Building CargoRex’s Associations Hub: Who It’s For and What It Solves

This solo episode of Everything is Logistics pulls back the curtain on CargoRex’s new Associations directory—why we built it, who it serves, and how to use it to find the right freight, logistics, and supply chain associations for your goals.

You’ll hear the product decisions behind the category (taxonomy, search, and selection criteria), the problems it solves for busy operators, and a simple workflow to turn a membership into a pipeline. Plus, how you can suggest an association, claim your listing, and what’s coming next in the CargoRex roadmap.

Key takeaways:

• The problem: association info is scattered, outdated, and hard to compare.
• The build: a clean index of freight/logistics associations with filters that match how pros evaluate membership.
• The win: faster discovery, better fit, clearer ROI on dues and time.
• How to use it: shortlist, compare perks, plan engagement, measure results.
• What’s next: more categories, better search, and member playbooks.

“Membership only works if you work it. CargoRex helps you pick smarter and act faster.”

Try it: Head to CargoRex and open the Associations category to search, compare, and submit missing orgs.

LINKS:

• CargoRex Website
• CargoRex Associations
• Best Trade Associations for Logistics Professionals: Boost Your Network, Knowledge & Credibility

WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE

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Chapters

• 5:12 Why Industry Associations Matter in Freight
• 10:27 Beyond Networking: Real Benefits of Membership
• 15:52 Commonly Overlooked Perks That Add Value
• 23:50 How Engagement Builds Credibility and Influence
• 30:15 CargoRex and Matching to the Right Associations
• 36:40 Turning Membership into a Strategic Growth Tool

