Everything is Logistics

$13B Halloween Supply Chains, China’s Rare-Earth Grip, and Should You Even Start a Podcast?

• Blythe Milligan

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In a special episode of Freight Friends, Grace and Blythe dress up in style to discuss the Halloween supply chain, conference ROI, and logistics podcasts along with diving deep into the rare earth mineral supply chain that impacts everyone, including Le Creuset cookware. 


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Blythe Milligan:

All right, welcome into a very special edition of everything. Is logistics, presented by SPI logistics. I'm your host, Blythe Milligan, and we got Grace Sharkey back with another episode of freight friends. She's, of course, of order full fame, former freight waves fame? Well, I guess kind of not former you still work with them occasionally on stuff. So, yeah, yeah, both, both kinds of fame for a holiday, I guess a holiday Halloween special edition of the podcast, we've got our costumes here. Grace, what are you dressed at pumpkin?

Grace Sharkey:

Right? Yeah, you know, I'm just, I'm just the Great Pumpkin, you know, oh, that is cute. I didn't, I didn't know that a nice little party stain at some point happened. That just proves you have a good listen, a Michigan Halloween. You gotta think, How can I stay warm, you know, how can I stay warm? But spooky? And then, of course, you know, I had to go to Disney this year for Mickey's not so spooky Halloween. So, you know, just some nice little vibes, yeah. And

Blythe Milligan:

you have the the candy apple in the background, which I love. There we go, yes, in the background

Grace Sharkey:

over here. And I've also had, I always have these little skulls, you know, I got some skull. Whoa. There we go.

Blythe Milligan:

It lights up. I have a Gandalf staff, in case you are listening and not watching. But this is going to be, there it goes.

Grace Sharkey:

Does it have the pipe that comes out of it? Have you ever seen that I

Blythe Milligan:

have? I used to own it, and I lost it in a move.

Grace Sharkey:

So into it his pipe goes into his staff. Yes, yeah,

Blythe Milligan:

that's that's cool that you know that. But I do have a, I have my my name in Elvish on on this little it's almost like a so common door. And then what else do I have evil not evil eye, but kind of the Evil Eye sour on and I got a little bracelet that my brother got me. You know, not all who wonder are lost, famous Tolkien quote. So yeah, special holiday Halloween edition of the episode. And because it's the Halloween edition of the episode, I got a few supply chain facts and logistics facts for you. So let's quickly run through this list, because we got some more serious topics to get into a little bit later on in the episode. But first, let's kick it off with Halloween. We're 13. It's a $13 billion season with a hard stop sell by October 31 or eat it by November 1. Costumes are about 80% of them are from China. So if you missed the port window, it's a total write off. What I thought was interesting in this deep research report that I pulled is that obviously candy and pumpkins are, you know, one of the major like, supply chain drivers. But in retail, the reason you see so many Halloween items in the stores early is because the retailers are testing demand. They don't want to be held with a lot of excess inventory. So very similar to how Christmas like, you know, the common complaint is, why is it August and there's Christmas stuff in the store? Well, the retailers are testing demand, and that's how they test demand, is they see what are the items that are getting bought up quickly, and so then, that way they can reorder them in time for that October 31 cut off date for you know, basically everybody's buying their stuff by the 31st and then you want to buy it on sale on the first. A couple other facts here, pressure points, where tariffs near 30% of a most common Halloween items that you're buying, congestion slowdowns or shutdowns can slow around 15 to 20% so smarter routing helps in that regard, the big decor, so the big 12 Foot skeletons and the inflatables those typically need that LTL white glove and extra warehouse space, which I didn't realize. I just kind of thought they came in a box and you put it together yourself, but no those big skeletons that you see everywhere that is a LTL and white glove service that's bringing those to your doorstep pop ups run on consignment with around 25,000 seasonal workers. November 1 kicks off the reverse logistics part of that process. And then lastly, Midnight flip, which is reefers switch to Turkeys on that November 1 deadline. Warehouse is clear for Christmas, and rappers flood the waste food stream, whatever that means, rappers flood the waste food stream or the waste stream. Yeah. Like, like

Grace Sharkey:

candy wrappers. Oh, okay, okay, okay. I like Lil Wayne. Yeah, there's a W in front

Blythe Milligan:

of that word. So I was getting a little confused on, on what happened. So I guess they're talking about, you know, the pollution around Halloween, yeah, especially

Grace Sharkey:

because it's all the mini packaging. So it's like, that could actually, that's like a good i. Hot take. I didn't really ever think about that, but, yeah, like every instead of, like, getting a full Snickers, now you're getting like, three little ones of the same amount of wrapping paper.

Blythe Milligan:

So it's more sustainable to eat larger candy.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah? So the house is actually doing that. It's not because they're bougie it's because they care about the planet. It

Unknown:

makes perfect sense. This feels like Halloween edition of girl. Math. No, not. It's like

Grace Sharkey:

these ears. These ears are reversible, so technically, I bought two pairs of ears for the

Unknown:

So You really saved, like $30

Grace Sharkey:

I saved Exactly.

Blythe Milligan:

So instead of spending, what $60 on years, you only spent 30

Grace Sharkey:

with taxes, yeah, about eight instead of $80 I spent

Blythe Milligan:

all right now, before we started hitting to started recording on this episode, you were talking about a recent visit with a medium, and I wanted I paused you because I wanted you to save it for the show. Because apparently, by the time this episode airs, which we're going to air it around the same time that this, I guess spooky season is going to really start. So tell us about your visit with the medium and what they said about 1124 being like a spiritual

Grace Sharkey:

awakening. Yeah. So I'm going to preface this with, you know, believe in whatever you want, you know, think I'm go ahead. Think I'm crazy. You can. I'm going to sound crazy for the next couple of seconds. Uh, yeah. So there's a medium I see. She's excellent. If you're ever interested, she does phone calls to reach out to me. I'll connect you. She's very tough to get on schedule, but it worth it. And she So, first you start going into the fact that, like 2025, has become start. It was the start of a, what they believe, about an 80 year collective consciousness activity. So kind of like with the AI talk, they talk about like, you know, either you're going to become so into AI that you kind of stop thinking yourself, or if you like, really focus on, like your internal thoughts, like your own consciousness, your own intuition, and really channel that and guide that. Over the next 80 years, we'll have a level of people who have reached what they call collective consciousness. If you're reading the New Dan Brown book, they actually get into this too. So highly recommend. Yeah, you probably didn't know Dan Brown has a new book out. Get it, or you'll become more of like this robotic esque type of person through through AI. So it's something we kind of can think about when you're using AI and all that jazz. But so she also went into, and this happens every year too, right? We go into this period. That's the kind of the Halloween Day of the Dead period between October 30 and the end of November 2. So going into the third that the spiritual veil is lowered, right? If you are speaking, if you're a CoCo fan, because Coco is my favorite Disney movie. You know, that's the period where you, you lay out everything for the Day of the Dead. So that, right, that realm is open, and spirits can come in and out. So it's, it's lightly, kind of based on that same thing. Well, because we've entered this, like beginning of collective consciousness. She there's a frequency that they call the Schumann restaurants. I'm probably saying this wrong. I know I'm saying this wrong, R, E, S, o, n, a, n, C, E, and basically it's this earth frequency goes, is going to go what they call off the charts starting tomorrow. So if you're watching this later, October 30, where the it will reach unprecedented levels of around 700 hertz, which she interpreted as a trigger for just a mass waking up of spiritual activity. Across the globe, about 22 million people will wake up and experience this, like different frequency, basically tomorrow, causing just a time period where your intuition is likely correct, right, and if, and if you believe in kind of the spiritual aspect of it, it's this, this period where you know if you if you feel like something happened or something weird happened, that likely you know your intuition and that it's something else out there is likely correct. So, yeah, I think it's, I think it's cool. The big thing that she was explaining is like, what will happen during this period is, like, your your consciousness will kind of look back and forward at the same time. So you, like, you might have these, like deep like thoughts about your past and growing up and kind of and how you want to change that, like use this energy use that that's 700 hertz frequency to kind of propel yourself forward in as like a collective unit. So I. Loved hearing this. I mean, you know me, I love all things ghostly, spiritually, etc, and, yeah, so for all those out there, if you're honestly, I'm kind of upset I don't have a, I didn't have a paranormal investigation plan for this period. Maybe I'll do a last minute demand is high. Yeah, the demand is high. But I did do a paranormal investigation last week, and they told me that, of course, they already knew about it, and they were very excited for the week to come. So yeah, for everyone out there, when you're you know, Trick or treat, or if you feel like you know, you got some visitors in the house, it's probably happening.

Blythe Milligan:

Okay? So when you say, like, you you spoke to ghosts, like, how are they speaking to you? Or is it just like you get the thoughts in your head? Are they writing it down?

Grace Sharkey:

Yes. So like, if you've ever seen a medium, that's how it's usually, I'm trying to think of like what, there's a term for it, but long story short, a lot of times, so specifically this media, and I have, she's, she's died before and come back, that's what she like, developed her spiritual like activity so she's able to, basically, they, they, the spirits will talk to you in like images or like thoughts, right? And often times, when, if you see a medium, they'll kind of like, say, hey, they're they're pointing this out. And it's not like pure English. Sometimes it's just like, it'll be very strong and apparent. But oftentimes it's like, it comes through and almost like, yeah, like, quick images or or sometimes like, think of it like, if anyone's ever said to you, think of a color right? Like you you in your head, you probably see, like, the color blue, or, you know, but you don't actually see the color blue, right? It's kind of that. It's that like intuition. It's that, that thought process, that that one would go through. It's, here's actually a really great example of it. We all again, believe it. You are. We all are born into what we call like our Akashic Record. So it's like your destiny. It's like what you're supposed to do when your soul comes into this body and decides to to spiritually continue down this path, when you experience deja vu, that's actually a very good sign. It's you. It's your Akashic record saying to you you were supposed to be here in this moment at the right time. So if you as a person, have gone a long period of time without deja vu happening to you, it likely means you need to get back on track. You're probably not doing thing. You're probably being a bad girl or bad boy. You know, you gotta center yourself. Figure out. Listen to your consciousness, listen to your heart, listen to what you're supposed to be doing. Like, we all know when we're bad kids, we're being bad kids, you know, and getting yourself back on track. And so that's like, that's a good way to look at it, right? So when you experience deja vu, know, like, Oh, this is my consciousness telling me I'm doing the things that my Kashuk record has already set forth for

Unknown:

me. Have you seen the movie soul,

Grace Sharkey:

like Disney? Yeah. Oh, no, I need to, though I really like your kind of breakdown, yeah, maybe I need to that.

