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
Entrepreneurial Insights, Recruiting Secrets, and Golf Antics with Blake Collins
Curious about the entrepreneurial dynamics of the supply chain? Tune in as we sit down with Blake Collins, co-founder of Armada Talent Group, who shares his passion for talent acquisition and the logistics industry. Join Trey Griggs and Blake Collins as they discuss the importance of personal connections in recruitment, hiring trends in the supply chain industry, plans for Armada Talent Group in 2025, and, of course, golf!
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. Hey everybody. What's up everybody and welcome to another episode of standing out. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Standing Out. I'm Trey Griggs, your host and the founder of Beta Consulting Group. We're doing some fun stuff this year, in 2025. Can't wait. Why don't you check us out at betaconsultinggroupcom See how we can help you out with your customer advocacy? Are you thinking about doing an event? We're specialists in that Need an MC for an upcoming show. I got you, so reach out to us, let's talk. We'd love to connect with you in that regard. We got a great show today. Can't wait to bring on our guests here in just a minute.
Speaker 1:But before we do that, we got to give some shout outs, as we always do. First of all, so thankful to be a part of Rereaths Across America. If you don't know what's going on with them yet, I need you to change the way you're showing up in life. All right, you got to check this out. Go to wreathsacrossamericaorg to learn about how they are helping us to remember the past and the sacrifices that were made with our veterans in order to really educate, really teach the future about what it takes to have a free nation. They have an incredible event in December, so it's a long ways away, but it's not too early to start thinking about it. We'd love for you to partner with us by sponsoring a wreath. If you don't know, they lay wreaths, they help, they make all the wreaths in Maine and they deliver them all across the country to cemeteries all across the nation and they lay those wreaths on the tombstones of our veterans and so you can sponsor a wreath right now, today, and get that started. But they're going to raising funds right now for that. Of course, it's all a nonprofit organization, so if you go to reedsacrossamericaorg forward slash standing out, you can partner with us and sponsor a wreath. We would greatly appreciate that. We're so thankful to be on their trucking Tuesday lineup every week.
Speaker 1:Also got to give a shout out to our great sponsor, sales dash CRM and our friend Josh Lyle's over there doing some awesome work. I got to tell you I had a chance to speak to a couple of freight brokers this week who are using HubSpot and they were talking about how it's just not built for them and there's things that aren't in there. They're having to kind of bastardize it and make it work. Listen, this is a CRM built for freight brokers, by freight brokers exclusively. It's built for you. So if you're a freight broker and you're not using sales-crm, make sure you reach out to Josh. Tell him you heard about it right here on Standing Out. You can check it out at sales-crmcom or you can learn more about it right from our website, betaconsultinggroupcom. Forward slash standing-out. You can request a demo right there on our website. Make sure you do that. Josh is an incredible guy. You're gonna love it, I guarantee it. Sales-crm. We appreciate their support.
Speaker 1:Finally, the last thing I want to talk to you about is we got some events coming up. The first one is right around the corner. We are going to be at Manifest in Las Vegas coming up real soon. Shortly after that, we'll be at Matt's, the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, kentucky, in March and we will be at, obviously, the Broker Carrier Summit in late April, early May. Can't wait for all that to happen. Hope I see you out there on the road.
Speaker 1:All right, it's time to bring our guests onto the show today. I've known this guy for a while now. First of all, amazing human being, also an incredible golfer. He beats me and that pisses me off tremendously, but doing some tremendous work also in the realm of recruiting and he's just an incredible guy. So please, welcome to the show my good friend, the founder of Armada Talent Group. Co-founder, I should say I'm going to give John credit. Welcome to the show, blake Collins. What's up, dollar? How are we? I can see you riding down the road with this in Columbus, ohio, right here, this is your jam. You're driving down the road, what's?
Speaker 2:up brother. My wife and I named our dog Odessa, which that is, the artist that is, our favorite artist named that and we actually walked down the aisle to a song similar to that.
Speaker 1:So yes, okay, hold on. You and your wife have a mutual favorite artist top three.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say it's her okay. Okay, all right, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, these people tend to have their favorite artists, but rarely is it the exact same artist. Now, my wife and I, we both love Nora Jones. So that's what's our top? That's our top five for sure. But I don't know if we would both say that's our favorite. If you asked us independently, if we would both say that.