Transcript

Blythe Brumleve: 0:42

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 I've got a quick episode for y'all today, and it's kind of highlighting the behind the scenes of one of our pillar categories over on CargoRex, and that is industry associations, that's right, logistics and supply chain associations, and this immense category that we have been building over on CargoRex, because I for folks who may not know, and let me take a take a chance to take a step back. CargoRex is a company that I launched earlier this year, and we have five pillars of content and directory listings that we are building out in order to become the goal of being the search engine for logistics. And so those five pillars are associations, technology, services, creators and events. And out of those five, obviously, there are sub categories for each one of those. There's different modes for each one of those. But this, for the sake of this episode, and I wanted to focus on associations, because associations, it's a lot. I had no idea that there were this many associations in our industry. 92 by my count, is how many industry associations we have in logistics and supply chain. And if you're as surprised as I am to hear that number, I want to get into a little bit of the behind the scenes of how we were building this, how it kind of evolved into something that went from like a couple dozen that I thought, as far as associations are concerned, but ended up being close to 100 and I'm willing to bet, once we start opening this up to, you know, sort of global audiences, that number is probably going to skyrocket even more. As far as logistics and supply chain associations within our industry. And I wanted to highlight a couple different things of how we built this, and, more importantly, why we built this. And for me, I've been in logistics God for like, 15 years now, but I didn't get involved in industry associations. Until just within the last few years, and within the last few years, I have become involved with TMSA, which is transportation marketing and sales Association. I'm a board member for them, others, industry associations. I'm sure most people listening to this are very familiar with Tia, transportation intermediaries Association. And then there's, of course, cscmp. There's a couple of other associations, even locally here in my hometown of Jacksonville, there's the traffic club. There's also the propeller club of Jacksonville, which is both of those are, I don't want to say smaller, but they're like city specific associations of a larger associations. For example, Jack's propeller Club is a subsidiary of the International propeller club. And so for cscmp, I think, has a very similar model. Traffic club, of course, has a similar model to both of those as well, where they have different fractions in different cities all across the United States, and some of them have fractions, or yeah fractions. Is that the yeah fractions is the right, I guess, phrase that I'm looking for for this. But some of them, especially when it comes to like prop club, they have different groups all over the world. And so this was something that I thought with building out associations, I thought it would be fairly easy, and it was not. When I put out a post over on LinkedIn a couple months ago asking folks, I was just going to ask my network, what associations are you a part of? What do you find, you know, sort of beneficial about associations that you've been a part of. And I was just reminded of so many more associations that I had no idea existed. So something that was going to be a pretty much a quick blog post that I was going to throw up on CargoRex turned into something that I needed to say, Okay, let's take a step back, because there's much more here than I originally thought, and so we need to take a deeper dive into this and make sure that we are truly building out what I believe is the largest database of industry associations, logistics, specific associations that I Have seen on the web or part of you know, anybody's sort of isolated, maybe directory or database. We have close to 100 associations related to logistics and supply chain already on the CargoRex website. And that is kind of shocking to even say out. Loud. I had to do a double take looking at our numbers on the CargoRex site, and I'm like 92 that's insane. And we haven't even really gone outside of the US in order to start building up, you know, some of these associations that are global. I've really only focused on the United States and gone through sort of word of mouth and Google searches and trying to figure out where the gaps that were missing, and I thought I had it all, until I made a LinkedIn post asking for people to submit testimonial. Or, yeah, testimonials probably the right phrase that I can use here, but a testimonial about you know, what associations are you part of has it driven real business value for you? What kind of value do you find in being part of an association? And a lot of the comments that I got were simply around being around like minded people and like minded people, where you can kind of speak the same language, and you can use it as an opportunity, whether you are a professional that's maybe kind of hit a plateau and you're or maybe you've moved into a different industry segment, or maybe you're completely new to the industry altogether, and looking to make those in person connections, and I think that that is sort of the unifying message for a lot of industry associations is making turning those digital handshakes into real life conversations. And so that is the sort of the pulse of why we made this expansive directory for the associations category, which, you know, I do plan to do this for when I say, do this. Plan to make an episode like this, a database resource, a blog post resource, you know, making those kinds of different resources, so I can provide that information to y'all, and then y'all can take that and run with it, and then be able to join the associations that make the most sense, maybe find associations that are local to you, so you don't have to spend a ton of time and money traveling to different industry conferences trying to make the best possible resource. So I put that LinkedIn post out a couple months ago, and it is taken damn near every bit of two months just make sure that we have all of the associations that I can think of, all of the ones that other people have recommended, and then all of the ones that I found with additional searches, you know, additional deep research guides that I've done on damn near every AI platform, whether it's chatgpt or grok or even, you know, notebook LM, to a certain extent, which is not really a deep research platform, but the goal is to try to create a centralized place for this, these different associations, as well as, you know, technology and services, events and things like that that all live within our industry, to help folks make better decisions on where they want to go, where they want to spend their time and attention, and even what software to Buy. Or, you know, based on other people's experiences, based on word of mouth, and trying to be the ultimate search engine for logistics. So the associations was a big part of that. And if I could just I know for