Episode 16 - Pick a Niche and Get Rich w/ David Abell of AMT Squirrel Works

In this episode Michael sits down with David Abell for a wide ranging conversation. They cover David's professional career, how to build a successful brokerage team, how he read 65 books last year, the role of an online presence for trucking companies and freight brokerages, content on social media, tips for Millennials looking to take their career to the next level in 2020, and more!

 We hope you enjoy this episode and connect with him on Linkedin here.

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Michael:
Welcome to trucking for millennials where we engage with the future of freight happening now. My name is Michael Clements.

Aaron:
And I'm Aaron Dunn and we're here to help trucking and logistics professionals stay up to date and ahead of the curve as our industry evolves.

Michael:
We're connecting with every step of the supply chain as part of our mission to increase transparency and provide world-class freight solutions.

Michael:
Well welcome to trucking for millennials. My name's Michael Clements and I'm here with David Abell of AMT Squirrel Works. David, how are you doing today?

David:
I'm doing well. Doing well. How about yourself?

Michael:
I'm doing terrific. As we were chatting before we got started, just got back from Chicago and trying to figure out some more things about the industry.

David:
Aren't we all.

Michael:
So David you're currently the managing director for AMT Squirrel Works. You've been there since 2016. Your background, you also have a military background of over 15 years, Sergeant first class. Thank you for your service, David.

David:
Yeah, thank you.

Michael:
And then also your background in the transportation industry, you were with AM transport services for a little over eight years where you were a certified transportation broker.

David:
Yeah, no, that's correct. Yeah. You can jump in and kind of explain it all. I feel like there's kind of a jigsaw there. So a little bit about me, growing up I was always interested in IT and that's what I thought I was going to do for a career was something in IT. I'm from a small town in southeastern Illinois, so anytime anybody hears Illinois they automatically think Chicago. We're actually about four hours south of Chicago in kind of farmland country, very rural area. I knew that I was going to be in IT, so I always thought I was going to have to move away. So I always had that in the back of my head. But fortunately for me things kind of played out where I was able to stay around.

David:
So I went to school for IT. I have an undergrad in IT. And then that's where I got into the military. I joined the national guard to patriot and to pay for college. We got deployed to Iraq in the middle of my college kind of adventure there. It kind of changed my perspective on things. I was a combat engineer in the army and it ... I mentioned I always wanted to move away and then the experience in Iraq taught me that, well maybe home's not as bad as I thought it was going to be, I thought I had there. So, I got a degree in IT, went to work for a hospital straight out of college and hated it. I was the network administrator, always messing with routers and switches and stuff and it really just wasn't my thing.

David:
And so I got approached by AM transport, had no idea what a freight broker was, but they needed help. And kind of getting ... Honestly, at first it was just systems, they did just basic IT support stuff. A server and email and things like that. There was about maybe 10 people at the time. This was 2011. So very new, digital freight broker, all this kind of stuff, load matching, all this stuff was ... No one even heard of. Fax was king at this time. And so came in again for the first six, eight months, I didn't even know what the hell a freight broker was. I really didn't kind of put it together. And then learning through the technology piece of it, I started talking to the dispatchers and the customer service people like, what can I help you with, what's broken?

David:
We did a TMS implementation in there and in order to help with the TMS stuff, I had to learn what the hell these guys did every day. We're big advocates of the TIA and at AM Transport, we require all the staff to take their CTB. So I had ... I wasn't doing the job every day, but I still had to study for the CTB and, and pass that, that was the expectation. So learned quite a bit about the industry from that. Fast forward, there's a lot of IT stuff here and there and then about three years ago, we as a company, AM Transport, we noticed that our sales and marketing wasn't quite where we wanted it to be and we were trying to figure out how to get it there, we needed to be a little more modern.

David:
So we reached out to several, we call them big city marketing companies, for us being in the cornfield. And they were smart and they were creative, but they still didn't even know what the hell brokerage was and they didn't want to learn. And they wanted us to pay them to teach them about our industry. Pay them 300 dollars an hour to teach them what freight brokerage was, so then we could pay him some more money. And I don't know, maybe it's just kind of our Midwestern work ethic, but we were like ... We're doers and we were like let's just jump in and see what we can do. So first thing, we needed a new website. We started jumping in, we watched some YouTube videos, we got ahold of a guy, we hired a developer who knew how to build a website.

