How to Run LTL and Cross-Border Freight Without Losing Money

Robert Kowton left a decade at Coca-Cola, walked into freight brokering in 2008 with zero customers, and built a reputation around two things most brokers avoid: LTL and US-Canada cross-border freight. In this conversation, he breaks down exactly why those shipments trip people up and what it takes to get them right.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why LTL freight pricing works like a la carte dining, where every carrier action from inside delivery to lift gates is a separate fee
• The cross-border documentation mistakes that route your freight to a bonded warehouse in 2026
• How Robert's "quote to execute" method means he never quotes a load without a carrier plan already in place
• Why he went broad on commodities instead of niching down, and how that protected him through every market downturn
• The cold calling approach that still works: research the commodity, trace the supply chain, follow up on the day you said you would
• Real advice for people thinking about becoming a freight agent with no experience

Watch this episode on YouTube

Links and Resources:

• Robert Kowton on LinkedIn
• CDN Freight Broker on YouTube
• SPI Logistics Freight Agent Program: https://success.spi3pl.com/
• SPI Logistics Freight Agent Podcast Series: https://digitaldispatch.io/freight-agent-guide/
• Robert's fav business tools:
  • Nozbe: https://nozbe.com/
  • File Center: https://www.filecenter.com/
  • Evernote: https://evernote.com/
  • RingCentral: https://www.ringcentral.com/

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Transcript

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 0:37

Blythe, welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the fakers and freight. I am your host, Blythe Milligan, and we are proudly presented by SPI logistics. And today's guest is Robert cotton, who is the agency owner, or who is an agency owner over at SPI logistics, based out of Alberta, Canada. Robert has built his business from scratch. After leaving a decade long career at Coca Cola and jumping into freight in 2008 with zero customers, he's built a reputation around two areas that a lot of brokers like to talk about, but not nearly as many know how to handle well, and that's LTL and US Canada, cross border freight. He's done it the old school way, phone calls, face to face relationships, and knowing the details when the freight gets messy. So we're going to get into what works, where shippers get burned, what tech helps, versus what's just loud, and then how he stayed in the game for the long haul. So Robert, welcome to the show. Thanks guys. Beer. Awesome. So I was listening to, you know, I checked out a couple of your YouTube you have a YouTube channel, which is great to see for freight agents, listening to your interview with Trey Griggs that you guys did a couple of years ago. So I am excited to dive into the LTL world, which I admittedly don't know the nuances, but it sounds like, you know, many people in this industry don't know the nuances of it. So give us that sort of, I guess, high level picture of what LTL is and what makes it so challenging.

Robert Kowton: 2:15

Yeah, from the onset, when a customer says, I got a pallet the ship from whether it's from Los Angeles to see it to Pennsylvania, or it's going from Vancouver, British Columbia to Toronto, Canada. Sounds really simple, but the nuances come into the different I guess, understanding the differences in how the billing occurs in United States versus Canada. And then also understanding and asking often, you know, you see a quote from a customer, and you think, Oh, just react. But it's asking the details, meaning, well, where is this delivering? Is this delivering to their, you know, a customer's branch. But then I've had numerous times where they say, actually, we want to deliver to the job site, and we need a lift gate, we need an appointment. And the way to the summary of LTL freight, compared to say, truckload freight, is, think of it as Ella cart. The Ella cart meaning every action a carrier, the LTL carrier, does. Oh, yeah, that driver was great. He brought it inside for us. That's called an inside delivery. So there's a fee. So while the driver is being professional and nice and they're being helpful, every action and step they do is a fee. So that's why LTL becomes complex. And then with the United States and Canada, you get into, you know, the the nmfc, which changed last year, the National motor freight classification system. So basically, every product, every product in the world has a description, and you have to identify that nmfc, and it's gone more heavily towards the density based and so like in Canada, it's quite simple. When you have a pallet, say, just a simple 148 by 48 by 48 that's a 64 cube, or 640 pounds. So if the pallet weighs they say, customer says, yeah, it's a four foot pallet that weighs 400 pounds. And then an hour before the truck arrives, they say, I'm adding 100 pounds to it, but it's still staying four by four by four. They don't have to pay extra because they're getting billed at 640 the minute they break the 640 now they're paying more. So there's, there's all these little nuances, and that's why it's important to understand and appreciate, because a lot of times with truckload you get a driver, Mom and Pop type company, and they'll point A to point B. They give you a flat rate. They pick it up, deliver it done. But with LTL, the whole process is longer. You're often they can reweigh it. There could be higher risk for damages. So that's where the nuances come in. So as an agent, when you have customers, LTL freight can be an opportunity, but it also can be a hindrance, because from an operational standpoint, as an agent, it can truly impact you. Because, yeah, like, from the time of delivery, the transit times could be a factor, and that's where your job is. If a customer says, well, I need it on a certain time, but they want the lowest cost price, you have to do your due diligence to make sure it's going to meet the needs of all the parties involved.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 5:06

Are there certain commodities that are just expectation, or the expectations are to ship it via LTL? Or can any commodity be an LTL shipment,

Robert Kowton: 5:19

yeah, any commodity. Because sometimes you might say, let's say a customer shipped a whole truckload, and all of a sudden they received one pallet was damaged inside that truckload. So rather than that, customer doesn't need another truckload for a while, and one pallet had to get replaced. So they just shipped the one pallet. So you can. Have one pallet of safe Flooring Tiles. But you could also LTL is often a pick type system, like a company where they're ordering, you know, four or five boxes of this one item and four or five of that item. But basically, LTL can be the typical like the common carrier, because I'll just briefly explain quickly, LTL common carrier is a carrier who has a tariff, they have a published rate system and processes, so if you're going with it, that's typically a one to four pallet, whereas a mom and pop, like a private carrier, can haul LTL freight. And one of the advantages of if you can find the right carrier, is that it doesn't get transferred. Whereas LTL freight, they pick up the basically, when you send a driver to a shipper, they're going to pick it up, and that driver is going to bring it back to a terminal. They're going to consolidate with other freight, put it into a line haul. And depending if it's going across the country, it may go from one city to the next, and then each time it may be stopped, unloaded, reloaded to another truck. So it's going to get handled three, four or five times. And then where the complications come in, if you need dangerous goods, if you need heat, all those factors that come into play, and you have to make sure you get the right kind of carrier that can provide the service, because some LTL carriers are better at certain aspects than others.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 6:50

I would assume that the tariff kind of chaos over the last year, I think we actually just quote, unquote, celebrated, you know, all of the the new tariffs that were put into place or renegotiated just a few days ago as at the time of this recording. So has that added an additional layer of complexity into LTL shipments?

