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Episode 63: Grit, Growth, and Genuine Connections in Freight with Robert Bain, Senior Consultant & Director of Partnership at GLCS, Inc.

Brent – 00:00:01:

Welcome to Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast where we explore the fascinating world of trucking and freight management. We dive deep into the freight industry and uncover why the trucking industry is more crucial to our country now than ever before. Stay tuned to uncover the driving forces behind successful trucking businesses and hear from the hardworking truckers and leaders who keep the world moving. Let’s hit the road. Well, hello to the Freight Nation out there. I hope wherever you are today that it is being a productive day for you and you’ve kicked your year off and things are optimistic for you and you’re looking forward to a good 2025. Man, I tell you what, if you know me, Freight Nation out there, I’m pretty optimistic about everything. My glass is just half full. It’s overflowing all the time. And part of that is because that’s my personality. The other part is I get to work in transportation, an industry that I love, an industry that has served me, helping me grow in so many ways. That’s really what Freight Nation is about. It’s about hearing the stories about other people’s lives and their journey in transportation and how you can pick up some information, some tips, some expert advice on how you can help your operation or your endeavor, your dream of running your trucking transportation operation. So we love doing it here for everybody at Truckstop. So this is going to be another great episode of Freight Nation. I know I say it every time. It’s because I get so excited about my guests every single time because they’re always so fun to talk to. And more than this next one, coming up today, you just better buckle in, Freight Nation. Because this is going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be a lot about his journey. It’s going to be a lot about the technology aspect of things. It’s also going to be about mindset and about doing things that you think are maybe way, way beyond your capacity. So that’ll be the encouragement today. So joining me today on Freight Nation is now my good friend. We met at the Broker Carrier Summit earlier this year. His name is Robert Bain. So, Robert, thanks for joining us on Freight Nation today.

Robert – 00:01:46:

I’m honored to be on. Thanks for having me, Brent.

Brent – 00:01:48:

Well, you know, what’s interesting is I did not know this. So Freight Nation, I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I was like… I was backstage. We’re about to go on stage to do something. And this guy with this long beard, he’s actually got shorts on at the time. He just walks in. I kind of think maybe, is he like running the production or something back here? Because a lot of times the production, he’s got shorts. And then he walks on stage. I’m like, wait a minute. Who is this guy? So it was Robert. And then as I did some more research on Robert, I realized really what impact he’s had on transportation. And he’s had such a wonderful career. And each time he’s learned along the way. And he’s really beginning to kind of find his groove into what’s going on for transportation. Where, he can really give back to the industry that’s helped him so much. So Robert, you know, I always like to start. And everybody at Freight Nation knows. I like to start with like, you know, when you were an 18-year-old young man. I’m assuming you didn’t have this long beard that everybody sees.

Robert – 00:02:36:

I did not. I had a nice little baby face, man.

Brent – 00:02:38:

You might have had some hair up here too. I don’t know.

Robert – 00:02:40:

I did.

Brent – 00:02:40:

But when you were young, like, what did you think? Like, this is what I’m going to do for my life. And then when we finished that sort of pivot, like, what things helped you realize, okay, well, transportation is an industry I think I want to be in.

Robert – 00:02:51:

So I grew up outside of… Washington, D.C. And so that exposed me to a lot of different stuff. One of the things it exposed me to is soccer.

Brent – 00:02:59:

Soccer.

Robert – 00:03:00:

Yes. I played soccer for almost 30 years.

Brent – 00:03:02:

Oh, wow.

Robert – 00:03:02:

And I played at a very high level.

Brent – 00:03:03:

What position?

Robert – 00:03:04:

So in high school as a striker. And then in college, I moved to the wing. And then I played semi-pro. I played professionally. And I had an opportunity to try out with the Chicago Fire and with the MLS. And so soccer was my first passion. And that is absolutely what I pictured myself doing. I wanted to play professionally. Ultimately, I wanted to represent my country. Because I think from a civilian perspective, I think that’s the highest honor. You can get is to represent your country in sport. And so I wanted to do that. I worked really hard at it. And I had a lot of really cool opportunities. I am forever thankful for the pitch. Because my best man at my wedding was one of my teammates. I met my wife at a soccer tournament. It’s like, soccer gave me a lot.

Brent – 00:03:36:

You might climb out. You met your wife at a soccer tournament?

Robert – 00:03:39:

Yes, I did.

Brent – 00:03:40:

That’s great. He does. Are you a soccer player?

Robert – 00:03:43:

She was in high school she played because they started the program her sophomore year.

Brent – 00:03:48:

Okay.

Robert – 00:03:48:

And she’s like, she basically got begged to do it. So she did tennis and soccer during the spring and lives in Iowa, that’s what they did. And we met at a tournament because, I was playing with a buddy of mine, he’s like, hey I know you’re just fresh back from I’d been, gone for a little while I’d left town. And quit school I was coming back to school he’s like, hey, you get some touches in before, you go back to school and play and the next call was to her and he’s like I need two more girls it’s either you or my mom please come play on this team there’s a co-ed team and that’s how she and I met that’s a whole different story there so my goal I wanted to play soccer as I started looking at what the reality of that was going to look like I started looking at what careers were going to be long-term sustainable the biggest reason I thought about that is my dad worked in telecom he worked for a company called NCI you probably remember them.

Brent – 00:04:29:

Yeah. sure I remember NCI.