David:
So we got that knocked out. Then, the website ... We had a website, but it wasn't pretty, so we said oh, we need a graphic designer. Let's get some graphics going and kind of juice this up a bit. So we found some talent for that and we said, okay, now the words just aren't quite right, so let's get a copywriter. So we found some talent for that. And before we know it, we had some pretty things going on the marketing front. We've been around, AM Transport's been around since 1990, so we have a lot of friends in the industry and they said, we like what you guys are doing for your company. Would you be interested in doing it for us?

David:
So Squirrel Works really got started kind of scratching our own itch. And then we said, if there's a need for this out there and we can help some other folks, let's do it. So that's where Squirrel Works really kind of got started. To date we've serviced over about 70 customers in the transportation logistics industry. We only work with transportation companies. I've been very clear since the beginning of Squirrel Works that that's the area I come from, that's what I know, that's what I love. And I don't want to have to learn the insurance business. I don't want to have to learn how to be a plumber. I know trucking and I know how to ... I know how carriers think. I know how brokers think and that's who we want to be able to help.

Michael:
Well cool. I guess I do have to ask, where did the name Squirrel Works come from?

David:
Oh, that's a great question. So we're located, as I said, in a small town. Olney, Illinois is where we're located and we are actually home of the white squirrels. So it's weird. We got little furry albino squirrels running around the town.

Michael:
Well cool. To go back to your time in the military, how do you feel like it prepared you for ... To start to better understand and have a grasp of the logistics industry once you entered it?

David:
Yeah. You know what, to be honest with you, I was a combat engineer, like I said. So I wasn't a truck driver. I didn't really transport anything in the military. But I think the years that I was in the military and the years that we were deployed was kind of ... They were kind of formative years for me. That's whenever you're kind of learning what your values are, what do you stand for, what's you work ethic look like. And I was very blessed. I had a lot of good mentors in the military that were ... My platoon Sergeant, he was an airborne ranger in Mogadishu. So he'd seen some stuff and he was our kind of our mentor while we were in our deployment.

David:
And so I'd say overall it just instilled that work ethic. It was taught to you that if you said you're going to do something, you had to follow through on it. And I think that's ... The most successful brokers and carriers that I see out there, they share that same mentality. It's that I'm not going to give you a load back or I'm going to get that load delivered whenever I say I'm going to get it delivered. That kind of thing.

Michael:
Okay, cool. So you definitely feel like though military time gave you some ... Prepared you well though for your career.

David:
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Without a doubt. I mean, like I said, I got a bachelor's degree and I got a master's degree. I was fortunate enough on the GI bill, so very lucky to have that background. Also I think it makes me more relatable. We have a lot of carrier customers of Squirrel Works and we help them out with digital marketing stuff and a lot of them are veterans as well. And I think it kind of gives me some of that credibility of this guy knows how to get his hands dirty. This guy knows what hard work looks like.

Michael:
Right, well cool. So you were able to go to work for a freight brokerage and your time ... Whenever you went to work for one, it wasn't like you were looking to go work for a freight brokerage, it just kind of happened that way. Right?

David:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Michael:
So what would be though, now that you've been around it and you also have done work for freight brokerages, what would you say are probably the three things that someone who's going to work for a freight brokerage should look for in that company before they make that decision?

David:
I think a lot of it's about culture. Everyone has their own definition of culture, but it's real clear to me. I can tell within the first five minutes of walking into a company now what the culture looks like at that company. Are people talking, are they laughing, are they having fun? Is it real kind of quiet and stuffy and everyone's in their offices, are the phones ringing? Every person that I know in the logistics industry pretty much works their butt off a lot. You spend a lot of time in the office and which isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing, but you need to make sure that you're at a place that you enjoy. I'm a firm believer in where none of us are going to live forever and we've got to maximize the time that we have. And if it's not fun, it's not enjoyable, you just don't overall enjoy yourself then I think you should probably look for something else.

Michael:
And so culture you believe is really an important factor and I guess maybe how you feel the first time you walk into a place?

David:
I think so. How comfortable you feel with it. How are the people. A lot of freight brokerages, their compensation is different. And sometimes that can affect the culture of it. You have some people who if that's you're incentivized to make a bunch of money is to be cut throat and not kind of team player and foster that team innovation, then that can be a tough place to work.

