Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Designing Success in Logistics: Kris Rzepkowski's Creative Approach at Bennett Transportation & Logistics

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Designing Success in Logistics: Kris Rzepkowski's Creative Approach at Bennett Transportation & Logistics · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:16
today's guest is Chris Sapowski, Vice President, Corporate
0:21
Business Development at the Bennett Family of Companies.
0:24
They were founded in 1974. Bennett is a leading logistics
0:28
and transportation solutions provider specializing in
0:32
everything from trucking to international freight
0:35
forwarding. They are recognized for their We
0:38
Care motto, reflecting a commitment to top notch service,
0:41
safety and integrity. Now, Chris brings over 25 years
0:46
of marketing and strategic leadership experience to
0:48
Bennett. He has driven growth for clients
0:51
across the US with customized logistics solutions and
0:55
previously served as Vice President of Marketing and
0:57
Communications at Bennett. Under his guidance, the
1:00
company's market presence expanded, earning Chris
1:03
accolades like the Trailblazer Award for producing Bennett's
1:07
50th anniversary book and the Purpose Award for Community
1:11
based initiatives with Wreaths Across America.
1:15
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
1:58
today, the VP Corporate Business Development at the Bennett
2:01
Family of Companies. Chris, thanks for making the
2:03
time to Share your story today. Thanks for having me.
2:07
So Chris, you actually started out as a user interface
2:11
designer. What skills did you learn in
2:14
those early days that are helpful in your?
2:16
Role today yeah. So I, I went to art school.
2:21
I was a a bachelor of Fine Arts communication design.
2:24
And so early in my career I was designing computer interfaces to
2:30
help people use printers and copiers.
2:32
And So what we would do is we would observe people using our
2:37
designs and how they interacted with the equipment that we were
2:41
working with. And so by watching them, you
2:44
could tell whether the design work that you were doing
2:46
actually resonated and help them use the, the, the equipment.
2:50
So what I learned from all of that as I've gone through my
2:53
career is that best intentions and, and great ideas are all
2:58
well and good until you absolutely actually observe them
3:01
in the field and in the market. And then you have to adjust your
3:04
strategy to real world usage. I mean, there's, there's a lot,
3:08
a lot of difference between reality and what, what your
3:11
intentions were. So the companies and and people
3:14
that can can modify their strategies based on true
3:18
observation, true data are the ones that do better.
3:23
Now it makes a lot of sense. Just that skill of being able to
3:26
observe people, see how it is that they're actually doing the
3:30
thing that you want them to do, and then being able to pivot and
3:33
adjust to those behaviors. You might say that you really,
3:37
really like something that I've designed or that we put in front
3:39
of you, but when you actually start using it and you fumble
3:42
around and you can't figure it out, I know for a fact that
3:44
we've done something wrong. So what you like and what you do
3:48
can be two totally, totally different things.
3:50
I can appreciate that. And so then kind of Fast forward
3:53
a little bit, 2011, you had an opportunity to step into a
3:57
management role at Hudson Staffing Company.
4:01
What was that experience like? And maybe think about the
4:04
biggest lesson you learned as it pertains to managing other
4:08
people. Yeah.
4:10
I mean, I've prided myself on technical ability really being
4:14
indispensable to my team and to my supervisor and that kind of
4:17
thing in my early years. And as I stepped into more of a
4:20
management role, stepping from an individual contributor
4:22
amongst teammates and that that world into having to manage and
4:28
be somebody that inspires direction and, and leads people
4:34
to a a different result and really helps to foster their
4:38
growth. That's a huge transition for me.
4:41
So that that that was a journey for sure, stepping into
4:44
management there. What kind of helped you through
4:47
that process? Were there any mentors?
4:49
Was it just sort of fumbling along and making mistakes and
4:52
learning from them on your own? No, a little of both.
4:54
I had a wonderful mentor who he spent time with me, my boss.
4:59
He would bring me into his office and he would spend an
5:01
ungodly amount of time just talking and listening to me and
5:05
listening to my concerns and my interactions with my team.
5:09
And so that really started to model for me what it was like to
5:12
be a manager and A and A, and a leader rather than just
5:16
individual contributor. The rest of it was fumbling,
5:18
learning, you know, engaging in books and just trying to, you
5:24
know, be the best version that I could for my team.
5:26
But yeah, it's definitely mentorship was a big part of it.