Blythe Milligan:

Well, a lot of what you're saying, it kind of reminds me of that movie. It's a really beautiful movie, in case you haven't seen it, like, go watch it. But I am curious a little bit more about like this, this time thing, this, why is it such a specific time? Does it happen every year? Or this is just kind of an anomaly, like once in every 80 years that this sort of spiritual awakening is happening around Halloween?

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah, that's a good point. And I it's funny because I looked that up. So basically, where, like this whole consciousness shift comes from, is it is ancient. So I it's funny. I'm glad you asked that, because I did pull some of it. So when you look at the Mayan calendar, they bring this up at the end of 2012 that was like the whole thing. The Vedic tradition calendar shows that humanity also goes through what they call the golden age. So this is more of like a Western astrology type of situation, so almost like more of a modern Mayan Calendar situation. So basically, the it's the planets that represent the cosmic reset. So Pluto is an Aquarius, which means there should be transformation through innovation and collective values, which even like politically, kind of like you could say that kind of feels like that's happening. Neptune and Saturn are both entering Aries. Shout out to the Aries girlies. I'm trying to be as serious I can about most other. First topic of all time. Okay, bye wearing a puppy costume, which is a renewal of consciousness. It's kind of like a spiritual rebirth. And then Uranus is in Gemini. Don't make any Uranus jokes, and which means sudden changes in communication and collective thought. So we're basically the plants have, like, shifted to this, like Ascension period in humanity, specifically where we're going from more of a materialistic type of society to more of this, like Unity and collaboration aspect. And, you know, it's interesting. Like, there are, again, it's like, so funny. I'm reading this Dan Brown book too. Like, there are studies that showcase like that, potentially, like the human brain is almost like a radio and that, and we all know, like we've read those studies, right, that we only use like 50% of the potential of the human brain. So there are studies out there that do showcase the possibility of like our brains are like, are we? Is consciousness almost like a brain, a wave that's out there that our brain grabs onto, and as, like a radio, we filter that, right? Is there? That's what they always say, mediation or meditation. And like, kind of like the monks, right? They're able to, like, open their brains up more to receive those frequencies. But there are like, studies out there that kind of push the thought of, you know, and I kind of think sometimes this is even where, like, if we religious, want to get into it, where prayer comes from. It's like, are if we all think, if we all like, hope for the same thing is that actually all of us picking up on the same consciousness at the same time. And I just think, I think that kind of stuff is fascinating. Like, there are studies out there that show, like, basically some, for instance, like, if you were to showcase to someone like, hey, the color, what color are you thinking of right now, there are studies that sometimes show that the human brain halfway through that conversation, halfway through that question, is already thinking blue, like they like they already hear like your brain's already picking up on the the wave of that question happening. And so it's kind of, it's it goes along the lines of, like, when you're like, around people are like, those hypnotists and stuff, who say, yeah, what are you thinking of like, I think there are tricks a lot of that stuff. Yeah, you know me. I hate a magician.

Unknown:

Don't come here. Unjustifiably, start

Grace Sharkey:

reading right through your line. But no, it's really interesting saying that to a wizard right now. Yeah. Well, you know, Gandalf knows. I mean, that's why Gandalf never that's why they didn't just fly there down, yeah, well, I mean, the biggest we all know, Lord of the Rings. Why didn't you just take the eagles to Mordor? You know,

Blythe Milligan:

that's a whole conversation. You really want to go down that road, because I can explain why they didn't. The species are the Eagles are their own species, first of all, and they could have been manipulated by Sauron. And so the minute that Gandalf gets on an eagle with the ring, the Eagles are going to be manipulated by Sauron, and then he has the One Ring. That's why they couldn't take the eagles to Mordor. Okay, continue.

Grace Sharkey:

Well, you know, maybe, maybe they didn't, because that consciously, I didn't even bring out the eagles to begin with.

Blythe Milligan:

No, but I really, I'm, I'm not too into, like, all the astrology stuff. I think there's a lot of, like, confirmation bias whenever you're reading some of those things. I enjoy reading them from time to time. I used to read them in the paper. One of my parents, we get the paper as a kid. So I'm not like, completely, like against I just don't put a lot of, I guess, faith into it. But what I do find fascinating is, like, the frequency angle, because there are just so many just frequencies that exist from, like, a, you know, a sound like I with YouTube. When I'm in like, deep writing, I'll go pull up, I think it's like 40 or 44 hertz YouTube videos, and that just helps me zone in. And it could be, it could be a placebo effect, and, you know, I'm just putting myself in the right mindset to write. But what I also find fascinating is that, you know, I've seen several like YouTube videos where, like this guy will hook up these monitors to different plants and fungi and trees, and he will, you know, kind of the wind will blow or, you know, kind of put the plant in distress, and the plant will give off these different frequency waves based on what it's experiencing, and then, and so that's actually like real you can go find those videos over on YouTube where it's called plant frequency. Can refer to two things, the sounds that plants make, or the use of specific sound frequencies to affect plant growth. Plants emit ultrasonic waves. From two, from 20 to 100 kilohertz that increase under stress, while different audible and ultrasonic frequencies, which you think, if I It sounds woo, woo. But you can literally go to YouTube and find these videos, and it's a whole like scientific study around it. And then, in addition to that, there's a lot of controversy around because I follow, like ancient civilizations, and, like, did ancient civilizations exist before? You know, the one that we're kind of in now, and I do that's topic for another show that I could definitely dive into. But there's a lot of theories around, like, how these big, like megalithic constructions were created. So like the pyramids or structures in the Central and South America, even, you know, Southeast Asia. How are these gigantic stones moved and put into different places? And a strong theory of, I guess, it that's kind of subjective, but a theory behind it is that ancient humans were able to use different frequency waves in order to make because if you put sand on like a plate, for example, like an even plate, and then you place certain frequencies at different hertz that it will create the same shape every single time. And if you change the frequency, then the shape will change. It's like all of these different geometric patterns. And so that is a theory of how some of these megalithic constructions were built or constructed, is that they were using frequencies. And I even have some, like, personal experience of like, I don't know if you've ever heard of like biofeedback, but biofeedback is basically, they take a you go into a clinic. I got it for free. It was like one of these, like local influencer deals. So I went into this clinic, they and I thought it was all woo, woo. I sit down, they take a DNA reading of my frequency, and then from that, they can analyze, like get, kind of like, a high level view of your health patterns, where you're weak, where you're strong. And during that first session, they had told me about a medical issue that I had had, I had never, I had not told a soul, and they they saw it on the DNA frequency reading. So it's not like a full, like medical exam that you're doing. It's called biofeedback, yeah. But then the crazy part is that you can if, if you maybe feel sick, or you feel off one of those days, you can get treated by this machine. Once it takes the initial blueprint of your DNA, then you can get treated anywhere in the world. So she was telling me this story about how this, you know, high level executive, was going from conference to conference, and he was feeling worn down, and he called her and said, I need to do I need to get a treatment. So she uses her machine, programs it to him, send he's across the world, yeah, on a plane, and he treats him, or she treats him. By the time he gets off the plane, energized, no longer sick. And I was like, this is complete garbage. Like, I did not believe it whatsoever. But me myself, I was supposed to go in for a treatment. It was right before, I think, my first freight waves conference, and I was starting to get sick. And I was like, Oh, my God, this is the worst time I cannot get sick. I have to demo on stage. I have to do all of these things, like, I cannot get sick, but you know, when you're about to get really sick, and that's what was happening to me. So I had to call and cancel my biofeedback appointment, and the lady was like, Why didn't you tell me that you were feeling sick? I could have been treating you. She's like, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to start the machine right now, and I'm going to treat you. I swear to God, next day, not sick. So, yeah, I believe it was incredible. It still gives me like goosebumps to think about it, because I was not a believer, and I still, like, as the words are coming out of my mouth, I'm like, this is total crap, but that's that was my experience. And so, yeah, I fully, like, buy into, like, the frequencies and like, just the, you know, when you get good vibes from someone, or when you get like, kind of weird vibes from someone, I think that's stuff to pay attention to.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah, totally. I mean, that's, that's like, the the key of all of it, right, is like, just like listening to yourself a little bit more and realizing, like, there's that energy, or those frequencies are coming from somewhere, from something. And I think it's cool. I mean, it's like a again, it can sometimes get in even to the religion side of things. But it's like, I You see it in music too. There's like, a certain frequency that most music used to be tuned, and now it's tuned to, like, a different level. And because, well, theoretically can, kind of hook onto your brain in a more, I don't want to say propaganda way, but like they've done it with music and yeah, the brain itself. There's so many frequencies that pass by us every day, and only it's. Certain percent that we can actually truly attach to. And I just, I find it fascinating.

Blythe Milligan:

Okay, so it's the 30th at 1124, is that

Grace Sharkey:

Eastern Standard? Yeah. Let me Yeah. Let me see when she said it, I'm going

Blythe Milligan:

to schedule this to go live at that exact time. This conversation just for for folks who don't know like we record this, and then I schedule it to go live, usually within a couple of days, so I can kind of be in there in the comments, in case anybody is asking questions or anything like that. But I think we we scheduled this episode to drop at that exact time, and then we'll hopefully invite some good spirits to it.

Grace Sharkey: Let's see 11:

44am tomorrow. And that's 11:44am

Unknown:

and that's Eastern time.

Grace Sharkey:

Yes, that would be yes, Eastern Time, yes.

Blythe Milligan:

Okay, so for for folks who are listening, hopefully you're listening right at that time. But if not, you know, we'll, we'll check back in on the next episode and see, you know, maybe, What? What? Some level, that'd be crazy. That would be cool. I don't think it's gonna happen, but it's gonna be cool. Well, only one way to find out, right? So this is a logistics show. So we get there on time? Well, for the sake of this episode, this is typically we cover a few different topics, and just for the folks who want to know, sort of the roadmap of today's show, we're going to get into some conferences and recaps, especially because Grace has been all over the place. As far as conferences that are concerned, I have not so I'm anxious to talk about that, see what sort of her ROI thought process is, especially being on the other side of it now with not, you know, working for a company that throws events, but maybe is attending events on the other side. So we're going to get into a little bit of that, especially from an ROI perspective. And then we're going to talk, you know, a little bit about, not a little bit. We're going to do a deep dive into rare earth minerals. There's a lot of talk around these. It has been for a couple of years, but I wanted to get a greater understanding of this and why it's so important. So we're going to dive into that a little bit later on, and then we're going to get into a freight marketing topic, which is what makes for a good logistics podcast. And then finally, we're going to round out the show with a little bit of our source to porch. So each of those topics we are going to get into. But first, let's get into the conference season recap and that again, I am Blythe Brumleve, Blythe Milligan. Let me start that over. My name is Blythe Milligan, Grace Sharkey here. Everything is logistics, presented by SBI logistics, and we're going to talk a little bit about the conference season recap. So Grace, you have been all over. So first, tell me how your approach has changed from being on the media side of things, where you're working for a company that's, I guess, producing the events, to the flip side, where you're the one attending the events, planning which ones you're going to. What does that role switch look like for you from a strategic standpoint?

