Everything is Logistics
A podcast for the thinkers in freight. Everything is Logistics is hosted by Blythe Brumleve and we're telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff (and people!) get from point A to B.
Industry topics include freight, logistics, transportation, maritime, warehousing, intermodal, and trucking along with the intersection of technology and marketing within the industry.
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Everything is Logistics
The Biggest Marketing and Sales Takeaways from TMSA's Elevate Conference
In this episode of Everything is Logistics, we're recapping takeaways from TMSA in New Orleans, held from June 5-7, 2024. Recorded live, this roundtable discussion features insights from an in-house marketer, a marketing agency leader, and a company founder, offering valuable perspectives on marketing and sales strategy.
- Aaron Dunn: Director of Sales & Marketing, PDQ America, and Co-Host of Trucking for Millennials podcast
- Leigh Sauter: Director of Operations & Strategy, Virago Marketing
- Kameel Gaines: Founder, CEO, and Director of Recruitment, Rig On Wheels Broker & Recruitment Services
Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.
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Welcome into another episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. We are proudly presented by SPI Logistics. I'm your host, B blythe Brumleve, and we've got a special episode for y'all. Today we're doing a roundtable discussion live at TMSA Elevate in New Orleans. You can see Bourbon Street a little bit back there in the background, so we are going to avoid the temptation of going outside and instead focus on some nerdy marketing and sales talk.
Kameel Gaines:All right.
Blythe Brumleve:So for folks who may not be aware of each of you, go around and introduce yourself, your company, all that good stuff.
Kameel Gaines:Yep Great. I'm Kameel Gaines and I am the CEO and founder of Ring on Wheels Worker and Recruitment Services. We've been in business for 14 years and our biggest part of our business is truck drivers. Third party truck driver recruitment agencies.
Leigh Sauter:I'm sorry, lee. Hi, Leigh Sauter. I am Director of Customer Success and strategy at Roswell Marketing, so I help a lot of supply chain technology companies and supply chain companies align their marketing strategy. Super.
Aaron Dunn:And my name is Aaron Dunn. I'm with PDQ America, director of Sales and Marketing. We are an open-deck freight brokerage focused on oil and gas mining hotshot heavy On Point of the Gas Mining Hot Shot Heavy Hall Flatbed Sip Deck, whatever you need A lot of Texas, texas Freight, but we ship nationwide. And then there's also this podcast called Trucker for Millennials that I co-host with our president, michael.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, very good podcast. For folks who haven't checked it out, we got strong Texas representation here today in the house, so, um, I guess, uh, let's get started um with highlights. What has been the biggest, I guess, sort of takeaway for you? Kameel, I'll start with you.
Kameel Gaines:Oh my goodness, everything has been so great. But I think our keynote speaker and him talking about storytelling and the way he broke it down you hear the storytelling in so many different ways, but really I like how he broke everything down and then he was doing storytelling as he broke it down and then what was the movie clip that he did for? Ted Lasso oh yeah, and I didn't know. I think I kind of fell into his little scheme of things and he played it and I was getting all emotional and everything.
Kameel Gaines:And I was like, oh, yes and everything, yes and everything. But that really hit me because it was talking about bringing everybody into the story, changing the narrative of everything so they can understand what is going on, and then going from there, because people don't buy from you for logical reasons. Obviously Everything is emotional and I feel like I'm in his trap and I'm going to start crying.
Blythe Brumleve:Well, I think that in the stats, like in the program, it said something like 500% increase in leads If you provide a story, or 500% increase engagement if you provide a story with your posts, and so if you encourage that storytelling, which I'm like wow, where did they get that stat first of all, but 500% increase like there's got to be some positive momentum in there for him to make that statement. What about you, lee? What's been your biggest highlight so far?
Leigh Sauter:I will say that keynote I think is the best that T DMSA has ever had. Like, I just sometimes find keynote speakers to be a little much. I thought he was humble, funny, really liked his content. I have to pander to you because I loved your session on people profits purpose. Oh, thank you. There isn't always a ton of attention paid to culture and internal alignment at T CMSA, of course, because we're marketing and sales. Attention paid to, like culture and internal alignment at TMSA and like, of course, because we're marketing and sales. But I'm such a big believer that that drives everything you know, marketing your customer experience. How happy are your, how happy are your people to drive that? Oh, very true. So I just love that there was like the opportunity to have that discussion and have that conversation here, um. So I'll think of other highlights, but those are the two that come to mind. What?
Aaron Dunn:about you, aaron. Mine would be the size and how they do it. This is my first one, so I've never been to a TMSA. Didn't know what to expect really, aside from a bourbon tree, and that's all I'm going to say. So I went to TIA, for example point of contrast like it's probably four times as big, at least. Huge exhibit hall, big speakers, kind of a full production, some networking.
Aaron Dunn:But you really got to find it. TMSA does an excellent job at creating it, producing tons of opportunities to meet people, connect, have conversations that are probably more productive than some of the content that you get when you're just receiving information. You really get a way of workshopping that information in real time with people. And then you get to connect with people who do what you do. It might be a little different, but it'll be similar and then you can just pull from their own experience and then you're like, oh wow, well, now I've got, you know, some insight, but I also have a friend that I can reach out to next time. So I think that's the biggest highlight for me.
Aaron Dunn:I would echo your point on the storytelling aspect too, but I think the biggest, like biggest thing that I've been able to see, especially because I've been to a lot of different conferences in my career that's the highlight for me is that the intentional time that they put on. How can we foster relationship building with everybody who's here? If it was four times as big, you wouldn't really be able to do it effectively. It's like a perfect little size to get you know everything like that.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, it's definitely like an intimate experience, but not weird, it's fun.
Leigh Sauter:Yeah, I didn't know we were allowed to deviate from the program so I would also echo your comments. I think some of the other things that I love were like the interactive discussions. So, like, for instance, we had a roundtable about AI tools and we all talked about how we're actually applying that in our day-to-day. That was so cool. We all commiserated, we had like an AA meeting style on marketing, which was great.
Leigh Sauter:But I think you're absolutely right. It's like the atmosphere here, like the vibes were high this year, wouldn't you say? Like everyone was so friendly and I met a lot of new people. It's like you know, maybe this would be my first time here.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, there's a lot of new faces.
Blythe Brumleve:I like that that it was a lot of new faces. No-transcript, the coffee walk and talks, the buddy system that TMSA has where they match a veteran with a newcomer so they can kind of facilitate those meetups ahead of time. So those are really really good call-outs. But I'd love to continue the AI discussion and some of the things that you guys talked about at your table, because the roundtable discussions have personally been my. I did really like the shipper panel with the hunter versus gatherer, especially from the sales aspect. I thought that was really interesting to think about the sales process and how there's two different mindsets there, where there's the one that's doing the planting and the farming but then there's the people who are aggressively going after new business. I kind of thought that maybe they would all be bundled together. Naively, I thought from it depends on the size of the organization.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh, true, you know, but yeah, that was one of my takeaway notes from my otter transcripts of the shipper panel, which Aaron made fun of me for for taking notes. But I am happy to share those transcripts, you know, with everybody. But I would love to talk about the AI discussion because I feel like you can't talk about marketing and sales right now without mentioning some kind of AI. So what were some of the big takeaways from your table? And then I want to know how y'all are implementing it within your companies. Yeah, I mean.
Leigh Sauter:well, you just mentioned even Otterai, Like I wished that I Otterai'd my lunch table. I was like this was a missed opportunity, but we were talking about like. I mean all the normal use cases of like. Oh, it helps me get from zero to one on content.
Leigh Sauter:It helps me with power lines, it helps me with sales drafts and things like that. But then we were kind of going around to like, if you have an otter AI transcript, like for me, I dump that right in and say write me a follow-up email, give me my action item. That's what that right in the project meant. We were talking a lot about how you can use it to just make those follow-ups and all of those tedious things much faster. I didn't really. One of the things that we were talking about, too, is it feels like there should be an AI tool that we're using right now to like optimize our all our digital marketing campaigns and.
