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Episode 10 - Sarah Barnes-Humphrey of the "Let's Talk Supply Chain" Podcast
93 Plays5 years ago
PROFILES
SUPPLY CHAIN CONVERSATIONS
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EPISODE 10 - SARAH BARNES HUMPHREY, HOST OF THE "LET'S TALK SUPPLY CHAIN" PODCAST AND "THE TRADE SQUAD" ON YOUTUBE
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Welcome to Profiles, a podcast centered around supply chain conversations hosted by Brian Glick, founder and CEO of Chain.io.
Our guest this week is SARAH BARNES-HUMPHREY.
EPISODE 10 - SARAH BARNES-HUMPHREY, with a firm background of working within the supply chain, Sarah is the host of the popular Let's Talk Supply Chain Podcast and The Trade Squad on YouTube. Sarah helps tell the stories and bring awareness to brands and hot topics in the industry which includes her infamous Women in Supply Chain series.
“…In sales you have internal customers and external customers. So every touch point with a customer or vendor or an internal or external stake holder, is really selling them on who you are and what you do.”
Listen in as Brian and Sarah discuss:
- The supply chain space is very much relationship driven, from vendor to customers. Will the automation of processes lead to better relationships?
- The major challenges faced when building a company and the lessons learned from that experience.
- How important is it to have experience when coming into the supply chain industry?
- What are some of the challenges people coming into the supply chain network in 2020 will face.
- Traditional thinking versus modern perspectives.
- Collaboration as a concept of ‘winning together’. Cultivating a victory mindset.
- Letting go of emotional responses to move towards revolutionising and automating the industry.
- Focus points for improving productivity in 2020 within your supply chain business.
“…My experience in operations and my experience in sales has really been able to help me define and pin point what those pain points were from both sides. Not just one side over the other.”
Resource mentioned in the show:
- letstalksupplychain.com
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbarnescitp/
- https://shipz.com/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-sgnMyUfls
- TPM Conference
Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts so that you’re updated when we post a new episode!
Take care, and until next time,
Brian Glick
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Transcript
Openness and New Experiences
00:00:00
Speaker
You do have that traditional way of doing things, but you're still open to having those conversations, talking it out, seeing where it will get you, trying it. I think a lot of people fall flat because they just don't try it. They just say, no, that's not ever going to work without the backup of like data or trying it, you know, the analysis.
Introducing Sarah Barnes Humphrey
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to Profiles. This is Brian Glick, ChainIO's CEO and founder. On this episode, we have Sarah Barnes Humphrey. Sarah probably needs no introduction to a lot of you who are in the podcasting space or podcast listeners. Sarah is the host of Let's Talk Supply Chain. She also has a wealth of other media activities, including her Women in Supply Chain series, a very active YouTube channel,
00:00:53
Speaker
and a broad presence on the conference and speaking circuit. And she's also working on her own tech startup, a company called Ships, and is just generally all around the industry nowadays. I think what you'll hear that's really great in this episode is Sarah's passion about connecting
00:01:16
Speaker
the people and the human side of the industry to the technology and not just being focused on the ones and zeros.
Sarah's Background and Early Career
00:01:24
Speaker
So without further ado, here's the episode. Hey, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today. It's awesome to be here. Thank you so much, Brian. I am very humbled and honored to be on your show. I think you're coming out with some really great content. So thank you.
00:01:44
Speaker
Well, I'm not going to take it easy on you just because you said that. Oh, come on. It is pretty exciting to have you on the other side of the microphone as it were here and then see how you do when you're the one asked to answer the questions. Yeah, I know, right? I mean, I think I said that when I first came in. I was like, it's so weird being on the other end. So why don't you tell everybody a little bit about how you personally got into the industry?