Robert – 00:04:30:

And so he pre-worldcom everything, so that’s what moved us to Iowa because there are three major hubs were Pentagon City, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Colorado Springs and so took us out there and, dad couldn’t keep up with the advancements of it. And, now that he didn’t want to he just he wasn’t able to and so I saw as his roles which took care of our family for a long time were gone I’m like okay I need to find something that is going to be sustainable and be long-term so my first idea was like I’m going to go into the restaurant industry I love cooking food I love serving people I like I love the services like the chaos of the service industry I’m so with it as that’s what I wanted to do and I started looking at when I was going to school like hey I’ll go for business go get my master’s in hospitality and restaurant management life had different idea because I met my wife at said tournament five months later we were pregnant and all of a sudden now like life matters it’s really real yeah like finding out I’m gonna be a dad at 20 years old and she’s 19, this girl I didn’t even know for six months, was it was terrifying, right?

Brent – 00:05:23:

Right.

Robert – 00:05:23:

So I dove right into, working in restaurants, did that, and I’d done that off and on through high school as well but what I realized is it is very hard to be a young parent. The wages aren’t great the timing sucks, I didn’t like coming home like a french fry, so I started looking around for other opportunities. And I remember thinking to myself, I need an office job, I saw something about logistics and freight and trucking. I’m like, you know what like, doesn’t matter how technologically advanced we get, you can’t email a pallet anytime soon. That’s gonna be around for a while and that’s when I started shifting towards I’ll look at logistics companies and I can get into how I actually got in too like I don’t know.

Brent – 00:05:57:

Yeah, before you do that though, because I loved, when I talked to people that are athletes. Because my dad was an athlete, he played professional football, and so. He would teach me when I was a kid, that you know, keep your athletic mind no matter what happens you’re gonna be in life, because you need to always compete, you need to always see things through, you need to always have grit, and gumption and stay at it and be a good teammate all those things so how did your athletic mind, help you, when like for instance here you are you’re, gonna be a you’re a young parent, you’re gonna need to start your career. How, because this kind of goes back to kind of mindset, where we’re going to end up Freight Nation, we’re going to end up talking about real mindset here but how did that mindset help you, at that very young part of your life.

Robert – 00:06:36:

So, there are a couple ways that it did from a long-term philosophical perspective. Very much it was, all right I am once again the underdog, like when I moved to Iowa, I was big fish in a small pond playing soccer but I lived in Eastern Iowa which, if again this is soccer politics. But unless you went to Iowa City High or West High School you did not play in the ODP program you did not get a chance to you would get a tryout but they would immediately cut you and my group the 82ers, as the 18 year olds were known as at that time. We were the first group that kind of broke that barrier. So that was really important is that I got a chance to go on to the regional camp and play. And it was super cool. But I was the underdog. My high school, I’m embarrassed to say this, we lost every game my freshman year. I played varsity all four years. And we lost to a high school, Waterloo East, that has won six games, its entire program, 40 years. And that was one of them. So I was like, okay, like that’s never going to happen again. And so it was, we had to rally this group. We had four freshmen that started that year.

Brent – 00:07:30:

Young quarter.

Robert – 00:07:30:

Yeah, it was tough, man. It was not fun. By the time we were seniors, we came into one game of state. And our team has never had a losing season since the class 2000, which is awesome. 25 years, we’ve never had a losing season. That’s the standards.

Brent – 00:07:41:

Yeah, I love it.

Robert – 00:07:42:

Yeah. And so now in my life, I’m like, all right, I am once again the underdog. And once again, I have to build something that’s going to last way longer than 13 games or 90 minutes. I have a person now that matters. Like, I don’t know what’s going to happen with me and her. Like, you should never predict that. But like, he’s my blood. And so like, I have to do a lot of things while I’m doing that. And then on the flip side. That is like tactically, the chaos that is being on the pitch at full speed. That is very much conducive to not only the kitchen, but also a free floor.

Brent – 00:08:11:

Oh, yeah. You’re yeah, absolutely. I can see that. Definitely. Yeah.

Robert – 00:08:14:

That prepared me to be able to operate as I need to, but also see all the things that are going on around and be situationally aware of everything. So that prepared me for that. Being in those environments, I played in for a lot of people too. So like pressure wasn’t a problem. And I think one of the things that one of my coaches taught me very early. Arturo played at a very high level for Mexico. I should play for their junior national team. He explained to us when we’re all 12 years old, pressure is a privilege. So few people ever get the chance to feel that.

Brent – 00:08:41:

Love that. You know, that’s the, USTA courts in New York City where they play the US Open pressures of privilege. I think that’s Billie Jean King’s quote.

Robert – 00:08:48:

It is. It is. Yeah.

Brent – 00:08:50:

What I, it is, it is. Yeah.

Robert – 00:08:52:

But imagine being told that at 12 years old, they’re like, yeah. Cause you don’t get that. Like, what, like, what do you mean? And then, then you start to feel like, oh no, this is cause I see all these other people that go now, man, like I could never do with that. I get the chance to. How awesome is that.

Brent – 00:09:03:

Right. Yeah. No doubt.

Robert – 00:09:04:

And same thing with being a young parent. Like I have this pressure and this pressure is a privilege as challenging as it was and tough to, you know, go through that. And we went through hell. It was tough, but that pressure was a privilege and it shaped both me, my wife and our son and now the rest of our children and everything. So net benefit, but certainly going through it was.

Brent – 00:09:22:

It’s tough, tough. Yeah. All right. So you looked at transportation and overall the logistics part of the marketplace in the United States. You said, I think that’s a sustainable career. So what was the first pivot point? Where did you start moving into that?

Robert – 00:09:32:

So I applied for a job and I got an interview and I walked in and I think we talked about this during the prep for the call, but the guy that was interviewing me, he played soccer against me in high school and we did not like each other. He was a dirty defender. I didn’t like him. I have a huge ego and a big mouth and I will let you know if I beat you. And so like, we were polite, we were professional, but it’s like, we both like, we know where this is going. But part of his process was he walked any interviewee around the office to show what the culture was like.