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah, you know. So it's interesting, great question, because, yeah, I do come from more of the opposite side, right of like being a content creator within an event that that, you know, that platform is putting on. And, you know, I will say, what's nice is like when, and I think this is part of the reason I end up going into marketing even more so was, you know, I see what people one, pay for a lot of this stuff. And I think being more of like in that content creating space, when I would work with people, it's like, Hey, how can we make sure you get the most out of this, right? I think when I think of in person events, and when I see companies going to them, one, it's about not sitting next to the table the whole time, getting out there, shaking hands, right? And getting, I think, from, at least from what I used to do, getting clips, getting articles, getting other deliverables at the event that will also pay off in the long run too, right? And now that I'm in the other side of this, though, like, from an orderful standpoint, there's a few things that I think are very interesting, and I kind of look at conferences a little bit differently now, and and I and I hope that conference companies, I think those who are very successful at it, have proven this. You have to think about what the outcome is for the people that are coming. So a perfect example is like one who, who are the buyers or decision makers at that conference that you're going to. I think sometimes, I often see companies going to a conference when the either the decision makers aren't going to be there, or even more so the users, like aren't going to physically be there, right? So to give a little background on order for where an E. AI company. And the, actually, the last two conferences that we went to were user group conferences. One was for NetSuite, and the other one we went to recently was for Dynamics, Microsoft, ERP systems, etc. And what's fascinating about going to those is one, yes, we do, of course, connect with users, right? But we also really focus on what we call, kind of like partners in our space. So this would be, by the way, throughout this if you, if you're watching this and you see me go from dark to light, that's just because I only have one light on, that's the sunlight. So don't worry about that. But we work with partners. So basically, the easiest way to explain it is almost like they're technology consultants that will work with large clients for when they are transitioning from different systems. ERPs, maybe they're going, maybe they acquired a company, and they're trying to figure out how to get everyone on the same platform. We spend a lot of time at those user events, connecting with those individuals, so that when they meet future clients, or even actually like, what's really impressive is a multitude of those type of partners that would come up to us and say, Listen, we're in the middle of something right now, and the EDI is holding us back from getting this done, which oftentimes happens, like you, you find the perfect system you want to move to, and then you're like, they hit you with this giant EDI bill or expense, and you didn't even think about that. And so I can't tell you how many people went up to us and, like, we have a project that's stalled right now. We need to get this moving ASAP. So it's like, a good place to meet people in that but also it's really fun, because it is physical users of the software, it would be like going, I hope people don't take this as Shane, but it'd be like going to, like a, oh, well, actually, it's kind of turned into a big, like, going to a freight waves conference, but it's sonar focused, right? So like everyone there is, like, the carrier reps or physically, actually using sonar every single day. And no offense, not the CEO who, like barely touches it. And so it's cool, because in that setting, right, what we find, at least at wordful, is that if we can physically show the technology working, then we really win people over, whereas, like a CEO or CFO level, they're going to want to learn more about how quickly the project went, how much costs went into it, right? It's different conversations in different places, and so I think it's smart to think about the best way to attack the individuals who will be at those conferences when you're trying to decide which ones to go to. So there have been ones that have crossed our our table, I guess, my table, my desk, that I have at home, remote work, so weird. How do you even talk about it that go through my email where I'm like, you know, not that this wouldn't be a good conference, but we're just aren't going to meet people there in in the opportunities that are available there, that are going to hook people. And it's also just not a place like I think sometimes conferences. There's some conferences out there where, depending on the company that you are, it might be better for you to just physically go to shake hands, to see people, to maybe see your customers, all in one place. And instead of, like, spending $10,000 on a booth, spend $7,000 for like, a 30 person dinner in town where you can get everyone together and and if anything, maybe work on just keeping those customers on board, or vice versa. You know, maybe it's not the best place for you to pick up, like for a booth, but it's a good place to invite 30 partners, right or co host a party together. So I think what like being on the spending side of conferences, right though, like the side where I'm writing the check and not receiving the check, it's opened my mind a little bit more to like being strategic on, on what the outcome is, and just knowing you're buying triggers, knowing where to meet people at those buying triggers and and knowing that, like, you know every lead isn't a good lead, but if you can go to an event and get 10, like, really good partners, that is going to make up for the cost. So yeah, like for us, I think especially with what orderful is doing, and I'm sure other SaaS companies out there, I think I actually understand more the demos better, right, getting physically, having people see how your technology works in real time. Like, next year, we're going to be doing more of that, just based off of, like, what we've seen so far, and also knowing your competitors, right? Like EDI, is actually hard space to kind of demo because it does involve, like, a lot of, well, not with order full, but it can involve mapping and kind of like this behind this, like the stuff that wouldn't be friendly demo wise, I. Actually like what we've seen is going to some of these events and watching some of our competitors demo, we're like, oh my god, if we could just demo like, people would quickly see the difference of customer experience between the two, because that demo was miserable, and our demo is user friendly and and smooth and fast and easy. So

Blythe Milligan:

wait, so you have like, employees or co workers that are, like, going to the competitors and getting the demo and, like, getting the Insider. It's like, corporate espionage. I love it.

Grace Sharkey:

Oh, they're, yeah, exactly, well, 100% I will say, and I will actually say, too. Shout out to competitors. I'm not going to say your name out there. But like we, Eric did an excellent panel. Eric, CEO of orderful, yes, yeah, with one of our really great customers, every man Jack, which, if you guys know, you know, deodorants, etc, they're growing brand out there. And we so do it. We did a panel of every man Jack, just about, you know, a trending product, and how you make sure that your systems are ready for you to say yes to every you know retailer that wants you on their shelves, and what you need, infrastructure wise, to make sure that happens. And every man Jack had a really interesting story, because not only were they switching ERPs, they were switching EDI providers, and they come from a they haven't they have a board. They have investors and and the investor it had to be done at a certain time. All of our competitors said it's not going to happen. We said, definitely we can make this happen. Like the CFO was there and he stood up at the end. Was like, I don't have a question, but I just want to say, like, I put my job on the line that this project would be done, and you guys pulled it off, like, and so anyways, I will say to get into that room. They scan every badge so you have leads and stuff. And yeah, our competitors were in there. Sneaky. They're sitting in the back, little sneaky guys. But yeah, no, it's, I mean, maybe, hey, for all those listening, you can also use these conferences to do that, right? Like how your competitors are also playing that conference. What are they investing in? What parties are they throwing? What? What is getting people talking and then, you know, replicate that, or find a better way to do that in the future as well.

Blythe Milligan:

No, that's super smart. Because there was a post that I had read recently, and it was, it was a lady that was, I mean, her company sells like AI agents, and so I guess reading between the lines, they were at a recent conference, and they had a booth, and her numbers were like, oh, you know, 127 badge scans. Guess how many of them were actually qualified leads. And she was like, three. She's like, imagine, you know what, how many qualified leads you could get, you know, automatically, without having to spend a human and a financial capital of going to an event. And it's like, Well, I think you there was a couple, like, valuable comments in the thread. Of Of course, you're probably going to say that, but what kind of pre qualifying were you doing before you did the badge skin? And then also, from the approach of like, Who are you putting at the booths? Are you putting sales people that are kind of going to be a little bit overwhelming, maybe for the casual person that's just walking up and maybe wanting to learn a little bit more about the company where they made a suggestion is that you should actually have, like your account managers and your developers there that can better understand what you're going through, and then they can talk from personal experience of how they've implemented or integrated similar customers. And I thought that was a really interesting approach, where maybe you could have a combo of, you know, some sales reps that are, you know, great at talking to people. But if you have a developer or an engineer that is experienced in the onboarding, like in the trenches type work, then you have them there to explain exactly what you know, speaking to those pain points that maybe you know, some of the the orderful folks were speaking to, or some of the the perspective clients that were coming to your booth. And

Grace Sharkey:

with those user conferences, that's exactly what you have to be prepared for. I mean, I'll be honest like you send me to like, a more like, executive level type of of conference, I'll be able to talk EDI all day to a point that they'll understand, right? But those user conferences when it's like, the supply chain coordinator who literally did half the mapping for EDI comes up to you and starts asking these really technical questions. I'm like, you want to talk to my girl, Alexa, you know, like, and, and that's who like locks that that that lead down is someone who's like, this is how we're going to onboard you walk them through. It lets you know what you need to be prepared for. So it's, it's very smart to think of it that way, like, for example, you know, we have other events coming down the pipeline. A great one would be like, manifest, right? Where that one we might not bring as. Any technical people because, like, likely the supply chain. EDI specialist for skims, shout out, Nadia isn't going to be there, right, but someone like Nadia is who's going to be able to, like, high level of conversation. So we likely bring less technical people to that more AES, more the salesy team, maybe a technical person, just in case, the one off, but yeah, it's interesting to like, kind of think through that, think about the messaging that you have on your setup, right? But even even down to like, where you're putting your booth. I like, I've found fascinating too. Like one, right? We all know, like you're if you want the good booths, you gotta think almost a year ahead of time. That's like, the one thing that I've been learning that you know when I'm making budgets, letting you know, people know, listen, if, but if we want a better booth the following year, we have to put that almost into planning for this year. But if you can't get a good booth, like, look for ends of walkways. Like, think of like, how people are maneuvering through a conference. Look like we were really smart, because while we were late on choosing our booth, we did put our booth at the NetSuite conference, right next to, like, the drink station, like, where they're serving cocktails and stuff all night. So, like, the foot traffic, yeah, we got a lot of foot so, you know, it all, all of that comes together at some point in time. So it's not, you know, you if you're not going to spend big bucks be strategic on, like, the messaging that you put on there and and also, like, just, I just find I'm the type of person where I'm, like, I like to walk around. I like to talk to people, and naturally, almost collect leads. Compared, just like, I hate a sales team that just stands at a booth, you know, like, that's, you have to be able to walk around. You have to think. And so, like, for instance, knowing that we probably do a little bit more walking around at the dynamics conference, where we had a smaller booth in the back. I we put QR codes on all of our signage so that if someone wasn't there to answer questions, we at least got them interacting with our website, getting their their information through different ways, leaving cards, you know, different things like that, so we could follow up later down the line. But, you know, you almost have to be realistic in what you physically can do with the amount of money you're putting into these and figure out how to get the best return on that as well.

