Freight 360

Expedited Freight 101 (with Alex Winston of Expedite All) | Episode 263

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Join us for a conversation with Alex Winston, President of Expedite All, as he shares his journey from law to logistics and how his company handles long-haul freight with sprinter vans, box trucks, and straight trucks. We discuss the impact of a potential port strike on the supply chain, the role of freight brokers, and the resilience required in logistics. Alex also explains the nuances of "small truckload" freight and the risks new brokers face using load boards, offering advice on partnering with trusted entities. Finally, he reflects on the challenges and rewards of transitioning from law to freight brokering.

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-winston-11408025/
Check out Expedite All: https://expediteall.com/

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back. It's another episode of the Freight360 podcast. We're going to have a nice discussion about expedited freight today. We'll get to our guest, alex Winston, in just a second here, but first, if you're brand new, make sure to check out all of our other content.

Speaker 1:

The Freight360.net website is a searchable library of all the stuff you may want, whether it's a full-length video of a podcast or a short educational YouTube video. If you may want whether it's a full length video of a podcast or a short educational YouTube video, if you're more of the reading type, we've got the blogs in there with, you know, embedded videos. If you want to switch back and forth, there's also a full length training option that we did in conjunction with DAT, called the Freight Broker Basics course. Check that out. If you want to go that route and make sure to share us with your friends, leave us. We got some some good old uh hate mail and the youtube comments that we'll hit on in our q a section that comes out next tuesday, so stay tuned for that. Um, but yeah, we're gonna get into it here shortly, ben, how you doing man? How's, uh, how's the end of summer, beginning of fall, going in florida?

Speaker 1:

it is very nice and very welcome change awesome and uh, we're gonna introduce our guest here, mr Alex Winston, with Expedite. All Alex, welcome to the show man. How are you?

Speaker 3:

I am good, nate, it's good to be with you, Good to see you again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So for those who don't know you or your company, just real quick give us a little rundown on who you are, what you do, and then we'll break down in more detail your company later on. But just a quick intro.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so I'm Alex Winston, I'm the president of Expedite All and we do expedite or small truckload, and that is long haul freight and sprinter vans and box trucks and some straight trucks as well.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, glad to have you on. We're going to break down Expedite in more detail in a bit here, but first we'll get into some sports. As always, I got to talk about my Buffalo Bills really quick. I went to the game Monday night here in Orchard Park and I got to say that stadium never stopped going nuts. All right, 47-10 final. But instead of talking about the Bills so much, I did want to give a quick, funny story. So my brother-in-law works for Delaware North. They do a lot of the concessions and whatnot. So the seats or the box right behind our seats happens to be the Delaware North club suite box, whatever, and they hosted the Jacksonville Jaguars executive team. So I met the COO of the Jaguars during the third and fourth quarter and let's just say, well, I got to find this. Actually I got to read this off to you. So this is a text from someone else's eyewitness account, but I can attest that this is true. So the Delaware North's executive team was in, or Jaguars executive team was at the Delaware North suite last night negotiating an extension at their stadium.

Speaker 1:

At the end of the first drive, coo asked for a glass of wine. At the end of the second drive he asked for a refill. At halftime. He asked for a scotch and then he had two more before the end of the game. And at the end of the game he said it's a dry flight home and I'm not flying home even remotely sober. I need more scotch. So everyone sat there watching him drink. Yeah, another scotch, his fourth scotch in 90 minutes. And when I was, when I was up, there is these two guys, literally within like 20 minutes they had two scotches and I was like, okay, one of those rough nights, but it's kind of cool to kick it with the opponents because they were just miserable. But great game, good atmosphere.

Speaker 2:

Ben, you're 3-0 as a Pittsburgh, yeah we are, and we can't pass over the fact that it was absolutely your birthday as well, so it was a hell of a way to celebrate your birthday. So happy 41st right.

Speaker 1:

No 37, man 37. I'm not. I'm not over the 40s hump. Yeah, I know. Uh, uh, alex, you're what we talked about this last week in dc. What are you?

Speaker 3:

42, 41 uh, you're adding a couple years to me. I'm 40 40.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, bet I'm still 37. Man, I got my youth. I got my youth a lot of energy. Um, alex, do you have a? Who's your team? I mean, I don't know you're in Knoxville, but NFL-wise.

Speaker 3:

NFL. I don't really care, I kind of follow it casually. So I don't have a team Knoxville as you know it's home to the University of Tennessee Go. Vols. I'm an alumnus of the University of Tennessee, so I do follow it and they're pretty good this year, so, um, it's been an exciting year. So far, they're undefeated, they're in the top five and um, and it's what do you think about the 12 team playoff format this year?

Speaker 3:

expanded playoff actually gives us a shot to make the playoff, even if we can't beat teams like Georgia or Alabama right. So we play those two teams every year and they're always really good. So this year is an opportunity, I think, for Tennessee to finally get some meaningful postseason action, which you don't see a lot of meaningful postseason action in college football, but that's changing this year. I'm pretty excited about it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

More playoff games is always more excitement all around, so Ben anything else in the sports realm yeah.