Michael:
As far as personal development goes for a younger person going into a freight brokerage, what are the good freight brokerages do you see are doing to develop their people?

David:
A lot of it comes down to mentoring and training. I encourage people to kind of take a look at a freight brokerage and what are you trying to do at the end of the day. Yeah, you're buying capacity and you're selling capacity, but you're negotiating, you're persuading, you're using communication skills, writing skills, technical skills. I think there's a lot of things that make a person successful at a freight brokerage that you can apply to other things as well. Or you can get that knowledge from other things.

David:
An example, I'm a avid reader. I love to read. I'll read ... I think I read 65 books last year. Those aren't books on freight brokerage. Those are business books, those are personal development books. But I think it's extremely important to be able to say how can this book on a SAS company in Silicon Valley or how can a book on this or that, how can I apply that to my business? And I think the people that are able to do that, and I think the leaders of these companies that are able to encourage that and foster that, I think at the end of the day everybody wins if you can do that.

Michael:
So I have to ask, if you read 65 books in a year, what is your ... How do you fit that into your schedule? Where is your time for reading? How do you make that time?

David:
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't watch TV. That's what it comes down to. I have two little kids and the only time our TV comes on at our house is if they're watching something. One of kind of the hacks I have right, wrong or otherwise is I've always got a few different books going, three or four different books going. And so wherever I'm at, I got a book on my nightstand I read, I got a book at the office if I have some downtime, I have a book on Kindle on my phone. A lot of people, they spend their time scrolling on Twitter or Instagram. If I'm on my phone and I got some time, then I'm reading a book. I think that it's easy to get distracted by headlines all the time. People want to read this real short kind of blog post or something. And I would encourage you to use that time to read a book cause I think it's going to be a little more ... In the long run it's going to probably serve you a little bit better.

Michael:
Cool. Well that definitely helps. And I mean I'm someone I'm looking for strategies and things on how to become a better reader and I know there's others around me that are so that's really helpful. And I guess it's just making that time and filling in the gaps where maybe you're using it for just blow off time.

David:
Yeah. Yeah it is. I mean it comes down to it as we've all got 24 hours in a day and you see people like how does Elon Musk and Bill Gates and all these super successful people doing it. And I think it just comes down to their time blocking, they're prioritizing their time.

Michael:
How much time have you seen do freight brokerages spend with their employees on their own personal development?

David:
I've been in the industry for almost a decade now and I would say over the last maybe 18 months to two years, it's the most I've ever seen. And it's on things like freight waves is a great example. Show and going to the freight wave show just to see what else is out there. To hear some of the speakers. I went the freight waves conference in Atlanta, the last one, Gary Vandercheck headlined it, there were some other people there. Going to conferences, events, TIA puts on a great show every year. I think it's that spending time with your people. We have a rule here at Squirrel Works and at AM Transport, if we're going to go to some sort of multi-day event like that, we don't say to hotel. We stay at an Airbnb. It's two reasons. One is it's a lot of times it's cheaper financially, but the other time is that it gives you that time with your person, with your coworker there where you can eat breakfast together, you can have a beer there together versus being secluded in a hotel room where you're missing out on that extra time.

Michael:
That's cool. I think that's really good advice, especially for teams that like to travel and things that. Airbnb, that's pretty cool.

David:
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Michael:
So shifting gears over to more the technology side and the marketing side, how do you feel about owner operators, should they have websites and if you're leased onto another company, should you still have your own website?

David:
I think it comes down to personal branding. Every case is a little bit different. And I personally, I believe, yeah, if you have a company, no matter if that's a one truck operation or however large it is, I think you should have a personal website there. Or your company website, I'm sorry. And to be able to be easily found. You should have your pertinent information on there. I think a lot of it comes back to reputation. And that doesn't matter if you are ... I think this goes to freight brokers, this goes to carriers, this goes to whoever where a lot of times we're selling. We're outbound selling, so we're calling. If you're an owner operator, you're calling a freight broker, you're trying to get them to negotiate on this load and you're selling the confidence that you can do the job. And so if they go back and you have a nice looking website, that's only going to help that, help your case on that versus if you don't have anything at all that's acceptable. But if you have a really crappy one, they're going to kind of question that and be like what kind of equipment is this guy really operating, does he really care about about my freight.