5:30
Yeah, because, you know, when you're a good practitioner, sort
5:33
of a natural thing to kind of keep moving you up, you know,
5:36
through the ranks. But not everybody who's sort of
5:39
good at the skill itself is then also good at managing people
5:44
doing the skill. Did you ever kind of doubt or
5:47
question if that was going to be you?
5:50
Yeah, it's easy to focus on what's in front of you in this.
5:55
And like I said, the the craft and I'm still doing the craft
5:58
here 30 years later. I mean, I'm, I, I, my fall back
6:02
procedure is to work on the technical aspects, the work
6:05
itself, working with people is brutal.
6:07
Like this job would be a lot of fun if you didn't have to have
6:09
people involved. So the people side of it, I
6:12
thought, I've always doubted myself throughout the entire
6:14
journey. But you know, that is it is part
6:16
of of growing into leadership is understanding that probably 60
6:20
to 70% of doing leadership well is actually the people side of
6:24
it, caring, listening, guiding, you know, feeding them so that
6:29
they can be the most productive version of themselves.
6:31
Yeah, and I'm glad you give voice to that because, you know,
6:34
I think that's something that a lot of leaders end up feeling
6:37
like they have to hold in. You know, the, the challenge of
6:40
managing people, if you've never done it before is, well, a
6:44
challenge. It it, I, I like your word
6:47
brutal. You know, you're dealing with
6:49
all kinds of different personalities and how to get
6:51
them to mesh. And you know, they've got,
6:53
everybody's got their own sort of life problems going on behind
6:55
the scenes and how that may show up at work.
6:57
And you know how you navigate that can, is there maybe a
7:00
resource, whether it was a book or a course or something like
7:04
that, that you found helpful and sort of this what's ongoing,
7:09
this ongoing process of kind of levelling up your leadership
7:13
skills? Yeah, I mean, I I listen to the
7:18
So I attend the Global Leadership Summit every year.
7:20
It is a it's a wonderful event that is put on by Willow Creek
7:25
Church in Chicago. It's a globally broadcast event.
7:29
And some of the, you know, speakers there, Greg Craig
7:31
Rochelle is the leader of that particular conference.
7:34
He's a leadership podcast and I just, he is very grounded in
7:39
some of these principles and just keeps you in when you
7:43
listen to it. It's like, OK, my job today is
7:45
to come in and be a leader and stop thinking about self, think
7:48
about the others on my team and how I can help them to grow.
7:50
So I do, I do listen to to that pretty regularly and I attend
7:54
that conference every single year for sure.
7:57
OK, so now you've been with the Bennett family of companies for
8:01
nearly thirteen years. How did that opportunity first
8:04
come about, Chris? So we had a management change at
8:09
my prior company. I could tell that the team was
8:12
kind of turning over. They were bringing in their own
8:14
people from outside the organization.
8:16
My supervisor ended up getting let go and so I could kind of
8:20
see the writing on the walls. I was working from home and it
8:23
was one of those bad day kind of thing.
8:25
I never listened to recruiters, but this particular day a
8:28
recruiter called and I answered the phone and they said they
8:30
have an opportunity at a small privately held a trucking and
8:34
logistics firm in McDonough, GA. I was living in Rochester, NY
8:38
and I had never heard of McDonough, GA, but I did know it
8:40
was South. And so I listened to the, the
8:44
discussion and over the course of, of doing the dance with
8:47
Bennett, I, I ended up going to a really intense 13 person panel
8:54
interview. That's what it's like at a
8:55
family company. You get the family members, you
8:57
get the senior leadership, they're vetting you, they're
9:00
making sure that you're a cultural fit because privately
9:03
held and you know, family oriented Christian company, you
9:08
know, they want to make sure that you're a culture fit as
9:10
much as you are a technical fit for the role.
9:13
So they needed a leader to run their marketing department, and
9:16
I guess they chose me. And you relocated.
9:19
I did. OK.
9:22
Tell us before we get into a little bit more about what your
9:25
roles have been and now are today, tell us a little bit more
9:29
specifically about what it is Bennett does.
9:32
About I like to shorthand it, it's we do a lot of things.
9:36
We have 12 different operating companies across a lot of
9:38
different trucking and logistics modes.
9:40
But the the easy answer is we are good at moving the big,
9:44
heavy and ugly. We do trucking and logistics for
9:48
things that most companies don't know how to handle.
9:51
So we have large open deck trailers that can handle freight
9:55
from, you know, 30,000 lbs all the way up to £1,000,000.
