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
Chris Cobb: Lego Disasters to Logistics Triumphs
Dear Founders, CEOs, Leaders,
It's time to let go!
Sincerely,
Your team of trusted colleagues.
There is no single key to success for every business, because success is achieved through your team. Every leader knows this.... but how many leaders truly act on this trust?
In this episode we listen to Christopher Cobb, Founder & President of Select Transport Group, share his experience in growing a business and learning to let go. We dive into the joy of reconnecting with trusted colleagues and the comfort these relationships bring in navigating the challenges of a new company.
With a charming tale of a massive Lego Star Destroyer that faced unplanned demolition during a lively game of hide and seek, you'll discover how this playful incident mirrors the balance between creativity and precision needed in business.
Thank you to our sponsor, Salesdash CRM – A CRM for Freight Logistics. Salesdash CRM is built for freight broker & agent sales teams. Manage your shipper prospecting and follow-ups. Organize your carriers and the lanes they run. Learn more at www.betaconsultinggroup.com/standing-out
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. Welcome back to another episode of Standing Out. I'm Trey Griggs, your host, so glad to have you with us today. This is a show all about sales, marketing and leadership and we are excited that you are with us this afternoon. Hope you're doing well wherever you are, and today we've got a great guest on the show. But before we get to that, a couple of things we want to throw out there. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:We are right upon the precipice of the next broker carrier summit. It's coming up October 23 through 25. I can't believe it's here. It's going to be a phenomenal time. This is the place where deals get done, freight brokers and carriers coming together to talk about the things that ail them in the business, the challenges in the business, but also to find like-minded business partners. Listen, if you're a reefer carrier and you want to find freight brokers that have reefer freight and are going to treat you well, this is the place to be. So make sure you go to brokercarriersummitcom. It's not too late to sign up. You can go and register and use the coupon code BETA B-E-T-A to get 10% off. And when you're there, make sure you come up and say hi, introduce yourself, we'd love to meet you. It's going to be a phenomenal time. Also, if you're a golfer, when you register, sign up for the Post. It is the only two-person team event in the transportation industry. It's one of the most enjoyable events of the year and we give away great swag, awesome giveaways. It's sponsored by our friends over at True North. They do an awesome job with that. So hopefully we'll see you on the golf course and we'll see you at the Broker Carrier Summit in Fort Worth October 23-25. Coming up here in just a few days, it's just crazy.
Speaker 1:Also want to give a thanks out to our partners over at Wreaths Across America for being on their Trucking Tuesday lineup every Tuesday at 6 pm Eastern time. Make sure that you partner with these guys. They're doing amazing work in the space to really honor veterans. Their major event is coming up December 14th. Every year in December they have a nationwide event where you can go and you can lay wreaths at the tombstones of veterans, and it's an incredible time to remember the past and really look forward and teach the next generation about the sacrifices that were made. We would love for you to partner with us. So go to wreathsacrossamericaorg forward, slash standing out, sponsor a wreath and maybe sign up to go and participate during the day. Take your family, take your team. It's an incredible event. So thank you so much to our friends over at Wreaths Across America.
Speaker 1:And finally, before we bring our guest on today, I got to say thank you to our friends over at sales-crm for sponsoring Standing Out. Listen, not all CRMs are created equal, especially when most CRMs are not built with your freight brokerage in mind. Sales-crm is built by freight brokers for freight brokers exclusively. So be sure to visit sales-crmcom or you can learn more about it by going to betaconsultinggroupcom. Forward slash standing, dash out and you can request a demo right there. Make sure you tell them you heard about it right here on Standing Up. All right, it's time to bring our guest on the show today. This guy has done some amazing work in the industry over the past two decades and he's about to jump in and do it again. So please welcome to the show my friend, the founder and president of Select Transport Partners. What's up, buddy?
Speaker 2:How are you? You should have gave me a chance to pick my own hype music.
Speaker 1:Well, I will say I hate to put you on blast, but we did send out a form that you could have filled out. I'm cool with chili peppers, see, I figured you would be, because we're kind of cut from the same cloth, I think from the same era, the same age, and you can't go wrong with chili peppers. So I figured that's a pretty safe place.
