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: Tech Leadership and Trends for 2025 with Dawn Salvucci-Favier
What happens when innovative tech leadership meets expected trends in 2025? Find out in our latest conversation with Dawn Salvucci-Favier, CEO of Greenscreens.ai.
Trey Griggs and Dawn Salvucci-Favier chat about team dynamics and industry evolution. Building a tech team that's diverse and empathetic is more than a strategy—it's a mission, and Dawn shares insights on avoiding echo chambers and the magic of customer testimonials. With tech investments rising, we see a positive shift in market sentiment, reminiscent of pre-pandemic excitement.
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.
let's go. What's up everybody? Hey everybody, what's up everybody and welcome to another episode of standing out. What's going on, everybody? How are you doing? Trey Griggs here, host of this fine show, standing Out, a podcast about sales, marketing and leadership so excited that you're here with us today. We've got a great guest today, as we always do. First of all, I want to say thank you to our friends over at Reads Across America for getting us on their Trucking Tuesday lineup. Every Tuesday night, an episode of Standing Out with a great guest on the show. Appreciate you guys being a part of that.
Speaker 1:If you're not connected with Reads Across America, what are you doing? I need you to change the way you're showing up in life. In fact, we just had their annual Wreaths Across America event where we lay wreaths on the tombstones of veterans all across the country over 4,000 cemeteries and one near you. So you can do it next year. I know it's still early, but you can do it next year. Check them out at wreathsacrossamericaorg. It is not too early to sponsor or scholarship a wreath and you can do that actually with us. You can partner with us, wreathsacrossamericaorg forward slash standing out and you can sponsor a wreath. They make them right here in the United States. They make them up in Maine. Truck drivers deliver them all across the country. It's an incredible event and I'm sure you're going to be seeing more about it on social media here of the event and some of those types of things. Check them out at wreathsacrossamericaorg, a phenomenal organization to be connected with, and you can take your family, you can take your company, you can do it yourself. You have veterans in your family. You want to honor them, especially if you're near the cemetery where they were laid, you can actually lay the wreath on their tombstone. It's an incredible experience to really remember the heroes of the past and teach the future generations about freedom and liberty. So it's tremendous.
Speaker 1:Also, before we get started today, I want to give a shout out to our friend Josh Lyles over at sales-crm for sponsoring the show. We appreciate him. Listen, if you are a freight broker and you're using some regular old CRM out there, man, you're missing out. Not all CRMs are created equal, especially when they aren't created with freight brokerage in mind. This is a CRM built by freight brokers for freight brokers. So check it out at sales-crmcom or you can learn more about it at our website, betaconsultinggroupcom. Forward slash standing dash out. You can request to get a demo, check it all out. But I'm telling you what, if you're a freight broker and you're in sales, all the processes, the workflows, it's all built with you in mind and your processes. So check them out again. Sales-crmcom. Josh is a good basketball pick-em kind of guy as well. He's an NBA aficionado. Great dude. All right, that's it for now. We got to get this show on the road.
Speaker 1:My guest today is a good friend of mine. I've known her for a while now probably three years now. That's crazy, time is flying and I got to watch her build a company and grow individually and also be a fun that we're doing with the Broker Carrier Summit. So I'm pretty excited to welcome back to the show my good friend from Green Screens, the CEO, dawn Salvucci. Fabio Dawn, what's up, my friend? Hello, listen, you've been consistent with this walk-up song and I like it.
Speaker 2:I know, but I think I need to upgrade. I need to upgrade.
Speaker 1:my walk-up Are there, but is there another song that has to do with science? That's cool and that's iconic.
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's why I chose it. But hey, I'll take votes. If anybody wants to nominate a new walk-up song for me, I'm open to suggestions.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you who might know is Alex Maurer. He's with Coolway Logistics. I don't even know Alex from now. I know Alex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He puts out his monthly playlist. He used to be a DJ. He probably knows this song, alex. We need your help. My friend, all right, if you're watching this, give us a comment. Let us know what it is. How are you doing? How's everything going? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I cannot believe it's December. We are just like. Christmas is just right upon us. It's unbelievable how fast 2024 has gone.
Speaker 2:It's yeah too fast, Way too fast. I feel like it's still June, but no, here we are, December.
Speaker 1:Well, it's because you live in Florida. That's the problem, I know.
Speaker 2:but we're having our winter right now and I know all of you up north are going to boohoo over this, but I'm cold. It's in the low sixties. It's getting down into the forties at night.
Speaker 1:I'm cold.
Speaker 2:We turned on our heat for five minutes this morning, just to kind of take the chill off.