9:59
We can string different pieces of equipment together to take
10:03
that over the open roads. We have crane and rigging that
10:06
can take those pieces and place them in very specific locations
10:10
very safely. So we do things that most other
10:15
trucking companies aren't willing to take on.
10:18
We've, we do arms, ammunition and explosives for the federal
10:21
government. We do space aerospace type of
10:27
moves for companies that you probably know very well that
10:30
that have space components. So really specialty freight
10:34
moves is, is our number one. We move manufactured housing all
10:37
over the country and modular buildings.
10:40
We have a fleet of people that get into trucks and move them
10:43
off of the assembly lines to their dealers.
10:44
That's called drive away where you put contractors in the cab
10:47
of a of a newly built truck. So we're a very diverse company
10:51
that does a lot of very specialty freight and logistics
10:55
projects. Why so many different operating
10:58
companies? How did that unfold?
11:01
Our CEO Marci Taylor who's owned this place since 74, woman owned
11:05
company and what she has told us is that it's been by saying yes,
11:08
saying yes to customer needs. So they will stumble upon a
11:12
particular long time customer that has a particular need that
11:16
they have to take care of. Like for instance, one of our
11:18
big customers in Augusta, GA needed a large warehouse and so
11:22
over the course of a year and a half, we built them million and
11:24
a half square foot warehouse to help warehouse their, you know,
11:28
their projects and feed their assembly lines.
11:30
So it's really been an organic growth in areas where our
11:35
customers say they need help. So why so many different
11:41
companies? Why not sort of one entity where
11:43
you, if you guys acquire different businesses and then
11:45
sort of let them stand alone on their own?
11:48
Yeah, both. So it, it's helpful in trucking
11:52
to have kind of a holding company and then the individual
11:57
entities because this is a very insurance focused risk based
12:02
business, right? So if something negative happens
12:06
in one of the areas, you don't want to allow all your other
12:09
areas to, to have, you know, to be taken down.
12:12
So it has to do with insurance, it has to do with risk, the
12:15
ability for one company to stand alone from another.
12:18
So it's practical in that way. And it's also when we became the
12:22
Bennett family of companies in 2019, it really helped to show
12:26
that we also have grown by acquisition.
12:28
And So what we do plug in companies into our business
12:31
model, that's part of our growth strategy.
12:34
So it's, it's both, it's it really helps us have a coherent
12:38
strategy to the marketplace. So each of these different
12:41
entities, are they doing similar services but in different
12:44
geographies or are they doing different types of trucking,
12:48
transportation, logistics sort of services?
12:52
It's a little bit of both. So our our industry if you can
12:57
it, it starts with assets versus non assets.
12:59
So assets means the company owns trucks and trailers.
13:02
A lot of our customers want to make sure that we own assets.
13:04
And so when we acquire a company, we acquire the trucks
13:09
and trailers that they use to to move things.
13:12
And trucks and trailers can move freight all all over the place.
13:15
So that a lot of times there will be some overlap in
13:17
services, but also geographic focus.
13:22
So as an example, we have an entity called American Eagle
13:25
Logistics. They're focused on the oil and
13:26
gas industry mainly in Louisiana and Texas.
13:30
Can they move freight all over the country?
13:31
Does it overlap with our Bennett Motor Express business unit?
13:34
Sometimes it certainly can, and that's actually a benefit for
13:37
us. So when one of our companies
13:39
needs extra equipment or extra capability, we can slide in some
13:43
of the extra services from one of the other companies.
13:46
And you mentioned the name of one company, he's American
13:49
Eagle, so they're not all carrying the Bennett name.
13:52
Welcome to my journey as a marketing person here at Bennett
13:56
since 2012. Yes.
13:57
So I would have loved everything had a Bennett name, but no, our,
14:01
our, our, our company ownership, our family, they, they actually
14:06
like to leave companies alone when we acquire them.
14:08
So they're very proud of their brand and they've, they've
14:11
created an operating structure and A and A and a marketplace
14:14
for themselves. So when we bring them on board,
14:16
sometimes they become a Bennett company and sometimes we leave
14:19
the brand alone. So we've got American Eagle,
14:21
Ace, Doran, Roadmasters, some other legacy brands that retain
14:27
their original brand name. And so is it done?
14:32
I'm going to connect the dots here.
14:34
I'm going to guess it's done maybe for two reasons.
