Hunting Whales With Trade Data featuring James Brewer

Tired of guessing who to call and what to pitch? We sat down with Import Yeti co-founder James Brewer to show how trade data and simple, user-led features can turn a cold list into a clear action plan. From cradle-to-grave phone sprints to product leadership, James traces the journey that took Import Yeti from a rough internal tool to a daily driver for brokers, shippers, and buyers—including 16 Fortune 100s.

We dig into the updates that actually move the needle: container volume filters to target the right-sized accounts, service type to see who truly owns the warehouse leg, and HTS code scanning to navigate tariffs and sourcing pivots. James explains how those tools power better prospecting—think drayage plus transload plus redistribution—so you arrive with a sharper pitch and a path to stickiness across the full port-to-door chain. We also talk market realities: consolidation among big brokerages, specialized transport niches, and why the mode mix may tilt toward LCL and intermodal as costs and risk shift.

Cross-border gets a candid “teal” rating—momentum is real, but uneven by industry. Expect more poundage, more terminals, and more genuine fabrication in Mexico as nearshoring matures. On the tech side, AI shows up where it counts: Yeti AI turns prompts into precise searches, and bulk list enrichment cuts grunt work so humans can sell and serve. James rounds it out with practical career advice for new grads—ask for the opportunity, follow up, and build real community through industry clubs—plus a reminder that kaizen beats resolutions. Ten minutes in the right data can save you a hundred calls.

If this conversation helps you think sharper about lanes, logos, and timing, tap follow, share it with a teammate, and drop a review. Tell us: which filter would change your next prospecting call?

Transcript

Recording Started

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Cool. Work for me.

SPEAKER_05 0:01

All right. Hello. Welcome to episode three of Between Two Tittles. Our featured guest today is James Brewer, co-founder of Import Yeti. James, we'd love to talk to you about a few different things in tech now that I've also joined you in that space. But before we begin, do you mind uh giving us a brief background on yourself and intro?

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Yeah, absolutely. So I uh was a classic, did not expect to be in the logistics field, didn't go into anything for logistics in college, was a sales, marketing, and management double major, and uh was working for an autobiography of our former athletic director at the University of Alabama, and I had to figure out how do I ship bot books to Amazon? And it was such a pain. And I remember recruiting day, NTG came up to me and was like, hey, we do logistics. And I said, Well, that sounds like a great thing, and some everybody needs it. So started off at NTG, went to Challenger Motor Freight, uh, left logistics for a little while to go to a VC startup called Ant Hill, and then uh, long story short, ended up here at Ant Hill as co-founder and uh CA CRO uh at Import Yeti.

SPEAKER_05 1:14

Very awesome, very awesome. I think uh I I am definitely on the the same page where I was in school for finance and it just it ended up pulling me in when I went to Schneider. Uh and so, you know, it they say once you deal with pellets, you never can go back. So uh that that stuck true with me for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

That's great. I love that. I'm gonna have to keep that one.

SPEAKER_05 1:38

Yeah, once with pallets, always with pallets.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

So you mentioned you went from NTG to Challenge Motor Freight. So can you tell us a little bit on in your experience how those differed a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Yeah, absolutely. So NTG was totally cradle to grave, making a hundred calls a day. Challenger Motor Freight was a lot more of the sales and operations are very much separated. So I was a lot more focused on landing logos, getting contracts in. I did less the day-to-day. Um obviously there would still be, you know, every freight nightmare that popped up every once in a while, but that's just freight, right? So uh, but it was a lot more of a uh a selling role and uh a lot allowed me to have a lot more time to go after some enterprise clients, which was very cool. Uh, the also other thing I always mentioned with the challenger change was I was work from home pre-COVID. Um so I was a a veteran of the work from home life before COVID hit. So everyone was asking me for tips when it uh when everybody had to work from home, which was fun as well.

SPEAKER_05 2:36

You mentioned freight nightmares. I had an old leader who used to say that if you weren't having freight nightmares, you didn't have enough freight on the board. And so that kind of makes me laugh that you mentioned freight nightmares because it's real. You know, you wake up in the middle of the night, hey, is that appointment set? Right. And so it's funny there's so many tools now that even will set the appointments, right? And so like you taught you mentioned 100 calls too. Now, you know, those call metrics have changed drastically, right? To adopt for Gen Z entering the market now. Um, you know, I I had a leader who really questioned the quality versus quantity talk. And I feel like that's what we all went through. And now it's the quality versus quantity talk on why you didn't hit your 50 call goal. So, you know, it's the the times have definitely changed for sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

I'm jealous. I'm jealous with that new new cla new kids who are getting to do 50 calls a day.

SPEAKER_05 3:29

Right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

You were you were either doing that or you were having the freight mayors. And I feel like there's a pendulum. Either you were having the freight mayors, or the other side of it that I used to hear a lot is Sarah, which meant we're not shipping hearts. It's okay. If some unless something goes wrong, it's not always an emergency. Um, but it it's crazy how things have changed uh to y'all's point. Um so with import Yeti, can you tell us a little bit about how you came up with that idea?

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Yeah, so my co-founder Dave is the original founder of the product. So I just happened to be user number three on platform. So he posted about it on Reddit. I had picked it up on like Reddit supply chain, I think was where he first originally posted it, and I was the third sign-up on the platform. And back then, Dave will admit this, and I'll admit this as well. It was not a very good platform. Um, but I was a longtime user and we'd always talked back and forth. And eventually those talks went from once every six months to every five months to four months to, you know, working it down to daily. So um, you know, kind of the idea behind Import Yeti and why it even started and Dave made it. So he was a uh he was the CEO and it still sits on the board of a company called Wrestling Mart, which was an e-commerce brand. And so you had all these tools that do trade data, and he just didn't feel that any of them were fitting into what he wanted to do, didn't feel like it was a very user-friendly experience, didn't feel like the the data was very digestible. And so he made import yeti's kind of an internal tool. COVID hits, and he goes, Oh, well, I'm, you know, my revenue's cut in almost half from Wrestling Mart because they were a retailer, not just e-commerce. And uh he launched it on on uh Reddit supply chain, and sure enough, I was a third user. And long story short, we kind of figured something out from there. But you know, we we always talk about the story of Import Yeti. The one thing that we held true through the entire, you know, journey was we just get one percent better every day. We just have to listen to our user bases and figuring out how to make it better. And all the credit really does go to Dave, the programming team, and our users, because he meets with users every day. People tell him what does and doesn't work, and then our programmers make it happen. And we do updates not just daily, sometimes hourly. So all credit to them. But that's that's kind of the the journey of import yenny. And then I found my way into a very nice role here where uh I got to control all of our revenue operations and Dave and team does all the fantastic work behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_05 5:46

I saw y'all had a recent update uh for hunting whales. That's pretty interesting. Can you can you share a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Yeah, so that was one of the cooler features we added was uh adding in how many containers a company has done in the last 12 months. So now users can actually look at and say, oh wow, you know, I want to see people who have moved 100 plus containers over the last 12 months, or really what the tool is meant to do is start doing between algorithms where you can look at I want to see a shipper who's done 40 to 80 in the last 12 months, or maybe just 10 to 20. So that way our users can start looking at, you know, customers that land more in their their wheelhouse because we obviously have a lot of the big shippers out there, but we also do have, you know, just mom and pop shops who have two trucks and you know, pull pull drayage out of the port of Houston every day. And they don't need, you know, an enterprise level customer. They want just somebody who has steady freight and you know, hey, they move at least 120 times a year. That's a great relationship for us. So that's one of the one of the cooler filters that we had. People have always asked for that because we used to have a filter around number of BOLs per year, but now we've added a filter in for specifically the number of containers that they do per year.