Speaker 2:So how are you doing, my friend? How's everything going? I'm good, I'm good, I'm excited. I'm excited to be back in the world of business and ideas and relationships and trying to build something really great, really interesting, really fun.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about that in a minute, but I have to talk about this. Before we came on the air, you started telling me about your Lego collection and what you have up there. You've got a couple behind you right there. When did you get-?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you see the giant, that's the Star Destroyer. That's the like 8,000 piece Lego set. Funny story about that. We built that. So we'll get into this, but I've essentially been retired for the past five years, right? So we built that one over the course of two months and we didn't have a place to put it in our in the main part of our house. So we we hid it underneath, uh, kind of a bench and one night my, my kids had some friends over there playing hide and seek and the kid kicked it and shattered it. Oh, we didn't have the book anymore we had. We took it apart piece by it and shattered it. We didn't have the book anymore. We took it apart piece by piece and rebuilt it from a PDF we found on the internet. So now it's up high where nobody can get it.
Speaker 1:That's right, so it took you two months to build that thing. Yeah, yeah, it's intense man that is crazy. You need an assembly line for something like that. I have four boys.
Speaker 1:So it's essentially so, it's essentially get around the kitchen table and you know I gotta slide around and put parts. That's wild. Yeah, I'm a big fan of legos. I'm more of a fan of legos that is adult than I am as a kid. I don't know if you're that way more interested. Like I'd rather go. Like when we were in new york I had to go to the lego store. I just wanted to go and see some of the crazy stuff that they've got built there godzilla, wild stuff, but it's amazing.
Speaker 2:And I'm a uh, I'm a Beatles fan, so you've gone through the yellow submarine.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, can't go wrong with Legos. My kids have, uh, my kids are 16 and 14 now and every year they have a Lego set on their Christmas list. They want at least one Lego set, and I I can't imagine how much money we've spent on Legos. They've got, uh, they got quite the monopoly going over there. For sure, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:All right, well, let's jump in and talk a little bit about your career, because some people may not know this and I didn't know this. Actually, this is a crazy thing. I've known Armstrong Transport for a long time. Didn't know much about your past though, even though I grew up. You know my industry career started at DAT, so I knew about you guys in that regard. But swag giveaway for your new company, which is Select Transport Partners, and did a nice little thing out there with a new logo, kind of started to get the word out there and those types of things, and now you guys are really starting to go and blow. You acquired a company. Now you're moving forward. Talk a little bit about what you guys are doing today and then we're going to dig into a little bit about your past year career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean we're sort of coming at it in reverse chronological order, but sure, yeah, so select is just, it is sort of the definition of getting the band back together. I mean, essentially I had sold Armstrong, like I said, I was retired, I was looking for something to do, I had some various ideas. I would have been kicking around and nothing really got me fired up and people friends, former coworkers started to reach out to me and said, hey, we really want to want to take another swing at this and we think we can do it. You know different, maybe better in some regards. And so here we are and, yeah, so it's like I said, it's essentially people that I've worked with, you know, for over 10 years, people that really put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the previous company, and we're excited to do it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we are going to go reverse chronological order because it does feel like kind of like a reunion in sorts, like the Eagles coming back out of retirement or, you know, amanda starting starting something up like that again and getting the band back together. There has to be something that's it's really fun about knowing who you're going into business with, knowing what you guys have done in the past, a comfort level and excitement to do that Cause. A lot of times when people start a new company, they often find a partner that they don't know that well, or maybe they try to do it on their own. And you guys essentially are you know, you're veterans, you've done this for a long time. Most of the people that you worked with helped build Armstrong. We're part of that whole legacy. And what does that do for your confidence? What does that do for your excitement level, your enthusiasm to know that the people you're going to war with now are people you've you've been in the trenches with before?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, one thing that I was not expecting, uh when, when I exited Armstrong, was I wasn't expecting to miss the people as much as I did. You know, I loved Armstrong, I loved working there, I loved the business, but it was really the people that I realized I missed shortly after leaving, and so I would. You know, I'd go to lunch with them from time to time or whatever, but it just wasn't the same. But you're right, we spent so long working together. We know each other's personalities. We know when you know Greg, one of our developers, who's very passionate about technology and making great software. We know when he's no longer listening to us and is just spilling his passion, and we know to take a step back and let him get it out, and then we can.