Speaker 2:

Steelers look pretty good for sure. Second half that's pretty nice, starting the season off 3-0. I'm anxious to kind of see how the quarterback situation plays out once Russell's feeling a little better. That's most of what the conversation's been. Our defense looks outstanding. I mean really good to just watch some games that they were actually enjoyable to watch and coming away with a win. And also, since I haven't been able to watch Steeler games in like six or seven years since I've lived here, I finally have the ability to watch all the games. So it's been pretty nice to actually not watch the Dolphins every weekend, or a portion of that, and turn it off For sure.

Speaker 1:

For sure. It's good to see a handful of 3-0 teams starting off the year. You got what Steelers, bills, chiefs, seahawks, minnesota, I think that's it and the. Bengals.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, that's 0-3, right, steven?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, what does he call them? The Cincinnati bungholes? But yeah, they made.

Speaker 3:

they made Jaden Daniels look like the greatest quarterback of all time the other night.

Speaker 2:

Ever they didn't stop them, I think, once at all like the entire game yeah.

Speaker 3:

And he passed like 90, 91% completion percentage yeah.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, let's hop into the news here. So last week Alex and I actually were at the TIA policy forum in DC, got to go talk to some congressional leadership more more so aides or staffers than the actual members, aides or staffers than the actual members. What do we meet with? Two actual members of Congress and then five other sets of staffers. But it's really cool. Like I got to, we actually swung by New York 23, got to see my congressman and Alex, we sat down with your congressman, congressman Burchett, right, yes, so pretty cool stuff there. But the good takeaway HR 8505, does that sound right? You nailed it, I nailed it. I feel like I still have all my cheat sheets next to me. But the Household Goods Consumer Shipping Protection Act gives FMCSA the ability to impose these civil penalties that they previously weren't imposing, for double brokering, you know, and things of that nature. Sounds like while we were there, since we got back, it's past the House floor. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

I don't know, nate, I don't know where where it is, but I've heard a few things about it. I think it's going to pass regardless. I think it's going to pass regardless. I think I read somewhere that maybe we need an amendment to it, because I guess the name would imply this but household goods only covers a very small amount of what's going on out there, right?

Speaker 1:

So and our license as brokers is not. We're for property right, we're not for.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

FMCSA covers all of it. But you're right, the bill is probably titled in a way that seems great for the public, right?

Speaker 3:

Right and we need it to be great for the industry because most of the freight on the road is not defined as household goods.

Speaker 1:

Seriously like that entire bill narrows the scope of goods shipping consumer protection act. The Scope of Goods Shipping Consumer Protection Act.

Speaker 3:

I think I have not checked with Chris Burrows over at TIA to see whether that is true, but I did read something online yesterday where somebody was like we need to amend this. It only deals with household goods and that's you know. 95% of the freight has nothing to do with household goods, right? So, if that's true, then yeah, I think an amendment needs to be done, right, um, but I don't know whether that's true or if that's some of the rumor I read on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

I always ignore the title and I just look at what's the meat and potatoes of the actual legislation and I think the good thing is that it's giving TIA or sorry, not TIA the FMCSA, the ability to impose civil penalties. Regardless, it doesn't necessarily spell out if they're a household goods carrier or a property, a carrier of property. It doesn't distinguish between those two, but we'll see.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and to me, the big, the big takeaway from DC Nate and it's the same every year is we actually can make a difference. Um, you know, if we all get together, show up in DC one day, meet with all of our congressmen like you saw yours, I saw mine they do listen to us and they do pay attention, and if there are serious issues out there that are causing problems for our industry and the public in general, they're going to do something about it. Right and so. But if you don't show up, nothing happens. Right, and so to me, the big takeaway every year is you have to show up, and so that's what we did again this year.

Speaker 3:

I'm looking to get more people there next year with TIA to make sure that we're protecting not only our industry but the public. Most of what we do, it helps our industry, but fraud hurts everyone. Right, know, if you get, if you get ripped off for one hundred thousand dollars, maybe somebody loses their job, maybe your prices go up, the prices of goods across the country go up when you have a billion dollars of fraud in the freight industry. Trying to make sure that Congress is doing its job, knowing what the public's issues are and passing legislation to deal with those issues.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and to echo that, or to add on three, this is the third year in a row that I've gone, and the first year is like they had no idea what a freight broker was. They're like oh, what are you guys drive trucks? No, no, no, no, no. Then by year two, they're like, yeah, we remember you guys from last year and you keep in mind too. Like, yeah, we go for one day, but throughout the year you've got the government affairs team from TIA that they're meeting on a weekly basis with various members of the House and Senate. So the message is reiterated throughout the year and then we come and blitz them with 200 members of our organization on one day. So by this year year three it was really really good. I think it'll continue to improve every single year.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I want to add in and this came out, so this would have been Chris Burrow sent this out yesterday, so this would have been Chris Burrow sent this out. Yesterday the CTPAT pilot program was approved, which is going to allow what is it? It allows for 10 US DOT licensed freight brokers to participate in the CTPAT program, which will hopefully eventually open up to full enrollment for all members. So that's the something counterterrorism. It's a certification that motor carriers were able to get previously and I believe if there's certain freight you want to haul federal or government freight you have to be a CTPAT motor carrier. But the broker just never had the ability to go through that certification program. So now that's a good thing. He also added in HR 8505, that is your Household Goods Shipping Consumers Protection Act.