SPEAKER_05 6:48

That's awesome. That's awesome. That really helps hone the sale because you know there's a different sales pitch for every customer of size. And if you know they're have a targeted amount of containers moving, you can really really dig in and provide a solution that really makes sense for them specifically.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Yeah, and it solves the issues that we had where people were like, we want to find people who are doing this much revenue. And we're like, you know, that's you know, somebody could be doing$100 million in revenue, but only ship four times a year, right? So looking at volumes has definitely been really cool. Sorry, Sarah, I cut you off a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

No, no, no problem. I was just gonna ask you, you know, you you talked about feedback, especially in the beginning, and that's how your tool got better. So Brent talked about that update. But for you in the early stages, what was probably the most important piece of feedback you all got that really felt like propelled you forward?

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Wow. You know, that's it's hard to put your finger on one. It's kind of what's so interesting about the feedback is it comes in waves. I think some of my favorite feedback that we've definitely gotten is a lot of our logistics customers when they talk about just things that we've missed that are so obvious. So, like the the number of containers or number of BOLs. Like we didn't really think about that. We just like, oh, number of BOLs. Another big thing that we added that was pretty wild that we didn't even really realize was in the data, excuse me, in the data set was service type, which actually tells us with their freight forward or their steamship line, are they responsible for getting that container just to the port or are they responsible for getting that container all the way to the warehouse? And that's been a really cool feature that we've added where people can now look up and say, Oh, do I call the customer or do I call the freight forward or steamship line to get the drayage? So there's been a lot of cool, cool things around that. And honestly, just a major shout out to our users is they they break our software. And that's amazing. Like they're like, this doesn't work. This data doesn't make sense. Why is this here? Why are you not lettering this filter by that? So I wish there was like one holy grail moment, but it's kind of just every week we, you know, there comes a new trend and we see like a wave of people all say it and we say that makes total sense and that's not a hard lift to do. Let's add it in. So uh so many, so many great things. But a lot of people we got to give thanks to. And we we do give them a lot of cool swag and as thanks as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

That's awesome. It's so funny you talk about breaking the system because until you are a part of no matter what company you're at, some kind of initiative on new system integration or things like that. I I was a part of a few of those in my experience, and just how many tur times I heard I really need you to try to break it. It's so counterintuitive of like, I I just thought you wanted me to test it. I didn't think you wanted me to break it, but it's how you test the boundaries, the capabilities, the infrastructure. Can it hold up um to the user's needs and the volume you had and things like that? It was really eye-opening having those experiences. I just always found that phrase funny until I really started uh getting into that.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

It's a fun process. And you know, if you're not, you know, if you're not breaking it, you're not really finding out where the holes are. So it's it's uh I always uh sort of talk about the old B-17s in World War II when they first initially came back and they were looking at where were the bullet holes, and they would say, Oh, well, the bullet holes are are here, so we should reinforce here. And people were like, Well, no, the ones that came back were were the ones who didn't get hit in those spots, so we should reinforce the other spots, and that's kind of kind of what I kind of think about sometimes about our program is like where where did the people who had success break the the program? Where did they actually find something that was worth doing? So that's uh that's I'm a little bit of a history nerd, so I might throw another two or three.

SPEAKER_05 10:16

No, we we love that. We love that because uh that's a great story too, because you know, they went back and reinforced everywhere that was not shot because of like you made it back because of this, right? And so like that's that's a great point.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Sure. Well, we talked about the growth of import yeti and the exciting parts, but when you were going to start that new company, what was the scariest part about it?

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Just having your first meetings, like you were making it up on the fly. I think pricing is the scariest part when you want something new, is you're like, it's this, and you're like, I hope you take it. I hope this works for you. Um and we're, I mean, we're we we've learned pretty well what we want to do for individuals, but enterprise is still something that's very hard to figure out. Uh, because it's like, you know, what is somebody with 10, you know, we have people who have a thousand salespeople on their plan. What the heck do you charge them per month? Right. So it's it's funny to figure out those kind of things because they're you know, they're not gonna pay your standard pricing. So that's actually the scariest thing, in my opinion, is figuring out the pricing and then giving it to people the first time. Not scary now, of course, but really scary in the first days of like, I really hope somebody takes this.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

And then somebody does take it, and you're like, oh my god, we can do this. It's happening. Like, okay, let's go. Now we gotta get the wheels moving. Like, exactly. Let's get three more.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

That's that's that's the scariest for sure. And then uh the other scariest moment for sure will always be the first time you have a big client that that gives you a little pushback on something. Oh, hey, the servers are down today, or the your our emails aren't working. You're like, oh god, this is our you know, our cornerstone of our entire revenue. We cannot fix this now. I don't care what we have to do. Put every programmer on it. So those are the scary days. But you know, starting off is you you definitely don't know your pricing and you definitely are relying on a very few people to keep you afloat.

SPEAKER_05 12:01

So, what was the moment that convinced you like I'm attaching to this boat? Like I am I'm now all in on import Yeti, user number three, like this idea is great. What sold you?

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Yeah, I it was I was at Challenger when I started using it, and I just my drayge numbers went through the roof just using the very basic level of data. I mean, I was selling drayage plus transload plus redistribution. I was going crazy with the numbers and I was emailing people and saying, you have 87 containers a week into Newark or New Jersey. What's going on here? Or um you have 87 into Norfolk, and we have this great, you know, operations team in Norfolk that has a ton of drayage. And so that's when I knew Import Yeti, like the data was it. I knew I needed to use it. And when I left Ant Hill, I was sitting around and just kind of going, I keep thinking about Import Yeti. Like I use Import Yeti just casually to see like, where does Roback get their shirts? I'm so curious, you know? And I just kept using it. And so eventually I was, you know, Dave and I had always casually talked, but you know, then you put in a little bit more of an aggressive feeler. And what's great about Dave is he's crawl, walk, run. So we, you know, said, Hey, come in, consult for a little bit. Hey, run with a couple sales, commission only. And then eventually said, Hey, you know, if you're willing to, you know, make a deal here, I'd like to, I'd like to make you co-founder. And we jokingly say that he founded the product and then I founded the revenue. That was kind of our little relationship. Yeah, it was, I mean, from day one, to be honest with you. Day one I fell in love with it, and yeah, I was gonna do any and everything to get into it. And, you know, it was early stages back then, but once Dave sort of revealed that, hey, we're looking to start doing paid stuff, that was the second where I was like, I'm emailing you every week, and we are meeting as many times as we can. And the it's funny, he also tells the story. I was the only person who kept following up with him on that. He's like, So many people have always said I want to do sales at Import Yeti. And I'd have one meeting and I'd tell them to follow back in four months, and they wouldn't. And you were the only one who did. So also a little bit of luck there, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 13:59