Robert Kowton: 7:09

Certainly the the key with LTL freight, and if you're shipping cross border, is my advice, and especially in 2026 is that you're not picking up the freight until all the customs are in place, and that they're verified as accurate. Because when you pick up freight, let's say truckload, and there's a problem at the border, well, the driver stays there, unless they're a bonded carrier, then they pulled across and they put it in a bonded warehouse or bonded yard, so that the driver could drop the trailer, and then carry on and do other loads while that's being sorted out. And then, once it's done, they deliver it. Whereas LTL freight, you have to imagine, if you're only shipping one pallet or two pallets, the carrier is going to fill a full truckload. So there could be anywhere from 20 to 26 828, pallets on a truck, depending on what they're they consolidated. But what happens if, say, your two pallets has a problem, they don't stop at the border and wait because they don't want to delay everyone else's so it automatically goes to a bonded warehouse. Now you have extra fees that the customer wasn't expecting. So and then, you know, the whole cross border business is quite complicated doing it, and I just was dealing with that exact scenario where the documents weren't accurate. So I've been working with the shipper because my customer hired me to book pick it up in Texas and bring it back to Alberta. But the shippers documents weren't accurate, so we had to work on, I think this morning we finally had third, third revisions. So yeah, it's very complex, and as an agent, like, we're not customs brokers, but what I do is I know, through years of experience, I know what to look for, and I do everything I can to mitigate delays

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 9:37

at the border that sound I mean, as someone who spent what, a decade at Coca Cola, did you experience maybe some LTL issues on were you on the, I guess, the in the shipping department over at Coca Cola, and you said, I got to be able to be a resource for these kinds of complexities. Or did you just say I'm I think I'll be a freight agent today?

Robert Kowton: 10:00

No, actually, in Coca Cola world, I was on the account manager side. I was account manager for years, and then I became a district manager my last five years, and so I had to work with the distribution team in terms of coordinating volume. But we were doing, like, yeah, Coca Cola kind of has, like, what I would call LTL. That's when we, you know, they're going to deliver to they fill up a truck with assorted orders going from, you know, to say smaller, like convenience stores or to, like, a food food kiosk at them all. So the driver shows up and he's got orders for all the different kiosks there. That's kind of like LTL, but Coca Cola has their own trucks, their own drivers. So I was involved in in the distribution of things when the volumes were like working with them and coordinating things, or if, say, a customer needed a early delivery or some special requirements, right? But as far as the how I got into the LTL side, when I started in freight brokering in 2008 as you said, I had zero customers. I figured, well, I didn't know much, but I knew how to sell and I knew customer service, so I figured I'd take that what I learned through Coca Cola time. And I thought, well, I'm going to just be broad. I want to spread my business. Try to get business in different industries and markets. The idea that if one ever gets slow, another one picks up. And that's kind of worked out to for the most part, for me, so that I kind of maintain consistency, because there's agents that just do, say reefer produce or just flatbed freight, they don't touch anything else, and it's great, and it's because it's a little simpler. But then they ride the roller coaster of the marketplace, and myself, what happened? I started out, and I thought, well, where I am, I'll go to my local city. And I started going around door to door, just like I did in Coca Cola, only to discover a lot of the local carriers had the market kind of covered, and customers at that time, in 2008 weren't interested in brokers for the local work. And then, and through some questioning, I discovered where their roadblocks and challenges were cross border freight and boom, that's when I realized, okay, all these local carriers were struggling. They were having problems. So I dived in. I just started researching and learning and taking each shipment to understand it, and just really dived into the supply chain of how and how customs is integrated with that, and figuring out, you know, what I can do to help mitigate issues. And then I also discovered that some of the carriers, when I was trying to do their truckload freight, that say, Well, I'm chipping from the States. And I got a supplier providing, I said, Well, why don't you give me a shot to give them a quote, just to see if you're, you know, just a gut check to make sure that your supplier is giving you a competitive pricing, only to discover that I was giving them better pricing. And so just kind of, it's a snowball effect and a process. And so, unfortunately or fortunate, I don't know, but LTL is complex and time consuming, but somehow it's become a big part of my business.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 12:43

Was it? Did you know someone in the

Robert Kowton: 12:45

actually, yeah, my first, yeah, it was kind of family. My the first brokerage only, I've only been at two brokerages. My first brokerage. Was a family member. They it was my sister in law's husband. He was with a brokerage before, and he branched out, created his own business. And they saw me the hours that I was working when I was at Coca Cola. We worked hard, and they said, Boy, if you're working that hard, maybe you should consider the freight broker. And so at first, I said, No, but then we had some chats, and one thing led to another, and I made the decision. So I jumped in. And basically, when I first started, I'm in the mountain standard time zone. So I would start at 6am my time, which is 8am in the East. And I would work till, literally, sometimes six o'clock, 530 on my side, which is 430 in the West. And I just did that for it took me. I started January 8. There's January 6 of 2008 and I moved my first load the first week of April. So four months later, and it took a loss on that load. But I do have that customer still today, since 2008

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 13:46

oh, January 6. Great, great date in, in some respects, because it's my birthday, you know, it's been a little, it's been a little cautious on celebrating it over the last few years. But, you know, for both of us, you know, we'll

Robert Kowton: 13:59

say it's a good date. And that's, it's funny, because that's about the same time I started with SBI Logistics was around January 6 or January 8, 2016

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 14:07

Oh, there's something about that day. Yes, you know, it's the new year. The New Year's kind of over, you're ready to kind of seize the day and just kind of work after the New Year's goals.

Robert Kowton: 14:16

Yeah. So, but yeah. So that's how I started. And then, so that's yeah. So fortunately, I've been pretty good that I've created some really long, long term customers.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 14:25

And so when you were going through and you were talking to all of these different customers, because for a lot of brokerages, it to your point, they say the riches are in the niches. You know, you want to start small and focus small, and then you can expand out later, but you did the reverse. And I think that that's actually really smart. I mean, obviously there's a bunch of ways to skin a cat, but for you, in your own words, it protected you from different market cycles. Is there a particular type of freight that you really honed in on? Or was it, you know, just all LTL or just all, you know, cross border focus, or Were there particular commodities that you found were the best fit for both of those markets?

Robert Kowton: 15:06

Actually, I didn't like, like you said, a lot of agents will go out there and seek out specific like steel flatbeds or lumber or produce or something very specific. I didn't actually I focused on customers. Was my priority. So I would say, Okay, I want a customer. How can I solve their needs and be their supply, their logistics person? And so whether I started with one, one lane, one area, so if they had a full truckload, or they were even doing partial truckloads, but I'd focus on getting the customer and trying to get their freight to help them move as much as they can. You know, some customers will come in. They got lots of volume. So, yeah, they might put out bids on a daily basis, and you win some, you lose some, but you figure out, okay, one or two lanes, I would service them well, and then all of a sudden, through consistent execution over time, that you get other opportunities, and over time, referrals started coming in. And the other big part was what I did in conjunction with cold calling, because I really dived into the cold calling, where after every call, I made notes and I would send a follow up email where we I summarized what we discussed and put notes for the follow up so that in my calendar I would follow up on this. On the date I said I would, so I was being, you know, committed to my word. And the other thing I did was talk to the carriers. I asked questions, and then when I started moving freight, if I had freight coming. Into my area. I made sure either if it was a pickup or the delivery, I went out and met the driver, and I actually went out, especially with the flatbed. Even drive in. I went out and I helped them strap the loads. They're like, Wow, I've never seen a person from the office do this. And I had a customer for a while. I was moving a lot of kitchen cabinets, and they would, you know, they would come in from the United States, and it had to be floor loaded and stacked and so forth. But it would always go to new homes getting built, our homes being renovated. And so I'd go out there, meet the customer and be able to talk to the driver, and I would help them unload the truck as part of it, just to be there see how the freight was loaded. And that was kind of the other forte is once I, you know, at first I used to think, Geez, I'll just focus on going, you know, seeing the customers right away. But I realized, in this world, because I don't have, like, unlike sale, like Coca Cola, you can bring a new product, like a new flavor, put it on the counter at your store and talk to the manager about it right here, and they could take you could open it up and let them taste it right. Something physical, you're selling. Like a realtor sells a house, they have something physical, but in this world of freight brokering, you're selling services. So at first I had to transition. I realized my most effective time was calling and then if I moved a load with them, then if I could get go visit them, I did. I showed up with a tape measure if they needed, you know, I was prepared, like if their back area required a safety vest. I brought my own. I didn't rely on them, and I were still told shoes. So when I when I walked into the back, I was prepared and oh, this is the freight now, take pictures, make take measurements. So I had created a resource for each customer, and I customized my services accordingly.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 18:06