00:02:11
Speaker
So I always
Learning and Growth in Logistics
00:02:12
Speaker
tell people that supply chain logistics is kind of in my blood. So my dad started a 3PL back in 1989. And it was kind of all we spoke about at the dinner table. He was an entrepreneur, a budding entrepreneur, and kind of know how that goes, right? And especially back in 1989. So we talked a lot about logistics. We talked about business, that kind of thing. And then right after high school, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
00:02:40
Speaker
you know, I looked at different courses and different things like that. And so I started off as reception at the company. And I learned and honed my customer service skills within the first couple of years being reception, which
00:02:56
Speaker
To be honest with you, I think was a really, really great start for me because I learned customer service right off the bat. And while I was reception, I actually got recruited by not really a competitor, but a slight competitor. And it was really funny because I was going to go and then they gave me the details of, or actually they gave me the contract and the contract specifically said that I could not be related to anybody else in the industry. And they knew who my dad was.
00:03:26
Speaker
So that's kind of a funny story from when I first started out. But since then, you know, I worked in every single department. I took courses by correspondence. I did all my diplomas, everything, you know, all of my degrees and diplomas and certifications and things like that. I did that all by correspondence while I worked there. So I was really able to get some hands-on experience while I was also
Problem-Solving Passion and Role Transitions
00:03:52
Speaker
learning from the different organizations and really figuring out what I enjoyed about logistics. And so that's really how I started. So what is it that you enjoy about logistics? Well, to be honest with you, I think it's the problem solving.
00:04:09
Speaker
I really like the problem-solving aspect. I spent a lot of time in operations. I dealt with a hell of a lot of paperwork and worked my butt off. But I liked interacting with the customers. I liked seeing what they were bringing in. I liked problem-solving when there was an issue.
00:04:29
Speaker
And then later on, I got into sales and I spent about 12 years into sales. And I really enjoyed that as well. You know, I enjoyed selling freight services up until about 2008. And then my love of freight kind of
00:04:44
Speaker
took a back seat and I ended up selling different things like customs and warehousing and cross-stock scenarios, but really coming up with different strategies for the customer of what they were looking for. And so that became another passion of mine. And then from sales went into marketing and running my own team and then really got into the marketing aspect of it.
00:05:12
Speaker
A mutual friend of ours, Rob Garrison said to me the other day that everyone's in sales, just some people are good at it. Yeah. Do you think that in this industry, really, that's true? I mean, I know that there's desk level incentives and everything, but is there any role that isn't in sales, really, in our space?
00:05:32
Speaker
I don't think so. I think that our space is really relationship driven and it goes from the relationships that you make with vendors, all the way to your customers.
Impact of Technology on Logistics Relationships
00:05:45
Speaker
And also when you're in sales, you have internal customers, external customers as well. I think even internally you have the same thing. And so every touch point with a customer or a vendor or an internal or external stakeholder is really,
00:06:01
Speaker
selling them on who you are and what you do, no matter what company you work for. So you're in the process of building a tech company. And there's a discussion to be had around, does adding technology break those relationships? Or does it change it or make it more transactional? Is that something you think about?
00:06:22
Speaker
Not necessarily with the one that I'm building because the way I've positioned it is that I'm just making life simpler on both ends. I think that there's still going to be that relationship. There's still going to be that interaction between the two parties.
Simplicity and Tech Entrepreneurship in Logistics
00:06:39
Speaker
It might alter it slightly, but that's a really good question and not really something that I've thought about too much because I've really thought about simplification of the process instead. One of the things that I have heard people say is that if you simplify and fix those processes, it gives people room to have relationships as opposed to making every – the cynical side of that that I've also heard is, well, no, everything will just be a transaction and the computers will just talk to each other.
00:07:06
Speaker
You know, you're gonna tender every load to the cheapest end and all of that goes away. So it's definitely I think there's a lot of arguments on both sides of Yeah, I think I would go with with what you first said I also think that it's gonna give everybody back time to be more strategic and more creative And so I think businesses as a whole are just gonna benefit from all of that to be honest Why did you decide to start a tech company?
00:07:33
Speaker
Well, listen, I mean, I was in the freight forwarding industry for what, 20 years? Actually, no, I'm supposed to say two decades. There could be more glamorous than that.
