Navigating the LTL Freight Industry

Trey Griggs [00:00:11]:
Hey, Robert. How are you doing?

Robert Kowton [00:00:14]:
Good morning, Trey. How are you?

Trey Griggs [00:00:16]:
It’s good to have you on the show, and this is a great walk-up song, my friend.

Robert Kowton [00:00:21]:
Great stuff.

Trey Griggs [00:00:22]:
I need to let it play for just a little bit, you know. And we will get to Margaritaville later, but it’s always good. And I’ll

Robert Kowton [00:00:27]:
Let it be as smooth as confusing. Smooth in. Right?

Trey Griggs [00:00:29]:
That’s right. That’s right. It’s such a casual song. Such a guitar player? Are you a musician? Do you like that kind of thing, or is this just a just one of your

Robert Kowton [00:00:35]:
My favourite songs are music, and I wish I could play a guitar like yours. I have an uncle who’s very musically talented, but I’m two-left feet when it comes to music. But as far as loving music and its varieties, I’m all for it.

Trey Griggs [00:00:50]:
Well, you enjoy great music, and that’s what matters. And so, thanks for picking that song. That was a great song. And thanks for being on the show. Before we get started, I want to ask you a quick question. Are you a coffee drinker? Do you want a coffee mug? Or are you a water bottle drinker? Do you like water? Which one would you prefer? We’re going to send you one today for me on the show.

Robert Kowton [00:01:06]:
I’m both. You can go with the jeez. That’s a really tough one. I’ll go for coffee.

Trey Griggs [00:01:11]:
Coffee? Or we’ll surprise you and send you both. You never know. But we’ll get one of these out to you today. We appreciate you being on the show today and taking some time to talk a little bit about your expertise. I do have a fun fact about you. We’re gonna start with this. You recently purchased a gravel bike in October for adventure riding, and you’ve been doing this for quite a long time. How’d you get into that?

Robert Kowton [00:01:28]:
Cycling, I used to be a hockey player. I’m in Canada, so most of us play hockey. I played hockey up to about the age of 16, so kind of a higher level hockey, and I kept dislocating my shoulder. And I realized that going, I wasn’t gonna become an NHL player. Right? So I ended up departing, and through my sister, in fact, she had me volunteer at a triathlon. And I used my old mountain bike, a heavy-duty mountain bike out of triathlon. That inspired me, and I got a road bike, which led me to a race team. And. Through a fellow in my community, the Anguero family’s sons, Alex and Paul, have both been to the Commonwealth Games. They were both tracks.

Robert Kowton [00:02:08]:
Like, they’re high-end cyclists. Through that, I got connected to Juventus Cycling in Edmonton. I spent many fantastic years cycling around BC, Alberta, British Columbia, and Alberta, racing and having a lot of fun. It just really taught me a lot about myself and the community. And then, you know, wife, kids, life gets busy. I SPIll bike, but not as much. Then my neighbour reinspired me, and so I started; I ended up getting a newer version of a road bike a few years ago, back in 2017. I still have my original race bike built by Bob Townsend, but I bought another road bike. And then this year, I ended up pointing into gravel because I wanna stay off the highways.

Robert Kowton [00:02:48]:
I can’t trust the road the drivers as they used to be. So, wanna stay off the roads, and a gravel bike is that perfect mix between not. I don’t wanna be a crazy mountain biker flying down hills. So this gives me that mix they call mixed train riding. So you can do a little bit of road, a little bit of gravel, a little bit of singletrack, and have fun.

Trey Griggs [00:03:07]:
Yeah. I’m still thinking about a mountain bike and a triathlon. That’s just double the work. That’s probably a little

Robert Kowton [00:03:11]:
It was.

Trey Griggs [00:03:12]:
A little harder than when I was young.

Robert Kowton [00:03:13]:
I was pretty young. I was 15 or 15 years old or 14 years old. Just happy to

Trey Griggs [00:03:17]:
Be in the race. That’s right. Just happy to be in the race. You know, I looked up what a gravel bike is, and essentially, it’s almost like taking a road bike, listen-speed speed and putting a front suspension on it, and somewhat kinda like mountain bike tires. Little

Robert Kowton [00:03:28]:
Bit of a throttle. New. That’s new. It’s more that the frame is a little bit more beefier than a road bike. The terminology here in 2024 is that they’re built more slack than a road bike. If I showed you my road and gravel bike, you’d see the angles, and the slackness allows you to go down trails. It’s a little more comfortable ride, not as aggressive. So it’s, yeah, very intereSPIng, very intereSPIng.