Speaker 2:But the fact you named your dog Odessa that's someone ask her and see, because I really that could, I could be lying, so she might say maybe you could ask her without any, without any context, just say, hey, who is your favorite musical artist?
Speaker 1:just ask that report back to us and let us know. That's, that's an interesting fact. That doesn't happen too often. That does not happen too often. That's, uh, it's pretty impressive. All right, let's give the people what they want. Tell everybody a little bit about yourself and about armada and why you started this thing. Man, crazy entrepreneur stuff. Why tell us about it?
Speaker 2:yeah, great t up and t up to golf. Of course those were kind words introducing me um the golf game, that'd be true I know don't dive too into it, but did have our first born child last October, so I know that makes me doubly happy.
Speaker 1:You got a kid now and you can't practice, so I'm really excited about that. I might have a shot now, I might have a shot.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I've been in the supply chain industry going on a decade now, which is pretty crazy to think about. After graduating, got into the industry kind of on a whim, joined CH Robinson, which pretty much everyone in the industry knows, and I always tell people, if you don't know who they are, then you probably aren't staying up to speed with anything in the industry. Worked there for about five, six years. I did sales, account management, you pricing, you name. It really just got to learn the business inside and out, inside the office. You know, if anybody in my ch days I still stay connected with them if they see this uh, they used to call me the beer guy. Uh, we had some large accounts there, like molson cores, boston beer, you know, etc. I was the beer guy in the office, really understood that side of the business.
Speaker 2:And then in 2021 I was approached with a unique opportunity from now my co-founder here at Armada as well by a gentleman named John, who you know. He said Blake, you're an extrovert, you know the industry, come try this thing we call recruiting and supply chain. So I said you know what, let's do it. I've had one job out of college. Why not see what it does does. And here we are I'm looking down at a clock like it tells me, but I've been doing recruiting now for just over three years within the industry. Um led to 2023, into the year 2024.
Speaker 2:We kind of put our heads together and said, hey, why don't we try this sucker out and partner with some awesome people in the temporary staffing business here in columbus, ohio, called reliable staffing. You've met rocky and alio gasparo, amazing guys. Grew up with some awesome people in the temporary staffing business here in Columbus, ohio, called Reliable Staffing. You've met Rocky and Alio Gasparro, amazing guys. They do a lot of stuff on the temp side. So think construction workers, warehouse work, lift drivers you know everything that makes supply chain go every single day the people that should never be forgotten about.
Speaker 2:They had always wanted to do something on the direct hire side and john and I said, well, hey, we'll come do it, so think of them as kind of investors, founders, etc. They said let's start the sucker up. You could come in, learn our business, maybe start to do a little bit of. Hey, here's the manufacturers we're working with. Could you do some direct hire for them? And then, obviously, john and I bringing our knowledge, we started armada, and here we are actually. We launched the business two weeks from today, really, so we're going on just our first year, which is freaking amazing it's incredible.
Speaker 1:You guys done a great job and you know, I've had the privilege of getting to know you from our mutual friend, colvin ruffin, um, and just that connection and the fact that you guys are in a golf just makes it, you know, doubly better. But you had a great first year. I mean I know from 2024 standpoint, some people struggled, it was a tough year for some businesses. You guys, coming out of the gate, had a great first year, great foundation for your headed and I think it speaks volumes to who you guys are as people, because recruiting is all about people. I mean it's personal. I mean we've got other friends in the industry, like our friend Waseem Minair. He's also great with people and it's like it's a people business.
Speaker 1:More than probably anything else in transportation, recruiting is really about like trusting a person, because you're helping somebody find the next opportunity and they need to know that you've done the research and that this is a good fit potentially and that you're not just throwing them in there just to make money, but that it's actually a good place for them to be. It's a big deal, and so the fact that you guys had a great 2024 really speaks volumes to me about how effective you are. Obviously, I know you as people, so it's not surprising. But the market is also saying, yes, we agree with this, this is good and we want to work with you and that's been really cool to talk about. We're going to get into that more in a little bit. Before we do that, we have to talk a little college football. Oh yeah, because you just glossed over the fact that you graduated college. Now you're the first person that I know who graduated from the Ohio State University and didn't say I graduated from the Ohio State University.