Yeah, you can definitely tell your passion about the product. You can definitely hear it. Um, you know, it sounds like you're you're willing to work morning to night and talk all about import yeti. I I I, you know, personally, the product's great, but you mentioned the swag. My import yeti coffee cup is pretty impressive. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Yep, everyone needs one of those for sure. So make sure to get with James about a demo.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:24

Yeah, no, that he has the best swag. I I will go down saying that for sure. Like there is bar none, anyone else with better swag.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Thank you. Shop coming soon. Watch out. Oh, okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

What were some new products coming out with swag? Y'all got any new items sitting the shelf?

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Yeah, I think uh, you know, we we jokingly say I call it the freight broker attire. Uh I kind of think of what I used to wear in the office every day for sales because there's a large majority of us who wear freight brokers and a lot of fruit brokers on the on the platform. So we're working with a lot of like athletic t-shirts, like uh, you know, Roback style, Nike T style stuff, um, some nice sweatshorts and sweatpants, things, things that you know you you could maybe get away with going into the office with. Um the mugs have definitely been a massive success. I think the hats are probably the next big thing. We've got the hats in a couple different colors. I think the dark blue is our our best one. Um, but a lot of just sort of more athleisure stuff is kind of what we've seen people really react to and really like. Uh because you can sort of wear it, you know, with jeans and a nice athleisure shirt, or you can sort of dress it down and wear it casually around the office. So um that's kind of the main area that we're looking at. But then there's some other cool things I won't reveal just yet. But okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

Fair enough. Fair enough. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

There's some cool stuff, just like the tequila that we had that Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:38

Oh yeah. That was a really cool bottle. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

That was awesome. A very out a very distinguished bottle.

unknown 15:47

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Well, um, you talked about a lot of the containers and the data that you really run through your platform, but for your business, how has the tariff situation affected your business?

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Yeah. So uh, you know, logistics is a good half portion of our revenue, but another large portion is people who actually purchase goods overseas. 16 of the Fortune 100 companies actually use import Yeti to do purchasing decisions with overseas suppliers. So the tariffs actually helped us quite a bit uh because people really do need to find new suppliers when tariffs hit. And now we've actually added features where you can scan by HTS code. It's not something that's in every bill of lading, but some people just put it within their product description. So we scanned for it. And a lot of our logistics clients actually saw a ton of success by reaching out to customers and saying, hey, you know, you import this type of good from China. And maybe they didn't change their supply chain uh with the tariff, but then these people were having these conversations with supply chain managers, quoting them additional ocean lanes, quoting them all these different areas. And so we saw a ton of uptick when it came to the supply chain. And we didn't see as much of an uptick when it came to new sales with logistics, but we see a lot of people who were really jumping in once they started using that data in that manner. So a lot of people were very aggressively using it and seeing a lot of success by having those conversations, and then they bought even more seats because they saw the success. So uh long story short, very, very helpful to us. Um, and you know, still we still get some reverbs today. Somebody reached out to me today about uh tariffs because of Greenland and what might or might not occur there. So uh, you know, it's it's constantly been pushing people towards our platform, which we were slightly worried when we first heard it, and then we thought about and we said, yeah, well, people really now really need the data because things are changing pretty quick.

SPEAKER_05 17:29

That's awesome. I didn't even think about that use with the tool, but that is that is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

I sat down with a lot of our our clients over the past year, and it everyone you sat down with. It was we we asked them, hey, how's the tariff situation affecting your business? Things like that. And and they really reflected what you just said of well, we're just following the moving target like everybody else, the best we can. So really having access to that data is super important, and you know, everybody's trying to have that crystal ball, whether it's international or whether it's domestic. And that kind of leads me to to my next question for you. And um, that's for 2026. Give me your crystal ball look on do you think this is the year? Like, you know, us cowboy fans like to say, This is our year, we're gonna recover.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Yeah, I I mean, I would love to see the cowboys be good. Oh no. Freight wise, you know, I I would love to always have a crystal ball. Kind of what I've I've told people is I haven't seen people really dropping out. Like when our so it's tough for me to really give an analysis outside of the numbers of the number of containers that are coming in. We also do have a cross-border data set that's pretty cool. That's a pretty good filter of of what can go with full truckloads. So I won't reveal too much on what our data reveals in that area since uh we have some customers that pay us quite a bit of money for that. But I will definitely say that things are trending up and we're seeing a lot more people invest in our data. Is that because we're a new company or is that because people are starting to be more forward-thinking? I like to think it's the latter. The conversations that we've had with some very large shippers, um, 19 of the transportation 100 uses us, and we've had been having conversations with them, and all signs point to them thinking it's going up. So I will I will stick with their optimism and also think it's going up. I think with the way that people are investing, what I've kind of told people where I see things are going is that you're just gonna see just more specialized transport. People are gonna really find their niches within the marketplace and go to that. I don't think overall volumes are gonna be too bad, but I think you might see some alternate modes of transportation, maybe more LCL, things of that nature. But I think overall that would be good for the freight market. And I also think people are gonna have more inventive ways of moving their goods as uh cost becomes, of course, more of a factor in the future.