Speaker 1:So it's so funny. My aunt lived in Arizona, still does, but she lives in Arizona for years and years and she would always say the same thing Like listen, we're all wearing coats down here, like the high is only 65. I'm like, oh my gosh, like this is, this is ridiculous. Uh. But that's all right, that's okay, it's a but the years flying by tremendously fast, we met I'm thinking back this we met probably 2021, beginning of 2022, somewhere around there.
Speaker 2:So it's been like three and a half years exactly. Yeah, end of 21, beginning of I'm trying to remember who introduced us. It might have been Ryan Schreiber.
Speaker 1:It's very possible. Yeah, I don't remember.
Speaker 2:I mean that's a good guess, but it's been three and a half years, I think.
Speaker 1:I know it's been fun. You've grown green screens. We had a chance to partner when you guys were building your brand right out of the gate, which was a blast, and got to get the name out there, which is fun. Now we're doing stuff with Broker Care Summit. But before we talk about any of that, listen, I learned a little fun fact about you that I kind of knew but I didn't know. You called yourself this. You say you're a CEO by day, a groupie by night. It's because your husband, he's a well-known local musician. He plays at many venues, so nights and weekends you're just T-Bone's wife.
Speaker 2:And that's cool with you. I'm just T-Bone's wife and that's really cool with me. I love it, I do, and I'm so proud of him, obviously for what he does. But you know, there's people that we know, that they know me, they don't even know my name, they just know I'm T-Bone's wife and and I am totally cool with that Because you know, during the day and being the CEO, I kind of have to be the one a lot, or at conferences or whatever. So I am totally cool with being t-bone's wife. It's it's a lot of fun and the music is great.
Speaker 1:So well, I'm sure you don't wear the same outfits during your day job that you wear at night. Hopefully you dress up a little bit, have a little fun with it, going out there listening to music, yeah well, I may dress down a little bit right, because just down, just differently, whatever, yeah dress differently, but um, yes, I do.
Speaker 2:I have a great time, it's a good time now?
Speaker 1:was your husband known as t-bone when you met him, or is this a nickname given to him after you guys were together?
Speaker 2:no, he was, so we've been together for 38 years. I was 16, he was 17 when we met, so no, um, it's just become his stage name over the years, like did you give it to him?
Speaker 1:who gave? Who gave him this name?
Speaker 2:this had to what it was actually an old friend of ours, um, back from the Boston area where we're from, who he actually played in a band with, and you know, he was kind of a cool dude. He was like, oh, t-bone, my friend, you know, and it just it just kind of stuck because I think back then they were playing blues in the band and T-Bone is really kind of a bluesy name, right. So yeah, it was just a longtime friend of ours back in the Boston area. Hey, jim, I know you're not watching, but hey.
Speaker 1:Thanks Jim for that, the gift that keeps on giving. Now, does your husband have a T in the name or a B? I can't remember His name is Terry, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's not out of left field, like it actually resonates a little bit. I think there was an episode of Seinfeld in which George was trying to get a new name and he wanted to be called T-Bone oh gosh, and it didn't catch on and they gave him a new nickname. I think there's an episode about that. Oh, I'm going to have to find that I think of Seinfeld and I think of T-Bone when I think about that. But there's an episode where he wanted a cool nickname and he came up with T-Bone. It made no sense because his name is George, but this makes a little bit more sense.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm going to have to find that Seinfeld episode. Yes, I'm sure it's out there.
Speaker 1:It's a good clip. It's out there, that's for sure. All right, listen, we're going to talk a little bit today about leadership, because three years is your leadership on display at Green Screens, which we'll talk about that Broker Carry Summit, where you're a board member with me and we get to have a lot of fun with that, with women, logistics initiatives all throughout the industry and just seeing how not only you have led people, but how people have responded and followed you. And the old adage is, if you're, you want to know if you're a leader or not. Just turn around and look behind you and you certainly have incredible people that are following you, that are following your mission, your vision, what you have in store for green screens, what we've done with Broker Carrier Summit. You're a mover and a shaker, my friend, and so we're going to talk about that today and jump on that. And before we do that, I do want to say congratulations, you got number five on the FreightWaves Freight Tech 25 at F3 this year.