folks who are listening, I'm sorry, but I'm going to show up on the screen just a scroll of the CargoRex site, so that you can see all of the different associations we have on here. And it really is just remarkable. It's it's never ending. And like I said, it is 92 by my count, by this time of recording. And I'm sure after I published this episode, there are going to be tons of people reaching out and say, Why didn't you include my association? I will. I want to you just have to submit it over on the CargoRex website, so you can kind of get an idea just by looking at this of all of the different associations that are in our industry. And it's just, it really is. It's truly remarkable. So here is a blog post that we are actually, I say we, I am working on getting published out to the world. We should have this up at the time of this episode. Whenever you hear it, you will also see this published over on the CargoRex website, which I'll share in the show notes, just to make it super easy for folks. But from all the quotes that I got, whether it was publicly on that LinkedIn post or within, you know, some DMs that folks had sent me, or even emails that folks had sent me, I went through, I collected all of these different testimonials, and then I organized this blog post by modes. And so it was scrolling through this blog post, we talk about the best trade associations for logistics professionals, talking about how to boost your network and knowledge and credibility. So the the blog post kind of goes through a few of them, and I ordered, I tried to organize them as best as possible by mode. So we have additional search filters on the CargoRex website where you can search by. Different modes, because a lot of associations are specific around whether it's trucking or maritime or area, there's lots of different associations that are mode specific, and then there's lots of associations that are location specific. And so building a database is a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be. I thought this, this seems like it's going to be a project that's going to take me for, you know, the rest of my life in order to finish. But luckily, you know, this is a business that is fully self funded, no VC funds, no, you know, outrageous like growth metrics. This is me and a small team building this out, and we're going to, you know, further build it out, enrich it and create these resources for, you know, hopefully, you know, all different segments within logistics and so associations being one of our five core pillars, that is where we're getting kicked off and where we're getting started with a lot of these different, you know, kind of walk through behind the Scenes, blog post, plus podcasts and things like that. So back to the blog post. I listed them by mode, as I said a couple times. So the first step we have trucking and LTL associations. This by no means as far as the blog post is comprehensive. I just wanted to really focus on the people who submitted a quote or submitted a testimonial for that specific association. A couple of these two I pulled from previous interviews on this same podcast, and so what you'll see here and rinky, who was the former president and CEO of Tia, she's now at IANA. We plan to talk to her soon on the podcast so we can get an idea of what's going on with IANA in the intermodal side of things. So of course, we have Tia. We have a quote from Anne that talks about the TIA specifically when it comes to going to their conferences. And she mentions you get to meet people who've been coming to Tia meetings for 45 years and those who just started last year. So she's kind of drawing the parallel between industry veterans and newbies, and she says that mix of a demographic speaks for itself. And so thought that that was a good quote to highlight in one of our previous conversations, that when she's talking about Tia, she she really is talking about a wide range of expertise, whether it's a fresh opinion, a fresh set of eyes on an industry or somebody that's been doing it for decades. I think that that mix is really valuable. And if I'm a new freight broker coming into the industry, or if I'm a, you know, three, pl, that's just getting started, three, pls, probably 99% of them already know about Tia, maybe some freight brokers who are just entering the industry have no idea about ta ti Tia. Maybe their company is a member, and maybe they send a couple people to that association. Maybe they, you know, I know Tia has a couple signature events each year, and then they also have local, I don't want to say local chapter meetups, but I believe that they also have different like micro events and micro meetups in different cities, like Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, you know, all over the country, is where they'll do like mini meetups that are, you know, like mini roundtable, so a little bit of a smaller event versus their two signature events, but still probably really valuable for a freight broker who's just getting into the industry. And maybe you don't get the ticket to go to the big conference, but maybe the local event is something that you would want to be interested in. And so a little bit of a extra but I guess behind the scenes, peek behind the curtain, especially for CargoRex, is that we do have events as one of our other key pillars. And so the idea is that, as we continue to build out on the events side too, which so many logistics events that we'll be able to show you as a as a user, hey, I'm new to the industry, or, Hey, I'm a veteran to the industry. Here are all the events that are going on in the mode that I'm specifically interested in, and the in the segment that I'm in, whether it's air or whether it's maritime over the road. So all of these different segments, hopefully we are providing those associations that you can spend your time with, and then the industry events that make the most sense for you based on where you're at in your career, the location, and then obviously your interest. And so moving through the rest of this list, we have another quote from the National motor freight traffic Association, and this comes from Marley Hall, and she says that n, m, F, T, A, plays a foundational role in modernizing the less than truckload sector, from standardizing digital documents to fortifying cyber security defenses, their work influences how freight is moved and protected in Real time now, Marley goes on to say that mm FTA is one of the rare industry groups that actually gets stuff done, whether it's modernizing the freight classifications or pushing the industry towards a digital future with standards like the electronic bill of lading, their work directly impacts how efficiently and accurately we all operate. As someone working in the intersection of logistics and technology, I see the nm, FTA as the glue between legacy systems in the digital supply chain we all need so great quote from Marley there, even if I personally have a little bit of trouble of you know, saying that acronym n m, n m, FTA, I almost want to say m, M's there, but n, m, F, T, A, so apologies for that. You know, I guess slower pronunciation of that. Now next up in this specific mode, we do have a quote from Beth Malek. She is the Senior Director of Marketing over at SMC