SPEAKER_05 19:51

You saw Echo, I think it was today, acquired ITS. Um that's a major move. I mean, you see more and more of these large brokerages acquire companies that help them really with a port-to-do execution strategy, right? And so, like, uh, you know, you think of DSV with their recent recent acquisition as well. Uh, I think more and more of these large brokerages are thinking, how can I control this movement from the port all the way to door without them having to look at additional providers? Um, it's a it's a great bid strategy as well, because the more legs you have to the to the move, you can find which part is the most profitable and try to just make a make your way to at least accept that lane so that you get that one piece of the movement that makes you the most of the revenue. So um it's a very interesting bid strategy as well as when you can approach it from one aspect, right? And it also makes the customer's lives easier. I know recently a lot of people over the last five years specifically have been kicking brokers out, right, and trying to slim up who they work with just because the market has been so low. It doesn't take, you know, the list of your top 20 brokers to execute on those lanes anymore because execution has become easy with the compared to the pricing, right? And so like I think what we're going to see now is after some of this consolidation, if the market truly does flip uh in tandem with demand, but also with some of the stuff going on with supply from the FMCSA, I think you're kind of brewing, not to have a pun, a perfect storm, kind of like we're going to be witnessing this weekend in Dallas, all among the Southeast. You know, I've been saying it for a while. I'm on record saying that all we needed was a good snowstorm this year. We've been expecting, um, and then that would carry us through to produce season. And all we need is produce season to be a little delayed and go into beverage season, and then we finally have the beginning of most of a cycle. You know, you add in government regulation into it, and it sounds like you say demand is going to be going up. I think there's a lot of positive signs pointing towards regulation. Recovery. So I'm glad to see it. You know, I think there's there's an entire workforce that's been in since, you know, five years. And I'd say they'd probably never seen a market that we're going into, right? They they've they've been in the depressed market of the valley for so long that, you know, selling on price, you know, will become a little bit easier if you're the cheapest one, but execution is gonna be a lot harder. You're not gonna you're gonna have to really count on all those carrier relationships they developed over the years to be fruitful. Um, and I think the dichotomy of top brokers is gonna start separating. I think you're gonna have a large chunk at the top, and I think you're gonna have a lot of losers at the bottom. Um, you know, and and if they get pinched even more, you know, insurance costs it could put them out. So um I'm really I'm really excited to see kind of what comes up for this year. I think Sarah kind of echoes my sentiments there.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

I I am excited. I I'm definitely more conservative on saying, hey, I, you know, this winter storm is gonna propel us and things like that. Um I I definitely hedge more on we need a little bit more demand for us to really, really see a push. I I was talking to my team about this the other day, and I really think back to when the ELD regulation went into place. Um when you're looking at really the non-domicile CDL and all of that situation right now, regulation taking capacity out of the market. It happens in phases. And so there's that piece. Yes, the storm can cause disruption, but I'm I'm still I'm still holding my cards. I I'm still cautious to say we're back. Um, but I think right now, kind of going back to something that Brent said, it's really you gotta find a way in this market to drive value. And it's not always gonna be through your price. And when you talk about importing drayage, international shipping, you will get a whole, you know, client supply chain. That could be their biggest headache. So it could matter, you know, hey, you're over the road domestic. Yes, your rate is good from A to B once I get it in the warehouse transloaded from the port drayage past all of those barriers. But if you're the one who can solve the issues I'm having at the port or getting to a warehouse to transload, or getting the chassis needed to execute the draid, because you've got a lot of these to Bryn's point, these brokerages who are pulling from the same pool of chassis and renting it like everybody else's, right? And so how if you can execute that end, then it makes you so much stickier to get the whole piece. Because I've definitely been in situations where I've been on the brokerage side where we get beat by a freight forder because we can't do the one-stop shop from origin to destination. Well, I mean, my freight forder handles it from A to Z, so I'm not gonna break that up. I I'm not gonna break that contract or anything like that. So I think it's that that acquisition, I think that's why it was really important for Echo, because now to Prince Point, you can sell A to Z if they didn't have that piece strong before.

SPEAKER_05 25:27

Is you mentioned cross-border, James. Um is the great Mexico drive going to happen? Is it is is that big cross-border trade? So you don't have to give exact numbers, but you can you can give red, yellow, green. Uh is this the year? Is this the year when the cross-border trade explodes?

SPEAKER_03 25:52

I mean, we can look at some numbers maybe. I'll just I'll take a look at April real quick. No, I mean overall trends are I would say uh yellow to green, maybe a teal. Um, I've seen a lot of I think uh what's interesting is you know, our data set is based off of tax declaration forms and entries. Uh, and one entry can have multiple truckloads. So really what we look at is poundage, and I've seen a lot more poundage coming through. And it's coming in more interesting spots, which I think is very cool. Like I'm seeing more products, more HTS codes that we haven't seen before. I'm also just seeing a lot more um actual terminal crossings being used. I'm seeing a lot more intermodal used rather than truckload when I look at some of the data points within the system here. And I think those are all very, very interesting. I think what's also very interesting is looking at what industries are going up or going down. We have uh more than a few users looking at those kind of things. Um, and that's been very telling as to what kind of industries are still very much aggressively focused on Mexico and which ones have been withdrawing. So I say yellow because I think a lot of industries are pulling a lot more from Mexico, and then some industries are somewhat pulling away and moving to other other sources. So I think uh poundage-wise, I'm seeing it go up, but that could be very dependent on what mode of transportation you move and uh of course what kind of customers you work with if you're working with CPG versus automotive, et cetera.

SPEAKER_05 27:20

Interesting. Interesting. Teal teal saving answers. Big answer, but we're on we're on teal. We're fine with that. That's that's good. That's almost green, right? Yeah. My daughter would tell me, go, daddy, go. So that's that's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Well, it's just interesting because the past, I would say two or three years, you kept hearing about near shoring. Okay, you're all these industries are bringing and all these companies are bringing a lot of that manufacturing to Mexico, um, especially post-COVID, where you had trouble overseas getting things in, containers sitting on the water, things like that. So I I feel like there's a lot of that near shoring that's starting to come to fruition slightly. It's not fully there to your point, it's teal. Right. We're in the teal stage, but I wonder if the next couple of years that really ramps up as a lot of those facilities are established when those companies started investing two or three years ago into that.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

Yeah, kind of I'll I'll dive a little bit deeper into it, but I I think you know, you're seeing a lot more of the near shoring of where people are bringing in um more raw material goods or goods that are almost ready to go. Um something that uh was somewhat of an industry secret to some people, some not, was called the Tijuana two step. Obviously, as tariffs have gotten more um fixed in, people this has been really cracked down on, but a lot of people would avoid tariffs by shipping things into Mexico, having them do a very small value add and then shipping into them into the US because the tariff codes were different. And I don't a lot of people called it different things. I called it the Tijuana two step. Um so you're seeing all I I'm not I won't take credit for it.

SPEAKER_05 28:49

Sounds like a mixed drink, to be honest. I I could order a few of those.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

It's actually just two straight shots of tequila.

SPEAKER_05 28:56

Don't uh don't tempt Sarah. It's dry January.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

So if I if I go for for liquor is tequila, someone y'all mentioned earlier, it's like, oh, there was a nice little tequila that y'all had coming out. I was like, oh, my eyes, my eyebrows worked up a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Yes, I'll have to accidentally leave one at the next uh transportation club meeting.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Oh I like it.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

There you go. But uh yeah, I think you're seeing a lot less of the TL102 step of now seeing people actually have a plant be part of their manufacturing process and actually doing some fabrication or actually making something that then either is close to finalized or then finalized in the U United States. So that's that kind of adds a lot to my teal there, is sort of you know, near shore and green, probably uh yellow, red, more aggressively red on the Tijuana two step.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

That's that's awesome. I love that name. You did actually uh mention the transportation club at DFW. So can you kind of give us your perspective on since you've joined, kind of your experience and maybe some things you gained from from joining?

