Building Truck N Hustle to 144k Subscribers with Rahmel Wattley

August 02, 2023

Episode Transcript

Rahmel Wattley discusses starting Truck N Hustle as a passion project, growing it into a multimedia empire, transitioning to on-location video interviews, and using positivity and opportunity to build community in transportation. He and Blythe Brumleve explore leveraging partnerships, using AI tools, and creating crossover content.

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Everything is Logistics is a podcast for the thinkers in freight. Follow the podcast to never miss an episode.

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See full episode transcriptTranscript is autogenerated by AI

Blythe Brumleve: 0:00

LinkedIn presents. Welcome into another episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. We are proudly presented by SPI Logistics and I am your Blythe Brumleve. Today we are welcoming in the one and only founder of Truck N Hustle, a Rahmel Wattley. Welcome back into the show, ramel.

Rahmel Wattley: 0:28

Hey, it's an honor and a privilege and a pleasure to be back. Blythe, how are you doing? What's going on?

Blythe Brumleve: 0:35

I'm doing fantastic because right before we hit record on this I was explaining like look, but we've chatted before for the freight wave show, cyberlead. That's a little bit more structured. We got 15, 20 minutes to kind of hit maybe 10 questions, tom. But here the beauty of the podcast format, when you're independent, is being able to go as long as you want to and have the conversation go anywhere you want. So I'm really really excited to have this conversation because you, sir, have been blowing up.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:04

Thank you, I'm all about no structure. I don't want any rules, I don't want any barriers around the conversation. Let's go, let's talk about it. I'm ready.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:13

Awesome. So, ok, well, first before, because we're going to be talking a lot about content in this, but I want the folks who may not, for if you've been living under a rock, you may not know about Ramel. What's your backstory? Were you in trucking before you started making content for Truckin' Hustle? Give us a little bit about that background.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:32

Yeah, ok, so I'll get into that, but first, before I do that, I want to congratulate you, blythe, on all your growth. You are like a rock star. I've seen and been watching, been taking notes. Everything in Logistics Podcast is amazing. It's so smart and just amazing content. I love it. I'm a big fan. I want to put that out there first.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:49

Check this in the mail.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:51

Now I answer your question, all right. So my background, my background, is definitely heavily transportation rooted. I've been in transportation half my life. I got into business around 22, 23, getting my CDL. Got my CDL as really a means to an end because at that time I was on unemployment and I didn't have anything else to do and I was looking for a job. Previously to that, I was a realtor. I was one of the youngest realtors in the city where I lived at Well, not really a city, more so a suburb where I lived at and real estate was very difficult, although I was trying to make my rounds and get some contacts and so forth. It's very hard to list people's houses, especially when you're a 20-year-old kid and most of the people that you're listening to are like 50 and 40. And they're like I'm not giving this kid my most prized possession to control. So did real estate for a year Didn't really work out. So I went and got a CDL. After I got my CDL I quickly learned that driving a truck wasn't for me just because I wasn't comfortable behind the wheel. So I passed my test, got my CDL, but I knew driving wasn't gonna be my thing. So I was like what can I do within this industry? But at the time I still had the CDL, so I was gonna figure it out. I was going around looking for different driving jobs and I ended up meeting somebody who's a young guy. He worked for a company called Bond Transfer. What Bond Transfer did? They were on location with a place. They had an onsite office at a place called Ball Plastics. Now with Ball Plastics they made Pepsi bottles. So the resin would come into that Ball Plastics facility, the little resin balls. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but they would put it in a machine. This whole thing would happen and they would blow up into little Pepsi bottles. So those bottles would go onto 22 pallets. We'd ship them out all over the country. So basically I was looking to potentially get a job there as a driver. But when I met the guy, I explained to him that, listen, driving is really not my thing. I'm not very comfortable behind the wheel, but I'm just doing it as a means to end. And he was like hey, man, would you ever consider being a dispatcher? Now, at that time I didn't even really know what a dispatcher was. So I was like what is that? So he was like you know, it's basically managing the guys. He was like you know, you seem very personable, you seem like a nice guy. It seemed like the guys would listen to you. Are you comfortable with managing people Like you know? How do you feel about that? And I was like, yeah, I've had some experience doing that previously. So I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds great. How much is a job paying? Right? Cause ultimately that was the key Like I need to make some money here. He was like 40, it was like 40 to $45,000 now, and that time 2003, 2004,. Like that was a lot of money, right, especially for a kid who didn't have a college education, any background like that. I didn't have any background in the industry, I didn't have a college degree. So for me, getting a job that was a salary job at $40 to $45,000 as an entry level position was amazing. I was like there's nowhere else that I can find this opportunity. So I was like, sure, let's do it. So I got the job, ended up, you know, doing very well, learned very quickly. The guy who actually hired me ended up getting fired because they were like falsifying, like creating, like fake companies, and they were creating fake companies and like they were paying. He was paying himself, right. So he ended up running this mom and pop company up for like $300,000, right, wow, he ended up getting let go. So because the company was actually in Baltimore, maryland, but we had a location in Cinnamon, new Jersey, at Ball Plastics. So because of that they had nobody really there from their company. It was only myself, the guy, and like two other people who were like administrative people, like you know, kind of working on payroll and so forth and like you know more so like scheduling and all that planning. So it was a very small office. So because I kind of knew the most at that time, I ended up running that account. So about a year later after being hired, I ended up running that account. It was a multi-million dollar Pepsi account and I really learned a lot about transportation at during that time, so fast forward that they ended up going out of business. They ended up losing the account not because of me, just because of their own. You know their own thing. That was doing my thing, I was okay, but you know they had their own financial problems. They were a small family business, like a generational business that had been in business for a while and kind of like the kids took over and the kids weren't as passionate as the. You know the grandfather, the father and so forth.

Blythe Brumleve: 6:20

You know that whole thing kind of goes they didn't have the discipline.

Rahmel Wattley: 6:22

They didn't have the discipline, so they kind of wanted to sell it off and get rid of it and just do something different right, when things weren't going as well as they maybe saw it going. So they ended up selling. I ended up working for Ryder Ryder Integrated Logistics, which is their RIL division right, and that's basically like their local accounts and I worked for the CVS account. So CVS, you know it was a very arduous, grueling account. We were just delivering to CVS's 24, 7, 365. I ran about 60 drivers or so and it was just like a very, very it was a lot of stress, a very stressful job, right. I did that for about seven years. I worked my way up through the ranks at Ryder until I finally decided I wanted to do something for myself and I wanted to explore other entrepreneurial exploits. So just kind of thinking about the different businesses I wanted to do, I had been in trucking for, at this point, almost 10 years or so, and I was like you know, it makes sense for me to continue being in the transportation industry. You know, what can I do? What kind of business could I start While I was working at CVS? One of the things that would happen was, like I said, we had about 60 drivers that were always, you know, our regular driver, our regular driver pool. But because CVS has so many seasonal spikes right, whether it was Thanksgiving, or rather it was Christmas or Valentine's Day and they would always have like a lot of additional loads during these time frames, we would do something. We would outsource drivers and we would get what we call temp agencies or lease companies to kind of work. So we would bring these drivers that were employed under another company but they would come and work for CVS or for Ryder as if they were Ryder drivers. So I saw that as an opportunity, because I'm dispatching all these guys, I'm building relationships with all the drivers, so I know them, I'm calling them, I'm booking them and then also I would speak with the dispatchers on the driver leasing side and the owners, and I was just very curious about the business and in addition to that, I was able to see like the paperwork, like the billables, like how much money were they billing for these drivers and so forth and how much money were they making, cause I knew how much the drivers were getting paid. I knew my say we're billing. So I'm like doing a math, I'm like hold up. There's like a good like $13, $14 in between there that you know somebody's getting and it's not the driver right. So I'm like that's an interesting business. So I ended up starting my own staffing agency in 2015. And I left Ryder and I started doing that. I grew that business. I built that business to about $1.2 million in the first year purely off of just demand. I didn't have any idea what I was doing, but because there was such a heavy demand for drivers at that time, I was able to create a lot of relationships. I had some post office contracts and some other things and we just blew up really fast. On the flip side of that, because I didn't understand business well, I ended up owning about $200 to $300,000 to workers comp right. So even though I made a bunch of money, I was still in the red because I didn't understand business right and that was just a big struggle for me. You know myself. It caused a lot of issues between myself and my partner and we just kind of went through it. We ended up. I ended up selling that business to him because we just we weren't seeing eye to eye on a lot of things. There were some other things that he did that were kind of unethical and so forth. I won't even get into that. But I ended up selling that business and when I sold that business was when I started trucking hustle, right. So that was like the interim, because I had some money right From the sale of the business I wanted to start over, but I was just like kind of drained and just burnt out from just that whole process. So I started trucking hustle because during that time I was an avid podcast listener. I love podcasts, I love, you know, self development and I would always listen to podcasts about, like you know, like e-commerce or, you know, stocks or just general business or self development advice, right. And I was like I would love to start a podcast but I don't know what to start it about, right, just not really thinking through the whole thing. I seen a big picture and I was like what could I start a podcast about? Cause I always wanted to use my voice for good, to help people. And then one day just hit me. I was like man, I've been in transportation for so long and I've had, you know, all these ups and downs and I have a story. Let me start a podcast about the trucking business or about transportation, about logistics, right, and I just did it. So I kind of, you know, before I did it I kind of surveyed the landscape, saw what was out there. And, number one, I didn't find a lot of podcasts out there. There wasn't a ton of things out there, but everything I did find out there it wasn't very interesting to me, right, full transparency. I found some stuff in them like I don't know if I'd really listened to this, right. So I wanted to create a show that would have all the benefits of what those shows had like in terms of the education or the information, but just had some soul and just kind of had some stories and had something that was a little bit more interesting to people, right, because my overall goal in starting a podcast was, number one, I wanted to talk about, you know, my experience, but I wanted to shed light on other entrepreneurs and just talk about that journey. So I did my first podcast. My first podcast was with a guy named Dante Dean. Dante actually worked for me, worked for Ryder with me, I was his dispatcher, he was one of my drivers, right, and I watched Dante transition from being a company driver for Ryder to getting his own truck and becoming a owner operator working in the ports right Doing intermodal freight. So I watched his transition and, on the flip side, he watched my transition going from working to Ryder to starting my staffing business and actually now sending drivers to Ryder right as a owner, as opposed to working for Ryder as a dispatcher. So we just talked about that whole you talked about earlier like going back to the first podcast. That was it. It was me and Dante Dean talking about that full circle moment of us both leaving the same place Ryder him going off on his journey, me going off on my journey and where we kind of, you know, met there right. So it was just really interesting having that conversation. After that just started reaching out to some other people in the network, then started reaching out to some other people who were just strangers and just looking for amazing stories, people who I thought were cool, just using like Instagram or LinkedIn or different social media channels, just kind of like stalking people's pages, like, oh man, I like that, you know, come on my podcast and eventually just really grew legs. Man, like the traction was crazy. People received it very well and they just started to wanna. You know, it just became a thing like oh man, I can't wait to the next episode, I wanna hear it. And you know, it just turned around from where I'm reaching out to people. Now people are reaching out to me like they wanna be on the podcast. So it became very easy to book guests at that point, cause now they're all DMing me and like I wanna get on, I wanna get on, and that was the start of Truckin' Hustle. That was really the beginning and that's kinda how everything started. And you know, I look back and that's been the last four years and it's been history ever since. And since then we've, you know, we kinda go into the story of what we built after that, but that's kinda like the origin story of everything.