Brent – 00:10:00:

Sure.

Robert – 00:10:01:

Because again, it’s a freight floor. It’s different. I think anybody who’s been around logistics businesses knows like it ain’t for everybody. So he was trying to have the culture kind of scare people. I was like, I’m with it. Like, no, I love this.

Brent – 00:10:11:

Yeah. You’re competitive. So that didn’t scare you at all.

Robert – 00:10:13:

A hundred percent. Like, listen, like I’m the baddest dude in the room, wherever I go, period, full stop. And I’ve been that way since I was 10 years old.

Brent – 00:10:20:

That’s a good attitude to have.

Robert – 00:10:21:

So I overhear this conversation going on. This young lady’s on the phone. She’s an account manager working with one of their clients and he is moving an SLR McLaren Mercedes. Now, so we wind back to this timeframe. This is 07, 08. This is when they had first come out and that partnership was huge. It was a big announcement. The sticker price for these cars was three quarters of a million dollars. They were going on a secondary market for 1.5, 2 million, 50 Cent, paid like 2.2 million out of the first one in the US. So it was a big deal. So I overhear this and I look on the screen. And there’s an AMG 63 Mercedes on the screen, the stock photo. It’s got the MSRP on there. I’m like, that’s not the right car. So make sure you have the right insurance, but like also make sure like get it in a covered carrier. Like you do not want that on an open deck. And she’s like, no, my client knows what he has. I’m like, he may know what he has, but that picture is not it. And she’s like, nope. Like he’s giving me the information. It’s fine. So we had this like 20 second argument and I’m like, Hey, you know what? You work here. I don’t, you do your thing. So I was right. She was not. Or at least I thought that as I walked out, get a call a week later. Awesome. Come in. I’ll start my new job. And I go over because I want to see how it ended. And her desk is like empty. And I’m like, what’s going on? And my new boss, like, hey, come sit down. He sits me down with the vice president of operations. And he’s like, this is the guy. He’s like, oh, you’re the guy. What have I done? Like, this is my first day. Like, I’m already famous. So during transport, the upper hydraulic on the transporter failed, smashed it on top of the car, $175,000 damage claim. Carrier only had $150,000 in cargo insurance. Now, for those of you working in the intermediary space, who’s responsible for that Delta? Who would even kind of claim that big? You. And so that 22nd discussion that they went one way cost him 25 grand. And during their postmortem, she brought that up, trying to defend herself. And he’s like, what are you talking about? So yeah, any of you coming around, not going to hire him. He’s not, we’re looking for him all by. He’s like, he knew that walking by, hire him and you’re fired.

Brent – 00:12:14:

Right. Ooh.

Robert – 00:12:14:

So he fired her on the spot and brought me in. I took her.

Brent – 00:12:17:

You have good observation skills.

Robert – 00:12:18:

Yeah. So once again, the chaos of everything going on, and this was like, he wasn’t even introducing me. I just overheard it. And so, yeah, so that situational awareness was, it was a blessing. This guy’s there. And then we got absorbed by CRST. And that’s really when like my career truly started.

Brent – 00:12:33:

Is it really?

Robert – 00:12:34:

Yeah, because things are weird over there. I’m not going to throw all their dirty laundry out there, but a bunch of us got absorbed by CRST. And so I was a fleet manager there. I worked at customer service. I worked after hours. I worked at the accident outline. Horrible.

Brent – 00:12:45:

Was that what you wanted to do?

Robert – 00:12:46:

I wanted to do as much as I could. I wanted to learn. As I started to realize how big the space was, I’m like, this is one of the major carriers in the space. I can learn everything here. And I went over the logistics side. I started learning more about that at CRST International. I learned about drivers, because I mean, there are drivers coming in and out all the time. So it was really good. It was an awesome experience. And my one issue is like, I hated living in Iowa. Going from Northern Virginia to Eastern Iowa, the culture shock is wild. One, everyone looks like me. I didn’t like that. Like, I love having a diverse group of friends and experiences. And it’s just not there. It is a little bit more now, but it definitely wasn’t there in the late 90s or 2000s.

Brent – 00:13:24:

Right. Okay. Okay.

Robert – 00:13:25:

So we started looking around and I’m like, well, I want to stay in transportation. So there’s really only a few places to go that are close enough that we can still see our family. And that’s Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, or Kansas City, Minneapolis, too cold. I hate St. Louis. So it was Kansas City or Chicago. My wife’s best friend lived out here at the time. And we joked about it. Like my teammates from college, a bunch of them live in Kansas City on the Kansas side. And I was like, well, we could go there. My wife’s like, yeah. Remember when we invited them to our wedding and none of them showed? No, we’re not going to move there. Cool. Chicago it is. So let’s go to Chicago.

Brent – 00:13:56:

Yeah, I got it. All right. CRST and you’ve worked at some pretty cool operations over the last few years. So talk a little bit about your experience at those. And I want to jump into the uniqueness of GLCS because it’s in logistics, but it’s a logistics consultant company, which is super cool, right? So, cause you’ve got some really cool formulas and ideas and methodologies that you guys have given in your consulting. But before you talk about GLCS, I want you to talk a little bit about, like, you worked at some of the operations that I know. And so I’d love for you to kind of talk through those just a little bit and then we’ll get to GLCS.