Speaker 2:You're trying to walk right over here, yeah I was on uh your your friday standing out. We're on the street yeah, the whole thing, and we did that bracket. Go replay it at some point, you'll see, I was the only one who took ohio state and I called it to this day. Um, yes, the only time I'll say michigan, they kind of sparked us.
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened in that locker room, but it woke us up.
Speaker 2:I went to the Tennessee game with John. That was probably a top three game and I've been to. I would say I go to anywhere from three to four a year. That was a top three game I've ever been to. In the stadium Shout out to Ryan Day and the team yes, I was the guy saying potentially, let him go. I hope he doesn't see this. I love him now, so that's totally fine. I would be going to the game next week, but with the daughter, the business, and then I'm actually going to be in Atlanta at SMC3 the following week. I wish it would have been this week, but yes, ohio State, we are ready to go on Monday.
Speaker 1:It's a big deal. I know they had a good run. Would you rather lose to Michigan and win a national championship, or beat Michigan and not even get to the national championship? What matters more for Ohio State fans, Because this Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is beef man, Like they beat you four times in a row. Like what would you rather have at this point?
Speaker 2:It's funny you ask that. So a gentleman by the name of James Jackson, I don't know if you know, him but he went to Michigan. We talk all the time and he asked me the same question and I said four years ago I would have said I don't care about Michigan, give us a national championship. So that would have been my first 25 years of following Ohio State. Now I would say I'll take a win over Michigan before the national championship because we haven't beaten them in four years.
Speaker 1:So it has changed. That's what I'm saying. It's a big deal.
Speaker 2:To answer it, I would say now probably beat Michigan, even though we're about to be in the national championship. And that's a first world problem, because I know 99% of all colleges would love to be in our situation and I'm blessed that we are so to clarify.
Speaker 1:clarify you would rather lose this national championship Notre Dame, and beat Michigan next fall than win the national championship.
Speaker 2:So if you would have asked me this before the playoff started, yes, yes. But now that we're here? Probably not, but like if you said, Blake, you're going to beat Michigan the next few years and you'll make it to the title game a couple of those years, but you have to give up this one. Gosh, I don't know. That's a great question. Do you remember who I picked?
Speaker 1:Do you remember who I picked in the bracket? Do you remember who I chose?
Speaker 2:Was it Notre Dame?
Speaker 1:It was Notre Dame. Yeah, that's who I want to see win, because I'm a Marcus Freeman fan. I love that dude and I love what he's done with that program and how his players play I mean Ohio State's in a similar ballpark. I just don't know much about them too much. I think they've been good for a long time. I like this Notre Dame story. Think about who they lost. Imagine this they lost to Eastern Illinois at the beginning of the year. Northern Illinois, thank you they. Northern Illinois, northern Illinois, thank you. They lost to Northern Illinois at the beginning of the year and then they win the national championship. That's crazy, and this is what I love about the new college football playoff. Five years ago, that would have been impossible. You lose to Northern Illinois. You're not getting in at all.
Speaker 2:Neither of us would be in this Right.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly. And now, because of the way, same amount of time. I like this because it gives you a chance, you can redeem yourself and that's such a great sports story. So if they lost, I mean both of you have that. You lose to Michigan, you win the national championship. They lose to Northern Illinois, they win the national championship. Those are great stories all around. So I'm a fan. I hope Notre Dame wins, but I'll be happy with whoever wins, because it's a good story Marcus Freeman went to Ohio State.
Speaker 2:Don't forget about that.
Speaker 1:That's right. There's a little beef there as well. I feel like we need to have a bet, but this is actually going to air after the game. We've already got our picks. You're Ohio State, I'm Notre Dame. Let's see who wins when this thing airs. I think it airs after the game game. When's the game? Next Monday, that's all right. Yeah, monday, and this should air the Tuesday after. So it's going to be after. So we'll see who's right and we'll see who is sad. We'll figure that out, yes.
Speaker 2:We'll bring you some Armada golf balls. How about that? We'll get you a 12-pack. Armada, if Ohio State wins, you send me 12 of beta.
Speaker 1:What's the brand you guys have on your Armada golf balls? I know a guy who can help you out, by the way, if you need help with that.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, let me know. We have the title list Armada.