Michael:
Right. And how often do you feel like tracking companies should update their website? And is it important to have an up to date website and not something that maybe looks like it was built with Microsoft 95.

David:
Oh yeah. I mean it absolutely is. We have a saying, it depends on the strategy, but you need to think about your website as kind of like the sign out in front of your building. If you're a business owner and you roll up and your sign's all busted up and letters are missing, you're going to get that replaced. It' no different than your online sign, your digital footprint out there. It's the craziest thing, I could tell you some stories where ... We have guys who ... Freight brokers we've talked to, prospects where they have a ton of people who no longer work for the company that are still on their website. This one guy, he's the president of a company, his name's misspelled on his website. His last name is misspelled but he doesn't see the value in it, he won't pay somebody to fix that. It's the weirdest thing to me.

Michael:
Yeah, I have to agree. I came across some people in different industries and some of them just don't care about it. And it baffles me. I mean, it's 2019 and if our website just has something wrong with it, I'm freaking out, we got to get this updated, that's not right.

David:
Yeah.

Michael:
There's others out there and what's even weirder is that I do see some businesses that are still successful, even without good websites. But I think those are more legacy companies and people that are already established. I don't see if you can ... I don't think you can start a business these days and not have a good website.

David:
Yeah. Well I don't want to say never on anything. I think you're leaving money on the table, that's for sure. Our parents always tell us not to judge a book by its cover, but we do unfortunately. And I think a website's a good example of that.

Michael:
How important do you think it is to companies trying to recruit the best talent to have an up to date website?

David:
Oh man. We did a big push last year, as everybody ... Everyone was trying to hire drivers. And it just came down to companies got commoditized and we did a lot with some video work with companies that were trying to hire drivers specifically. And some of our research in what we found was the rate per mile you got to be in the same ballpark. You can't be not paying market wages. But honestly, a lot of it come down to how did the driver feel by ... How does the company make the driver feel. That's what's most important to them and is going to want to make them switch. So if you feel ... If your website's not driver friendly or driver focused, whatever you want to call it, you don't talk about home time, you don't talk about maybe some of the other benefits you have or show what other drivers think about your company, then I think you're missing out. I really do.

Michael:
How about social media? How important is social media to ... Should be to a transportation company's strategy these days?

David:
Yeah, I think for a trucking company specifically, I think you got to be on Facebook right now. Drivers are on Facebook, they're everywhere on Facebook and if you're looking to hire drivers or you're looking to top grade your fleet right now, drivers have a lot of time on their hands while they're getting ... They're taking their breaks while they're getting loaded, while they're getting unloaded. They're on Facebook, they're commenting, they're keeping in touch with and family. And you're going to catch them at a good time where maybe they've been at a shipper receiver for a really long time, they're frustrated. Maybe their current dispatcher's not doing anything to help them in that situation. So they're on Facebook and if they see the right ad, they see the right thing that's going to peak their interest, I think you have a really high chance to convert those guys.

Michael:
Awesome. Well, and really last question just is kind of just for our millennial audience and those that are looking to really start their careers, whether it's in transportation or whatever direction they're going. But what skills that school didn't teach, do you feel like the younger generation should be focusing on developing in 2020?

David:
Oh man, that's a great question. Like I said, I've got a master's in business administration that I was fortunate enough that the army paid for. But I'll tell everybody, man, I've learned more from reading books than I ever learned in business school. And I think you could take a thousand dollars and spend it on Amazon buying books or hell even get a library card for free and rent books and just learn stuff. YouTube I think is a great asset. We've learned so many things on the digital marketing front for my company that we just learned on YouTube. Udemy. One of the biggest things too that I think people under utilize is for all the brokers out there, LinkedIn is a great resource.

David:
I don't know how many times in the last year I didn't know how to do something personally and so I would just post and ask for help on LinkedIn. If you're good and your have a healthy network to where you're not always taking from people, you're providing good stuff back and you're connected to some very thoughtful people as well, you're going to get help. And I think that's very underutilized. It kind of baffles me if you need help with something, ask some people to who you think are good at it, get their opinion on it.