Robert – 00:14:29:

Yeah. So I helped start a couple of brokerages here in Chicago. And then really my first big break into leadership was at a company called Visual Pack Logistics and DP Express as part of the Visual Pak companies in Waukegan, Illinois. I was there for about five years. I can never say enough positive things about Steve Quain, who gave me the opportunity to be a leader there. He handed me the keys to the castle in my late twenties to say, hey, we have a trucking company, go grow it. And we did. And it was awesome. And I mean, I wore every hat for about three years. I was doing dispatch sales.

Brent – 00:14:57:

In the long run, that helps you a lot. Yeah.

Robert – 00:14:59:

It was huge. It was huge. Crazy hours. It was very challenging. It was a lot of demands on me. I was able to finally hire staff and we grew from about a six truck and 20 trailer shuttling operation to a really nice, like 50 tractor, couple hundred trailer operation based around the Midwest. And it was cool. It was awesome. But the downside of that is I’d hit my ceiling over there and I was looking for some different opportunities. I really wanted to get into the technology space because I had started dabbling in the tech with like ELDs because we had to get those into the trucks with our TMS and updating that. As I was looking, this little startup reached out to me called Uber Freight.

Brent – 00:15:32:

I’ve heard of them.

Robert – 00:15:33:

Yeah. They were hiring basically industry veterans to start this stealth piece of their business. And so I went through the interview process there, very grueling, and it became a key moment in my career. I have a final interview scheduled with the guy who’s going to be my direct manager, a guy named Chris Klotzbach. He used to be at C.H. Robinson. He was at Uber. He’s done a lot of really cool stuff with Uber. He’s done a lot of really cool stuff with Uber. He’s done a lot of in the space. And we have an hour-long interview scheduled after I’ve already done almost 10 hours of interviews. And he asked me two questions and he says, cool, we’re going to offer out to you. And a couple of weeks later, I started. And Klotz has become one of the most pivotal mentors in my career. He’s been awesome in helping this guide where I’ve gone and some pitfalls to avoid and help me get into certain doors. So it was incredibly fortuitous for me. But then coming in at Uber during their rise, basically coming right out of stealth into that billion-dollar run in 14 months, it wasn’t real. It was insane. I think my first day, we moved like 250 loads that day for the first time. And four months later, we moved 1,000 loads in a day. But within all that, I learned all this different technology. Because again, you’ve got some of the best and brightest minds in tech startup in San Francisco that are all out working on your stuff. So it was great to bring those together with all these industry experts and veterans and start to build really cool things. And that started to really get the hamster on the wheel of like, this tech space within logistics is big and it’s growing. And it’s not going to go anywhere anytime soon. So again, thinking sustainability for my career, I need to get at least in this wave. I may not be able to get in front of it, but at least into it so I can ride this for the next 20, 30 years. And that’s what I started doing. I started educating myself on anything I could when it came to tech within the space, whether it’s TMSs, ELDs, automation, AIs. It was really starting to come through. Started figuring out the blockchain thing, but that kind of fell on its face when it comes to logistics. And so I moved on from there and I worked, I ran the brokerage for Quad Graphics, huge printer up in Sussex, Wisconsin. So I ran the brokerage for a time. I then worked at Shipwell. I was a TMS provider, which was awesome. Because then I got to go behind the scenes of some of the tech and really get deep in that. And so that was excellent. From there, I started consulting and started working with some great organizations like Metafora, helped to start a stealth startup here in Chicago for about a year. I needed an operations person. And so I was able to come in and do some stuff there. And then, yeah, in 2024, I started at GLCS. And all that all comes together where I’m able to bring, especially from a broker’s perspective, every operational C. And even on the carrier side, I sat in basically every operational C. I’ve driven the trucks. It’s like I’ve sat everywhere. And so I can speak the language. I know what they’ve done. I know what to do. And then I bring that tech background too of like, all right, how can we apply this to make their lives more efficient? And so that’s really what I’ve mashed all that together into this consulting, advisory, and technology expertise in what I do with my career now.

Brent – 00:18:15:

Well, it’s interesting when you said Metafora, it kind of all came back to me. I think that’s maybe where I ran into you the first time. So good friends with all the guys over there at Metafora.

Robert – 00:18:23:

Yeah, they’re doing great things. Ryan and Peter are their top-notch folks. And anybody that works with them, they’re in good hands.

Brent – 00:18:29:

Yeah, for sure they are. For sure they are. All right. So you decided to take the job at GLCS because of a lot of your experience in the marketplace. And so I’m not looking for a great detailed explanation of GLCS, but you specifically take a certain approach when you’re doing consulting. So, like, for instance, like, how many years have you been in transportation?

Robert – 00:18:48:

I’m going on year 19.

Brent – 00:18:49:

Okay. So you were way past being an experienced sort of expert at freight movement and freight transportation. So one of the things that I think is unique is when you can bring that experience into someone else’s operation and help them understand kind of like these are sort of industry standards. These are things maybe you should do more of. These are things you should do less of. And I know that you bring that in to the businesses that you’re consulting with at GLCS. Talk about your approach to designing those things.

Robert – 00:19:14:

So we start typically, again, from a tech perspective. Also, our focus is around your tech stack and how you can improve that and make it run better. The biggest thing when it comes out is you have a lot of folks, especially over the last three or four years, there’s all these shiny objects out there, right? You’ve got this tool and that one, and this one is going to be the silver bullet that fixes your business. This one’s going to drive you in dollars worth of revenue for you. So try to calm all that noise. Like, all right, this is what you need. You need a TMS. You need some freight paying audit. You need financials. You need a CRM. And there’s a couple other communications tools you need. And like, let’s pare it down to say, okay, now these are nice to have. Do you still want them? And then cool. How do you use them? And then overarching over all that is how do you keep all this stuff secure? Because what I’ve found, I’m sure you’ve seen this too. You guys working in technology. There are so many tech stacks out there that are basically like a Jenga tower. They’re just, they’re just waiting for one thing to fall.

