Standing Out: A Podcast About Sales, Marketing and Leadership
Standing Out is a show created to help individuals and companies improve their sales & marketing outcomes, as well as their leadership development. Each episode we have an expert who has a unique perspective on sales, marketing and/or leadership providing insights from his or her experiences. And we throw in a few laughs from time to time. Be sure to hit Subscribe wherever you listen to our podcasts.
Standing Out: A Podcast About Sales, Marketing and Leadership
Standing Out with Whitney Cowell: Gymnastics Coach to Marketing Maven
Ever wondered how a gymnastics coach transitions to leading strategy at a top marketing firm? Whitney Cowell, the Director of Strategy at Virago Marketing, joins us to share her unique career journey into to the vibrant world of marketing. This episode is packed with insights, personal stories, and exciting announcements you won’t want to miss!
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
What's up everybody? Look at that new intro. So excited to have you with us today, man. That was fun to see that. Welcome to Standing Out a show about sales, marketing and leadership. I'm Trey Griggs, your host, so excited that you are with us today.
Speaker 1:Just a couple of things as we get started. You guys know that we love Reads Across America. We love Reads Across America and if you've not checked this out, december is just around the corner, everybody, so make sure that you go to reeseacrossamericaorg forward slash standing out. That's our page. They gave us a page and this is a page where you can donate and sponsor a wreath that's going to be laid on the tomb of a veteran the second weekend of December and you can sign up to also participate in that event as well. We'd love for you to be a part of that, so make sure that you go to again reeseacrossamericaorg forward slash standing out and sponsor wreath. We would love that. We'd love to have you participate with us with an amazing organization that really is all about remembering our veterans and teaching the future generations about the sacrifice that they made. Also, if you are listening to us right now on reads across America radio, thank you so much for tuning in. We love being a part of their trucking Tuesday uh lineup every Tuesday with great shows like this one today. And so again, thank you so much for watching. If you're not familiar with that, you can check that out as well at reasonacrossamericaorg. Check out the radio station. A lot of cool stuff going on over there, a lot of good shows over there, including my good friend Nate Johnson and the Driving Forward podcast also on the lineup.
Speaker 1:Finally, a big announcement today, before we get started on the show, we got a new sponsor on the show, and that is my good friend Josh Lyles over at sales-crm. Now listen, folks, not all CRMs are equal. If your CRM was not built with freight brokerage sales in mind, don't forget to check out our friends over at sales-crm. It's built specifically for freight brokers and freight agents. So manage your shipper prospecting and follow-ups with the best CRM in the industry. You can check it out by going to betaconsultinggroupcom. Forward slash standing dash out. Standing dash out. You can learn about the show, but you can also fill out a form there to have a demo consultation. Somebody from Josh and his team will reach out and schedule that with you. So, again, check it out at betaconsultinggroupcom.
Speaker 1:Forward. Slash standing. Dash out. Fill out the form and you can learn more about sales. Dash crm, a phenomenal product that josh is building and making a lot of waves in the industry, which is really exciting. So thank you for the sponsorship and for the support as well. All right, folks, it's time to bring on our guest today. I have known this gal for quite a while. She's doing some amazing things in the industry, working at a freight brokerage and now she's working in a marketing agency helping a lot of freight brokerages and a lot of companies in the industry. So please, please, welcome to the show my good friend from Virago Marketing, the director of strategy, whitney Cowell. What's up, girlfriend? Hey, it's good to see you. How are you doing? I love this little throwback. This is kind of a throwback here, a little Hall Oates this morning we actually played this at our wedding.
Speaker 2:It's a fun sentimental song for me.
Speaker 1:Nice. That's cool. That is definitely a throwback. I didn't know what song you were going to go with, because they're always unique. I love that. That's one thing I love about our show is our guests get to pick the songs. I would not have picked a Hall of Notes song for you, but kudos to you, my friend. That's a great, great track. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm great, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me on the show.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to have you because you've gone through some stuff, recently made a transition, and you're somebody I've known for a while. I think we met, was it TMSA? Was that?
Speaker 2:where we met, or was it before that? I can't remember. Tmsa yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the very first one that I got to emcee, which was awesome, and got to meet you and so many other people. Tmsa, let's just say it is a phenomenal organization, the people that are there, great spirit, great collaboration. I mean, there's not a stranger in the place.