Speaker 1:

It's a let's see, the bipartisan TIA. Fraud legislation takes steps. Yeah, okay. So I don't know if it actually made any progress, but there's just kind of reiterating that it's making waves, so we'll see what happens there. But yeah, good stuff. That's the news update. Strike looks imminent. Oh yeah, we can't skip over the port strike. I didn't even look at any recent news on today, but basically they're saying like brace for impact. It's kind of what it sounds like, to say the least. And I'm curious, Ben you I mean you've done work with- I work with most of those companies.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, every single time that happens, like I mean in the previous, what?

Speaker 1:

is your experience tell you to think about this? Is it going to be like? What does your experience tell you to think?

Speaker 2:

about this? Is it going to be like it's more, it's a melee usually? I mean like everything backs up so then it can't go anywhere. Just think about it, just very simply. Right, like all that cargo, even once they strike, they try to divert a lot of it and you saw a lot in the news in the past month to other ports. They've put surcharges on it to try to de-incentivize cargo from coming in, to minimize it. But at the end of the day, like all that cargo is going to get stuck somewhere and then it all gets released. So you have a pent up demand of just thousands and hundreds of thousands of containers and then all of a sudden, when it goes, it automatically just starts coming in and there's just nowhere near enough capacity. So more carriers move into the drayage market, try to assist with it, more go on rail. They end up clogging up Chicago.

Speaker 2:

When it did it on the West Coast, chicago got incredibly backlogged. I remember, like CMA, maersk and MSC, who I worked with most during like the last one, and I mean literally like thousands and hundreds of thousands of containers on lists that are all just sitting in demerge, getting charged like 200 bucks a day, 300 bucks a day. I mean the amount of money that it costs, right Because of those directly incurred by one the economy and these companies because of just lost business like it is astronomical. And then again good news from the trucking side because we get to benefit in some way because, like there's increased business and when you got that much of a cost for not being able to move it, all of a sudden it makes sense to start paying truckers what they're worth to get these out. So most of them end up being like a boon for drayage in our industry once they do release some.

Speaker 2:

For months, I mean like at the end of the pandemic, I mean literally, we were moving as many containers as we could from rail to rail. In Chicago I probably had five or six carriers and 50, 60 drivers a day just running containers from one side or the other, and the list was literally never ending. For like months just as many as you can move. They were sending them and again, not like obscene rates, but for sure I would say 50%, 60%, maybe double what they normally would pay because they needed to get them out. And then, in addition to that, all the carrier's yards are all full with containers because I got to get them out of the rails, I got to get them out of the port, so they're getting all drained to local yards. They're charging storage, they get to make some more money, like.

Speaker 2:

I think it again is not great for the economy, isn't something I would want to happen, but I do think our industry benefits by solving the problem we didn't create. And that's what kind of we do as freight brokers. We help solve problems and find solutions to get things done, get them moved, get them where they need to, whether it's taking these to yards, whether it's creating container pools at different facilities and running, you know, drop and hook. Whatever you need to do to be able to get them out and to be able to get the cargo where it needs to before something happens is what all of us are going to do. So should be a lot of work coming, but I haven't heard anything directly from the customers and the people I work with in the companies Like they're planning but I think they're still hoping that they can.

Speaker 2:

You know, did I read like. So a lot of this is over wage right and like the average and automation, the two things. None of it's public. They haven't publicly said anything from either side where they are in the negotiations, but like the scuttlebutt or what people are inferring is that the two big holding points are wages. I've read that people have said the unions want like a 75% increase in their salaries 200,000 dollars right now Right.

Speaker 2:

I literally don't even know what those, I don't know any of the terms of the negotiations and I know the other one is they're really pushing back against automation because you know job security and I mean it does seem like they're at a bit of a standstill on at least two of those big points.

Speaker 1:

Well, we'll see how it pans out. We will. Steven had a nice little thing in here One day of strike equals five to 10 days of backups. That's from Ryan Peterson at Flexport. That was his thread. One month could equal depression level shortages. That sounds pretty depressing and real sadistic. But we'll see. And then, even if Biden wanted to okay, yeah, the Taft-Hardley Act wouldn't have enough time to stop it before it started.

Speaker 1:

And 70% of GDP flows through the effect of ports. Yeah, so this is big stuff. Brace for impact, like I said, was the takeaway in just about every article that I've read. But hey, when there there's issues, that's opportunity in our industry. We will adjust as uh needed and do our job. All right, let's move on to some some stuff that's more uh positive expert, it's great. So obviously, alex, we've got you with us today. We went on a little extra long on the sports and uh news there. Hey, I did want to say too, getting into this, ben shout out to us. Apparently, alex has one of his newer employees at their company. He has allowed his employee to watch YouTube videos during the day, as long as they're free, 360 and educational. So what was the story on that one? You're like I walked up and he's watching something.

Speaker 3:

I walked up behind a trainee right and he's watching YouTube, so I'm not too happy about it. And I check out the video and it's Nate and I was like oh yeah, you can watch that, that's fine.

Speaker 1:

Love it. That's funny, cool. Well, we'll get into it. So, expedited freight, let's start at the one on one level and then we'll kind of get into what expedite all does. Spoiler alert great company, we're a customer of yours and I believe Ben, your broker don't know if you guys got set up yet, but I know we're trying to get you in that direction and let's talk about expedite.

Speaker 1:

What is it? It's a term that people think different things when they hear it, and it's kind of like the word hotshot, like you might think one thing but it might be something different to somebody else. Let's talk about that part of the industry. Alex, what would you consider the expedite?