Trey Griggs [00:03:53]:
Yeah. And I’m with you. I don’t I don’t ride bikes, but I like to run. When I do, I prefer a trail over riding on the road. Not so much for the cars, maybe for the knees, what it does to my knees. But at the same point, it’s much; I think it’s more enjoyable to kinda be out there on, you know, on a trail or on the gravel at so much.

Robert Kowton [00:04:07]:
I’m a runner as well.

Trey Griggs [00:04:08]:
Run. Yep.

Robert Kowton [00:04:08]:
Yeah. Very cool. Appreciate that. Yeah.

Trey Griggs [00:04:10]:
Yeah. What are some of the lessons you’ve learned in some of these endurance races, and how has that helped you in your career?

Robert Kowton [00:04:18]:
I’m gonna say I wouldn’t say I’m a super endurance racer, but I would say that, in fact

Trey Griggs [00:04:21]:
More than most.

Robert Kowton [00:04:22]:
I when I jumped into when I when I jumped into the world of freight brokering, I had started, and I started from ground 0 with no customers. And I remember one day, in fact, I was out for a run, and I’m like, I just had this vision, and I should be in Vancouver. And this was before I joined SPI Logistics. I’ve only been working with two brokerages. And when I started in the freight industry in 20 2008, and then I joined SPI in 2016. But in the summers, around 2,008, I was running, and I thought I should be in Vancouver. So I went out there, and I set out, and I met a bunch of customers. I had some set appointments and some open appointments.

Robert Kowton [00:05:00]:
Through that, I met people. In fact, I’ve been servicing two of the customers out there since that visit—since 2008.

Trey Griggs [00:05:09]:
Wow. That’s incredible. And I just had a vision for going to Vancouver. Now I can understand that. I’ve been to Vancouver. Believe it or not, I honeymooned there. I love that city. Where were you before that? Where did you start out?

Robert Kowton [00:05:19]:
So, basically, I went to the University of Alberta in Edmonton. My goal was, actually, to go focus on facility management or tourism was my angle because I have a degree in recreation administration from the University of Alberta. And I worked in that a little bit because prior to that, I was a lifeguard. I worked for playgrounds as a playground leader, lifeguard, and swim instructor. And, so I went, and I came out working at Grant MacEwan College. I was their kind of facility coordinator, booking space and such, and I that was great being at Grant McEwen College. And then a friend from university says, hey. I’m at Coca-Cola, and that’s great, and I think you’d be a great fit.

Robert Kowton [00:05:53]:
Well, one thing led to another. Spent from 1998 to 2008 at Coca-Cola doing account management district sales and eventually became a district sales manager for the last five years. So I had a team I managed, overlooked the bulk channel, and then I made the big switch to the freight world, where I started from ground 0. But I took that, my salesmanship, and my customer focus into that. Started from nothing and slowly built up. I had a great mentor when I started in 2008 at the brokerage where I was, and then, things changed in 2016 when I had to make a change, and I was looking for a company that had cross-border support. I needed LTL support. I was doing intermodal, full truckload, and various other things. I’m a generalist.

Robert Kowton [00:06:36]:
I guess you’d say many brokerage agents are very mode-specific, just reefer, just flatbed, but I focus more on customers. I looked at it from the standpoint that I could service the customer in various ways; that was my goal. And so, came across SPI logistics, and it was a perfect fit. And literally, within, it was January 6th or 8th or something. It was right at the very beginning of January. And within two days, we went through a list of my customers to verify I knew other agents had them. And within two days, I was up and running and didn’t miss a beat. And Wow.

Trey Griggs [00:07:10]:
That’s incredible. We’re going to dig into that here in just a little bit, but I have a question now. Knowing that you worked at Coca-Cola, I’ve been wondering this forever. Is there a difference between Diet Coke and Coke 0? The ingredients look the exact same on the cans.

Robert Kowton [00:07:23]:
As far as I didn’t regard to the chemical, I can tell you it’s a different sugar. Take a different instead of Diet Coke, which has aspartame; the Coke 0 is something different, and that’s what gives it a different taste. Because you have the diet, then you have hardcore Diet Coke drinkers,

Trey Griggs [00:07:38]:
And My wife the Coke 0 100%.

Robert Kowton [00:07:40]:
The Coke Zeros tasted a little different because, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coke 0 was to some people who liked Coca-Cola but wanted something different but didn’t like the diet Coke, and that’s when they came up with Coca-Cola 0, and that was that perfect hybrid.

Trey Griggs [00:07:54]:
Yeah, because it seemed like the ingredients were almost the exact same. I could never figure out the difference, but my wife is pretty strict about it. She’s like diet Coke and nothing else. And Yeah, I tend to move around a little bit. So, good to know.