I think I had heard you say that you had even helped. You walked into different warehouses, and you would help the customer realize that if they didn't wrap the palette in a certain way, that it wasn't going to get a certain amount of credit. Am I remembering that correctly? I think it mentioned something like, yeah, that's

Robert Kowton: 18:23

again, there's all these little nuances, but it's the more you can become a consultant in this business where you're not just selling and asking for the freight, then you can get that relationship with the customer to like that, what I call the Alliance level, where there's risk, shared risk, and that comes through time and commitment. Because ultimately, the goal I've always had when I was working with customers is, you know, you get every business is different, but say, they have their own sales reps or account managers that are out there selling and bidding, and then they got their purchasing team, and they got their supply chain and so forth. Is that when they get a new contract and they realize, hey, we're gonna have to up the production, because right where, where is your customer fit in supply chain? Are they producing the raw goods? Are they doing the finished or they, you know, the end user, but the My goal was, if they're doing a meeting or in a boardroom, and they said we're going to need trucks, that the first person they think of was me, that was my goal, and so I really tried to build that trust and consistency over time. But yeah, as far as when you're dealing with LTL freight, that's just another again, we could do a whole separate episode just on LTL. But when if a customer loads stuff on a pallet and it overhangs the footprint of the pallet, it's not it's not packaged to withstand the rigors of LTL freight. And it's actually risky, because when they load often, they're loading at nighttime, they might have just a little tiny light in the back, and so those forklift operators could hit it where, that's what the intent of a fork of pallet is to protect it, so when it overhangs, in fact, a lot of the carriers call that shippers risk and liability, and they will not cover it with a cargo insurance. And those are all the it just takes. There's so many nuances to do to study, because your customers think, well, we hired you, so you should know all this stuff well. You need to know it so that you can educate the customer.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 20:11

Now, before you get the customers, you've talked a little bit about cold calling, and especially in your early days, I'm curious, does cold calling still work? How are you finding maybe success, or maybe, Have you shifted a little bit with your I guess, outbound approach?

Robert Kowton: 20:25

I think actually, my approach has been the same, because even back when I started, I never just randomly picked up the phone, I would research them like typically, when I first started, I would pick an industry, one commodity, so I would kind of start as a commodity, and what I would do, it's funny, I didn't realize I was doing that until now, I look back, but that's what I was doing, is I'd pick a commodity, and then I would call different Businesses and start to figure out who. Because they'd say, you know, say you call. And they say, well, we get trucks, but we don't order them. Oh, who does our customer? So now I can say, Okay, can I how can I figure out who their customer is? Can I find it from her website? What's their brands that they're distributing? Okay, so if they're distributing these brands, and they say their customers are arranging it, so now I can chase after those customers and try to, you know, so I was trying to figure out who was in power of the different roles, and who was ranging trucks at the end of the day. And then, you know, using that. So I'd start with a commodity to understand how they work, who the players, how things work. And then you kind of figure out, you know, is this worth. Is this market worth me trying to get customers? Because sometimes some markets are just super competitive, or the customers are just focused on the low, low cost trucks. They don't really care about the service as much. So I was trying to find a balance somewhere, someone that you want, customers that have some volume, so you got that daily business. But it's also nice to have some specialty customers that may not have business all the time, but when they do, it can be unique and it can be rewarding. So you need a little bit of a little bit of everything when you're first starting out. And as far as, oh, sorry I was gonna say, as far as today goes, fortunately, I haven't had to do a ton of cold calling lately. Referrals have been my kind of blessing.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 22:11

Yeah, that's the golden nugget, I think, for most folks within your position, is that if you've been building this long, then the referral should start coming, and then, especially if you've done all of the dirty work that you've done is not necessarily dirty work, but you're showcasing your knowledge set to a customer that they probably won't learn until they lose money on a, you know, a future shipment. And so with, with that said, Are you kind of integrating any other digital tools as you build out your your customer base? Are you doing, I know you have a YouTube channel, but maybe customer education, or, you know, news roundups, anything like that, that you are, you know, kind of keeping your customer thinking of you consistently, so that when they do have that need, that you're the first person they call.

Robert Kowton: 23:03

Yeah. So what I think about is, I, unfortunately, when you're a solo operator, one of the challenges that you run into is this balance between building your customer base. And then once you start to build that, you got to manage your operations. And then time becomes your enemy. So as far as the customers go, instead of, I don't look at it as a blanket. What I do is I look at each customer, and as I identify their needs, I kind of create, if I do something once, and I realize I'm going to do it again, I turn that into what, you know, what most people companies would call SOP, standard operating procedure, so I'll use a tool like Evernote, our TMS that we use now you that's a lot of the SOPs where you put standard instructions, but if there's any other particular stuff that I need to I'm building a database using Evernote for each customer where I can put like their even though I'm putting it in revenova. But sometimes it's nice that if I'm not in front of revenova, I have it in my hand, so to speak, and I'm building that out. So now, when something I learned about an industry trend, trend changes, like there's a new policy about shipping some certain commodities, and I know, hey, my customers are impacted by that, then I send an email and educate them, or use that as an opportunity to make a phone call. Or if a customer hasn't shipped for a while. I'll look back and say, Okay, what's the freight we've done? What changes have occurred? And I'll use, Hey, are you aware? I'll call them up. Like, this past couple years, there's been a new thing with customs, with Carm, they have to get this Carm account set up. And so you use that as an opportunity, have you set up your Carm? Oh, I didn't realize that about my broker, didn't tell me. And then you you know. So you find nuggets of information. You don't want to overwhelm the customer, but when it's applicable, that would help prepare them and save them saying, Hey, you're I'm expecting you do a lot of LTL, we're expecting a price increase in the next month. You might want to order a little bit, get some orders in now, or something like that. So whatever week I can do, I provide that nuggets of information. Instead of just being grandiose, like I have a database of my email where I'll send out, you know, holiday greetings to, you know, mass to the customers. But typically, I try to take knowledge and then customize it to each one.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 25:05

How are you managing all of the information that you have to keep up with? But not just you know, your customers and their commodities. But, you know, just the onslaught of of news and tools and things like that, how are you managing what you actually need to pay attention to, right?

Robert Kowton: 25:22

So I kind of have, like, I've been digital well before the time period of it wasn't to be digital, like, you know, paperless now, and that's years and years ago I discovered and is was Evernote was a big one.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 25:34

I love that you mentioned that because I love Evernote, and I haven't heard somebody else talk about Evernote in a long time.