00:07:44
Speaker
supposed to say two decades, actually, because it doesn't sound as long. Apparently, somebody told me that. And, you know, I was really I was there when the 2008 I was there, obviously, after that and sort of seeing the transition where we were going into, you know, the transactional quoting on the freight side and the toll that it was taking and everything that freight forwarders were
00:08:13
Speaker
were and still are kind of doing for free from credit to consulting to all sorts of things that customers get benefits of that freight forwarders just, you know, can't leverage anymore. Like they just with their margins and stuff just can't provide all of what the customers are needing for free anyways, like anymore.
00:08:36
Speaker
And so I looked at the process, I looked at, you know, what was out there on the market already. And I targeted the gaps, right, targeted the gaps from, you know, a segment of the market, and really just looked at making things a lot more simpler rather than taking it too far. Because I think if we go too far too fast, we lose everybody.
00:09:01
Speaker
So dive into that a little bit more with me, I think, you know, if somebody's listening to this, and they're from a large enterprise, and they're used to having systems with 900 fields, and then you've got people in small businesses who are sort of uncomfortable, sometimes with that level of complexity, or don't need it, like, what does simple mean to you?
Dual Career: Logistics Media and Beauty Business
00:09:20
Speaker
So a lot of the processes, and I'm not talking from an enterprise standpoint. I mean, obviously enterprise companies do have the means to have their own in-house team to be able to help them in supply chain and the tech side and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about more of the SMEs, right? There's still a lot of manual process. There's still a lot of questions. There's still a lot of hoops that need to be jumped through. But at the end of the day,
00:09:47
Speaker
Right now, they are the ones that are also driving the economies, right? I don't know about in the US, but in Canada, the SMEs are really driving the economy. And it's only going to go up from there because it's so much easier to get access to foreign markets and be able to sell to people globally.
00:10:06
Speaker
Absolutely. So you sort of have a dual life. You have a burgeoning beauty empire as well. Do you want to talk a little bit about how that started and what you do with Let's Talk supply chain and women in supply chain and all of that great stuff? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, when I ended up as director of sales and marketing at my dad's 3PL,
00:10:29
Speaker
You know, there wasn't really much out there as far as marketing is concerned, right? It was very dull, I think. I don't know about you. I don't know if I should say that. But I was like, you know what? We've got to do something different. We've got to do something bold. And at the time, I was listening to a lot of podcasts.
00:10:53
Speaker
And I was like, if these guys can do it, why can't I do it? I mean, there's not really anything out there. Let's just try different things. I've always been about trying different things and sort of seeing where it sticks, right? And so that's when I got the team together. I grabbed a guy from my customs department and said, will you be my co-host? And we started the podcast. I think our first episode is still on YouTube. It's so horrible.
00:11:21
Speaker
We did it through Skype. The connection wasn't very good. But we called the show Two Babes Talk Supply Chain. And we did that to just get some attention, right? And I think our tagline was something silly, like, let's put the sexy back into supply chain or something like that. And most people liked it. And it sort of got the wheel going.
00:11:48
Speaker
And then I took it over myself in the fall of 2017. And I really looked at what was out there for women. So I've always been passionate about women in sports because I've been an athlete my whole life. I don't know if your audience knows, but I've been playing softball my whole life, played fast pitch up until I think I was mid 20s. I'm a catcher. So I wear all the gear. I throw the guys out at second, which is a lot of fun.
00:12:16
Speaker
And I'm also passionate about women in supply chain as well. And I was taking a look at it and there wasn't really any platforms for us to learn from each other. So it wasn't really about female empowerment. It was more about, I've got this platform now, what am I going to do with it?
00:12:34
Speaker
you know, for good, right? I was already doing good. I was, you know, providing great content and things like that. But how do I, how do we learn from other supply chain professionals, especially women in supply chain? And so it gave me a platform to be able to start the woman in supply chain series and have women on the show and now on the blog to talk about, you know, who they are, what, what has their journey to success look like? You know, what challenges have they faced? How did they overcome them?
00:13:04
Speaker
What risks did they take, right? How did they decide to take those risks? I mean, these are all things that we all face in our journey and in our careers. But I think for women, we want to hear from other women
00:13:21
Speaker
what they've encountered. Maybe it's similar to what my audience has encountered as well. And so that's what I did. I started that Woman in Supply Chain series, and in April 2018, they told me they didn't like the name of the show because I hadn't changed it.