Trey Griggs [00:08:04]:
Alright. So, let’s get back to what you’re talking about. You know, being a generalist definitely makes it exciting because you you get to do a lot of different things throughout the day. I tend to be a generalist about things as well, and so I can appreciate that. So when you came over to SPI, you were servicing customers in many different ways. What made it a perfect fit working with SPI?

Robert Kowton [00:08:22]:
It was the fact that when I called and had a conversation, at the time, it was Greg. It was Greg, and he was the kind of VP of operations at that time, Greg Davenport. And the conversation was perfect. When I asked if you had this, Yes. Do you have that? Yes. Do you have this? Yes. He asked me questions, and then we went through the process of reviewing our customers. And they were that was in, well, obviously, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the LTL, and that was a big part of my business, and they had everything I needed.

Robert Kowton [00:08:53]:
They had cross-border support, dual currencies, and all the software that I needed. It was just a perfect fit.

Trey Griggs [00:08:59]:
Yeah. It’s nice when you find a home like that where it’s just plug-and-play. You don’t have to do much. It just enhances what you’re currently doing and makes it even easier. It always makes it a little bit,

Robert Kowton [00:09:08]:
A problem. The other main thing was the fact that they were very strong with their cross-border freight and having the systems in place, and that I needed because I did that was the bane of my business is cross border, is internal Canada and cross border freight. And so they had the mixture of all of that that gave me the opportunity. I can move my customers’ freight within Canada, within the United States, and across the border. So it’s it’s a full 360 opportunity.

Trey Griggs [00:09:32]:
Yeah. And the dual currency is a big thing too because, you know, many brokerages in the states don’t have some of those things in play. Absolutely. Cross border to Canada or cross border to Mexico. And so just having that in play is helpful as well. So, let’s talk about LTL freight. Let’s talk about, you know, some of the differences between the USA, and Canada, and cross-border complexities. What is it about that, kinda get you I know you have a lot of interest in LTL and you have a lot of business in LTL.

Trey Griggs [00:09:56]:
What is it about that kinda get you excited?

Robert Kowton [00:09:59]:
Well, I guess a lot of, as I mentioned, a lot of broker agents tend to be mode like, when I use the word mode, reefer, flatbed, heavy haul, drive in specific, and some agents are actually mode and lane driven where they only focus on drive and freight between Chicago and Texas and Chicago anything between Chicago and Texas, that’s, like, their forte. Right? That’s their thing. And if someone calls them about something else, they kinda have the blinders on, and they’re not interested. As I mentioned, my thought was when I came into this industry of freight brokering, I realized, you know, I wanted it to be somewhat recession-proof, so I didn’t go with the traditional, I’m just gonna go after the grocery distributors. I thought, well, what if one industry goes down? I need another one to offset. And it’s worked out for me because, well, I’ve been doing it since 2008, and I have the gamut from, you know, things related to construction all the way to frozen. I’ve got the gamut of there, and they always seem like when one slows down, another one picks up, and it’s this you kind of ride I’ve been riding that roller coaster of having that variety. And so tying in LTL, what it can do first and foremost is you can your customer can now really utilize you as it gets well, one, it’s gonna get you a deeper relationship with the customer.

Robert Kowton [00:11:16]:
So when I give a simple example rather than a long story, this can lead to others. So you’re you’re doing truckload freight for a customer. You deliver the last load. 2 days later, you get a call saying they got a call. When they received the load, the consignee, one of the pals, had the wrong product, the wrong SKU, or something wrong. It got picked up incorrectly by their warehouse. That customer is not planning to order another truckload for at least 2 weeks. Now they got this dealing, but they’re short one pallet.

Robert Kowton [00:11:45]:
So instead of the customer having to figure out how to do this, they can just call you up and saying, hey, we have this one pallet. We need to ship 1 pallet. And then we need to pick up the other pallet and return it. That’s that right there in itself. The second example I can give the benefits of having the knowledge and the skill set to offer LTL service to your customers, project freight. So again, because I’m customer focused, if a customer is in construction and they’re going to be building something or they’re they’re taking on a contract. They’re gonna build something, whether it’s a house, a hospital, or whatever. Well, sometimes they might you might be sending truckloads of a variety of equipment, bobcats and tools, flatbeds of that, but you may also be shipping, you know, a truckload of insulation or pallets of brick or something like that.