SPEAKER_03 29:59

A lot of customers. Um, there's been really great connections. I mean, everybody at the transportation club is so open, so welcoming. I think that's probably the best part of it. Like first event, you're always very nervous to show up and you're like, oh God, is somebody gonna talk to me? Um and everyone has been super open. You always think that, especially when you're the sponsor, because you're like, oh, this guy's coming to sell me something, isn't he? Um, but no, people have always been very open, very questioning. I think what's cool uh about the transportation club and why I love sponsoring events is they're they're fun with you know doing the cool stuff. I can sponsor a bar tab, I can, you know, and that it's fun events, you know, it's a happy hour at Truckyard. It's a you know, a really awesome panel on cross border. You know, we got the cool AI one coming up this year, too. So I mean, I think everything about the club is is it's just welcoming.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

And, you know, some clubs you walk into it and it's stuffy, and it's like, well, you haven't been to you know 18 meetings yet, so we don't really want to get to know you, and we're not really gonna let you talk with everyone.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

And transportation club, super open. Um, they they saw that I was passionate about it, and you know, Brent Brent took me under his wing very quickly. So uh a lot of helpful stuff. And I mean, I absolutely love the club, and I always tell people about the club, and I think the nicest thing about it is the vents aren't stuffy, they're very laid back, they're very casual, they're fun things to do, which I think a lot of times clubs are really bad at doing. I mean, we did that VR happy hour, which was really cool. Um, so I mean, just yeah, it's fun. That's probably the best part.

SPEAKER_05 31:21

You mentioned AI. So the the cursed two syllables, and I and it I've gotta ask, how how how do you deploy AI currently with import Yeti?

SPEAKER_03 31:35

Yeah, so the the most customer-facing thing would be our Yeti AI, where people can just type in prompts and then the system will automatically create a search for you from our filters. Um that's kind of how we're using it customer facing wise. To be honest, you know, AI as as a so background on me, even further, both my parents are computer programmers. I grew up in Silicon Valley, so um always been around tech. And it's funny when people use AI because machine learning has been around forever. A lot of people are taking just advanced machine learning and slapping AI on it. So I think we're very advanced when it comes to machine learning. AI does really good things about uh taking data very quickly. So we're using AI to aggressively look at lists. One of the cooler features we're adding is our users can actually upload an Excel list of their customers, and then we use AI to pull all that data very quickly for them.

SPEAKER_04 32:23

That's awesome. That is that is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Still in beta mode. So I've ever I'm sure most of our users who are watching this probably already know because they've used it more than a couple of times. But we're working on getting it there, I promise. It takes a little bit of time. Um, but uh, that's kind of some of the cooler things we're doing, customer facing wise. On the back end wise, there's so many cool things with AI. I won't give away all the secret sauce, but it definitely lets you do very manual tasks very quickly, and that's what we use it for. We don't use it for a lot of critical thinking yet. We don't ask it complex problems. We just say, hey, this is grunt work, go do the grunt work that we don't want to, you know, pay somebody to do. Essentially, is really what it is. So that's kind of where I've seen AI been super helpful, is just tasks that you know, you don't want to go through a thousand files, but AI can do that in an instant. And machine learning has been able to do that for a very long time, double long here. So I think uh I think those are the coolest things that we're using it for right now. I think there's some other cool things that we we're using um that maybe I won't reveal the secret sauce on yet, but there's very, very cool opportunities with what it does. And I think it is most powerful when you have a very intelligent person telling it what to do. Um, and that's how I'll phrase my that's my overall thoughts on AI, not just import yeti views on AI.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

I with AI, I almost put it in like three categories, right? You you have those people who are like, don't say it three times, like beetle juice, or it's gonna come out and get you, right? Like scared of it. And then you've got that middle tier who's kind of like, oh, my toes in to your point. That's what I hear a lot when I talk to just peers about AI, things like that. It's like, oh, like this actually got information for me a lot quicker than me having to search 30, 40 minutes for it and put it together for me and and things of that nature. And then you've got the other extreme where it's like AI's doing everything, like CH coming out with um how much they are utilizing AI, things of that nature. And I don't think most of the industry is there yet. Um, but it's just interesting to see all three, I guess, reactions to it at this point.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

I actually put myself as teal there. I'm probably half between the thing.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Teal following in the case.

SPEAKER_05 34:32

I I'm orange there for sure, but I actually recently had it write SQL code for me for a specific usage and not, you know, I can't even spell SQL right, and like I'm here, I'm impllugging that code, and then I'm getting a report from it. And you know, you you think that the jobs I thought it taking, right, were specifically two entry-level jobs. That is a job that I can't even do manually. So to me, it's one of those things that it is getting smarter than the common man, right? And it's getting to the point to where it can really take on several, several departments, right? And so um it gets gets to that weird part about where we could talk about humanity and be here for an hour or more, but um, I'll just leave with this. I I think it's one of those things we have to be cognizant of all the things it impacts, um, and and really see it for the tool that it is and not go down too many slippery slopes of remote removing humanity, right? But I also at the same time recognize when I say that, I sound like one of the truck drivers that's upset about the self-driving truck, right? Um, and so, you know, I'm I'm cognizant of that, but I I think there are certain pathways that are perfect for it, right? Um, and I include healthcare in that, like plugging in symptoms and and and and plugging in, you know, you know, legal documents where you need to know certain strategies. And I'm not saying follow it with legal advice, but at the same time, you kind of know what you should be doing with your next steps.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

So I'll give you I'll give you my what I'm really excited about AI overall take is medicine for sure. I think it's super cool for testing hypotheses, and I think it will very much say some cool stuff with medical, and I'm really hoping it might double our lifespans. That's kind of my like gold star. And then my opposite side of where I think it's crazy is there's a YouTuber called Eddie Burbach who uh let Chat GPT just sort of decide what he did for his life, and it convinced him that he had created a mathematical algorithm so good that the FBI was chasing him and he had to go hide in the woods, and he just let ChatGPT tell him whatever to do. So if you want a really funny watch, go ahead and watch that on the watch that after this physical. Eddie Eddie Burbach, he's one of my favorite YouTubers. He also went to every Margaritaville and every Rainforest Cafe in the United States, which are also good watches.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

That's funny. I think the funniest, I think the funniest one I've seen, I've seen a lot of funny ones that are just like, what the heck? But uh there was a woman, I forget what state it was, but it was on the news. She legally married an AI persona. Like had it on the iPad, like she was in her wedding dress and then holding out, and there was uh there was a minister or you know, whoever was overseeing it, and there was like an iPad and married AI. I was like, crazy, huh? That was probably the funniest one I've seen.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Oh, that is that is crazy.

SPEAKER_05 37:47

She really likes to tell her husband to take out the trash, is what I'm greeting. It's like he has to do what she says, is what I hear. So uh oh, feel bad for that AI.

SPEAKER_03 37:56

Yeah, the AI can't say I'm too tired. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Um, so you uh were the president of Crimson Chaos for several years. Uh can you share with our listeners what that is and what your favorite memory of it was?