Robert Kowton: 25:39

In fact, if you haven't used it lately, it's pretty darn phenomenal. And so bring me back. Yeah, and the other tool that I use for a lot of years, and I actually, I still like it, but I did a switch, was Trello. I used Trello for a lot of years, and then it's been great, but I found the only like Trello was great crediting of the boards. But the downfall I found was it's a little bit better now, but it was just really hard to grasp. Like one board was great to visualize, but it was a little bit harder to see all the tasks you need to do at one time. Then I came across Nozbe. Now that was game changer. So NASBE, N, O, Z, B, E, it's company out of Poland, and they're all remote workers type thing, and they've been around for 15 years or more. But it is a game changer. Number The reason number one reason why Trello was great, but what I discovered one time was some of the features, like, if you're using on your desktop, you get the full. Onslaught, where you can do all kinds of things, but on your on your tablet or on your phone, it's not the same. So nasby, it's a this the user experience across any platform. It's the same. There's nothing missing. And so what the benefit is, so, as you mentioned, all the information. So when I I'm triaging all day long, emails come in if it's if this is industry news or something important. I have a, you know, a notebook in Evernote that seems as a resource. I drop it in there. It, let's say I soon as like for me, I kind of, I we have, obviously, at spir our TMS system. But for me, the triage is, really simple. When I quote or load comes in, it goes right to NAS because nasby has an email to I just forward it in there. And then every day, as the day is progressing throughout the day, what quotes I need to get done, but what loads need to be covered? It's there and I can't and then I can put dates and times. And if it's done and it closed off, but if I need to reactivate it, and if it's a complex, say, a customer gives me a big project with 1015, loads, I just create a project right away, and I tied into that whole thing, and I can move them, you know, the stages, like I used to use OneNote, and there's been problems, but basically, I've created a whole digital and each person has to just take a second and and map it out on paper. But you got your email, you got a calendar. I use a spreadsheet all the time, because I'm always calculating my profits and customer charges, but on a daily basis. And the other one that I used to use was called Paper port, anywhere but I switched because they kind of shut down. They got bought out, but long stories. This new service has been fantastic, and I highly recommend it's called file center, because file center, unlike Okay, OneDrive, is great because it's a cloud storage, and I have it synced to that. But file center, what it allows you to do is you create your file structure just just like you would on Google Drive, and you can have it synced in there. But what file center does? It allows you, if you get a PDF file and you need it as a JPEG, you can convert it. You can convert the JPEG back. If you get a big document and say you just need two pages out, you can take out those two pages and then. So it's kind of like having a file folder where you can up the file folder and move pages around your desk, make copies, staple it, oh, put another copy in there. It just allows you to do that. So I have years upon years in my file center of data. And it just works great. Because I every time, like when I get a load, I have a whole file structure system. But every load has its own file folder, because I'm putting the Bols customs load confirmations, any any pertinent stuff that's in there. So I just, I so file center, Outlook, a cloud based storage. I recommend you got to have a calendar, and I might and NASBE and Google Calendar sync, perfect. So if you have a task that you've created in Nozbe, and say you're you want to move that task and you're in your Google Calendar, you just drag it over to the next day, and it auto syncs and changes the date nosby and vice versa. It's just, it's it just they match. So well,

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 29:35

did you ever look at clickup While you were shopping for nosby?

Robert Kowton: 29:39

Yeah, I did at that. Well, nosby was around before that, but I did look at clickup monday.com they're great, but for the simplicity of nosby, just easy.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 29:50

And that was my next question. Is it what made because I went with, I use Monday, but then I went with click up, and I've been with click up ever since. And looking at the nasby website, it looks Yeah, click up is great.

Robert Kowton: 30:01

Click up is great because it gives you a little bit more, like, charts and so forth, and maybe a bit more reporting. I'm not needing that at the moment, but it's really easy. Like, even if you only have a small team of 123, people, it's super easy to assign different tasks to people in NASBE if you need it. And just the and the, like, there, there's the filtering is just so easy, because you can go by calendar. There's just so many great things in there. Just so easy. That's all just easy. I think if

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 30:29

this freight agent thing doesn't work out. You have a future, bright future ahead of you with software sales, because, the way you just you knocked it out of the park with those three different recommendations. I got all you know, all three of those tabs open right now to check out after this conversation.

Robert Kowton: 30:44

File centers is a savior, for sure. If you work on a desktop and you work with lots of files and you want to be paperless, you need file center. It just

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 30:51

works, pure and simple. We will. We are bookmarking these as we speak with with all of this tech that you're talking about, I would imagine that you're, you're, you've dabbled a little bit in some of the llms and some of the AI tools. What's hype and what's, you know, kind of sticky for you right now? Well, LLM

Robert Kowton: 31:11

is not so much me, but AI's dabble a little bit here and there. But I think I kind of use that AI to kind of see if it gives me some different perspectives on my process. But as far as AI right now, like, because there's always the big talk, is AI going to take us over? And in some theories, yes, but unfortunately, you know, I always explain. The people is that, just like our TMS is they're what they're computers, ones and zeros, and we live in an imperfect circle of a world. We have to fit that in it. And often we take the complexities from a customer to make it simple for them, and that's what the goal is, when you can streamline the whole supply chain for them and make it easier. And when you do it really well, for the carrier, they don't want to go to the customer because they'd rather just work with you, because it's easier to work with, you know, with the agent that does a great job and the customer wants to work with you, you don't have to worry that the carriers are going to try to backdoor you and steal your customer. So, you know, if you're a consultant to the carrier, you're a consultant to the customer. And even myself. I'm a small, you know, office, but I I invest into my VoIP we use, I use a company in Canada is called TELUS, but it's hosted off of RingCentral, and it's fantastic, because ringcentrals VoIP system. I can control it from my phone. I can add a user easily, but then I pay a company called on on on hold.com and they created a professional recording for me, and I just pay them a small fee per month. And it's then, this way when people on hold, it's not blank space. I used to get people hanging up. It matters. And not being on your cell phone when you put someone hold this way, I can it's just those little touches that make you seem bigger than you are, but it really makes a big difference. So I do have a desk phone still, but it's a VoIP phone, but I can work from my phone. I can work I can do it on my laptop. And the other big benefit of that ring central system for an agent, you're often texting nowadays, more and more your customers, even right, your shipper might be but a driver or carrier might be texting you well, instead of being on your phone all day in these little things on the RingCentral system, which is on, it's on, it's an app. It's an application. So I can text right from my computer on a full keyboard. So it's huge. Saves me a ton of time. I'm not, I don't have, you know, as many typing errors compared to doing it with a with a smartphone. So it's that's just another extra tool.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 33:32

And so with all of these tools that you've mentioned, obviously you're a go getter. What made you decide that you were going to become a freight agent?

Robert Kowton: 33:42

It was a it was my family that just kind of encouraged that they saw what I was doing and in the time I was putting in. And, you know, Coca Cola looked after me well, and I looked after them well. We had a great relationship, and I progressed nicely, and I had a great career there. And it was a difficult decision, but it was just the right decision. At that moment in time, I didn't know where it was going to go. I had no idea if it was going to work out. They basically said, We'll give you three months of income, which not a lot of brokers would do. And that's kind of how you got to start. You gotta when you break into this industry. I know you've talked to Mike and others at SPI and other agents. If someone new in 2026 is coming into this industry and wants to really get into the freight industry, I highly recommend they got to find someone who's willing to mentor them. That's really what it takes, because you got to learn the ins and outs. There's just, it's one thing, the sales side of it, but there's, you know, like, back I we haven't, obviously discussed all the details, but when I started, one of the big things was learning this, the equipment, and measuring, understanding what fits, what doesn't fit. So when a customer gives you dimension to something, you have to say, Hmm, will this work? Because you can't just, oh, I need a truck. I need a quote. You have to, you have to stop and think. And that was, that's the other thing I really pride myself on, over all since I've started, is I, many times I have been privy to other freight, not my companies, but competition, where my customer will afford me quotes, and they all come in with just a flat rate, no conditions, no no details or questions, and I quote, I pride myself on quoting to execute meaning. I really I don't just throw a number. When I throw the number, I have a plan in place. So the carriers I spoke to, if we worked out plans like, remember this load, it's gonna be like this. And then when it comes time, I'm not going back to another trying to find some other lower cost carrier. I built those carry relations by saying, calling that carrier back and reminding them did remember we two weeks ago, we discussed it and this, oh yeah, I said, Well, that's ready to go. Then, unless they don't have capacity to assist me, then they say, You know what, you better find another truck. But otherwise, they really appreciate and that's how I built a lot of trust with carriers by simply being, holding my word and consistently going back to them, not trying to take their their rate or whatever, and and trying to find just use that to find a lower cost. I wanted a partner, someone I can trust and count on. And to that credit, just last week, I had a customer says, We need 10 loads, three text messages. I had eight covered. And that's just simply because of the relationship, the relationships I have with those carriers.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 36:19