Speaker 2:Is that right? We did yes Second year in a row Congratulations. Yeah, second year in a row that we actually held the number five spot. So super proud of the team, really excited about it. Happy to be among a great group of really innovative disruptive companies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what? I'm excited about this because I think that when that list first started to come out which I think was like 2019 or something they started creating this list. I felt like it. It had it had this pay to play feel and the last three years they've started to really just recognize. It seems like the technology companies are doing great work. We have a lot of new uh faces on there. Highway was on there again. Um, drum kit was on there. There were a couple others that were on there as well that are just making their way first time time people in the top 10, I think Qude was on there I'm a good friend Tom Curie and Prasad Galopoli doing that. So it's neat to see, I think, the true recognition of the technology companies that are making waves in the industry. What's your take on that? Have you felt that way? I know you're part of your low bias, but what do?
Speaker 2:you think? No, absolutely, and I think last year when Craig Fuller announced the top 25, he made the comment he said this is the most disruptive list that we have ever seen. And for my company, for Green Screen specifically, we went from not even appearing in the top 100 the prior year, because we were still really new, to earning that number five spot last year and then maintaining it this year. So it's been really excited. But yeah, I mean, highway was on the list last year for the first time as well. They're even newer in the market than we are Obviously won the number one spot deservedly this year. They're doing some great things for a huge issue in the industry. You mentioned Q Drumkit. So a lot of really innovative, disruptive companies that are doing some really cool things in the industry. So I agree 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I was glad to see that. I was bummed to have to miss it, but it was neat to see you guys on the list as well. Obviously, green Screen is a big fan of the brand, of the company, the team. And let's talk about the team because one thing that I've noticed is it's one thing to build a great product and I think that's the beginning of a great company is actually having something good to sell, something that provides value, a service or a technology or whatever it is. But then you know that can get derailed pretty quickly if you don't have a strong team, and that's what you've built at. Green Screens is an incredibly strong team of people that I highly respect getting to work with on a daily basis as a CEO. Talk about that journey, and you know what you learned in your career that helped you prepare for this time and building this team.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, that's a loaded question.
Speaker 1:It's a biggie right out of the gate, right out of the gate.
Speaker 2:Think the important thing and what I have sought to do in building the team at Green Screens is not hiring people who are like me or replicate me, but people who fill in my blind spots, right, people who bring things to the table that I don't have. And that goes back to the very beginning. I think a lot of you have heard my story. When I joined Green Screens, it was not intended that I was going to be the CEO permanently. I was going to be the interim ceo and try to help to find the permanent ceo and then kind of slide over into more of that product leadership role. And as I was going through and interviewing some of the candidates to become the ceo, I kept saying, no, these people have the same skill set that I do. We don't need two of me, right, we don't need. The world can't handle two of me.
Speaker 1:No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2:We don't need two of me, right. We need somebody that complements my skills and fills in my blind spots and has experience doing the things that I haven't done right. So I think that's one really key thing in building the team here is don't seek to hire people who are like you right. Hire the people that compliment you. I think another one of the reasons we've been really successful here early on at Greenscreens is, you know, really taking the position that I want my team in any certainly customer-facing role to have real customer empathy, like to feel the problem, or, as our CTO, matt Harding, likes to say, people who love the problem more than those that are experiencing it right. Or, you know again, who have sat in the seat. So I think we've done a really good job of finding, in many cases, the unicorns right, people who have sat in the seat of our target audience, which is freight brokers today, but also have developed a skill set, a complementary skill set, whether that's understanding how to sell, or customer success, or implementation, or data analysts. But the majority of that team, the large majority of that team, has sat in that seat or, at the very least, you know, have that empathy and love the problem more than those that are experiencing it.
Speaker 2:And look, I think that comes from my background.
Speaker 2:You know I actually I've been in freight for a long time and I was that person coming into freight that knew nothing.
Speaker 2:I literally didn't know the difference between a tractor and a trailer when I started a long, long time ago. But you know, even as I came into tech and had the privilege of working for some large publicly traded companies and everything is just seeing what happens when you hire an echo chamber, I guess you know you don't want that right. You want the people who are going to speak truth to power and again compliment you and can mentor you. So that's kind of my journey, right and people who are committed to the mission of the company right, and have integrity and are authentic. And those are the type of people I'm looking for now. It helps that early on here at Green Screens I aligned myself with one of the best recruiters I've ever worked with, waseem Munair For those of you that don't know him who just really got you should, yeah, you should who really got me, got our company, got our values understood, really precisely the people that were going to work out well for us here.
Speaker 2:I would say up until early this year he had placed probably more than 60% of our people in the US, because he just kept bringing these great candidates to us, despite the fact that you know we have a huge network to choose from. But he was finding those unicorns for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, he's phenomenal. And I want to go back to one thing you said before we continue on, and that is you kept bringing up the word empathy. This is something that we talk about a lot on this show. I talk about it a lot when I talk about marketing and how you communicate with people. You have to be able to express empathy, but even more than that, you have to actually feel empathy. You need to be empathetic about the problem, about what somebody's actually experiencing and how it's impacting their business.