Blythe Brumleve: 13:08

So it sounds like you had a very like business oriented mind ahead of time, not just sounds like, I mean, clearly you did, because you sold businesses. So how did you, I guess, approach the business aspect of content? Cause I mean, it's very, I think, challenging for a lot of business operators to even start thinking of creating content, cause their immediate question is, well, what's the ROI of this? So, how did I think it would be interesting to hear, like the business case, that I'm gonna start up this content journey and see where it goes? Or did you already have in mind of how you were gonna monetize it, how you were gonna make a business out of it?

Rahmel Wattley: 13:48

Yeah, that's a great question. I had no idea of life Like I. Literally it was a passion project for me. I didn't think about it from a because, again, when I started it it was in an interim. It was like a break for me and it was just something I wanted to do for fun, really, because I was exploring a new space. Like I said, I always wanted to use my voice for good and to help people. So for me it was like let me just get on this microphone and talk to my friends and talk to people in my network about this business and about entrepreneurship and have fun. At that point I saw the opportunity in it, but I didn't really fully evaluate the complete opportunity or what it could really be. I didn't really start understanding that until maybe like a year later, when people start reaching out to me and start trying to leverage my audience and they're like, hey, we wanna get in front of your people, how can we make that happen? Like that's when it's like, oh, okay, this is a business, but really going into it, it was very organic. It wasn't for the because, truthfully, in podcasting there's not a lot of money, right, you have to create those revenue streams and you have to make a business out of it and figure out how you're gonna monetize it. So at that point, for me it was solely just getting on, getting a microphone, doing virtual interviews and that was it. I'll just publish them and then whatever happens happens after that, just build an audience. But there was no end goal at the time, which is completely opposite to what I tell people now who are looking to get into podcasting. But for me, I didn't take my own advice now, I just got into it just for fun. I wanted to see where it would go and I just literally had. I was just having fun, that's all, that's all. It was a break for me. It was an outlet. It was literally an outlet for me. That's all it was.

Blythe Brumleve: 15:28

That same for me, like I came from like the sports and entertainment world, and that was always just fun, like there is no money in sports and entertainment unless you say some crazy stuff and get on one side of the political aisle or the other. So that just wasn't gonna be for me and I said, well, let me start up a podcast to promote my business, digital dispatch. And then the podcast just sort of took off faster than the business did. So now it's like, well, I guess we'll do this podcast thing and then see, try to make a business out of that. So it's trying to kind of, I guess, walk the fine line of being a business owner and creating content and how those worlds kind of mesh together, and it kind of sounds like that was the same journey for you too.

Rahmel Wattley: 16:12

You know it's so funny and like literally like, I started another staffing company very shortly after I sold my first one, right. So I stayed in the business. I had all the same contacts and everything. So I just really just stopped just to really stop being with my partner and just started all over again, right, but I never even plugged my company Like that's how much of a passion project it was. To this day a lot of people don't even know I own a staffing business. It's kind of like I just there were separate entities. I didn't really want to combine the two and if I was smart I could have been getting tons of leads to my own company, but I never talked about it. It was just a separate thing for me Because, again, it was literally just an outlet. So it wasn't for lead generation, it wasn't anything. It was just solely to just talk on the microphone and just hear people's stories. It was just fun for me. That was it.

Blythe Brumleve: 17:01

Well, how did it go from? You mentioned you were doing virtual conversations, but I would argue that you're more known for flying to the sites in person and doing those interviews there, which is unheard of, Like nobody else is doing that in the industry. But, that's where you get the best conversation. So how did it go from you doing virtual to you deciding no, this is something that we need to really invest in camera crew microphones on set flying to these guests? How did it evolve from to that?

Rahmel Wattley: 17:33

Yeah, it was one podcast that I did. It was with DeMarco Thomas from Metro Max. It was the first actual in-person podcast I did. I flew out to Atlanta because I was actually attending somebody else's conference at the time and you know, I was like I don't know. I had spoken with DeMarco and I was like, hey, I'm coming to Atlanta. You know, while I'm there, let's just shoot a podcast, right, I had never done it before. So we did that and that podcast blew up, right. And then when I put it on YouTube, that podcast right now has about almost 800,000 views.

Blythe Brumleve: 18:08

It's your second video, by the way, right.

Rahmel Wattley: 18:10

Right, right. So at the, at the at the time it was, it wasn't as it wasn't that big, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't as down views, but it was probably like maybe 20, 30, 40,000. I'm like, hold on, you know, like this, there's something to this YouTube thing, right, mind you, I used to like mess with my, my, my daughters about wanting to be on YouTube and wanting to do all this YouTube content. I'm like you're not going to beat, there's no future in being a YouTube creator. Like, why are you wasting your time YouTube and in creating videos and all these different things with slime and all that that? They were doing it and I'm just laughing at them like man, y'all are wasting your life and I end up being a YouTuber. I'm with the plaque in the background. I'm the king YouTuber of the family. Now, right, and I was the one who was just totally shutting it down back in a day. But when I saw that video have so much traction and I realized that how many people can just stumble upon your content? Right, because in podcast is very specific, is very niche specific. If you're not a podcast listener, nine, nine times out of 10, you're not going to real people are going to stumble upon your podcast, right? So you already have to be kind of in the podcast ecosystem and you will look around for other podcasts about the, about your interests. But if you're not a podcast listener, you're not going to find it unless it's somewhere else. So I was like, if I want to grow this thing, if I want to take it to the next level, I got to get on YouTube. That's where it's at Right, that's where I'm going to have the opportunities, where people are going to stumble on their content and that's going to help 10 X the growth of not only just the brand but also it'll trickle down into the audio podcast as well, which it did. So that one video. So if you look at like the content, you'll see like the difference between when that was shot and then the next set of videos were shot. There's like a year gap, right, because it's I was still doing virtual after that, but then I look back and I was like this video is doing so well, and then I said you know what? We got a double down. So I talked to, I got with my childhood friend who's my executive producer today. His name is Quaku. He was actually working for Vice Media at the time and I told him about Chuck and also he knew about the whole journey. He was there from the start, the idea and everything. But it was still a virtual thing. And I was like, hey, man, you know, it would be great If, like, we could just like join forces and if I could have somebody who could shoot for me all the time. We could do this in person content. And he was like, you know, let's do it. His, his, his, his vice situation wasn't like a permanent situation, it was more like a as needed basis, so he wasn't working full time with them, so we had time to fly out with me and do different things and we just teamed up and then that was it, man. We started going out and just shooting everything and once we shot one, it was like we're not going back to virtual, it's over, it's like all on location from here on out and if we're not on location or in a studio, we're doing something. Cause once you get the feeling of like that in studio and you're seeing yourself shoot, shot on the camera, and you're you're just seeing all those cuts in those shots, it's hard to go backwards. It's like you feel like, yeah, like it's a real production now, right, so it's just hard to go back to the virtual. So yeah, that's kind of like that was the origin of the, the in-person content, and we haven't really looked back. We've done some virtual stuff but for the most part maybe 90, 90, 95% has been all in person.

