Everything is Logistics

Freight Friends: Warehouse Drones, Market Shifts, and Logistics Biz Favorites

• Blythe Brumleve

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Drones are doing a lot more than flying packages. They’re quietly transforming how warehouses operate behind the scenes. 

In this episode of Freight Friends, Grace Sharkey and Blythe explore how drones are being used in logistics operations both inside and outside the warehouse, what the second half of 2025 might look like for freight, and the freight businesses and marketing tactics that have their attention. The episode wraps with a few source-to-porch stories that highlight what really moves this industry. 

Key takeaways: 

  • Indoor drones are helping warehouses reduce injuries and boost productivity without major infrastructure changes 
  • The second half of 2025 may bring more rate instability and seasonal chaos, especially for Q4 retail 
  • Some of the most effective freight marketing right now is low-budget and high-authenticity 
  • Source-to-porch visibility is improving, but expectations and execution still pose challenges


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Grace Sharkey:

I think we're going to see more spending. We just do every year around Christmas, right? We see the end of the year, Christmas gifts, etc. I mean, even Halloween candy last year saw a slight increase. I I trust the American consumer to spend more money this year than they did last year. That's if there's something that we can do in distress, it's we will find a way to spend more money.

Blythe Brumleve:

Welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. I am your host, Blythe Milligan, and we are proudly presented by SPI logistics. And we've got Grace Sharkey back with another episode of Freight Friends. She is from Orderful. This is her second show, new gig with the company. As you can see, she's got the flashy shirt on today, and your title, you just told me, and I've already forgotten it, so please, please tell us,

Grace Sharkey:

yeah. So I'm a PR girly now, Senior Manager of PR and communications for the companies, also all the fun stuff out of journalism into

Blythe Brumleve:

tech. How are you liking the adjustment so far?

Grace Sharkey:

It's good. You know, I was just talking on what the truck earlier today with Kaylee, about how it's fascinating to see kind of the work that happens behind the scenes at a lot of these tech companies. You know, it's, it's definitely not when you you acquire new customer, or you're working with a potential new customer, it's technology in the space. There's nothing that's even close to, let's just, you know, switch, the flip the switch, and the light will turn on right, especially with EDI, because there's so many different guidelines and people build their their systems differently, building a technology that can connect systems EDI integrate within nine days, is a lot of work and a lot of nuance and a lot of expertise. So it's like, it's really fascinating to talk to customers and just hear not only about the product working, but more so the conversations and the listening skills that our team has in order to to develop and deliver these, you know, SOPs at the end of the day. And so I just find that fascinating. You know, we always talk about partnerships in this space, and I think I've even written about and talked about in the past the importance of, like, not just finding a tech provider, but finding one that's a good partner. And it's just cool to, like, see that come into effect and truly understand the weight of that relationship as well.

Blythe Brumleve:

I'm sure it helps too obviously, with your writing and covering experience to know what media outlets are looking for, and then you can kind of help position both orderful and your customers in order to tell a better story, which I think is pretty cool.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah, we're working on, actually, for an event that we're doing in a couple of months. Part of that is we get to upload, like a 20 minute webinar customer story, et cetera, for everyone to see for a couple of months, kind of like a catalog. And I was talking with a customer that we're going to do that with yesterday. And it was, it was, I really enjoyed the the time, because it did put me back into kind of that writing place where I get to kind of pull that story out of an individual. And it was kind of funny because, you know, at first they're like, you know, I don't know what we can talk about. And as I'm, you know, kind of pulling on, you know, what problems we're solving. How did that happen? What is your life now in this role? It's especially from her standpoint, like she was even saying, I'm not a technologist, and, like, this system is just so easy to use. And having her, like, articulate why, it brought back kind of just that, like, journalistic, like, fun moment that I have, but it also like resonated to me, like, Okay, this is, like, how I can really contribute to this, to this business is, is being able to pull that out and to tell that story and and share that outcome, right? I think that's what's interesting. We've talked about this a lot. It's like, you know, the EDI work, the technical work, might not be the sexiest thing to talk about and in a panel or space, but what's really fascinating is, like the aftermath of having these tools and the work that this big, growing brand, actually, I can say this Verity is, you know, a scaling quick growing clothing line and to like, hear someone who's working their their ERP systems and their different management systems say, like, you know, we can continue to scale this business with just two of us in this tech department. Percent of this company, and like her, like, just like seeing the joy on her face was like, it's like, okay, this is what the outcome of this technology is. It's, it's someone doing their job. Well, who knows how this industry works, but I might not be a technologist, right? And so it's just really cool to, like, be kind of back in that space and be reminded of this is the skills that you're bringing here.

Blythe Brumleve:

Hell yeah, it's like evolving your skills too, like you, you typically will you, you know, you always, especially in media. And what I've seen and what I've experienced is that you start off writing, and then you get a little bit into radio, and then from radio to TV, and then the real money is from taking it from everything you've learned through all of those, you know, steps, and then being able to help businesses tell their story as well. And so it sounds, it sounds like you've got, you know, really good place there. And I, you know, you mentioned something about, you know, different case studies and customer stories. Learned something at the recent TMSA conference. I'm going to get into it a little bit later in today's episode, because for folks who may be new here for freight friends, we usually cover, you know, a couple different news topics, and then what we'll get into is our favorite freight business at the time, favorite freight marketing at this time, and then also a source to porch story that each one of us picks. So it kind of gives us the ability to keep an eye out. We're already online, you know, like 24/7 it feels like so we're paying attention to a lot of different things. And so hopefully this is kind of, you know, an interesting roundup for the audience to take. And for this, for the sake of today's show, what we're going to be talking about, we're going to get into a little bit, not a little bit a lot, around drone logistics. There's a lot of moving parts that are happening in that space. Is it all hype? Is it, you know, kind of going to be a multi billion dollar industry, which some are betting on, probably, then we're going to get into some second half logistics market predictions that we are in July, halfway to Christmas. And that feels weird to say, but here we are, so we're going to talk about that. What you can kind of hope maybe, can we set expectations for the rest of this year we will see? So we'll set that groundwork, and then we'll get into some of the freight marketing, the businesses, and round out the show with source to porch. So first and foremost, let's get into drone logistics. And so I got a little intro. I did. I kicked it up a notch. So let me, let me read through my little intro for drone logistics, the reality versus the hype. And it says, From buzzing through last mile deliveries to scanning warehouses, this tech isn't sci fi anymore. It's real. It's scaling, and it's getting funded like crazy. So where drones are making the most impact right now is around last mile, delivery, warehouse, inventory, infrastructure, monitoring, and then some niche use cases in agriculture, we have talked, I don't know if you remember a few episodes back where there were drones that were helping tugboats tie different lines to the ships that are coming in. So that was something that I thought was interesting. So that's happening in the niche use case in the maritime sector. So for last mile delivery, a couple little highlights zipline you probably have seen. Have you seen them at all on your Twitter slash x feed?

Grace Sharkey:

Well, I've been following them for years because I know that they started off in, I believe, Africa, because of the regulations,

Blythe Brumleve:

right? Well, they started off in Ghana, and they were doing blood deliveries, and so that was, it's interesting to see, like, kind of how some of these companies get started. They start off with, like, disaster logistics, or, like, medical deliveries. These really, like time sensitive shipments, but also high value shipments. And I think that's probably the business model for some of these companies, is that they start off in the high impact areas, you know, kind of tweak some things, and then from there, it becomes more investable to these other VCs. So zipline is one of them? What have you seen from them?

Grace Sharkey:

So, yeah, like you said, they did start more of the medicine, pharmaceutical, maybe side. I think a lot of drone companies jumped in right around the pandemic with FAA like, I guess regulation roundabouts in order to get enough flying in so they could get regulation as well. The one thing I believe the last time I had really looked at the zipline, they they are doing a lot of work, if I remember correctly, in Texas with Walmart. I believe Jack Dalio, one of my favorite guys over at flying magazine, who also writes, of course, for freightwaves as well. He always gets to go on those fun tours and see them in action. And I always get really jealous of him as well. But I do know I think Walmart is as invested, or at least has started using zipline as well, and they have their drone is like, definitely changed. Change too, if I remember correctly, since when it first came out, like it was more of like this, almost like a mini plane looking structure, where now I feel like it's more of like a bus looking situation, and it has, like it's a little bit more square, boxy. So that's been kind of cool,