Speaker 2:Call me a bias. It's somebody on the board that serves on a couple of committees, but it is a phenomenal organization and I'm really looking forward to the next event. It's actually in October the Executive Summit.
Speaker 1:Right In New York. Well, New Jersey, but close enough, close enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last year's event was phenomenal. I'm excited to see what happens this time around.
Speaker 1:For us Midwesterners, new York, new Jersey, pretty much same thing. I mean upstate New Jersey. I should say not, not Philadelphia, new Jersey, but anyways, yeah, no, that that's awesome. Yeah, it's going to be great. The last year's event was awesome. I know Corey Shearer spoke last year. I've got some other headliners this year that are awesome and, let's just be honest, jennifer Carpenter Romaine doing a great job with the organization. She's a phenomenal leader.
Speaker 2:Couldn't agree more with that.
Speaker 1:So good, All right. Well, let's talk about you. Let's jump into this. I learned something about you I didn't know. This is pretty cool. I didn't know that you held two jobs for many years coaching gymnastics and competitive cheer.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know that. How's that not come up yet? Were you a competitive cheerleader? Competitive gymnastics? How did this all start? I did both. I never did a sport that involved like of all of any sort. So I grew up, you know dancing, and then I migrated into gymnastics and I did that for like nine years and put what I learned to use in competitive cheer and that was my first job, actually my very first job. I worked in retail for one day and that didn't pan out.
Speaker 2:And then I found myself back in a gym and for a while that's how I lived. That's how I supported myself on my own, without a roommate, was working two jobs. And I just love being in that environment and it was incredibly fun doing the competitive side of things and, yeah, a little bit of travel.
Speaker 1:Those are good memories, the two job days. I remember that. I mean, I was a nighttime janitor at one point. At one point I had five part-time jobs Not the same time, but within one calendar year, five part-time jobs and I was going jobs not the same time, but within one calendar year, five part-time jobs, and it's gonna go from one to the next. Try to figure life out. Those are really fun times. Now I will say this some people will say, brittany, that cheerleading is not a sport, but I am on your side on this. My wife was a cheerleading coach and I got to see it up close and personal, especially the competitive aspects of it. Man like the, those squads are impressive.
Speaker 1:Like the ones especially that are really good with tumbling and really good with, you know, the aerials and all that stuff, just so good yeah, anybody that says it's not a sport has never tried it we're very close to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I've never tried cheerleading either, but well, I will say this. I will say this I have done some of the old saturday night live skits with will ferrell and uh oh, I can't remember her name right off the top of my but they did some of the cheerleading skits back in the day. You might be too young for this. You have to go YouTube this. I don't know if you remember these or not, but these are actually quality cheerleading skits back in the day. I have done some of that but but I haven't actually tried it. But my wife was the coach at a high school here locally when we first got married. I got to watch up close man like just the practice, the intent, the focus on deep, like it was amazing. I was so impressed, got a whole new vision of that. Now we also share something else, whitney, and that is I am a former gymnast. I don't know if you know this or not. I did not know that.
Speaker 2:I did Okay, what age were you when you stopped.
Speaker 1:Five. Now ask me what age I was when I started.
Speaker 2:Probably five.
Speaker 1:Five, probably five, maybe four, maybe four. I did gymnastics. I have one funny story and then we're going to move on. So I was terrible. I mean, I was terrible, all right, and I had a meet and my mom was taking pictures at the meet and I was about to do the vault my worst event and I went over to my mom and I said please don't take a picture of this. I was so embarrassed I was like don't take a picture of this. Right, it was the only event that I did. Well, I got third place.
Speaker 2:I never, ever placed.