Speaker 1:Oh, title list of what? Title list of what Pro V1. There we go. That's what I wanted to hear right there.
Speaker 1:Don't skimp on merch folks, don't skimp on swag it's either important. All right, let's chat a little bit about the recruiting side, because I'm a network guy myself. I think I'm an undercover recruiter. I'm not going to lie. I have people that reach out when they lose a job and they're looking for a new job. I have some companies who say, hey, do you know somebody? Maybe I should have gotten into recruiting. I don't know, but I've done enough to know that it's a fun job but it's also really challenging because you really got to get it right. I mean, this is somebody's livelihood, this is a career move. If you make the wrong career move, it could be a stain on your resume. It could be a stain on kind of what you're doing, moving forward, or it could just be miserable. Talk about your approach in recruiting, what you've learned over the time and what's helped you be successful in really launching Armada and having a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean we've talked about this before. You have a lot of clients who are really satisfied. Sure, great question. You nailed it on the head You're impacting people's lives. It can sound cliche.
Speaker 2:If I'm interviewing a potential candidate to work at Armada, some of the first questions I'll ask is what makes you interested in recruiting? A lot of the times you get well, you're changing people's lives. The reality is, you are, um, I get to know my candidates pretty well. I think that there's no special sauce per se, but it's the relationship building and, quite frankly, how we were able to launch this business was based upon the relationships I had built over a 10-year period, not forgetting about people. So back to kind of the relationship building.
Speaker 2:If I'm recruiting an entry-level person management executive you get to know them. What do they do in their spare time? Most people do something that you can correlate to. You don't always want to get too personal with them, right? You got to kind of feel out do they want to be personal with you? So you got to be I call it a chameleon. Um, I have to shade towards how they're interacting with me, and that goes very well in the sales as well. Right, that you need to understand what. What do they want in the job opportunity? And I think what differentiates armada and myself and no, we're not selling ourselves here, but we will turn down candidates for our clients and we will turn down a client for our candidate, because if you put a square peg into a round hole, it's just not going to work. So you need to make sure it's a match for them and their family, and I think that's what's made us successful thus far, 365 days into our business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a big thing and from a candidate perspective, I want to talk about this because I thought about this. Looking back at my career, I feel like as a candidate, I missed out on a lot of great opportunities possibly better salaries or better situations because I wasn't working with a recruiter. I always kind of did my own thing, I negotiated my own deals, I kind of looked for my own opportunities, and then it hit me one day what am I doing? This is crazy, that I'm doing all the legwork and I don't even know what the market is. I don't know what the going rate is for a salesperson, a base I don't know what those were, so I was guessing. But you guys have a pulse on it. So I always tell people if they're looking for a job and they're not working with recruiters. That's my number.
Speaker 1:One thing is you got to get with recruiters, let them know who you are and help you out because you're working on their behalf, but at the same time, you're also helping companies to fill roles that, let's be honest, they don't have the time to do this.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of work to build a job description, to post it, to look at all the resumes, to sort through all of them to decide who you want to interview, to conduct the interviews. It's a long, complicated process. They don't have a lot of time, and so I say to companies if you're really wanting to grow, you should have a recruiter in your back pocket, even if you're not ready to hire yet. You should have a recruiter in your back pocket, somebody that you know, because they might either have a candidate that you would never have found that you should just find a job for, because there can't miss it's hard to find good talent or the moment that they do need somebody, they're not starting from scratch, they already have a relationship built. So, from my perspective, both candidates and companies should have a relationship with recruiters. Um and I think you would echo that, but what is your selling point like when you say why should candidates work for recruiters and why should companies work for recruiters? How do you talk about that?
Speaker 2:absolutely and quite frankly, you are a glorified recruiter because you already said some stuff that, like I would, honor, honorary member.
Speaker 1:Honor, yeah, I say glorified to an extent, but no it's our network is our network.