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Oh my God, there's so many memories. So Crimson Chaos, for those who don't know, is the official student section of the University of Alabama. Um I started off my freshman year. It was just a student club. And between my freshman and sophomore year, they came to me and said, Hey, you're the only freshman on leadership council. Uh, we want to take this and make it part of the athletic department. Um, so between my freshman and sophomore year summer, I stayed all year in Tusc, all summer in Tuscaloosa figuring out where does the student section need to exist at every sporting event, what is the marketing schedule for every sporting event, meeting with the head coaches and director of marketing for every sports team, and basically reinventing how the student section worked. Uh it's a really great uh position now. There actually is a uh Brewer Crimson Chaos president uh scholarship fund now. So the president of the Crimson Chaos does get some tuition help uh with it. Um you're welcome to whoever's getting that right now. Um but uh it was such a wild ride because my job was to do we didn't need help with football. So it was every sport but football. Um though we did I did get some nice perks for football and actually got to go to football games as a normal student, which was cool. But you know, the whole idea behind it was to drum up student health uh drum up student life and really get the student section excited for the games that the teams wanted them to be there for and really just drive attendance in general. Uh, I think it's gotten more basketball focused recently. I mean, it started off as a basketball club when I was doing it. I think it was all we tried to focus on all sports uh because drumming up excitement at all the sports led to everybody going to every sport, kind of uplift all boats. I think it's a little bit more basketball focused now. Some of the best memories that I had. I'll never forget when I was in a meeting and Avery Johnson came running down the tunnel going, Yes, yes, we just got the best recruit. And he was so excited. Uh and he has that's awesome. He has that little raspy voice too. Yes, yeah. He was a clip of the mass. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was, he was that was pretty funny. Um, so many good memories. I think uh I think one of the funnier ones was when a uh basketball ref got mad at me because I told him it was a woman's basketball game. And if you don't, I've never been to a woman's basketball game at Alabama. Our old stadium was like a thousand seats, so you could hear everything. And I said, Hey, you you missed, check your voicemail, you missed a couple calls. Apparently that was the line for him. And so he comes over to like our head of security and he's like, This guy, but I can hear him saying this, the security guy, this guy, I wanted you to stare at him for a little while, and we're gonna make him sh rattle in his boots a little bit. And I said, Bill Battle, our athletic director, is right over there, and he knows me by a first name basis, and I guarantee you he would not approve of you kicking me out of the stadium for that line. And uh sure enough, he he sort of turned around to Bill Battle, and Bill went in the rough. I don't have anything else Tuesday night at a women's college basketball game. I don't know why he was not into it, but that was one of the one of the ones that stood out. Um, but I think really the amazing part about the student section was getting to work with the athletes. I think a lot of people, you know, always they always ask me about what was like meeting Avery Johnson, or what was it meeting like, you know, this head coach? And I always talk about it was the players. I mean, the players who really got it were the ones who got people out to uh to games. One of the better ones, Nikki Headstead, who most people probably know her. She eventually married Bradley Bozeman. I'm so certain now she's Nikki Bozeman, and my God, that kid's gonna be athletic as all heck. Uh that that kid for sure first round draft pick in the offensive line. But uh, she was so amazing. She was one of the first people and captains who really met with us, went to events with us, went to other sporting events with other captains of other teams, and we kind of built this whole camaraderie around these athletes who would sit in the chaos student section and support their fellow athletes and really brought up a whole community as a whole. So I really think our athletes was the coolest part of it because they were the ones who got it, really got it, went to events, met with students and really drummed up people and got, you know, some really strong empathized fans who brought the atmosphere. You know, you could have 30 people, and that's kind of the main thing I remember from this, is you can have 30 people going buck wild, and the other 2,000 will follow eventually, but you got to get those 30 crazy loyal fans.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

And ironically, 30 is the magic number.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

Yeah, it will two people at that at our old woman's basketball stadium would have worked as well because you could just slam the chairs down and make amazing amounts of noise. But in in our big basketball stadium, you got 30 people going wild, it really would work out.

SPEAKER_05 42:24

Okay, so true thoughts on Auburn.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

I don't hate Auburn. Uh, they haven't beaten me very often during my time as a quick day.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

I sure I would dislike Auburn a whole heck of a lot more uh if I was if I was around and an Alabama fan when Bo Jackson was kicking our butt all the time. So I actually ironically, I think it's hilarious because some of my favorite athletes uh in professional sports are Auburn grads with Bo Jackson and uh with Charles Barkley. So um I always do joke that Charles Barclay is a great example of the Auburn education, but uh no, we we bring up the entire state of Alabama together. I really have a lot of friends who did go to Auburn. So I don't hate Auburn very much. LSU now. No, just kidding.

SPEAKER_05 43:05

We no, I share your sentiment about LSU. That is the 100% whoopig. I cannot stay.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

So what is your sentiment about the hogs? Like since we're moving states here. Let's talk about the hogs.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

My favorite quote for Arkansas was when Brett Bilma came and he said, if you compare my Big Ten record uh to Nick Saban's Big Ten record, we'll we'll see who wins out. And then he proceeded to go 0-4 against us and get fired. So I'll never let him together that one. But Arkansas's had some great players, Arkansas's had some great teams. I really did like uh I really do love the idea of um Polini coming back, but we'll see. I really hope that works out. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. I will I will wear a neck brace uh and a sugar ball Arkansas shirt if that happens.

SPEAKER_05 43:55

Motorcycle accidents aside, right? So we're talking about college. In transitioning to your first job. I know you mentioned that they that it kind of pulled you and you you didn't really know what was going into logistics. What would you say to recent college grads now as they look to go into the workforce?

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, go make it happen. I think so many people just sit through the process of I go to a recruiting affair and they talk to me and it works out, right? And it's sort of like they expect it to sometimes just come to them in the process. And, you know, Alabama did a great job of it with the business school, and uh, I'm sure a lot of schools do a great job of it. But at the end of the day, if you want to get a job somewhere, ask for it. Uh, that's how I got my internship with FC Dallas. That's how I even started working at the Crimson Chaos, was I showed up to literally the first sporting event of the year, looked dead in the president's eyes right then, and said, I want to work in this group. What do I need to do? Um, so if there's a job that you really want, you know, write a handwritten letter to the hiring manager, write a handwritten letter to the CEO if it's a small company, you know. You have the ability to go out and you don't have to follow just what the set steps are. I mean, don't be an annoying person about it. Don't call them every day, but do something to stand out. If you truly want a job and you truly are passionate about it, make yourself stand out and don't do what everyone else is doing because you know, you have AI reading resumes now, like half of resumes are already kicked out. If I was a hiring manager and somebody came up to me and told me things about the job that they really liked, why they really were enjoying that field, really thought about where do they want to go in their career or saw this as an opportunity to really grow within the company, why wouldn't I take time to talk to you? You're you're taking an effort that nobody else is. And a lot of those things aren't super hard. Looked at that person on LinkedIn, messaged that person on LinkedIn. Uh, I think most of the greatest opportunities that I've had in life were me just walking in and asking. I'll I'll give another example. Uh, in high school, we had a local TV station that would cover every basketball and football game. And at halftime of a basketball game, I walked into the production truck and said, Hey, I want to do color commentary for this con this station. What do I need to do? And he said, I have nobody who wants to do woman's softball on a Tuesday. And I said, I will do it, right? So if you ask, they're gonna give you an opportunity. Go do that opportunity, go work your butt off at that opportunity. But if you ask, a lot of people will give you an opportunity. And if you succeed there, you'll see a lot of success.