Blythe Brumleve: 21:22

Are you in freight sales with a book of business looking for a new home? Or perhaps you're a freight agent in need of a better partnership? These are the kinds of conversations we're exploring in our podcast interview series called the freight agent trenches, sponsored by SPI Logistics. Now I can tell you all day that SPI is one of the most successful logistics firms in North America, who helps their agents with back office operations such as admin, finance, it and sales. But I would much rather you hear it directly from SPI's freight agents themselves. And what better way to do that than by listening to the experienced freight agents tell their stories behind the how and the why they joined SPI? Hit the freight agent link in our show notes to listen to these conversations or, if you're ready to make the jump, visit spi3plcom. In our industry we talk. We talk about what works and what doesn't, and Carton Cloud's easy to use warehouse and transport management software sure has people talking. Carton Cloud's WMS and TMS is designed for growing 3PLs, giving you the tools you need to compete with the major players With flexible pricing, no lock in contracts and expert local support. They've helped nearly 500 logistics companies worldwide with hundreds of five-star customer reviews. Want to check it out for yourself. Everything is logistics. Listeners can get 50% off your first three months with Carton Cloud. Head on over to the cartoncloudcom website and see the show notes for more information. How are you choosing? Because you mentioned earlier about you know now folks are reaching out to you to come on the show. How do you sort of vet who's worth the investment of flying out and all the equipment and the time and the energy? How do you know if they're going to be a good interview?

Rahmel Wattley: 23:14

You know that's such a great question. The good thing is we're because we built a community like we have a network of people that tend to refer other people to be on the show, right. So a lot of the people who are on the show are friends of people who are already on the show, right. So a lot of times like that is one level of vetting that we already don't have to do Because it's like all right, if they vouch for you, they're good right. Now it's just a matter of having a conversation, just kind of setting expectations, and then everybody's on the same page. But most of the content that we shoot is usually a friend of a friend who's already been either in our network or already on Truckin' Hustle. And then there's other people who will just check them out. You know, we'll check out their LinkedIn, we'll check out their profile, we'll look up their MC numbers, make sure they are who they say they are, because that's very important to us.

Blythe Brumleve: 23:58

Now You're doing a Carrier 411 before you do an interview.

Rahmel Wattley: 24:01

Carrier 411 on them because, listen, man, it's a lot of people you know. Let's be for real, like, this industry became very trendy during the pandemic, there's a lot of people who got into, like, the course creation business and they're selling information. And a lot of people selling information aren't really who they say they are. So, in order to keep the integrity of our platform, we have to make sure that anybody we bring on the show is who they say they are, and that doesn't mean that they have to be some super large success with millions of dollars. You could be just starting and have a great story, it doesn't matter, but you just have to be genuine. You have to be who you say you are, and that's really what's important to us and for us. We just look for stories that are just out the box, that are just different, that are unique, that you know, people that I like to say like you know, we want to be the first to expose people to our audience into the world, like we want to make, like stars in transportation and logistics. Right, so you've been working hard, your nose has been down, You've been grinding. Nobody has, nobody knows about all this work you've been putting in, but when you come on truck and hustle man. You're a celebrity. Now it's over, it's game over, right? So now, yeah, your email's blowing up, your inbox is blowing up, and then it just takes people to another level in terms of just notoriety, which is amazing. Their business and everything they were doing before that was already what it was, but now they just get to get that credit and get that spotlight put on them and just people be able, you know, give them that love that they deserve Because, at the end of the day, like their job and what they do is so super important and what they built needs to be recognized. So that's what I pride myself on. Like I love taking somebody who no one has really heard about and bringing them on truck and hustle and then they just explode. Like that brings me joy, you know, because I feel like we're forever ingrained in the DNA of that person's. You know, whatever they do moving forward, that's why I call it the hustle fam. It's like your family now. Like you can't shake that. We're a part of you now, right, we're a part of your story. So I love like finding those like breakout stories. That's what we really pride ourselves on.

Blythe Brumleve: 26:02

And now you're starting and I don't want to say you're starting because I'm not sure, you know, with the pandemic, you know with people's comfort levels if they're going to go to conferences or not. You know, that was all kind of like, you know, evolving for a lot of different folks, but for you, when did you, I guess, start turning because you fly out to do all these in person interviews but then you're starting to do more conferences and things like that. How did that evolve into going to conferences and shooting content there?

Rahmel Wattley: 26:30

Yeah, so you know, when we started doing the conferences and networking events, you know, covid was still a very real thing, like people were still, you know, talking about it. It was in the conversation, it was dying down, but there was still like a lot of restrictions and a lot of you know, just just road roadblocks and barriers, right. They were even talking about, like what was the other one? Monkeypox was the oldest thing, right, and now it's a variance, all these different variants. So it was scary, right, like doing that because number one, just for our own health, and then number two, obviously for the health of the general public, and then number three, for just the health of our business People can actually come to these events, right. So taking that leap of faith was interesting. I think we kind of just made a decision earlier that we felt comfortable, that people were in a space where they were willing to come out, just kind of looking at the general landscape and seeing what everybody was doing. This was around 2021-ish, right. Like you know, okay, we're starting to see people are moving out, moving around a little bit, and that is funny. That was one of the reasons why we did our first conference in Texas, because we knew Texas was one of those states where, like you know, they're outlawed. Like they, they don't care, right, you know, you got like Nevada, you got like Texas, like they're the place Florida. You know, it doesn't matter what's going on in the world, they're going to do whatever they want to do, right. So we were like, if we do do it, you know, obviously we looked at our data, our analytics, we saw where our listenership was, where people were watching us from, and those were the places also. But it just kind of turned out where we were like, hey, so where do we have the most, the biggest chance of this not getting shut down because of some type of, you know, quote unquote, pandemic or whatever that's going on right now? And that was one of the places Right. So that's one of the reasons why we chose Houston, texas, to do freight fest. And you know, man, you know, thankfully, like we did it, we pulled it off and it was an amazing success. We've just been moving forward ever since. But it was really just we had to just go on faith life. Like it was just, we didn't know what was going to happen. We were I was, you know, nervous through the whole process, you know, until I started seeing those sick of sales kind of rolling and I'm like, all right, people are coming, and if they not coming, they already spent their money. So they better come because the mind giving them money back. You know it's too late now, so so when we saw, you know, sick of sales rolling, we're like, all right now we feel comfortable that we're going to be able to make this happen and it got a little bit better. But it was definitely scary because we started our conferences and networking events during the pandemic on the tail end. I mean, we're supposedly still in the pandemic, but it was on the tail end of it. It was starting to die down, but it was still very real.

Blythe Brumleve: 29:11

It was still very real Because I remember I went to my first conference in the summer of 2021 and I'm in Florida. So the pandemic I don't know that it ever really happened. I was staying with you shut down for like a month and then things started opening back up. But I remember the distinct feeling of and I kind of sounds weird to say, but I remember feeling like I need to go to this to show other people that we need to, it's important to get back together in person again and that we need to be. There's a certain level of energy and magic that happens. You know, virtual conversations are one thing, but nothing can replace that in person Conversation. And it sounds like that. That's exactly what you guys did at your first freight fest.

Rahmel Wattley: 29:57

Yeah, for sure. I mean like it's a very like sensitive situation because it's like a lot of people, you know, lost their lives to COVID and, like you know, there's a lot of tragic tragedy, but it's like we have to move forward at some time. We can't just stay in the house and we have to move forward. So, yeah, we, we just felt like we, we were willing to, willing to take that risk. Of course we were safe, we made sure that any, you know, we took all the the COVID protocol safety measures and, you know, made sure it wasn't a bunch of people in the room and all that and that was a lot of it on each other. You know, that was another thing. Like the people, like when we were doing interviews and stuff like that, people were very open to it, like there wasn't a lot of resistance. So that was kind of like the indicator, like, oh, yeah, we want to do in person, and you like, cool, come on through, are you sure? Like yeah, no problem, but what are you talking about? So that was an indicator Okay, people are ready to start moving forward and doing some in person stuff. So, and it really paid off for us because we started we started that while everybody was still home, so because we're willing to go and do the what everybody else wasn't willing to do, it gave us that little bit of an edge, you know, in terms of just content and production and everything like that. So it was pretty cool.

Blythe Brumleve: 31:08

What's the difference between putting on an event and putting on a show? Is it kind of the same yeah?