00:13:41
Speaker
And that's what's bond let's talk supply chain and I, you know, I rebranded it within a week in that April.
Rebranding and Podcast Growth
00:13:50
Speaker
And I'll tell you that was the craziest week of my life. What was that experience like? Oh, I probably like 18 hour days just like.
00:13:59
Speaker
changing everything and then realizing that I hadn't changed something over here and realizing that my, I can't remember what it's called, but I have on the platform that I use, I think it's called a slug. And if I changed that slug, I would have lost everything. And so I had to keep the slug as two babes. So it's still two babes because I wasn't prepared to lose everything that I had already done in the last year or so.
00:14:28
Speaker
but like just realizing what I had to change. And as I started that changing everything, it was like, Oh, I need to change this. And, Oh, I really hope my Instagram handle is there, you know, and then my Twitter handle wasn't there. So I had to come up with a creative way for that. And it's let's talk S chain. You know what I mean? So it was sort of one thing after another, after another. And to be honest with you, after that, things really escalated. And, um, it's only been about 18 months, but it's been a pretty crazy ride so far.
00:14:58
Speaker
So I'm going to turn the tables on you then. What have you learned in your journey that you think other people should benefit from? You did not give me this one to prepare. So now I'm on the spot.
Family Business Challenges and Entrepreneurial Insights
00:15:11
Speaker
So I'll ask you the question that is written on the agenda and you don't have to be on the spot. What do you wish you knew at the beginning of your journey that you know now?
00:15:20
Speaker
Well, you and I have talked about this actually. And one of the points that I wanted to make was how emotionally and mentally challenging entrepreneurship is.
00:15:30
Speaker
without a doubt. Working for the family business, let me tell you, that was challenging, but not from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Now I can better understand what my dad went through, what my mom went through, them building a company to 150 employees across Canada. It's really amazing what they did with what they had in their company.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so now I can kind of relate in that way. I think the other thing is how challenging working in a family business is. I went in there right after high school. And so you make relationships and then
00:16:14
Speaker
You know they get fired and you have to deal with that and you can't talk to your family about that because they don't want to deal with that. You know what I mean and you're not getting the whole story and they're mad at you and everybody's kind of mad at you and you know just trying to figure out your place.
00:16:31
Speaker
in a family business was really tough. And growing up in a family business, right? You know, there was a lot of times where, you know, I thought that I should get a raise. And then there was, you know, back then it was kind of like, well, you're getting paid for your age. And you're like, you know, I'm doing more work than half of these people. You don't really have as much negotiating clout with your parents.
00:16:54
Speaker
Well, and it got better and it got easier as I had people in between, right? Like I had bosses in between and stuff like that, but it was still very, very challenging. Like people treat you a lot differently. And there's more expected of you, right? So when I was in operations, I think I was working like 12 hour days.
00:17:12
Speaker
That's a lot of hours. It's definitely a lot of hours. The other thing that I would say is probably title is just a title and it doesn't define you. That one I learned the hard way, right? Because I had a title for a very, very, very long time when I was at my dad's company.
00:17:28
Speaker
And, you know, when you step into entrepreneurship, okay, you're the host, or you're the CEO or whatever, but you, you know, you don't really have that title of director of sales and marketing for, you know, maybe an established business, right? I think also when you when you're getting into entrepreneurship, one of the things is sort of you have to learn to wear the title a little bit. Yeah. And learn that
00:17:51
Speaker
You know, like the first day, right? You're the CEO of a one-person company, but you have to learn to carry yourself, right? And you have to learn to grow into that role as the company grows. And still stay humble though. Yes. Right? I think that's kind of the key too. I think the other thing that came up for me when I was going through some of these questions was that I should have started earlier, right? But at the same time, I needed this journey for who I am today.