SPEAKER_05 46:23

Closed mouths, don't get fed.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Well, and you talked about the the business school, but one thing I always try to tell, I I really try to participate at UNT. That's where I went to school and try to help those students. But what I tell them is use your resources, use your business your business school, use your career center. I I'm really lucky at the University of North Texas. That's how I got my first job out of college is going to that career center and practicing interviews, having them look at your resume, you know, what questions are you gonna get asked? How, how should you answer them? Uh, what experience should you put on your resume? Because I think that's the other thing, especially student athletes, they underestimate how many skills that employers look for in the workforce that they have just being an athlete. You were working toward a goal, how did you, how did you get to that? Hey, when you you didn't reach the mark, how how did you react after that? How did you reach it the next time? Like things like that. So with UNT, they had a week of interviews for logistics and supply chain, and they told the students, hey, we're gonna bring in, I think it was 50 different companies, and they said, sign up for as many as you want. They're gonna come in and interview and things like that. And I ended up scheduling 12 interviews. I got five callbacks, and that's how I ended up at my first company was using that resource. And I know not everybody has that, but maybe it's the network at your college. Maybe it's, you know, your group of students that you have in class. You never know who knows who, especially when you're in the same classes together in an industry or a field you want to go into. So it it just it it takes me back to that when you're like the the business school was great and things like that. Just use all your resources you have.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

That was very well said, and I totally agree.

SPEAKER_05 48:20

So get so getting specific, what would you tell yourself leaving college, entering the workforce? Because you seem to have a pretty strong ability of networking. You're right, I I I completely can attest, like you specifically, you you're a great networker. What what was the one thing you would go back and say, hey, do this different? Because what you just talked about would have been what I told myself.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

Yeah. Ironically, I would say network more. I I'm not the best at going to networking events, which is why TCW DFW is great, because they're fun. Um, but I think I did a bad job of looking back on it, and what I tell myself is get more involved in your alumni network. Get more involved in that area. Uh, I'm starting to now re-get into that right now. Um, and I wish I'd done a better job of connecting it there, because you know, there's is a lot of pride going to Alabama, but every school has pride. Every school has pride. You all have a very shared experience. Um, you under you all have probably a lot of con a lot in common. You don't exactly pick a college based off of um, you know, just just vibes, you know, it is like you you walk on campus and you kind of know. Uh, and so those are very similar people to you. So I would have said do a much better job keeping my alumni network. And the other thing I would probably tell myself um would be, you know, don't take things so hard uh on your first job. I remember every time I failed in the first like month of my job, I was like, oh, I'm gonna get fired. I mean, to be fair, I did show up late to my first day at work because I did not understand that Dallas traffic was gonna triple my drive time compared to and I kid you not, I had actually driven the route to my office before my first day and seen how long it took. Uh, and then traffic doubled it. And I remember my my boss was like, don't ever show up late again. And then I stayed, I stayed two hours late and made phone calls until the West Coast closed. Uh but don't be so hard on yourself. You're going to make mistakes. They know you're young, they know that you're going to make mistakes, and you need to learn. And making mistakes is the best way to learn. Now, if you don't learn from your mistakes, they'll fire you. Um, but don't be afraid to make the mistakes. Be willing to learn and take as much criticism as you want. Uh don't take it so deeply and seriously. That's a thousand percent what I would have told myself.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

You said don't take yourself so seriously. I I kind of translate that to myself of I think early in my career, I didn't put myself out there enough. I didn't speak up enough of like, hey, go find a mentor. This is what I need, or hey, here's what I'm learning. Am I doing this right? Like, speak up, put yourself out there, because that's partially how you're gonna learn too, not just sitting in your corner. So it that definitely resonated with me when you said, um, just really making sure that you you put your full energy into it and and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

So Brent, what would you tell yourself? Good question.

SPEAKER_05 51:17

It'd have been to network more and to take care of yourself better. I think uh I think a lot of things really are about you know, as everything comes in threes, right? Holy Trinity, mind, body, soul. Um I think if you pay attention to one more than the other two, you still won't get as far as you'd like without fully committing yourself, right? Because if you're only exercising your mind every day, but you're not, you know, you're not spiritual and you're also not taking care of your body mindful of what you eat, you're only going to get so much retention from what you're learning. But if you're you're on the correct diet and you're working out, you know, and then also you know you're attending regularly or or practicing whatever you do as far as spirituality, I think, you know, I think Jesus and God really help you out, carry you to the instant degree. But you can't just be all or nothing in one of three, right? And I think all three phases are important. You know, I feel like I'm saying it's not like Jason Garrett when I say that, but I I really truly think if you don't approach all three evenly, it makes it hard to progress in any direction. And so, I mean, honestly, I didn't learn that till recently, really. Um, and I think I think the other two you mentioned are completely similar to me. I I'd probably say network, but uh the the other portion I'd probably say to myself is really, really pay attention to small amount of savings, right? Because the end goal is not to work forever, right? Like, yeah, you want to have a career, but you don't want to be working when you're 65 or 70. The goal is not to, you know, really reach 60 and and not at least have an exit plan. Um, and so um I got better at this quick, though. It wasn't something I just learned recently, but you know, putting$102 to$100 away, maxing out your 401k, you know, having a health savings account, you know, really treating your finances smart and living within your means. Um, you know, you're a slave to the debtor, and that's that's what it comes down to. And so it, you know, there are a lot of people that don't have a problem with carrying a lot of, you know, debt. You know, it's not something on the top of their mind, and it's something they can work with, and in others, it's crushing and and crippling. And so um, I would just say whatever you guys had on the last podcast.

SPEAKER_03 53:53

I forget the guy talked about. Oh, Phil.

SPEAKER_05 53:57

No, he has very passionate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:00

So if you haven't seen that episode, folks, make sure you watch Phil's episode because he has a fantastic take on this.