Blythe Milligan:

Yeah, because it really there's a lot of discussion, because we are in the midst of, like, the peak season of conferences, and this, especially from like, the attendee side, or like, I guess, the media side, which I, you know, I find myself in, it can be really overwhelming to decide which ones to go to and why, because there's so much work. Like manifest, for example, it takes weeks of work ahead of time, which I you know, especially for someone like in your role, I'm sure you're working on manifest, like, months and months in advance, but like, for a full like, focus for me is weeks in advance, for a conference like manifest, and then figuring out, like, a blueprint of the people that I want to talk to, and why? Yes? Because the networking can be really intense, and it can be really draining, and so you have to kind of be intentional about where you're spending your time and your energy and focus. Melanie Patterson, who is with integrity transport group, she actually had a really good video on this, and she mentioned it in the caption. She said, conferences will test your focus. You can come back inspired or distracted. And she said, the difference is intention. You can get caught up in socializing instead of networking, fashion shows instead of partnerships, thirsting for happy hour vibes instead of thirsting for knowledge. And a few things that I do to move with intention are map out the connections my business needs a week prior, study the room and execute with a firm handshake, and then when the party starts, I'm already in execution mode. It's just me some room service and a laptop full of scheduled emails to send to leads for the win. And I thought that is such a perfect approach from like a business owner perspective of how to best value or manage your time so that you are it, you're going to play a ton of catch up when you get back. And this is something that I've I've had to work on in the past, is, you know, I get back from events and I'm so exhausted just from peopling so much, and my inbox is just overwhelming, and it takes a long time to play catch up, but then by the time that I want to send those follow up emails. It's a couple weeks later, and I probably missed the boat in that regard. And so what I've I love that intentional approach of, like, not going out, like, super late. We'll see if I'll listen to that my own advice. You know, here in Vegas is, you know, a little challenging to do, but. But I do think that you know having something to say, or even like a scheduled email template that you can quickly send after the fact using your notes app in order to document who you're going to send that templated email out to, just to you know, hey, it was great meeting you. Hopefully we can connect in the future. Something super short and sweet, because you got to also consider that those folks that those folks that you were connecting with, their email inboxes are going to be overloaded too. So when do you respond? I think it was. It was Lars, friend of the show with trans flow. He mentioned that with his emails that he strategically sends them days later, after a conference, not immediately after, because he knows that those inboxes are going to be completely filled. So it's usually like three to four days after an event is when he'll send a follow up. So all the talks sort of surrounding around, you know, what conferences you should go to? Should I? Brad perling had a great post the other day on how, you know, conferences should actually be moved to one day events instead of three day events. I kind of like the the middle of, like a two, two and a half day event. Because I do agree that, like, the last day of most events is is challenging to keep people there, because his post was more around, like people have already checked out by the third day. So just cut off the third day and just make it more impactful into one full day. And keep in mind, of like, how you want to facilitate those high level conversations, but to your earlier point, I think it really, really makes an impact when you can have an idea of who the actual attendees are going to be at the conference, and then how you can sort of deploy your staff to best suit those needs. Are you going to spend more sales people? Are you going to send media people? Are you going to, you know, send those engineers that can answer those dev questions. I think, you know, a strategic approach is probably in the best plan for most companies when thinking about how you're going to tackle which conferences to go to and why. Because there's never been more conferences than what we're experiencing now, I think at least a dozen this month alone. So you really have to be strategic when deciding where to go and why,

Grace Sharkey:

yeah, and, and I would say that people putting on the conferences like, just be a parent and smart about that. There's, there's a conference that that's out there, that, for example, they truly understand the importance of shippers showing up to it, and so therefore they ask the shippers to use the app make appointments. Sometimes they'll offer them, you know, free opportunities to go to event. But they understand, okay, if the shippers are setting meetings and we're gonna, we're gonna get more logistics providers, more carriers to the event, etc. So think about that. Think about what the outcome is that most of those people that are gonna spend that money want, right? A shipper, likely outside of like Food Shippers, they're probably don't have a budget for events, right? Because it's like, okay, most shippers aren't sitting around saying, like, oh, I should go to a conference to find my next three PL, right? Because they're like, these guys are my email box or my phone. They're

Blythe Milligan:

actively hiding their badge at like, I know one shipper in particular that was in charge of, like, forestry products.

Grace Sharkey:

I call you this light is power today. It's just doing whatever it wants. Fine. You're

Blythe Milligan:

just listening. Grace has, she's tried to set up a spooky light for, you know, this is, we're recording this around Halloween. So she tried to set up a spooky light off to the side. That's kind of like purple. I

Grace Sharkey:

don't even have it connected to Wi Fi right now?

Blythe Milligan:

Well, we did open the show with a, you know, enhanced spiritual activities are starting to happen. So maybe this is what we are experiencing, especially as I bring up sort of a very similar topic in regards to conferences, because there's a lot of, you know, I've seen a little bit of a debate around, sort of the pay to play mindset.

Unknown:

People are just doing their best when it comes to putting on conferences. They're just trying to get, you know, the best editorial up on stage when you got to balance the business side of it, of course, too. Because these events, I don't know if you've ever been to, like a cheap conference I have and where they like, don't serve food.

Blythe Milligan:

There's way too many talks going on. Have you ever been to a conference that like, doesn't serve like food? Which conference food is not the best? So you might think like, oh, I'll just go get some food, you know, and around the hotel. Well, guess what? Everybody is doing that, yeah, and it's an insane line, and everybody is just kind of stressed because food isn't provided. Yeah, so there's, there's lots of costs that go into putting on events. So you do have to balance the people that are paying to be there. Everybody's essentially paying to be there. But there's a lot of, I guess, sort of debate around, like, the plate pay to play mindset, but you can do both, because these. Events are super expensive, and then you also want to make sure that you're covering your costs and paying the people who are putting on the event as well. So another sort of relevant debate is around like pay to play awards. And you had a take that you wanted to share around the pay to play award. So, so let's, let's hear

Grace Sharkey:

it. Yeah, I told Blythe before we started this, this is going to be my favorite marketing trend, because people listen. We'll just say the, you know, we're going to say the freight tech awards came out this past week. And we'll get into, I think, who's on that here in a second. I was actually surprised to see a few people not on there. I assume they didn't pay to play. But I will say, like, if you would have asked me five years ago, pay to play 30, we always make fun of the Forbes 30, under 30, right? Like, that's also pay to play. If you didn't know it is. I first I'd say, like, dumb, stupid, doesn't make sense.

Blythe Milligan:

But just to give people, I guess, a background on what pay to play is so typically, especially when it comes to like Forbes or even like traditional print mags, when you say pay to play, you're traditionally an advertiser that's already supporting that publication totally and so. But what we're referring to, especially with, you know, specific to like the freight tech Awards, where that is, you pay to submit your company, yes, and then a panel of judges goes through a judging process. You have to pay, you have to pay for software, first of all, to allow the judges to be able to vote on those different materials. It's, I don't know if you've ever been a judge, but I have before in like, some B to B marketing awards, and it's a lot of time that is required for you to look through everything provide a detailed response. It takes a lot of hours, and I wasn't getting paid for but I didn't get, you know, sometimes they'd throw you like a gift card or something, but that stuff takes time and money. So I somewhat get the charge a, you know, a $500 fee in order to submit to the awards, because the marketing you're going to get afterwards is going to justify that expense. So I'm sorry, go ahead, no,

Grace Sharkey:

and I think that's exactly my point. My my caddy point would be, I'd love to go through your your PNL, and see what you've spent other money on. Because, for instance, I think paying $500 for a freight waves award, knowing that we've probably spent a lot more money on golf, is kind of thrilling to me, but yes to the now, the non caddy side of me would say, yeah. I mean, first of all, third party validation of any type is going to be big for your company, no matter what those B to B awards are big for that. It's proof that you're legit. It's proof that people know who you are. You're right, because Blythe just said it. Oftentimes it goes to, I can tell you right now, I don't know everyone that judges the Freightways events, the Freightways ones through the consulting company, but they're reaching out to people that I'm guarantee you follow and watch on LinkedIn, etc. They're people that you know. There's tons that you don't, but they are people that you know, right? So it's, it's a third party evaluation through peers in some way, and studies have shown that industry awards show 30, about average of 37% increase in inbound customer inquiries because of that recognition. So a lot of that's the top of funnel leads that you're probably looking for in that too. Now award winning, of course, is going to boost any awareness, I think, especially in the AI age of llms and those search engines, chat, gpts of it, all that stuff does count again. We don't know the perfect formula yet for any of that stuff, but those do come up often when, when you're searching who's the best out there, right? If you say who's the top EDI provider, oftentimes it's going to, depending on if you're using deep research or not, it's going to pull literally top 10 List, etc. Of course, we all know when we go on websites and we see those badges on their sites, it also increases the chance of you reaching out. There have been studies that show it can actually increase conversion rates into double digits. So I think that's huge. 42% just a couple of studies I looked into the stress badges on sites can increase conversions up to 42% especially for newer, less established brands, right? So we're like, sure, is CH Robinson making that list and then seeing a 42% probably not, but these startups who've raised millions of dollars to spend on stuff anyways, that stuff really does matter to them in the thick of it all. So, of course, credibility is a big one, but I think what matters is, you know, it's an easy press pickup. It's an easy thing to link back to on your site, something simple to bring there. Was an award actually, so this actually wasn't. We didn't pay for this at all. It's just because the work that we do at NetSuite, but to kind of showcase the value at Sweet world this year, orderful got the Partner of the Year Award for our EDI work. We've built a native connector that's really helped out a lot of NetSuite customers and and for NetSuite, the reason they love that is because now, when people are switching over to NetSuite, they don't have to worry about this headache of EDI. Well, there's recently an award that I applied for that this award fell perfectly into what that retail award was asking for, and we work with a lot of retailers through that NetSuite work. So this, it was a perfect way for me to kind of put a cherry on top of a Sunday for that application. And that also was for award that's not, you know, pay for either, either. So, oh, there it goes. Yeah, I see you. I see you queen, you know, over there changing my lights on and off. We'll just do it in the dark. So, yeah, I just think, I think on the sarcastic side, I've seen people spend, you know what, we're if I turn this off,

Unknown:

the light is starting to malfunction a bit.

Grace Sharkey:

Any sense what's happening. But we'll let that happen. We'll just not look at this natural light. We're killing it. But one, I just think of what I see companies spend money on. I'm like, Listen, I don't think this is like, this is a drop in the bucket for the outcome it could potentially give to you. And two, it is big. I mean, especially the freight tech stuff, there's a reason why big companies make sure that they're on that because they understand the return it brings to them. So if you ask someone not in Mark, if you ask a sales guy how he feels about these awards, like ask a marketer, ask someone in SEO work, does SEO work like they will understand truly what these awards all bring to the table at the end of the day.

