out? Are they remotely operated? But the tech and the concepts are there to start replacing that type of stuff. Same thing applies for, for example, clerical work.
Speaker 2:We ourselves are a big proponent of automation and we have our own tech in-house, thank God. It was something we've been building out for the last four years, and we can either help a company save some money on positioning outside of the US, here in Colombia or in Philippines, or, if the process is ripe for it, just automate it so it doesn't have to be done here in Colombia, in Philippines or the moon for that sake, and that's where the world is headed to. So our plan for the next seven to five years is gear up for that. We're starting to build our own infrastructure. We're starting to build our own technology. On that sense, by end of year, we'll probably be making a really big announcement of how is it going, because we recently got a grant from the government in order to do this R&D and push this type of product and technology forward. We already have an MVP. Government thought it was awesome and I said if somebody doesn't do it here in colombia, nobody's going to do it and we're going to be replaced by automate, by chat, gpt. That's, that's the reality, most of it.
Speaker 1:Um, so that's where we're headed, um so by detrimental you mean disruptive, like it's going to disrupt the industry and put you know, take jobs and those types of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when I mean that, I mean the word is is a little bit gloomy, but yeah, it's disruptive. Let's call it disruptive, but it's definitely in the direction we're heading. And technology has always made things lower cost throughout history. So we still see a lot of expensive technology here in logistics and it's a matter of time that you know that that starts lowering. And if competitiveness nowadays in logistics is who has the best price and nobody can deny that they can have the best customer service if they have it with so on, for sure. But if the prices are not competitive, those shippers are going to be sending that freight somewhere else and ultimately that ladder only goes down, that competitiveness only goes down. And maybe sometimes demand and offer come in position to make huge profits for brokers and for carriers. But for sure, like the idea of logistics is to be economized. And nothing saves more money when something is automated and there's not necessarily a person there doing it, but that's, you know, that's my perspective.
Speaker 1:That's great to hear. I mean, I think you're right. You know we talk about it, but it probably is three to five years off before we start to see some major disruptions but yeah, it's going to.
Speaker 1:It's going to happen. There's going to be some, there's going to be something that happens. You know it's interesting that they're able to take an entire container truckload and essentially prepackage it and just slide it onto the truck. You know that changes how you know warehouse workers work. You have bots that come and basically put things on this pallet and the whole pallet just slides into the truck and it's you're done. Know, I mean all these things are coming on the pipeline. You know amazon workers used to pull stuff and put in a package and seal it, put it. Now robots are doing that. So it's it's all moving in that direction. I think you're absolutely right about that.
Speaker 2:So it's good that you're thinking about and I think it's a matter about something like some, it's a matter of time to some until somebody comes up with the solution.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's just a ticking time bomb. Now, one thing I do say, and it's like the ai is a very big buzzword right now. Um, and I'm I see a lot of smoke and mirrors in the industry, because I've been working with this very tightly for the last couple years and there's just a lot of smoke and mirrors out there, like it's not the magical solution for it and I think we're just gonna have to call out the bs when we see it. Um, because I mean, look at amazon, right, amazon, uh, probably like two months ago, while we were in in kansas city, announced that they were shutting down their automatic stores, the ones with the cameras, and all that because ended up being that they had like 10 000, uh, hindu agents that were actually, you know, checking on the cameras and making sure people were taking things and, right, you know, pricing them. So it kind of became an industry joke and it's like because, like your AI is, a person that's right and somewhere Well, and as a marketer, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot of companies are using AI for marketing when they're not really. I think about this. If Meta and Google are still trying to figure out how to use AI, do I really think that a small tech company in is using?
Speaker 2:ai? No, they're using a repackaged version and it might be good for certain things, yeah, but nobody can say they can make their own ai. The only ai companies that exist on the planet are chat, gpt, open ai are meta, google, a x and nvidia, because nvidia owns the chips. From where all these things are? You know, rent, uh, rendered and, and and produced. Yeah, so saying your level is is.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of blockchain. Remember, blockchain was like the next best thing. It's going to be this greatest thing. Everybody talked about it. What happened?
Speaker 2:it's just faded you know, I don't think, I don't think the industry was ready to share information, white labeled, or there was just not enough initiative, or um, what, how do you say? But that just went away. I mean, I remember blockchain and transport alliance.
Speaker 2:They made a lot of noise, a lot of people paid a lot of money to be a part of the alliance, but it's also the same thing I like what, before uber freight became into came into the market, it was like everybody wanted to be uber for, uber for for transport and if you went and looked and, by the way, that's more or less when savant started, so we had a lot of customers in the startup industry that they wanted to be the next, they wanted to be uber for freight and uber for freight. You know, uber freight came in and they're not doing as good as everybody thought they would because everybody thought the industry was just going to blow up after that and they're not doing that they still had a lot of people manually moving freight.
Speaker 1:It was kind of ironic. It was the Amazon store kind of situation. So well, listen, it's been great having you on the show. Thanks for coming by, talk to us about what you're doing. Always good to talk to you, my friend. Thanks for being a part of Word on the Street and just being a great friend man. Thanks for the wonderful times we've had in Columbia. I can't wait to get back down there. I'm not excited about the fact that you're going to send me a picture of barbecue and a picture of a mug. We got to get closer together, my friend. We got to get in the same city.
Speaker 2:I got to travel more. I was stuck down in Columbia during COVID for a long time, but I'm flying more.
Speaker 1:Hey, you're going to be at the Broker Care Summit in Fort Worth in October.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's just tell everybody. Hey, listen, if you haven't registered for that, go ahead and do that today, brokercarysummitcom, and get registered for the next event in Fort Worth, october 23 through 25. And until that time, juan, hopefully we'll see you soon. I guess we'll see you on an episode of Word on the Street real soon as well. A regular street crew member. Thanks again for stopping by. Man, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having Juan on the show.
Speaker 1:And don't forget, you can listen to us on Reads Across America Radio and you can download the audio version wherever you get your podcast Spotify, google, Apple Podcasts, wherever it is. So we'll talk to you real soon and until next time, stop standing. Still. Start standing up.