I think that that is one of the more probably best pieces of advice that I you know, I've talked to a lot of SPI agents, and only a couple of them will actually mention. The carrier relationship, and how much that is just as important as the customer relationship. And ultimately, at the end of the day, the carrier is the one that is interacting with the freight, and, you know, the representation of your company. And so it's really cool to hear that you you emphasize the the building of relationships, not just on the customer side, but on the carrier side as well. And so, you know, as you I would imagine that with you and your skill set and your talents, that you would have likely looked at a few different freight agencies. What was, what made SPI stick out?

Robert Kowton: 37:06

Well, actually, yeah, I didn't actually have to look too far, because when I joined my brother in law's business, I didn't look around at all. They brought me on, and they were basically setting me up and saying, okay, he just, he kind of gave me some basic stay away from certain commodities. And he said, stay away from here's my list of my customers. Don't call those companies. And other than that, the world's your oyster. And just call me with questions, so to speak, because he was in a different city, three hours away. And so that's how it was back then, but, and things went well, but they decided to close the business, and I needed to, they said, Yeah, you take your customers, but we're going to close the business now. And so I started researching on the on the internet, and I knew what I was looking for, because I needed a broker that offered dual currency, because I had carried I was moving loads in Canada and the United States. I needed carriers who were set up with all my LTL carriers and and we also didn't touch intermodal as well. And so when I came across SPI logistics, I put a call, and I got a call back at the time from Greg Davenport, and I asked him a whole bunch of questions, and he's he, I would say, do you have account with this carrier? Yes, this carrier, and so forth, and all the boxes were checked. Then he says, Okay, let's review some of your accounts. So we started going through my accounts, and he would say, well, we got an agent on this one, and I had a Excel file at the time. I pulled some reports from our TMS. And I said, Well, I moved this many loads in the last three months. And then I next one, same thing. I'd say, Well, this is how many loads I moved in this time period. So he would reach out and say, Yeah, we have agents names on there, but they're not moving that freight. So I there's and so they, I didn't lose any that way. There's only two customers. Well, one customer that I lost when I transitioned. They the company just said we had a policy no new vendors, even though it was closing one vendor to add another one, but they just said, unfortunately, they're not allowing us to put a new company name. So when I left, when I was leaving, I needed SPI they were Greg was there, and the team, at that time, they sent me the documents necessary, and we got started, and I was up and running within 48 hours, wow.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 39:11

And a lot of companies, they'll say, we'll have you up and running, you know, within a couple of weeks or a couple of days. But it sounds like, you know, on SB ice case, they actually meant it whenever they said it, yeah, because I had to get

Robert Kowton: 39:23

my customers on board, because they had freight to move, so I had to get credit set up. And Greg knew the urgency, and they just everything was a match. And because they I it was just like, it was like, I moved right over from one to the next, and it was seamless. There was a couple couple of, you know, a few small accounts that they didn't have up and running, and I got them connected and set up, but for the most part, they had all the carriers I needed. And even more, to be honest, down the road.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 39:48

So did you find that it was challenging. Or, how did, I guess maybe, how did you approach the conversation with your customers that you were going to switch to SPI did they were they nervous, or did you kind of have to talk them through it?

Robert Kowton: 40:04

No, actually, they're pretty good. I just made a list. And again, at that time, I was using Trello, so I created a board, and I listed all the the customers saying needed, you know, needs to apply for credit. And then as I sent them, I moved them over to the next column, and then, you know, credit sent. And then watch them come back in, and then watch the, you know, if there was a couple that didn't have credit approved, and so forth, or if they all did. And I just worked them through the process. And it was just a lot of work at the beginning, but I was able to, I didn't lose too much freight, and I was able to just transition. It was a great SPI was fantastic with the support. And my customers were supportive of it, and it worked out. It took a lot, took a lot of work, but it was really, it just was a, it was

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 40:45

a perfect match. So with the last year, there's been a lot of talk around, you know, sort of near shoring and obviously tariffs and, you know, a greater emphasis has been put on, you know, the US Canada relationship. Have you found that that's how that is reflected in the freight that you're moving? Or do you find things are, you know, kind of improving, because it felt, it felt a little, you know, tenuous at times in the last year, thanks to, you know, things forces outside of our control. But how did you sort of manage through that perceived turmoil? Is it, or is it kind of still going on? To this

Robert Kowton: 41:21

day, it's still going on. It was a process, and I kind of suffered, like a lot, like it was interesting back there's been times. When things have been slow, and because of the book of business I had, I weathered through it okay, because of the fact I had a diverse book of business. And then in the past year, I've had some customers where I were primarily cross border customers. And then what they discovered, because of all the tariffs and all the challenges with crossing, they were hiring me all the time to load pick up in the United States and bring it back. But then what they discovered was, if they put the onus on the supplier and shipped it, they had less risk for them, because then they were just, you know, they would add a freight charge to their product cost landed at their door. They didn't have to deal with all that intricacies. So I, on one end, I lost a little bit on others. We had to be creative. I had some customers that were creative, and we had to do some unique documentation, where, because freight was going like one, one aspect of freight is that you get stuff that will go to, say, from Canada to the US to a job for a while, and then they're going to ship it back, and vice versa. They're shipping it from the United States into Canada for a while, and then they're going to ship it back. So there's some different ways and creative ways that Customs Brokers figured out to do that to help avoid the tariffs. One of the big challenges that I still deal with, I didn't lose any freight to it. It's just created more paperwork. I have a particular customer that ships a lot of aluminum type stuff. It it's kind of the similar to scaffolding. It's not scaffolding, but it's similar. And one of the challenges has been is now all of a sudden, like I've been with that customer since probably 2009 and now in 2026 and 20 I started in 2025 where every commodity they have to have a smelters origin of where the aluminum was melted. And in some cases, if they bought that particular part, like it was a brace or something, from another third party, and that company bought it from the third party, they couldn't source it, so they We've had times where freight was held at the border. We had to send the truck back and take off two pieces, right because they didn't have the right documentation. So every again, there's no blanket scenarios. It's just the summary that you had to, you have to stop, you can't stop learning. That's really what the key is. You have to kind of, as the tariffs happened, you had to look at which companies were being affected, and having the conversations with the customers, what their plans are, how they're going to work around that. Because some of them source, they they were looking at saying, well, with our cost of our goods to bring it across, plus the tariff fees, maybe we should be looking normally, they wouldn't have bought from another supplier, say within Canada or within the US. They had to look at their supply chain and their cost of their freight and everything else, because sometimes it was unique, and they had no choice. That's the only supplier that has that particular commodity, and they had to take it, and they just where the challenge was, that it was a, you know, a downward spiral, because they had to pass on the costs down the line. And at first there was a little bit of pushback, but over time, everyone just had to absorb that cost, and the costs were constantly just passed down the supply chain.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 44:31

Do you think that some of those, I guess that the chaos of it all is kind of subsided a little bit, or is it just, you know, it's, we're all just used to putting out fires every day?