Rahmel Wattley: 31:16

yeah, yeah, so we have. We have two different types of events that we do right now. Right, and we'll be adding some more because we have some other things that we're planning, but we have what we call our reset. Right, our reset is our quarterly networking event. What? And we just had one in Philadelphia. If you look at my Instagram page, you'll see it was crazy about the crowd is nuts, it was bananas. But yeah, so we do that quarterly. So the first one we did was in Atlanta, georgia, june 2021. Right, june was a 20. No 22, 22. Last year, I'm sorry. June 2022 was our first one. We, we, we, we, we, we. We plan for 80 people. Right, we had a small venue. We said this is our first time we're going to try something like this. We're going to do a networking event 80 people. That event ended up selling out. It was like 150 people in there to the fire marshal had to come and say you can't have anybody else in here. We literally had to turn people away at the door. No one else could come in, right, so when that happened, we're like all right, we're on to something here this is doing. We're on to something here. People want to come out. People want to get together. We turned around. Two months later July, august, august, I think it was August 28th we did a networking event in Houston, 450 people, 450 people. It was crazy. It was like wow. And then the feedback, like everybody was like oh, this is the greatest event. So now we're like this is a thing, right, this is a thing. We're not stopping. We got to keep on doing it. So that was like the birth of like the idea, like we're going to keep on doing this and we're not going to stop and we're going to like, go to every single city in the country, Right. So then we kept them moving forward. Then we did Orlando, now we just did Philadelphia and now in the 29th we're doing Chicago. So the reset is our quarterly networking event. Well, with these two in July, it's not really quarterly. We had to squeeze them together because we have freight fest coming up too. So, and what it is is it's a brunch, so we have brunch. So we always choose a restaurant or venue that has amazing food. We go, we taste, test the food, make sure the food is a one, right. So it's a brunch. We always give, like, free mimosas and stuff like that. So people. Could, you know, wind down and relax the adults. Of course, right On top of the brunch we do a, we do some networking games. So we play actual games. We take it back to third grade and we do games to encourage people to get together and network. Cause you know what we saw when we did the first initial events people will come but they're like introverted, right, so they'll be in the corner and they're like, ah, you know I want to talk, but you know nobody's talking to me and I don't really know what to say. And you know, can you introduce me to somebody? So we're like, eh, we got to stop that. Right, you came here, you spent your money. We got to make sure you make a, make a good connection. So we started doing games and the games are like the game changer, because now we literally like I get on stage and I'm like all right, this is how the game is going to go. If you have a yellow tag, you need to go and network with somebody with a red tag. If you have a green tag, go with a blue tag, you got five minutes, go, right, and everybody goes and get together to network and we just have this big experience. And then we have another game that we play where we like pass around a ball and when you catch it you got to it. All these different games that we're playing. So we have the gaming aspect of what we call like speed networking or like kind of like forced networking, right Then on top of that we have a live panel, so we do like a live presentation. So in Philadelphia we had Amika Sahr, who is a great friend of mine. He has a company called multi funding. He is, I believe, the seventh or eighth largest funder in the country. Oh, like with the banks. So it's like, you know, like Chase, you know I'm a Kassar, like he's up there.

Blythe Brumleve: 35:01

He's up there right.

Rahmel Wattley: 35:04

But he's. He's the president of a company, a organization called entrepreneurs organization. He's very into community work and he wants to give back. So any opportunity that I'm he gets to help, he's always there and he's. He speaks at freight fest and he's just always a great friend and he's just always. He's gonna be in Chicago with me too. He's. That's my guy. So anybody who doesn't know I'm a Gassar, google him. Like. His stuff speaks for himself. And then we had Hyro Cruz, who's a dump truck entrepreneur. He has 27 dump trucks and he also has about 40 dump trucks that he, you know, brokers and puts to work. He pretty much runs like the whole, like North Jersey. If you come to North Jersey and you go on a turnpike, you're going to see like Hyro's trucks all up and down the turnpike. So we did I'm he presented. He did a presentation, like a 30 minute presentation about funding making sure you know how to prepare yourself for funding, how to you know, you know, know if you're on the right track, wrong track, so forth, and so on. And then we did a live podcast with Hyro talking about dump trucks. You know everything you need to know about the different bills that are being passed, sort of the money that's being put into the government for dump truck companies and so forth. Talk about the opportunities from a real business person's perspective, actually what he's going through right now. Right, so we do that. And then, lastly, we have some form of entertainment or some type of celebrity guest, just to like really round it out. So in this Philadelphia we had Walo, who is a very popular podcaster. They have a podcast called Million Dollars Worth a Game. He's very popular in Philadelphia, so he was there. He gave like a. It was supposed to be 30 minutes. He ended up going like an hour and 10 minutes. He just, he just kept on going. He was loving it. He just wouldn't stop. So so Walo went up in there and did his thing. So prior to that we've had like 112 perform. We've had who else did we have? I forgot who else are performers. We had a guy named Trey, the Truth and Houston, just different people, and that's another thing. We always have people from the city. So it's like that's a part of like us showing love to the city. We bring a performer or entertainer or a public figure from the city to kind of come in there and be a part of the event as well. So it's like a four tiered event. So you're going to come, you're going to eat, you're going to network, we're going to make sure you make some connections, you're going to get educated, you're going to learn something about a niche, because we can't teach you about the whole industry in one sitting. We're going to talk about one niche and then we're going to have some sort of entertainment and some idea just for fun, just to kind of round it up. So that is what the reset is. Freight Fest, on the other hand, is our conference. That is our you know what I like to call truck and hustle on steroids right, where we bring all of the different people that you've seen on the truck and hustle platform together in one place. And it's just like Voltron, right Like all, like if all those questions that you've been wanting to ask you could ask them all right here, because they're all here together in one place. So that was the whole idea. Like how could we get? Because you know, like I said once, once you come on the truck and hustle platform, the DMs are getting blown up. It just is what it is right. So it's like, how could we get all these people in one room to present on one stage, to share, to add value? And that's what Freight Fest is. So we leverage our, our amazing network and then other people who haven't been on the show. So we have a ton of people that are in a pipeline, that we haven't gotten to release their episodes yet or we're still talking to them about what the episode is going to look like, and it's just like, but they're already in the family you we just had. You haven't seen them yet. You know what I mean. So we just start bringing those people together and that's what Freight Fest is and it's. You know, last year it was really about just kind of introducing a bunch of niches to people and a bunch of things that people may have not been aware of in terms of, like, educating them on it. This year we really focus it around opportunities, right, because we've obviously we know transportation trucking is just, it's been brutal right Last couple of months with everything going on rates and all that good stuff. So it's like how could we add the most value to our attendees, how could we create opportunities to where not only do they go and they get to network and meet people, but they could leave with actual business opportunities? So I've brought people like Greg Reed, you know, from USPS, who's going to be talking about how you can become a carrier with the post office, right, like, like, like you know people that are going to be able to. I'm bringing a Porsche Jackson from the Houston OBO, the Office of Business Opportunities, talking about federal, local contracts with the state of Houston that are sitting there that are just not being taken advantage of because nobody knows about them. You know what I mean. So it's all about this year. So we're going to, obviously we're going to still have our trucking and also family, but it's like, where are the opportunities are at, because that's what people need right now. They need opportunities. So we really focus on bringing together people that can give opportunities to people, and that's what Freyfest is going to be about this year.

Blythe Brumleve: 39:50

So OK, so, if I have it all correct, you have this like multimedia empire on social media, like millions of followers collectively, like on all these different platforms. You got the YouTube, you know, plaque in the back which, by the way, do they just automatically mail that to you Like, how does that work? Like, yeah, yeah.

Rahmel Wattley: 40:06

So they reach out to you. So once you hit that target, that 100,000, they'll send you an email, you know, through your back end, and they'll say hey, you know how do you want your plaque? What do you want written on it, you know, do you want?

Blythe Brumleve: 40:16

to ribbon.

Rahmel Wattley: 40:17

Do you want it to be? Want to ribbon on it? Do you want to be delivered DHL or UPS? I'm just joking about all that stuff.

Blythe Brumleve: 40:21

But I was about to say I want all the bells and whistles, I want champagne, I want a guy in a top hat delivering it. I want gloves on him.

Rahmel Wattley: 40:28

Like no, no, it's literally just type your name in and then they just send you a plaque and that's it. You know, I would like to believe it was all that stuff, like that's how it felt when I received it, but it was just. You know, here you go, here goes your plaque, just like everybody else, but uh so okay, so all right.

Blythe Brumleve: 40:43

So you got the, you got the YouTube, you have social media, obviously, that you're dominating on. Then you have all of the, the micro events and then the one big event. Do you foresee, like keeping up with this, you know, sort of frequency, because it's such an amazing output of frequency for a content creator. Like, how do you do all of this and not get burnt out?

Rahmel Wattley: 41:04

Four letters T E A M. Love it. That is a four letters T E A M. And I would be nowhere without my team. I have a team of amazing people who make all of this stuff happen, who cover everything, end to end, from the, from the back end to you know our sponsorships and selling, and you know, to the visuals, to the content that's put out every day. All I have to do, literally, is just guide the ship. That's it. I love that. Guide the ship. I'm able to just look big vision, make the connections we need to make you know and just guide the ship. This is where we're going, guys, help me get there and that's and that's what they do. So it still is very stressful, it still is a lot of work, but the team makes it easy.

Blythe Brumleve: 41:53

What does the team look like? Does it, you know, maybe five people, 10 people? Give us a little bit of the behind the scenes? Look.

Rahmel Wattley: 41:59

Yeah, so my team is about five people and I also have an offshore team that I work with for content. So my my internal, like you know team is five people kind of dealing, and in addition to that, I'll talk to you about the podcast network too, that I just got an extension of my team. But. But yeah, so my team is really like you know. I have somebody who works in sales, somebody who works in kind of like guess relations, like customer relations, kind of interfacing with our current sponsors and, you know, any opportunities coming up, just kind of scouting new opportunities and so forth. I have Kweiku who works on the visuals, the visual side. My wife also works with my, with with me on the events, so she's putting together the events. My daughter's work with me with the merch, so yeah, so our team is about like five, five, six. And then we have a team that works with us for social media, so all the content that we create. We have a strategy on posting and how we're going to put content out there. So yeah, so all together our team's probably about 10 with the social media team offshore, but then it's like five here in the States.