Blythe Brumleve:

like a copter, where they can mask off vertically, yeah. And then I've noticed too, with with zip lines, they they use the same kind of methodology that, like aircraft carriers will use whenever a plane is coming to land on an aircraft carrier, you have this, it's called the adjusting cable, I believe. And so it's literally a cable that is in obviously very strong, and that it catches the plane as it's landing on the carrier. And so they have something similar set up in Texas, or maybe it's Arkansas, I believe, with zip line that they have, but it's in the air. So they have these two kind of sticks that are pointed in the air with a line with a string that's connecting the two sticks, and it catches the drone as it's landing. So zipline definitely is, is one of them. They have 600 plus daily medical flights in Ghana, serving 12 million people. I believe they're also doing deliveries in Rwanda. So that's to your point. That's really where they kick things off, Alphabet slash Google, which or is the parent company to Google their alphabets wing, it's 300,000 global deliveries they've done so far. They're doing 1000 deliveries a day in Australia. Walmart, you said that they invested in zipline, but I believe they also have their own drones as well. It's been kind of, I think for Walmart, it's kind of been a trial period, because I know that they were trying to do deliveries via drone in Florida, but then they just stopped doing it. And there's lots of factors at play there. So there's maybe we should get into a little bit of the, I guess, the challenges around it. But first, Shenzhen is another one that is the food delivery in Shenzhen is in China, is already normalized there. I don't know if you've seen any of those videos. It's kind of incredible. So while I'm talking about it, they have almost these, like kiosks, like vending machines, all over Shenzhen. Shenzhen is like the Silicon Valley of China. And so they have all of the driverless taxis in there, by BYD, the driverless cars, drone delivery for food in particular. Like, if you are watching some of these tourists that go over there, it's like a vending machine that has a landing pad on the top of it. So you can order food from an app, like the the demo I saw, they were ordering from, like a KFC, so they placed their order in the next, like closest, little vending machine kiosk thing you can either order at the kiosk or use your phone in order to order and pay. The drone gets your food, gets delivered and, like less than 30 minutes, they drop it off in it's almost like their own container system that they developed. So, you know, the container system that got developed for the cargo ships really streamed line a lot of deliveries. And that's what this reminded me of, is this drone that was dropping off a box that was meant for food, and it's specially created has little handles on the top of it that the drone latches onto. The drone lands onto the vending machine in a specific spot, the food drops down into the vending machine. You put in a keypad code, and you take your you take the box out, and then you take your food out of the box. It's all sealed and properly. So even if it's a drink, you don't have to worry about it spilling, because there's like a special seal on it. You take the box that it arrived in, you pull like one side of the box, and it folds up instantly, and you just drop that box right back into the vending machine. Nearby, they have a landing and a takeoff area. So there's a couple like humans in the mix, where the landing and the drones are kind of taking off from, and they have batteries that are there as well. So they can kind of switch out the batteries. Because the biggest hurdle, or the biggest challenges, which we could probably talk about right now, is weather related and then battery related. So these, these two gentlemen, were like monitoring all of the drones, monitoring their power level, and then also switching out the batteries for the drones that were looking a little weak in the charging department. And so it's just this whole like system that they have set up and the drone deliveries. I mean, you can order from all different kinds of restaurants all within the app, and it all gets delivered, like, right next to you, versus, like a zip line, where it's more custom, like it's coming right to your house. And so those were the, I think, some of the more interesting things that I've seen like out in the wild when it comes to deliveries. Have you seen anything sort of interesting like that?

Grace Sharkey:

That is really cool. I haven't have, I to say, Have I seen any of these physically? No, we, I'd say, here in Michigan. And we actually do just in Ann Arbor yesterday, and they, they have a lot more of the on the road robots, because the town physically has, like, set up its infrastructure. It's, it's kind of annoying as, like, as a driver, because you'll see like, what looks like a bike lane, and then parking for on the street, and then a regularly to drive in. And it's so they've, like, created really great lanes for, like, robot those type of deliveries. But I do think it's fascinating. I know that Ohio, I think Kroger is working with a company, DEXA drone Express, which is a female founded drone company. So go check them out as well. I think they're a venture 53 portfolio

Blythe Brumleve:

company. What are they? Called? DEXA,

Grace Sharkey:

yep, D, E, X, A. Are their their big customers? Kroger, if I remember correctly. So the same thing you can, like, because I remember they had sent me, like, a, if you've ever been to Kroger, I really any grocery store, right? Sometimes you get those, like, coupons after your receipt, right? And there's a receipt from Kroger that you get now that's like, a free DEXA delivery. So, like, you can, you know, just get a free drone delivery if you want. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. So I've seen theirs, and theirs is, like, more of, I believe what they're calling like as a service. So like, their thing is, they'll create the drones. It's almost like, could almost like, kind of be like a Waymo experience. So like, they

Blythe Brumleve:

build, like, software, or they build hardware.

Grace Sharkey:

I believe they have the hardware too. And then let's say, I say, oh, for a living, I want to maybe more of it's an Amazon experience, right? For a living, maybe I want to own a fleet of these drones, and I'll make deliveries. Then you can, like, purchase the fleet through them, just like you would Amazon, right? Like, you can purchase like, a fleet of trucks, and then your business is dispatching those trucks and making sure they operate. So they kind of set up the same thing there. But yeah, they're doing the same thing with Kroger. And I just think it's fascinating. I What is also interesting, though, is like, for, like, the zipline thing, like, how they set up those experiences, like you said in China, right? They have kind of that, that booth situation there. What I've noticed, like, from the Walmarts in particular, is, like, they, they almost set up, like, a whole, like, landing pad next to the store that's, like, gated off and like, instead, the person will bring the groceries or those items into this like gated off, like zone, and then they take off. So it's also fascinating to kind of think, like, for instance, I think Walmart came out that they're starting to do dark stores, right? These locations that no one physically goes into you just go there to pick up your groceries. So it's like a warehouse. It's like a warehouse. And I just, I wonder if, like, that's what they're going to do with these, like, dark stores too, is like, maybe use the roof, or, like, somewhere on that property, like to do also the drone deliveries. Because I think, right, when you kind of talk about, like, regulation, I'm always interested in, like, how do you set these up around, you know, busy areas, areas like, with a lot of trees, a lot of cable like, what is that experience like? And so when I did see that they're starting to go into dark stores, I'm like, is that part of this drone experience too? So I think it's cool, though, it's starting to work. People are using it. I just, I haven't been in an area yet where you can accept one,

Blythe Brumleve:

Yeah, same. I've been trying, even when I've gone to Austin twice this year, and I tried so hard to get a Waymo to pick me up, but I think they're just limiting it to people who have, like, Austin addresses or Austin home addresses. So I was very, I was very mad that I wasn't able to get into a way, because I really want to experience this kind of technology, and it's just not available in in my area yet. And and back to Walmart's like, drone kind of experiments, like, there's a lot of experimenting going on because the it, there's the challenges that exist are the battery power and then also from a weather perspective, if it's raining, if it's dark, if it's foggy, that can all mess with, like the drone sensors and delivery mechanisms. There's also different ways that you know deliveries can be made, like zipline actually uses, like a tether system to drop your package. Walmart and Amazon, when they were first starting to test these, they were literally just dropping the package in someone's backyard. So, I mean, you know, God forbid, you know, have something fragile in there. It's not gonna, not going to work in that system, but there's a lot of. Opportunity here, because Amazon, they, I think, in their own study, when they were piloting this program, said that 85% of their deliveries are five pounds or less. So that is a major drone unlock, because for one of the challenges that exists right now for a lot of drone deliveries is that they can't carry a lot of weight. That is getting improved. So I think there's some drones now that can hold up to 50 pounds. So groceries might not be, you know that likely, especially depending on what you're ordering, it's probably going to be a certain weight limit. If that you know that, I guess that software allows you to, kind of, like, when you're in Amazon, and you can kind of pick, oh, can I get the same day delivery, or can I match it to, you know, my delivery of the week day? So I would imagine that that kind of capability would be coming sooner or later. But as I'm talking right now, it's pouring raining in Florida so

Grace Sharkey:

well, and it's funny too to like, kind of think through that problem, because going back into like, the technology side of it, right, like, in order to solve that, you theoretically have to go in and every SKU that you are moving decide whether or not that item right, could be technically shipped right, whether it's based off weight, how fragile it is, etc, and then building your system so that, I'm sure you've seen this, right, if you like, I this happened to me at Dick's the other day, right? I was trying to purchase a number of things in store, and at the end of it, it was like, we can't do this in store, because this one item is, has to be just shipped directly, right? And like, so creating the rules in your system to, like, be able to know, so it is, it is interesting to think, like, Okay, you could even, you could have the drone ready. You could, you could pass all the weather situations you get. But there's still, I think, just connectivity issues of what exactly can go on there. And I think that's why they've focused so much on kind of we're just going to stick to medicines, right, like dropping Tylenol off on your on your porch, right? Something that we all know can happen, can fall from the sky and probably be fine, compared to sending like, of course, like I've seen, I think Starbucks, though, was like, delivering in drones. Weren't they, like, or something there was like, a coffee company. And I was like, see, that's something I don't want delivered by a drone. And then

Blythe Brumleve:

it's interesting, you say that, because in the Chinese way, I mean, obviously they're far ahead, because DJI is their big drone manufacturer. They manufacture, I want to say over it's not close to 80% but I know it's over 70% of all the world's drones. So they are like the king as far as, like manufacturing them. But even with, you know, a lot of their deliveries that they're doing with those sort of, like kiosk vending machine type places, the the drinks that they were getting were sealed, so they had, like, almost like, like a yogurt in, like, that kind of seal on top of the yogurt on top of your drink, so it wouldn't spill it all. And so I imagine that there's going to have to be some coordination for like, a Starbucks or for some of these other companies, maybe not hot drinks, but cold drinks, for sure, because I think the packaging was also insulated from like the sun or heat exposure or anything like that, kind of messing up your food. But when you think about how many like DoorDash deliveries, Amazon's 85% of their deliveries are five pounds or less. Like how much are we wasting with just general traffic on the road emissions from these last mile trucks like that? There's a lot of waste going on that this market could absolutely capitalize on, and I think it's going to be, let's see. I think I had it in my notes, 61 billion. A drone logistics market could hit 61 billion by 2029 and it says drone delivery cuts CO two emissions by over 90% versus vans like delivery vans. So there's definitely some opportunity. But to your earlier point about like regulatory issues. In order to even pilot a drone, you have to have what's called, like the FAA 107 rules, which is the US commercial drone uses, regulated by weight, altitude and line of sight limits, so the drone can't leave your eyesight under that rule. Now they're currently trying to rework that rule. It's, think it's loosely being called like rule 108, so then, because that's where the fleet management software is going to come into play, which I think is super interesting if you have an entire fleet of drones, because much like trucks, like you have to know where they're at, you have to know their maintenance schedule. You have to know their power life in you know, where are they making deliveries, who are they making deliveries to, and so you have to have all of that information as well for your drones, just like you do for your trucks.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah, that's why I when I think, when I met the the DEXA company, like that, was more of their focus was what you're talking about, like, almost setting up people. Because I agree with you. I think that market for Drone Experience is big, just like, again we saw with Amazon and kind of these, like, small delivery vans, etc. But how do, like, we deploy that at scale? How do we, you know, find these people who can test and qualify and then run these drone I guess drone have to