Industry Knowledge in Tech Ventures
00:18:20
Speaker
There's a lot of new investment in this space, right, in technology and logistics specifically. And one of the questions I've been asking a lot of people lately is how important is it in our space to come in from a, whether it's an operational, specifically operational, or at least some industry knowledge versus being sort of an outside disruptor, like is there
00:18:47
Speaker
you know, where do you land on sort of that spectrum of, you know, if somebody walks up to you and says, I was never in the industry, you know, I worked for, you know, big, you know, company X, Y, and Z in marketing, and I've decided to go disrupt supply chain, versus, you know, somebody who comes in, you know, says, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I'm going to take it from here to there. You know, is there room for both? Is there, you know, do you have an opinion on the better path there?
00:19:14
Speaker
I think that you definitely need to have some experience and some knowledge, even if it's to just relate to your customers, right, and their journey and what they go through, you know, so my experience as
00:19:31
Speaker
in operations and then my experience in sales has really been able to help me define and pinpoint what those pain points are on both sides, not just one side over the other.
00:19:46
Speaker
And so I think if you're coming in from the outside, you really don't have that insight or that forethought. And so you might actually be correcting as you go maybe, or not getting the right, maybe not even getting the right feedback initially, and then having to make big changes later. I had a conversation yesterday with somebody, he worked on the shipper side and the forwarding side. And he worked on the shipper side second in his career.
00:20:12
Speaker
And I said to him, I said, if I went and worked for a shipper after having worked in a forwarder, I feel like I would be just screaming all day, every day, because I would know how the sausage is being made on the other side and how sort of awful it is inside of what forwarders have to do to get things done. And I would just like, it would
00:20:35
Speaker
as a customer I almost wouldn't want to know. Whereas coming from the shipper side, the shippers that I've seen that have moved into forwarding have developed a great deal of empathy after they've seen the other side of the chasm there. Right. And so what did he say? He just sort of laughed. I think he, I think he preferred the shipper side was my impression. Right? Yeah. I appreciate that on the shipper side, you get to take Christmas off. So that's nice.
00:21:05
Speaker
I mean, if you just think about this last year, think of all the tariffs, the tariff changes. Could you imagine being a customs broker in 2019? You'd be pulling your hair out. I am happy to say that I left the world of customs brokerage at the very beginning of 2017. I could not have had better timing from, I'm sure it would be lots of interesting problems that everyone's solving in that space. But I do appreciate not being on the pointed end of that stick.
00:21:33
Speaker
Absolutely. I was counting my lucky stars in 2019 that I was not in customs.
Diverse Perspectives and Challenges in Logistics
00:21:40
Speaker
They worked hard last year. Yes, they did. And we all appreciate for all of our, you know, as someone who comes from a customs brokerage background, I can really, really appreciate the work that they have to put in this year. Yeah. And hopefully, over 2020, it'll be a little bit more calm. Hopefully, we'll see. I'm not betting on that. But I'm just
00:22:00
Speaker
There's this because it has hope, right? That's right. If someone is coming in, has decided to dive into this world in 2020, so what do you think are the challenges that
00:22:11
Speaker
they might face that we didn't face back when we all sort of got into the industry. So two came to mind. One of them is something that I think we would have come across as we were going into our careers and stuff like that too. And I think that's traditional thinking. I think it's still prevalent. I think that the next generation is coming into the industry with different ways of looking at things. I mean, I just had Grant Taylor on my show
00:22:40
Speaker
talking about human trafficking and how human trafficking and supply chain are connected and how just our knowledge of supply chain professionals can help dismantle human trafficking rings because essentially human trafficking is a supply chain. Until I met Grant, I didn't even
00:22:57
Speaker
Co relate the two and i think most of my listeners and people on social media didn't either and it's sort of you know that light bulb moment that aha moment kind of one off i also was talking to supply chain management student out of singapore a little while ago when she was talking about how she loved the warehouse course.
00:23:19
Speaker
And it's because she has a passion for interior design, and she looked at the warehouse as an interior design project. Wow, she must have never been in an e-commerce warehouse in Memphis in July. But there you go.
00:23:37
Speaker
I just try to paint the picture of some of the conversations I've had with people that are coming into this industry with totally, and I mean totally different perspectives than most of the people at the top. I mean, you know what I'm saying there.