three. So if you work in LTL at any kind of capacity, I'm sure you've heard of SMC three. She's also a board member over on TMSA, so I know Beth. Love her. Super sweet person. If you ever have a chance to connect with her, I absolutely, highly recommend it. But her quote says SMC three provides employees with access to the online education courses for LTL, allowing us to better appreciate our customers, operations, the challenges they face and how SMC three solutions contribute to their success. Earning my cltl certified at LTL has made me more effective as a marketing leader, and highlights SMC threes commitment to developing talent that deeply understands the industry we serve now, deeply understands the industry we serve. I want to call that out, because when we talk about over the road transportation, LTL is like a beast in and of itself. LTL is something that I absolutely need to learn more about, and we probably need to have, you know, a guest on the show to talk about more LTL side of things. I got a couple guests in mind, but I'm just thinking out loud here that this is a segment that I need to cover more in depth in the future. So as I'm scrolling through this, you'll probably, if you were watching this instead of listening it, you'll see these different these different content blocks or type to choose a block or to use content. Ai just want to call that out really quick. I am still in the editing mode of this blog post, so that's the reason why you see these little nuggets there. So just in case, it annoys you as as much as it annoys me while I'm recording this, just pay no attention to that content behind the curtain. Moving on to a couple of other additional associations, rail and intermodal side of things. We've got the Association of American railroads. We have got, obviously, IANA in that mix. We've got maritime import associations that we are calling out here in the blog post as well. We got a good quote from Prop club. I just had Linda carry on from carry on transportation solutions on the show, go and listen to that episode, because she is just a wealth of knowledge. She's a local Jackson billion. If that is, I'm going to make it a thing Jackson villian. But she's based in Jacksonville, Florida. She's been working in every different position that you could imagine, in a transportation company, before she went and started her own company, she's also been heavily involved in the Jax propeller clubs, currently serving as the president, and I believe that this is her second time serving as president of the jacks prop club, so kudos to her. The interview was fantastic. Go and be sure to go and listen to her. But when she was talking about the Prop club, she says, we're a non profit, all ran by volunteers, but it's a it's concentrated in the maritime industry, and pushing the maritime industry as well as our logistics partners, because we all work together, nurturing our future. Our students are very important to us. They are also the future of the companies here. We want to keep them here. We want to keep them in Jacksonville. We want to show them that they can do it here. They can work for international companies and still stay here and do wonderful things, which I love, that sentiment. I love that statement, because if you're not in like a major city, like a Chicago or Atlanta or New York, when you're at sort of, I guess, the the second tier type city, like a Jacksonville, that you know, is striving to be better, but sometimes can be its own worst enemy, or can sometimes, you know, have a reputation of Getting in its own way. I have the mindset of, I'm tired of seeing our creative talent and entrepreneurial talent leave the city, or think they need to leave the city in order to make their career better or have better opportunities. It's very much a passion of mine to build something in Jacksonville that keeps folks here. I have another business called the Jacksonville podcasters United that we are we have a very strong podcasting hub. As far as nationally is concerned, we have major podcasting companies that call Jacksonville their home. And it wasn't until I left Jacksonville to go to a podcasting conference in Denver that I realized how many we had, a dozen people, different companies, podcasters, all in Denver. And I'm like, why aren't we building this in Jacksonville, where we don't have to travel all the way to Denver in order to talk about the things? Is that we're passionate about. And so that's where, you know, I find a lot of symmetry or synergy with what Linda saying here when it comes to the transportation and logistics community. And so I echo these statements. Work for international companies. Work your on your talents and your creative ability, your entrepreneurial ability, and you can do it all right in your hometown. And so that's the point of, you know, associations. That's the point of different groups and things like that, is that you can make your city the place where you can water it and make the grass greener. You don't have to go somewhere else. And in order to, well, you I kind of had to go somewhere else in order to realize the value of Jacksonville podcasting. But you don't have to go somewhere else in order to realize the value of the town that you're in and the things that you can build, but you have to put your own you have to put your own time and resources into it. You have to go out there and go to the networking events. You have to put yourself out there. You have to talk to people you don't know. You have to make small talk. You have to turn those digital handshakes into real life communications into real life relationships. We all know this industry is built around relationships, and that is going to be the thing that's going to propel you further. So propel propeller club, kind of a good synergy there. As we're scrolling through. The rest is, I'm just going to go through really quickly, you know, because we got regional multi modal Association, so you don't doesn't necessarily have to be specific to one mode. So we broke those down even further with traffic club. Then we have cross industry associations. So cscmp definitely comes to mind here, Association for supply chain management as another one. There's also specialized associations, so TMSA, I've kind of already talked about them before, but real quick this quote from Jennifer karpus remain, who is the Executive Director at TMSA. She's been a guest on on this show several times, so go check our podcast library over on everything is logistics.com. If you want to hear more from her, but she what she says about TMSA. She says TMSA matters because it's more than just an association. It's a community, community dedicated to giving back to the transportation industry. We bring together professionals from all modes of transport, providing resources, education and networking opportunities that help our members grow, adapt and thrive, whether it's through our benchmarking studies, member portal events or recognition programs. TMSA is here to support, connect and empower its members to be better marketers, sales people and leaders within the industry. Now, obviously, TMSA is focused on marketing and sales association or marketing and sales folks within the logistics industry, and there could be other