Blythe Brumleve: 43:03

How do you, I guess, decide what's what's worth being published? And because there's so much, I think you know, coming from like my personal perspective, I'm getting emails all the time of people who want to be on the podcast, which is it's a great problem to have, but also it's it's sort of frustrating at times because it's sometimes you feel like you're just interviewing other people and not working on the actual business itself, and it kind of sounds like that's where the team comes into play and really helps, you know, manage the little aspects of the things that that you don't technically need to be doing, and then so you can focus more on the things that you need to be doing.

Rahmel Wattley: 43:41

Right, right. So to answer your first question, how do we decide what's worth being published? We have, like you know, we have a North Star, or we have a mission right For truck and hustle. Right, our, our, our vision is to globally connect transportation and logistics professionals. Right, that is our mission. So if, if the content isn't about connecting people right in some way, shape or form, then we're not, we're not going to put it out there. So we're not really into like gossip, we're not into like gotcha moments, we're not into like you know, the things that would potentially give us tons of views, like, yeah, we could probably create, you know, stir up controversy and stuff like that. But we're not into controversial content and that may be like a longer game, because our platform is we want to have a clean platform, we want to have a platform that's inviting to everybody. We want everybody to feel like they can be a part of it and they can share their story and they don't have to worry about us stabbing them in the back once they turn around. So we keep everything very clean, we keep our relationships very clean and we don't. We want to make, we want to make everybody shine in their best light, right. So I tell everybody I interview you. It's like hey look, I'm here to make you look your best, I'm here to make you look amazing, right? So you know you don't have to share everything. I'm not. I'm not forcing you to share everything, because every everybody has some. Some everything's are always peachy and creamy and, you know, glitter, like everybody has something that's not great that you may not want to share. If you want to share it, that's fine, but that's not what we're about. We're not because there's a lot of media out there that's just looking for gotcha type of moments to try to put that out there and that's what, because that's what gets to views. Honestly, that's. People love controversy, people love drama, but we've chosen to take the high road of just like. We want to just make everybody shine in their best light, because we feel long for longevity. That's what's going to make us stand out and make us be the platform that everybody wants to be a part of, because without the whole, without everybody, we can't exist, right? So we need the community to want to buy into this thing. So we're very conscious of making sure that content is very positive and always rooted in positivity, love and caring and sharing and learning and all those good things, and that's kind of like what my that's, that's, that's, that's who I am. You know that I'm not perfect, but that's who I want to be, that's what I strive to be. So I try to make the brand an extension of that. So all the content that we do, you know, has to go through that filter. Like, is it? Is it on in line with our values and who we are? And if it's not, then we won't put it like we get people send us like you know. You know, different clips of different things happen all the time in the industry and sometimes we'll share it, but sometimes we're like, nah, that's a little bit too much, like that's too negative, we don't, we don't want that like on our page, right? So most of the times it's like you know, it's always going to be something that's going to uplift you, right. And now we got to. We got to cover the news too, and the news isn't always great. So we cover news. But my goal is like, how can we put a positive spin on things? How can we show the silver lining in things? Like, even though things are bad, what's the good that's going to come out of that. Let's always try to look for that, always try to find that. So that's why I always challenge my team to do and that's that's kind of our North Star and we feel like by doing that it sets us up to be accepted by everybody, because that's our goal. We want everybody to accept us as a platform and want to be a part of it, because we're not trying to just be. You know, some people take the road of like, you know, we have a niche audience and we're going to cater to that audience and we're going to talk that talk and you know, and that and you and it could make you, you know, blow up in that space and you could be huge in that space. But that's not really our approach. Our approach is yeah, you know, we know we can't be everything to everybody, but we can be fair to everybody. We can be, you know, decent to everybody and then, hopefully, and being fair and decent and being responsible, everybody will want to be a part of what we're doing Right. So we're not taking sides, we're just being right in the middle, we're just walking that line, but always keeping love and just, you know, that kind of spirit in the forefront and that's what you're going to see, and a great thing like is it resonates, is it shows when we have events right, there's never any issues in our events. You got hundreds of people stacked on top of each other with drinks. You know what I mean. Like this, everybody's loving each other right. Like everybody's hugging, high-fiving, smiling, connecting, because that is a tone that we set, that is the energy that we put out there, so we reciprocate that energy. Nobody comes into our space or our environment to and brings anything less, because they know what we're about already. So I think we've done a great job of just putting an understanding of who we are Like. Even and there's even when there's trolls on social media come on our page and say little stupid stuff. I'm like man, I wish you the best. Comment to them. That sounds great. You're entitled to your opinion. I wish you all the best. And then guess what? They shut up. They ain't got nothing else to say You're not, you're not fanning that flame, you're not, you're not fanning that flame. And that's all people want is attention. They want you to fan the flame of negativity and we're just not into that, because I'm not. We're not going to argue with somebody we don't know. We're not going to go back and forth with somebody who's we don't know who you are. You don't have a profile picture. We just like a ghost. You could be like 12 years old in the room somewhere and we're going to waste energy on you when we could be using that same energy to pour back into all these people that love us. No, we're not going to do that. So we just, we just we channel our energy in the right direction and that's it, and that's what we do.

Blythe Brumleve: 49:07

I love the mindset of, even if you know something crazy is going on in the world or in the industry, you're still going to find those moments of hope and positivity, because that's you know that? That was something my grandma used to tell me, which is like look for the hell in times of chaos, look for the helpers, and with your content and a lot of the messaging that you're putting across, you're helping people find those different opportunities. I want to switch gears a little bit, because there's we have a new social media app on the horizon that has, you know, entered into, I think, a lot of our, our, I think, 100 over 100 million, as we speak, with threads that just came out last week. Fastest app to you know, 100 million users in record time, which is insane, and so from like a social media perspective. So you do all this work on on, you know, the guest booking and making sure the conversation fits within the brand and the North Star. But then, after the interview is recorded, talk to me about what your social strategy is. How do you decide what platform to put your energy into and which platforms to kind of say, I'm going to wait on this because I saw that you're you're, you're on threads now. You had the podcast announcement, so so tell us a little bit about your first your podcast announcement, and then your social, how you think about social media.

Rahmel Wattley: 50:26

Yeah, so great questions, like you have good questions, alright, so alright, so I'll tell you about the podcast announcement first and then we'll go into social media. So we talked about team. We talked about, you know, trucking hustle being being nothing without the team. And then not only our internal team but also our partnerships and the people who are behind us. Like you know, otr solutions, you know some of our other sponsors, fleet drive, 360, gtt, commercial tires, adp, now just our different partnerships that we developed along the way. Right, so we're nothing without those partnerships. So, with the, with the podcast network announcement, what we found was we had a ton of inbound leads of people who wanted to work with us that we just did not have the, the bandwidth or the stamina to keep up with. Right to vet, to follow up with, to make the phone calls, to sit down to have our conversation, another follow up our conversation, another one with their leadership team, and all that. We don't have the time to do that, and I'm sure you know right, because it's a process, right dealing with it right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's levels to this. Right, you got to talk with. The first level is the next level, next level and after that is like another three levels. Right, just to get to like a simple like yes or no, just cut the check. Cut the check man. Cut the check you. You called for a reason, right? What is taking so long? So, yeah, so it's in order to alleviate all that stress and drama. We started looking for a network. We need we, we we were like we need to. We need to join with somebody who can help filter all these opportunities and help follow up and all the on and vet all these opportunities properly, because we're leaving, transparently, a lot of money on the table one and number two. Just, you know opportunities, because there's so much that come through we. We have an advisor that we work with now, peter Morris. He's from. He's formerly a bar stool sports and you know he told us he was like you know, he worked with bar stool. He worked with our funnier die. He was a part of that. He was CEO of iMac. So this, this guy, is like big in the industry, right in the podcast and media space, and when we connected with him he was like man, like he's like I've never seen this amount of inbound inquiries of people wanting to work with you and I've worked for some of the biggest just inbound leads. He's like this is crazy. So he was like you guys have to join forces with somebody to manage all this, because it's a lot for you to manage internally if you don't have the sales team already built in, and we didn't. We were managing in ourselves. You know, between myself and, you know, a couple of my team members, and a lot has fallen through the cracks because we're still trying to plan events, create content, work on the merch business, work on other business that we're doing in, and still have a bunch of phone calls and have meetings all day. So you know, we had a few different meetings with with different networks that were all very interested in our numbers and just our niche, because our niche is so very specific that it opens up a whole new door of sales for these networks. Because there's no, but there's not I don't know what I was saying nobody, but there's not a lot of people doing the numbers that we're doing in the, in the transportation and logistics space. So that opportunity is like amazing, because now you're opening up a world of, like you know, goodyear tires and I don't want to name anybody but tire companies or fuel places in this and factoring and insurance and all these different verticals that they would have never necessarily had conversations with because that's not who their primary target is. So it was just a win-win for both of us, right? It opens them up to a whole entire new opportunity or world of people they can do business, they can sell to and for us. It gives us a sales team that we need in order to be able to facilitate all these relationships and inbound leads that were coming to us. So, you know, we got together with a couple different companies and we landed on Evergreen podcast network. They're an amazing network. They're I like them because I felt like we could grow with them. I didn't want to join somebody who I felt like we just be a number. Right, like they have a bunch of other like really, really super highly rated podcasts and we have to fight to get somebody on the phone because they're busy doing other things. I wanted somewhere where we could fall right into place and we'd be a priority. Right, and they have amazing podcasts, amazing downloads, amazing distribution. But we were able to fit right into that ecosystem and immediately impact what was going on there. When they saw we were bringing to the table was like, oh, we need a team on this, we need to put a team on Shruck and Hustle's account, and that's what I needed. So we had opportunities to do with some other ones that maybe more people would have heard of her. But I was like, nah, we want somebody we could grow with together and let's build them up and they build us up at the same time and we and now we're like you know, it's just a better relationship for us. That's just how I like to do things. I like to grow with people. I don't want to be a priority to you, so if I'm not a priority, then for me, like I'm kind of wasting my time, I'd rather just get in, deal with your priorities and just let me fly. So when I got that feeling that we would be a priority to them and they just kind of were like you know, we love what you're doing, we're so excited about the opportunity. They flew us out to Cleveland. We went out there to go meet with them, go meet their staff, and they were just so excited about everything. It was like all right, this is going to work, let's do it. So we went ahead and we made that partnership and you know it's been great. You know it's there's, there's. The challenge is helping them to understand who we are right, because they've never sold, you know transportation related content right, but as they, as they show up and start learning and we do more meetings, it's like they're getting great at it and they're going to be they're going to be a powerhouse soon and that probably frees up your staff and you and your staff to kind of focus on the areas where maybe you should be more focused on and the stuff like on camera stuff, you know, dealing with guests and things like that.