Robert Kowton [00:12:28]:
But meanwhile, they may need to order some widgets and parts, 1 pallet here, 1 pallet there, and then they bring it to the yard, put it all together. Because you have that LTL ability, you can do that. 3rd way I can explain that’s a benefit you can do it. So if you’re shipping a variety of things with your customers, like I have, I have customers that ship out of, say, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin. Sometimes when the stars align, and it happens more often than you think, they’ll say I got 2 skids here, 1 skid there. Sometimes it’s better I just ship each one separately. Sometimes I pick up the 2 from here, 2 from there, bring them into, say, Toronto, and then I put them on Intermodal rail and ship it as a half a container. So, being creative and having these modes that you have the skill set for allows that your customer can totally rely on you to help their supply chain.

Trey Griggs [00:13:19]:
Yeah. I love that. And I love the fact that you like, you’re always wanting to learn, it sounds like. You want to figure out these problems and not just have, like, the same problem every day to figure out, but actually learn some new problems and work with customers.

Robert Kowton [00:13:29]:
The bean of this business. Never stop learning.

Trey Griggs [00:13:31]:
Yeah. I love it. And, you know, I I started my career at DAT in Portland and, you know, DAT really, has their load board for the United States, but then there’s, there’s there’s Loadlinkup in Canada, which is kind of the sister company for that. I know at that point that there’s quite a few differences between Canadian freight and, freight here in the United States. Does that from an LTL perspective, how would you kind of categorize the difference between Canadian freight, you know, domestic freight here in the US and cross border, what the complexities are of that?

Robert Kowton [00:13:59]:
Well, I’ll touch on this, and then I’ll get on to the next. But bay the basic summary is if you’re taking an LTL freight, like, one pallet in Canada going from, say, Vancouver to Toronto or Montreal, and you’re taking one pallet from Houston, Texas to Chicago, and you’re doing the price calculations, number one difference is in Canada, the pricing structure is much simpler. It’s a cubic. It’s either actual weight or cubic weight, whichever is greater, pure and simple. So, carriers have a model of a minimum. They have a minimum charge, and then it goes up to 500. So if it’s less than that, you get the minimum or up somewhere between. And then what happens is it’s pretty simple.

Robert Kowton [00:14:38]:
Like, you see a chart, it’s going to be £500, £1,000, maybe 15, 2,000. Typically, it’s 5, 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, and then 10,000. So basically, if the cubic weight, actual weight is whichever is greater, and we’ll talk a little bit, but we can dive into it, that’s how you get priced. Whereas in the United States, the pricing model is based off of the NMFC, National Motor Freight Classification System, and often those NMFCs is based on the description of the goods. And then when you open up that NMFC number, it might be density based. It could be description based. So you could have a density-based. So you have to know how to calculate the density, which will cross-reference the freight class.

Robert Kowton [00:15:15]:
So it takes a lot of work to get to that freight class. When someone says, Yeah, we ship a freight class 70, well, hang on a sec. We got to look into this. Just this just yesterday, I picked up a pallet that’s an MFC in Georgia. It has subclasses, but not based on density. It’s based on it’s a it was a valve and it’s based on is it aluminum or iron? There’s different in what it’s made of was the determining factor that determined the NMFC. So those are the that’s the simple answer.

Trey Griggs [00:15:43]:
This reminds me of our system of measurement here in the United States. We seems like we make it more complex than it needs to be. You know, we have our our measurements, you know, we got miles and feet and pounds and the rest of the world has, you know, meters, kilometres, and a lot of simpler, you know, units of measure. Why do you why do we make it so complicated, Robert? What’s the

Robert Kowton [00:16:02]:
Well, actually, Canada is can I have to say Canada is a bit messed up? You know why? Because we’re supposed to be all kilograms. Well, guess what? The price of hamburger is advertised on a pound basis. Really?

Trey Griggs [00:16:15]:
Oh, well, see, we’ve got a few things. We’ve got leaders for a few things, you know, like sodas and, you know, some of those types of things, but not a lot of things. And we have meters only for certain sports, unpopular sports like swimming. And

Robert Kowton [00:16:27]:
in theory, if you go to a job site and you’re working, you’re cutting wood most of the time. It’s not in millimetres and centimetres, which would be more accurate. But many times they say cut me a piece of wood at 7 3 eights.

Trey Griggs [00:16:39]:
Yeah. It’s crazy.

Robert Kowton [00:16:40]:
So we’re don’t

Trey Griggs [00:16:40]:
know what

Robert Kowton [00:16:40]:
that And if you go to the hardware store, you’re not ordering 1,000 millimetres of wood.

Trey Griggs [00:16:46]:
Yeah. See, that’s America’s bad influence on Canada. That’s what that is.

Robert Kowton [00:16:49]:
That’s right.