Speaker 2:You know, sort of regroup, um, and the other thing that's nice about it is you know there's an individual, devin, who's our controller and and I was I was able to tap him and just to know that you can turn him loose and I don't even have to think about. You know, cash flow, the bank, like he. Just he owns it. Right, he owns that department and it'll. It frees me up to focus on, you know, the bigger picture, the 10,000 foot view of the company, and that's one. That's one of the things that I did not do very well, the first time around, right?
Speaker 2:So the first time around, maybe I'm getting ahead of ourselves, but I yeah, you know, starting a company is very I describe it as starting a fire. Right, you're trying to rub sort of two sticks together just to get a little ember just to, you know milk, you know baby, and just gently put you know and you're you're nurturing it to try to get it to grow Right, and somewhere along the line that that fire grew and was big, but I was still treating it like it was little ember, like I wanted to reconcile the bank account, I wanted to, you know, drop the checks off.
Speaker 1:You wanted to reconcile the bank account. Man, not too many founders enjoy that.
Speaker 2:I didn't say I enjoyed it, like it was more sort of I knew how to do it, I could trust myself, you know, and I just thought I need to see where every penny is going, and it just took a while to get to a point where I felt comfortable letting that go. I held on to something like that for way too long, right this time around, having faith and trust in the team and the individuals and knowing their skill sets and knowing already, knowing what they're good at, what they're maybe not good at, or whatever. I can take a more, um, sort of like a coach approach or like or like the conductor, right, the conductor of the symphony I'm not down there playing the, the woodwinds or the brass or whatever. Um, I'm trusting them to to run their individual departments and then, you know, trying to keep the overarching, you know message the culture and just sort of carve out the path for this venture.
Speaker 1:It's such a great word picture. That's actually one of my favorite word pictures for business is the idea of conducting, because I had a great conductor in high school and this dude could play every instrument out there. He'd go and show the violinist how to play, he'd show the trumpet players how to play. I mean, he could play literally everything in an orchestra. But he never did. You know, he never. He was always up there making sure that people knew what they were doing and got everybody playing together on the same page. And if he had tried to keep playing instruments, it never would have worked. And this is what I think a lot of us fall into is we still want to play some of the instruments and you have to. At the beginning you got to play it for a little while, but it's like that where do you know when to stop playing and when to really focus on conducting more? And the second time around it's just so much easier to know. Well, I don't need to do that anymore. I can just give that away.
Speaker 2:That's right. I mean the, the, the partners I have at select and the employees. I mean the partners I have at Select and the employees. I mean they've essentially gone through a 10-year job interview for this new venture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it helps you move faster too. I'm sure you probably feel like you guys can run faster now than you ever ran at Armstrong, especially out of the gates. I mean, that's got to be a big part of it as well. Now, you guys, when you started Armstrong back in 2005, I believe Was it 2005- you started that 2006.
Speaker 1:2006. Okay, 2006, okay, okay, pretty close to that time. Um, you guys were you started in charlotte, north carolina, that's where you're headquartered. Everybody was there. Are you taking that same approach this time? Because you know nowadays you start a company in 2024 and it's like do you start it with everybody here? Do you start with remote teams or partly hybrid, and there's drawbacks and benefits to both of those. How are you guys handling that? You know, is it getting everybody? It goes back to that sense of community you talked about earlier. I want to hear about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what's interesting is so I exited Armstrong in 2019. So before COVID, right, and the world completely changed during COVID. I mean, I didn't even get on my first actual Zoom call until maybe like a year ago. Right, because people would be using it, since I just had never had a need right year ago. Right, because people would be using it, since I just had never had a need, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I wasn't in the world of business during the time of COVID.
Speaker 2:So when we began to formulate and to launch Select, the question was are we going to have an office, are we going to be totally virtual? And we actually do have an office because, like you mentioned, we acquired a company called Aegis Logistics Group here in Matthews, north Carolina, right outside of Charlotte. They were a small five-man company doing about $10 million in revenue and brokerage. So we bought them to rebrand and to launch Select on top of and we sort of inherited an office lease with the purchase of the company. So we do have office space, sort of inherited an office lease with the purchase of the company. So we do have office space, but to your point, you know, I think the biggest. So all of our contacts are all here, mostly in Charlotte.
Speaker 1:We do have.
Speaker 2:Tom, who's a recruiter, who lives in Chicago, but really the key players are here in the Charlotte region. So I'm not opposed to people spread out remote. We just all happen to sort of be in the same area I was going to make a comment about. I think the biggest hurdle to remote work versus sort of like a virtual company or virtual office versus actual physical office is when it comes to training new hires, right?