SPEAKER_05 54:05

He yeah, no, he's the one who actually got me to originally max out my 401k and he uh like attempt to each year, and that was probably 10 years ago, because he just got on to me like, why isn't this done? Like, why have you not done this? And it's like, well, I'm just doing enough to get the match. It's like it's a tax benefit. You're you're wasting money. So uh we I could talk about that for hours, but no, those would be the two things that I would definitely tell myself, just because you know it's not time is something you can't buy back, right? And I and I think, you know, specifically talking about your mind, body, soul, talking about your finances, those things are all in a clock, right? And you know, you're given one more day by the blessing of God. And that's that's what I think it really comes down to. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Well, I I love how you rounded that out, but I did want to have one final question for everybody. I d well, A, I guess it's a two-part. One, do you believe in New Year's resolutions? If you do, what are yours for 2026?

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Interesting. I don't I'm not a big New Year's resolution person, I think.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:13

I live very aggressively that you either get 1% better every day or you get worse every day. Kaisen.

SPEAKER_04 55:19

Okay. I like it.

SPEAKER_03 55:20

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very I I remember learning about Kaisen, the operations manager. I remember I was like, Wow, I like this. Yeah. That was that was pretty funny sitting in class. I was like, wow, I really like this theory. But you know, for me, I do think doing smart goals is always important in your life. I'm always constantly doing that. It's not something that I just do on New Year's. I make it an actual part of my life to to use SMART goals very aggressively. I always have very specific like, I mean, if you guys could see the whiteboard that's behind this little office setup, there's, you know, phrases around things that I need to do, or there's, you know, very specific goals around very specific milestones for the company that are on that board, so I can look at them every day and say, yeah, did we get closer to that? Yes or no? Um, I do think one of the bigger things that I'm working on this New Year's is losing a little bit of weight. I do have a nutritionist, Becca. Thanks, Becca. She's working great. Um, I'm trying to cut down a little bit because as I get older, having additional weight flying around has not been super helpful. So um that's probably one of my bigger New Year's resolutions, if you would call it that.

SPEAKER_05 56:20

I had an uh an old report a while back, and I'll I'll say this he's he's lost a ton of weight uh since it. And he's he came into work one day motivated, and he said, My goal is to not jiggle when I brush my teeth. Uh and that has stuck with me for so long. And you think about it, like that's a solid goal. Like you can walk in the mirror, and if you're not brushing super aggressively, right, maybe you don't jiggle then, but if you're truly brushing your teeth and you see it jiggle, like that doesn't pass the eye test. So, no, I I a hundred percent agree. I I I I love that goal. I think Sarah and I both have those goals. We're st we're really hamping down, but you're right, it'll as time goes on, that gets that much harder to come off, and it's that much easier to get in the routine and not think about what you eat. So I hear you on that one. But no New Year's resolution, just constant smart goals, hunter killer. I like it. I like it. Brennan Orsuga would approve there. He really would.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

I would love it if I had an amazing, awesome goal, but I think just you know, just gotta get better every day, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

Sorry, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_05 57:31

No, no, it's a great answer.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

I I love that. And you know, I think of atomic habits too, that that 1% better every day. Um, I think one of the bigger ones for me, obviously Brent mentioned it, we're we're trying to get healthier, but the other one, it's a running joke around our house is that typically like every occasion, like my birthday or Christmas, um, I will put books on my list to get. And Brent jokes that we have a very decorative library that I never use. So I am really trying to commit this year to read one book a month. And I'm on track so far. And right now I'm rereading uh Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins. I think I'm on track to finish that by the end of the month. So that that is my part of it is I'm just gonna show Brent that it's not decorative anymore. Um but I I also really, really like it. I I feel like I'm off my phone as much, especially at night. Um, you know, things like that. So there's there's kind of an added benefit, you know, things like that.

SPEAKER_03 58:41

I was trying to find my favorite book and I I will tell everybody about it. I wish I had it to show, but it's called Hope is not a strategy, and that's the greatest sales book I've ever read in until I was but it's my favorite.

SPEAKER_05 58:51

I've I've heard that in meeting rooms. I've heard it in meeting rooms before as well. Uh yeah, because so like sometimes, you know, well, I think the customer will do this. Well, you know, you really don't know. Like, let's let's get into the details and formulate an actual strategy. So no, I've I've heard that a few times. And so I actually need to read that book. I actually used to have an abbreviation for it as he news, H-I-N-A-S, right? And so like I I would that would be in my chat a few times when when I would get plans that were built around variables that were only in hope, right? Well, well, I think we'll get these hundred lanes, so we should probably price these lower. It's like that's probably it's probably not not smart. Like, let's let's get through round one or two, let's get some feedback. So no. Um, this has been a great interview, man. We we we love having you, and we'll definitely have you more often. And you know, I think we'll obviously see you at a few more TCDFW events. We've got our top golf event we're about to release pretty soon in March. Uh, and then we'll have AI panel, then we'll have our market update panel, uh, and then we'll have the golf tournament, and then it's now in the words where we're gonna do a combined Christmas party this year with other logistics clubs around the area. So it's gonna be a big smash. So CSCMP, ICM, and a few others are gonna join us, and so we'll have a lid we'll have a legit Christmas party this year to look forward to. So we're we're really excited. Obviously, hope to see you there.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

I will be wearing my uh Yeti sweater. I will be prepared. I found one on on sale after Christmas, so I bought that and we may or may not be trying to make our own. Um so we'll see, we'll see if that's made in time. But a minimum I have the uh the Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer abominable.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:36

If there's ever if there's ever a need for someone to put on a Yeti full suit, you know a guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

Yeah, uh well, we we might we we may or may not have one. Uh it is in California, but uh there may or may not be uh we have the yeti feet and we have the yeti body. We don't have the yeti head, so we need to figure that out.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:56

That's not a problem. This this paints easy, right? And the beard's already there. Let's let's go. So just it how do you go, how do you make it not look like Avatar with the blue, the blue though, right? It's got to be the light blue, right? It's not the blue, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

But you don't want to look like a smurf, do you? Like we could have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:14

I don't think I can look a smurf. I'm I'm I'm I'm a little bit too large to be a smurf.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

I think that's a good thing. Exactly with the beer.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Like yeah, yeah. That's that's where I was going. Thanks, James. You you've I mean that what I was putting down.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:30

All right, well, Papa Smurf. I think that might uh picked up a new nickname, I guess. Um, James, it's been a pleasure. We look forward to speaking with you soon. Honestly, we I I think your tool is amazing. Uh, you've demoed a feud me a f a few times. Uh, I think any broker that's not looking at this is is is cutting themselves short. Honestly, it's it's it's putting your hunters with data to be able to have an in-depth sale call, right? There's so many times they just send phishing emails and they do not even trying. Spend 10 minutes in import Yeti and then be prepared to have that call with your prospect and tell them something they don't know about their supply chain. I I think that is truly the easiest way to go fishing with dynamite. But uh, James, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:16

Of course, thank you both for having me. I love the podcast, it's been awesome. And if this is your first time watching, make sure you go back and watch every other episode and like, comment, and subscribe to the channel.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:25

Yay, there we go. Thanks for the endorsement, James. We appreciate you. Bye, we'll talk to you later.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Thanks, guys.

unknown 1:02:35

Boom.