Brent – 00:20:07:

For sure, they are.

Robert – 00:20:07:

And it’s not a knock on anybody. I mean, let’s be real. Most tech professionals in transportation are just converted to that race as people.

Brent – 00:20:14:

Yeah. A lot of them are. Yeah.

Robert – 00:20:16:

Yeah. And they’ve done great work. And again, I take nothing away from any of those folks, but there’s a difference when you have somebody who’s got a computer science background and has extensive training in that and somebody who’s slung freight and figured out how to do some ones and zeros on key point in 2010.

Brent – 00:20:29:

Right.

Robert – 00:20:29:

Big difference. So, so knowing that’s where we started, like, all right, like where are you guys at? What’s the level you want to be at? What does utopia look like? And then we start to work backwards from there. But also what it is is like the technology is going to get you there. And how do we make sure that the dollars you spend. On that are actually being spent well and not just going off into ether.

Brent – 00:20:47:

Yeah, for sure. So you have a couple of different approaches. I remember one of the things you were talking about, your carrier network assessment approach. Talk a little bit about that because I think that’s unique. And then I want to ask you a question about being just being a consultant in general.

Robert – 00:20:59:

Yeah, yeah. So with our network assessment, this is all designed around, you look at all the fraud that’s out there right now. And I don’t point a finger at any load boards or anything else out there. Like there are bad guys out there. They want to get freight. They want to get stuff for free. That’s what’s going on. And they’ll take any tool they can to get it. And so knowing that and knowing that realistically, we’re always one to two steps behind them. How do we make it more difficult for them to be bad to us? So when we look at a carrier network, we will look at the type of freight that’s being run. We’ll look at the type of carriers. We’ll look at where they’re based. So we look at their statistically. This is where you’re going to be more exposed. And then we look at the processes and we look at the technology tools. So whether that’s going to be your carrier vetting, that’s going to be your highways, your freight validates, your verified carriers of the world. How are you utilizing that? Because ultimately, if you truly don’t know. Who you’re doing business with, then you’re exposing yourself, your business to way more than you realize. And I’m not going to go on a Matt Leffler type of talk when it comes to legal stuff. But when you look at all these different verdicts that are going on right now, all it’s going to take is one Supreme Court decision. This is, yes, we can transfer the responsibility to a broker. And that becomes a landmark case that now every broker is on the hook for every single load for all dollars and for all eternity. That’s a problem. So how do you mitigate that and make it so that even if that happens, your business could still run? And you’re not necessarily going to be as exposed to everything.

Brent – 00:22:17:

Yeah. Before we swap into the consulting question, I know you mentioned something about the three pillars. That was such sage advice. So Freight Nation, get a pen handy if you got one and write these three things down because I thought these were unique. If you’re okay to share them. Absolutely. I’ll talk about the three pillars and then I’ll ask you the question. And then I want to shift into the Broker Carrier Summit, which is another brainchild of you and a few pals. Let’s talk about the three pillars.

Robert – 00:22:41:

So three pillars of operations. It’s going to be Extreme Ownership, customer experience, and free cash flow. So I start with that. And whenever I tell people that, they go, okay, that makes sense. Cool. What’s important is these three things are intertwined. If you’ve never read the book Extreme Ownership, I’m telling you right now. And by the way, I don’t get paid by Jocko. I don’t get any kind of kickbacks. Go buy it. Go get it. Listen to it. Read it. I don’t care. It’s an easy read. It’s very simple. But the lessons in there are huge. But the concept is everything is controllable. Even the things you don’t believe are controllable. I explain this to my children sometimes. Like, well, somebody didn’t tell me information. Did you ask about it? Well, I didn’t know I had to. Assume you have to. Assume no one’s going to give you anything and you have to go and take it in the proper ways. And then if you say, hey, I told somebody this, but they didn’t do it right, go, okay. That means you didn’t explain it well enough. That’s on you. And that’s a tough lesson for anybody to hear. Like, well, I explained it well enough for me. Like, great. Your understanding and your lens of the world is different than mine. If I tried to explain to you how to get under a thousand pound squat, you’re not going to grasp that. You’re not. Because I just have a different lens I see that through. Versus like if you’re going to tell me how to run a marathon, nope, not happening. So knowing that you have to be able to equate those things, that Extreme Ownership, knowing that I can control everything, also means that when things do go bad and you do a post-mortem, you go, okay, I know moving forward, I change this, I do this. And it creates a flywheel of constant improvement. So that’s one. Customer experience. The customer isn’t always right, but the customer still needs to pay you. So you need to make sure they feel right.

Brent – 00:24:05:

Yeah.

Robert – 00:24:06:

Customer experience is paramount. Your intent means nothing. Their experience is paramount.

Brent – 00:24:10:

Oh, yeah. There you go. Oh, that’s a great way. Say that again. Say that again.

Robert – 00:24:14:

Your intent means nothing. Their experience is paramount.

Brent – 00:24:17:

Oh, listen up, Freight Nation. So important. All right, so important.

Robert – 00:24:22:

So it’s big there. So understanding that when you own everything, that means you also own your customer’s experience. See how this is all going to start to play together.

Brent – 00:24:29:

That’s true.