Leigh Sauter:I know I haven't found one that really like does you know, like dynamic AD testing and assessing all the different like LinkedIn and Google and Facebook, and kind of optimizing creative that's. It feels like like I kind of was hoping someone here was going to give you that tool, but not so far.
Blythe Brumleve:What about any gripes? Any gripes at the table about using AI? I mean certainly there was the.
Leigh Sauter:You know it's getting really saturated with content in general, that is unimaginative, you know like AI generated. It needs a human touch for sure. Not too many gripes, I think. Yeah, I can't think of any Besides. I think every single person. I honestly, I think the biggest gripe is that this industry keeps us so busy that we just don't have time to test and test all the new tools. So I think the gripe was like every one of us was like we don't really feel like we're experts at this.
Leigh Sauter:I'm not sure why it's still being discussed. No one feels like they can be an expert because, it's moving so fast. I don't think many companies are like letting employees have the time to test new tools right, or like the time in their schedule just in general to try new things.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, that's a really good point. It almost feels like an overload of tools, especially that first year when ChatGPT dropped where it was. All of these new tools are coming out. It felt like every week.
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Blythe Brumleve:How are you using? Are you using AI at all real?
Kameel Gaines:show. So, whether it be with a trucking client or with the marketing client or the real show side, I'm able to go back and actually listen to the voice of the client again. So not just the black and white notes that you wrote down, but you can listen to what the client actually said and how he or she said it. Then that allowed me to say, okay, I'm going to frame this marketing campaign this way.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh, interesting.
Leigh Sauter:I love that.
Blythe Brumleve:You have to capture the human element in the voice, like the tone.
Kameel Gaines:I'm actually able to do that, because if I actually just took it from the notes then I'll say, oh, abc retention company, mandy this. But when I actually go back and listen then I'll say, no, t-match this. Oh.
Blythe Brumleve:From the tone and the voice. T-match this. And how are you doing that? Are you finding maybe keywords within the transcript or just going back and just listen to it? Oh, okay, so really just manual, like listening to it.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, so I'll go back and find the keyword you know and then I'll go to that section.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh smart.
Kameel Gaines:Right, and then I'll listen to it, and then go back and listen to it again just so I can hear it, and I'll close my eyes just so I can hear it. And I close my eyes just so I can picture what he said to me that time, so I can get that marketing campaign the way he wants it.
Blythe Brumleve:Smart and are you making, I guess, the marketing campaign for them, or are you creating the marketing campaign to send to them?
Kameel Gaines:Either way, oh nice.
Blythe Brumleve:It depends on the client and what they're needing. What about the podcast side of things? Are you doing any?
Kameel Gaines:That's typically what a marketing campaign is. Oh, okay, okay, it's the podcast side of the house, and then on the recruitment side of the house, it's just the sales recruitment for the driver, nice, which is marketing as well. But it's two sides of the house. So the podcasting is more of the lead generation for the company in that form, and then the third party, recruiting, is to recruit the driver Smart.
Blythe Brumleve:What about you, erin? Where are you focusing with AI?
Aaron Dunn:I know we just talked about this before we hit record, so so, I'm trying to think of a different way, so I'm using it a lot. I think I'm using it a lot in comparison to a lot of people, but again, like you're saying, I think everybody's figuring it out in real time, that's why it's dangerous it's like dangerous, but at the same time it's like, well, I've got to use it right.
Aaron Dunn:it's dangerous not to use it right, and so, um, we're using it on on a lot of fronts in the business. Um, we use it for the podcast, for production and things like that. Show notes, it does that pretty well. Uh, we do it. We use uh automation and ai to help us identify clips and capture things for just speed of efficiency. I think that's Table Stake's way of using AI right now as far as media is concerned.
Aaron Dunn:But as far as operationally, through freight brokerage, a couple ways that I've been using it for training the team, for example. One recent example was I do a lot of sales training myself, right, like how can I get better? And then, once I get a handle on it, one of the best ways to learn is to teach, and so also it's part of my job to teach the team right to like increase their skills. But I might not have a full grasp on it. I don't have a mastery of the subject that I should learn, but what I can do is go to ChatGPT and I can say, hey, I'm wanting to do a sales training on framing, for example, is what I did, so framing different sales pitches or marketing or whatnot. Can you help me train the team on framing?
Aaron Dunn:And so ChatGPT does what it does. It gave me training notes in, you know, in 12 seconds, that I can use and then go right to the team. So I don't have to take 30 minutes of my time and creativity and brain power to like put out these notes and then it might be good, might not be bad. Now the cool thing with ChatGBT is that it will. Also, it understands and knows the business, because I've already given it that information. We're a freight broker, we do open deck transport, and so it has that memory stored. So then, in the training notes that it gave me, it gave me examples that sounded similar to scripts that we would use. Some of them were terrible and I told my team this is terrible, but can you make the connection? Now it's our job to make these better with that human touch.
Aaron Dunn:And so that's another example. And then workshopping emails and things like that. You've got to do a lot of coaching, I've found, with emails because it sources so much, I think, of the sample size that it makes it generalized. But the more time that you can spend, if you can just give yourself the time to do it, the better your result will be. And you know, even to learning new segments and industries, that hey, I'm interested in construction and I want to find out this information.
Aaron Dunn:So instead of saying, okay, well, you could Google it, let me chat GPT in as well and then see what kind of research it comes to me with, or a plan of how to learn something a little bit faster so I can just take those notes and say, okay, well, I like that, I don't like that, we already do this, and so this is where we can spend a little bit more time and energy. So those are some of the ways that we're using it right now, and then I'm spending time in it every day to just pick up those nuances, figure out how we can just use it emotionally.
Blythe Brumleve:What about you, Lou? How?
Leigh Sauter:are y' all using it internally? I mean, in addition to all the ways you guys were saying, I feel like I've done a lot of figuring out how to make the tool filter itself. So you know it's like here. One way that I use it for our clients that I think is really great is I'll use it to kind of audit, right, so it's like I have a client. Maybe their marketing messages aren't that clear.
Leigh Sauter:I will just scrape their website, their marketing materials. I'll scrape everything, I'll put it in and say, like, what are their key messages? Who is this company Like? And because I already have an idea of what I think their key messages are, who I think they should be saying, and you can kind of like get almost like a current state analysis pretty quickly to work off of.
Aaron Dunn:Yeah.
Leigh Sauter:And I think I've been able to kind of improve my outputs by asking us to take on different goals, you know. So I write something and I say, okay, now you're a copy editor, you know, critique the work.
Blythe Brumleve:The prompt is so important. Yeah, like what words are overused?
Leigh Sauter:What like and you and you know things like. Could you know? It starts the paragraph every time like an unprecedented time it's like delve.
Blythe Brumleve:It's like the word delve, I think, is now being used like a thousand innovation yeah, so I'll say like find those overused words and replace them with something else.
Leigh Sauter:So it's just to me, I love using it and playing with it in that way, like to see, kind of like, what outfits I can get.
Aaron Dunn:Yeah, it's fun to.
Leigh Sauter:It's like a part-time job.
Aaron Dunn:Yes, yeah, it's fun to like, like I think a lot of times people will say or at the beginning, it's easy to just say, okay, well, I'm going to do this and then I'm going to take the, take the response and that's the response. Yeah, but it's such a dynamic relationship with it because, like you, it's only going to put out what you put in and, like you can tell it no, you can say no, this is not that great, or and you can really coach it and so like, and it has no feeling.