Speaker 2:You know that's a very simple terminology and I describe it as if you're going to a mall. I know a lot of people use Amazon these days. But if you're going to a mall or you're going to I use Easton and Columbus, Ohio as an example some of the fellows in Central Ohio people will know this mall you can go there, you can play games, you can go to awesome restaurants, you can do anything there, right. If you're a candidate who's passive in the market, having somebody like me or another recruiting firm, whoever that is in your back pocket, who knows what you want in your career, who knows what you've done in your career, and then honestly, what could be most important is what you are worth. We have that in our heads and in our applicant tracking systems and the moment a client calls us about a position, the way our brains work, we're going to go right to it. We already have it separated in what divisions you're in, whether that's finance, sales operations, marketing. We go right to it. And guess what? That candidate now has an opportunity at the job. They never even really do because they have a full-time job, probably a family. They're not scouring job boards and applying everywhere. It takes too much time. You've got an inside track to that opportunity and to my example of a mall.
Speaker 2:We work with a ton of clients. We can kind of give you the pick and choose of what might make the most sense for you and you're like, oh, this is perfect. So from a candidate perspective, you just always have someone out there that has your best interest for yourself. And then from a company perspective, it costs a lot of money to hire internal recruiters. It takes a lot of time. If you're using an outside agency like ours right now, we are contingent. You don't find us, pay us upfront. You come to us on opportunity. It's a 50-50 chance. We might already know somebody and we've just saved you three months of your time to find that person.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I equate this a lot because I'm a real estate guy, I've got my real estate license and I equate to that. I love being in the market and just knowing what's going on. If you're a home buyer and you're starting from scratch, you're looking at homes on Zillow or whatever, you're doing your own legwork there's so much information you don't know and you're guessing. But if you were to say to a real estate agent hey, I'm looking for this in the house and they're able to uh to know the market, and they're out there, they're driving around, they're looking at homes, they know what's up on the market, they see what's coming up, they'll probably find it a lot faster for you and find exactly what you want you know. And that's why they're so valuable to have uh to do that.
Speaker 1:It's not so much that they know things about the transaction that you don't know. Anybody can learn how to do a real estate transaction. It's not that complicated, but it's the network, it's the inside knowledge of having that and you guys have that. You guys have that on both sides. And again, I just think that's a really fascinating thing. Now, where I am in my career, I'm surprised that people don't take advantage of recruiters more Really, it shocks me.
Speaker 2:We send out a lot of messaging to people and a bunch of people get a ton of messages. I don't expect everyone to respond, but I think the most value that I find in my candidates is I actually take a lot of calls where I know up front that the candidates are probably not going to be a fit, but they tell me they'd love to meet me because they're very self-aware and their industry knowledge is like well, blake, maybe in 2026, something comes. And now he knows. I have actually found a decent amount of people jobs from conversations five months ago that transpire from our relationship from that time and they always say well, I don't want to waste your time, I'm not looking right now, I'm not trying to steal you from a job, I'm trying to present you with an opportunity that might change your life and vice versa Present a candidate to a client that might help their clients save themselves money or grow their revenue from a sales perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I mean it all kind of goes into just how they can really benefit from what you guys are doing. So, anyways, I love what you're doing, man. I love the fact that you guys are off and running what's on the agenda for 2025? Are you going to go a little bit harder on the marketing side? Are you going to go to more events? Are you just going to keep kind of plugging what you're doing? Are you expanding within your existing client base, adding more clients? What do you guys focus on here in 2025?
Speaker 2:sure? Well, my first three months are travel, travel, travel. We're doing smc3. We're doing manifest, which I heard you talk about in the intro, so I'll see you there. Uh, john's been there before. He speaks so highly of it. This will be my first one, so super excited to attend that. Then we've got tia, then we've got the we'll call it the broker carrier summit. Maybe we should add that little part of it down the road. We have that to kind of end our five, four or five conferences. I'm the math major. That's kind of the first couple of months. What are we focusing on this year? I had mentioned it to you about a month ago when we did our data analytics at the end of the year, we found that supply chain was the second worst hiring industry on linkedin, and linkedin defines a bunch of different categories into one industry. Okay, so there's hundreds, but they really only have yeah, like what, what?
Speaker 1:what metrics go into defining if an industry is good or bad?
Speaker 2:I'm curious, yeah so there's going to be a little bit of of convolution in this, just like any type of data, but the way linked LinkedIn defines a job change is how many job postings were there in the supply chain industry? So any company that you're working with, are they posting the job? And then does the job go down in 30 days, essentially, and of course, that job could go down for multiple reasons.