Speaker 3:

world is going to be any freight that needs to move on, a small vehicle dedicated to that freight alone, right, not co-loaded. And so it's going to be freight that moves in sprinter vans or box trucks or straight trucks and does not. It basically is contracted not to have that truck go anywhere else except directly from point A to point B, and so some people call it expedite. I like to call it small truckload, because it's like a full truck but a smaller truck, right. And also expedite has that connotation of being fast, just the word expedite. And so you think of it as like emergency pickups or rescues or whatever. But we do it slow as well. If you want to do it slow, meaning it can be scheduled, right, we can do it next week if you want to do it next week, rather than, hey, I need an ASAP pickup right now, because expedite, to me, has that connotation of speed and emergency and rescue, and it doesn't have to be that way. It can be something that's scheduled to I like that term, small truckload.

Speaker 1:

I have have not heard that one used regularly. Um, you're right, though that expedite tends to have that connotation of being fast, when the reality is it's just some customers don't want their freight partialed up with another customer shipment, or they don't want it moved LTL, or it's going to swing across a dock four times and get punctured by an 18 year old forklift driver. So when you have a dedicated small truck like a Sprinter van or a box truck or a straight truck, your shipment is the only one on that vehicle and boom, you're off to the races, whether it's fast or scheduled ahead of time and just a standard regular shipment time For 101,.

Speaker 2:

Alex, can you define like okay, even maybe some commodities or the sizes that you tend to see, number of pallets, so that people can kind of keep in the back of their mind like, okay, at what size and what types of freight would I be looking at? That would be a good fit for this option.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3:

So it can be almost any commodity, right, and the sizes are going to depend on, you know, what that load looks like.

Speaker 3:

Anything that would fit in a straight truck or smaller right, tends to be categorized as expedite if it needs to go quickly or if it's, you know, just needs to go in its own truck, right? So, like I said, we do sprinter slash cargo vans and those usually hold two to three pallets and up to 3,000, 3,500 pounds. We do box trucks, usually up to six pallets and the weight there is usually about 3,500 pounds, sometimes 4,000 pounds. And then a straight truck is a dock high truck that's basically like half the size of a semi, right, and those are going to be able to typically hold up to 10 to 12,000 pounds and up to 14 pallets, right, and so you know we speak in pallets, but we do, you know, loose items as well and equipment and that kind of stuff. But those are the general things. That are the general dimensions and capacities. That we look at is up to 12 or 14 pallets, up to about 10,000 pounds, and then we'll get you the right size truck depending on what your freight looks like, right?

Speaker 1:

Do you ever hear anyone still use the phrase bread truck? Is that a? Thing? I mean, I just heard it from you, nate but'm trying to think this is probably going back like 15 years. The bread truck reminds me of like a box truck. It's like your old bread delivery trucks. People just call them a bread truck.

Speaker 3:

Box truck with a roll-up door that just does a milk run right. Yeah, exactly, Taking bread to different places.

Speaker 1:

No, that's good. That's good to kind of break that down at a one-on-one level. Because I just want to kind of talk about the opportunity side of it. If you have a customer that you know, if all you know is full truckload, and they say, well, I've got a few pallets, and you might immediately think, oh, it's LTL. And the reality is, ben, we have talked about the different options besides just LTL and different conversations.

Speaker 1:

But you do have a lot of different options when it comes to moving smaller shipments and it all depends on availability of equipment.

Speaker 1:

It depends on the sensitivity to price versus speed, versus a mix of the two.

Speaker 1:

I have seen customers that will literally dedicate an entire truckload to a partial or a small truckload shipment and there's really no need to do that if you can get a smaller truck available, which will save you on cost, fuel etc.

Speaker 1:

But you can dedicate a full truckload to a small shipment. You could LTL it, which means you're going to put it on a truck that might have 20 shipments on it or 10 or whatever. You could partial it, which you could have it on a full truck that's got two or three shipments on it, or you can go expedite, which is what we're talking about here, which would be a dedicated smaller truck, and one of the things that people oftentimes don't think about is that the regulations that class A trucks are subject to don't apply to all of these smaller equipments, because it's a lot of. It's based on your gross weight, uh, alex, do you happen to know, uh, off the top of your head, where, like what, specifically? What? Like roadside inspections, for example? Right, but what are the? What are the regulations when vetting a carrier, that's, you know, maybe a sprinter van or whatnot, that are going to grossly differ from a Class 8 full truck?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so generally in freight brokerage, compliance is worried about all the FMCSA requirements that carriers have to keep up with Right with. And the weird thing about this niche of Expedite is these vehicles do not have FMCSA regulations over them. So the FMCSA Act is not going to apply to vehicles that are less than 10,001 pounds gross vehicle weight, which is pretty much all sprinter vans and a good number of box trucks as well. So they're not going to have FMCSA regulations that apply to them unless they're carrying placarded hazmat stuff, right. And so a lot of these guys probably the majority of these guys that you see out there who are owner operators running a Sprinter van are not going to have an MC number Right, because they don't need one.