Aaron Dunn:So you can, you know it's not to say that you're gonna cuss it out, but like you should feel more empowered, that you're really talking to another half of your brain, almost Like to really you have an expert, but at the same time you can really sculpt it in a way that you wouldn't be able to with a person or even with yourself you can have it. Hold you accountable in a way that people wouldn't.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, and I love that you brought that up, because I just discovered this new framework that I've been using and it's really helped a lot, because for a lot of our prompts that we use for the podcast, for marketing communications, things like that they'll work for a little while and then they just become crap. Like the results that I get become crap and I'm like, why does this keep happening? Well, I just discovered this new framework and it's centered around giving chat GPT constraints and telling it. So it's called the RISN framework and R is the role, so it's the job that you want the AI to act, as I is instruction. The specific task you want the AI to do.
Blythe Brumleve:S is steps, so the exact steps, detailed breakdown, as if you were hiring a contractor. E is the end goal, so giving it, telling AI exactly what you expect to see from ChatGPT, and then N is narrowing, and so that's where we're giving the restraints of make the blog article between 500 and 1,000 words. Do not use overly flawed language. Make sure to use human sounding language and omit the most commonly used adverbs. Don't make up stats yes.
Leigh Sauter:Don't make up anything. I Don't make up anything.
Blythe Brumleve:I always tell it that I had never thought of it from that regard of narrowing it and giving it restraints. I just was like write me a blog post based on this transcript and I'm like, why does this suck? Well, you have to evolve your tactics in such a short amount of time, I think.
Blythe Brumleve:I like that, because that's just a quicker way I feel like probably what we're all doing, but just in a much more concise and upfront way, like we now have a google doc, like internally, that we just keep the prompts that we're using and ways to think about it, so that way it's real easy to just bookmark it and just go to that and hit copy and paste, because these prompts, like that prompt that the risen framework, like your prompt, will probably be closer to like 500 words with giving it those kinds of insights and so that's. I don't want to say it's like a gripe, but it is a learning curve with a lot of this stuff. What about some of like the image visuals? Have you guys played around with any of those AI tools we use?
Kameel Gaines:those for the thumbnails. We use them for the blog articles.
Blythe Brumleve:Smart.
Kameel Gaines:And so sometimes I might know exactly the way I want the blog articles to look, and other times I don't. Right, so I'll just say I want it to be a real mistake for this particular blog and I put the entire blog in there, right? What toy are you using? It was supposed to be the chat GTE with the DA.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh, dolly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kameel Gaines:So a lot of times it's that thing. When it comes to the blog and I'll let it know I need the blog size. Sometimes it has to do with the blog size and sometimes it won't. Yeah, I put it in Canva. It should be the blog size, but that's typically what I do from there. So if I just cannot think of exactly what I want it to be, and if I put the entire blog in there, it still may not give me what I want, but it might give me an idea. Then I go back and put a comment in there of what I want, Instead of giving you something you don't want so you realize what you want.
Kameel Gaines:Yes, well said what I have noticed now is that we can go back and tell it oh no, this isn't what I like, and it will use that same picture and correct it. Before it wasn't correcting it it would be an entire picture.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh, interesting, because I always struggled with the text on photos, like, make me this, make me a different, everything is logistics logo, and then it doesn't spell like everything right. Or, and I'm like, no, spell everything right and it just doesn't.
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Aaron Dunn:It's kind of wild that the language learning model does not know how to really spell some things sometimes visually. I did notice that the switch from chat GBT 4 to 4.0 has improved that. Oh, interesting. And so the images? We don't use images with ChatGPT very much at PDQ. Graphic Designer will do that. But personally the blog that I write, I use it for all the promotional things, for that, and then I just have fun. It's anything right.
Aaron Dunn:But one thing that I found on crafting images is I took one art appreciation class in college and that's helped so much because it introduced me to a lot of different artists and art styles. And so you couldn't say you can't say Picasso like make this like Picasso. Or you can't say Picasso like make this like a pasta. Or you can't make it like like something, like name a visual artist. It's like you know, because of copyright or what not we can say.
Aaron Dunn:But you can say describe what a Warhol style is, and then it'll give you that and then I'll say, cool, make the image in that style. Yeah, you can't get around it, oh smart. So. Or or I'll say, well, make the image in that style, and then you kind of get around it, oh smart. So, or I'll say, you know, to the skill of a high school art student, I'm looking for a matte color pencil drawing of something on a white background that you know stuff like that, so as detailed as you can make it kind of visually conceptualized in your head, you just tell it and then it'll pop it out. It's a little more time-intensive than I've found and I've got to gauge my time wisely on that right, because you can really fight for it for a long time and you're like oh my God.
Blythe Brumleve:Just go to.
Aaron Dunn:Canva and at the same time, you know I'm not, I'm not the board you could. You could do it this way, or I've done it where. Okay, well, I can't get it to make the exact image or figure that I want, but it'll make a background that I want, and then I can go to Canva and just use the AI background and then overlay an element or something like that.
Aaron Dunn:So just use it as a. I use it as like kind of a different material right Different media to all kind of collage. It to get close to where I want to be.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, that's great, and that's the same thing when it comes to if they type or write everything incorrectly. You just take a can of the Erase Magic thing and type it out. Oh, that's smart.
Aaron Dunn:Dolly also has, where, when you have the image, you can actually select one of the two prompts that they give you, or two outputs, and you can. You can highlight a certain thing, so like you might not like something in the top right corner and you can just select that top right, oh interesting.
Aaron Dunn:You can say remove this or change this to blue or something like that. It'll recreate that exact image, but change it so like, for example, I've given one where it's like a man at someone at the top of the mountain with a planting flag, and it gives me a man and I'm like, well, make it a woman. And then I'll just give you the woman. And then it's like, okay, great yeah perfect, wow, all right.
Blythe Brumleve:So I feel like I need to start taking notes here, but I will just load this into Otter anyways, and just get those takeaway notes. What to otter, anyways, and just get those takeaway notes. Um, what about video side? We were talking before we hit record on the video side of things, and where I struggle with the most with video, is that we're taking our long-form content, we're putting it into a tool called opus. It's finding those, you know, those juicy bites, those moments.
Blythe Brumleve:But a lot of the software has gotten better, but it's taken a human element to go in there and pick the. You have to watch each individual clip, which is time consuming. Like, ideally, I just want to be able to load the YouTube link in there and just have it be done already. Um, but we have to isolate those clips and then make sure that those clips are having a full thought. So a lot of times it will pull out like a buzzword, but then it doesn't complete the thought and that is aggravating.
Blythe Brumleve:And so people on YouTube shorts have definitely let me know their opinion when the video is not up to par, um, also a TQL video, people not like TQL. So that's gotten a lot of, uh, negative comments, um, but picking out those different shorts is one of those things that's been really challenging, I think, and just time consuming, where it's almost you know we were talking beforehand. I was like I just need to hire somebody to do this manually, because I don't know that AI can solve that. It has gotten a little better, I don't know, though.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, I mean I feel like it's a time where somebody has emotion in their voice or something like that.
Leigh Sauter:Like until it can solve, solve for like. What are the moments in this video that really make you feel something? Like how can you use it effectively?
Aaron Dunn:Yeah, and I think that you're talking to a robot, right?
Aaron Dunn:So, it doesn't feel anything Right, and so it's only looking at language and it's only looking at you know those types of things, so I don't know how exactly it works, but, yeah, you know those type of things. So I don't know how exactly it works, but, yeah, I haven't found that AI can set it and forget it and let it choose the clips, because those clips are the emotional hook like that really get people going. Yes, so you've really got to have a human touch on that and then just let AI do the efficient thing that it's going to do.
Blythe Brumleve:Do you think people are becoming desensitized to these video clips? I find, kind of myself I'm getting desensitized to it. No, that's because we look at it all the time. Yeah, true.
Kameel Gaines:But for the video clips, what we've done is you just have to work with three or four different AI and hire somebody that is going to look at the three or four different AI and hire somebody that is going to look at the different AI. So you're using your human person, but it's going to help them. So it's not saying that the AI is doing the work. The AI is helping them. Cut down on the work.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh, very true.
Kameel Gaines:So that's how we utilize, or at least that's how we utilize hours right. So it just helps our fellow, help them cut down on the work. So it might be three or four different AIs, not just one, and so are you using Opus for this?