Blythe Brumleve:

get a license. They also have, well, I was listening to a podcast earlier today that they have these, like, it's like a digital license plate for any drone that is flying in the country, so you could avoid collisions. You have to fly at certain like, there's going to very soon be like, flight paths and flight lanes for drones. And there's also the factor around, like, trying to be less of a nuisance, because the public, especially when you're talking about in, like, the public atmosphere. They don't want to hear drones flying around. They're still incredibly noisy. They are, you know, the manufacturers are working on, you know, reducing that noise level. But then there's also, like, the privacy level too. Of, you know, people see a drone and they automatically think like their privacy is being invaded, and so you have to sort of monitor that perception as well. But there is one place where you don't have to worry about any of this, and that's inside a warehouse, and that's probably like the best use case for drones right now, because there are self flying drones are reducing manual labor by scanning shelves and barcodes inside these Massive warehouses. IKEA uses 250 autonomous drones across 73 warehouses and in nine countries, even in the dark. So they're doing like inventory counts in the dark. I had gather AI on the show about a year ago, and they talked about how they have like charging pads inside of their office, and then the drones will take off from the charging pad, go do their inventory counts, and then return back to the charging pad. And it's all internal. They don't have to worry about different licenses. They don't have to worry about, you know, weather patterns and things like that. It's all kind of, you know, just built in. So there's

Grace Sharkey:

like, how you can maximize space in a warehouse, knowing that you can, I mean, clearly, there's probably some fire hazards in this, but you can build shelves as high as you physically can, right? Because you don't have to worry too much. Well, my drones are going to be counting up there. It's not humans I'm sending to the top of these things, right? And, and again, you can count at any time of the day, you have to worry about having a third shift to do any of that. I think that's what's really cool about the drones inside, is it just like, makes so much sense. It's such a state. It's almost it feels a little bit like the opposite of a problem with a drone outside, where it's like, oh, this is actually helping with a lot of safety initiatives inside, human safety initiatives, right? And at the same time, like just being able to pack and pick and find items quickly, I think is, is huge. I mean, I can't think of, you know how often things just get lost in a warehouse, and to be able to say, Listen, send the drone out, who'll sweep this place in minutes, and we'll know exactly where it is, compared to like trying to manually find something like that. I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's warehouses all over the country who are losing product or have some type of significant loss just because things get lost in their warehouse. So just to have this, like being that can easily maneuver through I think it's really cool that, yeah, that team's awesome. I think the last time you talked to him, I just got that warehouse.

Blythe Brumleve:

I was wondering too, because I used to work at Costco, and we used to have inventory counts twice a year, where all hands on deck. It was not a you, if you worked at that company. You had to be there on inventory night. You were assigned a certain area, and you had to count everything by hand, and so it was just all hands on deck kind of thing, and you have to do it twice a year. So I'm sure that's the case for or was the case for a lot of other companies that aren't utilizing, you know, technology like this. So I'm I'm curious if the Costco workers out there, if anybody's listening, chime in and let us know how they're doing inventory counts. Because I would love to know if, because, I mean, Costco is a, pretty much a warehouse, and so when you're inside there, I wonder if you know, maybe there's something that they could do with, like their own like inventory counts via drone, that are happening. Happening at night. So it doesn't have to be like the all hands meeting at the end of the day. So I did want to highlight, you know, some of these, like GPS tracking autonomous systems. So there are a couple of them, like DJI. We talked about them. They have a flight hub as far as like, a fleet management software offering. There's another company called Air Data. There's another company called aloft. There's other like battery and like health monitoring. So think like maintenance for your drone. It's called Flight base drone deploy, or air data, UAV. So there's a few companies there that are almost like your fleet management software, which I think is just super cool that we're watching, like some of this stuff, like unfold, and what are they learning from, you know, experiment logistics, experiments across the world, and then how it's kind of different, or the, I guess the application is different for all different sectors of the world. But kind of, when I was watching the video of, like, the the Chinese drone delivery, because they're so far ahead when it comes to drone manufacturing and just drone deployment, it was interesting to see, like, what is working in their society? And I kind of think that with those kiosks, I don't think we're too far off from, you know, apartment buildings or even your own home, like having a little helipad for drone deliveries, and that is just a marked space for the drones to make the delivery and they drop those packages off. And you know that that's your little landing pad, not just for buildings and not just for kiosks, but for your house as well.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah, poor gig workers, right? Just so they thought, No, I think it would be cool. I just, and it's, I think my well, and this is more of a societal issue. My one fear with it is that, and this, again, is more societal is I think something like this could be really helpful for areas who have food deserts, right? But I also think at the same time, those areas also probably have issues with drone flying regulation, because they're so compact. Usually inner cities, right? Are a little bit more difficult, I think, to withstand that. So that's, that's my only fear is, like, is this going to be something that you more of, like a suburb thing where you have that space to kind of take off and maneuver around, compared to, like an inner city, who could probably really use that technology to actually,

Blythe Brumleve:

like fresh produce or something like that, like being able to get that delivered? Yeah, I don't know if we're too far off hopefully. I mean, it just, it depends on the

Grace Sharkey:

budget. It could be a situation too, where it's like you're saying you almost maybe, like a block or to share one, and that can help, but it will be fascinating to see how it starts to explode more and I think once we have more states, I think accept, accepting of a lot of this technology, we'll see, see more of it too. I think this also the sad side of this, though, is my poor state, who loves to see snow and rain throughout the year, is probably going to have a little bit more difficulty deploying that because of weather purposes, compared to states like yourself, and stay a little bit more dry.

Blythe Brumleve:

Well, it's literally funding outside right now. We're at the time of the year in Florida, where it rains every day. So what are they gonna do about a state like this, where it's raining from like one to 4pm or has a high chance of rain between those time frames? Yes, maybe more late night deliveries, or more early warning deliveries. That's probably a better, I guess, method to take, but it is. It is interesting also to see how they're approaching the style of drone that they're manufacturing, because I just saw, and I'm blanking on the name right now, but I just saw this drone maker the other day that is starting to mimic birds. And so instead of having like a vertical takeoff, they kind of with birds, they kind of jump to take off. Yeah, so adding almost, like little bird type legs to the drone so it'll jump, and then it starts taking off, like, give it a little extra oomph so it doesn't need as much battery in order to take off, because once it takes off, it's it's much I how do I say this? It's not as impactful on the battery load of the machinery if it's already in the air. But it's the initial takeoff that is, is challenging of a situation. And it even, like, this little drone had wings as well. And so it was like flapping, like, if it wanted to, like, hop over or something, then it was like a little, little bird leg jump and then, but the wings would flap too as it was jumping. So I don't know how practical that is for like delivery and especially carrying, you know, payloads like that, but it is something, it's something interesting to watch

Grace Sharkey:

totally and for all the people out there think birds aren't real. I just helped you support that theory. So

Blythe Brumleve:

are there really people who think, no, I don't. Oh god, you know, I'm about tired of conspiracy theories and news and every conspiracy theory I feel like I talk about, it comes true anyway. So is it even a conspiracy theory? And you know, I will say

Grace Sharkey:

though the whole drones around New Jersey thing. It is funny that you talk about the type of takeoff, because the whole, like, weirdness about some of those, like, lights and stuff, was going back to write the science of kind of propulsion. And if we have a capability of being able to kind of take off in a different type of propulsion form, and that's kind of like, what you're talking about, right, is like, but that kind of technology, right, can be it's, it's interesting to like, theorize, if, if we do have it as a Country, right, through the lens of that conspiracy theory, because that would be very helpful for this exact problem solving scenario. So hope maybe the conspiracy people are right, and we can get that type of propulsion off of these drones and make them a little bit easier to get off the ground and going.

Blythe Brumleve:

I would love to see some of these experiments take place, and like, the pouring down rain of what we're experiencing now, like real magic, or just dive into the ocean or something like, give us some goods. You

Grace Sharkey:

do actually make a good point, though, because in a day, like, when it's raining out, I don't want to go the store, that's the day I most likely want to use a drone. Like, when it's beautiful out, I want to leave my house and like, so really, do have to figure out this weather situation. Can you hear the thunder? Honestly? I thought that was your stomach. I was like, I did start listening to and I was like, and I know the listeners can hear it, because I can hear it.