Speaker 3:

So that is one interesting kind of thing about our niche is like you end up with a lot of unregulated vehicles, and so one challenge we have is to vet unregulated vehicles, right? How do you vet these guys and make sure that they're doing the things they're supposed to do when you don't have the standard you know checklist of red flags that come up with a normal carrier right, where, um, you can plug into? You can even just look at FMCSA's website and find out a lot of things right, but you can plug into uh some of your uh vetting softwares out there and seems to be a growing number of those and and learn a whole lot. Um doesn't really work with um with these expedite vehicles all the time. So that's one of the challenges that we have and that we've taken head on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I can speak from experience on that one. So my company Pierce Worldwide Logistics we use highway Highway is great in my opinion when it comes to full truckload vetting and onboarding. It does its job very, very well. We do have a slice of our business that is not full truckload and falls into the expedite world and a Sprinter van, like every time, is going to fail on highway because they don't need to have an ELD, they don't have a roadside inspection.

Speaker 1:

So naturally our rule set that's going to check for all of the basics on does this carrier have trucks? Are they who they say they are? Are they where they say they are? It's great, like I said, it's great for full truckload. But you're trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole when you look at a Sprinter van and a full truckload vetting tool. I've even seen it as far as other vetting tools that have damaged the reputation of a smaller carrier by giving them a we'll just say like an F rating. I won't say which providers, but because the rule set is designed for full truckload and it makes the carrier look bad because they don't fit X, y and Z criteria. So, alex, I think a great segue here is what is Exploit all? What do you guys do and how are you solving these challenges for brokers like myself?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we're providing capacity in Sprinter vans and box trucks. We have about 7,300 of them in our network right now and you know we don't use any of the carrier vetting tools that like the one you just mentioned, because they don't really work for these small trucks, um, so, uh, what we actually do is is we get to know the individual driver right and make sure that we're comfortable with that person and then keep performance standards on them going forward. So we're going to get their motor vehicle record when they come on board, um, we're going to do a background check and, uh, we're also going to make them, uh, download an app on their phone that tells us where they are all the time right, so that we can't be misled about location and where our capacity is all the time right. And so you know, I think you guys have seen kind of what the customer facing side of our app looks like and can vouch for. Okay, they know where all their trucks are and who their people are and what their capabilities are.

Speaker 3:

But you know, we constantly add to the network and we constantly kick people out of the network if they're not meeting performance standards.

Speaker 3:

And you know, the latest weekly report I got for on-time percentage was 99.5%, plus for both pickup and delivery on-time percentage.

Speaker 3:

And part of the reason why we're able to stay over 99% every week on time is because we're vetting these guys in our own way and we know where they are all the time and there is no chance for them to mislead us about what time they can pick up, where they are, where they've been, how much they've been working lately.

Speaker 3:

We know all those things. It's not that we've never had somebody in our network do the wrong thing right, but when it happens we're able to get them out of the network. So, to give you an example, we caught somebody partialing the load one time recently and we're able to see that because we know where he is right and if he's making a detour we can, we can tell and then we can do further research about what's he telling us and and can we verify it. Um, and so if somebody does something they're not supposed to on our network, they get kicked out and that's how we're able to keep keep those percentages really high and it's just. Our vetting process is totally independent of any of the things that you would see a normal broker use. We basically take it as we have to get to know this person really well and get comfortable if they're going to be honest with us.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's huge. Right, because I think that's really a lot of the value again in brokerages that do that well. They care enough about the carriers as much as they do the customers. They spend enough time talking with the carriers to understand what they need. Right, because I think most of those things that end up biting you in the ass are because you just genuinely didn't have enough conversations, you didn't pay enough attention, you didn't ask enough, right? The common one that Dean brought up when he's on a show always is like how many brokers ask when they're talking to a dispatcher hey, is your driver fresh on hours? Right? Like. And you just assume that they're picking up a load at six o'clock at night, but like, you never even just thought this.

Speaker 2:

And the other thing that jumps out at me is like Nate and I get to do a lot of work and consulting work with some of these tech companies that are applying algorithms. Some do them very well, some not as well. And it's like it reminds me of that saying I think it's like always attributed to Einstein. I have no idea if it actually was, but it's like oh, if you judge a fish's ability to climb a tree, it's probably going to fail. Right, like if you just apply the same standards to everything and you just expect it to work when they're completely different types of the industry.

Speaker 2:

Like it's not right, like these standards aren't applicable to this situation. You can't just, to Nate's point, take a round peg and jam it through a square hole and when it doesn't fit, like just because it's also not only like I think, like disingenuous or maybe like dishonest in some way, but like it's detrimental to small business owners that are doing everything they can to try to operate an industry and they're held to this literally unfair standard that doesn't apply to them because companies aren't taking the time to break them out of the segment of the industry they're in and just differentiating. Right Like to just apply an F rating to a company that doesn't meet that standards. That isn't literally like, it's not like this public this isn't public information. You should very well know, if you're a carrier vetting tool, which carriers are applicable to which standards and which aren't.

Speaker 1:

I'll tell you what's scary too.

Speaker 2:

The F rating is just, I think, almost libelous.

Speaker 1:

So, and I'll tell you what's scary too. It's just, I think, almost libelous. I'll tell you something that's kind of scared me in the past. If you own a brokerage or if you have a carrier compliance team at your brokerage, listen to this If you have.

Speaker 1:

I have interacted with somebody who was in charge of carrier compliance at a brokerage and literally did not understand that Sprinter vans were not held to the same standard.