Michael:
That's super good advice. And coming from somebody who whenever they were younger, it was harder to ask for help, I can definitely agree. It's a lot easier for me to ask others for help now and there's a great benefit to doing that. But you also have what are you putting out there to help others.

David:
That's a great point. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. You can't always take, you have to ... I think that's where freight brokers sometimes miss the boat a little bit on guys, I don't think you got a lot of secret sauce that a lot of other people don't know about. And there are some companies with some secret sauce, but I think for the most part you get way more out of it if you can connect with other people. We're all in this together, especially freight brokers of a certain size and below. We all have to band together and I think as much as you can collaborate, you can network. There's enough freight out there for everybody if you can view it that way.

Michael:
Cool. Well, David, is there anything else you want to chat about or anything? What's going on with you? What's next for you?

David:
Oh man. So we're doing a lot of strategy stuff for 2020 right now. One of the biggest things I think that's kind of shifted with Squirrel Works is when we first started it was all about websites because that was the first step. A lot of companies didn't have a good website. So as we've been evangelizing that and we've helped several companies and and companies have done it on their own and if you can do it on your own, that's awesome. But I think now it's kind of the version two is what is your website doing for you? Are you tracking the analytics on it or how much revenue are you getting from it? If you're not getting revenue, why aren't you getting revenue? One of the biggest things that I think that is a misconception out there is people hear SEO, and we get calls like this all the time of, can I pay you to ... I need shippers that are going to call me all the time now.

David:
There's this thing, my grandson or my son told me about SEO. And if we have good SEO, then we're going to get all these shippers to call us. And the fact of the matter is you're not going to own SEO, you're not going to own the term for a freight broker or best freight brokerage or something like that. So I think SEO is kind of a misconception for freight brokerages because a lot of times shippers, they're not Googling, they're just not a target audience out there where shippers are I'm going to go to Google and look for a freight broker.

Michael:
Right. And that is a challenge because it is hard to figure out how to build your site or build your I guess like you said your SEO [inaudible 00:25:33]. Go ahead.

David:
Well I was going to say, we really believe that it comes down to you got to build a [inaudible 00:25:44] strategy. You got to say I'm going to have an outbound sales team or here's my outbound sales efforts, now how does our website compliment that. And one of the biggest mistakes we see is everybody wants to do too many things and we're firm believers in I love the phrase, pick a niche and get rich. And I think that's what ... I think more people would be successful if they just did that. And they made it real clear, we only do intra-Texas flatbed or we do full truckload dry van in Illinois or we only service high value pharmaceutical companies. And it's okay if another company comes your way, but I think if you're clear on that as a company and you say these are the type of customers that are most compatible with us as a company then I think you're going to win in the long run doing that versus saying we do all modes, all 48 states and if it ships we can figure it out.

Michael:
Well, that gives me one more question. As far as brokerages website, should it be geared 50 percent towards shippers, 50 percent towards carriers, or should it be more trending towards one way or the other?

David:
Our rule of thumb is if you're a carrier, I think your website needs to be geared towards getting drivers. And I think if you're a broker, I think your website needs to be geared towards shippers and customers. I think that there are some carriers that maybe if you offer an online portal to look for available loads or you can check status of payment or something, I think you definitely need to have that on there. But I don't know, I think a lot of times with carriers it comes down to do you have desirable freight that they want at a decent rate that they're going to be able to move it for. I don't think they're necessarily going to read anything on your website that's going to change their mind on that.

Michael:
Right. Well cool. I think that's some great insight, man. Well, David, man, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and I think our audience is going to get some great insights into a few different subjects from you today.

David:
Yeah, no, absolutely. No, it was great. And yeah, for anybody out there, I'm on LinkedIn and our website, so if you want to get ahold of me, definitely send me a LinkedIn message. And like I said, I think we're all in this together and if I can help somebody out there, I'd be more than happy to.

Michael:
Awesome. Well, David, man, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and if there's ever anything we can do or want to connect again, feel free to reach out.

David:
Yeah, absolutely. No, thank you. Thanks again. Have a great weekend.

Michael:
Thanks for coming on the show.

Katie:
Hello, this is Katie from PDQ America. I wanted to invite you to join our newsletter, The Transmitter. If you'd like to receive the latest trucking news, industry insights and other valuable information every week, visit go dot PDQ America dot com slash podcast.