Trey Griggs [00:16:49]:
Where

Robert Kowton [00:16:51]:
we’re we’re a mishmash of both.

Trey Griggs [00:16:54]:
You got the international, you know, flare, which is way simpler, and then you’ve got us trying to work with us. And, oh, that’s, that’s hilarious. Yeah. The the the LTL classification system is is pretty archaic, and it seems like, why do we SPIll have this? Like, who has the stronghold? Why do we keep using it? But I think it’s that,

Robert Kowton [00:17:09]:
the way that they structure. So if I can kind of touch on one thing about LTL, because sometimes, say, if an someone who’s in the freight industry has seen this this podcast and is thinking, boy, that sounds like a great idea. I should I should really offer LTL freight. Hang on a second here. We gotta you gotta you gotta hold the horses for a second and and a couple things that I would bring up. With if you’re gonna enter your customers and you wanna try to provide service, a value-added services as of LTL freight, something to consider. Number 1, patience. LTL freight is not the kind of freight where you have a drive in load that picks up, say, a short haul that picks up on a Monday, delivers Wednesday, you’ve got the POD and it’s invoiced by Thursday or Friday morning.

Robert Kowton [00:17:53]:
That’s not happening with LTL. Even if it’s only a next day service, If everything’s right, sure. But often it takes several days for the, you know, the invoicing. And if there’s problems, it can take weeks. I just, I have a shipment from October that I’m going to finish this week because it had a claim finally. There are problems. So, one is the patience. Are you a patient? If you’re like, I just want to get the loads booked, delivered, invoiced, and moved on, then maybe LTL is not your forte.

Robert Kowton [00:18:19]:
It might be, but the next thing is willingness to learn. If you’re not willing to dive deep into the LTL organizational structure and the NMFCs and the freight calculations and the processes involved, if you’re not willing to get into the weeds of that, then it may or may not be a fit for you. The other thing to consider with LTL freight, it’s very competitive. So, it may not always be the highest dollar value. Right? But your percentage wise, if you’re making 15 or 10 or 15% on a truckload of $2,000, you might only you might be shipping a pallet that’s $200 and you may only put 40 or $50 profit, $60 profit, depends what it is. And so you’re so the dollar value may not look good, but really it looks like 26, 50, 40%, 30%. It can look good on a percentage ways, but dollar value. The other thing is the appreciation of the entire complexities of it because when you think about if you compare a truckload, like, right now, you and I could go out, create a trucking business tomorrow, hire 5, 6, 7 owner operators, both working we you and I could be working from our home.

Robert Kowton [00:19:31]:
We split the country. You dispatch these drivers, and I dispatch those ones, and we work from our homes. We have five trucks. We have no facilities. The drivers work from their homes, and they take the loads, and it’s all done. There’s no infrastructure there. There’s just you and Me; we’re doing everything.

Robert Kowton [00:19:46]:
We’re dealing with the brokers and all the paperwork. And as we grow, okay, maybe we add 1 or 2 people, but essentially it’s pretty darn simple. If you go to open up an LTL business and you want to be an LTL carrier, you’re buying a you have to have a warehouse at minimum. You’re going to need a bunch of trucks for the pickup and deliveries. You’re going to need dispatchers. You’re going to need a safety manager. You’re going to need customer service staff. You’re going to need someone to hire all these staff and manage all this.

Robert Kowton [00:20:09]:
So right from the hop, their their their investment is huge, but yet they have they’re expected in the marketplace to come out and provide low cost options and provide consistent daily service. So that is one thing. Like, you’re going to get one thing with LTL Freight is you’re going to get that consistency. You can pick up if it’s 1 to 5, 1 to 4 skids, you can literally call unless it’s a remote town where it’s only serviced certain days of the week. I have that history there. There’s a lot there. But generally, if you’re in major cities, you can pick you can dispatch every single day and get a truck. Sometimes, with those truckloads, you may or may not get a truck that same day and maybe the next day, but the LTL freight can be done daily.

Trey Griggs [00:20:49]:
Yeah. There’s reasons why we have hundreds of thousands of truckload carriers and only hundreds of common LTL carriers. It’s a hard game to get into. It’s a lot of complexities and, you know, infrastructure and networks that have been created over a long time. And so, it is it’s definitely a learning game. That’s for sure.