Speaker 1:in my entire career this was a very small super small meet and normally I was getting like 15th, 16th, 17th, I mean. You know they give ribbons to everybody, it seems like. But I actually did. Well, it was just a just a jump over. It was no like flippering, it was just a jump over the vault type thing. But I cleared it, I didn't trip and I landed it and I got third and it was the only thing my mom didn't take a picture of was me vaulting that day.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I think I got rid place ribbon a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1:Finally let it go. Finally let it go. Oh, it's so funny. But yeah, I do love gymnastics and I still love gymnastics this day, like gymnastic movements, I love pull-ups, I love things that just require body movements and things like that. So we have that in common as well. My friend, I know, learned a lot today, big stuff, all right. So let's talk a little bit about your career. You were at KCH Transportation for a long time right there in Chattanooga some good friends of ours over there and recently you made the move and you're now with our friend Jenny Malafonara. Did I say that right?
Speaker 2:Malafarina.
Speaker 1:Oh, so close.
Speaker 2:I always think of Ballerina when I think of her last name.
Speaker 1:So with Jenny over there at Virago Marketing and so talk a little bit about that transition from going from a freight broker to now getting a chance to work on many brands.
Speaker 2:It's a huge transition. You know, I started my marketing career actually at Freightwaves and that was more of like the event side and then going into a brokerage. I had no idea what I was doing. I understood how to put together a game plan. One brand is incredibly fun, I feel like. Where some people get overwhelmed is that it can be monotonous, but you get to kind of dive really deep and spread your roots. When it comes to your initiatives and when you're looking into the future, you have a little bit more time and space to really like tease apart what that could look like.
Speaker 2:Now in my current role doing strategy and a lot of account management, I thoroughly enjoy like rolling my sleeves up and doing the work for my clients. It's applying all of that, but tenfold. And anybody would say like if you're going to be in marketing, it's really important to try to get agency experience as well, so that you kind of learn the best of both worlds. And it was a huge transition learning one person's brand to the depth that I'm comfortable with, to then like do their marketing and then immediately throw like three other clients into the mix and have the same expectations of myself. So onboarding, I would say was covered with a lot of grace, but I love it.
Speaker 2:I think it's incredibly fun. I love that I'm working with tech companies. I do have, you know, a couple of people that are more in the logistics category, which I very intimately know at this point. So it's. It's fun doing the two things that I love most, which is truly account management and also marketing strategy. So I feel like it truly is a blend of the strengths that I bring to the table, because retention and retention strategies are something that I am so passionate about, and now I get to do that for people every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's awesome. And you're right. You commented about having the marketing agency experience and how that really impacts If you'd ever did go back to one company. You have that experience now on your record, which I think is awesome to have that. But you also can say very clearly I sat in your seat when you're working with other sales professionals or marketing professionals. I've been in your shoes, I know exactly what you're going through and that's powerful as well when you're at an agency to be able to say those types of things. So I think that's really, really powerful. We're going to start off. We've got a couple of audience questions. I think we're just going to start with that. Today. We've got a couple of people from LinkedIn that wanted to throw a few questions our way and I thought, well, let's we stomping grounds out in Oregon. A good friend of mine, kale. He asked this question If you had $500 to $1,000 a month for ad spend and owned or ran a freight brokerage, where would you put that money and why?
Speaker 2:I would not start with Google ads, unless, if you are only running local, I could cross off the do not do list pretty quickly there. Um, just because I feel like in the brokerage space it is a, it is a dog fight to be on certain landing pages, um, and not necessarily worth it. Now, when you're thinking like very long-term strategy, like maybe allocating in that direction makes a lot of sense, but, um, you know, retargeting is probably where I would start with that using your site traffic.
Speaker 2:And then I would say, if you're a brokerage and you're looking for shippers and not building out your carrier side, then LinkedIn would be a great place to start with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so some targeted ad money on LinkedIn's for shippers. If you are going to use Google ads it needs to be location specific. So maybe you have, like, if you had a, um, a head hall that was, like you know, medford, oregon, down to Bakersfield, california, trying to get back, maybe trying to target ads in Bakersfield, maybe that would make sense from a Google ads perspective. But you think LinkedIn is the best place to do that.