Speaker 2:so, um, you know you so much of training somebody? I think a lot of it. It helps to be in the same room, have a whiteboard, have somebody looking over your shoulder as you do it. Can you be trained remotely? Sure, but I think it ends up being slightly less effective. Luckily, this time around we're not doing a whole lot of training, at least in this phase, because again, sort of everyone's bringing the skillset art that they already have to the table.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost like you're working in two different worlds. You exit in 2019, now you jump in now and everything, like you said, has changed. I think it's. You know, I would say it's more than training sometimes, because I think management styles are different when you're remote. A lot of managers that were managing in 2018 went through COVID, didn't know how to manage remote and it's a total different beast. I mean, it's a wild thing and I think that's you got to take that into consideration as well. As like do we, do we want to go down that path? Because it is, it is hard to manage remotely.
Speaker 2:And I still haven't found a really great whiteboard app that like nothing just beats an actual whiteboard on the wall Like in my opinion. I'm still looking, so if any of your viewers have a suggestion for a good whiteboard, I've heard good things about Notion.
Speaker 1:I haven't used it, but I heard good things about Notion. I haven't used it, but I heard good things about Notion, so I'm just going to throw that your way.
Speaker 2:You can test that later.
Speaker 1:Come back to us and let us know if that works. But you're right, I mean, it's just different. Also, like you know, imagine this you're working and you're struggling through something together. Maybe somebody's having a hard time getting something, you're explaining it and you need a break, but you don't want to leave each other. It's nice to go to community and that seems like it's a big part for you as a community of it is. You know, being around the people and how much you miss that from a from an Armstrong perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, the people really define the culture right Of the organization and what are their goals? I mean, are their goals to make as much money as possible? Certainly you know an honorable goal, I guess. Or is there a goal just to have a lot of fun? Is it some sort of blend of the two? Is it just to build something great and have an impact on people's lives? And because the people define the company and define the culture of the company, I agree, being able to spend that time together, be it at lunch or once you're done for the day and you're just about to leave and you're kind of having, you know, sharing stories about your family or something interesting sort of outside the scope of work, those are sort of the bonding moments, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And, you know, beta Consulting Group started in 2022. So we're remote. We started that way, and our favorite times is when we actually get to retreat together. We get to come together and be together for a while. Go have some fun, have a meal, go watch a game, go play you know, top golf or do something together. Those are some of the best bonding times that we have. We can be productive virtually, but we're actually relational in person much more than than you know, the phone or on a zoom call and those types of things.
Speaker 1:So I think there's a lot to be said about that. All right, let's, let's go back. So we're going to go reverse, chronological. So you're doing select. Now let's go back to the five years from 2019 to 2024. I think this is fascinating and I actually don't think that people even think about doing something like this or valuing it like you did. You said, hey, I'm out for a while 2019, you exited successfully from Armstrong, a highly successful company, multi-hundred million dollar entity that you exited from, and you got to be dad for a while and you got to have a little bit of fun. Talk about that and what that did for you, for your family, for your psyche and even for the motivation to start select.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so like, as we mentioned, armstrong was started in 2006. So 2019 rolls around. It had been 13 years of rubbing. You know again, rubbing sticks together to get a flame, to get you know, yeah a lot of sticks, a lot of logs on the fire, um, and it started to sort of become a tiger by the tail, like it.
Speaker 2:You know, the company was was growing exponentially. Um, it felt a little overwhelming, but also I think I was just sort of burned out. It would just, it had been a long road, of sort of rolling the stone of the hill and, uh, I started to feel some sort of I can't put my finger on internal sort of angst or something. You know. Like I said, I have four boys. They were sort of not getting any younger, um, and so the opportunity presented itself to sell and to exit. I thought, well, maybe this is the universe telling me I need to do something different with my life. You know, let's see what chapter two looks like. And, yeah, so sold in 2019. I was able to. You know, covid hit. I'm at home with the family full time. That was interesting, as it was for everybody.