Blythe Brumleve:

Yeah, it is. I'm not hungry. I ate right before we started recording. So we're good there. Eat ourselves, alright? Well, that is our sort of, I don't even know what to call this, but like our drone logistics Outlook. So hopefully y'all enjoyed that discussion. Let's move into the next discussion. Again, we have grace Sharkey with orderful here, and we're going to talk about the second half of 2025 the logistics market predictions. And I'm going to have grace lead this one, because it there's a lot going on. So we're going to talk a little bit about what retailers are doing for peak season, maybe where supply chains are shifting, what trends are shaping up, you know, for those 2026, budgets, let's grace, let let's kick it off.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah, so I think the biggest place I want to start right now is, of course, at the end of the day, if consumers aren't buying things, and we aren't moving things, and logistics slows down. So of course, you kind of want to look at the consumer and see what their their focus is, right? And I clearly, I think inflation right now is still a question out there for a lot of people. Now, depending on where you're going for your inflation news, there's back and forth of whether or not what's causing the inflation. At the end of the day, we have it still. It's still affecting consumer spending, regardless of what number you want to throw out there. Perception is there, the perception exactly the perception is there. And that perception, and that concern too, is also a reason why the feds have held off on figuring out what to do with interest rates as well. I mean, if you saw the last time that they talked the whole this whole unknown scenario of tariffs and and not so much. I don't think it's 100% so much of of what will the tariffs be, but just how companies and how consumers are going to react to the tariffs as well as we start to see those final tariff numbers come out here soon. I think that is like their biggest concern is that we just don't know how the economy is going to react whatever numbers you land on. So we're just kind of in this state of we don't know what to do as well. Now they have said it's quite unlikely that they'll do it anytime soon, when I say soon in the next 30 days or so, because again, what you could call the inflation psychology of it all isn't showing positive signs for them right now. Of course, we've got that one big, beautiful bill, which I actually don't have I don't hate the marketing behind I love giving bills a fun

Blythe Brumleve:

he loves to phrase that he is. He a marketer.

Grace Sharkey:

He is, he is low key a marketer. I said that someone like for as someone who's like, maybe doing this job more on a day to day basis. I don't hate him for under. Understanding the storyline and sticking to it, you know, like

Blythe Brumleve:

I had what the sleepy Joe Biden and named something, yeah,

Grace Sharkey:

the way that how good he is at reminding us it was Biden's fault is almost at this point from a marketing perspective. Like, boy, do we want a CEO who understands the talking points, you know,

Blythe Brumleve:

you got to repeat it seven times, right? Somebody could buy

Grace Sharkey:

so there's like, a level where I now that I'm, like a PR marketing girl, like, I love it. So, um, but I will say the outcome of that bill should be positive for economic reasons. But again, it's not trickle down economics, but it is going to be a trickle effect. So I don't think that we're going to see, I think we're going to see, uh, more spending. We just do every year around Christmas, right? We see the end of the year, Christmas gifts, etc. I mean, even Halloween candy last year saw a slight increase. I I trust the American consumer to spend more money this year than they did last year. That's if there's something that we can do in distress, it's we will find a way to spend more money. We're really good at that. Now. Will that be through buy now, pay laters. Will that be through loans? Will that be hoping that we can file our taxes as soon as possible and get that check at the end of January and just get through that time period? Probably that's the American as well. We're always trying to find a way around, and so I don't think we're going to see anything crazy that we didn't expect. I think, I honestly think we'll see probably trends, much like we saw last holiday season, much like we saw the school season. I do know that a lot of especially for more of the school season, products, early fall products, etc, going back to school, clothes, all that stuff. I think we start, starting to see shippers bring that stuff in early trying to some of the potential tariff rules that they'll have to deal with throughout the fall. So I think, in terms of inventory, I don't think we'll have a problem. But if we all remember correctly few years back, right? People kind of responded this way. We had a lot of inventory in which meant that, you know, there's a lot of inventory we had to get through over the second half of the year. So I again, I just don't think that, if there's carriers out there watching or, like, I can't wait for rates, I don't think you're going to see rates start to spike up. I also don't think much as we're doing in regulation for the trucking side, I agree. I don't think we're going to see just like a complete wash of the market due to any ELP mandates, etc. I think maybe we'll see kind of

Blythe Brumleve:

driver is the English language proficiency, right? Yeah,

Grace Sharkey:

yeah. I I really don't think we're going to see a huge impact on that market. I think that shippers are already have been planning on it. Have started to put those rules in. If there's anything we know about logistics providers and brokers, they're going to be clever and how they use their carriers and use them appropriately, right? Yes. Will there be shippers who say, don't bring this person who can't speak English well into our facility? Sure, but there sure is hell going to be a lot of shippers who don't overly mandate that, and that freight will get moved as well. So I just, I don't see any of that impacting the market. So I honestly, I think we'll see kind of just the stagnant year, I don't like see when it comes to maybe a recession. I think we would have saw signs of that by now. To be honest with you, I think maybe that delay in the tariffs kind of helped with that. I think I want to give maybe the consumer credit to kind of avoid that situation. But we'll start to see what is coming in through a lot of these ports, and see what consumer spending is like and, and what you know Amazon Prime Day and all that will look like as well, because I think Amazon Prime Day is, is either happening right now or

Blythe Brumleve:

it's right now. I actually, I was going to bring that up because one of the, and this is very anecdotal, because it's only one Amazon seller that I saw say this on my x feed, and he was saying that sales were way down, but he expected it. What he had done is raise prices on I mean, this is kind of typical for a lot of Amazon sellers. Is ahead of Prime Day, they'll raise their prices so then that way the discount looks much deeper ahead of time. But he said, even within he knew that sales were going to be down. And I think what's interesting about this sort of economic situation that we're in is, you know, over the last five years, it was like this dramatic increase in things that we buy, and then it was this dramatic increase in experiences, and then now it kind of feels like, are we like, kind of evening out? Yeah, but then also, with all of the uncertainty around tariffs and just that, becoming like a kitchen table conversation is making people kind of reel in their spending habits, which I could argue probably needed to happen. You made the point earlier about, you know, people putting like DoorDash in Klarna recently announced a partnership where if you are paying payments on a Door Dash food delivery, you have no business ordering Door Dash, and we have a record consumer debt. So we have all of these things that, like the chickens, are going to come home to roost eventually, and maybe all of this sort of uncertainty around the economy, maybe that it has forced people to take a step back from their probably irresponsible spending. I know it's had that effect on me, especially from, you know, like my ordering habits from like temu, and she in like, I It's fallen off a cliff for me, um, and I've heard that actually temu is is in a lot of trouble business wise. Like, they've had to raise prices all across the board, there's a real danger of them just running out of money in general, following kind of the pattern of what happened to wish. So you know, they're not getting that de minimis exemption anymore, which, you know, anything under $800 shipped into the United States was arriving tax free. There's rumors that at first the de minimis was going to go away completely in 2026 but now that's it's look or 2027 I believe. But now it's going to be kind of done for with every with the big, beautiful bill passing that there was some language in there that said that it was going to be gone completely. So that's, you know, for a lot of global shippers, then that's something obviously to keep an eye on, too. So I think it's just a lot of uncertainty. And maybe I was going to argue, well, maybe people are spending over the summertime more on experiences. But also, anecdotally, I've seen a lot of like, the wait times at like Disney World, which I am right down the road from, I don't know if you guys can hear that thunder in the background, the loud lightning crack as soon as I say Disney World. Maybe that means they need to go back. Yeah, yeah. So, but the Disney World crowds like there, maybe this has to do with epic universe recently opening, which is Universal's new theme park, but Disney World crowds are, like, way down. Like, you can open up the app right now and like, check the wait times in some of their different attractions, and it's not what you would expect for, you know, a summertime, you know, families vacationing to Disney. I think a lot of their money is actually going to cruises versus the theme parks, which admittedly, admittedly need a lot of work, a lot of maintenance, a lot of revamps. Rip Two Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island. I don't want to get started on that, but I know pour one out for Rivers of America, yay. Can't wait for Cars Land. Dumbest decision in Magic Kingdom history. But

Grace Sharkey:

just pour one out

Blythe Brumleve:

for the water that will no longer exist inside of

Grace Sharkey:

listeners right now are like, did this? Did this just turn into a Disney it can No, it did? You know, I agree with you. I think, you know, we're starting to see signs, and we brought this up numerous times on this show signs of that kind of lipstick index. But I mean, like the little boo boos, I think you're a perfect example, right? What is it? Is it just a little stuffed animal? Yeah, it's like a little stuffed animal. And I don't have one, but you know me, they look

Blythe Brumleve:

demonic. You know, have you heard that theory that they're like, actually demonic, like devils? Yeah, the way for the devil to creep into your life in more ways than one. Well, you

Grace Sharkey:

know, there maybe for consumer spending. They are because, you know, they've said that. That's kind of the perfect example of it. Like, I can't take my kid. I can't afford to take my kid to Disney, but I sure can afford to drive my kid to the local big mall and pop Mart and try to grab one of these things, right? And I think that kind of showcases that we might be in that situation again, where people are kind of holding off and saying, I think we've noticed even Michigan does this quite frequently. But a lot of like, more in state travel, where we're not going out of state or out of the country, but we're willing to drive, you know, a few hours in state, to have some type of vacation. And so I think I agree with you. I I think that again, we're probably going to see a light uptake we just do every single year, so to come back and but if I will say on that note, if we come back and back to school shopping or Halloween shop. If Halloween shopping comes back down for the first time, and I mean, I've covered that for like, years now, then that's gonna be really tell, tell sign of what's to come around the corner. So well,

Blythe Brumleve:

didn't a lot of these retailers like they, they purchased in advance for a lot of the to try to beat the tariffs. I heard it was like. Back in March, they were purchasing back to school items in order to beat the that April deadline when the new tariffs would kick in. So they were trying to a lot of like Walmarts, Amazons were securing those, those that product well ahead of time, and now it looks like we're going to have, at the time of recording, we have new tariffs taking place starting August 1. But that's, you know, to be determined, because who knows what's going to happen with a lot of those tariff announcements between now and that time period? Because we're recording this on July 9 for full transparency there. So we'll see what deals I guess, are going to get made. But what I do, think is encouraging is to see all the tariff revenue that we're starting to get, I think they estimated by 300 billion by the end of the year. And that is enormous. Hopefully it helps cut down on some of our $26 trillion in debt, which the big, beautiful bill adds a couple trillion more to that. So everybody, everybody else in the country is supposed to be financially and fiscally responsible, except for the US government. So that's neither here nor there. That's my little mini ranch for today. But anything else, I guess, that people should be looking out for. I have a couple notes here. Warehouse space is tied again. That makes sense. A lot of retailers were bulking up on a lot of their inventories well ahead of those tariff disruptions, labor disruptions still loom. Looks like some contracts were settled. Of course, geopolitical tensions, I think, are the big one between US and China,

Grace Sharkey:

I will say, though, on the warehousing this just came out. I think it was in Wall Street Journal today that they are seeing just a slight uptick of vacancies. And I think that's because people, again, it's just the uncertainty. They aren't, they aren't going and unleashing more space, because they're just not sure of what that inventory situation will be like after this, too. So we'll probably continue to see that, I would say, for the rest of this year, until we see what spending is like in the fall.