Blythe Brumleve: 56:41

Like the stuff that you should. The only person can really do is you versus they're handling some of the other stuff where you can kind of offload it to them 100%, because the thing is, at the end of the day, the, the.

Rahmel Wattley: 56:53

There's a book called what is a book called the. Is it the? Q is something about the queen B role. I forgot what it is, but it's a good book out if it's probably my office somewhere, but anyway the book talks about. You have to identify like what's the queen B, like what's the main thing that drives everything else in your business, right, and for me it's content. That's it. If we, if we are delivering content and we're getting in our numbers and analytics are where they need to be, it drives everything else. We don't have to sell because it sells itself, right? We don't have to, you know, convince you to put a truck and hustle shirt on because everybody wants one. It's like that is. The main thing that we need to focus on is content, content, content, content. So all I need to think about is how can I take truck and hustle and do more truck and hustle and keep on stacking truck and hustles on top of truck and hustles in different way? Because, if that's the only important thing, because without that, everything else stops right, nobody comes to the event if they don't know what truck and hustle is, you know, you don't have hundreds of people or thousands of people in the ballroom if they weren't watching the podcast to begin with. So it all starts back at the content. That is the queen B of everything, that makes all the honey. So, to your point, yes, I needed to free up my time to focus on vision and content. How could we create just different types of offerings that people are going to be interested in? Because I don't want to get complacent with just truck and hustle. That's not the end, all be all. That was just the beginning, that was just a springboard. That was. You know, it doesn't stop there, it only begins there. So I have to focus on how can we keep on up in our game and keep on doing different things. That just makes this, you know, media like. You call it an empire. I don't think it's an empire yet, but you know this media conglomerate, you know. But what makes it work? Right? So we have to just keep on like just being just thinking outside the box. I'm always paying attention what everybody else is doing. When everybody else is zigging, I'm zagging, I like, okay, they're doing that, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to do this. That's the way I look at things. I'm like, if they're doing it, it's too late. I don't want to do that because you spoiled it for me. I don't even. It don't feel good to me anymore. Right, I want to do something different. So it's like I'm always trying to figure out new ways to present different things. So that's what's all about. It's all about the content at the end of the day.

Blythe Brumleve: 59:12

Okay, and I want to change my social media question because you know, I think for a brand like you, you kind of have to be on every platform and but with a lot of the folks that you're talking to, you know, I don't mean this as like a slight, but they're small to medium business size owners, even they're doing millions of dollars and very successful. For a lot of these businesses, they don't think about content, they don't think about marketing. For those folks who have a successful business, and based on your experience with running content, what advice would you give to some of these other small business owners out there of the power of content and how they can get started and maybe not be on every single social media platform, but maybe one or two? What advice would you give to a small business owner to help use content to take them to the next level so they could be a future guest on Truckin' Hustle?

Rahmel Wattley: 1:00:06

Yeah, so great, great question again. So I would say to any small business owner, any business owner in general number one you know you have to have some sort of social media presence these days if you're going to compete. That's one. So let's just get that out the way, right. Let's just that, whatever belief you had, like, let's just get that out the way, because, yeah, you can be the business that we don't need that, but you're going to very be quickly put out of business by somebody else who has it right. Number two you know, if you're running a business, you have content, right. If you're an operator, like for real, if you're in the field, if every day you get up and you are running a business, man, not only do you have content, you have amazing content. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how are you going to translate what you do every day and project that onto the screen, whether it's through visual content, whether it's through the written word, whether it's through quick threads or quick tweets, whatever that is. You need to figure out what's your strength, right, and how can you translate that onto social media in some type of way and for every. It doesn't have to always be visual, but you have to start somewhere, right. That could be tweeting. That could be what are you calling threading now, is it threading the needle? What is it threads?

Blythe Brumleve: 1:01:19

I guess threads I guess is a thread they're using app names.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:01:24

I don't know that they don't have the little thing yet, right? No, they ripped that off. Yet We'll get to that too, so so so, whether that's going to be your things, because you could build a business with the written word, just like you could build it with visual content as well. So I think the thing is is you have to number one, find your comfort zone and find your strength to start right Before you get out your comfort zone. I want you to find your comfort zone right and I want you to start there, and I want you to take what's going on in your business every day and just be very open and very transparent with your business. I think we are coming into the age where everybody knows all your business anyway. You can't hide anything. So you might as well be the first one to control the narrative. You know what I mean, because there's nothing that could be hidden at this point. If people want to know your financials, they could find it. If people want to know how many people work for your company, they want to know about that lawsuit last week, they would. You might as well control the narrative, because they it will be found out regardless, right? So I say control your narrative, figure out what is the best distribution channel for you? And I think all of them are good, because there's millions of people everywhere. It doesn't matter whether you want to go LinkedIn heavy, whether you want to go Twitter, you want to go Threads, instagram, youtube, everywhere you can find people. But it's just, it's a matter of not getting caught up in oh, what's the best one? Okay, well, facebook has 500 million and Instagram has 700 million, and I want to go with the 700 million choice, because you don't have 10 in any of them. Right, you don't have 10 followers in any of those different platforms, so why does it even matter? So, I think, find a platform that's most comfortable to you. If you're, if you're not really like, like tech savvy, you're not into, like you know, you don't know how to do reels and all that good stuff. Do whatever is simple for you. And I would say, figure out the best way to translate what you do every day in your business and create content with that. That could just be your thoughts of the day. That could be you know different business opportunities that you're thinking of. That could be you know, just your projections of the, the, the world as you see it, whatever it is, but always related and bring it back to your business with some sort of call to action. Hey, dm me if you like this, this comment, or you know, check us out. You know, check out our website. You know where we have more of this Some. You always want to have some sort of call to action to make people come back to find you if they like what you're doing. So you do that. You do it consistently. Create a cadence for yourself. I always tell people when they're starting to do content create a bunch of content at first, right, like if you have a bunch of thoughts, just just like right, like 50 or 20 or something down, and then that will be like your first months worth of content to start getting you going right. So that way you don't fall behind, because one thing you don't want to do is, once you start, you don't want to stop, you don't want to feel like, oh, I don't got nothing to say today. So plan it out like ahead of time and just get that, get that like that, that, that running start. So now you can start working while you have your running start already, kind of going, you already have your content, kind of planning. You can start building off of that and now you're already kind of getting feedback, you're feeling some love, you're feeling good about it and now you're like all right, cool, I want to keep on doing this because I'm getting the feedback that I want. Because, ultimately, a lot of what stops people a lot of times is not receiving back what they feel like they're pouring out right. The reason why people stop podcasting is because when they go on the app and they see that 24 people listened, it's like what am I doing this for, right? So that's very discouraging. If you're doing it for a couple weeks, a couple months, and you're seeing your numbers aren't growing, so you know when, when that hits you. If you don't have the resilience to keep on going, you're kind of like I'm wasting my time here. This isn't for me, right. But if you have a bunch of content planned before, it's like I've already done this, it's already done, let me just see where it goes. And then you start working while that's being published, while that's being produced, and now you're building some momentum. Right Now you start building some momentum and then it starts, like I said, you need that, that, that that encouragement to kind of keep on going. And I would say also on top of that, you know, if you're just kind of lost, like, look at other people's content, man, copy people's content. If you don't know what to say, just you know, go on Craig Fuller's Instagram, twitter and just copy and paste what he did and just put it on yours. You know what I'm saying? Go on, blythe, just say everything about logistics. I've read your tomatoes this season. That's my post for the day.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:05:44

I'm gonna call you out if you steal my post. That's all I'm gonna say.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:05:49

Just start, but just get comfortable. But no, but cite, but cite the person if you have you know whatever, but I'm. But my point is, you know, sometimes don't even got to be original content, it's just content that resonates with you, just like start posting and start doing something, and then you'll start building it up, you'll find your own voice, and then you'll, you'll, you'll get there eventually.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:06:09