Speaker 2:So I wrote some you know not stellar music, so you have a guitar in the background. I'm a guitar player as well. Not great, but I do enjoy it. I do enjoy writing music. So I wrote some songs, produced some songs. I got to travel with my kids. We did a couple RV trips, went to Europe twice. I mean I just I feel like it was just nice to sort of regroup and what. What is interesting and I would love for everyone to have this opportunity is that it's fascinating the things you um. So certainly you can fill your time doom scrolling and people do that right um, but it's interesting when you don't have the constant weight of of work and business and the next thing or the next deal or the next sale or whatever on your mind, just the, the personal insight that you can have, the depth of the relationships you can have with people. And yeah, this past five years was super fascinating. I feel like I grew more in the past five years than I had the 10 years leading up to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I imagine it probably wasn't on your necessarily your roadmap to do that Like you weren't like seeking. Hey, I'm someone, I'm going to take some time off, but you got a lot of value out of that. Rving is an incredible time with the kids. They're not going to get any younger. I think sometimes we're, as Americans Americans afraid to do things like that because we feel like we're going to fall behind or we can't do it or we don't plan ahead. What are your?
Speaker 2:thoughts about that. Yeah, so I was in white sands, new Mexico, uh, with the kids. It's beautiful, it's so beautiful. We got some amazing photos and I'll do it justice, I'm sure. Cause.
Speaker 1:I've taken photos on trips.
Speaker 2:It's not even close, totally. Um, there was a German family there and they had this you know SUV with camping stuff all over it. And I just got to talking to the guy I was like did you come all the way from Germany to go to White Sands, new Mexico? And he said no. He said we're in the States for like three months and and I said really, he said yeah, we started in New York and we drove down to Florida and we're going all the way across the country. And I thought that's amazing. And he's like yeah, it just took like three months off of work. And it is unfortunate that American culture and American business is designed in such a way that you can't do any of that stuff until you're 65, 67, you know. And then who wants to go hike around New Mexico when you're 67,?
Speaker 2:right, right the time to do that's in your 30s, 40s, early 50s small kids, show them around all kinds of I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree completely with that that's sort of.
Speaker 2:That does sort of bring it full circle. I mean, in today's economy, with remote work and the tools that people have, I mean I think people are starting to take advantage of that more than they have historically and that's nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a friend who worked at Freightways back in the day. He did some sales for them and his wife did two years of RVing, while he didn't have to take a lot of time off, which was the nice thing about it. So it is definitely possible to do that now and I wish that people would do that. But the culture definitely pushes away against that so much, which I think is really unfortunate Because, like you said, you grew a lot personally and it helped you understand yourself better. Plus that time with the kids. I don't think you'll ever look back and be like man. I regret spending so much time with my kids. Nobody's going to say that, and yet a lot of people don't take that a priority to do those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that a priority to do those things? Yeah, and my yeah, my oldest was 16 at the time. He's 21 now, so you know, and it's dominoes after that, so I was sort of able to be there full-time at the tail end of the kids being at home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, now we have to talk about the music. What kind of music did you write? What do we got um? Are we going 90s, grunge, alternative rock? Are you country guy like, what are we? What are we talking?
Speaker 2:about here. It's interesting. So, like I said, I'm a huge Beatles fan, right, and I feel like it's difficult to pigeonhole the Beatles into a specific type of music. I mean, you can argue that they started heavy metal and psychedelic. You know, you can take five Beatles songs that sound like five different bands, right? So I think my approach to me I love all types of music. I, I saw this thing and this is my mantra. Uh, my my favorite music is the type of everything that I don't hate, right, like it's. It's it's everything. Why huge? Yeah, it's a wide genre, so I've got.
Speaker 1:Did you write a hip-hop country song? Is there a hip hop country mix in there?
Speaker 2:There's a country song, there's a hip hop something I was working on there's a Latin dance song, there's a blues song, there's just like a lot of different things, but again, none of it was great, which is why I'm back into logistics and I'm not producing music for a living.
Speaker 1:I don't know. We need to get these out there and get uh, get some people you know doing reviews. See what's going on now.
Speaker 2:We're doing that I'll share my soundcloud with you and then you can let me know, uh, what you, what you think about it oh, of course, all my friends, all my friends, give you is oh, that's good, you know, but what is a?
Speaker 1:yeah, no listen, I'm a former dj, I'm a big music guy myself. I'll give you a neutral opinion on that. I'll, you know, put out there and see what that is. But that sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:These are things that.
Speaker 1:I give myself a C minus.