14:36
One, because that name carries some weight, the branding
14:40
carries some weight locally, they've been around for a while,
14:42
they've got reputation. And two, if it sounds like part
14:45
of the strategy is to kind of leave them alone to run their
14:48
operations the way that they've been doing a good job for years
14:52
doing this probably helps that entity to internally feel like
14:57
they're maintaining some sense of independence. 100% on the
15:02
second side. So it helps them feel
15:05
comfortable coming to our organization.
15:07
We're a very family oriented, caring company, almost to a
15:11
fault where we, we don't tend to streamline the operation a whole
15:15
heck of a lot. And we try to make people feel
15:17
comfortable when they're coming into the company.
15:19
You know, they got there for a reason.
15:21
And so a lot of times a company won't come to a new organization
15:25
unless they're, you know, made whole and and allowed to
15:28
continue to keep their culture. So it's, it's probably more of
15:31
the latter, just there's some brand recognition in the
15:34
marketplace. But I like I said, as a, as a
15:37
marketing person, I would prefer everybody to be Bennett branded.
15:40
That would help, you know, just create the recognition of the
15:42
marketplace. So.
15:44
Tell us about the agent model that Bennett uses, Chris.
15:47
Well, there there's a source of a little bit more of our
15:49
fragmentation and benefit. So Bennett as a whole is meant
15:53
to service entrepreneurs and business owners both on the
15:56
driver side. So we're mainly an owner
15:58
operator company. So most of our drivers, nearly
16:01
80 some percent of them are independent.
16:03
We provide safety services, billing settlements for for our
16:09
drivers and then on the freight agent side also.
16:11
So we have over 200 independent freight agents out in the
16:15
marketplace. They're independent business
16:16
owners. They have their own LLC they
16:19
lease to Bennett or or and then we provide services like billing
16:23
insurance and then the drivers for them to be able to move the
16:27
freight that they need to move. And then we pay them a certain
16:30
amount of Commission on the freight that they move through
16:32
Bennett. So it's we help all all day long
16:37
independent owners of you know, in their in their small mom and
16:40
pops up to 3040 employee terminals that that come to
16:44
Bennett to to use our trucking services to serve their
16:48
customers, their relationships. Now, did I hear hear you
16:51
correctly before that a lot of your customers want to see that
16:54
Bennett owns the equipment that you're using.
16:57
How does that sort of intertwine with the owner operator kind of
17:02
agent model that you guys use a lot of?
17:04
Yeah, so #1 Bennett has a lot of trailers that we actually own.
17:09
So we don't necessarily own as many trucks as some of the other
17:11
big companies you might recognize, but we do have over
17:14
1000 pieces of equipment in our fleet.
17:16
And so when an owner operator that owns their own truck comes
17:20
to Bennett, they can choose to bring their trailer or use one
17:23
of our trailers to service the customer.
17:27
But the reality is with that owner operator leased to
17:30
Bennett, it essentially becomes our asset to offer to the
17:34
marketplace. So they really can't run.
17:37
They're not an independent operating authority.
17:40
When they're leased to Bennett, they become a Bennett asset.
17:44
Oh, interesting. OK.
17:45
So curious to kind of explore the transition of roles for you,
17:52
Executive Director of Marketing, then VP of Marketing, now VP of
17:57
Business development. Which one of those transitions,
18:01
whether first coming into the company or moving in between
18:04
those spots, was kind of the most challenging for you and
18:06
why? Well, obviously to start with
18:09
just coming to a new company and the new industry was really
18:12
challenging. I went to, you know I had done
18:16
marketing for 15 years prior to Bennett, but it was in
18:19
professional services. So coming into logistics,
18:21
trucking, family owned, coming out of a publicly traded
18:24
company, that kind of stuff was a huge transition and what
18:27
strategies we would use to continue to grow the brand.
18:30
At the time I was $260 million company and over the course of
18:34
my tenure in marketing we grew to just under a billion dollars
18:37
in revenue. So it was a lot of acquisitions,
18:39
a lot of strategic changes to get to that point.
18:41
So that was the first. And then just moving to the
18:43
South and the whole thing was, was a huge change, a huge new
18:48
team of people, all the, all that stuff.
18:53
But that went really well. And by the time last year rolled
18:56
around, moving into this new role from marketing into
18:59
corporate business development, I would say is actually one of
19:02
the is, is more challenging, right?
19:04
I, I took this role for a reason to get really uncomfortable
19:07
again to like literally I didn't, I wanted to be energized
19:12
getting out of bed in the morning, not knowing what I was
19:14
going to do and how I was going to figure it out.