Speaker 2:I do and I never invested really in Google just because it didn't fit our ideal customer profile. It didn't make a lot of sense. You know, I think there is a time and a place for it and kind of diving into the business and the business goals and where the business is at. I could probably speak a little bit more into where we lean into Google. But you know, I think, first and foremost, understanding your ideal customer and not just you have freight and we want to move it, which is something that brokerages tend to lean towards. If you can identify your ideal customer, then your dollars can actually go a pretty long way on LinkedIn ads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I still get emails from people asking me what freight I can move for them and I'm like you haven't done any research at all, because unless you're moving a suitcase, I have literally nothing for you. I have no free to move. Like I don't know why I get those emails, but that's clearly somebody not doing the research ahead of time, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:So, the real answer is hey, Kale, if you want a little bit more detailed answer, reach out to myself, reach out to Whitney, we'll get you connected and whatever, and you can ask this question.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I would love to learn more about the business model to answer that more specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kale's a good dude man, he's just a good. He's an endurance athlete. He does a lot of running, played golf a couple of times. Good guy, really good guy. All right, next question comes from Brett Donaldson with Employment Solutions Ohio. They do workforce solutions for warehousing, distribution, logistics, that kind of thing, and he wants to know what method of communication from sales to prospect are you seeing the highest response rates? Is it calling, texting, email, social media, print or other? Where are you seeing the biggest response rate from communication?
Speaker 2:I mean response. I feel like it depends on your business, right, like sitting at a marketing agency doing sales, like me, making calls, is not going to go anywhere. Um, most of our traffic is going to be inbound, generally from, like LinkedIn. Um, I would say email is a touchy one, and I think email has more potential than we give it credit for because, um, I feel like a lot of people just misuse it. Right, they think it's a wide net to cast out. It's not really specific. They put links in it that put it in spam. So, if used correctly, I think email is incredibly powerful. Linkedin can also be really great if you're using it appropriately. Again, spamming people with email, they're probably going to post things about you and may or may not cross your name out.
Speaker 2:People put others on blast for using email and LinkedIn incorrectly, but I think done correctly. Those are two very powerful tools to leverage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to talk about email for just a second, because I agree with you completely on that. I think the reason why people don't think email that works is because it's generic, it's not talking about problems and it's not telling good stories. Because I'll get emails sometimes and if there's a good subject line or a catchy opening line or if they're speaking directly to something that I'm dealing with today, a lot of times I'll give it a shot. I'll read it and what we found especially like when we did some email marketing for the broker carrier summit back in January, February, March we were sending actually long emails to carriers and they were reading them because the story was good and that was something we learned Like, if you get the right story, talk about the right problems and make it something catchy, people will give you a shot.
Speaker 1:But if it's generic, if it looks salesy, if it feels salesy, if it clearly wasn't written to you or to somebody who knows what you're dealing with, it's just delete. I mean how many times? Just delete, delete, delete. So I think you're right. I don't think people are giving it the credit that it can do because they're not good at it.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, email is one of those things where I feel like it's so tedious that people are just like whatever I'm done with it, and that's really unfortunate because, again, like going back to that ideal customer profile, like if you know who you want to talk to, then you can start refining that message. And when you've got that nailed down and you start seeing results, then you start scaling it. A lot of people want to start wide and then narrow down and that is just unfortunately not a model that's going to work on that type of that like method of communication, that like method of communication. Now, if you're trying to just like smile and dial and you're at a larger corporation, sure, cast a wide net, see what job titles or whatever else you're starting to get more response, more people picking up, but email is just not the place for that. You're gonna get blocked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it happens quite a bit. And you're right, don't put links in the email that oftentimes goes to spam. The best and you're right, don't put links in the email. That oftentimes goes to spam. Uh, the best thing you're looking for there is a reply. You want to get a reply, somebody to say, hey, I'd like to know more about this, or what, what is this? Or yeah, I have that problem. Whatever it might be, I think that's really critical to do that. Talk to me about text for a minute, because I think this is interesting. He, uh, he brought that up.
Speaker 1:Brett mentioned that, like as a consumer, um, I respond to text, actually, I think, a little bit easier than I do emails. Sometimes it's so easy just to kind of, you know, respond quickly, especially if it's something that's paramount. I've bought things before from marketing that's been sent to me. I got a company called prusie out of minneapolis and it's like an overstock apparel company and they'll send me something and if it looks interesting I'll click on. I'll check it out. I've bought stuff that way before. I feel like text is underutilized but at at the same time, it's also like you know. I mean, it's the most personal way that we communicate sometimes. So it's like getting into, kind of jumping into someone's DMs. It's kind of interesting. What are your thoughts about text?