Blythe Brumleve:It could be Opus. Captions.
Kameel Gaines:AI Munch. Can you pay for all of them?
Blythe Brumleve:All of them. I remember seeing Munch and I'm like I can't devote no time to this right now. I'm like Opus I have used them for a while and I have thought about switching too much, but I think I just got so burnt out on new tools for us it's not switching.
Kameel Gaines:We're going to be hiring Darcella Darcella is our goddess, but between Darcella and Ter doing that, so they are the humans and using the AIs to help cut down on their work, so they're not having to chop up each and every thing, but as they're listening, they'll say, oh, this is good, so this particular thing needs to be chopped up even more.
Blythe Brumleve:So they will hear that Smart, I think that it's like a bandwidth thing, I think for us is or I would say, my assistant, because she is the one going through and watching all of these, and she's like I don't have time to watch all of these clips. Like we're dropping a couple episodes a week. This is multiple hours. So she's like I already have time to watch all of these clips. Like we're dropping a couple episodes a week. This is multiple hours. So she's like already she's already focused on like email and social and you know that kind of distribution, youtube as well. But the other aspect of it is just going through all it.
Blythe Brumleve:But the clips are so important, like the minutia of each detail has become so much more important. Like we were talking before going through our different podcast processes of how YouTube thumbnails the subject line on your email, the podcast title, like all of these things, the social clip these are the intro to that long form content and you have to nail that, otherwise I don't know that people are going to go and watch the long form content. So what about? All right, so this is what I love and I specifically picked you guys for this episode because we got a company owner perspective. We got in-house marketing perspective, and then we also have or in-house agency perspective and in-house marketing perspective. So I'm curious after this conference, what areas of marketing are you still you still think you're going to struggle with, and how do you? Maybe you plan to get better at it?
Kameel Gaines:Well, we have in-house marketing as well because, I had to hire and train up from the ground up, oh wow. Because not only are we trucking, but we're third party movement trucking right. So no one understood our language anywhere on god's planet. So, um, I'm still we're doing a good job with learning you, podcasting and different marketing.
Kameel Gaines:But I don't want to say it's a struggle, it's just areas of opportunity. But I'm grateful to have a team that is on board with me always and continues learning Smart. You know like right now we are diving into Gary Vee's new book right, so we are listening to it as well as reading it.
Blythe Brumleve:What's the name of the book?
Aaron Dunn:Day Trading Attention.
Blythe Brumleve:Yep Day Trading Attention. Oh, I love it, yes.
Leigh Sauter:It's just a lot going on here. I don't know, what's all in here? It's making a small town.
Kameel Gaines:But yeah, Day Trading Attention. Have you started yet? I haven't. Yeah, they try to need attention. Have you started yet? I haven't.
Aaron Dunn:No, I just know about it.
Kameel Gaines:It's wonderful, it's a good. You're going to cry. Oh wow, you're going to cry.
Blythe Brumleve:You will Tell us the moment they made you cry.
Kameel Gaines:So his book is a book. It's wonderful and it's beautiful can hear him talking. But the audio. He will stop talking and say okay, I want to pause for a moment and go off script and he's giving you more art that's in the book.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh, that's cool.
Kameel Gaines:Because you know it's the other way around, right.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, and then in the book he has the QR code where he takes you to the chart and everything, and I haven't had this type of interaction like this in grad school, which has been you know a long time, a couple decades. But so it's just I don't want to say struggle, but I do feel that there is an opportunity because with digital marketing, it changes just as fast as our industry changes. Very true. So I am grateful to guys like Gary G, because he understands that and he's changing with it.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, he's changing with it.
Blythe Brumleve:That's a good mindset to look at it as opportunities instead of areas of struggle.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, because you're always changing, changing, changing Because the minute you feel like you understand it, it's bad because it means you're behind.
Blythe Brumleve:Yes, All right. So what about you two? What are your areas of opportunities for marketing?
Leigh Sauter:I mean, I was going to say something similar, which is just like I've got a lot of moral support at the conference, but I don't know that I've picked up a ton of like actionable tips of how to really break through. Like the saturation of content.
Leigh Sauter:I think, email is kind of dying. I think social is still working, but you really have to be creative and apply yourself. And so you know it's really. I just think it's tough to get people's attention for our clients Like it's, you know, and we try all different ways, try all different things which I would make ourselves faster and more efficient with AI. But I think, you know, when you listen to that shipper panel where they were really talking about like oh well, it's just a moment in time, I just happen to need it, and he calls me and it's like that's great, but like I don't have that crystal ball. So like, how do I help my clients who have these amazing products and services? Like, get out there, get it, get behind that.
Kameel Gaines:Well, can I say something? Sure, yeah, my sales come in here. It is. Say something, and I guess this is my other bed, probably better than this, is my best. I'll take away my best before this is my best right um, and you don't hear a lot of markers saving and I know I respected her a lot, but after this I respect, I want her autographs. Oh Okay, after she said this Um 35 times, you have to call yes, 35 times, yes.
Blythe Brumleve:Not seven, not 20. 35.
Kameel Gaines:35 times, not 34, but 35 times. Right, you don't hear marketers say that.
Blythe Brumleve:You don't hear anybody say that, except for Kameel, it was like seven, seven points was the touch points before I feel like there was a 12 touch nurture sequence?
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, but I think when we say that we need to put it into perspective, like seven touch points is email and this is this, but that's the touch points. But how many times do you touch the person? After how many times you touch them was you pointed at?
Blythe Brumleve:yeah, you know what I mean, like you email them 35 times.
Kameel Gaines:You call them 35 times. I think we'll give it up to you yeah, I'm a great cardone person. I mean, think about how I was on stage. I'm a Virgo. Did I tell you all that too? So it's that type of thing. So when. Karen said that I was like, oh my God, I want to cry again. So it's just repetition. Yeah, Get through it.
Aaron Dunn:I think the problems aren't ever going to go away. That's why they hire us to solve them. So that's job security in some way, but at the same time, it's like, oh God, I still really need to figure out this problem. As far as marketing and sales, I think the marketing problems that I'll have are going to be similar as the ones that I've always had, which is, how do I connect with the customer at the right time, the right message, and also make sure that I deliver on the promise of whatever that marketing message was. That's never going to go away. But how can I make sure that I'm implementing a campaign that does align with the operations and align with the goals of the customer at the end of the day, and aligned with the goals of the customer at the end of the day? And what's going to be challenging, I think, is really figuring out the unique problem and selling proposition for all of our customers at scale to be able to deliver marketing at scale. That still is dialed into those individuals.
Aaron Dunn:Right, because so many customers have so many different types of needs and nuanced types of needs. But general emails, like you talked about with AI will help you generate or whatnot. It's not going to cut it. The quality is going to rise from the top. It's the oh.
Aaron Dunn:This person actually listens and cares and knows what they're talking about specifically to what my need is, and you're not going to automate that away. We're always going to have to have sales people to be able to get those connections and make those things come about, and so I think how can we use technology to just equip us to do that faster and then talk about 35 touch points, things like that? How do I craft a campaign, a marketing campaign, Like I don't think email's dead, it's not going to go away. Content's not dead. It's not going to go away. It's only going to just get more and more, Just like our emails are flooded more and more. We're just really adept at knowing what to delete and what not, what's irrelevant and what's not, and so we have to make it hard for the customer to recognize that.
Aaron Dunn:that's the differentiator, right. The customer's going to have to say, oh no, every time Aaron sends an email, it actually has something to it. There's probably already there. There's something in there, probably that I could probably benefit from, and so I just think the quality's got to rise and like the creative energy that we have to put in has to rise up and creative gets a bad it's hackneyed. Like it. The creative energy that we have to put in has to rise up and creative gets a bad it's hackneyed. Like it's overused. Like creative is not color, it's not you know, it is those things.