Speaker 2:They closed the position, they hired it, etc. And then it also takes into account how many people within the supply chain industry changed a job in that 30 day period. Okay, so if Blake Collins worked at CH Robinson and in February I changed my job from business development manager at CH Robinson, to business development manager at Rxo, just spitting out a random company.
Speaker 2:That would track as a job change, and then if an application or a job posting went down, that would track as a job change. And then if an application or a job posting went down, that would track as a successful hire. Essentially, the data is not extremely accurate, but it's pretty darn close. We were down about 17 year over year and that was the second worst. The first worst was farming and forestry which, as you can imagine, if you go to look up candidates in farming and forestry, they're probably not on social media.
Speaker 1:That much yeah, wow. So essentially we're first, we're worst.
Speaker 2:So what are we focused on? We started a company potentially in the worst hiring market ever in the industry that we focus in. We've shifted gears a little bit. Supply chain is still my division's bread and butter because that's where I live. That's the industry I love. I've gotten so many people in it. Sean he focuses on the warehousing, the technology side. We've shifted into security technology, freight technology. We've also gone into a little bit of healthcare software.
Speaker 2:So what we're doing is we're differentiating our business. We're still focused on what we know we're good at. But as we build this business, the way we want it to look is we want to have people that specialize in certain industries so we're able to hire and recruit and consult in multiple divisions. But guess what, Blake? He doesn't focus in the nuclear space or the IT space and I'm not going to pretend to be an expert at that. We need to find some people that are at that. And guess what I'm recruiting right now indirectly, because that's in my blood. But that's kind of our initiative right now Continue to grow the Armada brand, Find ways to differentiate ourselves in a competitive marketplace and just continue to be the best people we can be.
Speaker 1:Let's dig in on that. How do you differentiate yourself in this industry? How do you really stand out? Because we know other recruiters in the industry there's a handful, probably six or seven or so, that you and I know mutually. How do you stand out? What makes you different? What sets you apart? I'm curious, from your perspective, what you think that is. I have some ideas on my side, but I'm curious what you think.
Speaker 2:The first thing I always think of is the personal touch, and I know that you and I have had conversations on that before. I think what's unique about our company at this stage in our company is that you're working with John and Blake, who own the relationship with the client, and we're recruiting, so we are the single touch point. We are going to face challenges in the coming years of well for us to continue to hire and scale our business. We are no longer going to have the time to do both sides. So how are we differentiating ourselves as we are focused on that position, giving a true timeline?
Speaker 2:Again, other recruiting firms might be doing that and that's fantastic, and there's fantastic recruiting firms out there. That's why it's such a competitive space. We hear it every single day. I think it's just the personal touch. That's the biggest differentiator. And then confidentially, of course, it's not that confidential when I talk about this, but we are developing some technology. Ai is very important, not just in supply chain, but in our industry, and this is kind of our here it's coming it not just in supply chain, but in our industry, and this is kind of our here it's coming. It's going to take some time, but that's coming as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's interesting to hear because you know there's there's a lot of people that do a lot of the same things, but what makes you different? I think that's really critical. I mean, I think it'd be fascinating to hear what your customers have to say, because they're the ones that really know like. They're the ones that really know like they're choosing you over somebody else, so they would know what the differentiator is absolutely best. It could be something you don't even know about.
Speaker 2:Man could be something you don't even know about. So I got to get those customers on the phone. I saw you posted the other day just about your customer could potentially be your best sales avenue and your customer is your best sales Avenue, I mean the other reason why?
Speaker 1:it's potentially because you're not tapping into it. But nobody sells your product or service better than your customer. Nobody does, Not even you, and Coleman's done a lot of research on this. We talked about it a lot. You can have a guy making a hundred cold calls a day to get your brand out there and try to get people interested in it, and they might get some appointments scheduled. You might get a little bit of traction with that. But then you have one customer sing your praises, Dude, that, that that turns the tables and like that's, that's so good and that doesn't require any outbound. And once you start to build that brand and people start reaching out to you and that's when that's when life gets really good so customers are huge in that regard, I think.
Speaker 1:I think people need to tap into that. That's where the secret sauce really is in terms of how you stand out, in my opinion, is what do your customers say you stand out Like? Why do they like working with you versus somebody else? I mean, that's to me, that's a differentiator.