Speaker 1:And what I'm seeing nowadays in transportation technology in particular is a trend around hiring people who used to be freight brokers to sell tech to freight brokers because they clearly experienced the problem. I mean, I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage. I only brokered freight for six months, so I don't know as much about brokering freight as somebody who did it for four, five, six years who can say, man, we lived that every day. Or man every month. That was a problem, we just kept dealing with that over and over and they have the empathy. On a greater scale and a grander scale and I think that's a really great tactic is to find people who have sat in that chair and said man, I've dealt with this. I've felt the pain and the frustration of this. I've stayed late after work because this was a problem, whatever it might be. I lost loads, lost money, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, look, over the past 15 or 20 years, user personas have become a big thing and I can remember when I was first introduced to it and there's a part of user personas that they teach you that it's like well, you know, this is Trey and Trey is, you know, a father of three children and this is what he does when he leaves at the end of the day. And initially I was like I don't care what they do at the end of the day, I only care what they're doing at work. But I think the empathy comes from understanding that, like, this is what you like to do at the end of the day you like to go home and spend time with your girls and I'm sorry I said three, that was wrong. You like to go home and spend time with your girls and with your wife, and what is going to keep you from doing that when you're at the office? Right, and that's. I think the empathy comes from really having lived that Right and truly understanding it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes a massive difference and again, I know your team and I've seen that work out, so you guys have definitely hired in that vein very, very well and then, along with that, just incredibly like nice people and this is something that I think people don't appreciate about sales is that a big part of sales is being liked. I mean people need to enjoy working with you. I mean sometimes they can look past that. If they have a need strong enough and your product is strong enough, they can look past it. I mean nobody wants to buy a car from a jerk, for example.
Speaker 1:You want to have a good experience when you do that, when you're talking to somebody about spending thousands of dollars a month on data that's going to help them out. They also want to have people that are friendly, who are nice. You guys have accomplished that in a tremendous way and there's a balance here, because you need to hire people who are aligned on the vision. You guys are all the same when it comes to vision, but you're different when it comes to skill sets, and that's a tough thing to balance and it also creates a lot of discomfort. I mean, you have to be willing to work with people that are different than you, who think differently, different backgrounds, who are willing to step up and say I don't have to agree with this. I think this is maybe not the right path, and you guys have seemed to manage that balance of alignment and unity and vision, also with distinct skill sets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean thank you for recognizing that, because it is really important to me and I think you know I mentioned authenticity and it kind of comes out in our marketing message, right, no BS, just GS. And it kind of comes out in our marketing message, right, no BS, just GS. And that's not just a marketing message for us. That's the way we live both inside and outside the company. It's like be authentic, no BS.
Speaker 2:I've told my salespeople and when I'm interviewing new salespeople I'm like look, I am never going to fire you for not closing a deal or, you know, even multiple deals. I'm not going to fire you for that. I will fire you for being dishonest or overselling a customer in order to close that deal, because that creates problems throughout the entire organization. So maybe you have closed that deal, but then customer success is going to struggle and development. You know, maybe now our roadmap gets disrupted because the customer's been oversold and finance has pain because they're trying to collect money from a customer that isn't happy and doesn't want to pay, and so it really does all start with sales.
Speaker 2:To your point, nobody wants to buy software from a jerk, nobody wants to be oversold, and I've lived that in my past life where you know being left holding the bag when sales may have oversold something. I've also lived in an environment that wasn't necessarily authentic and transparent and it became very toxic to me. And I don't want to say that the company was toxic, but the environment became toxic to me to the extent that I didn't like the person it was making me become and I committed when I came here. I was not going to recreate that type of environment and that type of culture here. Right, you need to love what you do, you need to love the people you're doing it with and you need to be committed to the mission and the vision of the company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love it. I think you guys have done a tremendous job and I'm excited to see where you know where it goes here in 2025. Speaking of which, I think that we should switch gears for a minute, because the two things I want to talk about to help of mine that I might add in there as well. And then, what are some of the trends that we're seeing in freight rates and volumes, and I'll let you take either one of those first, whichever one you like best Like. How do we want to evaluate technology? What trends are we seeing in freight rates and volumes? Where's this heading?
Speaker 2:You're giving me the whoppers today. Look, I mean.