Robert Kowton [00:21:04]:
And I was gonna say that the the real thing that the other thing is there’s the whole thing about claims, but appreciating that there’s a claims process and there’s that as well. But I think the very the the best thing that LTL can do for you, if you’re willing to dive in and learn, is it will take your customer relationship level from, say, the kind of an entry level to a, you know, a risk kind of level. And it sorry. I would say to an excellence level, meaning because when you go into the LTL world, you have to become an educator and a consultant for your customer. You need to take the time to understand their how their warehouse works. You want it so that you learn their products, that you get to the point where if they have, you know, product ABC or a 20 and code a, d 20, and d sixties, all these different codes. And you know, when you can when your customer can call and say, yeah, we had a pal that’s gonna have, you know, 3 boxes of this, 4 boxes of that, and 3 boxes of this, and you know what it is, you can calculate and say, okay, that’s going to be a 48 by 48 by 64 pallet, and it’s going to weigh this much. When your customer, when you don’t, your customer doesn’t have to tell you all the weights.

Robert Kowton [00:22:14]:
I have that with customers. That is huge. And so, but part of that process SPIll is when you enter and venture into the world of LTL, you need to look at how are your customers’ freights. If their boxes always overhang the pallets because they always do truckloads, well, that’s not suitable because if boxes overhang up the footprint on the pallet, that ships at risk shipper’s risk and liability, which will lead to a claim. And then the customer is disappointed because you didn’t educate them that, well, yeah, it shipped out and there’s a claim, but we can’t put the claim through because your pallet wasn’t professionally packaged to withstand the rigours of LTL freight. So you have to be an educator. You have to teach them. If they’re only putting a little bit of wrap and they say, well, we want to do LTL.

Robert Kowton [00:22:53]:
Okay. How much is it going to cost to buy a band, a banding machine and band it? Alright. You got to educate them on this whole process. So, there’s that’s what it does. It just takes you to that next level with your customers.

Trey Griggs [00:23:04]:
Yeah. It creates a much stickier customer, and it has the potential to create a much stickier customer in that regard. Are you going to your customers’ warehouses to talk them through that? Do you do that through videoconferencing? How do you help educate your customers?

Robert Kowton [00:23:16]:
Well, a couple of ways. I can’t go to all mine because they’re I got customers all around US and Canada, but the ones I can, I do go, and if I go, I’m walking into there with my tape measure, never leave home without? I actually have a bag in that closet behind. That’s my PPE PPE bag. So when I go to my customer’s visits, I got a safety vest, I got a hard hat, I got steel-toe shoes, and I’ve got my, tape measure. And I’m when I go, I look. If I’m going to the warehouse, I come in prepared, and I’m measuring everything. I didn’t mean to ask. I just start measuring, and then I take pictures.

Robert Kowton [00:23:48]:
And if in doubt, I ask my customer to send me a picture and but I have to you have to find different ways, to get the information or you get it from the carrier. Or if I can, if the freight say the freight came from another city and it’s going to be passing, like, it’s going to be delivering to the city near me, I’ll go and find a way to get that, get pictures. I just try to gain insight however I can, the more I learn. And I’ll keep talking to my customer and say, hey. Do would you mind helping me get some information about your product so that as I learn, if I can research it, whatever I can do to gain that extra step to make myself differentiate. Because, right, my goal as a broker agent, whether it’s LTL, whatever mode, the ultimate goal of any broker agent is that when a customer says, we just won a project. We just won some big sales where we’re gonna ship we need to ship all this product. Right? Some sales rep sold something that they need to ship, and they’re in this conference meeting in a room, And when they say we need to ship, that the first thing that comes up is that Rob or Trey or whoever the agent is, that’s our person that we’re gonna rely on again.

Trey Griggs [00:24:50]:
That’s right. I love that.

Robert Kowton [00:24:51]:
That’s what you want.

Trey Griggs [00:24:52]:
Not your first rodeo. I’d love to see a picture of you with all your gear on out there just walking in, measuring. I can see you just taking over, taking control in there, and, and doing well, which I’m sure your customers really, really appreciate that. So that’s that’s awesome to hear. Alright. We gotta pause and play a little game. I’d like to have a little fun on the show. And, Robert, today, we are gonna play a little game of would you rather.

Robert Kowton [00:25:11]:
Oh.

Trey Griggs [00:25:17]:
Alright, Robert. The way this game works is we’re gonna put some, statements up on the screen, some some kinda, this or that type of thing. So would you rather do this or that? You gotta, you know, pick one and tell us why real quick, and then we’ll we’ll move on to the next one. The first one we have for you today is, would you rather be stuck in a romantic comedy with your worst enemy or in a horror horror movie with your best friend?

Robert Kowton [00:25:40]:
I’m gonna go with the horror movie with your best friend.

Trey Griggs [00:25:43]:
Do you like horror movies, or is it because of the best friend? It’s it’s just being with somebody.