19:16
Like to me, that's how I grow. And so I've been at this since
19:19
November of last year full time in corporate business
19:23
development. My job is to try to tie all
19:26
these 12 operating companies together and their services and
19:30
help bring the customer a more simplified version of dealing
19:33
with Bennett. So that's you're dealing with
19:35
the Bennett family of companies rather than each one of our
19:37
little entities and how can we bring the the complete magnitude
19:41
of all of our services to really bigger and more complex
19:44
projects? I love what you just said there.
19:46
You wanted to get uncomfortable again, like really uncomfortable
19:50
again. And I think most people assume
19:53
that that's not the place that they should be operating from,
19:56
that, you know, the whole point of life is to be comfortable and
20:00
relaxed and kind of go with the flow.
20:01
But in my experience, and it sounds like you're sort of wired
20:05
the same way. Growth comes from those
20:09
uncomfortable edges of life, the where it's uncertain, where you
20:12
don't know what you're doing. Have you kind of always been
20:15
wired this way or is it something you've sort of picked
20:18
up along the way? No, it's, well, it's 100% what
20:21
I've learned very quickly in my career.
20:23
DNA was I can only really last at anything for about 3 years.
20:29
Like I'm on a cycle of I'll take a particular position, I will
20:33
learn it in the first year, be really uncomfortable.
20:35
Second year is proficiency, third year is strategy.
20:39
And like, OK, I've got this thing down and then it's well,
20:41
what's next? What's next?
20:43
And it's kind of been my flow every three years, whether it's
20:46
internal to a company or external.
20:48
And it's when I get to the point where I I know exactly what my
20:52
next three months is going to be.
20:53
And I don't have anything that's challenging me or that I don't
20:56
need to learn or that's just not interesting.
20:58
It's like, all right, let's shake this up.
21:00
Let's make sure that I don't know what I'm doing so that I
21:02
have to learn it like I'm forced to and not just like it's kind
21:05
of something I want to do. It's like I'm put into a
21:07
business situation where I have to learn it to be able to
21:10
continue to earn my check. And it provides extreme amount
21:13
of value to the, to the organization that I've that I'm
21:16
working for. So that has been, I've always
21:18
looked for the more strategic role or the more engaged aspect
21:23
of the position so that I can dive into it and the speak like
21:28
completely out of sorts when I get to the office.
21:31
I love that. I mean, such a, for me, I think
21:34
it's such an attractive trait and whether it's a partner, an
21:37
employee, a leader, just that that sense of, you know, never
21:42
wanting to kind of rest on your laurels and always looking for
21:44
that next challenge. Being calm and, and, you know,
21:48
understanding internally the chaos that's going on, but
21:51
presenting yourself to your team and to your colleagues as, you
21:55
know, I've got this and you can rely on me and I'm going to show
21:58
up and I'm going to take care of it.
21:59
Like that's kind of my my special sauce.
22:03
I guess it's, you know, keep all that angst inside, use it as
22:06
like a, a nucleus to learn from and then just explode with value
22:11
out to to your teammates. So.
22:13
I love how you put that. You're a guy, Chris, that likes
22:17
to sort of blend creativity with strategy in your work.
22:22
Can you walk us through an example of how your background
22:24
in communication design has influenced A pivotal marketing
22:29
or business development campaign at Bennett?
22:33
Yeah. So as I kind of said, we, I had
22:36
sat in the marketing seat at Bennett for about 6 years
22:40
dealing with a kind of a legacy brand, all these different
22:44
aspects, aspects of the different companies we had
22:46
acquired. And then we put a couple of new
22:48
ones in place. We started our own company, Boss
22:50
Crane and Rigging in 2015. So we had all this stuff going
22:53
on and it was like the, the, the brand was just not working for
22:57
us. So we embarked upon the 1st and,
23:00
and honestly, I was our CEOI have a very supportive, like
23:03
Marcy Taylor has built it, probably the one of the most
23:06
marketed trucking companies in the space.
23:09
And so she said, hey, let's rebrand this thing.
23:10
Let's do a proper branding project.
23:13
So I went out and I vetted partners and we built this, this
23:17
whole brand positioning campaign.
23:20
We, we arrived at the together we can move anything tagline.
23:24
We did a new logo. We worked on a, a new social
23:27
media campaign and ultimately finished off with a brand new
23:31
website in towards the end of 2020.