Blythe Brumleve:

Yeah, some of these stats, I just don't know how reliable they are until we get some more data in. I mean, even like consumer purchasing data, like, you know, a lot of these things, we just don't know yet. Another big one that just happened was ups, cutting 20,000 jobs in order to further invest in automation and reduce costs. We talked earlier in the show about drones, didn't mention ups, but UPS is one of those companies, also DHL, that is piloting a lot of different for lack of a better phrase, piloting a lot of different drone initiatives for some of their deliveries. So when I saw that they were making cuts, I was like, hmm, I wonder if you know that, that's a big reason why. And, and I don't know if this is the case for you inside your Amazon account, but UPS was whenever you may go to make a return, UPS was always like the number one option. Now I have to click see more to pick ups. So it's like Whole Foods, it's a couple other retailers. It's a new one in there. I'm blanking on the name, so it's Whole Foods, which is obviously Amazon owned, a couple other retailers, and then you have to click see more in order to choose ups. So I found that that was interesting. Maybe that, that, that relationship is, you know, there's some cracks that are starting to be shown. Probably,

Grace Sharkey:

yeah, no, you're probably 100% right on that and on the DHL stuff. It's probably a lot of the warehouse suit stuff, right? There's not sure what that's gonna be like. So investment on a lot of that stuff will pause,

Blythe Brumleve:

yeah, especially being so e commerce heavy, the of what DHL is, like, UPS, seems maybe a little bit more, yeah, COVID, yes, is like a DHL, which is almost all e commerce

Grace Sharkey:

and global, which is really fun in a global trade war.

Blythe Brumleve:

Their trade software, which I know that they've invested in heavily, gosh, I bet that's just, like, just burning a hole in someone's pocket, just because it's just so much data, so much information you have to sort through customs and fees and ever changing

Grace Sharkey:

and one man's headache is another man's job security. Yes,

Blythe Brumleve:

that's, I mean that? Yeah, that's, that's very well put any last remarks, and with the, you know, the second half market outlook, or do you want to move on to the next

Grace Sharkey:

topic? Let's move on the next topic. Yeah, I think we covered it all right. Well, let's move

Blythe Brumleve:

into our next segment, and we're gonna, I, at least on my end. I'm gonna blend a couple of these together with our freight marketing spotlights, and then also our favorite freight business. Once again, my name is Blythe Milligan. We are presented by SPI logistics. This is the everything is logistics podcast. We are joined with Grace Sharkey of order full fame. And I have to get used to not saying freight waves, fame, fame. I have to say orderful fame. Which does I mean? It has a nice little you know? Role of the app there too. So nice little segue into this next segment and where we like to feature some good freight marketing, because I think it's kind of it's still rare in this industry to see good freight marketing, so we'd like to highlight those, and then also any businesses that come across our timeline that we think are just interesting. So do you want to go first? Or you want me to go first? Yeah, I'll go

Grace Sharkey:

first because this was a fun one. Um, I don't know if you've listeners out there. Go check out this video. So if you haven't heard of the company, load, pay. It is a division of triumph bank. It's, it's basically their, oh,

Blythe Brumleve:

what I did? I did see so I'm pulling up your commercial. I'm sorry like started playing. And no, no, you're

Grace Sharkey:

good. I was just, you were shocked, and I was, I just love micro, yes, yeah. So they again, and we were talking about this prior to the show starting right? Like understanding who your your client is, what they're passionate about, what's going to speak to them. And so low pay is this new function of triumph bank. And we'll kind of get into it a little bit more in a second, because it is a part of my cool business initiative as well. But of course, it's a easy credit finance structure for carriers out there to, of course, get invoices paid earlier the factoring services, but more so you do have a physical card that you can use to pay for repairs, fuel, etc. It gives you a centralized place to just watch all of your expenses. So yeah, that that's what their focus is. And of course, they're talking truck drivers. So you know, when you think of a dirty job like trucking, you think, well, who is the dirtiest job guy, of them all. So they just recently put out this awesome commercial. It's a minute live. We probably could play the whole you want me to play it? Yeah, with micro if you want to put that out. The dirtiest guy

Blythe Brumleve:

immediately started coughing up dust when you talk about micro, even though I love him so much, I don't know a side sidebar, he was just on Theo Vaughn's not, I don't know if he was just on, but I thought I finally listened to it, and it was really good. So I listened to it on a plane ride. It was awesome. I love his initiative. Always kind of thought of micro is like, almost like a TV dad to me, totally like him and Tim Allen were like TV dads, like growing up. So just like they, I think they just remind me of my own dad. So,

Grace Sharkey:

okay, so I wish my dad was strong as my you

Blythe Brumleve:

know, he's a bra he, he's someone Broadway, yeah, so he's someone Broadway, and he was also a QVC host for like 10 years.

Grace Sharkey:

He's got a great voice, fantastic.

Unknown:

Let's play the commercial. Hi. I'm Mike Rowe, and today I'm standing in an enormous parking lot with an enormous 18 wheeler behind me and four superheroes. Technically, these men are truck drivers, but make no mistake, without them, nobody anywhere would have anything at all. I know you love what you do, but I'd love to hear why you love it. We get the adventure of the old cowboys. It's never a dumb moment, really. I promise you, it feels great knowing that I'm a young trucker helping out my community, not just my community, but the world. It's not just the community, it's the world. I think a lot about the sacrifice that you guys make. I watched my son grow up from about five or six to eight years old on the screen. Let me ask you the most ridiculous question I've ever asked anybody before. Is getting paid? Important? Very important. What am I looking at here? The payday accelerator load, pay. What's that mean for you? Load? Pay puts money in the owner's pocket within minutes. Instead of having to wait anywhere from three days to 45 days, we accrue so many expenses just from driving to point A to point B. It's all about cash flow. I don't want to ask too obvious a question, but just the basic premise of getting paid as soon as you finish your work seems like a pretty good thing. Oh, absolutely.

Grace Sharkey:

Freelance isn't getting paid when you finish your work, just the best.

Blythe Brumleve:

We love micro. But

Grace Sharkey:

you know, I do want to point out a couple of like, even like deep lore. Positives about this commercial, too. So I would highly suggest if you're listening to this, to watch the commercial. Because yeah. One, you got a voice that you know your audience is going to trust, right? So that's like, right off the bat, awesome. Two, you'll notice that when they talk about the actual load pay, tool or application, they don't have that coming out of the mouth of someone at Triumph or someone at load, pay. They have those details coming out of the mouth of an actual user, a truck driver themselves, right? Which I think is powerful too, having your actual client accept. Explain the product like that. I think is awesome. Three, maybe 343, diversity within that group of different drivers, right? And I don't mean diversity, just like, in terms of like race all that, but also just ages, right? Because like Trucking is going to get into the different generations, and I think it's important. I just feel like I don't see enough of younger truckers on trucker sponsored or focused marketing campaigns, and you're ignoring not only the future of your business, but a great pool of individuals who are making their way into this industry. Last but not least, you might have this is your you're gonna have to watch it to catch it. But they picked influencers, each one, each person they talked to. They showcase their Twitter handle. They pick someone they they knew was probably important in their little niche space within the trucking industry. We understand it's fragmented, and it's with that means you have to, you know, find these little audiences. I haven't got a chance to go check out all their content, but I'm sure they kind of focus on different groups and different types of trucking and it so it's just it. It was executed and planned, I think, very intelligently. And I'm kind of, I'm excited to to see how low pay takes off. And to be honest with you, I actually put that down as my favorite business segment as well is is what triumph is doing with low pay in particular, and what it's doing to expand its financial services. So what really shout out to Cody Griggs over at ch Robinson, just because I know this is something that she's been a part of as well, and we just love a woman in STEM who's killing it. So shout out to her over there. But they're starting to work with Triumph to deliver these extra services through partnerships as well with a trusted company like triumph. They know most drivers are set up with them. Why build our own finance solution when we could just partner with one who's figured it out, who has the infrastructure, who's built this, who has won over the carrier audience, and who, I assume, before they went into this, already had implemented, you know, their whether it's like triumph pay or some type of factoring service with a large number of CH Robinson carriers to begin with, if you watch as well, the recently had come out that not only are they doing load pay, but triumph is going to be Basically white labeling their factoring services or brokers, which is going to be huge and well, I mean, I think a lot of factoring companies are going to have to really fight to to keep up. That's why you see da team out go. I think that's why you're seeing some of these other companies buying more of these financial firms, because they're realizing, hey, for us to build this and also to finance, that is going to be a lot. So why aren't we working with someone who already has built this? And if you read any of Aaron graphs, like letters to their shareholders, he touches on this, like we've built this already for people, and I think the way that they're running the factoring division right now, from the way that he spoke about it in letters, sounds like it's not, you put a lot of work into building that technology, and it's, I don't think it's, I don't want to say it's not paying off, but it's how they monetized. It isn't, isn't as positive as they had thought. So this is kind of their pivot into finding a way to make that division more profitable. Why not white label it? Let's see H Robinson, and I'm sure we're gonna see other big players in that space to start to to utilize that that service as well. So that's kind of my it's maybe favorite business from just business in general that I'm watching, because I think it's causing a really interesting ripple effect in the industry as well.