Robert Kowton: 44:44

No, it's no every, every shipment is unique right now, you can't stop you really, just, you can't assume on your loyals that, oh, last shipment went well. It just doesn't work. You just really can't. You have to just know I don't ship cross border freight without they say, Oh, we got the customs ready. And I'm not a customs person, but I've been doing it long enough so I know what to look for, and I won't. I won't let a truck arrive to pick up without me seeing it. Just just many little things, like, if a customer hasn't picked up in a while, then I gotta call the broker. Because brokers are great, but I find they're not as consulted. They're not as much of a consultant and educator as I kind of think they should be in the industry as a whole. So I take on a bit of that role for my customers in that regard, and so meaning taking the time to verify who is going to be clearing the customs and what is the account and is the account active. Like just the other day, I have a customer that ships from the US, and now they're asking me to help them arrange a shipment to Florida. And then the first thing I said is, I know you got your broker set up with you know which customs broker they have for coming importing into Canada, but are you set up as a exporter? And they said, No. So I said, well, before you get too far, you need to call there. And I said, is the value exceeding $2,500 okay, ask your broker for the current 5106 form. Means that when a Canadian company is selling to a US company, that when the value exceeds $2,500 if they're not set up as a registered importer, they have to fill out a form 5106 and that's just another requirement. So it's the nuances never stop. The learning never stops. And right now you can't rely that one shipment was great last time, put that feather in your cap, but assume the next one has problems, and you're going to try to anticipate them before, before they happen.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 46:45

That's a I feel like that. That's a perfect place to end this conversation. But I still have a few more questions I wanted to ask you, because there's just so much, I guess, sort of talk around you know, the evolution of the freight broker role, and how freight brokers are essentially going to be replaced. And I've always kind of thought that it was going to be the smarter ones that take a deep expertise of knowledge and care into the commodities that they're moving that are going to rise above the rest as automation kind of takes over some of the, you know, you know, the messy administrative things that no one wants to do. How do you think that the freight broker role plays out? Because it sounds like it, more or less, is going to turn into a role that you've sort of pioneered since 2008

Robert Kowton: 47:29

Yeah, I think that's because, you mean, it's a it takes both, because you got shippers and you got the brokers. So there's the shippers that are just after low cost freight. So that's never going to go away. But the big thing that's kind of helped in a regard, in some regards, because carriers who just want the cheap freight, and then you start talking to them again, when you have struggles with customers and say you're bidding, you have their accounts. You've set up, like when I say that you have their account, you have an account where they have credit. Because that's the problem. You get a customer that says, Hey, I'd be interested move with you, but you don't have your account set up. There's no credit or they need prepayment, those things. But they're in a position where, if there's a load to move and they accept your rate. You could move it for them right now. You don't have to. There's no administrative things to do if you're bidding on freight and they're you're not winning. Okay, you have to study that and say, Okay, well, how competitive is this lane? Then you start asking questions. You have to say, Well, how's it been going with the other providers? What do you mean? Well, have you had it where trucks don't show up on time. Have you had it where maybe the load took longer, you know, there was, you know, the communication on the transit times and where the truck is, or having the, you know, the load was double brokered, or any, you know, something was stolen, or, etc, all of a sudden you realize they're having problems. Yes, we did have a problem. We had a problem with this carrier. They were unethical or and their communication wasn't the greatest. So then you start to realize, they realize, hmm, so then when you start talking about the things that, like a company like SPI is doing with all the vetting, and I know other brokers are probably doing it, but I'll speak to what I know and how complex and how in depth we're going to protect SPI our customers and the carrier, in fact, is, you know, being, just being, you have to be so aware, just like carriers right now, you talk to a carrier and they'll say, Oh, we just moved a load with you last week. You just delivered like yesterday, and I've had it literally like this in the past week, where I said, Great, I look up in the profile, and now they're dnu because they were unethical on that last load, the load that they just told me they delivered. So just because they've been doing it for long term, there's a lot of carriers in our system that I used to work with, and they created bad habits, and they maybe it's just a few bad employees, and that's why, like back when we were talking about carriers and relationships, in addition to me building my own relationship with the carriers, but my goal at the end of a load is I want that carrier. I don't want my if I had a bad situation with a carrier happen, was it just because of the situation, or was it because of the carrier? So if it's just a situational thing, I try to end it so that I don't want to wreck the relationship with any other agent for that carrier. Now, and I think all agents are under the same boat, that if they had a bad experience, and they don't want other agents to go through that, where it's going to impact their customers, so forth, then we have procedures in place so that we help protect each other. So I kind of you got to find that balance. But yeah, the this game, you really got to stay sharp, because customers now, acquisitions are happening all the time, companies you know, so your company could get bought out and you and if you heard this, you have to notify your head office, because you think that we're getting protected. And all sudden, if they stop paying the bills, we have the old company and the new company that actually has they're not credit worthy right now. So this game is SPI is trying to stay two steps ahead and and you got to keep up with all the trends. And that's where you having that deep cell like Mike always talks about, but constantly just staying on top of the game, you have to, you just, there's a lot of moving parts, and you have to find a way to create, you know, create calm, to figure out where the noise is and and, you know, just to protect yourself and your customers, your carriers and SPM, any

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 51:21

advice for someone who's thinking about becoming a freight agent, or maybe they're an in house broker and they're kind of thinking about making the leap? What advice would you