Blythe Milligan:

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's easy to kind of look at it and kind of scoff at it. I do think that there's maybe a different approach that you could take, especially when it comes to like, just from personal experience, I don't want to submit I, I feel and maybe I should change this, but I feel uncomfortable with submitting myself or my company. Well, maybe not even my company. But, you know, like, for like a, like a women in logistics or women in supply chain awards like, typically, you have to submit yourself. Yes, and I get the sentiment around like nobody is going to submit you, but at the same time, like I feel like it would be much more. I would appreciate it so much more if somebody else submitted me instead of me submitting myself, if that makes sense. And that's where I kind of, especially from, like a company standpoint, it's like, well, if somebody is a big fan of ours, shouldn't they submit on our behalf? And I would say, frankly, they it just doesn't happen, especially with talking with other publications and other events that that put on very similar style, other companies are not going to submit you. Other people are not going to submit you. You have to be your biggest fan, and you have to be, to quote the late great Barbara Walters, if you're not proud of your work, why should anybody else be proud of your work? And so totally kind of thinking from that lens, like I personally do need to submit myself to more of these things in order to get those, you know, earned trust badges is what I like to call your trust moments that you can put in all of the different marketing and, you know, things like that. And so as a company, I need to sort of mature in that regard where it's not just about, you know, creating content like this to prove our trust moment or to prove our trust value, but it's in addition to getting those widely recognized industry, you know, awards and, you know, things like the recognition and things like that, that I need to start collecting those. And just haven't done it. I haven't prioritized it. But you know, 2026 we're going to be making some content changes so that that's, that's one of the, the bigger ones for me. And as you sort of round out, you know that this conversation, you know, as far as like 2026 are you spending more time on conferences and events or in awards? It sounds like you guys are going to be investing significantly more, or maybe some other companies are going to be pulling back? Yeah,

Grace Sharkey:

I would say we are definitely doing more, one like most, one being because there's someone here to actually run events appropriately now, job security, let's hope so. But two, also. Because of the investments we made in our technology, right? Like, be because of certain things that we're building for certain platforms. Like, why would we build that if we're not going to show up and then promote it, you know, too. So there's, like, a lot of that aspect. I also think that we're getting bigger and we're for us personally, we're growing very, very quickly, and with that, growth becomes new applications, new tools that we can offer individuals. So again, why make that investment if we don't get out there and actually showcase that? I also truly feel that in the world of AI, and we're starting to see this more, that's why we're like, we almost send people more for in person meetings. I think the emails are I think because people are using more AI tools for emails, people are starting to, I don't want to say ignore, but take emails less, I guess, more lightly in their in their strength?

Blythe Milligan:

Well, there's more filters too to weed out. You know, a lot of these different emails. Not everything gets caught, but, I mean, I'll probably get 600 spam emails in a day, and that's a light day, or that's a light inbox, compared to maybe some brokers and shoppers out there. So

Grace Sharkey:

it's like, I think what you're going to actually see is an influx of people going to these in person events, but being very yet being strategic with the money that they put into them, but understanding that you know what this might be, a customer this, I mean, especially in the SaaS world, depending on what you do and like, what that I mean, if we're talking about a big, million dollar contract. None of that's happening over emails, right? Yeah. So like getting in front of the people and being able to say, well, if this opportunity lets us get in front of five customers, four prospects that are just close to signing and the ability to generate more pipeline, why wouldn't we do that? So I think yourself with one customer 100% and again, it depends on what you're doing, because there are different SaaS platforms where you know, if your average deal is $1,000 then like, you have to think of it differently. But yeah, if your average deal is $50,000 and you can spend 10,000 and pick up one customer, then you're you're golden, right?

Blythe Milligan:

This is why it's so important for like the marketing folks out there, and even like content creators and people like that, to really understand the cost that goes into some of these not just events, but just the the ROI that you could potentially get from going to these events, not just with the connections that you're making, but maybe the content that you're creating while there, and that you can justify future investments on, if you can make those connections that turn into business deals later on, because in the age of AI, it's going to be so challenging to sort of cut through the noise on social media and email, of course, and all of these different online channels that going to conferences in person, you're going to have to be strategic, and you're going to have to do it whether it's a national or a global conference, or more of a regional one, which I think there's a lot of exciting things that are happening around the regional events too. The only conference that I've been to since like June is the Florida supply chain Summit, and that's because it was in Jacksonville. So it didn't require a lot of traveling, obviously, not a lot of traveling. It was 10 minute drive for me, which was fantastic. But the regional conferences, I think, are really making headways. And so while it does feel challenging to see so many different new events coming onto the scene, it's up to you to sort of filter through that noise and to find out where your customers are going, where your partners are going, and then make that educated decision, not just from the marketing lens, but also from a connection business lens, and then, you know, have the same approach to awards as well. And maybe awards are even a little bit easier to submit yourself to and submit your company too, because it doesn't require going to a conference in order to do so. So even though it's, you know, a lot of I think negative connotation is put around pay to play, but this is all a business. You have to choose where to invest, not only your money, but your time as well. And if there's a lot of benefits to it, maybe you just haven't seen them yet, and you're only seeing the dollar sign, or you're only seeing, you know, oh, that company, like, paid a bunch of money in order to be up on stage. Well, events cost a lot of money, just, I think, like the venue cost is somewhere around 70 to $100,000 for some of these venues, and like the bigger places like Vegas or Orlando, you have to consider those amounts, and you have to be able to make up for those amounts, especially for an event that's probably a year in advance. And it's so there's a lot of. It's a lot of financial background that I think people are missing when they talk about pay to play, going to conferences, and then what kind of ROI you're going to get out of it? So, yeah, understand your finances, people.

Unknown:

Jesus. All right, let's move into our next topic, and that is a deep dive into rare earth. Blythe Milligan here, Grace Sharkey, everything is logistics podcast presented by SPI logistics. And on these regular episodes that we like to do, this is only you know, part of the conversation. And so part of that conversation, I like to do these, or I like to pitch to you, and then you just kind of, you never say no, you just say yes. So we've done, like a tugboats. We've done barges, we've done

Blythe Milligan:

icebreakers, we've done, you know, South American logistics, like we've done all of these different sort of deep dives into a different parts of the logistics process that we find fascinating. And one of the ones that I am just entrenched with right now is rare earths. And we're going to be talking about the minerals that no one thinks about until the supply chain breaks, and that is rare earths, where the stuff inside of EV motors, fighter jets, smartphones, wind turbines and your kids, iPad all play a role. You've likely heard the phrase that semiconductors are in everything. Well, guess what's used to make semiconductors? And that's rare earths. And so just kind of, I wanted to give a glimpse of what you'll find inside of different devices of rare earths, where it's technically called a rare earth. But the the common myth around this is that they're not rare. The All of these elements are not necessarily rare. It they're the reason they have that name is because previously they were mined at a rare rate. So it was called rarity, and that's where the the the name sort of comes from. So if you're looking at the screen right now, it is basically a bunch of different applications, and the rare earth minerals that go into each of those, each of these different devices, from a cordless power tool, grill or not grill, but a cordless power tools, optics, light bulbs, hybrid vehicles, headphones, magnets, rechargeable batteries, smartphones, obviously, cars, defense projects there. There's so much that goes into rare earths and that power just everyday parts of society, and it's starting to get to and not starting. It has been a point where the US is now vulnerable, and we likely have been vulnerable for a couple decades now, and the country that owns, sort of the overwhelming majority, more than 90% of this process of rare earths, because if I could take a step back, there's the mining part of it. So you have to where are the deposits of all of these different minerals all over the world? So when you find these different deposits, then it gets into a mining process which takes these elements out of the earth. It essentially grinds them into a powder type form, and then from the powder, you have to go through hundreds and hundreds of processing, because essentially, when you pull rare earths out of the earth, they're all kind of the same, or most of them are all kind of the same. And so the processing and the refining is where the complications are at where the the overwhelming majority of time and money and environmental disasters are kind of centered around, is refining those different rare earths into the elements of what you want to use. And so it grinds them into like this powder type substance. That powder is put into bags, and then that bag, those bags are shipped all over the world, but mostly they are kept in China for the continued refining process. And so it's toxic. It's the hardest part. China controls 91% of this process of to mine and extract them. And so just to kind of a you know, high level overview here, 900 pounds of rare earths are used in one jet. A naval destroyer uses 5000 pounds. A submarine uses 9000 pounds. And it's not just in defense, but technology too. And this process, or any kind of bottleneck can apply, can affect any part of the supply chain process. So typically, right now, what happens in the United States is that we have some mining capabilities, but we used to have a lot more. And with the way that process worked is that we would mine them, and then we would ship them over to China for the refining and processing, and then they would ship them back. And so think about any kind of like customs delay, Port delay, any kind of issue in that process calls causes a break in that supply chain. I think that was about it, as far as like the high level notes that I had, but it affects everything, even technology, the current manufacturing capability. Is that, you know, we're all trying to, sort of, you know, bring it back to the United States. We have about 50 billion in manufacturing capabilities that we're currently spending with manufacturing in the United States. But all of that process can be dramatically impacted by increasing demand and geopolitics, and obviously the ongoing sort of trade slash tariff war with China, and there's all these different implications to a process that is already complex and already overwhelmingly controlled by geopolitical rival. And so yeah, I'm going to pause there, because I need a break. But

Grace Sharkey:

I want to, oh, sorry, are we doing? Go ahead. So I do want to add to that, because it's I got to learn about a lot of this while I was at freight waves, and I one of my biggest, like hits articles just over time, was on how a semiconductor is made. And what's fascinating is so most of my conductors, of the big chemical is silicon, that that is in there, and it's the most to talk about the rare part. Silicon is actually one of the most common substances on the planet, in particular, but some of the most purest silicon comes from silicon, whatever you want to call it, you know, Michigan accent, we're going to call it silicon. Silicon is one of the most purest forms of it is found actually in a town called Spruce Pine North Carolina. They actually have the capability to with all the billions of microchips that we need every year. They have the amount of silicon there for decades of material. And we're talking, I think, in about a year, it takes about over 66 million pounds of it to make the billions of microchips that we consume and need every year. But what the kicker is, because this was like, back during, I looked this up during the whole chips act thing, right? Because I was like, well, where's the issue, and 100% it's all IP related, right? So it's not so much about, like, where the material is. But the problem is, is that the process that you talked about is intellectual property, that's IP that's owned mostly in Taiwan or China. And so that's why you're right. That's why we're kind of, like, stuck in this situation, because we don't own the process. No one in the United States owns the process of making the wafers themselves for all these chips. And so when we talk about like, the hiccups that that come with the supply chain, it's not about like, it's not about like the chocolate issues that we see currently, it's not like when you talk about supply and demand, it's it's the issue is the supply of intellectual property and the fact that most of it's owned by overseas entities as well. And we, we could get into it at some maybe a different episode, but we gladly gave way our rights to ever own that so like that, kind of stuck in a rock and a hard place. That's also why we can't just, you know, f you to Asia, because it's not, doesn't help any situation at all. But it is fascinating because, like, we physically could make them here, we just don't own the property. So like, let's say, if we wanted to, like, we're going to have to pay a percentage point likely right to what's the term to use that intellectual property? I can't the terms missing my mind right