Blythe Brumleve:

Yeah, that's a good point, because they also triumph. Just purchased green screens, like one of, like, the just, I don't want to say up and coming, because they've been established for like, a long time, but they kind of, I think they got started in what, 2019 2018 Yeah. And that's evaluation,

Grace Sharkey:

yeah, and that's a part of what they graph calls their intelligence unit that they're adding, right? It's okay, we have all this payment data. And the cool thing about even payment data, too, is like there's a level of it that's also showing you, right, like where the carriers are, for instance, like, when we talk about fraud, if I have three invoices that deliver today, and I know that your trucking company only has two trucks, like, there's a red flag. I know it's a lot more technically detailed than that, but just to kind of layman's terms, it right. You can use that data for a lot of really interesting, uh. Analysis of this industry, and they're realizing that that's what we have. And so I'm very interested to see how the data plays of the next like decade go in this industry, because I think people are starting to realize, oh, this is more valuable than I thought, and triumph, I think, is one of them, and they're making moves to correct that and move forward in a more positive direction. So,

Blythe Brumleve:

God, data is so hard, I'm telling you, right? I just building like I'm gonna, I'm doing totally you get it with the cargo Rex. I mean, it's just so, I mean, even my own building cargo wrecks and then building like search engines on top of it, which I we're on our third crack of it. Now. It third time that we are revamping the search engine around the data set, because it's not just recording the data, but it's the data integrity to begin with. And then how do you make that data searchable plus valuable to the intent of the person who is making the query? And it's just, I have so much more respect for what Google has done. I mean, we take it for granted how we could just pop Google open, or even Amazon, or, you know, a lot of these different sites, and you can just put a couple keywords in and they feed you back, you know, mostly what you want to see. And it's so challenging. So my hat is off to anybody that works in data and is trying to filter through, you know, a lot of this different just large amounts of information, and tried to disseminate it to where it's something that is useful to someone. But that's actually a perfect segue to go into my favorite freight marketing and, you know, a quick Business Spotlight that I wanted to put on, and that is, have you heard of import

Grace Sharkey:

Yeti? No, I saw it on the notes. I was like, I almost looked it up. I figured I'd let you

Blythe Brumleve:

so import Yeti allows you to find suppliers for any company. So they were at the recent TMSA transportation marketing and sales Association. We had our annual elevate conference. One of their co founders, Dave, was giving a session there. So import Yeti, I they gave me this mug. I don't know if you can do it's a cute little Yeti that's on the side of the mug. But what's really cool about it is because for import Yeti, where it's useful is say, like I'm a broker, and I want to find out where some shippers are at, or maybe some new shippers. Maybe I've, you know, specialized in a certain kind of commodity, and I want to find more customers like that, because I have a proven track record. Well, you could find any product, maybe it's yoga pants or Yeti water bottles or whatever. And you can go to Import Yeti, and if you have you can sign up for free. But they also the paid plan is much better. And you can search up any supplier. You can search shipment records and import records and find them on so with this mug, what they do is really cool. So they will they have certain target customers that they reach out to with, like these highly specified marketing campaigns. And then when they have someone kind of in their in their eyesight of like, this is going to be a really good get for us. So they'll send them a little mini container, shaped box, like it, it's painted to look like a mini container. They put this mug in it, and then on the bottom of the mug, oh no, they tell you the supplier, the suppliers, name of where the person who is making the mug, and the the number. So the number that you can put, I don't know if you can see it all that, but you can then the product ID number that you can put into import Yeti's website to find the supplier of the mug that they use to send out to customers. And I just thought that was so smart. That is so cool about your marketing like that, like kind of full rounded, I guess, philosophy, or well rounded philosophy that you're putting the product number on the bottom, plus the supplier of where you're getting the mug from. Hopefully there's some kind of like a trade deal that they worked out there with the supplier that, hey, you know, your company is going to be at the bottom of all of our mugs. You know, give us an extra couple bucks off of the mug and make it really cute. And so they have some really cute branding. But a couple of the other things that he was talking about during his session is that they treat sales copy like a science experiment. They said one example that they had a stat about improving retention by 40% so they they're they're telling their customers that they can help them improve their retention by 40% but his audience, the people, weren't believing a number that high. So dropped the number to 19% and once they dropped the number to 19% like they're pretty much cutting it in half of their own success rate, suddenly, folks kept reading, and when he says reading like his emails, his case studies, they said that level of honesty and testing was enough of a significant improvement to have them. Close deals on new customers because their percent, the customer's perception was, or the leads perspective perception was, is that that number is not entirely a lie. You're bullshitting me. And so they dropped their own success rate retention number to 19% and it led to more customers because of it, because it made the stat a little bit more believable. They also make cold outreach fun, so they send out those mini shipping containers. They also will send out flip phones to HR teams, just to prove how broken internal systems are. So it's kind of like the opposite of spray and pray. It's specific, it's relevant. It's memorable. They also use data to pre remove objections. Another thing that they do is, with all of their marketing is inside of HubSpot, so even like their case studies and things like that, if they see readers drop off of a certain page of their case study, they'll rework the entire PDF. So then that way they can improve retention or improve readability. So then that way the consumer is reading until the very end of the case study. So I thought that that was really interesting. Snail mail. Also, we have talked before about how direct mail, snail mail, or like hidden marketing gems import. Yeti, is kind of proving that, and they're taking a more of a creative approach to that. So I thought that that was super interesting. And then they use HubSpot, like a lab. I already kind of talked about that one, but yeah, that that was especially, I guess, co signing off of the the case study is, you kind of think, like case studies, like nobody cares about case I personally had this opinion walking into TMSA this year, it's like nobody cares about case studies. Stop making them like they're, I don't want to say they're BS, but nobody reads them. Nobody cares. Nobody downloads it's actually the exact opposite. I was so totally wrong in that import. Yeti is kind of proof to that. We had a shippers panel as well at the event, and all of the shippers on the panel, I mean, it's technically anecdotal, but three of them said, I love getting case studies. I want to read case studies. And I was like, Jesus, okay, fine. Like,

Grace Sharkey:

and I think it depends on the case study that you use too. Like, I've actually, and again, I've only been doing this job for like, a month, so take it for granted, but I've noticed that we actually do get bigger responses and from the case studies that we put out compared to just like, maybe a blog, but the case studies I have focused on, and have kind of put out there are, like, famous names, right? So, like, the liquid deaths of them all. And we, oh, like, we did a, I did a PBR one, perhaps Brewing Company on the day before Fourth of July, right? You're like, going into that and, and that's, I mean, even today, is like, still doing really well. And so I think it's, I think it's, how are you attacking the case study? Who is that case study with? Is it's with someone that people are going to instantly be like, Oh, that's a growing company, or that's like, a legacy in this industry. That's someone we need to talk about, like, being just strategic about it. But

Blythe Brumleve:

now, are you making people download them for all of them? But

Grace Sharkey:

that's something that we're starting to look into, as well as doing more of that kind of stuff. So now, no, not, not for a lot of them are blogs right now, look at us like but that's something strategy because strategy talk now,

Blythe Brumleve:

well, someone had asked me the other day, like, do you host webinars at all? And I was like, No, I haven't hosted a webinar for any of my own companies. God, since like 2021 but I remember them performing pretty well. And the guy was like, well, we just really like it was a potential podcast sponsor. And the guy was like, well, we just really like webinars, because we get a copy of the email address and, oh god, yeah, I guess I need to think about that. I, you know, I just always think of, you know, my marketing mindset has always been just like, just put it out there, put your message out there is blast it out to as many platforms where people are hanging out as much as possible, and get them into following you. Get them into subscribing to your email newsletter, and then when they're ready to buy, you're the first one at at top of mind. But you know, as I'm starting to build out a lot of these different marketing campaigns for these podcast advertisers like that's what they're looking for. They're looking for ways to justify their marketing spend to their bosses. Can I provide that to them? So case studies came to mind. I did hear of another recently, this marketer that I follow on LinkedIn. She's really good, and I'm sorry I'm blanking on her name. Um, but she said that she doesn't even write case studies anymore. She takes all of the sales notes, like the sales recordings, and she takes the transcripts of those, and then she turns those into case studies. And I thought, Oh, my God, that's that is super smart. And how she delivers them is she requires, you know, emails, to be downloaded. So that makes a ton of sense, and I probably will start to do I got some content plans in the works for cargo Rex. It's a little bit more of a higher, higher level than, like, a or a higher production level, I guess then probably will do you know, I don't know yet. I'm working on the plan, but thinking of some different roundtable type content that, you know, we'll, we'll start after the Labor Day holiday, because I'm not doing it in July and August while we're working on this damn search engine. But, yeah, it's all it's a pain in my ass. I

Grace Sharkey:

think something that we should talk about, though, and we'll think for next month, is I'd love to get into the discussion with you on how you're adjusting your maybe SEO strategy based on instead of Google. If you really again, just listening, I reminded Blythe of a headache. She

Blythe Brumleve:

probably already it's just, it's so it is

Grace Sharkey:

fascinating to think that people now, instead of like, I have an EDI, for example, orderful, right? I, who do I go to for or EDI? People are going to Google, right? Less with that question, more to chat. GPT, so how are you popping up and not so kind of interesting. So

Blythe Brumleve:

there, I don't want to get too much, because I

Grace Sharkey:

anybody, let's save it.