23:35
And it's just to me that brings obviously all elements of design
23:39
to the table, but you have to convince your people internally
23:43
like we're going to aspire to this because we're so messy
23:47
internally. And we talk about these things
23:49
in very technical ways, but to the market, it doesn't make a
23:52
lick of sense. So simplify Bennett family of
23:55
companies, new brand new website, new messaging.
23:58
And that really, to me, brought all that design background to
24:02
the forefront. You know, and maybe this is just
24:05
me, but I sort of have this stereotype in my head of
24:07
trucking, transportation, logistics kind of being like old
24:11
school companies, maybe not sort of as forward thinking with
24:15
rebranding and social media presence and and that kind of a
24:18
thing. Am I right?
24:20
And sort of Bennett is kind of, and you know, and the leadership
24:23
of Marcy Taylor's kind of a bit of an outlier there.
24:26
You're accurate in all accounts. So we're still old school.
24:30
The industry is probably 10 years behind some of the
24:32
technology industry, so no doubt about that.
24:36
But we definitely leaned into social media early on in my
24:40
tenure here. I brought it from my prior
24:41
company and we just started hammering on it throughout my
24:45
tenure here because our culture is probably one of our key
24:48
differentiators. As I said, privately held a very
24:52
family oriented, very Christian company and that we don't, we're
24:55
not shy about a very patriotic company.
24:58
So not shy about some of these core values that we bring that
25:01
are different than another company.
25:02
And the only way to get that across with authenticity is
25:06
social media and social media is inexpensive compared to all the
25:10
other things. Now we got into NASCAR recently,
25:12
which is not inexpensive. But before that social media was
25:16
the way to to go to market. And, and I think we did lead the
25:20
way like we were pretty early adopters before a lot of the
25:22
other trucking companies were really embracing it.
25:25
I think now it's a little bit more ubiquitous in the
25:28
marketplace. Tell us about your involvement
25:31
with NASCAR. That sounds really fun.
25:33
What a cool story. Yeah, 2022.
25:35
We're trying to figure out after the rebrand.
25:37
We're trying to figure out how to recruit truck drivers and
25:39
continue to grow the brand. We got presented with an
25:42
opportunity to sponsor a driver in the NASCAR Xfinity Series,
25:47
Austin Hill. He's he's a local kid with
25:52
Richard Childress Racing. His dad had a steel business and
25:56
we said, OK, they said if if you can move the freight for
26:00
Austin's dad, we can help offset some of the cost of sponsoring
26:04
the NASCAR. And my, I had no experience in
26:06
racing. I said when he came in for the
26:08
interview, I'm like Austin, do you know what to do with your
26:10
hands in an interview because it's a reference to Talladega
26:13
Nights. I had no idea.
26:15
So we we raced a full season 20 some races with our brand on his
26:21
car. He won his very first race at
26:24
Daytona. Wow.
26:25
And we were like, wait, this is how this goes.
26:27
You just put the brand on the car and you win.
26:30
So once we did that, I mean, it was it, we were just absolutely
26:33
addicted. So he, he had a 1.
26:35
He had rookie of the year in in 2022 and we've sponsored him
26:39
every season since then. He's become a really well known
26:43
figure. Xfinity Series is the series
26:45
below the Cup Series, which is the the senior circuit on
26:49
NASCAR. So we we race on Saturdays.
26:51
OK, Wow, it's so much fun. So you sponsor a car and you're
26:55
moving a lot of the equipment from one racetrack to another.
27:00
Yeah. So one of the big benefits of of
27:02
that sport of Motorsports versus, you know, sponsoring
27:05
baseball or football is you get some of this B to B engagement
27:09
with other sponsors. So if you look at any car on
27:11
Saturday or Sunday, they're all fertile ground to do business
27:14
with. So we partner with a lot of the
27:16
different companies and try to move their freight.
27:18
And then with NASCAR themselves. So yeah, we've moved golf carts
27:22
from track to track for NASCAR. We've moved credentials,
27:24
trailers, all kinds of different opportunities to do freight and
27:29
logistics within the racing circuit.
27:31
Now we're moving actually this week we just started doing F1
27:34
moves for. So now we've crossed over F1,
27:37
started to see we were in in NASCAR and they're like, OK,
27:40
well what can you guys move some of our freight from track to
27:42
track so. That's fun, yeah.
27:44
Let's talk about something else that's fun, the Playing with
27:47
Truck Series. Oh, cool.
27:49
Yeah. So how do you become business
27:52
development guy after you've been a marketing guy for 12
27:55
years? You try to take your own advice.