Aaron Dunn:It is how you say stuff it is tone, creative too is how can I make sure that I'm putting all these different aspects together in a place that actually emotionally connects right? Yeah, intentionality, I feel like is what you're talking about?
Leigh Sauter:Yeah, yeah, I feel like what I just end up mostly focusing on is, like, the brands, the messaging, the tone, the consistency, the knowing who I am, knowing who the customer is you know. And then you just try to be as intentional as possible about your messaging.
Aaron Dunn:Yeah, I've been thinking about. I talk about the training that I did with the team and I said this is the first one and we're going to do many more. On framing and like it goes back to the keynote storytelling. It's the context and the narrative and like talking about brand, like we know our narrative for Dewey, right we?
Aaron Dunn:know our narrative in the, in the whole game. Do we know their narrative right now? And then like, where's, how do we bridge? How do we bridge the narratives to make it a natural fit to partner up and say, oh, our, our stories are coming in alignment. Now we're going to walk together and take this journey together. Like making that real if it's a video or if it's a photo or if it's a written email, making that real. That is the game we've got to play and that's what I'm taking to the office of. Like, okay, now, how do we do this?
Leigh Sauter:Well, even better customer stories, I feel like they're a great bridge between like who we are, our brand, what we can do, who you are, your standpoint.
Aaron Dunn:It's a full-time job almost to look internally and mine the success stories that we already have. We have plenty of success stories for all your clients that you could probably riff off or you talk about with your own internal team, but nobody knows outside because we haven't crafted that story and made it into something and we can make it really the simplest thing a customer can say man, you really bailed us out today for this one load. Well, how many emails and stuff like how can we broaden that out? You?
Aaron Dunn:know what I mean, like like uh, uh, they've been selling this, uh harry potter and uh marvel has been selling 40 years. Right, like you know, captain america's got six movies. We've seen all of them right.
Blythe Brumleve:So it's like, it's like there's more on the way too, I think.
Aaron Dunn:So it's like you know, like like there we're limited, only limited to our imagination on like how many ways we can flip that story around and make it compelling, and I think that's what we gotta do there's um, so I have a podcast title sponsor shout out spi logistics.
Blythe Brumleve:I already shouted them out once, but, um, one of the campaigns that we did with them, or that we do with them, is that we have some of their subject matter experts from within the company. But the episodes that resonate the most are interviewing their freight agents. So we have their freight agent on every single month and so they talk about their journey, how they became a freight agent because SPI doesn't have a brokerage. They became a freight agent because SBI doesn't have a brokerage and so the freight agents don't have to compete with, like, an in-house brokerage team for freight, which I think is a unique model. A lot of brokerages have freight agents but they also have in-house brokerage team and so that creates, you know, some kind of conflict of interest at times.
Blythe Brumleve:Coming on telling their story is what has resonated the most, because they're able to talk about those moments that they left another agency and came to SBI, and that is what has driven a lot of leads for SBI is they're not necessarily the executives telling the story, but their customers essentially their clients telling those success stories, essentially their clients telling those success stories, and I think that that is something that a lot more logistics companies could probably take advantage of is how can we put our customers to answer those?
Blythe Brumleve:Because it's less, I think, less risky for the listener or for the watcher whoever is engaging with your content to listen to it from their point of view, someone who's in the trenches with them not necessarily an executive that might be making false promises or perceived false promises. I do want to know from, I guess, from you know, from talking to a lot of people at the conference and from networking and listening to all these sessions do you have one or two things that you kind of can't wait to go back and tackle once you get back in the office, two things that you kind of can't wait to go back and tackle once you get back in the in the office, or is it? Let me?
Leigh Sauter:let me, let me relax a little bit and and take some down time and then figure out what my next plan is is going to be I thought I immediately wanted to go to t TMSA Slack and create a channel for us and say, like I will dump all the prompts we've bought. I will dump my Google Sheet of like all the. Ai tools I've been meaning to try out and like can we keep the dialogue going so that we can discuss different things, that we can talk to each other?
Blythe Brumleve:That's smart. I would love to participate in that.
Leigh Sauter:Yeah. So that was like I was like I cannot wait to go home and just hopefully open up that dialogue. Yes, because that's what this organization is best at. It's like we're not all like. I mean, yes, there's also proprietary information, but when it comes to marketing, we are a lot of people in that room and there's one person marketing to you and they can't be expected to test and try everything. But if we are all doing it, why can't we have more collaboration in that way of what tools we're seeing what's working for us, and I think the Slack channel is a great place to do it. Yes, it needs that content anyway. So that was like one of the. You know, I went and saw that yesterday.
Aaron Dunn:Yeah, I think I had an opportunity to talk to Kara Smith-Brown.
Blythe Brumleve:She's brilliant Gosh. She's great, she's fantastic.
Aaron Dunn:And then I sat in hers and she talked about how the intent data partnerships and a clear point of view is what is working with us today. So that's what she was. That was her kind of three-prong effort and of course, she's an intent data company, so obviously she's going to say that that's working. So, but at the same time, what is that it's like?
Aaron Dunn:well, identifying those customers that need our help and then being really efficient at that, but also the partnership point and the clear point of view. So, okay, what are we an expert in and how can we really effectively communicate that? And how can we bridge the gap between what our customers know and their expertise and like where the bridge is between us and like really making that clear? So like, for example, like you know, leveraging partnerships and things like that, you know, we care about safety and security of your freight, they care about safety and security of their freight, and then, like, what partnerships do we have that kind of fit within that mold of leveraging it in any way? So it's like I don't know, taking a lot of what has been said, you know here in this conversation, I'm excited to just fine-tune.
Aaron Dunn:I think that we were directionally correct on a couple things that we've done in the past that we kind of shelved, you know, because we're like, well, it didn't really quite work, you know, and we're on to something different Now it's like, well, let's dust that off, double down and get even better at it, because it's working for some people right, and so like, how can we just make a really intentional effort to make something really really good, compelling dynamic? And then, you know, keep refining it over time so that like it's not really specific but it's like how can we just make a campaign that's, you know that much better than the last one that we did, 10x better than the last one?
Blythe Brumleve:How can you tweak it? What are those tweaks look like? To help drive that value home? Yeah, and then monitoring and adjusting.
Aaron Dunn:So like we're running a campaign now like okay, well, what worked, what didn't, and just redo it again, but in a different way well what?
Leigh Sauter:worked what didn't and just redo it again, but in a different way. Yeah, I feel like it sounds like you gather different perspectives and you're going to go back and look at your stuff with a fresh set of eyes. Absolutely Exactly what the distance of a conference I feel like.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, yeah, it really does. It really does. What about? Do you have anything to add?
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, I'll just say exactly what you said. Do you have anything to add? Yeah, I'll just take exactly what you said. Well, I've been in the car because we drove my mom and I. So when I get in there I'm going to use the otter to take dictation.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh smart.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, and so exactly what you said with Kara, that's what I'm going to be doing and take dictation and writing my notes out about that and what you bring to me with that. Then another connection and partnership that I made here and where I'll be able to do business with them on both sides of the Rig on Wheels house and do info dump with that, and then Thursday, any work until afternoon after that, put both of that into ChatGTV, see what it comes up with and then start writing and getting everything all together.
Leigh Sauter:I love the brain dump things. It is so I do voice memos, sometimes Like I'll be on a walk and you know how your mind just goes, like I have voice gaps for the kids and I have that right. And sometimes I'll just voice memo, spit it all out and then put it in chat, GPT, and I'm like, what do I have to do? Yeah, that's fine.
Kameel Gaines:Yeah, so I'm going to allow ChatGPT to kind of summarize the whole thing.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, well, you can do. If you have the ChatGPT app on your phone you can talk into it. So I wonder I'm going to be all over the place.
Kameel Gaines:ChatGPT is going to tell me to shut up. So I'm going to use Otter and then take it Smart, yeah.
Blythe Brumleve:So Otter will clean it up and then get a chat GPT ready for y'all.