Robert – 00:24:29:

When customers have great experience, even if it’s not the ideal outcome, one, they still pay their bill, but two, they continue on as a customer and that creates a floor where you continue to build off of in a base that you do with your business. That then goes into free cash flow. You own everything, you get great customer experience, they pay their bill, and you make sure that you have cash running. Cash flow is so important in a brokerage business. Let’s be real. If you move a load, you get $1,200 from your customer, you pay a carrier $1,000. Carrier most times expect to get paid in seven days, right? They need a quick pay, whatever it’s going to be. You’re holding the bag for 30 days with your customer, at least. And a lot of them are sending out to 60 days, so you better have good cash flow. And that’s something that I pulled from, actually, customer experience and free cash flow from the Amazon way. Talk about Jeff Bezos’ leadership as he grew Amazon. And he always talked about in his letter to investors, I don’t care about profits right now. I don’t care about revenues. I don’t care about margins. What I care about is free cash flow. My free cash flow is what we can actually spend on everything. If that is done right, and then you take it back. If the cash is right, that means I can invest in my customer experience. I can invest in my people through bonuses, through incentives. And when they are incentivized to own everything and they get it, they continue to own everything, which creates a good customer experience, which creates more free cash flow. These three things, you can build everything else around them. But when one of these three, three pillars goes away, the house starts to crumble.

Brent – 00:25:47:

Yeah, for sure. Wow, man, that’s some great advice. Freight Nation, I hope that you took those down. If not, please rewatch this again and write it down because that’s three great pieces of advice. I’ve been doing this business thing for a long time, back to even when I was working for my dad as a very young man, back when I had lots of curly brown hair. It’s always about those three things, man. It’s always about those three things. I love it. Absolutely love it. Real quick, if somebody wanted to be a consultant, what’s the first piece of advice you’d give them? What’s the elevator pitch? You tell them I’ll be in a consultant.

Robert – 00:26:16:

Start learning more than you need to.

Brent – 00:26:18:

Oh, yes, sir. That’s a fantastic one. Yeah.

Robert – 00:26:22:

Start doing the stuff way before you need it. No different than when you start networking, build your network before you need it. Right. I have been very lucky that if I’ve ever had to transition roles, whether it’s my choice or somebody else’s, I haven’t had to do a traditional job interview in almost 10 years.

Brent – 00:26:35:

Yeah. Yeah, me either. That’s fantastic. All right, look, we got about 12, 13 minutes left. And I do want to cover the endeavor that you and a few of your close friends started with this broker care or something. Because look, I saw all the emails and stuff out there. Didn’t go to the first one. And I went to the one in Kansas City and I was blown freaking away by, my gosh, the genuineness of the event itself and how you guys were creating into it. Tell me how you guys came up with this. And I kind of know a little bit about it, but tell the Freight Nation watchers and listeners, what was the why behind this?

Robert – 00:27:09:

So I met Dan Lindsey at an event in Las Vegas in early 22. We disconnected, like, we were two peas in a pod. And, I talking about consulting stuff because that was my role at that time. And they really weren’t in a place at that time the brokerage he was running that they would need or want consulting services. But I’m like, hey, like I’m going to be at TIA in April in San Diego. Like, let’s grab a drink. So we went to the kickoff event and just hated it. The venue, it was great because they maximized the space, but it was just crammed full of people. And I’m like, I need out of here, man. I’m going to lose it. And he agreed. So we went, we grabbed dinner and then we ended up at the San Diego Whiskey House. And I always preface everything with that. Like we’ve got there, he and I are both whiskey guys. And I do, let’s go check it out. 4,000 bottles of whiskey from all over the world. You got Indy, you got, you know, Chinese with Japanese whiskey, Scotch, which are both the Scotch guys. So we’re talking and I’m like, dude, what do you want to do? Like, I’m in this weird spot too. Like I’m about to turn 40. What do you want to do when you grow up? He’s like, I don’t know, man. And as we start talking, he’s like, I’ve had this idea for a few years. It might go on. It’s like, ah, it’s crazy. It’s silly. So I just keep pushing him drinks to get him to get Dan to talk about it. But he’s like, I want to do like a conference or like a symposium, like something that there’s no shippers. We’re not worried about customer stuff necessarily. Do brokers and carriers hate each other, but they need each other. How do you make this work? I want to do some, like, I don’t know. And I remember talking about it. I’m like, I’d be like some kind of broker carriers, some like the BCS as they were getting rid of the BCS in college football and bringing the college football playoff. He’s like, yeah, that sounds cool. I’m like, dude, you know what, man? You ever do something like that? Call me. And that’s the lesson learned. If Dan Lindsay ever gives you an idea and you say that, he’s going to call you. So a few months later he did. And he’s like, Hey, April 23, where did I do this? I’m like, Oh, this is a thing. Okay. So he reached out to me, to Troy Wheaton, Linus Express, a couple other folks, and Matt Annis. And we put together this thing and it was, it’s emotional when I think about it. Cause you’ve seen how it’s grown.

Brent – 00:29:00:

Yeah. You hear about it. Yeah.

Robert – 00:29:02:

There were 35 people at the first one in Indianapolis. And then we had like 35 watching online. The stream was terrible. It was absolute garbage. We had no production. No. We literally were doing it from a laptop. The mics didn’t work in the hotel. It was just crazy. And we had done. And it was great. And everybody’s shaking hands. It’s like, hey. And Dan’s like, Hey, I got the cigar bar. I always go to here in Indy. Let’s go. And that 20 minute drive, our phones go ballistic. Text messages, DMs. Also, dude, when’s the next one? This is awesome. All these people are talking about it. And I’m like, what have we done? Fast forward to October 23 and we’re in Tampa and there’s almost 250 people there. And then you saw in Kansas City and then here in Fort Worth, we just had in October 496. And to go from, so in essentially 18 months to go from 35 people to almost 500. And the whole idea of it was how do we bridge this gap? How do we create lasting partnerships? How do we. Back that relationship piece of the business. The rest is tender and freight, changing appointments, all that stuff that the bots can do. How does Bain Logistics and trucking, how do we work together? So am I moving? I grow your business. If I can get you enough that you got to go buy another truck, dude, how awesome is that? And that’s what we’re building. And we want this community because at the end of the day, if we are a random broker and meet each other on a load board, it’s a little easier sometimes to break that connection, whatever. But no, man, we’ve broker read together. We know each other. We have face-to-face. And so that personal connection is such a big difference in business. Because I’ve heard what my dad taught me this years ago, all things being equal, people do business with friends. All these being unequal, they still do business with friends. And so that’s what I want. And that’s what I saw the Broker Carriers I’m being able to do is let’s create this basic friendship network. And this isn’t all kumbaya stuff, but that pushes these businesses forward and all the bad actors, dude, go deal with the scraps, have fun.

Brent – 00:30:50:

Well, you know what’s funny about Freight Nation, that’s another great piece of advice. Talked about the relationship in this, and I’ve been talking about relationships for a long time within the industry and how important they are. And I go back to what I was taught back in 1998 by one of the greatest leaders I’ve ever been around. And it was the CEO of the media company I worked for that was in transportation. And he said, people do business with people that they like, that they know, and that they trust. If they don’t like you, they can’t know you. If they don’t know you, they won’t trust you. So you got to have the relationship. So thank you so much for saying that, man. So that’s exciting to see that event grow. I know we were heavily involved in the one in, well, we were beginning to get involved in Kansas City and then we’re heavily involved in Fort Worth. And I was really impressed by the event, just in its desire to kind of continue to connect both the two entities, both the carrier and the brokerage company in the marketplace. So I look, we got enough time to talk about, it’s about the mindset. Cause here’s the thing for a nation. I want you to hear Robert’s heart about his mindset in this, because he does something that there’s like only a handful of people in the market. And I want you to hear Robert’s heart about his mindset in this, because On the description that my team put together, one said very strong human. The other one said, he lifts and moves things. I’m like, is he a Ford trucker? What’s the deal? No, he’s got the nickname, the earned nickname, strongest man in logistics. And so I love that nickname, but there’s a whole lot around it. So Robert, talk to the Freight Nation watchers and listeners, like why you have that nickname and why you care about why that’s important in your life and in your business.

Robert – 00:32:24:

So when soccer was done for me, I needed something. I was getting older. I started lifting weights when I was 18 and got big quick. I was a buck 50 when I graduated high school.

Brent – 00:32:34:

How did that affect your suffering? You got, but you got-

Robert – 00:32:37:

Very well. It was awesome, but it was great. Now all of a sudden I go from being 150 pounds. I graduated high school. So I’m 225, my senior year of college. And I’m just this little meatball running around as over context that you’ve met me now. And you’ve seen like, so I walk around 270 now. So like it’s a lot of, but as I get older, I’m going to be a little bit more like, the mileage is wearing. And so I needed to find something. I met this guy at the YMCA, long story short, he bullied me into doing my first meet. I do my first meet and I was hooked. I always loved the concept of being strong, but I was hooked on it. And very quickly I was introduced to a group at a gym in Waukee. It was right down the street from where I worked up there. And these people now are some of my best friends. Some people just composed of me, like these four other enormous human beings. And Sean, Bill, Pat, and Steve are some of those important men in my life. So as I started getting pretty good at this stuff. I’m like, man, I could like hit some cool numbers. I just wanted to squat 600 pounds. I knew one other person who ever done it. I just want to squat 600 pounds. I think it’d be really cool. And I did that with no supportive equipment, nothing on my knees, no drugs. And I was like, this is cool. Like this is dope. And I started getting exposed to a much more extreme niche of a niche, which is multiply power lifter or equipped lifting. And that’s, I started seeing the numbers that are just insane. Like I met people that squatted 1200 pounds. I met women that squatted 800, 900 pounds. I’m meeting guys who bent a thousand pounds. Like this is cool. Like, I don’t know if I could do this or not, but I want to try. So I made the decision in 2020 that I was going to jump over to the dark side and jump in the gear. And I started learning it. And like my first time really like going super heavy in a pair of squat briefs, I squatted 910. And my friend slash coach, Sean, is like, you could do like some real damage, right? Like seriously. And so my very first time in a squat suit, this is full gears. I’ve got my knee wraps on. I’ve got the squat suit, all kinds of squat of the thousand nine pounds. And it’s training. So it’s all practice. We’re talking practice. But now I’m like, I can do this. It’s like to your point of like only a handful of people can do it. Less than 400 people have ever squatted a thousand pounds in competition. And I’m like, I’m going to be one of those people. I’m going to do this. And I had it in my head when I first started powerlifting. Because I watched a thousand pound squat at my first ever meet. And I’m like, that would be really neat. I don’t know if I could do it, but it’d be really neat if I could do it.

Brent – 00:34:41:

Right, right.

Robert – 00:34:42:

So I started going down that path. One of the things I always thought about, my parents told me this when I was a kid, is outside of school and your family, you need to find something.

Brent – 00:34:51:

Yeah, I agree. I always said that too, yeah. Yeah.

Robert – 00:34:53:

And that’s what had me going to soccer. Like for my dad, as long as it’s legal, we’ll support you a hundred percent.

Brent – 00:34:58:

Yeah, for sure.