Speaker 1:I know you can handle it, my friend, I know you can handle it.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Look, I think when you're evaluating technology, ask to talk to some of their customers, or maybe don't even ask, use your network. And one of the things I'm often asked what are you most proud of at Green Screens? Right, we have a lot to be proud of, but what are you most proud of? And my answer is always the same what makes me the most proud is the way I hear our customers talk about us and Trey. I think that's how we first got marketing perspective and now it's just kind of become a life of its own. So that is one thing that I'm most proud of is our customers are often our best salespeople.
Speaker 2:So talk to their customers, whether it's arranged by the vendor and often it's better when it's not arranged by the vendor. But talk to the customers, right, and compare the problems that you have with those other customers of your vendor. But ask the questions. You know, not just about the product but about the onboarding process and the people. Right, are the people reasonable to work with? Do they follow through? Do they do what they say they're going to do? Are they authentic and do they have integrity? And ask those questions. But you know beyond that. I think it is? You know, about delivery. Do they deliver what they're going to, what they say they're going to deliver to? And you know, look, sometimes it doesn't matter that a piece of technology might not have all the features of the clicks or the buttons that you're looking for, but if the vendor has made a commitment that they're going to deliver that to you, you know, make sure that there is a plan to actually deliver that. It is often worthwhile, you know, giving the company the chance that maybe they don't have all the bells and whistles that you're looking for, but if they do the most painful things in your operation extraordinarily well, give them a chance.
Speaker 2:I mean, what we like to say is the problem that we're trying to solve for our customers is death by a thousand cuts. Right, you may not feel, you feel a bunch of little cuts, but before you know it you're bleeding from a thousand different places in your body and the blood loss is eventually going to get you. Now I'm going to contrast with that with a company that great company. This is not to downplay at all what they do, but Highway, again, great company, love them, great partner. I think they're solving a huge problem and they're doing it really well, you experience one major fraud incident that's like a gaping, you know, fatal wound right there, right, so the value proposition associated with fraud, you know technology is well known, well understood.
Speaker 2:In other areas of technology sometimes that value proposition isn't quite as painful. Right Again, the death by thousand cuts, like in our case, you know, losing loads because of pricing right or losing margin or whatever because of pricing right or losing margin or whatever. So be really introspective. But I think the last thing I'll say on the technology piece is when you are evaluating technology and you're trying to build your business case for the technology, ensure that your business case aligns with the way that your people are incentivized. Right, because too often I have seen where the ROI or the business case associated with technology isn't aligned with how the end users, the people who need to adopt technology and put it to the best use, are not aligned and then you are going to have adoption problems and change management problems and all of those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a major problem with technology is if you can't get adoption or change management right, it often doesn't go anywhere. But something else you said I think it's valuable. You talked about testimonials and how willing your customers were to speak on your behalf. And I was just listening to a podcast this morning from Ed Milet with Rory Vaden on, and Rory Vaden is a very popular brand and marketing consultant, just universally not in our industry, but universally and he said the number one reason why people will buy from you is because of what your customers say. It's the number one reason and a lot of companies miss that. They don't think they don't understand the value of that, of getting your customers a chance to share what their experience has been and talk to your prospects.
Speaker 1:I learned this a long time ago. One of the best marketing strategies that we had at a former company that I was at was we'd have regional events. We found out where the clusters were, where the customers and the prospects were clustered, and we need to go do a dinner or go do a game and do a suite and bring them together and just let them talk for four hours, no agenda, just let them talk. Prospects would come up and say, hey, we've got to get this going. Yeah, exactly, Our customers sold it. It was so powerful and I think a lot of people miss out on the power of customers speaking on your behalf.
Speaker 2:And we do a lot of local happy hours and things like that for exactly that reason. It's just get people in the room Getting together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know. I mean it's the whole premise behind the broker care summit which we're probably going to get to today, but that's okay. I want to ask this last question before we have a little bit of fun, and that is what trends are we seeing here in freight rates and volumes moving forward? I think I just got one of the marketing emails you guys sent out talked about where rates were headed. It looked like it was kind of a negative compression right now. But what are you kind of seeing trend-wise? What do you expect? I know it's kind of an eight ball situation, you don't know the future, but what do you see trend wise?
Speaker 2:I look I got burned last year, so I hesitate to really predict the future, because a year ago put an asterisk on this.
Speaker 2:I think I stood on the stage at broker carrier summit last October and said by this time next year we are going to and I got burned on that so I'm going to hesitate. But look, I mean what I've been saying now for several months is signals, not trends. I'm not willing to call it a trend yet, but we are seeing a lot of the positive signals in the data right, and I can even go back to the summertime with that, where over the summer holidays it was really the first time that we saw touches of normal seasonality right that we hadn't seen in the post-pandemic era yet. So some of that returning. I think there's just some renewed positive sentiment or optimism in the market right.