Leigh Sauter:I'm so a blog girl thanks to you Really. Oh my God, I love blogs. I keep thinking like if it's not broke don't fix it.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, that's very true.
Kameel Gaines:I love how it's very. It's a chat, gpt similar. Yes, well, I enough for me I say this wasn't deep enough. I am a virgo and then I do so. When you say it it doesn't have any feeling. That's what I do to get it to understand how deep I want to.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh wow that is crazy.
Kameel Gaines:Another tool I wanted to say, especially for the podcast he uses as well, is Swell AI.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, we were just talking about that before we hit record that it's Swell AI. I haven't used it since I bought ChatGPT, but Is it Swell, swell, swell? It's specifically built for podcasts. It's really audio content.
Aaron Dunn:So like you can prompt chain, so upload the audio, it'll transcribe it and then you can prompt chain it to do different things.
Leigh Sauter:All with that same transcript.
Kameel Gaines:Okay.
Leigh Sauter:I love that. We're doing the sport change lab. That will probably work for that.
Aaron Dunn:So, show notes, titles, all kinds of stuff, but then it can also write an email based on everything. You can write summaries, you can write a blog post All within 10 seconds.
Kameel Gaines:And let's say the title is not Cattleley enough for you, right? That's not titleless, no, titleless, not titleless. That's a titleless, no, titleless, not titleless. That's a new word and it's going to be in Webster next year.
Blythe Brumleve:It will be there. It's going to be where In Webster. Oh yeah, titleless Wait. Oh, I mean I was like wow, we're getting new AI in Webster now too. I was like okay. You just need it right here, right, I was like okay. Trademark it.
Kameel Gaines:But, then you take that and tell ChachyTP what you want it to be what kind of Punch it up.
Leigh Sauter:Yeah, make it punchy, make it creative.
Blythe Brumleve:It is interesting to watch each of these platforms compete with each other, like Claude at one point was better than Chachi PT. You know they kind of edge each other out in that race. Another one that I'll throw out there is Perplexity. I don't know if you all have used that one.
Leigh Sauter:I tried it but I didn't like it, but I also just like right away.
Blythe Brumleve:it was just like you know Claude's works Well. I think that that's the mindset too of like you know. You try these tools once and it doesn't work for you. You have to keep trying. But perplexity has now replaced, like my Google search, like it pulls and it cites sources, and so you can also put in a prompt and get it. Get that, I guess you know. Whatever it spits out, you can pick different models, so you can pick Claude, you can pick whatever chat, gpt, you can pick all these other different models, but pulls in the sources too.
Leigh Sauter:And I think that that is going to be really important, right? I will literally say like well, do you make up anything here?
Blythe Brumleve:And sometimes, it's like oh yeah, please, can you remove it?
Leigh Sauter:Right, you have to like barter with it. I thought it would be better.
Leigh Sauter:I'm like what Talk about it? I can't be putting something out there that is not true, Alright.
Blythe Brumleve:what about the infamous ROI question? How are we answering the ROI question in our marketing? Okay, give us a specific question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. I want to know how you so we put all this content in the world. How do we know what's performing the best? Are we just going off the vibes like feels? Are we using analytics? Are we using LinkedIn, Like, what are we using to measure that this really resonated with people? And I need to do more of it, that kind of ROI, I mean with email you've got open rates.
Aaron Dunn:You know, we try. I say we try, we sometimes do, sometimes don't.
Blythe Brumleve:We'll include a link in an email right.
Aaron Dunn:So like, a click-through rate is a KPI, so monitoring those type of things, so you know if it's a marketing email, like, okay, well, but it's all contextual too, like there's all kinds of different things because, like, time of day is a factor, subject line is a factor, you know, what is said in the body of the email that could encourage a click is a factor. So you always have to come to it with. Would the subject line have worked at nine versus two? There's always those questions that are coming about.
Aaron Dunn:So, the return on investment I think we, as a marketer myself, like you always have to just be monitoring and adjusting and saying, okay, well, this, like, for example, like I usually do it in bunches, so like, if I'm going to talk about email, it's all right. Well, I'm going to do four campaigns or four emails similar to each other, with different subject lines, kind of talking about the same narrative thread, and I'm going to test it in different ways. Is the shorter one better than the longer one? Is one more authoritative versus one's more catchy? And like I need you today? Oh, interesting.
Aaron Dunn:And so I analyze it in that way of like, okay, well, the return on the investment of time to craft those four, you know, did it get me better at understanding what will entice somebody to open an email or to actually respond to me when I'm looking for a response. You've got to really know. You've got to reverse engineer from your goal at the very start from an email perspective, I think, calculating return on investment. People ask me a lot with the podcast so what does it do for your business? I'm like well, I'm talking to you for an hour, so that's a good investment on my part.
Aaron Dunn:I'm getting return because a lot of times we're talking to experts in their field.
Blythe Brumleve:We get.
Aaron Dunn:A lot of times we're talking to experts in their field. We get a lot of great insight from that. I'm able to come here and I get warm introductions and connections just because Trucking for Millennials podcast people know about it. We have advocates. In that way.
Aaron Dunn:You can't really put a dollar sign on it necessarily, but it's still an extremely valuable thing that we do, not to mention all the untapped resources that we can do. That wouldn't manifest itself until five years into the podcast, so it's a long-term game from that perspective. So calculating ROI, I think ROI it's like I think it's a dynamic thing you kind of constantly have to do, evaluate towards your goal priority and you know at this time, with this market, and I'm thinking about, okay, how do we generate sales? I'm thinking differently about okay, if we're going to spend an hour recording a podcast, what does that mean for my customer right now? And like, how does that really impact them? Does it necessarily need to be sent to them? Do they need to be on the show or does everything that we're producing, or the next few things that we produce, are there aspects of it that I can turn into marketing collateral based on the expert that's talking? Like I don't know. It's a dynamic thing. It's very dynamic for me.
Blythe Brumleve:Well, I've heard it's like trying to measure like the ROI of like a bicep curl at the gym. Like you can't do that, it's impossible to do that.
Leigh Sauter:So it's looking, you might have strength but you also have like some mental fortitude you know all of that measure Right, and so I think, if I'm harsher with myself and say okay, well, this campaign needs to generate $200,000 or whatever right.
Aaron Dunn:It's like okay, well, if that's the goal, then we've got to reverse engineer from that Really be intentional about it all the way through.
Aaron Dunn:So I think it's just a matter of having really clear goals. Right now it's like, all right, well, what touches are working and how can we create a system that gets us very consistent? How can we be extremely consistent with the outreach that we've had? And then it's well, how can we make sure that we've got consistency? We've got that process down. So now that we're consistent, how do we refine it to make sure that? We're actually getting engagement and answering questions or whatever it is, right Clicks, whatever it is. So it's kind of staged.
Kameel Gaines:I think, definitely different. So I feel like I'm back on the people's proper purpose stage here, so I think differently again. So, of course, analytics and things like that, those same common, everything but everything that you said. I think those are the reasons why it's an actual physical number, a black and white number that you have. So if I have a client, abc Trucking Company they're a mega company, okay, and they are deciding they want to do a podcast with me and they want to deal with us as third-party recruiting agents. I know that they do not deal with a lot of third party recruiting agents. I know factually that they also one of my partners or colleagues, I guess I should say, has pitched them and the answer was no. However, they mentioned my podcast. Everything, every dollar amount, comes directly from the podcast has happened. Not that particular scenario, but other scenarios around that. So, for an example, when you said that one client of yours- when you do close them.
Kameel Gaines:That was the podcast and he was saying what does it? Do for your business. He saw you on the podcast the podcast and he's talking to you for an hour. You know things like that so that you can direct the ladies back to it. It may not be the same type of analytics that we're used to.
Blythe Brumleve:That's the difference, the different KPIs.
Kameel Gaines:It's not the same type of measurement right. So, then that's when we have to take a survey or a tally or average. Each survey is for my drivers, because my drivers don't like surveys.