Speaker 1:

If the person in charge of your carrier compliance doesn't understand the differences between the different types of motor carriers and their size and their weight, I'm not saying it's the wrong person, but that's an opportunity to improve someone's level of knowledge. No one knows everything. We can all learn something new every single day. But it's kind of like you know, if you are super good at refrigerated freight and then maybe you're not an expert in open deck and there's some stuff to learn there. So as your company grows and you have a more diversified book of business or roll decks of customers and types of freight that you're moving if you get into this expiry to smaller truckload industry, it's important for the folks that are involved in every step of the process to understand where it might be different. So yeah, I just wanted to add that in there and also, ben, your comment about a fish climbing a tree reminded me to us in the green room talking about Alex's dry humor of the bear that was hiding in the tree. No, elephant in the tree, is that what it was?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it was. Why bear that?

Speaker 1:

was hiding in the tree. No, elephant in the tree, is that what it was? Yeah, why? Why do you never see elephants hiding in trees? Because they're good at it, right, but you know that one.

Speaker 1:

I like that, yeah, but anyway, um, yes, very, very valid point. Um, the other thing too is, uh, I want to hit on the whole load board, the risk that a lot of folks face by trying to just find capacity blindly through load boards. Load boards are great and they serve a purpose and when you're a brand new freight broker you don't have any relationships yet and it's oftentimes going to, it's going to start through a cold. It's a cold start, right, whether it's through a cold call to a carrier to introduce yourself, or a carrier calls you to introduce themselves, or a dispatcher introduces you, or it's through a load board. So I'm curious, alex, what is your take on the danger with load boards and kind of a mitigation by utilizing a partner like you guys to sift through? And you know, obviously we just talked through your vetting process, but take us through that part of it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, I think for new brokers, probably the last 18 months has been the most risky time to ever be a new broker in the United States, because there is so much fraud out there. There are bad actors on load boards, there are good MCs being stolen or purchased right by bad actors, and you know the typical vetting 101 that has worked for decades, doesn't?

Speaker 2:

necessarily you mean my gut, alex. You mean my gut isn't good enough anymore, like I can't feel and hear. He seems like a good guy. He just seemed like a great person. I had this conversation with somebody like two days ago and I'm like, okay, like kind of makes my stomach turn when somebody like genuinely believes that that's going to protect them.

Speaker 3:

And the tough thing is like there are good MCs out there right With good track records, they get compromised right.

Speaker 2:

That's the biggest one right, get compromised Right and that's the biggest one Right. And cause I. There was a company like two days ago I was talking to them like, oh, we're going to be able to verify driver's license, and only since I'm like, I got it Like. But the problem is like that company can still be legitimate. The carriers are still legitimate, they've done nothing wrong. One dispatcher accidentally clicks a phishing email because of poor you know, internet hygiene is what Erica called it right, like being able to actually do the things you got to do to protect yourself. Now they got your DAT, your DAT login, or they get your FMCSA pin and they go and change the phone number at the original database and there isn't anything that's going to be able to find that. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And it is hard when you're new not to be desperate to get freight right and cover freight right. And so, because you need money, right, you need um, you need that margin, and it is uh. So, like I said, the last 18 months have been a nightmare for new brokers who don't have those relationships you know. You guys are in established brokerages who, hey, if, if there's a carrier on load, you already know people at that company, right, you can reach out to them and say, hey, something looks a little funny on this email, what is this? Right. And they will say, yeah, that is weird, that's not ours, right.

Speaker 3:

But if you're new, you have no idea, right, and so it's really really tough, I think, for new brokers, especially out there on the load board, which is where all these bad actors are looking. They're looking for somebody desperate on the load board, really need to cover something, to make some money, and they will come in and be that perfect option for them. That is going to do something very bad, right, and so I mean so number one thing is don't be desperate, right, make sure you're getting it right. Um, if you're desperate, then this is probably not the right time to get into this industry Right Um, wait until this industry is flourishing again and and then try it. But it but if you're out there and you don't have any kind of network and you don't have carriers who you know and you're trying to break into freight, probably not the right time to break into freight brokerage right now. I would wait until the market picks up.

Speaker 1:

I think I saw a stat it was like the average new entrant right now into brokerage is taking them like six months, I think, before they can say like this is going to work. The majority fell well before that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, and you can see it in the numbers. I don't know who publishes these numbers, but every once in a while you'll see the numbers of like broker authorities added or lost. Brush Pass does that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Kevin Hill from Brush Pass does it. We've seen I think even Dean has released a bunch of data analytics from DAT on entrance and exits.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, and here's what's made it even more difficult and I started a new brokerage this year and I've literally been going through some of this Right and I mean to your point, like you're going to be the biggest target because you've got no credit. So it's apparent that you're new, just looking at your load posting Right. And then the other one, which is a whole other hurdle we're going to be talking about in a future episode. Right is factoring companies are aware of this risk, so they're backing up the goal line, if you will, and making it harder to even get approved, like a few years ago, like you could get on board with Triumph, for instance, and after a few months, like you could get access to their carrier network. Now, like the major factoring companies OTR, triumph and RTS they went nine months or a year right before you're going to access their network.