Robert – 00:34:58:

Because for me, they needed to say that. So as an adult, I’m like, I still need that. I need something that I can be in the pursuit of. And I know like, hey guys in their thirties, what’s it going to be? It’s going to be either some hobby sport, World War II documentaries, or smoking meat. I’m like, well, I like smoking meat, but I don’t want to go buy all this stuff. And I like watching documentaries. I can do that on my own time. So I’m going to pick up this silly hobby sport. And that’s what I did. So what’s cool though, is that I’ve now, I’ve coached my oldest daughter for years. She’s, she’s a mom now. And so she’s focused on that, but I coached Lily to three world titles, six national titles.

Brent – 00:35:27:

Wow. Yeah.

Robert – 00:35:29:

Yeah. Which is incredible. It was a great way for me and her to bond. My youngest son, Nolan, he’s 16. He’s a junior in high school. I’ve coached him for a few years. He’s now on the powerlifting team at his high school. I’m going to be volunteering with them. So like, I’m getting to have this time with my children and connect with them, which is incredibly important, but they’ve also watched me do this. They’ve watched the process. Like they see dad go through the recovery process and they’ve been there and they watched the victories and it’s been super cool. And so when I hit that thousand pound squat, like the whole family went crazy. Like, this is amazing. This is so cool. Our dad did this. So after that meet where I squat a thousand pounds, I went through two years where I did not complete a meet. I bombed out of three straight meets, all high level professional invite only. And I spent a lot of money to go travel to them. I got dusted. And looking back on that now, I did finish and finish very well in November. I’ll talk about those numbers in a second. My kids watched me persevere. Do you have 42 years? I’ll be 43 in March. Like it had been so easy for me to quit. Especially like my granddaughter was born in January of last year. Like every reason to stop doing this crap. It kills my body. It’s painful. Like, but I know I’m not done yet. And this sounds really hokey, but like, I don’t want to die with the music inside me still.

Brent – 00:36:37:

Yeah. Oh, that’s a good way to put it. I like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert – 00:36:40:

And I heard that from some people years ago and it’s always really stuck with me. So my kids had to watch that. And so then it comes to November and I do this meet and I squatted 1151. I bent 611 and I pulled 705 ties. My biggest deadlift I’ve ever done in the meet. But 611 was a one pound PR, which is awesome. Like to do that.

Brent – 00:36:57:

It was a PR, man. Yeah.

Robert – 00:36:57:

Yeah. I got it. And then the squat was a 116 pound PR and 1151. So for context, less than 400 people have ever squatted a thousand pounds. 82 people ever squatted 1100 pounds ever. In my weight class, 275 class, I am number seven all time.

Brent – 00:37:13:

Wow. First off, that’s a, congratulations. It’s a fantastic, incredible accomplishment. Talk about how trying really, really hard things like that. Difficult things, mental and physical. How that helps shape your mindset. And then we’re going to close right on that mindset statement on how those really, really hard things. And with that athletic mind that you had growing up and still are, how does that shape your mindset as you go about your every workday?

Robert – 00:37:36:

So I have the audacity to believe I can do anything.

Brent – 00:37:40:

Yeah. Amen to that.

Robert – 00:37:41:

But I also have the humility to realize that like, it’s not going to be given to me and I need to recognize those that have helped one. That’s huge. Cause I don’t do this alone. That’s why I mentioned Sean, Bill, Pat and Steve. And the rest of the whole fact, like I don’t do any of that without them. I don’t do any of this stuff without Nikki, Austin, Lily, Nolan, and Ella. I used to do none of this stuff without them. But again, it’s having the audacity to believe that I am the baddest dude in every room I walk in that I can do anything.

Brent – 00:38:05:

Well, I don’t know if I could back it up and say what you do, but I kind of feel that way.

Robert – 00:38:07:

But hey, if you rule it with me, you’re fine.

Brent – 00:38:09:

Well, Robert, man, thank you so much for ending on that. There’s a great chapter in one of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, I believe, David and Goliath, where it talks about the mindset of things. And when you have a mindset on something, it’s amazing what you accomplish. When you know you are good at something, I don’t mean from an arrogant standpoint, I just mean the confidence to pursue it. And when you have confidence to pursue something, man, great things come out of it. Obviously, as you talked about your career, all the way from being a young man and a soccer player through logistics, being a young dad, navigating that and doing it well, and then kind of continue to pursue all the logistics to this consulting part of what you’re doing with GLCS. The idea that all of that’s wrapped into, and you’re powerlifting everything that you do, that’s all wrapped into the same person that we’re looking at on the screen here, which is it takes all parts of you to great success. And I think that’s what I take away from Robert. Robert, your story is awesome. So thank you so much for just telling it. And I really appreciate you being on the show today.

Robert – 00:38:59:

Absolutely. It was an honor to be here in Freight Nation. I’m excited to see all y’all out on the road.

Brent – 00:39:03:

Hey, man. Well, Freight Nation, back them up at the Broker Carrier Summit. If you need something with GLCS, give them a call, that sort of thing. But it’s really important, Freight Nation, when you look at these things under your mindset and how you prepare your day. And so Robert is a perfect example, a flying example of somebody with humility, but also with drive to go and get it done. Well, all right, Freight Nation, that’s a wrap for this episode. Man, I really appreciate you being here with us today. And don’t forget, as we say on Freight Nation, Robert is a great example of work hard, work really hard, but be kind, all right, and be kind. And remember, he said this too, stay humble. It’s important to stay humble because great things happen to people that are humble.

Robert – 00:39:38:

Just remember kids, you can never outlift me in a bottle.

Brent – 00:39:41:

That’s right, David, to that. All right, Freight Nation, we’ll catch you the next time. Thanks a lot. On behalf of the Truckstop team, thanks for listening to this episode of Freight Nation. To find out more about the show, head to truckstop.com/podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes. Until then, keep on trucking and exploring the open roads with Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast.

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