Blythe Milligan:

definition or, yeah, yeah, export controls with specific to certain processes that which actually China cut off. I think in 2023 they cut off the export controls of some of their manufacturing and processing processes. Yeah, they controlled. They locked it down. And so then, because they saw that the United States recognized that this was an issue, this is a bipartisan thing that both sides, God can actually agree on. And so they started to shut this down during the Biden administration. And then so China started to retroactively protect some of that processing where, I think it's like one of the rare earths that's the most important. And as far as like semiconductor performance is the processing is 97% controlled by China, yeah. And they have spent, and this started, I think it was in the 60s, Rarity, oh, I'm trying to find, like, this really great quote because, oh, well, it was the the former, I don't want to say like emperor, but the former leader of China back in the 60s said something to the effect of like, Saudi Arabia has oil, China has rare earths, and so they strategically invested into the processing of it to where they're decades ahead, as far as like people, knowledge, technology, they're decades ahead of anywhere else in the world. And this was strategic and sort of state sponsored, because that's how. China, they pick a few different industry winners, and they put the whole government support behind it, and so that's why they have led in this for decades, and even to the point where we have a mountain pass. And I don't know if you saw this on maybe some of your research, but there's a mine that is in the United States that it was sold off to another business, and then China was part of that process, and then they just shut it down because they didn't want them to continue innovating on the processing power of it. And I got this research from Groth that said the US mountain past mine dominated global rare earth production from the 1950s to the 1980s peaking at 70% of the world's supply after its 1949 discovery as the largest known deposit, owned initially by Molly Diem Corporation of America, I definitely mispronounced that. It thrived until the 1990s when environmental regulations cheap Chinese competition and the US tech sharing, like tours for Chinese executives in the 1960s led to China's monopoly now at 80 to 90% the mine in the United States closed in 2002 but was revived by MP materials in 2017 with bipartisan us support via contracts under Trump and Biden admins to build domestic supply. And China's recent export curves on key elements. And so they're ramping this stuff up now back in the United States, also with a very similar China approach, where the US is doing like a public private partnerships, which is, I think, one of the first investments from the government side of things into the private sector since World War Two. And so this is like a strategic thing that United States needs to do in order to protect especially some of our, you know, defense capabilities, missiles and jets and things like that. It was in 2022 there was the new F 35 jet that was supposed to be launched by the military. And then they the defense. Department of Defense figured out that there was a very small like Chinese made magnet that was in the fueling process, and they had to completely halt the production of the F 35 that was extremely embarrassing for the United States, like Department of Defense. And so they had to kind of go back to the drawing board. And so this company, MP minerals is trying to bring that back, and they're having some success with it to where they're bringing it back, but it's going to be more expensive because they don't have the decades of, you know, research behind it on how to do this. But on the flip side, they could maybe approach it in new ways. And I'll get into some of maybe the newer ways of how we can attack this sort of rare earth processing. But I do think that it is very interesting that the US has kind of taken like the China approach, where you pick a couple strategic winners, and then you put the coal government support, not the whole government support, but you put that strategic investment behind it, because, you know how strategic it can be. And China, on another thread to pull, hasn't necessarily had to worry about the environmental impacts of some of their mining, because that is a big reason why we haven't, us as the United States and also Europe, haven't been able to compete, is because we follow basic, you know, sort of environmental regulations and trying not to put radioactive material into the ground or into the groundwater. As you know, some of the byproducts of mining these things and processing them is that they create a lot of bad, toxic materials. And you can either dump them responsibly, or you can do what China historically has done, and just dump them wherever, where entire towns now in China are inaccessible. The water is poisoned because of these practices. But that's how they were able to compete on a global scale, is because they could cut everyone else out of the process, because they didn't have to worry about the environmental regulations, and they could cut those costs by up to 50% and so for the United States trying to compete, you have to kind of think about, well, how can we compete in this modern day environment while also protecting the environment? So I'll pause there, and you let me know. What other what kind of other takeaways do you have about this whole rare earths dilemma that we find ourselves in?

Grace Sharkey:

Well, I just think it's fascinating, the understanding the process part, right? Like understanding our role in it, the intellectual property aspect out of it, and figuring out, you know, just realizing in the future, like the competitive advantage that has. And I think it goes back to just the globalization of of everything, right, and making sure that you you fully understand, you know, just supply chain wise, what can and cannot be done at the end of the day.

Blythe Milligan:

Yeah, and I think we've talked before on this show about the the company called Hadrian, which is aiming to. Bring manufacturing back to the United States, but doing it in an intentional way, where it's not necessarily bringing back, like, you know, the t shirt Mills, or, you know, the way we used to manufacture, you know, during the Industrial Revolution. If you're going to bring manufacturing back, what does that look like? And Hadrian is really focusing on, like, the source of the source of the source, where they're really focusing in on, like the tools, for example, to make the machine the tool that makes the machine that makes the product. And that's where they're, like, hyper focused. And they're using AI and technology and working with these industry veterans that have been involved in this manufacturing process for, you know, decades, mostly their entire lives. But if they pass away, we don't want to lose that intrinsic knowledge. And so they've been working with so they have a system where they have these engineers work directly with these subject matter experts that have been working on this for their entire life. And they'll do one of the coolest things I think they do, is they take scans of the machine that builds the machine, and when they take those scans, they can monitor the levels of the tooling making the machine, and they can identify when that tool is going to go out of commission, how much of a shelf life does it still have so then that way, when that machine breaks down, you don't have a whole chain reaction of now you can't make the parts that make the machine that makes the parts that go into like the source products and all of these different items all over the world. And so the the Hadrian approach has been that. And so with MP minerals or materials, what they're doing is they're trying to play the catch up game too, but they're trying to be intentional about how they bring some of this back. And it's called a mind to magnet production, which we've talked about, you know, the magnets before, but I had no idea how important like magnets are in the entire like tech process, in semiconductor process where these, all of these rare earths, are used to make these really like high impact magnets that are resistant to heat, and all of these different sort of other chain magnets are so cool, but it's called this mine to magnet production, and where it's not affordable yet as far as the Processing is concerned, because remember, China has like a couple decade lead on us as far as the processing knowledge and technology, but this new, updated process gives us access to the process to protect sensitive defense equipment. And so by 2027 The goal is to have a China free supply chain for the defense sector, because of that issue that happened with the Oh, is it f 35 or F 25 I'm sorry that the naval people will correct me, I'm sure. But it's, it's visibility into the source products has become vital. And so you start with the Hadrian model. You start with, like an aerospace type of manufacturing where it's highly needed, and it's highly specified, where, like, the fraction of a hair is what matters on a good product or a bad product. And so MP materials is trying to attack it in that same way. There's also a diversification that's going on right now with the current administration. They're trying to diversify the global processing so just recently, I think even this week, agreements have been reached as far as processing for rare earths with Australia also. Japan is coming on soon, Saudi Arabia as well. There's still a focus on recycling. So there's still that environmental impact of what we have to think about. And there's a couple really cool things that are happening, because Apple recently signed an agreement with MP materials where they have so much just excess inventory, not excess inventory, but they have a lot of like returns and a lot of computer spare parts. And there's parts in their computers currently that exists that they're not recycling these at all, but they have a huge stockpile of all of them. And so what can they do is they can develop a recycling program with MP materials, so they can take those materials out of those used products and then turn them into new products. And so you don't have to worry about, you know, the byproducts of mining, or the byproducts of processing. Because it's already been processed, you just have to recycle it out of the machine. There's also this really cool thing, well, I guess it's not cool, but it's it's cool that they're finding a use for it. It's called coal fly ash, and it's a byproduct of getting oil. And apparently, all around the United States, we have these landfills that are filled with this whole coal fly ash, yeah, and so we're able. We have about 45,000 tons of it, and it doesn't require any new mining permits. It recycles a waste byproduct. And so with all of this said, if all of this goes right, and we can hit these goals by 2027 China's dominance could drop from controlling around 90% to around 70% so that requires all of these things to go through on both sides of the political aisle, multiple administrations working together, which God help us all. Hopefully that can happen, but it really takes a national effort in order to recognize this major gap in our supply chain that is going to affect every part of electronics, how we communicate, how we move around, transportation, everything is impacted by Rare Earth. So I felt that it was really important for us to dive deep into this part of the supply chain, that it's really like a hidden part of the supply chain that you hear this phrase kind of thrown around. I even asked my husband, like, what do you know about rare earths? He's like, I don't know. It's a level of education that, you know, we get to, you know, hopefully use a show like this to help educate ourselves and educate

Grace Sharkey:

other people. Totally, yeah, it's a fun one. Any

Blythe Milligan:

last takeaways? Or I kind of went, Yeah, all right, let's get into our next segment. And this, this is going to be a little bit of a fun one, and that is what makes for a good logistics podcast. Blythe Milligan here with grace. Sharkey, this is everything is logistics. We were probably presented by SPI logistics, and this was inspired by a conversation fellow podcaster Andrew silver posted up on LinkedIn. I think I believe it was last week, kind of, if I'm going to paraphrase what he said, is basically companies that are starting a podcast, maybe putting a lot of money behind it. Are they essentially going to stick with it, or is this just extra money that these companies have kind of lying around and they are, they're bored and they want to start a podcast. That's basically, kind of the gist of it. Do you think I just Yeah, totally. So that's sort of the the summary of the conversation, and it was a lively debate going on in the comments, which yours truly did, did participate as a as a fellow logistics podcaster, but let me think how I want to start this conversation, because you very experienced over at freight waves with hosting several different shows. I think you are on the verge of creating one in house with orderful. Is that