Robert Kowton: 51:29

give them? I. It depends what they want to do. If they want to become where they're fully an independent agent like myself or many other are, and you have 00, experience, because a lot of brokers, like SPI and others, they want you to have a book of business. So if you really want to jump right into freight, then try to find a brokerage that will hire you, hire you as an employee, they'll either get you just booking loads and maybe doing some cold calling for them, things of that nature, kind of get the sense of the freight operation. Now, if you don't have that opportunity, because it depends what city you're in, if you don't have a lot of sales experience, go become an account manager for a company. It could be a food distributor, a Coca Cola, a Pepsi, or someone like that, where you have a route territory to sell. So you learn what that's doing is, it doesn't matter what industry you're in, you're learning about customer relationship. And then if you can be in cold call sales, that's helpful, because then you learn that strategy. Because obviously, you know car sales is a whole different world, but B to B type scenarios, because remember, B to B, business to business is, I never take it personal when someone says no, it just not no today, it might be yes tomorrow. So there's a lot of strategies there, but mentorship, having someone who will help mentor about the cold calling process, how to deal with rejection, how to overcome that. It's a whole process, but to get into it, one is, you need some sales experience, have some understanding of how the operation works, or whether you you can read about it and study it and learn a little bit, and then, like, whether you can find, like, another, an SPI, kind of another agent office that's willing to bring you on because they need help, and they're willing to train you and get you going, and then all of a sudden, that can lead on and maybe lead to something kind of like you've, I know you've talked to Titan has that success story. So those are the you really you got to, you got to find a brokerage willing to kind of mentor you, because if they like, I think any freight brokerage, if they meet them and say, This person has some charisma, they've got some character, they've got some integrity, integrity, and we believe that with some training around the freight world, but they have the customer skills that's first and foremost when you like. You know it's not as simple as people think. You know behind the phones you're calling, but what if you were called to the company and had to do a presentation in front of their executive. How comfortable are you with that? And those are the questions you have that helps you identify what kind of businesses you want to call because if you're like, I'm never going to be comfortable standing in front of an executive. Now, you're not going to C suite companies, right? You're going to look for the small mom and pops, you know? So there's all these it takes. And the only thing I can also say is, if you're jumping in, you need some reserves, meaning, if you're jumping in, you don't and you don't have no income you because a lot of the brokerages will say, yeah, we'll let you start, but you're not going to earn income until you book a load. We'll help you train. We'll give you the tools, but you got to book a load to get freight, get money. So therefore go work. That's why work for an account manager. Role somewhere is where you can get paid good money, save money. And then when you're ready to go, you need three to six months of your living expenses to over become that downtime. And then again, there's other ways, if you really want to get into it, if you're currently account manager, find a broker that you get connect with. Like, if you connect with them, and say, if I provide you leads and they can move the freight, maybe they'll pay you a commission, like, I can do the cold calls, and then maybe I could be your sub rep, and you book the freight, and then over time, you get enough going, like, there's six ways to six or 710, 15 ways that you can break through. There's no right, there's no wrong. It's going to come down to your where you live, how many other brokerages are around you, and you know, and again, with nowadays, with remote work, there's opportunities there, but it's nice to have that face to face where you find someone who can mentor you. That's where it really because you got to study the trucks that you want to move, and understanding how that works, and then understanding the brokerage side and the customer side, right? So there's, there's a lot, so that's why mentorship. But if you come in with some customers like understanding sales process and know how to sell, and you know how to talk to people in a professional way, that's your two steps ahead. Then you just have to learn you can really apply that to any industry, but you just have to respect the whole freight industry. It's a big moving wheel, and you just got to figure out where, what spoke you're going to start with.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 56:01

What are some, I guess, supply chain or logistics news stories, maybe trends that you're watching. And you know, for the rest of 2026

Robert Kowton: 56:10

I'm watching the marine traffic, in terms of the marine system, what they're doing with their policies and procedures. There's a lot there to understand, because when you talk about the future of freight brokering is the ability to deep, sell and offer multi service, I think that's really what it comes down to. Like, if. You're the future of of this business. If you're in 2026 you need relationships with your carriers, and you want to build that. And you also need, if you have customers, getting new customers is difficult, and your opportunity is like right now, when diesel prices are sky high, that's an opportunity to break through with other customers, because if you're able to fulfill a difficult situation, even though it might have been higher price, but you actually came through for them, that's that's huge. And when you show that, that all of a sudden, you show that consistency. Now you're able to talk about their other segments that they within their supply chain. Is that ocean freight, because there's ocean LCL less than container load. There's ocean full container. There's right, there's roll on, roll off, there's all the ocean stuff. And every carriers got their nuances, and you got to keep studying the procedures and how that's working, and understanding how the ports work. What are the if you're going to get into that, what each port requires for the drivers to to access, like there's if you're going to go down that. So that's the thing is, how much knowledge do you want to gain to service your customers and and how does that look for the your growth like when you start, you're just hungry to move freight, but then you got to build and then you got to manage that operational balance, because if you get enough customers, all of a sudden you're for one person. How do you you have to think about, how do you grow? What does that look like?

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 57:54

So as you're you're kind of thinking about, because it sounds like, you know, we just got a little glimpse into what you're going to be working on for the rest of this year. But I am curious if there's anything that you feel is important to mention that we haven't already talked about.

Robert Kowton: 58:10

I think just, you just have to be like, take, take the customers you're if you're servicing customers already, think about their supply chain, what their commodities are, where they're moving them to and from, what countries are potentially being impacted and coming up, what, using that as creative ways to have conversations. How can you have a creative idea what, and constantly asking what their roadblocks have been. And then look also at this time as having customers review their their their supply chain, how, what? What information do you have that would knowledge and insight that may help them, like maybe their paperwork isn't as accurate or as good as it could be, big thing to talk about, because we you've, I know you've talked with others about fraud and double brokering and being held hostage. That all comes down to the paperwork, like when a customer just puts six pallets and doesn't actually list commodity, understanding how that impacts them with their think, oh, but no big deal. But there's a lot of nuances out there with when you're shipping, say, a construction equipment. How that's affected? Because you may have some expensive like a bobcat that's used, but guess what? In the carrier's insurance world, they may cover used equipment at $1 a pound, not full, full value. And then you talk to carriers, and I've been doing that a lot lately, again, you really gotta hone in taking on that consultant role to talk to the carriers, saying, okay, so you have $250,000 coverage. I got a load that's worth $200,000 how do I know that that's fully covered? Does your insurance company require you to declare it? Does it have to be stated on the bol What are your carriers exemption? What's your carrier policy exemptions? That's a really big question. And if a company says, Oh, well, we have cargo contingent policy, great. That means that their goods are covered while it's in transit, but always ask them. You should ask your insurance company, what are the exemptions? So that role, that's really what it is. And you know, when sometimes you may get a customer that asks a question, if you don't know it, then you can go back. Then you can go back. And that's why we have we work for a company with like SPI, because we've got 65 plus agent offices around North America that all move different types of freight with all kinds of knowledge. And we got a back office full of years upon years, and we got an executive team with all kinds of knowledge. So chances are, if you come to a roadblock, which is actually an opportunity with your customer, there's a pile of resources to help you gain insight, knowledge that you can then go back to your customer.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:00:42

Now, I think you just made like the perfect sales pitch for SBI, because it is just such a breath of fresh air to hear about. You know, all of the information gathering that you're using, but not just that, but the ability to be the distribution source of that information as well to your customers, to carriers, then also to fellow agents over at SPI. So I'm curious what is maybe the agent that you've learned the most from at SPI?

Robert Kowton: 1:01:11

Oh, well, actually, one of the ones, well, there's probably a few, but early on was Glenn Helton. Now, Glen Helton is the uncle, nephew, the uncle to Mitch Helton, and he was in my town, but he's passed. He passed this past year, and his daughter Kathy and Dave stay are. Still, they took over his business. But early on, when I didn't know much agents, there was agents around. I knew I heard that there was agents in the States, there was agents in different places, and I felt at that time, Glenn was in Alberta. He was close to me, so I could call him, and he always picked up the phone, and he always answered the questions. Because we were moving some LTL, some intermodal. We had some similarities, and so we one, we could just chat about things and some of the challenges, but also he could give me some insight. So I found that there's, I would say Glenn was huge. There's, there's another one. Why am I Brian? Brian? Brian McLean has been a very significant resource. Kelly Harrison, Bill Glover, now he's retired, but Dan Goulet, like, there's a bunch of guys that we kind of have an email like, when you're struggling, when you're struggling to find a truck. Hey, who do you recommend? That was kind of the dealer. What would you do in this situation there? But that's one thing at least I find, is that whenever I another I call another agent, they're always welcome and warm to assist to the best of their ability. So there's so many agents I could name names for, but yeah, there's, there's, there's a bunch there, but they've always been and we have a great commodity that way, where we have some email threads, where we can share some different insight, like, particularly on the LTL side of things, but, and that's where rendezvous is fantastic, because you're witness it to it. If you're feeling, you know, down, or whatever, you're having a bad week, and you go to rendezvous, you just come back inspired, because you see the success around the room, and then you talk to them. And there's so many different ways in which people are achieving their success, but you just take what they're doing and you hear their stories and saying, How can I apply that to me? And how can I make myself a better, better agent?