27:57
So I had always been harassing our sales and business
28:00
development teams to do something on social media, do
28:03
something for personal branding because honestly, customers deal
28:06
with people, not with companies like you don't.
28:09
You're not going to Anthony. You're not going to ask Bennett
28:11
family of companies to move your freight.
28:13
You're going to ask Chris. So I kind of leaned into them
28:16
like what can I do moving into sales for the first time to, to
28:19
put myself out in the marketplace.
28:21
And I actually used ChatGPT and AI to help me invent this
28:24
series. And it's basically I'm using toy
28:27
trucks to explain very complex logistics and transportation
28:32
topics. I grew up playing with Matchbox
28:35
cars and stuff in the dirt. So it was very natural for me to
28:38
use, you know, toy trucks to explain complex logistics topics
28:42
across our different companies. So something else interesting
28:46
there, you used AI and and ChatGPT to kind of come up with
28:50
the idea for this series. So again, like I'm hearing sort
28:54
of this layering in of technology that's probably not
28:57
very typical for where the transportation industry is right
29:00
now. Yeah, boy, AI is infiltrating
29:05
all of our business lives and it is incredibly compelling and
29:09
powerful to help us level up our careers as leaders, as
29:13
salespeople, as marketing people.
29:16
So I love having a conversation and planting a seed of an idea
29:21
with ChatGPT in that particular case.
29:22
And I said, hey, man, I'm, I'm going into this new role in
29:26
sales. I want to build a video series
29:28
that, you know, really helps to show my expertise.
29:30
Here's my LinkedIn resume. Here's what my company does help
29:33
me develop this series. And we had this dialogue and it
29:36
comes down to scripting and then what are we going to do in the
29:38
scenes? And I mean, the thing's amazing.
29:40
And so you can see how AI is helping in all different aspects
29:43
of executing sales, executing, marketing, very excited about
29:48
how it can help analyze trucking lanes, safety, those types of
29:53
things inside of logistics. It's, it's just truly
29:56
remarkable. We're in a we're in the dawn of
29:58
a, of an era that I don't think we're ever going to witness
30:01
again. It it really is incredible.
30:04
Are there other ways that you're seeing it being used within your
30:08
company or sort of within the industry at large yet?
30:11
Yeah. So every autonomous vehicle,
30:14
every Tesla that you hear about in in the marketplace is really
30:17
AI is at the base of it, right? It's it's running the analysis
30:20
of how an autonomous vehicle can go down the road and see
30:23
traffic. And I mean way MO vehicles turn
30:26
on their own. So in trucking they're trying to
30:28
do some things with autonomous and that kind of stuff in our
30:31
big, heavy and ugly. I don't think AI is ever going
30:34
to handle a, you know, 200,000 LB load and you know, all the
30:37
escorts and stuff. Like I'm not worried about that.
30:40
But what it is doing, it's helping on the safety side.
30:42
So all the cameras that are facing outward from the truck,
30:46
inward from the truck, we deal with a lot of safety issues on
30:50
the roads. And so the the AI is helping to
30:53
give back to our safety department, whether there's a
30:55
hard breaking event or whether somebody has swerved or whether
30:59
there's low, low wires or low bridges.
31:02
Like the AI is helping to provide us with very detailed
31:05
safety feedback and then helping us to coach our drivers to do a
31:09
better job out there. You know, paying attention to
31:11
all those risk factors. That's just one way.
31:14
That's really interesting. And you know, some people have
31:17
talked about initiatives like this and sort of painted it with
31:20
like a scary Big Brother brush. But the way I hear you talking
31:24
about it, Chris, is that this is more designed for keeping your
31:27
drivers safe, keeping other people on the road around them
31:31
safe and looking for coaching opportunities that, hey, we saw
31:35
that you did this here in this environment.
31:37
Let's talk about that. Let's review what would have
31:40
been a better strategy here. It is, it's computer augmented,
31:45
you know, human excellence, honestly.
31:47
I mean, if you think about your traditional safety department,
31:49
they were relying on police reports or you know, somebody,
31:53
how's my driving? You ever seen those stickers on
31:55
the back of a car? Somebody calling in said, hey,
31:57
your driver did XYZ, but now there's data being fed in and,
32:03
you know, safety personnel can analyze the video with the
32:06
driver and they can coach them together with, with, you know,
32:09
with evidence. I'll give you the flip side.