Robert Kowton [00:25:47]:
I think I think someone I’d rather be with someone, that I can trust and talk about than my worst enemy, I guess.

Trey Griggs [00:25:55]:
It’d be more adventurous. That’s for sure. And I actually have a best friend who loves horror movies, so I think that would work out well for me. So I’m with you on this. I’m I’m going the same way. Horror movie with best friend, 100%. Alright. Next one.

Trey Griggs [00:26:05]:
Would you rather be able to speak every language in the world or be able to talk to animals?

Robert Kowton [00:26:10]:
Oh, wow.

Trey Griggs [00:26:11]:
That’s an interesting one.

Robert Kowton [00:26:13]:
That is. But you know what? The animals would be cool because I think they would have some deep thoughts to share with us humans that they could say sometimes how crazy we are. But I think when you if you’ve ever traveled, being able to speak languages is huge because you know what? There’s a lot of people around the world. We’re all the same. And the only sometimes that differentiates us is our language that we can’t communicate clearly. And having that ability to speak to people around the world would be huge.

Trey Griggs [00:26:35]:
So you’re on the practical side of every language, which certainly looks better in public. If you’re speaking to animals, people might think you’re weird. But if you could speak languages, people are like, wow. Look at that guy. He’s so smart.

Robert Kowton [00:26:45]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Trey Griggs [00:26:46]:
Go that route. Animals would be interesting, though. We agree with you that that would be interesting. Alright, round 3. Which one? Would you rather have a knife when you need a spoon or a spoon when you need a knife?

Robert Kowton [00:26:58]:
Spoon all day long.

Trey Griggs [00:26:59]:
Really? Oh, for sure.

Robert Kowton [00:27:01]:
I can cut lots with a spoon. I can dig things

Trey Griggs [00:27:03]:
If it’s if it’s sharp enough, maybe if it’s a plastic spoon, you’re done. I see. I I kinda go I got it the other way. I I think I can do anything with a knife because the opposite side of a knife is not sharp. So I could eat with that side if I

Robert Kowton [00:27:12]:
Oh, true. True. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. That’s good. Like, you can

Trey Griggs [00:27:15]:
do you have there are more possibilities with a knife to cut things, to beat. Sometimes a spoon

Robert Kowton [00:27:20]:
does. And it’s, like, easier to carry. It’s flat.

Trey Griggs [00:27:23]:
Could you cut a steak with a spoon? That would be interesting. I don’t know. I’m not sure, but I think I could eat cereal with a knife. I think. A little bit.

Robert Kowton [00:27:33]:
You’d be

Trey Griggs [00:27:33]:
A little bit.

Robert Kowton [00:27:33]:
Oh, that

Trey Griggs [00:27:34]:
That would be tough.

Robert Kowton [00:27:35]:
Oh, I see you make some funny videos. That would be a, a shorty that would be the the viral shorty of the day.

Trey Griggs [00:27:42]:
You know, I may have to do it this afternoon: make a little video of me eating, trying to eat cereal with a knife. I like where you’re going with that, Robert. Okay. Next one. Would you rather have to use shrimp-flavored toothpaste or deodorant that smells like cheese? Who’s coming up with these? Alright. Which one? Shrimp? I’m gonna

Robert Kowton [00:27:57]:
go with the shrimp-flavored toothpaste because at least you know what? It kinda seems exotic. Like, hey. This guy was eating shrimp. That seems

Trey Griggs [00:28:03]:
kinda true. And you can always wash it down with something else later. You can kinda get over it. Right? But cheese cheese deodorant, what is that? That’s nobody wants to smell like cheese. Yeah. I’m with you on that. That’s terrible. Alright.

Trey Griggs [00:28:13]:
Final round, Robert. Here we go. Almost done with this. Alright. Would you rather eat all your food with your hands or use utensils with only your nondominant hand? Oh, we we just talked about this yesterday with a friend of mine. Which would you rather do? Eat with your hands only or have to use your nondominant hand?

Robert Kowton [00:28:30]:
I think eat with my hands only. Just because I have I have a funky hand, my left hand that’s the nondominant. I it’s webbed, it’s smaller, and so it it’s just not Might not work.

Trey Griggs [00:28:40]:
Might not work.

Robert Kowton [00:28:40]:
Yep. It wouldn’t be it would work, but it’s just, yeah, I’d rather You

Trey Griggs [00:28:44]:
know, there’s something there’s something fun about eating with your hands too. Kinda something something enjoyable, especially if it’s something you can lick later. Like, Doritos are great because you get a little little extra afterwards. You know? Get a little extra bonus.