Speaker 2:I think you know the first half of this year, as far as technology spend goes, a lot of companies were hesitant and kind of taking a wait and see attitude. We're seeing that starting to loosen up, which tells me that others in the business you know, are starting to also see the signals and the trends. But my prediction is slow but steady, right. I think we are on the up cycle. It's not going to happen overnight it never does but I think this is going to be slower than any of us want it to be, but it'll be slow, slow, steady.
Speaker 1:Certainly compared to the pandemic era, it's going to feel like it's not moving at all.
Speaker 2:But I think you're right.
Speaker 1:I think the signals are definitely moving in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, and we're not going to return to pandemic era.
Speaker 2:This is going to be really more like the 2018, 2019. And I mean, look, whenever we've seen a major shift in our market, it's either been driven by a pandemic or some type of regulation which yet remains to be seen right. We'll see what new policies the new administration comes in with, and is there anything major that's going to, you know, change be a driving force in our market? I'm not anticipating that right. So I think you know tariffs maybe, I don't know, the jury is still out on the impact of the freight market that tariffs are going to have. So I think it's still a little bit of a wait and see, but I think we are in a kind of a slow, steady improvement, but more similar to a 17, 18, 19 than a 21, 22.
Speaker 1:We are certainly in the midst of a strong holiday shopping season.
Speaker 2:We are Thanksgiving recently. Wrong number there. Cyber Monday 7% increase year over year.
Speaker 1:We'll see how it all turns out for the whole season. We'll see how it all turns out for the whole season, but so far those trends seem to be, our signals seem to be pretty strong. So I hope you're right and I think, especially for technology, for service providers like myself, we tend to be downstream of what happens in the freight market with carriers and brokers, and so I think, seeing that loosen up, seeing people investing more in technology, I'm seeing people starting to invest more in their brand and marketing. It's all good science, all good signals, which is which is great, that's for sure. All right, my friends, time to have a little fun. You have your pad of paper with you, you got a pen. We're gonna play a fun game today called wavelength. All right, here's how it goes. It's just what it sounds like. You and I have got to be on the same wavelength here. Our producer is going to put a category and a letter up on the screen and we have to try to come up with the same word based on that clue. All right, now let me look at the average. The average is two out of five. We're going to do five of these. The average is two out of five, the exceptional so far has than three out of five of these. But we've done it a couple of times on here, so we'll see how we do. We'll see if you and I I mean, we're on the same wavelength for a lot of things, my friend. So I'm I'm hopeful today, I'm optimistic. We'll have to see how this goes. All right, here we go.
Speaker 1:The first one today is boy names that start with S. Okay, I got one. I'm feeling good right out of the gate on this one. All right, let's see if we're on the same. Okay, so I'm going to count to three. I'm going to say three, two, one. When I get to one, we're going to put our pad up to the screen. This is backwards, but we're going to put it up to the screen. Like that, we're going to show our word. We'll see if we're together. Okay, now put it up the right way. What, steve, steven, what do you got? That counts. We're counting that. That counts. One for one. We're off to a flaming hot start here.
Speaker 2:There we go.
Speaker 1:Here we go. The second one, here we go. We got a famous actors or actress that starts with M. We'll do first letter M, first letter M Actors or actress. All right, and I'm saying if we get the first name right, we or actress, all right. And I'm saying if we get the first name right, we're good, but I'm going to try to get the whole name, the whole name. I got it Okay come on, it's a long one. Hold on, Listen. We're from the same era. We have to be Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2:I'm going to spell this last name wrong, but you'll know.
Speaker 1:Oh no, that's not good, because this one's easy. Uh-oh, uh-oh. All right, here we go. Three, two, one, matt Damon.
Speaker 2:Matthew McConaughey Did we get?
Speaker 1:We got the Matt. I think we go half point on that. We get half point. One and a half. All right, so we're at one and a half Okay.
Speaker 2:so we're off to it, but this is still a solid start why I came up with this one, though, because I was thinking about our history, and I was thinking about the eagles, and then I was thinking about silver lining playbook and yes actually that's the wrong actor, never mind, but that's a lot of thought into that that's okay.
Speaker 1:At least he's from, he's from Texas. Uh, you know Wolf of Wall Street, whatever. It's all good. Okay, next one, number three. Here we go. Movies that start with b. Okay, I got one. Just right out of the gate I got one. Normally I don't get them this fast, but my mind is working today. All right, my friend, let's go, I'm going to send this vibe your way. Come on, I know you can do this, I know we can be on the same page here. Here we go. Ready Three, two, one.