Speaker 2:It's not horrible, but not enough to do it as a for a living.
Speaker 1:It's not so bad that you are willing to share it, so that's good. Yeah, might be a C plus. I'm not ashamed of it If you had the chance to song any song at all, whether it's one you wrote or one that, uh, that you you know, a cover song, for example, in front of a thousand people. What genre are you most comfortable getting up and doing in front of everybody?
Speaker 2:Uh, I would sing uh into the mystic by Van Morrison. This is like my favorite song that is such a good song, people don't know it.
Speaker 1:Listen, if you, if you don't know into the mystic by van morrison or any of I mean a lot of good stuff by van morrison, but that song in particular that takes you right back like to the 1960s and 70s and the vietnam war era and just all like just you know, yeah, love, hope and peace kind of thing, like that's. That's such a good song, that's a good one. A little acoustic guitar up on stage, a little, uh, bar stool, just you, yeah, that's good. That could be good, like really good all. Let's talk real quick about the lessons you learned in Armstrong, especially leadership. What are some things you took out of that that you're using for round two? And if there's any founders out there that are watching this that are on round two, what are some things that you'd say, man, we learned this, we're never doing this again. This is going to help us out tremendously. We're implementing something different. What are some of those for second time founders?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I've already mentioned one of the biggest things I learned was you got to know when to let go of the sort of the some of the hats that you have to wear, right, so when you start, you're wearing a to z, you're wearing all the hats right. At some point you've got to let the bank reconciliation hat go, you've got to let the uh, you know, cleaning the bathroom go or whatever thing, right, um, and that's tough to do because it's different for everybody, it's different for every business. Um, it it's a function of the trust you have in people that you've hired, um, so that that's a tricky, it's tricky to know, right, um, I don't know that I, I just I guess, I guess, I guess what I would, the way I would phrase it. I learned at some point you've got to let it go. It's often sooner than later, right, because you end up working, you know, for your business, not on your business type of thing, right? So that would be one.
Speaker 2:The other is like I, you know, we really had a very like work hard, play hard attitude. We, you know, we, we tried to, we would try to hire people that you know had a good smile, they had a good, you know, they just sort of brightened up the room when they came into the room. You know, there are those people that are just like oh, it's Monday, you know, and they just sort of suck the air out of the room. Yeah, um, we avoided people like we avoided hires, like that. It's just we. We wanted upbeat, we wanted energy. Um, let's see what, what else how about?
Speaker 1:how about sales and marketing? Is there something from the sales and marketing perspective that you are doing differently this time around than last time?
Speaker 2:um, I think the you know, when started we were new kids on the block right In 2006,. We didn't know what we were doing. What we found was we looked. So Armstrong was obviously an agent model. So we recruited and had agents working with us and we just really listened to what they needed. What is it that will help you be successful? We had our own proprietary TMS, which we're doing again at Select.
Speaker 2:I think that's important. I think it allows you to adapt and offer things that maybe an out-of-the-box system doesn't offer, or that you would have to sort of bend your entire organization to work within the confines of an out-of-the-box system doesn't offer, or that you would have to sort of bend your entire organization to work within the confines of an out-of-the-box system. But but we would listen to what they, what they needed and what they wanted and what would help them grow. You tell us how we can help make you successful.
Speaker 2:Help us, help you, was really sort of the way we approached a lot of our decision making. You know, is this good for us as a company? Is this good for our agents? Will it help us or will it help them? Is it mutually beneficial? I mean and that's sort of business 101, right, like, listen to your customers and they'll tell you what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong. You know, and just be willing to make the hard decision to make the changes necessary. I also think, not being afraid to take swings I mean, we took some swings on some stuff that cost us a lot of money and be able, we learned a lot from it, you know, and it was really painful, and you know they always there's the saying that the essence of capitalism is failure. Right, so, like you, learn how to not do things as you try and evolve.