Robert Kowton [00:28:54]:
So Exactly.

Trey Griggs [00:28:55]:
I’m waiting on that. I think that’s a good one.

Robert Kowton [00:28:56]:
Too. It’s kinda primitive as well. Right?

Trey Griggs [00:28:58]:
So that’s right. That’s right. Well, Robert, thank you for playing. Would you rather? That was fun. I always enjoy having those conversations. And we have one more. We have a random question for the day. We always like to throw this out.

Trey Griggs [00:29:07]:
It’s just something kind of fun. So here’s our random question of the day: What would a world populated by clones of you be like? So the world is just all Roberts. What would that be like?

Robert Kowton [00:29:20]:
Oh, boy. My wife would sure have comments about that, I think.

Trey Griggs [00:29:23]:
A lot of cycling going on, probably. A lot of races. Everybody’s got

Robert Kowton [00:29:26]:
a bike. I I the only thing I guess I could say is I’m a pretty high-energy person, so I’d say that’s a positive.

Trey Griggs [00:29:31]:
It is.

Robert Kowton [00:29:32]:
Unfortunately, the world would not have a lot of music. I could, we could pretend that we would, we would think that we’re singing. But I guess you know what? I think I’m sounding really good if it’s all me. So if it’s all of us, we will all sound really good. But That’s right. To anyone else, it just wouldn’t be there. And then, you know what? I’m not a I love to research so that part’s good. I’m willing to dive into research, and I’m okay with math, but math is not my strong point.

Robert Kowton [00:29:57]:
So to to design a bridge and calculate a bridge could be a real there could be a lot of rivers without crossings. We’d have to use

Trey Griggs [00:30:02]:
It would be a problem.

Robert Kowton [00:30:03]:
That’s okay. I like to kayak and paddleboard. So the whole world would just have to kayak and paddleboard across rivers because I couldn’t build a bridge. So It’d

Trey Griggs [00:30:09]:
be a very natural world. I like it. I like I like your creativity with that. That’s that’s awesome. I love that. That’s so good. What a question. That’s a nice random question today.

Trey Griggs [00:30:18]:
Alright, Robert. So I have one more question to ask you about your work, and then we’ll get you out of here and get you on your way today. So, you know, you’ve been with SPI for a long time. What keeps you at SPI? What about working with the team at SPI that keeps you around?

Robert Kowton [00:30:31]:
The support. You know, you’ve got an accounts payable, accounts receivable team, and a client care team, and then you’ve got upper management, from Anita to Mark to, Joe, Mike. There’s Peter and then Mitch, the owner. If you need support in any capacity, whether you’re dealing with an issue or you have a huge prospect, if you need support, there’s support. And that includes the support of Anita in helping me hire people. I, to show the complexities of freight, of LTL freight, is I have a freight auditor that works for me that I hire. So 20 hours a week, that person’s there to help me keep on top of my LTL freight for tracking, tracing, and billing purposes, making it a little bit easier for SPI’s back end. And I try to be, you know, so that things match up and everything is and I’m dealing with all the complexities behind the scenes so that when it’s all said and done, it’s easy once it hits the back office.

Robert Kowton [00:31:31]:
And that’s just because of the nature of my business. I’m not saying that’s necessary for all agents, but it just works for my particular book of business. I think it works a little bit better. Yeah, I kind of agree with you. There’s a combination there.

Trey Griggs [00:31:42]:
I kinda agree with you. When I met the team at SPI, I could just tell that they love taking care of their agents. It’s a real passion for them, and they mean it. They’re not just saying it. They mean it. I got to speak for the support staff when I was up there. They are just phenomenal people. You know? And so it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show, Robert, and to talk about your experience with SPI.

Trey Griggs [00:31:58]:
Thanks for, you know, being so creative and having fun with us today. We’re gonna get you out of here with a little more Margaritaville. So great walk of song for that.

Robert Kowton [00:32:05]:
Isawa, kudos to you, and congratulations to you. You don’t talk about yourself a lot, but you have quite the, accolade of accomplishments in your career. And sometimes in our life, what we do one part, you talked about having to accomplish a sales career, but you were a teacher. And when you’re a teacher, you’re a salesperson. Right? You have to sell to the kids, and teachers, talk to your principals away, and you guys talk to parents. You’re always telling. And that’s led you to the success you’re having today. So congratulations.

Trey Griggs [00:32:33]:
I appreciate that. That’s very kind of you to say. You’re welcome on the show anytime, my friend. You have to have me back on the show. But thanks again for being on the show today. We’ll see you real soon.

Robert Kowton [00:32:40]:
Thanks so much.