Speaker 2:

And, yes, lots of carriers have smaller factoring companies, but a lot of them are backed by those larger ones, so they're almost like affiliates and they still work off that same system. And again, it's just another level of friction where trust and vetting and what you guys do is incredibly valuable to be able to lean on to your work and what you guys do, speaking to carriers, having these hands-on conversations, following up on diligence for what they're doing or not doing, and making sure you're staying on top of that. Like there's an incredible amount of value in that, in addition to the fact that, like it is really hard to get a straight truck, box truck or sprinter van off of any load board historically, like we all just used to use Selectus. But like you can't even get that as a broker, you need an asset MC to even access that one, and like brokers don't even have the ability to do that. Like I think you guys are seriously probably the best option to being able to break into the space, because there are lots of commodities and sides of the industry where you could lean on your brokerage.

Speaker 2:

Right and have an agreement with you guys and prospect freight forwarders, for instance, that move lots of smaller cargo in and out of airports and smaller areas constantly. Like that is a great way to start getting your foot in here without taking substantial risk. To your point, grabbing any carrier that happens to call you with an inability Because some of the newer companies, like they, can't afford the tools that we talk about either. Right, like even if the highway can help in these scenarios right, like they can't put that bill for five, 600 bucks out of the gate, plus the load board, plus their TMS, and like again being able to work with you guys on more of a per load basis, like I think that is a fantastic way for smaller brokers or new brokers to kind of enter the market, to be able to start learning it, getting some freight moved, working through the kinks and really starting to understand the business.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and you know we do the same thing as far as credit checks, right, so it does make it hard for somebody new to get in, so, but of course, we'll always take, you know, prepay if you're willing to do it, right, but but the nice thing about it is you don't have to worry about we have a zero fraud after double brokering within our network, right, and so, um, and I think the reason for that is because of the process of onboarding the driver Um, if you're a bad actor, you look at what we ask you to do and you just say I'm, I don't, yeah, I'm going to go find an easier target.

Speaker 3:

I'm definitely not going to let you see my location on my phone right now, right Um. And so, um, you know, weeds I think it weeds those people out before they get started. Um, and you know we have the luxury of doing that because we aren't desperate, right Um. But for new brokers, and even for established brokers, to be able to have a network of, you know, expedite carriers who you know aren't going to cause these problems that become giant headaches, whether it's a double brokered load that somebody didn't get paid on Right stolen cargo, which is even worse, or whatever might be out there, to know that you have reliable capacity that doesn't have bad actors infiltrating it, I think is really helpful, especially to a new broker who is the prime target on a load board right.

Speaker 2:

There's two things that I wanted to ask you to. One is and I wanted you to be able to highlight, this is the other thing that is very difficult is how do you quote this, the quoting tools right through DAT and Truckstop, which are primarily, I would say, the most used tools right to quote things?

Speaker 2:

You can't quote any of the equipment and, again, if your customer's asking for that again it depends on the situation, but some of the times, if they don't want a large truck that uses all that fuel and don't need all the space, they're expecting it to be a little cheaper or more cost-effective or maybe faster than they would. You know, 48 foot or 53 footer right, and your tool allows somebody to quote not only a rate but with confidence that they can get the truck for that price. And that is one of the hardest things to do operating in the full truckload space. And I wanted you to be able to kind of share a little bit how that works and what it looks like in the weeds. Maybe a little bit if you will with the user.

Speaker 3:

So we we offer a rating tool for sprinter vans and box trucks, um, and straight trucks as well. Uh, for most of the lanes you could possibly imagine out there right Are going to return something, um and give you a reliable rate. Some of these ones for for cargo vans, a lot of our lanes, are also going to be um rates that you can book right. So not only is a rate, it's a rate, but it's an offer if you want to take it right truck in hand, because because, our network is a little light on box trucks.

Speaker 3:

Compared to sprinter vans, we have about 5500 cargo vans, um, and more like, uh, 1200 box trucks. Um, we do not guarantee box truck prices are going to have an available box truck, because sometimes there's just not a box truck in the area, right, we'd have to get somebody some empty miles and so you know the rate would be not competitive, potentially, right For that. But and we offer a rating tool that is free Anyone can get a trial account to our, our software, as long as they're, you know, they have some sort of showing that they have authority to actually move freight and they have an email address and a phone number and a name, right, and so I'm happy to give a free trial to anybody who wants to look into hey, what are the rates for this? I even have customers who've looked up our rates hundreds of times and never booked a load with us, right, because they're just curious.

Speaker 3:

Probably am I getting ripped off by somebody else, right off by somebody else, right, I may like their service, but I want to make sure that that they're not pulling a fast one on me, because this is not the main area I work in, right, and so we have customers who use us as a rate tool, and I'm fine with that, honestly, because someday I think they're they're going to also give me freight, but our tools are free. If anybody's interested in using our tools, reach out to us on our website or you can reach out to me directly. I'm on LinkedIn, pretty easy to find, and so that's probably the best way to get in touch with me for the first time.

Speaker 2:

The other thing, too, I wanted you to hopefully talk a little bit about is like we get this, this question, a lot from small to large brokers like how do we do better at carrier utilization Right? And I think your business is a very good example of how you do that well Right, and that is everybody knows. If you're using trucks more often, it's better for the carrier, it's better for the broker, it's better for the shipper, there's more trust, you've got more history. But how and what do you guys do that allow you to build a network where you have better carrier utilization Right? How would you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, part of it is just the fact that we specialize, Right, and so we always think about this kind of freight, because it's the only thing we do, and our drivers know that it's the only thing we do and that we are focused on them and making sure that they stay happy, right, we also make it really easy to interact with us for those carriers as well as well.