Speaker 2:So I look forward to you coming back and reporting to us what your customers say Right in 2024, all of our new customers and the new relationships that we had to garner. We ended up. That trickled out to other customers, just like you said, because you know, billy, bob, joe, the CFO at X company was like Blake. You did a fantastic job. Armada really took care of us. You need to meet my uncle, jim, and I'm just spitting names out and the next thing you know, there's continued business from there. So, right, yeah, no, it's great man, it's awesome, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1:All right, listen, we've got to. No, it's great, man, it's awesome, it's good stuff. All right, listen. We got a pause for a minute because like to have a little bit of fun on the show and it's time to play a Little game that we like to call what movie? Emoji edition. All right, blake, here's what's gonna happen. There's gonna be a band that's gonna pop up with emojis and we have to see if we can guess the movie. Now we can do one of two things here we can either be competitive and see who gets it first, or we could go team and see if we get it together. What would you like to do today?
Speaker 2:Well, I was a huge movie guy until I met my wife, and she falls asleep within 30 minutes. So any movies in the last eight years. I'm going to be in trouble, so let's go the team route, as you're open to that Going team route.
Speaker 1:Okay, see, I thought you'd go. I thought you were competitive. You always want to compete. You never want to play team. All right, okay, we'll do team, we'll be working, we'll work together on this. So I think there's five of these out there, so our goal is to get at least three, and that's passing the emojis here. So we got a runner, we got a christmas tree and we got running. Oh, running plus, is it? Run forced run, forced gun that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. Run forced, there we go that's a competitive one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you probably would have gotten that right. All right, cool, all right, okay. So we're one for one, that's that's that's the good point here, blake. That's the important thing is we're one for one. Harry Potter no, what is that? Lightning, thor, thor, let's go, let's go. We would be tied right now if we were doing this.
Speaker 2:We would All right, but we're two for two as a team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got both going on right now. Okay, cool, we got dueling games in this one game. Okay, all right, next one, third one. Here we go Snake tiger book.
Speaker 2:Is that a tiger or a cat?
Speaker 1:That looks like a tiger. It looks like a swan Swan type, a swan. That's a snake. That's a snake, oh, it's a snake. It looks like this that's a snake, oh, it's a snake. It had the neck of a swan.
Speaker 2:Come on, you see a little swan there right that one has to be Harry Potter right.
Speaker 1:I would think it'd be Harry Potter, but snake tiger book, something to do with the zoo?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Let's guess Harry Potter and we'll go team on this one.
Speaker 1:I have nothing. Harry Potter, whatever it's not Harry Potter, whatever Jungle Book, oh, that's a good one. Okay, well, yep, stumped on that. All right, here we go. Next one Forget that, king and Rings your Wedding, king Crown.
Speaker 2:Game of Thrones no, that's a TV show.
Speaker 1:Felt like Ring Rings Crown.
Speaker 2:Old man.
Speaker 1:Lord of the.
Speaker 2:Rings.
Speaker 1:Ooh, there you go, Lord of the Rings, nice, okay, all right, so you're up individually and we are three for four. All right, here we go, last one, see if we get this right. So we got Silence of the Lambs, let's go Silence of the.
Speaker 1:Lambs, let's go. Is there another one? All right, we're gonna. Can we do this virtually? Okay, we'll do it later, we'll. We'll take, we'll take this, we'll push it to the golf course and we'll just, you know, we'll add it on to that. That's how that'll work. Uh, speaking of which, uh, we got some golf coming up. We're playing golf at manifest. I'll tell you more about that. We're also we got to post and pray classic coming up for the bcs and, uh, you're coming, you're coming for the win. You got second, you got second in the inaugural post and pray classic didn't get to compete in fort worth cody, is that his?
Speaker 1:name cody. Cody godfrey won the first one, uh, but the second one, uh, we had a gentleman shoot 68. You had to ask it's, I'm blanking right now. He shot a 68 incredible round of golf. Uh, that's the gross. And so, uh, that was pretty impressive so how was the weather? The weather was pretty good. It wasn't too windy. It was a nice golf course, very open. So if you could drive the ball like that was nice, it was wind, it was this city was windy.