Kameel Gaines:So instead of surveys, let's say tally. But we have to, so instead of surveys, let's say tally. So I have to take an old school tally to put it in a cabinet, a found cabinet. This particular driver, this particular company, mentioned concaving Right. So there we go. I was talking to to nimmer yesterday and she said this driver was saying oh, you was all enthusiastic on this felony, uh youtube video, so blah, blah. So I know specifically what youtube videos yes, you know what I mean, even if our YouTube doesn't do as well as other YouTube might do, or what have you? Now that he is going to turn into a driver, which is revenue?
Kameel Gaines:I know specifically it came from that even if he didn't click on you know, the 10th century application. He didn't put youtube. I know it came from there. That's the reason why I tell it to you, just like myself. Abc company. Where she was interested in us is because of the podcast, and also it was because of not just the podcast, but from which platform it was doing things.
Aaron Dunn:Yeah, that's what she said.
Kameel Gaines:And then let me get back to you more. The association that we are part of is what being at that. So guess which one am I always at? And that's that change.
Blythe Brumleve:So that was one of your lead sources, or one of your sources from the driver's perspective. No from this particular oh recruiting perspective for that particular company. You know what I mean.
Kameel Gaines:So you back it up like that, you know because you have people say oh, why do you go to so many conferences? Can you say specifically that conference? Sure.
Kameel Gaines:Right and I'll say that particular conference I didn't learn anything from. Tmsa is not that conference. I always learn something from this conference For real. I do Because, if not because I have been at a conference that I told them I never learn anything but I always get a client. That's why I come back to the conference right. So there is a conference that happens in the spring. I don't learn anything anymore from their conference, but I always gain a client that feeds us throughout the year.
Aaron Dunn:Yeah, so it's like a more comprehensive look at the whole scope of everything, because, even being on a podcast or something like that, it's like a more comprehensive look at the whole scope of everything, because even being on a podcast or something like that.
Aaron Dunn:It creates some sort of authority and expertise. It's like, well, yeah, thought leadership, that kind of stuff. It's like, well, at least I know this guy is not just a joker. You know what I mean. You're not going to put yourself out there an hour a week or something like that, because you're not an expert trying to do that.
Aaron Dunn:Not consistent you know, what I mean so, like emails that I send to customers today of, just like I'm at a conference. You know they might be like, okay, well, it's not going to help me, of course, I'm directing them to somebody else that can, but at the same time, it's like well, he's at a conference? He's not. You know, in Boca Raton, you know, just sipping matas on the beach.
Leigh Sauter:This dude's learning what he does, he's a professional right, it would be tough. Yeah, I didn't say I'm on the bourbon tree right now. I didn't say that.
Aaron Dunn:I'm at a conference. But yeah, I think you know everything matters but it's not easy to always you know there's no straight line, it's looking for those signals.
Blythe Brumleve:Because it was like I was telling my fiance because we have a podcast together and he's like I just don't know you know what kind of business we're going to get from this. And I said, well, you know we are podcasters, like we need to. We know that we're not going to see direct ROI from a specific episode. It's like trying to get ROIs, trying to determine ROI from a single bicep curl. But we can't have. I guess, that attitude in the rest of our business, like podcasting or creating content is very unique, where you have these different missions that you need to take with your content. But it's measuring that success rate of it. It's very challenging to do and, I think, a giant waste of time.
Aaron Dunn:And you really never know, because I'm thinking about an email that it's kind of funny. Somebody got a customer about it on a carrier email that by accident somehow, I don't know, just feel got changed by accident somehow. I don't know, you know just feel got changed. Well, they replied to a carrier focused email that we sent out to carriers. That was, you know, carrier kind of content. Well, that customer replied and said thanks, I've got multiple opportunities coming up. I'll hit you up next week.
Blythe Brumleve:I'm like, oh, whoops but also great, yeah, you liked hit you up next week. I'm like oh Whoops.
Aaron Dunn:But also great. Yeah, you liked that.
Blythe Brumleve:Oh nice, you never know what people will actually respond to that was a lesson that I learned.
Aaron Dunn:It was like well, maybe we need to put some of this carrier content to customers. Just started thinking differently. They did come back with some more opportunities. It could happen months later. Yes, you know like I'll talk about timing, Like all these emails that we're sending every week.
Kameel Gaines:With 35 touches Yep. That's not going to happen, not 35 touches, 35 times Right, or it's seven foot.
Aaron Dunn:Yeah, so it's a marathon, not a sprint, so like sowing seeds.
Blythe Brumleve:Yes, that's a good way of putting it Through, not a sprint, so like sowing seeds.
Aaron Dunn:Yes, that's a good way of putting it Through the slow time you might reap the harvest in the fall Right. You just never really know.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, what about you, lee? How are you answering, I guess, the ROI question you're probably getting from all of your clients.
Leigh Sauter:Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of forced to be very accountable to it because, we are a marketing agency client, and so it all lies in the way that I create their overall marketing strategy. They might have three or four main objectives and those three or four main objectives have three, two to four metrics specifically attached to them. So I'm not looking at it in one campaign, I'm looking at it like there might be a brand awareness objective and it has a lot of different strategy tactics.
Leigh Sauter:But how are we measuring it? It's like we're going to look at your website traffic and all that. Your linkedin followers we're going to look at. So we'll kind of have like a brand awareness scorecard and we just expect it to trend up right.
Leigh Sauter:So it's like this is a long gauge. However, we want to make sure that we're moving it in the right direction. These, all of these things that we're spending time on, should be getting us some results. And then there's, I think, another thing that really helps is we try to be very closely tied into what leads are coming in for the sales team. So you know, obviously we're monitoring them. We're also sitting down with them saying what about this is a saying, what about this is a good lead, what about this is a bad lead?
Leigh Sauter:And that really helps us keep refining and fine-tuning every single tactic and each objective to hopefully, you know, down, down, down, down down the line, eventually get more leads. And then of course, you know we have HubSpot. We use the campaign screen a lot to just look at what's generally happening. And really it's just, I don't specifically look at every single thing we're doing, because if we're doing it I think it has value and it fits into this overall leadership set. That also gives you an overall bucket.
Leigh Sauter:Or like you know marketing campaign leadership stuff that also do an overall bucket or, like you know, marketing campaign overall bucket, email overall thing. So we just kind of pick what we think matters, depending on what they're trying to achieve and I report on that pretty regularly to make sure we're not losing traction.
Blythe Brumleve:I think too. You can almost get overwhelmed with too many numbers and then you sort of lose the plot yes, and that's.
Blythe Brumleve:I don't. I don't look at analytic like website traffic, things like that. I don't look at them like on a monthly basis or anything. It's strictly quarterly, quarterly or six months. Yes, I want to know what's going up, I want to know what's going down. I want to know what where I can tweak and make those little adjustments that will hopefully put people in the proper funnel and then be able to market them so they become an active customer opportunity. I don't really care about like sort of MQLs or marketing qualified leads, anything like that. If you become a lead, that's when I ask how did you hear about us? And then I use that insight to fuel the future content. So I try to keep it as the least amount of complicated as possible because otherwise I'm going to get overwhelmed. I know my clients are going to get overwhelmed and most of the time they don't even know what to do. When they get their analytics they're like thanks for sending this, but I don't know what to do next. It's like, well, all right, and that's another problem to solve.
Leigh Sauter:For another day, yeah, yeah. And then after the fix, like what are you trying to do? And then like what metrics?
Leigh Sauter:actually matter towards that yeah. And like some of them are like overall revenue, like that's what they want and that's going to be the metric. So that's what we're looking at Right.
Leigh Sauter:You know there's all kinds of different things that go into that, but there's still a calendar to it, so you've got to look at it All right.