Speaker 2:Batman Three, two, one.
Speaker 1:Batman Bewitched. We didn't get that one. Listen, we just talked about Wicked. I should have known. That's on me. All right, here we go. Number four Animals that start with an R, and I've got them. I'll tell you what they are, coming fast and furious today. I don't know if we're going to get this one. There's too many. I've got three or four in my head already. I don't know if we're going to get this one or not. You ready? All right, three, two, one, raccoon, raccoon, let's go Got it. All right, okay, listen, we are at two and a half. If we get this, this Fruit that starts with a P, okay, this is my favorite fruit. I don't know if I gave it away or not.
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:I'm nervous. Let's see if we got it. Three, two, one Pineapple.
Speaker 1:Pineapple, let's go go three and a half. Listen. I was in between pear and pineapple on that. I wasn't sure which way to go, but man, pineapple's my favorite, so I had to go with it, had to go with the gut. Oh, three and a half congratulations. Yes, I love it. Dude, that was that was. That was pretty dope, I'm gonna say. I'm not gonna lie. We have not had, uh, we've not had that kind of, you know, effort on this show for a while. Yeah, the children even. Yeah, we got applause from the kids today. It's just tremendous. So that was awesome, my friend. Thank you so much. All right, a couple more things. Random question of the day. I always like to have a little fun with this. Here's a random question of the day. I haven't seen this yet. It could be funny, it could be serious. It question could be a dud, I don't know.
Speaker 2:The random question of the day today is if animals could talk, which would be the smartest?
Speaker 1:oh, I have a take on this already I've got it.
Speaker 2:I've got an idea. If animals could talk, which would be the smartest? Where's my jeopardy? Music?
Speaker 1:you know? Well, you know, we should have jeopardy music on here somewhere, but we don't. How about? How about ted lasso? What if we do Not? The same, it's not the same. Okay, all right, what do you got? What do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to go with the first thing that came to my mind, and that's dogs.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, dogs. All right, are you a dog owner? Dog lover, I am a dog owner.
Speaker 2:I have one dog that I tell them all the time well, you're smarter than you look, but I just think because they're so domesticated right and they observe so much of the human, not to say that humans are the smartest, because some aren't. But no, I think, because dogs are so domesticated and they observe so much human behavior and, let's face it, they know how to manipulate us like they are, which you just did there, right yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:The dog moves right into the warm spot Like yeah, I see dogs.
Speaker 1:I've taken walks in the cold. I didn't want to take because the dog was at the door Like, come on, let's go. It happens.
Speaker 2:It happens.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's interesting. I was going to go with either elephant, because I've heard they're really smart. Okay, I've heard elephants. I I'd love to if they could talk. I'd be curious about that. But then my other would be, I think, like I want to say lion, if lion's the king of the jungle, they gotta be smart, I think. I don't know, but it's one of those two. But my first take was elephant because I've heard elephants are really smart.
Speaker 2:I've heard the same. I don't know.
Speaker 1:They're. They're incredible beasts. Sometimes I find myself just watching videos from Africa elephants. Yeah, it's interesting. It's the brain rot that I'm doing, but it's a lot of fun, it's a good time, okay, all right. Okay, so dog for you, elephant for me. We're going to go with that. We're going to finish off with this. Christmas is right around the corner. Got any plans?
Speaker 2:What's the holidays look like with T-Bone?
Speaker 1:and T-Bone's wife Lots really okay. Christmas music, live music. Like do they do a christmas? Set with him playing so lots yeah, but I'm saying like he plays christmas music as well.
Speaker 2:They got a whole, in fact he, he with his duo act that he's in there playing a christmas party and his partner's like we need to learn some christmas songs. And he's like I'm not gonna learn any christmas songs, I'm just gonna go play my thing, so um, he may be learning some. Right now he's, he's out in his room.
Speaker 1:There's enough Christmas music out there in the world. No, just just live music.
Speaker 2:Look, my, my kids are grown and they both have their own families and we tend to only get together every other year because I've had to learn how to share my children with the in-laws and the other family. So it'll be quiet. We're not. We're not going to have a big family gathering this year, but no big plans. But I'm looking forward to just enjoying the holiday and I'm one of those people like no Christmas discussion pre-Thanksgiving, so I'm just now getting into it.
Speaker 1:You're just now gearing to get into it. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 2:People just take those decorations out of the rafters so I can actually start working on decorating this week.