Blythe Brumleve:

Okay? Anybody who tells you that they got it figured out right now is lying? They have something to sell you, yeah. So all of these SEO agencies that are, God, I had one of them reach out to one of my clients, and they're like, you're not appearing on the top page for this specific keyword, and we can get you there in four months. I'm like, You're effing lying, because no one can guarantee you certain placement unless you're paying Google for that placement. Because Google doesn't even have it figured out right now, and so everybody's trying to figure out how ll limbs are classifying data, and should you just follow what Google has been doing for years? But then are Google itself is kind of like cannibalizing its own like honey pot, because they're so search dominant, but that search dominance has dropped below 90% for the first time forever, so they have started to make slight adjustments to how they're displaying search keywords, but I think too many companies are still trying to rank for words that are meant for the AI overviews they're not meant for the really long tail keywords that you should be targeting. And so there's a whole like just snake oil salesmen that are relying off of what you know, Google was four years ago, and then you have all of these other new consultants that are trying to figure out how llms are playing a role. And there's a lot of smart people trying to figure this out, but the truth is, is that no one really has it figured out just yet. And where a lot of these llms are going to be going is that you're going to have, you're going to have to start changing how you measure things, and you're going to have to start measuring it based on impressions, and not actually click through rates of people coming to your site and so or coming to your brand, and how they find out about your brand. And it's a lot. It's a lot. But I will say there is one gentleman that everybody should follow on LinkedIn, if you want somebody who's trying, he's the smartest SEO person that I personally know of, and that's giantano Nino dinardi. He is over on LinkedIn. I'll put him in the show notes, because he had a post just this morning, talking about, you know, the llms overview, he said the impact on SEO will be reduced trafficking, click through rate. It's already down by 35% impressions or visibility, replaces clicks, citations replace rankings. Brand mentions will become backlinks, 2.0 which, if you don't know what a backlink is, don't hire an SEO agency. It's all there's so much, G, A, E, T, A, N, O, and then his last name is dinardi, but he he's literally been on the front lines of SEO for forever, and he's documenting what he's seeing and who he's talking to, but he's one of the real ones. He's like, one of the ones that like he will tell he had a newsletter that went out the other day of telling a customer, no, like, you're not a good fit for me because you don't have at least, like, 100,000 visitors to your website yet. You don't have at least 250 organic backlinks to your site, which a backlink, for those who don't know, is when another website of high authority links to your website, and then they have to have that link as a do follow a lot of times. Lot of media companies will do this, that they will mention your company, they will link to you, but you have a no follow link, and so you're not getting that credited backlink, because when you get the credited backlink, then that shows tools like SEMrush, Google, Ahrefs, all of these other SEO type companies that this your brand is trustworthy enough that this other brand is going to link to you, and then your domain rankings come into play. How old is the domain? How many companies are linking to you? How much of your content on your site is internal linking into other kind of, like content webs. There's, you know, sort of the the wheel and spoke model, where you have one phrase, and then you have all of these like spin off phrases that you can target that's shifting a lot from what's How do I change a tire on this car to completely different to what's the ideal tire for this car this year, this model, but I'm going to replace it in two years that that those long tail keywords are where you want to put your money, and then you also want to make sure that there's intent behind that. So we're trying to solve a lot of those different questions, and what people are answering and how they're answering and how they're finding the answers, is the biggest one trying to tackle that on on cargo wreck. So we're seeing some promising signs, but it's just if Google doesn't have it figured out, then the llms haven't got it figured out, yeah, and then everybody's just just throwing spaghetti up against a wall and seeing what's going to stick. Because it's some of this stuff, like the the shady ideally you want the shadiness to be gone. You want all of the AI slop to not rank. The problem is, is that over the last 20 years or so of the internet, we've had a certain level of bot activity, and now it's just on steroids, and that AI slop is they're trying to gain control over how you even measure it. And so it's, it's a whole mess. It's, I don't know if there's light at the end of the tunnel, is it? That's a my, my soapbox moment. I think I just You see what happens when you bring up SEO, yeah, maybe next

Grace Sharkey:

time we dive into it. But

Blythe Brumleve:

this is what I'm trying this is what all marketers are trying to do right now. I just had a client send me a whole SEO breakdown yesterday of, like, the things that they want to address on the site. And I'm like, you don't We don't even know what we're fixing and what we're fixing for. Like, we know what we're fixing, but are we fixing it in a way that's measurable for the Internet of Tomorrow, yes, and how people are going to be experiencing different the answering of certain questions. And I think for a long time, the internet has survived on answering quite this. It's exactly why you see like recipe blogs, where they give you a whole spiel before they get into the actual recipe is because that format is what Google has rewarded for a decade, and that format is out the window now, and so all of these different content creators are getting slammed by it, but that's because a lot of their work has been so easily replaceable. And so you content marketers, you're just going to have to get better, and you're just going to have to have, you know, an authority on the topic. You're going to have to have your executive team be comfortable giving authority on the topic. You're going to have to have case studies and customers giving testimonials. You're going to have to have them linking to your site. You're going to have to be everywhere on all the different social media channels, and

Grace Sharkey:

that you're gonna have to be in cargo. Rex, yeah,

Blythe Brumleve:

you're gonna have to be. Because, let me tell you, some of y'all SEO is not very good. If my listing for your company is

Grace Sharkey:

reminds me, I need to finish our profile.

Blythe Brumleve:

I'll send it to you after the recording, but

Grace Sharkey:

started it last week or something. I just

Blythe Brumleve:

for those folks, if you're looking for gentanos, I think that's how you say his name. Yeah, I'm on a podcast a couple times, so I will link to that specific post in the show notes in case you want to follow him, because we're all trying to figure this out in real time. But at least this guy is like showing some real data. He works with a lot of different heavy hitters, and he's not afraid to tell a company, no, like, you're not a good fit for me to work on your SEO. So I really like him. He comes from, like, definitely, like, the high impact sort of SEO days, but now it's a new Wild Wild West, and so we're all just trying to figure it out together. Yeah. I love it. Okay? I think we are ready for our final

Grace Sharkey:

segment. I say I haven't cut off in like 10 minutes. About 10 minutes, yeah,

Blythe Brumleve:

Jesus. Okay, we gotta get to it. Okay, all right, we already kind of talked about our favorite businesses and favorite so we're not going to rehash that. So favorite freight marketing, which is all kind of tied together, let's move into our last segment of today's show, and that is source deport. Once again, I am Blythe millikens Is everything is logistics. We are joined with grace, Sharkey of order full we're going to talk about source to Porsche, and that's our favorite logistics of story. So how your favorite stuff gets from point A to point B? So Grace, I'll have you kick it off.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah. So actually, this one is a little bit fueled by your last one. When you're talking about the issue with the green crabs, right? Yeah, they're green, right? They're green. Yeah, cool. So, and this actually just got lifted on it would be Monday, yeah? Because it's the night today, on Monday, the July 7. But recently, you might have heard that we've had livestock meat issues here in the United States, because we've actually had a ban over the last, I want to say, couple months, if not most of this year, on livestock coming in from Mexico. And a big reason for that is actually a problem that happened a long, long time ago. And of course, it's a bug, so the good old screw worm, if you haven't heard of it before, it's a it comes from a screw fly. So screw fly will lay its larvae and decane tissue. So is that what

Blythe Brumleve:

that saw, screw screw fly. Don't bother me. That. Is that what that comes is it screw fly, shoe, fly, shoe, fly,

Grace Sharkey:

shoe fly, yes, yes, yes. And so. So this actually was like a big issue back in the day, and I think if you pull up that first Youtube short, it'll kind of showcase to you the problem. But long story short, these flies are laying eggs, and maggots clearly are forming inside the live flesh of these cows, which of course, makes it impossible for us to eat. And those bugs have been coming in through the United States, through cattle in Mexico. If you want to play that YouTube short, really quick, just so you can see what these beautiful things

Blythe Brumleve:

look like. No, they look ugly. So play anyways,

Unknown:

is capable of taking out a cow called the New World screw worm, and it is probably the scariest fly you have never heard of the larva feeds on living animals, eating them from the inside out in just 10 days, the screw worm was one of the deadliest blights on American livestock for decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s infecting farm animals, wildlife, even humans, and it cost ranchers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That's over a billion dollars today. After a decades long effort by the USDA to push the screw room south into Panama using a novel technique involving sterile flies, it was finally eradicated in the US in 1981 and since then, we haven't thought about it much until now, the fight to stop a flesh eating parasite from spreading to the US is ramping

Grace Sharkey:

so yeah, we got we did get rid of them for a long time period. And it was, it was actually really cool. So they would basically have wild females made with sterile males, and that would lead to zero offspring. That's how production works. And they did get rid of them, mostly in the 1980s 1990s for sure. And but they've started to come back. And who's to blame? And it's funny, I love doing this research Blythe, because who is to blame? It's the dogs of Florida. That's who, that's who we've so far. We can dogs do, what did? What did the dogs do? So it sounds like a lot of the strays around homestead Florida, which I believe isn't that close to the keys.