Grace Sharkey:

accurate? Yeah, we have, I think, three episodes out right now, technically, and two more recorded that will be coming out over the next couple weeks. We they come out basically, like around bi weekly, we try to do a couple of months, and ours focuses a little bit more on, like our part, we talked about earlier, like our partners, those like consultants that we work with, or even customers. The next, the next, actually two episodes, will be actual customers that we're doing the EDI for directly. And it's funny because they, I won't say, I definitely wouldn't say, they generate a ton of like pipeline, like leads to bring back. There are certain ways I think that we're putting it out there that I'll adjust to kind of bring those in a little bit more, but we almost use them more as like kind of collateral for other posts, clips, etc, and also just to even like include on our YouTube page, to kind of bring in maybe a little bit more of like search engine SEO type of stuff as well. Yeah,

Blythe Milligan:

and I think that there, it's important to note from two different lenses, because in Silver's post, he was talking about it as both a company owner or former company owner, but now he's doing a podcast, as you know, kind of like exploring, like his own curiosity. And I think that that is what makes for the best host. Because if you have a podcast host that is genuinely curious in the topic that they're talking to other people about, or they're just overall talking about, it's a much different conversation than maybe the the company internal approach when you're starting a show. So I think when you're starting an internal show, you kind of hit the nail on the head that it's not, you're not going to launch an episode and, like, sit back and like, wait for all of the leads to come. Because, frankly, they're probably not going to come from a single conversation. There is no straight line from listener to customer in the podcast world, it's it's all over the place. As a listener, you want to listen to several different conversations with both subject matter experts and then also from different customers or just interesting stories. And so if you are going to do a podcast, whether you work internally or. Or maybe you're doing it from a marketing lens, or maybe you want to do it as a hobby. There's all different kinds of sort of, like the ROI, to think about. And I think that you're coming at it from the smart approach where some other companies might not have, I guess that focused goal of, why are we even doing a show, because some of these shows, especially in logistics that have popped up, it just looks like maybe you have some extra spare time and a podcast is fun and a podcast looks cool, so why not spend a lot of time and energy on creating it in house, but then in a few months, when you have to justify that budget, or that time that's being spent on that. How are you going to communicate the value? And so I'm curious from like an internal company lens, how are you communicating the value of starting an internal podcast? Like, why is this a valuable thing that you need to spend your time doing? You

Grace Sharkey:

know, it's interesting too, because I think when I first started, it was like something that leadership wanted to, like, dive right away on. And I actually was like, you know, let's, let's think about like, first, like, who we how we want to attack this, right? Because I think even just making episodes, to make episodes is totally off base and short sighted, yeah, and it's tough, because I think when people hear the word podcast too, they automatically are, like, they expect a certain calendar with that, right? So like, hey, podcasts, I expect to as a listener, I want to you should have a new episode every week, and I expect that from you. And so it's interesting, like, even though, technically, like, we call it a podcast, like, theoretically, we use it as just opportunities to make some high quality conversational content that we can share with our with our customers, etc. And so I think that's what's interesting to me with the whole I do think that we're in this, like, podcast fever right now, where people want to to make these, make these with, like, high level individuals, but again, aren't thinking totally through, like, how well one, the amount of money that you're putting into it, right? I think changes the conversation, whereas, like, maybe a couple 100 bucks an episode is something that we're looking at more here. I think there's others that are very clearly spending big bucks on cameras, multiple camera angles, which I think is crazy for a podcast. I mean, I know people, celebrities that have max two cameras, but have the sponsors to to do that. That's another thing too. Is like, you know, understanding your sponsor, like, if is there, if there's an opportunity to have sponsors, right?

Blythe Milligan:

Well, what's the ROI like that? That's what you have to ask yourself before you even start upon and your ROI may look different. It may change. Now, I remember when I first started my ROI was, oh, imagine if I could get a Jaguars player on the show, like that was my ROI. Or then it evolved into, okay, well, starting the digital dispatch podcast, which is what this turned into with everything, is logistics. It's I can talk to my customers, and I can gain a deeper understanding of the struggles that they're going through, and I can talk to my prospects to understand what is driving them to make certain buying decisions. And so it shifts, and it now it's, it's more sponsor focused, but it's only sponsors that make the most sense for my brand. Like I totally I remember one time there was this company that reached out and they sell dolls for truckers. So you can imagine what kind of dolls these are. Yes, that is not a good brand fit for me. Like they were gonna throw a lot of cash at me in order to promote this product, I'm not going to do that. And so as a podcast host, you kind of have to weigh the pros and cons of the companies you're going to work with, because they could be promoting something or doing things on the side that could make some branding or create some brand damage for you, even if you have nothing to do with it. But then being affiliated with you, you're also affiliated with whatever negative or positive connotation that that company is part of, and even with some like sponsorship deals that I've done where we have the subject matter experts on the show. But what is so impactful is when they allow their customers, or SPI is a great example where they allow their freight agents to come on and talk about their experience. Yeah, that those shows get significantly more user or listener engagement than a subject matter expert. And so what my kind of theory is that visitors and listeners are entering through those costs. Customer conversations, where the customers are giving that firsthand knowledge, but then they go back and they want to listen to the leadership. And so that's what kind of the the loose funnel looks like on how I'm interpreting it and how I'm seeing it in my own data. And so that your ROI can evolve and it can change. But if you're just starting off with, like, Hey, I got an extra 100 grand to spend on a podcast. I think we're going to start it internally and get 17 different camera angles and expensive graphics and video like all of that stuff is I, you know, it's important. It's a nice to have. But if you don't have a dynamic host, that is part of your company, strategically, part of your company, because I have seen too, where someone will become the face of that company, and then they leave, and they take all of that awareness with them. Yeah, that's another thing to be concerned about as well.

Grace Sharkey:

Yeah. And you know what's interesting, like talking about, what you're speaking on, I think is huge, is too I mean, there's, there's one that I think, you know, we're, I can't speak for Andrew, but one in particular, I think he was pointing out where the concern I have with some of them is like, how, how is your customer learning about your product through all this? Is your hope that, like, you just get a high level individual and then they say, Oh, well, I'm sitting here listening. I wonder what this company does, like talk kind of to, like full circle back to what we're talking about. Beginning like, you could get 130 leads and then only find three are actual customers. And I think where you're shooting yourself in the flow, in that respect, is how many of those watchers now are just watching because of this high level individual that you brought on that has absolute, actually, absolutely nothing to do with your product. And that's where I find it interesting, is like, especially if you're dumping a lot of money into it, you're not talking about your product at all. You're not posting it where you would meet the people who would be interested in your product. Then you know, where, how are you finding decision makers? How are you what are your buying triggers and and how do you like get this rolling without any just based. I mean, it feels like it's just, it's for clout,

Unknown:

right? Yeah, it's like a vanity it almost feels like a vanity project, where you're not having the business goals in mind. And so I think that's sort of the thing I wanted to lean on with this discussion, is especially as companies are considering their marketing budgets for 2026 and beyond? Should you start a podcast? Well, I think you should always be talking to your customers, and if they're willing to come on camera and talk about their buying experience with you, I would maybe consider asking them to go on somebody else's show, because I do think that there is a little bit of a, well, the customer, the customer is only going on the show because you asked them to go, and then are they going to sort of shelter their opinion, or what they really think, because they're on that particular company's podcast? And so there may be sort of that perception, even though you try really hard from a company lens to to have it, you know, come directly from and not sort of mince words about what the customer is saying, but to your point, you can absolutely use those as like short clips testimonials. Your sales team can use those to answer common questions, especially like FAQs. And this is exactly what this customer did in order to, you know, sell this a little bit more, and so they can use that clip in order to, you know, send it in an email or send it in a presentation. And so it just removes that, like, I think, barrier of awkwardness, or maybe barrier of information, and makes it presentable in a way that it feels less intimidating to do the discovery process of what potential problem am I experiencing, and then does this company solve it? And you can answer those questions with the content you're creating. And so I think I would just caution other logistics companies out there that, yes, it does feel like everybody has a podcast, but the overwhelming reality is, is that nine, more than 90% of all podcasts never make it past 10 episodes. So you might hear about a lot of different podcasts, but the overwhelming majority of them are not going to make it past 10 episodes. And so if you want to start one internally or support another podcaster that's already doing it then that that's your own prerogative, but I would think about it from the lens of, what is my audience actually going to care about when it comes to these conversations? And that's, that's where you make the content. That's, that's the kind of content you should be reverse engineering from there with the nice graph. Graphics with the great copy, and you know, one or two camera angles, and you know things like that, where you know this, this can be very expensive to undertake. And then when you only get, you know, 25 plays on an episode, those marketing managers are going to have to be answering that question of, why did we just spend $100,000 on this podcast and only are getting, you know, 50 downloads, and then you probably put into a situation, not calling anybody out, but you're going to be put into a situation where you have to buy views, you have to buy downloads. Those are very easy and very cheap to do. Yeah, and you know, there are definitely some companies out there that are using that. I don't, all of my numbers are AIB certified. That's International Association of Broadcasters. I think that's the acronym, but, yeah, I don't do that on my end, but I can tell you, you know, there's only a select amount of clips and shows that get a high listener base, but that's, yeah, because the audience that we're talking to, you know, logistics is not mainstream. Supply chain is not necessarily mainstream, and so you have to make content that can go deep, but also appeal to the different silos that exist within this industry. Because even though you work in logistics, I, you know, working at a trucking company, I had no idea how the warehousing process worked. I had no idea how the maritime process worked until I started talking to these people. And so you have to understand it from your audience's lens too, that they might not know all this lingo and this industry jargon, or who these, you know, influencers that you're having on you know, you have to be really conscious about why you're starting to show and then reverse engineer of what your customers care about, because then your ROI can evolve from there.