Speaker 3:

So, you know the, the what seems like a helpful vetting thing, having to be on our app and us knowing where you are all the time also makes it really easy for us to match you with a load, right, um, because, um, if I know that you're in a spot that, uh, not many other people are in and we have freight coming out of that spot, um, you know, you don't have to tell me hey, I'm here, let me know about this load.

Speaker 3:

I already know you're there, right, and not only that, my customers know you're there. If you guys are on the, if you guys are on the platform, and you guys have seen our platform, there's a map where you can see all of the trucks that are near your pickup location, and so I know you're there, my customers know you're there and someone's going to reach out to you if they've got freight there right, and so I think you know making it really easy to work with them and for them to get freight from us is one of the keys, and also just the fact that we specialize in and everyone knows we're only doing this one type of freight. If you called me today and said I have 5,000 truckloads that I want to give to you, I would tell you we don't do truckload right, so Send them my way, alex.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, send that email right over here and I'll send them to ben exactly so I like it, though the uh.

Speaker 1:

I was just playing around on the uh, the quoting tool right now. Um, just do a random land in there you can. I love to see on the map like where the actual you know where these cargo vans are, um, but but yeah, cool, good stuff. What else do we got on the expedite world? Anything else you want to hit on with? Expedite all.

Speaker 3:

Um, no, just uh, you know, if you're curious to learn more about expedite, uh, what we do, um, you know what kind of vetting processes you might have to do, uh, that that are different. Um, and then also, you know what kind of red flags we look for and why the red flags you see on maybe like a highway or one of these others, might not apply to an expedite carrier. There have been some articles out there about it, but I'm happy to talk to people about it as well, like, how do you vet expedite? Happy to impart knowledge to new brokers anytime they want to know this stuff, or even old brokers who are getting into this expedite stuff cause they have a customer who needs it. Um, uh, always happy to talk about it. And so, um, we've got more coming. You know, more updates to our software. The platform that you're looking at right now looks very different than it did a year ago and much improved, and it's always going to be improving, and we'll be adding to that carrier network as well.

Speaker 2:

I got a self self-interested question. I know we've talked about this and I wanted you to share a little bit. I know you guys do provide some reefer LTL network. I know you're building that network, but I also know from just a broker's point of view like the more freight you have, the easier it is to get more carriers into your network. So if more brokers can start feeding you more loads for reefer LTL, would that be helpful for you guys building out that network? Because that's one of the most common questions we get asked is what do I do with?

Speaker 3:

these? It would be, but, um, honestly, you know the, the amount of freight and we don't call it reefer ltl, we call it reefer stl small truck load um, because it's not co-loaded and it's not crossed on, but um, that reefer stl um is in high demand and so, um, we are adding drivers to that network as quickly as we can because there is so much of it out there and there is such a limited capacity of trucks for that type of freight as well. So, out of the 7,300 drivers on our network, only about 300 of them have refrigerated units, so it's a much smaller number that, but they stay loaded right Because they're in high demand. And I think Expedite in general and small truckload, you're going to see more and more demand coming, as you have. I think it's more warehouses in more places, more smaller loads, more demand for quicker delivery as well.

Speaker 3:

We've all gotten used to I can order something on my phone and it'll be here today or tomorrow, and I think we're all sort of taking that attitude into the workplace on freight as well. Like, okay, why should it take six days to get across the country right, when I can order something that might be in San Francisco today and get it in New York tomorrow, right? And why does it take so long with freight, right? So I think it's going to continue to grow. Reefer is going to continue to grow and you'll see more sprinter vans out on the road when you're on the highway and you'll see more sprinter vans out on the road when you're on the highway.

Speaker 1:

Love it. I mean, that's what Amazon has shifted towards, right? Look at any one of their delivery trucks it's a cargo van or a box truck, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and it's more and more distribution centers, right? It's not like we have three or four, it's like we have hundreds across the country, right? So necessarily, as a result of that, the loads get smaller too, right? Yep.

Speaker 1:

Yep, absolutely Cool, Ben. Do you have any more self-interested questions for Alex?

Speaker 2:

I don't. I covered everything that I was super interested in talking about. We got a chance to talk, obviously, with Alex a few times over the past couple of weeks. Always been really interesting, engaging, learning a ton. I think there's a lot of opportunity in this space for anyone else out there.

Speaker 1:

Totally All right, Alex, anything you want to wrap up with?

Speaker 3:

Nope, Visit us expediteallcom. Add me on LinkedIn if you're curious. I have lots of friends and I always want more. So and I'm happy to talk to anyone who wants to learn more about this industry. Ever since I got into it, I've been drinking through a fire hose and I've learned a ton, still curious and learning more every day, and I think it's fun to discuss these things with you guys and anybody else who wants to talk about it.

Speaker 1:

I don't even know how I skipped over your interesting background of from being a lawyer to getting into freight brokering, but we'll save that for another conversation. It's way better. Just different kinds of headaches. Hey, we appreciate you being on the show, alex, again expediteallcom. Just different kinds of headaches hey, we appreciate you being on the show, alex. Um, again, expedite allcom. We'll throw a link in the description box or uh show notes for your, for your LinkedIn, so we can get you as many friends as possible, and also for your guys' website, um Ben. Any final thoughts on your end or any closing uh thoughts here?

Speaker 2:

whether you believe.

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Benjamin Kowalski

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Nate Cross

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