So it's crazy how many of the like, all the like, the top 100, you know freight tech companies are top 100 carriers or whatever. It's crazy how many of those companies have no idea what they're doing when it comes to their marketing and it comes to their content. So real quick, like case studies is you can pull that list and then go look at each one of their social profiles for those top companies and then see what's performing the best for them and then replicate it for your own business. I mean that that's the easiest way you have it full. That's a great thing about social media is you can see right off the bat like what car that performs the best and which content doesn't really resonate for you know. A variety of reasons. But you can. You can finagle it, you can kind of massage it a little bit to work for you.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:06:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, Because at the end of the day, if you think of content in a whole, most content is an aggregation of other people's content, right? So there's nothing wrong with taking other things from other places and putting your own spin on it. That's all. Content is people you may look at. You may go to one page for all your news, but all that news is other people's hard work and labor and they put it on this one website and they're getting all the money and all the view and all praise for it. It's crazy, right? All it is just other people's stuff. She's got to become good at finding that, finding what's good out there.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:07:27

So that's it, the curator. And sometimes if you, if you're not going to be the creator, be the curator and that will lead you into becoming, you know, the being, that creator yourself. Now I know you said that you have to go soon, but I just have a couple more like sort of rapid fire questions for you.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:07:43

Keep rolling. I'm having fun. I always have fun with you, Blay.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:07:47

I mean, literally an hour just went by like super quick. Okay, so I have a few like recurring questions that I like to ask each guest to kind of get a good feel on where they're at. So, attention, economy question, how to? Well, I guess this doesn't really apply to you because it's a you know, how do you market your business and your personal brand, which this my whole brand and business marketing. Just point to the logo, like yeah that's it Getting up in the morning. Okay, this one Favorite social platform, and why.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:08:21

Oh, so my favorite? Okay, Great question. My favorite social platform right now is LinkedIn. The reason why is because I was late to the party and I'm learning it now. So it's a challenge for me personally to figure out how do I crack the code of being a voice, a thought leader, on LinkedIn, and that's what I'm really working on. Everything else I've kind of figured out. So for me, the one that's my favorite is the one that's the biggest challenge, because everything else is kind of easy. We got to understand how those other ones work. But I love LinkedIn and, honestly, it was about to be Twitter until threads came out and now I'm like I don't know, do I need to? Should I even focus on this Twitter anymore? Because I don't know what this threads thing? So I'm still kind of up in the air with that. But I think LinkedIn is like one of those platforms that I was always on LinkedIn but in terms of participating in the everyday conversation, just wasn't me. I was like I'm good, but then when I started realizing the power of LinkedIn I started making so many great connections on LinkedIn I was like, okay, I like this platform, Let me start working it. So that's my favorite platform right now is LinkedIn.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:09:30

Everybody hates on LinkedIn. But they don't believe me when I say like that's where the money is, like that's where the people and the barrier, because I think for LinkedIn they're looking for creators and they are. They need creators making good content there, because for so long it was kind of like the cringy, and some of the cringy stuff still exists, of course that's on that platform. You know people kind of like patting themselves on the back and you know showboating and things like that. But if you come from an educational standpoint, of a learning standpoint, which obviously is the truck and hustle brand, then it's just, it's a matter of time before that brand is going to take off.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:10:07

Yeah, I mean to cut you off. But I was just thinking like, when I think of LinkedIn, it's like it's so funny because it's like you know everybody on LinkedIn is like you know, it's like the representation of who people wish they could be or whatever. It's like they're not being their true selves a lot of times, right? So my thing is like the way I'm going to crack the LinkedIn code is just by doing what everybody else wouldn't do, like saying things that you know are just real and genuine to me, and not trying to be this perfectly perfect, corporatized person. Like that is not who I am and I'm not trying to fool you that that's who I am, right. So I'm just like on there being my authentic self and that has worked. Like just saying, like if I just have a thought, I'll just put it out there and say it, still rooted in the same type of you know who I am, but it's like like just being a little bit more unfiltered. Linkedin is a super filtered and that's what made it boring. It's like, come on, man, that's not who you are. I was out with you at the TIA event last month. I know you don't act like that in public.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:11:14

My attitude on Twitter is way different than my attitude on LinkedIn. That's too different. I got my corporate face on with LinkedIn.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:11:23

The profile page sets the tone. It's like you know the pro, like you just got the perfect little profile picture, you got your tie and everything. It's like come on, man, I know this guy, you know, get out of here. That's not who you are. But yeah, it's interesting. But I plan to play a different game on LinkedIn. So let's see, We'll come back in a year and let's see where we're at with it.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:11:40

Heck, yeah, okay, next question Favorite you talked to a lot of people, so favorite supply chain or logistics fact that you've heard from all of your conversations.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:11:50

Wow, that's a good one. Favorite supply chain or logistics fact? Plythe, you asked some great questions. Man, favorite fact? You know I'm dealing in so many stories. It's like I'm just more so. It's hard to think of the facts that people give me, because I hear a lot of facts in the stories, but I'm more focused on the story. I'm trying to think of a good one. Man Plythe, I think you put you on the spot. I don't mind being on the spot. I love this. It's like a great thought exercise. I never thought of a great fact that I learned, and I've talked to people with a lot of good facts. But could we skip this question and come back to it? We could come back to it, because they're definitely great and you come back to it if you run out. It's like family feud.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:12:39

I'll come back to that one, maybe this next one.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:12:41

All right.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:12:42

So any kind of you know. Obviously AI has come into the mix, especially with content generation. How are you feeling about you know AI and using it with content? Are you pro AI or do you dabble in it? What are your thoughts behind it?

Rahmel Wattley: 1:12:56

Yeah, I don't think it matters how I feel about it. I think it's just a necessary evil. It just is what it is. It's crazy because it's like some of the things that I would take like two days working on, I can create in two seconds. It's like a slap in the face. Oh my God, this is ridiculous. But you know, I'm just trying to. You know, I'm very, very like bullish on it, like, for sure, 100%. Like I'm trying to incorporate everything AI into what I'm doing for automation for sure. It's just that I'm still trying to find out, find like okay, where do we insert real person in this process? Because I feel like there still needs to be that. You know, it has to have a spirit somewhere, right? So I'm like, how do we still insert real person? And just trying to figure it out. But yeah, I'm 100% Like 90% of the business could be AI and I just need to keep 10% for us real people out here. And I'm good with that, because this is what it is. It's not. It's not. It's only getting crazier and crazier every single day. So if you're not, if you're not trying to, you know crack the code and learn the different, you know tools, then you're just going to get left behind. You know, be, especially when it comes to like velocity and and, and, and and and, just content and quantity, like just being able to pump out a bunch of stuff. You can't keep up with that man. These tools are crazy. So we've already implemented a ton of AI and, like our clips and you know, different things that we're doing. I mean, we've had, we've had episodes where our mic, our the microphone went out and we've had an AI voice as a person talking. We, there's this, there's this tool where you just plug it in and the person is talking like the mic never went out, sounds, perfect, quality. You don't even need mics anymore. It's like the mic went out, but no, it's perfect because it's AI tool. So it's like it's fixing a lot of the things that we had issues with before. So it's amazing, as long as you know, know where the tools are and know how to find them, and a lot of them are free too.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:14:49

They're all free. Do you have a favorite, like one or two AI tools that you've used?

Rahmel Wattley: 1:14:54

Opus clips that's one.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:14:57

They're such a game changer.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:14:58

Oh my God, it changed the whole game it took a whole job like sorry, but we don't need you to do that. No more Sorry, oh.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:15:05

I said the same thing to a freelance team. I was like I'm not paying y'all, three grand a month.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:15:11

That's kind of not. We could still work together, but not in the same way.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:15:13

Right, you're not doing video clips.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:15:17

And then also the voice one that I told you about. I forgot what the name of that one is.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:15:22

Synthesia or Descript.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:15:24

I think it's synth. I think it's synth. No, it's the script, the script, the script. That's the one, and then what's the other one that we're using? There's this other one that will take your content and oh, what does it do? It's some sort of writing tool. It takes the content and you have a conversation, you have a meeting, right, and then it'll take and it'll break down the meeting for you in different bullet points and you could literally send a recap of the entire meeting. Yeah, I think that's what it is. It's crazy. It just surmises all the important pieces of the meeting and it's in two seconds.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:16:03

And it sends everybody a copy of it too. Sometimes, like they get freaked out, like what is this robot? I was like you'll understand after the meeting is over. Trust me, it's okay.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:16:13

Crazy. So, yeah, those are like my top three and I'm still learning. So I'm like a part of all these different groups and they like have like these lists, like top 20 AI tools, and I just sent it to the team and like go through every one of these and let me know which one is the best and then let's talk about it, let's figure out what we could incorporate. So, yeah, that so, but those are my three that I'm familiar with. There's probably other ones that I don't even know that we're using right now, that the team has just found there working with them, but that was the three that I'm familiar with, for sure.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:16:38

The next one on my list that I haven't found a good solution on and maybe we can, you know, talk offline about. But analytics, website analytics, content analytics I think that that's the next big frontier.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:16:49

You know what's funny? No one is doing analytics great Like, and I don't know why the creator economy is this like the biggest thing in the world right now? And no one is creating a tool for proper analytics. If you do it, if you do get it, it's like, oh, for one or two platforms. You just can't get something to aggregate all your analytics, to be able to package it nicely, to say, hey, this is my listenership, this is who watches me, this is my demographics, like. Why is nobody working on that? I don't understand. It makes no sense to me.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:17:19

It's a billion dollar opportunity for AI developer out there that wants to do this. I'm waiting for Google to do it. Like you have all of our data anyways. You have Google analytics installed on the majority of websites search console, like why are they waiting for this product?