Speaker 2:Oh, text is a tricky one. Um, I I'm actually a big fan of, like, leveraging SMS. I think that if if somebody is actually like, first of all, offering a way to opt out I bought tickets to a concert, I did not opt into receiving text messages and every time that I try to opt out, like three weeks later, it's like I'm thrown back in the queue and I get them again.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, if you're going to do that, give people a way out. But I don't mind text as much. I think there I would actually be less casual in a text than I would be in an email.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, and I think that goes against our nature, which is why text feels very intimidating Because, like you said, it's like sliding directly in their DMs but like worse. Intimidating because, like you said, it's like sliding directly in their DMs, but like worse. It's such an immediate and aggressive approach but I think a lot of people do respond really well to it. As long as you're not like blowing them up or you know every text is a special offer and there's, you know, no variety in the, the messages. I think maybe, like once every other week, checking with somebody is a lot more appropriate than like a two to three times a week cadence yeah, I.
Speaker 1:So I will say this this is interesting about perusia. I just mentioned them. If I click on their link and it takes me to their website and I look at something and I don't buy it, I'll get a text like a couple days later. Later we saw you looking at this. Do you want it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you left without this, are you sure?
Speaker 1:It's pretty sophisticated but it doesn't necessarily bother me so much because I think the deals are worth it sometimes for me to keep that approach. But text is really interesting because that's clearly the fastest way to get ahold of me.
Speaker 2:Without a doubt, and I think it works. Also, depending. It kind of depends on the like, the segment that you're in right Like, I think, a brokerage using text. I don't know that that would get the best responses.
Speaker 2:No, I'm torn on that because I'm a little torn on it too, but, like I just after working there, I think a the training on how to do that would have to be really specific, because at a brokerage, what I've learned is the alignment between sales and marketing and who is going to have what message is something that gets a little muddy. So I think having a lot of clarity if the sales reps are going to be the ones that are managing the opt in and opt out of messaging versus finding, like a phone number on Zoom info or whatever platform you're using typing it in and sending a message versus marketing having like a nurture campaign through SMS.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:That's where I think, at a brokerage like, we may want to sit down and really talk about our goals and our strategies, and the bigger the team is, the tougher that conversation is going to be. Usually, teams are going to be they're going to have leaner operations when it comes to like, especially in like the freight tech. I feel like they're just smaller staff, right yeah, versus these like brokerages that have like 40 sales reps.
Speaker 2:And so it's going to be a little different. If you have a product and the things that you can offer and like to have a demo to book with me, like that kind of message is a little bit different because there's a little more meat to it than there is for a service.
Speaker 1:I tend to agree with you on that and I'd be interested to know if companies out there have tried it. If you've tried this, let us know how this works. I want to know. But I think it would be better coming from the individual sales rep sending out a text message than from a company kind of campaign. I don't feel like the company campaign would be received as well. But I do think that if an individual sends a text message or maybe takes a custom video and sends it out, I do think that would actually hit. But I'd like to know if you've done text messaging campaigns out there, especially as a freight brokerage. Tell us how it went. We want to know. I'm curious.
Speaker 2:A lot of people do get hits when it's the sales rep sending a text, especially if they've tried, like, emailing them and they didn't get a response. Or like, hey, I bet your email is absolutely flooded, so I thought I'd just send you a quick text and see if you're interested in X, y, z.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's it. I want to know. I want to know. Okay, a couple of things about you, and then we're going to jump and have a little bit of fun. So, first of all, one of your favorite quotes. I learned this I didn the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Are you a dreamer, my friend? Are you a dreamer? Are?
Speaker 2:you an eternal optimist. I am such a daydreamer.
Speaker 1:Tell me about one of your dreams Like what do you? What do you think Five, 10 years down the road? What's on there Could be personal, could be professional, what?
Speaker 2:do you got. So I guess, whatever I do, I want it to be meaningful. Whatever I do, I want it to be meaningful. So, like my life motto that I live by is be bold, be kind, be intentional, and I feel like if you do those three things, like you're gonna move through life in a way that is impactful to other people and not just being like a drain, just absorbing everything around you, like I'm able to give back out. And so you know, one of my dreams, I'm actually working in a job that I really wanted to work in, you know, and I'm so glad that I kind of reached that milestone.