00:23:55
Speaker
No, I do. Even at Chain.io, one of the things that we've tried to do is in positions in the company that are not specifically about the domain. Our project managers and our analysts need to have a lot of industry experience, but in roles like finance and even development,
00:24:14
Speaker
We try to bring in people from other related industries, so people who may just have general staff software experience or have done highly transactional things in advertising and marketing, those type of spaces where online ads, because it does inject a different perspective and a different view. We revamped our entire pricing model when we brought in a new employee at the beginning of the year because
00:24:41
Speaker
you know, we sold our software the way we had sold freight and customs. And she looked at it and said, Nana, this is how you as a SaaS company should be selling your software. You know, and it's just something we were blind to, because the SaaS team and I had had come out of the industry. And we knew how, you know, we knew how cargo I sold it, we knew how First Off had sold it, we knew how
00:25:03
Speaker
You know, Bluejay had sold it and, you know, Descartes, those companies, and we were looking at, well, how does Salesforce sell their software or how does, you know, Marketo sell their software or Adobe or, you know, whatever the case may be. So definitely that other view mixed with some pragmatic sort of industry experience is a powerful thing.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. And there is a place still for traditional thinking. I mean, you know, it's gotten us to where we are. Things are changing a lot quicker. And as long as you do have, you know, that traditional way of doing things, but you're still open to having those conversations, talking it out, seeing where it will get you, trying it.
00:25:48
Speaker
I think a lot of people fall flat because they just don't try it. They just say, no, that's not ever going to work without the backup of like data or trying it or the analysis, that kind of thing.
Collaboration and Empathy in Logistics
00:26:01
Speaker
So we're 25 minutes into this episode and we haven't used your favorite word yet. So I'm just going to throw the word collaboration out there. Can you explain to everyone why you love that word so much?
00:26:14
Speaker
So collaboration to me means winning together. And actually my company that owns the Let's Talk supply chain brand is called Victorious. And I did that for a reason, Victory Us, which means winning together, which also means collaboration.
00:26:32
Speaker
And I think, and I've always had the mindset that there's enough out there for everybody, as long as we see it that way, collaborate, win together, rather than you versus me, me versus you, blame games, all the negativity that's around some of the other ways that we've kind of been doing it.
00:26:55
Speaker
We just did a employee review with someone who started, I guess, in November. And he would come from a very, very large forward here. And one of his comments during the review was, we said, you know, how does working here match up to what your expectations were? And he said, everyone's not angry all the time. And that was weird to him. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. But at the same time, he said, you know, this idea that
00:27:23
Speaker
you can work in an environment in this industry where there's still always something broken, right? It's still supply chain, right? There's still going to be, you know, chaos, but that doesn't have to become emotional chaos. And then you can commonly go solve the problem that something's not working or, you know, that, you know, four hours before go live on a software implementation, they tell you that they, you know, the customer says the requirements weren't right that they gave you those types of things. I hope that's also a generational thing, right? And that,
00:27:51
Speaker
we're not revisiting the same sort of emotional danger zones or patterns that we were raised in somewhat in the industry. Absolutely. And I just think that we need to foster some more of that positivity rather than some of the negativity that maybe has come from the past. So I guess that ties into what are the biggest challenges that you think we all should be addressing together?
00:28:20
Speaker
So there's a couple of things. One of them is speed, right? Like everything is changing so fast, you know, it's overwhelming for everyone and there's too much stress. So with that comes empathy. And you and I have talked about this before, is that I think we need a little bit more empathy. I mean, if we're looking at, you know, the older generation,
00:28:40
Speaker
there's a lot coming at them and they might not have grown up the way that, you know, the next generation did with an iPad in their hand. And so some of the technology changes and some of the different things that are coming at them are just something that they maybe can't even wrap their head around and maybe need a little bit more time or maybe need somebody else to explain it to them in a different language. Do you know what I'm trying to say? I do. It's a lot about meeting people where they are.
00:29:06
Speaker
Meeting people where they are. Thank you. That is what I meant to say. You're welcome. I think the other one is trying things for yourself and not getting too caught up. And remember, what is good for you is not good for everybody else. I think everybody is sort of starting to realize that, right? Because a lot of times in the past,
00:29:28
Speaker
Everybody's done things certain ways, or take diets, for example. You've got all these people on one diet. Well, it might not be the right diet for every single one of those people on that list. Parts of it might be good for some people, and parts of it might be good for other people. So I think not only from a business standpoint, but from a personal standpoint, just remembering that you're different from the person beside you.