Blythe Brumleve:

Yeah, that's south. It's near Miami. Yes,

Grace Sharkey:

which makes sense, depending on how those the cattle was coming in, but we started to see them again, start to come into United States, about 2016 they did a pretty good job of keeping that the pest down, but it did start to grow. And in October of last year, they started to see a huge infestation among deer in Florida. And it just started to spread more and more. They started realizing a lot of this was coming from Mexico, and so here we are again. So I just want to stop on it again. It was lifted, I believe, yes, Monday, but there are a number of farmers and farming groups that are asking us to push it back, to just make sure this doesn't continue happening. So more of the story is, if you are beef lover and you've noticed that your story has been lacking and. Eve in particular, this is likely the reasoning for it, and hopefully we can keep it eradicated. Hopefully we can keep it down again. They are kind of pushing that we put another livestock ban on the border, but for now, that's open, so you probably won't see as many of those issues, but it I just think it is interesting, because this is kind of the argument that's often brought up behind different like man made beasts, right? Or like beyond meats, and all of that is that, you know, are we going to see a point where we can't eradicate these animals and we need to find a way, another source of protein, etcetera, to to keep up with lifestyles. And so it's just interesting to see how this, like little bug, right, can really kind of destroy this product. In

Blythe Brumleve:

particular, one Shut up, because Florida within the last two years, I believe, banned lab grown meat. So instead of sort of like market play out where allow consumers to have the freedom of choice. Yeah, what is marketed as by the state's governor, you should, you should have these the beef, I guess you know the beef agriculture lobbies. They lobbied the state in order to get this lab grown meat banned. But I would argue that you should have these options and just let the market decide, like, don't take away people's options and be in order to cater to different lobbying groups, allow the market to make those decisions. Tried lab grown meat. I'm not the biggest fan of it. I just I like supporting local farmers. This is this as especially if it's coming through Florida, and you already banned this other meat and these lobbying groups want to also ban maybe other, you know, beef producers that are maybe in Brazil or Mexico or wherever. You know, these different beef producers are coming from. Things a little bit of an interesting play on the the lobbying part

Grace Sharkey:

there. So think about it like from their perspective, though the little now, the demand for beef goes up, there's little supply. So what do they get to do? They get to make more money. So,

Blythe Brumleve:

so that's how the game is played. That's

Grace Sharkey:

how capitalism works. Great. Well, we work soon, but

Blythe Brumleve:

swell. That is a good one, and I just did it. Why would you from like a customs and border trade? Because I watched these shows all the time and talk about it all the time. You can't ship anything in with, like a moth larva on it, or the whole shipment is going to get rejected. And so I wonder why they would, if that was, if it became that much of a problem, why would you ever stop looking for it? So that kind of,

Grace Sharkey:

I guess maybe the point to that is, can you imagine having to, like, scan every cow for, like, a wound, and then like, oh my god, the time that would go into that you just, like, slow down the border, big time. So drones do it, like, yeah, it's the reason why they brought to menace back right for a little bit, because they're like, Yeah, theoretically, this makes sense. But like, we don't have the manpower to, like, go through all this stuff and categorize it so at least customs were patrol, protection, whatever is going to be hiring. That's one piece of the government that's hiring.

Blythe Brumleve:

They've been ice. They're doing. They got the budget approvals for that. All right, moving on to my source, to porch. I picked one of the oldest spices known to man, and that dates back 1000s of years of its official use. And can you guess, just based off of that, those little couple things, one of the most popular condiments in the world, salt, mustard,

Grace Sharkey:

oh yeah, yeah, Pepper was my next one

Blythe Brumleve:

is they first discovered it. There was so there's a couple different discoveries. So it dates as far back as, like 9000 years ago, in like different Sumerian texts, where they talk about using different mustard seeds. It also has a very like faith based background, like it's mentioned in all faiths, mentioned in the Bible as well. So there, there's one phrase that says the mustard seed is a powerful symbol of faith growth and resilience, because it's often associated with the potential for great things to emerge from very small beginnings. So if you've never seen mustard a mustard seed before? I don't even it's like the size of like the top of a pin prick. That's how small these things are, and they have the encasing the seed kind of comes into a pod. The pods are grown on the different mustard plants. Some of the leaves from the mustard plant are used. Used in for different greens. So if you ever hear like mustard greens, it's actual greens from the mustard plant, the shoots that kind of flower, that's where the pods and the seeds come from. You obviously need a lot of those in order to make just one, like, bottle of mustard. I think I read that it was 10 million seeds in order to make one bottle of mustard is needed. And so what typically, they also found them in like King Tut's tomb. Like when they discovered his tomb, they found mustard seeds in there too. So this has this spice, and this was the first spicy food that humans ever consumed. Were able to kind of season a lot of their different foods with it because it doesn't have was with peppers, it's capsaicin, right? I believe Capsaicin is what is making peppers spicy. But for mustard, it's different where it's the mustard seed itself that is the spiciest. So it's been around for a really long time. It's seen as a symbol of faith. They there's so many that's used in like the afterlife. As far as like King Tuts tomb is concerned, it's used as medicine throughout history. There are It's also used for chemical warfare, for flavor. There's also different kinds of must. Obviously, there's Dijon mustard, there's yellow mustard, there's brown mustard, all of those come from different seeds. Did you know there was actually a town in France called Dijon France of where Dijon mustard was originally invented, or originally came from? There was also a position developed by the pope because it became so popular, like back in, you know, historical times, that it was called the the mustard maker position. And that's kind of slang for, like, somebody who has a really important job but also does nothing. So there's, like, all of those different, I guess, background of what mustard is, but it's the number one condiment in the world. It's being used in a variety of different spices. Primarily it the mustard seed is grown in Canada, and so they export it to the rest of the world. They control, like 85% of the mustard sort of realm, Russia, Ukraine, area control, you know, a lot of the different growing seeds as well, and so they'll export these seeds in dry bulk carriers. They'll put them on cargo ships. They're naturally like self shelf stable. So you don't need to keep it cool. You don't need to keep it warm. But if it does get a little too cold, then that's where you know some of the consistency will start to mess up if it's already made into mustard typically, what they'll do is they'll take these stone grounds. A lot of the stone grounds that are used to make chocolate are the same stone grounds that are used to make the mustard seed. So you have to remove the outer shell around it and then smash up the mustard seed itself, and then that's where some of the color is from except for the American version, which is French's yellow mustard. It was started by a couple brothers with the French last name, French's yellow mustard. And so they started it up, and it was almost they use white mustard seeds, and where the yellow color comes from, is actually from turmeric. So they add turmeric to it, and usually, like a vinegar base to keep the mustard shelf stable, so it can stay in your shelf. It doesn't have to, you know, be refrigerated for very long. Yeah, I think that's about it. First one for a lot of the mustard crops, we did have a shortage back in at 2022 because Canada was hit hard by a drought. And then also around that time, I think it was 2022 that the Russia, Ukraine war started. So you're like number one and number two exporters for mustard or for growing the mustard crop, we're severely impacted from that. And also, just like the mustard crop in general is seen as, like this miracle crop that a lot of farmers will use it as a cover crop. And so it acts as, like a fertilizer. It brings pollinators, it brings, like, the good bugs to different farm crops. So they'll grow it as, like the the bottom cover crop. And then when the mustard harvest harvesting season is done, they'll just have a mower run over it, and then it fertilizes the ground. It also keeps away a lot of the bad pests, because the pests don't like the spiciness of the mustard plant itself. So it was developed not by nature, developed by nature as sort of the spiciness was a pest deterrent, so it naturally keeps pests away too. So it's kind of like this super crop, but also I've kind of having like a maybe, like a realization or falling back in love with mustard because I am German. I come from like that area of Europe, or my family does come from that area of Europe where mustard is incredibly popular. If you go, there's a place in France, I believe that has you know when you go to, like the olive oil stores. Or, like, beer stores where you can, you know, pour your own beer, or pour your own olive oil. They have those kinds of stores in France as well. So there's a store that's been around for like, 250 years, and you can go there and pour your own tubs of mustard. And so it's just very versatile condiment. I thought it was really interesting to be able to shine a light, especially, you know, with the French's yellow mustard, we just had July 4. Yellow mustard didn't even get invented until the early 1900s and so this is kind of like a super crop that's been around for 1000s of years, but it's still finding its way into, you know, American diets and different sauces and recipes. And I just thought it was cool, so, and it has like the faith angle to where, like, I don't know if he ever owned, like, a mustard seed necklace, but I have a couple of them that I got like, growing up. So it was kind of like a, you know, like a faith based thing. But thought that that was interesting for the number one crop in the world, it made me want to start growing my own mustard. But you need a heck of a lot of them in order to make, like, one bottle, so I think I'll just continue buying it nice. All right. Well, I think that about does it for our I mean, we covered a lot of ground today. We started off with drones, then we moved into market predictions, and then we moved into freight marketing, and then we talked about worms and mustard. So another, good show for us

Grace Sharkey:

today. Yes, ma'am, I have to go. I

Blythe Brumleve:

was gonna say, like any last words, I know you gotta go. Good

Grace Sharkey:

episode, um, you know, hopefully by the time we do the next episode, we'll have some more clarity on Tara. So that's cool, right? Is I think we're gonna, we'll have, going into August, more of an idea on that. So excited for that. Then we'll get some more LLM SEO drama in there, but I'll

Blythe Brumleve:

come with a better plan instead of just having a panic attack on air.

Grace Sharkey:

No, I think it's interesting, though, but yeah, for everyone out there, go check us out@orderful.com as well. If you're looking to change systems, and even if you're just having issues with your EDI integrations down, it's stopping you from doing things at your business. Give us a call. Let us know, and we'll of course, we got a wonderful agent on our site who can help you, guide you through that too. So appreciate it. Play

Blythe Brumleve:

another great show. Thank you, Grace. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of everything is logistics, where we talk all things supply chain. For the thinkers in freight, if you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube, just by searching. Everything is logistics, and if you're working in freight logistics or supply chain marketing, check out my company, digital dispatch. We help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzzwords, head on over to cargo rex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions. All the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the Next episode and go jags. You.

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Blythe Brumleve

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