Speaker 2:It's something when I started marketing I didn't know about necessarily that I wanted to be an agency life but blending the things that I'm really good at and seeing how I can build relationships with people externally. Again, I really missed that, and so I feel like right now I've kind of checked one off and I do have a couple of others like business related, but I guess not business related and something that I don't know I've ever shared with my network before, unless if I know them personally, they'll do a little announcement here. So in December I think it's going to be in December. I'm launching like my second brand and I've kind of done like a soft launch on TikTok. I don't scroll on TikTok.
Speaker 2:I feel like an old fogey trying to like figure out social media for like my personal self, but I'm launching a second brand called Sober Soul and sharing the things that I have learned in my journey in recovery and hopefully that helps people you know that are not only like impacted by walking through it, but are impacted by watching and loving others that are walking through it. So just the wisdom that I've learned over the years, lessons I've learned with my support team and hopefully you know it gives some encouragement to somebody else.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome. You heard it here first, folks. That's so awesome. I can't wait for this to come out. That's, you know, when you go through tough times which we all do and then you can turn around and give back as a result of that. It's so powerful. You know, you connect with so many people who are either struggling with that or did struggle with that or will struggle, you know, could potentially like. That's really really powerful and thank you for sharing that. That's December. We can look forward that in December. Just a few months away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, um, that's my, that's my month of celebration, and so I think that that's what I'm going to do for myself this year to celebrate.
Speaker 1:But your website? Is there a social media account? Like how can people find out?
Speaker 2:right now I'm just posting short little like snippets on Tik TOK. I'm not sure what else that will look like it may be a Tik TOK handle.
Speaker 1:It's sober soul sober soul, S O B E R S O U L.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:S-O-B-E-R-S-O-U-L. Yeah, beautiful Sober soul. So go check out. Sober soul on TikTok, it may turn into a podcast.
Speaker 2:I don't have like a huge following, but we'll see. We'll see what it evolves to. And that's, you know, something that I've considered for many years now, and I started the mediocre marketer instead because I got a little nervous. It's pretty vulnerable thing to share, and so I've enjoyed that space and decided it's time to really like dive a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1:Good for you. That's so awesome. I love that, and if you do start a podcast, I'm going to be your biggest cheerleader, cause I think those stories need to be shared. The stories that we live are not meant just for us. They're meant to be shared. I really believe that. So I hope you do that. I can't wait for that. That's going to be fun to follow your journey on that. So thanks for sharing about that. That's really cool. I was going to say something else, but it's not. It was apparently wasn't good because it's gone. It's just gone, all right. So we're going to move on from that Now. You also do something. I didn't know about this, but when you travel, you do some coffee meetups. Do you organize it? And have you met anyone that just really left like the really strong impression, maybe surprised you a little bit.
Speaker 2:So okay. So it started in two different ways. So I started at Virago Marketing and Nate that you gave a shout out to at the. It's an incredible little organization, it's like a community group, I would say. They have done like the firm launch of community events. That shook out the first time as like a happy hour, which is very fun. We have some very exciting partnerships with some big industry events to announce in the coming months, events to announce in the coming months. So be on the lookout for that.
Speaker 2:But I decided what I like to do because when I travel I usually do pinpoint one or two people, sit down, have coffee with them, and it's usually somebody in my network that I know is going to be an event that I've never met in person before, but I usually like fangirl over them on social media.
Speaker 2:So I decided to kind of pitch that idea as part of freight movement.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't have to be like something that's sponsored, but instead just a way to sit down and meet people, engage with people in a little bit more of an intimate setting, because at these mega events a lot of times we walk away and say, dang it, I didn't get a chance to meet so and so or it was just so loud I felt like that conversation like it's great, but I may not have had all the conversations I wanted to have, and so I'm kind of just bringing in people from all walks, different areas of the supply chain, different levels as far as you know where they sit in their organization, and allowing us to just have a chat. Right now it's just coffee over lunch. I've just finished the one in Chattanooga. That was my soft launch because I live here. I'm going to Nashville next month, so in two weeks actually I'll be in Nashville and then I'm probably going to jump down to Atlanta because it's a quick drive and hopefully we'll see one in Birmingham as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now are you opening these up and saying I'm going to be there. Who'd you like to meet with me? Or do you have specific people that you reach out to and invite and you already know you want to talk?