Speaker 1:Um, so, yeah, I think, uh, and, and you know, just all of that institutional knowledge we're sort of bringing to the table here in round two yeah, and I think the biggest thing, especially for founders now that are out there that are maybe hitting them, you know, know, like 50 million, 75 million I would imagine that some of the best advice is that they're probably not giving up something, that they need to give up. They're probably trying to do too many things and not letting go. It's hard, you know it's hard. Most founders I know are doers. Like they get into it because they're doers, they go and get stuff done. I think that's one of the hardest things for founders to do is to let go of things or know when to let go of things. Like it's just incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me tack onto that really quick. One of the hardest things about the first time around and I think I'm doing much better this time around to be determined is it was really, really hard for me to turn it off at the end of the day and I envied my. So in Charlotte it's a big banking community banking center, right, we got a lot of head right over here Wells Fargo yeah, bank of America. So I was always jealous of my. A lot of my college buddies all went and got jobs at banks, right, and I always looked at them when five o'clock hit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were done and like they would generally think about work like, oh, what's my next career move? Or I wonder how long this position is going to be open, but for the most part they kind of turned it off until monday morning, you know, um and I, I envied that to some degree because I feel like as a business owner, that was just never, and at least for me. I was always thinking about, oh, we could do this, we could do that.
Speaker 2:You know, I get a text from you know early in the early days a truck driver that needed a lumper fee or whatever thing you know, and and and it was hard, I mean, I think it took. I think it took a toll, you know, on my family. Family it wasn't horrible. I mean, we, obviously we, we did very well and we wouldn't have traded it for anything, um, but this time around I'm definitely trying to take a more, like I said, beginning a sort of a conductor role.
Speaker 1:What does that look like in terms of shutting it down, like what are maybe some things that you're doing or anything drastic? Are you just trying to be a little more intentional about this time of day? I shut it down until maybe kids go to bed, like what? How are you trying to, you know, capture that thought? Well, the the.
Speaker 2:What makes it tough is I actually enjoy thinking about it. You know, just, in a lot of ways, a lot of ways, being an entrepreneur, it's, it's your job, it's your business that you own, but in a lot of ways it's also your hobby, it's the thing that you enjoy doing right? So, like I do, sunday morning, I wake up, I have coffee, nobody's awake yet. Like I will sketch out some ideas on notepad. I think it becomes a problem when it's taking away from your family time, or you're not able to be present in a conversation with your wife or your kids or whatever, because you know your phone's buzzing because somebody needs something or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, I'm with on that Cause I was watching Sunday night football last night and I'm I'm knocking out a couple of things. You know it's pretty late, like 10 30, and I'm watching the game, but I got bored watching the game.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about business. Yeah, yeah, so you know it's definitely difficult, I think.
Speaker 1:I think there's. I had this happen to me one time, chris. I had somebody ask my kids, without me knowing, ask my kids, hey, what does your dad care about the most? Just asked him out of the blue and both of them said work. And that hit like a ton of bricks, that that work matters most in their eyes. I thought, well, I need to change that perception somehow. I got to change that, because work is important, it's a means to an end, it's also something I enjoy and it provides for our lifestyle. But if that's what they really think, man, I got to change that. So that made me stand up a little bit straighter and go. Okay, I got to put the phone down. We got to create some more boundaries here. But it is hard because it's your hobby, you love it, you enjoy it, I. I think that's one of the founder dilemmas of starting a company is you can get out of control pretty quick For sure, definitely can. Okay, listen, we like to have a little bit of fun on the show. We're going to end up this way.
Speaker 1:We always have a random question of the day, chris. Now, this random question could be a serious question. It could be a funny question. It could be a great question. This thing could be a dud. I have no idea we got today. The random question of the day today is what is something that's popular now but we'll all probably be embarrassed by years from now?
Speaker 2:I would love to think it was like something like doom scrolling or like just social media.
Speaker 1:I would love for that to be the answer, but it's probably not um it's possible though I mean think about it is possible that people down the way might like they might have all the information somehow plugged in their brain, like these people had to scroll the whole time. They wasted how much time doing that.
Speaker 2:It's possible I'd like to think it's like a reality tv or something you know um. That's a great question. What do you think?
Speaker 1:I feel like, you know, I think I think it's got something to do with clothing, because I feel like we do that all the time. We look back and go like in 80s, those girls who wear the big hair and all the different bracelets and the four socks, so they had different colors, or we would tight, roll our jeans like all this. I mean that kind of stuff usually comes back to haunt you in about 10 years.