Grace Sharkey:

And I think there's a few out there where I've I've honestly said to myself, and I kind of understand where they're coming from, where I've said I've said myself, why isn't that person just sponsoring a more popular podcast, right? And I think what they do is they see the bill and they think, Oh, I can just make this myself, but not understanding the audience reach, that those individuals have made the work that goes into it. And I think just the upside of just a sponsoring a podcast that's doing success by itself. I also, and again, I'm not Andrew silver, not trying to speak for him on this, but I think maybe they see what Andrew's done and think, oh, like, we should hop on that ride too. Understand Andrew, and he's talked about this numerous times on his LinkedIn. Like part of this is because, I think what he can even contractually do right now in his career, so like, when he can start getting back out there and doing things outside of, I think just what he's allowed to do right now with Melo. Will he keep doing it? You know, we don't know. And and so, again, not speaking for him, but they're like, he is doing this because he has free time in his life to do this, and it's a way for him to keep, you know, building his network. And like, there's actual reasoning behind someone like Andrew doing this that's that is helpful and fruitful for him. I think what happens is people say, Oh, I could be like Andrew silver if I start a podcast, not realizing, like, no, every situation is different, and that's he's not just doing it for clout, like at the end of the day,

Unknown:

yeah, and I think too, he comes at it from a deeply curious list to where he wants to understand, he has long form conversations with these people. And so you can tell in the work, you can always tell creatively in the work, if somebody cares about what they're doing, whether it's what they're writing about or what they're posting about, you can tell if they care. And I hope that comes across in my content. I know it definitely comes across in yours, and also Andrew silvers, there's, you know, definitely a ton of other podcasts. Chris jolly is one that he genuinely enjoys,

Grace Sharkey:

like, like that. Well, it's, it's, it helps his business now, and I will say it's been, again, our, I'm doing one too, but that's not our business. But like, if someone is doing a podcast at a plus level of work, my second question is, why isn't that a plus level of work going to your product? Do you know? I mean, are you a podcast company, or are you an AI company? You know, and so that's like, again, the amount of investment I see in some of these. I'm like, boy, your users better be thrilled with whatever you're delivering,

Blythe Milligan:

especially from like the if you launch a show and you don't have customers, you're not spending that budget on under deeply understanding your customer. Dollars. Yeah, it's going to get chopped plain as

Grace Sharkey:

day, as the kids say, it's chopped already. It's not

Unknown:

making it to the 2027, budget. Let's just put it that way. So I think that that is, well, let's leave it here for especially in the age of AI like we are going to, frankly, just see more podcasts. We're going to see more podcasts in this industry. Your quality, even if you genuinely love what you do, you're it's probably going to have to improve where before I would say my strategy was more like, Can I add one

Grace Sharkey:

thing? Yeah, I've noticed this trend on Instagram. And I'm wondering if you've experienced too, and if you're going to do a podcast, do this. Have you found recently the fake commercials that are podcasts I have, you know, I'm talking about

Unknown:

where they're doing, they're they set it up in an environment like this, yes.

Grace Sharkey:

And it feels like like that's if you're going to do fancy camera work, do that, yeah, make the fake ads that make it feel like a podcast. Don't just have Paul from free caviar on a taste caviar because you're bored. Like, whoops, okay, I said it. But like, they know, they called me out on LinkedIn. But like, that's like, what's funny to me is like, do if you're going to do that, then do it the AI, fake way that people are doing that, that get people to sit on it a few minutes more, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my god, I'm just seeing an ad. Like, that's going to have a better ROI than being like, let's have caviar.

Unknown:

Well, I think, too, you're kind of hinting around the fact that, you know, I've seen Alvis recently did a podcast, or started their own internal podcast, which Ava, love her. She's now with a new company, but she was hosting that show, and they're the clips from those conversations are then being used as ads. So they they interviewed their customers, yeah, and then they took, like, the dynamic clips from those conversations, and then they use them as advertising. And so that, to me, is like the perfect blueprint to follow if you're thinking about implementing a podcast strategy into your your marketing budget for 2026 and beyond, is like, follow the blueprints of the companies that are they don't. They're not going to throw $100,000 behind a show, yeah, but maybe you throw $10,000 behind a show and you have, you pick up or you, I've also said this for years, find local media talent, because local media talent knows how to do all of the things that you need to get done for a podcast, and they know how to speak to it from an editorial lens. They know how to edit they know how to distribute it. They know how to conduct the interview. And so you're, you're covering a lot of those costs into one person, and then from there, you could put an advertising but you can promote the show first, organically, promote the clips, organically. See what resonates with people, see what resonates with your customers, send it to your customers and get feedback as well. And then from there, you can figure out where to put the money behind the podcast clips to generate more awareness about your brand and about your company, and do it in a very cost effective way that still moves the needle from an ROI perspective, because there's, I don't want to say like the podcast market is too crowded, but our attention spans are shorter. Our attention span, our attention is limited to only a few hours in the day. So if you want to be one of those shows that somebody listens to that they have that valuable time frame, and lifting it on the way to work on the way home, you have to think about how to respect their time and respect your customer's time first, and you'll see much more benefits from that. Down the line, you'll get a renewed budget. And this is all free advice, so take it and run with it, and then from there, if you have a successful product or a successful show that is the product, then you can start to branch out into more, you know, the fun interviews and, you know, talking to maybe, you know, some of the the bigger personalities in the industry that have a more wider appeal. But first, just start with your customers. Understand your customers first, and then work from there. Totally love it. Okay. Ending out the show,

Blythe Milligan:

we got about five minutes to hit these topics. I don't know. Do you have anything that you want to share as far as source to porch? Because I can make mine quick.

Grace Sharkey:

No, I can hold no, I'm good. You can make yours quick. Yes, okay, good, alright,

Unknown:

let's get into our our final topic, and that is source to porch Blythe Milligan here, Grace Sharkey, everything is logistics for to buy SBI logistics. And my source to porch story for this week is or for this month is Lake with I am not pronouncing that right, but the cookware line you. What a, you know,

Blythe Milligan:

cast iron, enamel, cast iron, like, a very, very like, like hand, I don't want to say like, hand me down products, but cookware that's enough, that's investable, that you would keep this and you would hand it down to your children. Like that kind of cookware. Well, we covered earlier in the show a lot around the different manufacturing process. Well, manufacturing process also affects the cookware industry, because I want to show you how these this cookware is made, and then I'll get into some of the importance around it. So let me play this quick video from the Wall Street Journal on how lake with science, iconic cast iron is made

Unknown:

Jose's factory, where it's iconic dutch oven is made. First, a giant magnet lifts up a mix of iron and steel and moves it to a cauldron where it's melted down to a very bright liquid that's poured into sand molds, which will form the shape of the product. Once they're cooled, the cast iron moves along this conveyor belt to shake off any excess sand. All along the way, workers are checking for any bumps or inconsistencies that could cause hot spots when you're cooking with it. At home, any pot with a flaw is taken off the line, melted down, and the process starts all over again. When the cast iron is ready, it's sprayed with an initial primer coat of enamel, and then the rim is wiped clean with a sponge. It may look simple, but it can take up to two months to train for this job. If you apply too much pressure, you could ruin the enamel coating, and you have to keep pace with the production line. Once the pots are sprayed with their second coat, they're put in a giant oven that turns the sort of dusty, matte coating into the colored glass enamel you'll find in the store.

Blythe Milligan:

Okay, so that's how they're made. So I figured that would be a good part to include in this process of how they're actually made. But what I think is incredibly fascinating, and I don't think that it's made its way over to reels yet, so you probably haven't seen this. This is more of like a tough thing, but it's called their factory to table events and how they handle excess inventory. And so essentially, the way it works is that they have all of this excess inventory, and they sell tickets to events all over the country. In order to get inside of the event, you have to pay a ticket. You pay for a ticket, and then once you're inside, or even ahead of time, you can also have access to what's called a mystery box. And so with their cookware, what they've done is that you pay to get in, so you get access to all of this, like, sort of seasonal, or like rare, to find different pots and pans and cookware, and they're all heavily discounted. But then the Mystery Box angle is you pay, they get, like, 150 bucks, but you have no idea what's going to be inside of this box. And so what happens is that there's a lot of people that are only going to this event just to get the mystery box, because the mystery boxes can be incredibly valuable. And so there's like this secondary economy that is popping up outside of the events in the parking lots where people get their mystery boxes. They go into the parking lot, and people just start opening up their boxes to kind of see what they have. They're recording it. They're posting it to Tiktok. It's incredibly viral type content. But then the secondary economy is popping up to where people are buying and trading the mystery box items in the parking lot of where the events are taking place. So it creates this level of like viral marketing for this excess inventory that lake Poisson is getting the marketing benefits out of it, and they're also selling off a lot of this extra inventory. So remarkably it, or it's done remarkably well, until recently, where they had an event in Cleveland. I think it was Cleveland, and the mystery boxes were not good. Like people paid like $150 and they got, like, a single dish, or like a butter dish, like, they were not impressive. And it had the complete opposite effect, where all of these people who were so like rabid fans for this brand now, and this, these tickets to these factory to or it's factory to farm events or factory to table events are selling out all across the country. Really. They have global events as well. And so it created this, like negative feedback, where lake was to shut down the comments on a lot of their social media posts because it went so bad. And then so you have this. They did recently have another event. Much they got back to form, and so they don't necessarily have to worry about this, as you know, the internet let them know, but it was a sort of drama and like a PR disaster around it. And so I'd been planning on covering this topic for a little bit, but friend of the show, Jen Morris with ship happens, she actually had an email newsletter that went out recently that talked about this, that talked about sort of the advertising side of things, and talked about it from, you know, getting rid of, like, excess inventory. And she had a few different takeaways, which I thought were really fascinating, because if you think about it, from, like, the lens of like, a. Burberry, the company, when they have excess inventory, they they fry it, they burn it up, they shred it, they cut it up, because they don't want the pores to have access to their inventory. They want to keep that luxury image. And so one of Jen's takeaways in her article, and I'll link to it in the show notes, of course, but by rethinking how excess stock is handled. They preserve their luxury image, they reduced warehousing and transport costs, they collected direct consumer data, and they turned liquidation into engagement and content. And I thought that that is a perfect summary for this sort of source to porch segment where we can figure out it sort of ties into the rare earths that are needed to make this type of cookware. This type of cookware is, if you've never used it before, it is one of those things where it makes a dramatic impact, like my soups and broths and sauces that I make, I use it in that type of cookware, and it makes a dramatic difference, but they're able to take a lot of their excess inventory, or even, like special items, rare items, and create sort of a fanatical environment around it that creates social media awareness, brand awareness gets rid of that excess inventory and still, like Jen says, maintains their their luxury image. So I thought that that was an interesting take on, sort of the the Mystery Box economy, and how that's, that's sort of the thrill of the hunt from a retail perspective, I think is a very smart play where you have, you know, like TJ Maxx or a marshals, where it's that thrill of the hunt is what Lake wasat has captured here. And I just thought that that was an interesting story to share. So hopefully you enjoyed that,

Grace Sharkey:

too. Love a mystery box.

Blythe Milligan:

Who doesn't love a mystery box? Okay? All right, Grace, I know you have to run out. So that does it for this source to porch segment. So any final thoughts, anything you want to leave the audience with, where to find you find more of your work.

Grace Sharkey:

Head over to orderful.com if you're looking to speak to an EDI expert. Check out our LinkedIn page to figure out what events will be at Next. We'll be at Trimble next. Trimble insights that cat was about to knock over the glass water and, yeah, that's it. I appreciate it.

Blythe Milligan:

Blythe, awesome. Well, it was another great show. So we'll see you next month, and we'll do a little, maybe more holiday themed issues. Yeah? Like what we have here? Yeah, there you go.

Blythe Brumleve:

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 as 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 buzz words. 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 and go jags. You you

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Blythe Brumleve

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