Speaker 2:to, so I am just throwing it out on LinkedIn for anybody to see and maybe join. Um, as much as I would love to like handpick everybody that I'm inviting, sometimes I forget who lives in what city, so if that happens to you, I'm very sorry. It's not that you don't mean something to me, but my network has grown over the last few years and so I want everybody to have the opportunity or a friend of a friend to maybe see that that we may have a mutual connection. But I have reached out to about 10 to 15 people to see if they would be interested in joining and I try to do a little bit of research. Maybe I know that they're hiring, maybe I know that they're open to new partnerships and just getting people that may form some sort of bond. You know walking out of that situation or you know, I don't mind bringing competitors into the same space. I feel like we can always learn from one another and usually those are really good conversations that happen around the table.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Have you done a lot of these? Is this new? How many of these have you had?
Speaker 2:Brand new. The one in Chattanooga was the first one, the first official one. I ever since I started going to conferences I have been meeting up with people, but freight movement kind of gave me a platform to do that a little bit more officially, um, with a little bit bigger of a reach well, you're gonna have to come back, like in six months or a year, and tell us some of the stories from these comes.
Speaker 1:There's probably some conversations and some people that are going to just blow you away, so I want to hear about that and how that goes. So that's, that's awesome. Kudos to you. That goes to the intentionality you spoke of earlier how you live your life being intentional. I love that. That's awesome. All right, have to ask you a random question of the day. Have a little fun on the show and then we'll get out of here Today's random question. And again, sometimes they're serious, sometimes they're funny, but here's what it is. Today's random question is what's something that always puts a smile on your face? Oh, this is kind of an easy one Softball. We got to be softball question. Here you go.
Speaker 1:Oh, something that always puts a smile on your face Never fails.
Speaker 2:I love going outside and sitting in the grass with my dogs. It is so simple, so easy, Especially if I take like a snack with me, just being outside in my own little space and just feeling that sunshine without fail. Good mood, bad mood, always leave with a smile.
Speaker 1:In the grass, though. Do you have chiggers Chattanooga Like in the grass? Not have chiggers chattanooga like?
Speaker 2:in the grass, not not in my little like suburban yard good for you. I mean that that was without like with shorts and like not tall socks on and come back with some bites, yeah, yeah I don't know what it is here in missouri, but, man, you lay down in the grass here and you know you'll be.
Speaker 1:you have bites all over the place. But I will say this my, my grandma had the nicest zoysia grass when I was growing up and that was the best grass to lay down on, because it's kind of fluffy, it's kind of soft.
Speaker 2:Like it's springy. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:I remember really enjoying just laying down in her yard. It's a memory that I have back in the day, so I can definitely agree with that. That's a that's a good one. So I always put a smile on your face be outside in the grass with your dog, that's a good one, that's true. I think for me it's gotta be, uh, it's gotta be. When I come home and my family actually wants to see me, like they come up and give me a hug. I love it. I'll say this my daughter's still over. That that's cool, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, whitney, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you for dropping by. Tell us about what you're up to. You're going to have to come back and see us soon. Tell us how the freight movement stuff is going along and how everything else is going. Congratulations on the new opportunity. Again, thanks for hopping into the show. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. We'll see you soon.
Speaker 1:Hey, don't and join another episode of Standing Out, just like this one, with great guests like Whitney. And if you have a great guest you think should be on the show, be sure to let us know. Just reach out to us. You can find us on our website. You can shoot us an email at greatatmissinghustlecom. We'd love to hear from you. And finally, don't forget, we are just months away In fact, weeks away at this point I'm pretty from the Broker Carrier Summit coming to Fort Worth, texas, october 23 through 25. Be sure to sign up for that. Go to BrokerCarrierSummitcom and learn more about that. Be sure to sign up If you want to use the coupon code BETA B-E-T-A. Save you 10% off and we'll see you in Fort Worth in just a few months. Until next time, friends, don't forget. Stop standing still. Start standing out. We'll see you real soon.