jobs related, or there could be other roles within logistics. I think maybe safety comes to mind, maybe legal comes to mind. But these roles within a logistics or transportation company that typically you are the only employee sales teams. Of course, have a have a ton. Always will have a ton no matter what company you work at. And I would argue that every person is responsible for sales at a given company. But for the sake of this, I guess this post and this episode is that for a lot of folks, you might be the only one who is working on that particular project within your company. And so for associations like the TMSA, or even, you know, like prop club or some of these other industry events, you could be going to them and being able to find your people. And oftentimes, especially with marketing, you're oftentimes a one person team, and so you have nobody else except for chat GBT to bounce ideas off of, because you have such an insane amount of responsibilities and but by going to an event like TMS annual elevate conference, then you will be able to connect with other people who are in your shoes, who speak the same language, who share your gripes, but also want to cheer you on and help you succeed. And so it's not really like a heavy like competition mindset. It's really about helping each other upskill and be able to grow. Because for a lot of marketers, you're probably not going to stay at that company for forever. And I think for a lot of even CMOS, the if your company even has a CMO, the average span of a CMO at any company is less than two years. So you're probably going to be job hopping, and I wouldn't necessarily call that hopping, but leaving to go to hopefully better opportunities and better working conditions, where you maybe have a little bit more of an extra budget, or you have a little bit more freedom to get creative. But that is a perfect example of somebody who, if you come into this industry, maybe you don't know a lot of people. You don't know a lot about the industry yet, but you go to an event like that, and that's where you meet your people. You may. Some connections, and you learn from other experienced folks, so you can cut to the chase a lot faster. So that's kind of a good rundown of what the blog post is, and I kind of already shown you know that layout of the associations category over on the CargoRex website. But I think I've kind of said all I needed to say about the how and the why that we built this. And I hope that for folks who are looking to maybe upskill, or maybe you've hit a plateau, like I mentioned earlier this episode, or maybe you're new to the industry and you're looking for those additional resources, I hope that this blog post is helpful to you. I'm hoping that it directs you to the associations category, where you can find an association that fits what you are looking for, what you want to get out of this industry, career wise, even like mental health wise, connecting with other folks. Networking is so important. Relationships are so important. I imagine this is important for all industries, but it feels especially true for logistics, and so that's sort of the, the biggest reason why I've been building this in the background of CargoRex and associations, services, technology, events and creators. We're going to be building out. We are building out, and we have built, I think we have, gosh, I'm thinking out loud here, but we have, I think over 1200 businesses already that are logistics specific in our directory. And it doesn't sound like a lot, because we're not focused on carriers. We're not focused on, you know, third party logistics providers, even freight forwarders. We're focused because there's plenty of people out there. There's plenty of lists out there that already tackle those three really big, I don't want to even say niches, but those three categories, that's not an area that we're going to be focused on. We are really focused on those five key pillars, and then the companies that have technology or services solutions within those different categories. I'm not saying it's out of the future, you know, completely, but it just doesn't feel like a smart place for us to play, especially if I go back to my point from the earlier point in this episode that there, there hasn't really been a database that lists all of the associations, all of the events, the technology, the service providers and creators, the outside of you know, you know some top 10 blog posts and things like that. CargoRex is the first and so I'm hoping that you all can find value in this behind the scenes. If I am missing anything from those big categories, please go to the CargoRex website, make a free account. Search for these businesses that you care about. If they're not already on there, add them. As long as you're a representative from that company we only are going to there's a whole verification process. You can't claim a profile, which is a whole other set of can of worms, which I could probably get into. But long story short, we have a lot of companies on there, but if you work for these companies or these associations, I highly, highly encourage you to create a free account, claim your profile, and then you can have a little bit more control over the messaging of your listing. You can add news. You can add your YouTube channel. You can add, you know, white papers and case studies and things like that. You know your best of content. You all have that capability within your profile if you belong to that company, and also for missing anyone and you want to see them on there, let me know. Shoot a DM, hit me up on team at CargoRex.io, you can shoot us an email there. You can submit the business over on CargoRex. Or you can ask somebody from that company, or from that association, event provider, all of the any, anyone from those five key pillars, invite them to join the site as well, so they can have that full control over their listing and be able to reach that target audience of what they're trying to reach. And so that's the ultimate goal of this site. And have you stuck with me for this long? Thank you so much for tuning in to this little behind the scenes episode. We're going to be having more of these in the future. Be on the lookout, because we've got some fantastic features dropping here in the next few weeks. I believe the next CargoRex, sort of behind the scenes episode we're going to drop is around Labor Day. So we've got some really exciting updates, especially around the search capabilities, which have admittedly been a little lacking. But the next search is just going to be incredible, and I can't wait for all of y'all to see it, but until next time, thank you so much for listening and go over to carbo Rex get signed up. And thank you so much. This is the end of this episode, and we are in August, and I would be remiss if I didn't drop a go jags. So Football season is upon us, and I'm glad that I got build. Out close to 100 associations done before football season started, because it's going to be a busy one. So Jags 2026, Super Bowl champs. You heard of your first See ya. 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 liked 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 CargoRex.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 in go jags. You