00:29:57
Speaker
And it's okay. Maybe stretching that back into the business question, or I don't know if this is going to be a question, but we're going to see. I've sat with companies on the shipper side especially, but I think we're, and I guess maybe the question is, are we going to see this on the forwarder side where
00:30:13
Speaker
They hire a consultant, and then they tell me they hire the consultant, and I tell them what the report's going to have in it before the consultant has come and done the analysis, right? Because it's become sort of a mutuism, and, well, this is how your competitors do it, and they're just going to tell you that almost no matter what. And there's sort of no kind of appreciation of that uniqueness. As we're looking at, like, fridge digitization and, you know, everyone's got to have the same capabilities versus
00:30:42
Speaker
find the technology that's right for who you are as a company. Do you think there's sort of a danger there that everyone's just trying to be the same thing? And at that point, what's the point? Well, I think the danger is that everybody's still trying to catch up. I mean, we went for, especially on the forwarding side, we went for a long time with marketing, with basic technology, you know what I mean? And now the customers are expecting so much more from them.
00:31:10
Speaker
And their margins are getting stretched. Where do they spend their money? Where do they invest their money? Is it in marketing? Is it in technology? We need to save some for overheads because overhead costs are going up as well. And so I think it's about really looking at what's out there.
00:31:27
Speaker
And obviously, there's a lot of different options and different ways to go, but figuring out what is good for you and for your company, but also doing some internal analysis to really see, you know, where, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? You know, where, where are the revenue streams that are strong? And are there other ways that we can make money? You know, where, you know, some of the other revenue streams just aren't working for us.
00:31:53
Speaker
And that's what I meant by trying things for yourself, right? Don't be afraid to try it.
Identity and Marketing in Logistics Companies
00:31:59
Speaker
I mean, I've put out some really crap audio, but I can tell you there's some of my best episodes, like the most downloaded episodes. And I know that's a different sort of example, but you just have to go and do it and try things for yourself and figure out where it's best for you and not get caught up in what everybody else is doing.
00:32:21
Speaker
We had Scott Case from Position Global on this show a while ago now. And he was talking about marketing. But I spend most of my days talking about tech and hearing from companies, essentially, or telling companies, everything you need to do needs to be tech-enabled. And that should be the only thing you're ever thinking about all the time. And that's sort of the thing that's in the air, at least in my world.
00:32:48
Speaker
should companies, what should a mid-sized forwarder be thinking about from a marketing standpoint that in 2020 that they didn't think about in 2010? There's a lot. I mean, they really need to get clear on who they are and what they do well.
00:33:05
Speaker
rather than trying to be everything to everybody. I also think that collaboration is a big part of that, and I'm going to bring that word back in, because I think that there are some cool new platforms, I mean, especially once I get ships up and running as well, that is going to be able to help them not only with the tech, but the marketing and to be able to help find customers.
00:33:28
Speaker
Right so you know where do you land and what does that look like but you also need to. You also need to be at a certain point to join those platforms that are so that they make a difference to your business. Right so you need to get clear on who you are and what you do and what you want to be doing where you make your money.
00:33:45
Speaker
One of the pieces of advice that I give to a lot of customers that we sit down with is before you invest in technology, almost exactly the same thing that you just said, which is know who you are. So I think it's probably the most important thing for almost anything outside of the core moving of freight is there's so many opportunities out there.
00:34:08
Speaker
whether it's tech, whether it's marketing, whether it's looking at, you know, ancillary projects and consulting and all those things is nobody can do them all, right? Even the big guys can't do them all well. So yeah, I agree that kind of know who you are and do the things that are going to make you special is a huge thing.
00:34:25
Speaker
Well, not only that, but like in preparation for, you know, working with platforms and things like that, you need to get your marketing stuff together. I mean, you need to, people need to know who you are and how are you going to do that? Well, there's a lot of different avenues. There's a lot of ways to do that. I mean, you know, companies come on my show all the time. They come on your show all the time to talk about who they are and what they do.