Blythe Brumleve:One last question here for the group. Now we've talked a little. Lee, you hinted to it earlier with. You know a lot of the teams and marketing, especially in freight, are very small one-person operations. Um can be very lonely out there for, especially for creators. So for other marketing teams, other teams, other marketing people that's in this industry, what piece of advice would you give them, based on your experience of how they can sort of up their game? What should they be focusing on? I'll start with you Educate themselves.
Kameel Gaines:I'm real big on that and I know that you said it gets lonely. You have to get out and come to class. You have to do that and then also get on other people's podcasts that you learn so much. I've learned so much from you.
Kameel Gaines:Me. I mean, we've been learning all weekend. It's so important because you get other people to learn about you. It's all the things that you didn't even think of and I just can't wait to like, dive in and try, even if it's not something I was going to do. I can go back and tell Terrell and Darcella and they think you know, like, here it is. They'll be like oh, that's great.
Blythe Brumleve:And I'll say say okay, I'm glad you think it's great, let's do it because I don't know how to do that.
Leigh Sauter:You know how to do it, because they think more like him, right?
Blythe Brumleve:So those are the things that you do, but continue to educate, continuous education. Agreed, ray and Lee.
Leigh Sauter:Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go with my passion, which is internal alignment, not necessarily marketing, but if I have any advice, it's like you need to internally understand your team your product, your service and, for God's sakes, you have to align yourself with sales and you have to align yourself with leadership, because I think, sometimes when you're a one-person marketing team you get stuck printing things up and throwing office parties.
Leigh Sauter:There are some companies. They will put you down that hole. But if you really want to make an impact, you've got to understand what the business, what outcomes the business is trying to drive and you've got to become real cozy with sales. I think yeah and share like you've got to work together on what it is you're trying to do.
Blythe Brumleve:That was one of the big things that I learned at two TMSAs ago, or two years ago at the TMSA conferences. The internal marketing that they focused on is that making sure all of the team knows what you're working on and why, and this is the messaging we're using, because they're the front line on the phones and talking to other folks, right?
Leigh Sauter:right and they're closest to the customer. Sales is closest.
Kameel Gaines:So, like you and even to your point earlier about like getting an email like I want to be so close to my team and in-house here that when they
Leigh Sauter:get that they send that to me and I make it up Because we need to mine that stuff.
Leigh Sauter:You can't do it if you're not just really in the trenches, agreed.
Aaron Dunn:I would say so. I started my career in marketing and sales after a career in a career I waited tables. I waited tables. College was not working.
Aaron Dunn:I got into the car business and commission only sales and I said how the hell am I going to do this? I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know anything about marketing. So that was back then and I went deep on. Okay, well, I've got to get people to know me and they've got to trust me and they've got to like me right, they'll know, like, trust me. So I went deep in learning everything I could about content marketing, everything I could about sales, everything I could about sales, and I took it seriously and so I became a marketing and sales professional through hard work and trying things.
Aaron Dunn:But first I had to commit to it. I had to commit to those skill sets and I think that there's too many. I would say that it's dangerous to float around and say, well, I've got a marketing degree and this is my job and I'm going to apply to a job and they're going to tell me what to do, and that can be very, very dangerous because, like you said, you can get stuck in that hole of going well, you've got a finite set of skills, you know how to post on social, you know your way around, you're more tech savvy than the whole other people in your group. But how much deeper do you go and like, how much more knowledge do you have? How aware are you of different skill sets and what's actually happening? And then, how well are you at communicating that to leadership, of going like this is happening? This is what I know and this is how I can contribute to what we're doing in the broad scale. So, like committing to becoming a true professional, I think is really what it's all about at the very start and taking yourself that way and operating that way and saying, okay, well, they're professionals in their own arena. How do I complement that? How do I really contribute to everything? And it's uh, it's kind of funny because everybody at tmsa we know what we do, but everybody outside of it has no clue. People don don't know what they're doing.
Aaron Dunn:And like the switch flipped when I was on the car sales lot and everybody was on their phone playing poker, consuming content, playing games and wasting time. And I'm looking and I'm going. Well, I'm just going to create on all these platforms that everybody's attention is captured on. Yes, right, create on all these platforms that everybody's attention is captured on. Is that the way that you're approaching your career of going. I'm just going to dominate this platform. I'm going to dominate what I know to where my skill set is. That much further. Not only can I sell some freight, but I can take you through why it works and how it's going to work next time. That, I think, is the decision point that people need to do when they're first starting out. I did a talk at a university career success day one time to a class of marketing professionals. I'm coming into a four-year university without a degree and I'm privileged to speak because of kind of a referral relationship. So my title was a marketing degree is not enough.
Aaron Dunn:And I'm telling all these kids look, guys, you're going to get this degree and you got a hungry guy like me busting it just trying to figure it out, Because I got this like I don't have a degree or anything, so I've got to come with results. If you think this degree is going to take you to the moon, you've got another thing coming, Because the only thing that people are going to really hire you for is results. So how many different types of results can you deliver to school? And so that's the message that I would send.
Blythe Brumleve:I think I heard one time that it should be a mandatory requirement for anybody that works in marketing to start an e-commerce shop. So you understand the whole journey, you understand ROI, you understand marketing and getting sales. A lot of the companies will have you do that too.
Leigh Sauter:I had to go in every single department.
Aaron Dunn:I had to sell freight.
Blythe Brumleve:That's interesting, it helps to sell freight.
Aaron Dunn:I had to, you know, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah, it helps so much Like you really got to know what's going on before you can really tell a story about it.
Blythe Brumleve:Yeah, that's one thing I wish. When I worked in-house at an asset-based brokerage, I wish I would have done more of sitting in with each department or sitting in with more sales meetings. There was still I mean, this was a long time ago so but it was still like very adversarial relationship marketing and sales. Like I was just trying to get people to use the damn CRM and it was like God don't get me started Um, but that was the adversarial relationship that we had. But I it took me leaving that company or it going out of business uh, probably because marketing sales didn't align, also management too. But from that lens I went into another organization where we did prioritize the editorial and the sales relationship and I thought I wish I would have done this sooner. So that would probably be.
Blythe Brumleve:My advice is to sit in on each department and also create a group distribution email that can auto join their meetings and it can take notes for you and then you can get all of those notes back to help you with all of your marketing campaigns, so you don't have to sit in on all the meetings all the time. So, all right, folks, where can, where can they follow your work? Like, give us the the spiel of social media. Uh, websites, all that good stuff, where can they follow your work? Like, give us the spiel of social media websites, all that good stuff, where can they follow you?
Kameel Gaines:We're going to build a company.
Blythe Brumleve:Definitely we're in.
Kameel Gaines:So that's it. We're going to build work in recruiting services as well as modeling team with this new game. Link.
Leigh Sauter:For IGoMarketingcom. We're on LinkedIn, of course too. We're really, really like our whole model right now is kind of like this revenue alignment model everything I was talking about, which is like tie it all together get alignment and like awesome yeah, thank you, erica Trevor from US Podcast Aaron Dunn.
Blythe Brumleve:Google it. We'll put it all in the show notes, just just to make it easy for folks. All right, right, exactly, and uh well, folks, thank you guys for for joining. This was awesome discussion, good little round table. We'll have to make this an annual tradition at tmsa because, while everything is all fresh and in our minds, yes, maybe there'll be, it'll be ai like avatars next year, and then you won't have to worry about you know, dying my roots in a hotel room. So thanks y'all.
Blythe Brumleve:I hope you enjoyed this episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show, sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everythingislogisticscom. And in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let y'all know about another company I operate, and that's Digital Dispatch, where we help you build a better website. Now, a lot of the times, we hand this task of building a new website or refreshing a current one off to a coworker's child, a neighbor down the street or a stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually build the dang website.
Blythe Brumleve:Well, that doesn't happen at Digital Dispatch. We've been building online since 2009, but we're also early adopters of AI automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as $1,500, along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus, freight marketing and sales content similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digitaldispatchio. Just check out the pricing page once you arrive and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go Jags.