Speaker 1:Dude, I still don't know how you guys shot what you got shot at kansas city. That's, that's nuts. That was good, I made some putts and I got up and down.
Speaker 2:Quite frankly, I think I shot 74. It was one of those rounds where, yeah, yeah, he was like how did you just shoot that?
Speaker 1:and I was like, because on my short day I say scramble, that's right, scramble, right, just scramble as much as you can I think we were all scrambling?
Speaker 2:I don't think I'll yeah 68 was impressive.
Speaker 1:I mean, well, here's the thing is like if you're a good driver of the ball or if you have a partner who's a really good driver of the ball, then you're setting yourself up for wedge shots into the greens. I think, yeah, it's a shamble. So if you and I were on, you know, 70% of the holes, we probably would make a lot of money. I don't know if we'd make that many, but we'd probably make a lot of money. So it's understandable. So, looking forward to having you a part of that sponsoring, being a whole sponsor, appreciate that man. It's just good to good to have you in the network. Man. I really enjoy what you guys are doing and the opportunity just to you know, to to work together.
Speaker 1:And in that spirit, we have a random question of the day that we have to ask. This is just something fun. It could be serious, it could be funny, could be a good one, could be a dud. All right, here we go. Random question of the day today is what Ooh Morgan knows us. What is the best golf movie? What is the best golf movie?
Speaker 2:Probably the one. I just watched one, actually, where it was. I can't remember the life of it, but it was like the hispanics they were. This was in like the 40s. They were working as like the bag boys and stuff at the golf club and then they ended up playing golf and winning a state championship in the state of texas. It was awesome, but probably adam sandler, what's that one called?
Speaker 1:happy gilmore, yeah, happy gilmore, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't sure if you're gonna go classic like caddyshack or if you're gonna go something a little bit more happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll tell you what. I'm gonna make a prediction right now. I'm gonna say the best golf movie is happy gilmore two. I'm excited for that. There is another one. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that. That that's a good one. Caddyshack is pretty good, though. Bagger Vance is pretty good. That's a decent golf movie. That's a good one with Will Smith and Matt Damon. That's a decent movie. Enjoy that one. What's the name of the one you were just talking about? I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'll have to look. Now I'm curious. You're gonna have to give us the name of that, because now I'm curious about that one that sounds like a good going to watch. But I do think that happy gilmore some version of happy gilmore has got to be the greatest you know movie of all time. I mean, for we still quote it all right. Yeah, the guy who played shooter mcgavin's twitter follow is amazing and, of course, adam sandler's long game that might be it the long game okay that's what it is.
Speaker 2:Check it out it's a long game advertisement it actually it will. It kind of makes you tear up at the end a little bit, just based upon like what it used to be like streaming on what netflix netflix.
Speaker 1:Sorry, the long game on netflix that's. It's got to add that to my wish.
Speaker 2:I won't give away the story, but they created their own course like outside of the country club, kind of in like the slum area and this guy was how to play all the stick and the coach saw him doing it and was like, let's create a team. And then they end up going to the States and they play, obviously, a bunch of Caucasian males. They end up winning. It's just an awesome story.
Speaker 1:That is a cool story. That's awesome. The long game on Netflix that's awesome. Blake, thank you so much for coming by and being a part of the show. We're going to have to have you back on here in 2024 and hear how things are going especially if I beat you at the.
Speaker 1:Post-You Pray Classic. We have to have you back Just to talk about that. Who wins that match coming up here? Great course, sagamore Country Club. It's going to be awesome. Make sure you come back and see us soon. Man, it's good to have you on the show.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me All right man, We'll talk to you real soon. All right, everybody, make sure you come back every Tuesday for a great episode of Standing Out with great guests like Blake Collins. Check him out at Armada Talent Group. They're doing wonderful work over there, especially if you're looking to hire or if you are looking for your next opportunity. Check him out at armadatalentgroupcom I think that's what it is, but you'll find him on LinkedIn. He's a great guy. And just to make sure you join usads Across America, and also thank you to our sponsor, Sales-CRM, Josh Laos. Check him out, sales-crmcom. And remember, friends, until next time, stop standing. Still. Start standing up. We'll see you soon.
Speaker 2:The name Zahra means ''Clean'', religion ''Muslim''. Thanks for watching, guys.