Rahmel Wattley: 1:17:35

You know, when you think about it, it's like is it a bad business? Like because they had? I mean, I know there's people way smarter than both of us. It definitely me. So I'm like what if we could think about it right now in a quick podcast? I know somebody else has thought about this. So why are they not doing it? But what is it about that business that's making people say, nah, you know what? I'd rather create something else. I'm fine with that. You know what is it about? I don't know. But yeah, that would be amazing. I'm waiting. Maybe we should create it, maybe we should do it.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:18:02

I don't. I wouldn't know where to start, but I got a good.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:18:05

I got the problem.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:18:06

I got the problem figured out. I just need to reverse engineer the solution.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:18:11

That's the start. All we need is the problem. We can go from there.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:18:14

Okay, all right. Well, that was about it for my questions, unless you had your logistics, fact oh, my God Well let me Okay, so a couple that come off the top of my head. All right so in any given room that you're in. 90% of those goods arrived at some point were on a ship on a cargo ship and so not a lot of people know that Major everything was. If you bought it, a truck brought it, of course, but most people are not aware that 90% of all goods end up on a cargo ship at some point during their life. That's amazing so that's one I like to share. Another one I like to share is the number one drink in the United States is coffee, because of our you know, I guess relationship with Britain or the UK, and obviously the Boston Tea Party is one of those historical moments where you bunch of you know Americans dumped a bunch of the British Tea into the Boston Harbor. But it was also another reason because the British had such a huge naval fleet, they were trying to do business with China, and when China didn't want to do business within this was like a couple hundred years ago they drugged a lot. The British drugged a lot of the port workers on the coast of China to the point where it created such a pandemic over there, or an epidemic, that China decided to open up to the British and that allowed the British spies to infiltrate and go to these farms in China to find out how they were growing tea so well. And then, once they found that out, then they started growing tea in India and then started importing all of importing all of the Indian tea over to the United Kingdom. And so that's why that tea is the number one drink in Britain and coffee is the number one drink in the United States.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:20:07

I love that. I love that so much. Listen like okay, so number one, I don't have a fact, so I'm just gonna use mine, I'm gonna give up on the fact, but I want to tell you like I love things like that, like that like data when I hear it. I'm not a researcher, right, but I'm definitely like, I'm definitely like a person who can like, once I hear it, I could, I love like iterate and talk on it and just kind of go back and forth and just talk about how interesting it is. I think that's so cool. The matter of fact, there's a, there's a show that I watched. Are you? I know you listen to podcasts too, right, Of course, so do you do? Listen to my first million.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:20:41

Yes, religiously.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:20:43

I love my first million so. I've been thinking about like a podcast that that's around, like that is like a my first million of logistics and, honestly, like kind of like what you're doing, everything is logistics, like it's kind of like that and I love like people coming up with these crazy facts that nobody is thinking of. My only problem is I don't got the time to research another. I need a researcher. But I just love that type of stuff because it's so cool when you just really understand how everything like affects each other. Yes, amazing, and like that's cool. We should do a show together, blay. We need to do more. We need to do our own my first million and collaborate and do something together, because I think that with your research skills and your your content brain and my content brain, we could we make some magic. We should make something happen.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:21:37

Listen, we could absolutely make. We could absolutely make something happen. Who are you telling? I'm trying to get a plaque in the background of my videos too.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:21:47

We got to talk about that offline but no, for real. I love that, I love those facts and you know, just to kind of segue like on to what you're doing with everything is logistics. That is dope, Like I love that. That is so dope, that is cool.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:22:00

Six months as a podcasters since 2014,. Six months into, or now seven months into, the, the independent creator journey, and it's been an incredible learning experience and the fact that I kind of come back to the same thing, like I get to have conversations with smart people smart people like you and to share that information with other people to hopefully help them get to their goals and their dreams. You know a little bit faster than you know what it took me, so that's really the ethos of the show and I'm just, you know, I just feel blessed that I get to do it full time and get paid to do it, Because so many people are out there that want to do the same thing.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:22:37

But they don't see you getting started in 2014. What's motivating you the most to keep on going right now? What is like the driving force when things get hard, when the sponsorships aren't coming the way they should be coming in, or you know the conversations are taking too long, and you know what is driving you right now to keep on, keep going.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:22:56

Conversations are the great. Conversations like this are number one. But then I would also say that it helps to drive business for digital dispatch as well, and when I can have conversations with small business owners, like I had a conversation with a gentleman today who purchased, you know, a website package from me and to be able to tell his story, to help him cut through the noise and the BS of everything that exists out there, you know, with courses and you know website strategy all that good stuff to help him. As he's an immigrant from Mexico, he's been a driver for 25 years, he's opening up his own brokerage. Like that's what drives me is being able to have conversations like this with you and then also be able to help them start their foundation to where they'll be able to grow from there. So that's really that's what drives me, that's what keeps me up, and then also using both of those mechanisms to help my dad retire. My dad has owned a lawn business for close to 40 years. We live in Florida and every summer that comes by and he's still working. I feel like there's there's a lot of work still left to be done, Because while he's still out there in 100 degree heat at you know, 60 plus years old, it drives me crazy. I wish he would retire, but that's also motivation for me to work a little bit harder so I can help him retire a little bit early.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:24:26

Now that that that's it right there. I felt the emotion when you just now talked about that, so that is what really drives you. Yes, that's amazing.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:24:33

That's amazing, I'm going to get emotional if I keep talking about it.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:24:38

I felt that like in my soul when you said that but but that's, that's amazing. But Keep on doing what you're doing. You're doing an amazing job. You're a rock star in this community. We need you. I follow you, I check out. Even if we don't talk every day, I'm always checking out your content. I post it before on LinkedIn, like you are one of the only people I always look at because I just love, like your approach to this industry. So super dope.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:25:04

The interview. I should be closing it out for you.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:25:08

No problem, you want to close, you still can. You still can close it. I'll stay on by.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:25:13

Well, well, first tell us a little bit about the events you got coming up you. You have great fest coming up, of course your your, your couple, networking events? Where can folks find out more information, get tickets, all that good stuff.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:25:24

Yeah, so we have the reset coming up in Chicago, which we explained the reset. If not, you have to rewind all the way back to the beginning and I explained what that was like 10 minutes. That's gonna be Chicago July 29th at Tribe supper club. You can get tickets at trucking hustle, calm, slash reset or e SET and yeah, that's that. And then after that we have our big one, freight fest. You can go to freight fest, calm, www dot freight fest, fri, ght fest, calm. You can get tickets for that. And I and what I'll do is, after this life, I'll I'll give like a code or something like that for people to get 15% off on freight fest tickets for your audience. You can just add it in in your show notes or whatever so people can look out for that. And yeah, we're looking forward to an amazing event. We're working very, very hard on it every single day. The pressure is mounting. You know, next time you interview me, all this black hair may be great Because of these conferences and these, these events, but you know, I'm hoping that it'll all be worth it in the end. But we're working very hard at trucking us. When we just appreciate everybody that supported us, people like yourself, people, you know everybody who gives a shout out, a mention, you know, just a comment. All those little things add up to the, the inertia and the and the momentum that builds who we are. So we really appreciate everybody who follows and loves our content and we're gonna we're not gonna let anybody down. We're gonna keep on leading with love, keep on building this, this amazing platform, and keep on going and blithe. We have to do something together. I'm serious, oh, let's, let's. Seriously, we gonna make some happen.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:27:06

That all sounds good and thank you so much for coming on the show. I mean, obviously you're you're the king of as far as, like, trucking media is concerned, like you've set the bar and you continue To set the bar extremely high. So it helps, you know, motivate folks like myself in order to be better and to create those, those better Conversations, that you don't have to fall into the trap of the negative news cycle and you can continue to, to be a platform for Opportunity and and to really showcase you know where those opportunities are. So, big, big Thanks to you and and your team for for doing all of the work that you're doing and all of the content that you're creating. You're making the industry a lot better because of it. So so thank you again and we'll be sure to link to all of your socials website, the events, of course, all on the show note. So if you are in any of those areas, highly, highly recommend that you go and check out these events and, in the meantime, go and subscribe, truck and hustle all the socials. He's everywhere and he's not going anywhere anytime, so I go anywhere.

Rahmel Wattley: 1:28:07

That's right. Thank you so much, life. I appreciate it so much. I.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:28:16

Hope you enjoyed this episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in it freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show, sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everything is logistics calm. And in addition to the Podcast, I also wanted to let y'all know about another company I operate, and that's digital dispatch, where we help you build a better website. Now, a lot of the times, we hand this task of building a new website or refreshing a current one off to a co-worker's child, a Neighbor down the street or stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually Build the dang website. Well, that doesn't happen at digital dispatch. We've been building online since 2009, but we're also early adopters of AI, automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place to pull in All of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as $1500, along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus, freight marketing and sales content Similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digital dispatchio. Just check out the pricing page once you arrive and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go Jags.

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Everything is Logistics

Blythe Brumleve

Telling the stories behind how stuff (and people!) get from point A to B. Hosted by Blythe Brumleve, a digital marketer with more than a decade of experience in the freight and logistics space— helping companies save time, shorten sales cycles, and stand out from their competition with on-demand digital marketing training.

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