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:03:22

Yeah, it's definitely a different mindset at SPI versus other brokerages that I've either worked at or I've talked to. It genuinely feels like this is a network that you can all grow together, and that there's enough there for all of you to eat, instead of just sort of the cutthroat nature I think that exists at some brokerages.

Robert Kowton: 1:03:42

Oh, exactly like I've hired, I've had freight auditors, like I've had because I do a lot of LTL, I hired people to help me, kind of the tracking, tracing and some of this behind the things, behind the scene, things. And one of the weaknesses I've always had was hiring people, and I know I recognize that, so when I needed this at the time, well, Anita bass, he's now our new president, but she she was our person in charge of client care and so forth, but she has an HR designation, so Well, what better person? And she's fantastic. And I couldn't believe it. We, I was doing an interview, and one of the questions, because I told her what I was looking for in the qualities, and kind of gave her the job description I was trying to fulfill. And I was very interested the question that she asked, which was really identified, whether the person was techie or not, because, because one of the persons I interviewed was actually an ex customer. They were a shipper. They were the shipping person. So I thought, Well, geez, how much better could that be? And there was another person that was and that one actually worked out pretty good, but there was when that person, they moved away, and they there's someone else that I was kind of a there were a shipping person at another company, but I know the company they worked for, and so I had this person interview, and the question that Anita asked is, if your TV cable cut out, you know, stop working, what would you do? And the response that this person gave was, I'd call my son. So we knew right away this wasn't the right fit. Just that simple question, because I needed so then I discovered after that, what I did was I couldn't keep bugging Anita all the time. So then I was hired. I was interviewing someone else. So I said, Okay, we had a quick interview. Then I think I said, I'm going to send you a link. Basically, I wanted them to see how easy it is that they could actually join a Zoom meeting. And then when they did, I had the screen saying, Welcome aboard, kind of idea.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:05:30

So, so you put up through the ring here, I love that. Well, that

Robert Kowton: 1:05:35

was, that's what I wanted. How fast Could you, like, you know, create, do something. Because idea is that we, I do a lot of I just want to see how well you learn no tech, you know, I understand, I understand you're not going to know my art, certain technologies, but that you're adaptable, that if you know that, then at least if you can do that, then I

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:05:51

can teach you. Yeah, do you care? Can you problem solve? Can you be tech savvy? All, all much needed requirements for the job of a freight agent of today? So that's an awesome story to hear. And I'll be sure to link to previous interviews, because we've had, you know, Tynan, you mentioned the tying an interview, Anita has been on the show. You know, obviously, Mike has been on the show a bunch. I'll put all of those in the show notes, in case people want to check it out, because the leadership team at SBI is is unlike any other that I've experienced, and that's why, you know, we've been working together for so long, and so it's amazing to hear your story of. Of success, of you know, getting started in this industry and using education as that major selling point. It really, really I've learned a lot, and I have a bunch of tools I need to check out after this conversation is over. So Robert, without further ado, where can folks follow you, connect with you? If they have some some cross border, some LTL, some intermodal shipments that they need moved. Where can they reach out?

Robert Kowton: 1:06:51

LinkedIn, just my name, Robert cotton. I have that tiny YouTube channel. I have not put much on it lately, but what I do have, it's a supply chain focus. So it's in freight broker stuff. So it's all informative. It's nothing, you know, just informative stuff. But that's at CDN, CDN, freight broker doc on YouTube. And so, I don't know if it's at but it just, if you look up CDN, freight broker on YouTube, it'll come up and LinkedIn are the two easiest.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:07:20

Where does the CD income part or come from Canadian? Oh, okay, yeah, that that makes sense. I was thinking CDN, like, you know, web caching, or, you know, that kind of thing. I that's where my

Robert Kowton: 1:07:31

brain, yeah, someone actually suggested, I don't know if I if they, someone had kind of suggested it or something. So I figured I would, because I had joined, I kind of connected with a few other trucking YouTube channels, and that's so I would, they would, you know, have lives, live feeds, and they would have some other videos and and I would, they would bash broker. So I started chiming in on the comments to kind of give the brokers perspective. And then they, one day, they had an opportunity to link, so I joined a couple of their videos, and then they realized, Hey, this is actually pretty good. I'm actually informative. So not just, you know, bashing, but I'm actually just providing real information. And then through that, there's a fellow that his name is Sage, and he has a channel, yeah, and so he him and I kind of connected, and he would have me on his lives, and we'd play a little bit of a good cop, bad cop kind of scenario, but off the air, we would actually talk a lot, and he was doing a heavy haul, and he had his own brokerage, and so I convinced him to join SPI. He shut his brokerage down and then joined the SBI.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:08:32

That is amazing. I'm gonna have to make sure that I link. Hopefully he's still doing his Oh yeah, live streams. I think

Robert Kowton: 1:08:39

he does. Oh for sure, he's totally Yeah. He would definitely be interested in being on your show at some point. So he has a great story as well. And as I mentioned about people like Carl, I forgot to mention, geez, Colette Charbonneau, because Blair Charbonneau is her son, but back when, before she had her son, her and I were going through the same struggles, being a solo operator and having no time for vacations and stuff. So I had a good chats with her, so she was super helpful. Brad Clark, I've had some really deep conversations with him. Colette Carolyn Foster, who just retired. So there's been so many, I've, you know, people I've interacted with, with SPI over the years and but yeah, there's, there's many out there. I mean, obviously there's, there's eight. You have so many agents like Dino and stuff like that, and even Johnny in Palm Springs, like and Johnny and Carl out there. But it's just the network is phenomenal. It truly is. And like I said, between the agents, the back office, ar, AP, client care to executive team, and we have other layers in there as well that that and all the tech, tech support that they have, it's we have just, it's all first class.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:09:49

And you also don't have to worry about in house brokers, you know, stealing your customers or your freight. So SPI has that going for them to unlike other agent programs, which, you know, you got to make sure you ask those questions. So Robert, this was an incredible conversation. It's one of my favorite I've had, I've had in a while. So appreciate your time and your education, and can't wait to share this with the audience. Awesome. Well, thanks for having the opportunity to be on your show. Absolutely, we'd love to have you back in the future, especially, you know, maybe, as you know, some of these things calm down, but I think we've been saying that for about six years now, so I don't think it's gonna happen, but we'll still have you back. Well, another time, though, the future,

Robert Kowton: 1:10:25

one you can kind of your mark is we didn't dive into but I'm out. I do quite a bit of is discussing the dangerous good side of things. Oh, that would be a perfect topic for the future. I'm quite knowledgeable on both the TDG in Canada and the CFR 149 in the United States, so I do a lot of cross border dangerous goods.

Blythe Brumleve Milligan: 1:10:44

Well, there is the preview, folks for the next episode of what we're going to talk to to Robert about, because we could probably spend an entire episode just on that topic alone. So Robert, thank you again for coming on. Thanks much. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of everything is logistics, where we talk all things supply chain for the thinkers in freight, if you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube, just by searching. Everything is logistics, and if you're working in freight logistics or supply chain marketing, check out my company, digital dispatch, we help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually try. Results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzzwords, head on over to cargorex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions. All the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the Next episode, in go jags. You you.