Speaker 1:Something, something with uh, something with clothing. I'm sure is going to be it, but I hope it's more like what you're talking about with social media stuff. That's for sure driving a car I'm going to be driving yeah, I don't know I don't know if you'd be embarrassed.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you'd be not embarrassed by I am. Yeah, it's good. I don't know. That's a good question. I'm not sure. I'm trying to get back to what, what, what do we do in the 90s or the 2000s that we're embarrassed of now? I know for me. I dj'd and I wore a uh visor upside down, backwards to the side a little bit when I was DJing. That was in back then. That's a little embarrassing.
Speaker 2:But I'd like to think I'm I'm a pretty optimistic guy in general, right, and I think that the I have this opinion that the world is at this very interesting point in time where, like I feel like we're on the cusp of solving like all of our problems, you know, be it like renewable energy and fission, or or, uh, you know MRNA and solving, you know cancer and all the disease and whatever. But I also feel we're like the closest we've ever been to completely destroying ourselves, right, Like we are riding like a race I could tip either way. I would love to think that years from now, we're embarrassed about just just the crappy things we do as humans. You know that we look back and we're like why did we, why were we so caught up about X, y, z? That just is not that important.
Speaker 1:I will agree with you. It is weird to think that we're close to solving seemingly solving some major things in our world and yet, at the same time, closest we are to just destroying everything simultaneously.
Speaker 2:It's just yeah, it's like that, that, that where it's like in perfect balance, we could, we're on the razor's edge Right.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's almost like who's going to, who's going to steer the direction of these things, because you know, good things in the hands of bad people can go bad pretty quickly. I don't know We'll.
Speaker 2:We'll see what happens but I tend to be pretty optimistic as well in that regard.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, good question, good, random question, not too bad, not too bad, all right. So you guys are, you know, just getting ramped up. You have your first agency that you're working with. You've got some new hires coming in right now Lauren Russell's coming in for marketing Awesome person there and some other people as well. What's next up? You guys? What are you guys really focused on for the next six to 12 months?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're sort of in sort of a soft launch phase. The company we bought became sort of our first agent. We're sort of like beta testing everything with them. Obviously, we have a dev team. We have a five person dev team that's building out our proprietary TMS. We hope in the next 30, 60, 90 days we start to bring on some additional agents, ones that you know maybe low hanging fruit. They don't need a lot of bells and whistles, you know they're maybe just it's full truckload, pretty straightforward freight. But yeah, the next 12 months is just this drive to sort of a break even point where we just push, push and get out there and recruit and our vision for this company either. The first time around you make a dollar, you make $2, you start to wonder like, well, how high can?
Speaker 2:I push the ceiling. You know like.
Speaker 2:I don't know, like can we just we're making widgets. Can we make 10X the widgets we just made? Like can we do 100X or whatever? Can we make 10X the widgets we just made? Like can we do 100X or whatever? I think this time around everyone's at sort of a different stage of our career and the goal is not to be this massive billion dollar hundreds of agents. I feel like we did that. That was interesting, it was a lot of fun. This time around it's more about just trying to keep a small sort of family feel. Keep it niche, keep it selective. I mean, that's where the name came for select. Let's don't get anybody and everybody. Let's be very selective about who we bring on board. Obviously, quality over quantity, people that we have relationships with that we know write good business, that run tight ships, that are good operators. That's what the next 12 months look like for us.
Speaker 1:You've earned the right to build the business that you want to build, which I think is cool. You guys have earned that opportunity to do that and you don't have to be picky. I mean, when you're starting a business, you sometimes just need revenue, sometimes you just need to say yes and you don't have as much flexibility. And now you guys do have that flexibility. I will say you have a great start on the swag. I'm a big swag fan and you got a nice logo there. Everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that blue looks good on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, it actually matches with my shirt today. I mean I'm semi-color coordinated here. I mean it's not bad, but you got to get started on that Well.
Speaker 1:Chris listen man it's so good to get to know you and your story and thanks for sharing your insights today. Really appreciate it, man. Yeah, I appreciate having me. Thank you Talk to you, man. Hey, everybody make sure you come back every Tuesday for another episode just like this, with great guests like Chris Cobb and a good. Don't forget that we're on trucking Tuesday with reads across America every Tuesday at 6 PM Eastern time, and we want to say a special thank you again once again to our friends over at Sales Dash CRM, josh Lau, the man over there, good dude, he just saw the Vandy Alabama upset a couple weeks ago, which is pretty fun. And remember, folks, until I see you next time, stop standing. Still, start standing out. We'll see you soon.