00:34:49
Speaker
um you know and i think those are really really important investments but strategically again you got to figure out what's right for you but people need to know who you are before you go on to these platforms at least a little bit and right now there's a lot of forwarders
00:35:06
Speaker
when no one even knows who they are except for their immediate customers and those ones they're quoting hell over water every single day just to try to get one shipment. That is not something that's sustainable.
00:35:20
Speaker
No, I wholeheartedly agree. And you know, I think it's if forwarder is best answer to that question is I'm a great forwarder. That's not a specific enough answer.
Future Plans and Collaborations
00:35:31
Speaker
Right. And be the best overnight provider in the Toronto area. Right. Yeah. That's, you know, for frozen foods. Like that's a great answer. Yeah. Right. So exactly. You threw Toronto in there. That was for you.
00:35:51
Speaker
So what do you have coming up in 2020? What's next in your world? I'm sure you want to ask that question. You can just tell me all the great trade shows you're going to be at. Where do you want to go with that? I am moderating a panel about sustainability at Supply Chain Canada leadership series coming up. I'm going to be doing some live streaming at TPM.
00:36:19
Speaker
I'm going to have to track you down for that. That is exciting, right? I mean, I don't know if it's been done before. I know that they've done video and it's been recorded, but we're going to be doing some live streaming. I'm going to be on the Eldorado stage for, I think, the AI.
00:36:36
Speaker
discussion with Matt from RPA Labs. I've got a couple of sessions coming up with Procurement Foundry, and I'm doing some monthly LinkedIn Lives with different supply chain professionals. I just did one with Daniel Stanton, Mr. Supply Chain, about top 10 tips for social media for supply chain professionals.
00:36:59
Speaker
I've got a collaborative series coming up with the supply chain now guys We've got a video series that is just about to come up come out about implementation Actually, that one's gonna be a good one. So that's all gonna be on the SE supply chain TV on YouTube and
00:37:14
Speaker
And we're going to have more trade squad shows with global guests, more powerhouse women in my Women in Supply Chain series. And then in September I'm going to be back at the Intermodal Expo doing a podcast booth. And so there's a lot of other things in the works that I'm talking to people about.
00:37:35
Speaker
But, um, yeah, a lot of great guests on the podcast at let's talk supply chain.com. So we're working on a lot of things. There's, there's a lot of potential. There's a lot of great things that are happening. There's a lot of collaboration this year, which I like to see with other, you know, influencers and stuff like that. That's it. You know, you know, anything else.
00:37:56
Speaker
I'm just teasing you. Anyway, what's the hub? Where can people find all of this great content? Well, there's a couple of different places, obviously, at Let's Talk Supply Chain.com. You've got Listener's Corner, where I post the question of the week. And I actually link to all of the supply chain professionals that post comments on it. So I link to their LinkedIn
00:38:22
Speaker
um, profiles so you can find them really, really easily. You've got podcasts on their YouTube blog, um, our LinkedIn page, the let's talk supply chain LinkedIn page. We just hit 15,000 followers this week. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. And, uh, we're on Instagram and Twitter. Let's talk s chain. Um, Instagram is let's talk supply chain. Um, and then they can always look me up on LinkedIn, Sarah Barnes Humphrey.
00:38:49
Speaker
Cool. And we'll try to get as many of those links as we can into the show notes. Well, if you need them, just let me know. I'm sure you have them, Andy. And yeah, thank you so much for joining us. This was absolutely a blast. Yeah. Thanks, Brian, for having me. Really appreciate it. And good luck with the show for the rest of 2020. Thank you.
00:39:13
Speaker
Thanks so much to Sarah for taking the time to be with us today. That was a great episode and we're so happy to hear about all of the wonderful things that she's working on and all the contributions she's making to our industry and the human side of logistics.
00:39:31
Speaker
Be sure to check out Sarah's various channels, which we have linked to in the show notes. And if you're at TPM and the Eldorado conference, please make sure to track us both down. You can go out to our social media presences and ping either of us and we'll make sure to all meet up.