Speaker 1:See, the flaw with that philosophy, Dawn, I have to tell you, is that you have a shortened window to enjoy Christmas because, especially this year, Thanksgiving was so late. You get three weeks. I mean, you know, if there's ever a year to change the policy, it was this year. Maybe next year Same thing. We're late in the year next year.
Speaker 2:So just throwing that out there. Well, but it also, you know, being in my role, budgets and annual planning and all of the things, and I told my team I want it done by December 15th because I don't want to be literally signing on on December 24th trying to email a budget off to the board for approval before the end of the year and all that. So it's it's a very busy, stressful time of the year, but I'm looking forward to kind of rolling into it.
Speaker 1:We're going to need. We need some live video of T-bone, like this little selfie video, something like that. Sent our way post online. We got to see T-bone in action and see T-bone's wife out there doing the whole. You know, whatever it is, the group began. I don't know what you guys do as a group. Whatever you guys, we got to see it. We got to see it out there. You don't get to see it.
Speaker 2:Some of that is not suitable for work. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:Hey, what about you?
Speaker 2:and your family. I know your girls are. You know you love spending time with your girls. What are you doing for the holidays?
Speaker 1:This year we're just chilling at home. It's going to be exciting. I I haven't done that in a couple years, or we've just sat around the house, and so we're just gonna sit around the house and enjoy some football and time together and go sledding, hopefully, if we get some snow. We've got of snow right now. Hopefully get a little more this year, but that's really about it. So it's going to be. It's going to be a good time. We're going to look forward to that. And green screens you guys got a couple of things coming up. You got some new products you're launching. Got a couple of things going on. What can we see from green screens in 2025?
Speaker 2:2025, we're going to have even more products. The one you mentioned earlier this year we introduced a product called green screens ignite. We have just recently now launched a product called green screens illuminate. Both of those are really kind of taking the power of green screens and our data and our analytics from being what was previously more of a transactional tool and really elevating that to more of a strategic analysis policy setting tool. So ignite is on the sales side, so your pricing strategy, and illuminate is on the buy side, so sourcing capacity side. So really looking forward to that, we're actually launching a bundle. So if you, you can get both, as you know, as a bundled, bundled special offer coming up here for the holidays. So be on the lookout for that Going into 2025, so earlier this year we did announce that we were making a move into the shipper market with a new product line, very different than what we offer to freight brokers today, really helping them to optimize their sourcing strategy to be really more dynamic.
Speaker 2:That is currently in pilot. We expect that going into the second quarter of next year, that will come out of pilot into a commercial offering. We have our long-term forecasting algorithm coming out in Q1. The one thing you can count on us in 2025 is that we will continue to innovate and solving really hard problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah and all your products start with an I. Are we going to keep the trend going? Are they all going to have an eye? We're going to try. We're going to try.
Speaker 2:So we had insights, which was really more of a performance management reporting tool. And then we've added to ignite to ignite your sales strategy. And illuminate, to illuminate the market.
Speaker 1:I know it's all eyes.
Speaker 2:We may run out may run out.
Speaker 1:We may run out, but we'll see. You have to come up with a product that puts people in the dark and call it Green Screens Island.
Speaker 2:That's what you're going to do you?
Speaker 1:have to put them out on an island Chat GPT and the thesaurus are my friends these days Are your friends right now.
Speaker 1:Oh, love it. Well, dawn. Hey, thanks for stopping by today and hanging out with us and talking about what's going on, not only at Green Screens, but with your career and leadership. We appreciate all of that and can't wait to see you soon. We didn't talk about it, but we're going to see you soon at the broker care summit in April. Lots of good things going on in the industry. Until that time, though, have a great Christmas.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you too, and I'm counting on another Superbowl bet this year.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hope I hope we're right about this. I mean, Eagles chiefs is. I can't believe we didn't talk about that either. This could have been an hour and a half, but that's okay, it could have been. We'll let it go for the time. That's all right.
Speaker 2:All right, thanks, man. Enjoy your holiday, my friend, we'll talk to you soon, you too, always a pleasure All right, everybody.
Speaker 1:Make sure you come by every Tuesday for a wonderful episode of Standing Out with great guests like Dawn and also brand out there, and we didn't mention it earlier. But you might as well. If you're a broker or carrier, you might as well come to the Broker Carrier Summit. You can find out more about that and register right now for the summit in Indy, april 28th through May 2nd, by going to brokercarriersummitcom. Early bird pricing is still in effect, so you should take advantage of that. You may have some holiday specials, so just keep your eyes and ears open for that.
Speaker 2:And until next time, my friend, remember, stop standing still, start standing out. We'll see you soon. Outro Music.