32:11
The truck drivers love AI and they love inward facing cameras
32:15
because there's so many things that that we call them 4
32:19
Wheelers, the everyday driver on the road does to put a truck
32:22
driver at risk. And those those cameras are
32:25
ready and able to analyze that situation and actually exonerate
32:28
truck drivers 95% of the time. Oh interesting.
32:32
So what are some things that us 4 Wheelers typically do that
32:36
threaten their safety or make their jobs more difficult?
32:39
Oh my gosh, if I could ask for one change in our industry, it's
32:42
that they put commercial motor vehicle safety into driver's Ed.
32:47
You have no idea. First of all, if you've ever sat
32:49
in a cab of a big rig, the blind spots right in front of the
32:52
truck and right on the side of it on both sides.
32:55
A car absolutely disappears if you're sitting in the driver's
32:59
seat unless you're looking at the mirrors and you're really
33:01
paying attention as a professional.
33:03
So being in any of the blind spots in a truck is an extreme
33:07
danger. You've got to realize how much
33:09
weight is going on in a truck. They cannot stop on a dime.
33:12
They cannot swerve on a dime. They so all the weight that's
33:15
involved with trucks, I wish people knew more about.
33:19
And then there's just, you know, people get really, really
33:21
impatient on the roads. They, they have no, you know,
33:24
real empathy for that. These guys are professionals.
33:28
This is their career. One bad accident or one incident
33:31
can basically cost them their career.
33:33
And yet we rely on these folks every day of the year to move
33:37
our precious freight and our precious Amazon loads and
33:39
everything else. I mean people, people need
33:42
sensitivity training honestly to what drivers are doing.
33:46
Wow. Something I'd never really
33:47
thought that much about. I'm glad that you're giving
33:49
voice to it here today. So, you know, and as I'm
33:52
thinking like one of these, one of these things that I could
33:55
probably do a better job of myself is, yeah, when there's
33:58
sort of that traffic on the highway, man, a big rig is a
34:03
great place for me to sort of cut back into the lane I want to
34:06
get into because they're leading like leaving such a like big
34:09
safety space there where they're leaving.
34:11
As I'm listening to you talk, they're leaving that safety
34:13
space because they're carrying so much weight.
34:16
They don't have the ability to speed up quickly or more
34:19
importantly, to slow down quickly.
34:21
So they're doing that for their own safety, but also everyone
34:25
around them. That's right.
34:26
And, and I just realized that about 30 or 35 feet in front of
34:30
that buffer that they're leaving is when they can actually first
34:33
visually see you. Now they know you're going to
34:35
cut into them and if you're closer because they're just
34:37
professionals, but they literally can't see you if
34:40
you're too close. 35 feet, that's the first time.
34:43
So if I'm if I'm 30 feet away from the front of that which is
34:47
a fair distance. As I think about.
34:50
They can't see me, OK. We've had, I mean terrible
34:53
situations. You'll see things on YouTube if
34:55
you look them up, you'll see a truck driver that'll push a car,
34:58
you know, a mile and not even know it's there.
35:00
I mean, the the weight of a Toyota Celica is nothing to a
35:04
big rig. And if you're just disappeared
35:06
in front of the hood? Wild.
35:09
OK. All right.
35:10
Well, there's our public service announcement for our listeners
35:13
today. Be safe.
35:14
Yeah. OK, let's shift gears.
35:16
I want to talk about the the Bennett's 50th anniversary book
35:21
that you spearheaded and led to the you winning the Trailblazer
35:24
Award. What was this book about?
35:26
Why? Why did you create this?
35:28
Well, I'll, I'll show it right here.
35:30
First of all, that's the book. That's.
35:32
Beautiful golden cover, very much a a hardcover coffee table
35:37
type of book with photos and stories and things in it.
35:42
I'll tell you what, when you work for a family company, and
35:46
so it's the mom and her three kids and then the next
35:49
generation of grandkids, and then you've got all the old
35:52
timers that tell all the stories of how this company was built.
35:55
And remember too, in the 70s and 80s, it was a completely
35:58
different time. Much more of a swashbuckling
36:01
era, Lots of goofiness going on in the workplace.
36:05
All these stories are in, you know, hard to piece together and
36:08
and capture to really get the essence of a company.
36:11
For 50 years, there was a lot of pressure when we celebrate an
36:14
anniversary every year. So we hired a outside publisher
36:17
that's good at helping to capture stories.
36:20
We spent a year and a half, myself and the granddaughter of
36:23
our owner spent a year and a half gathering stories, writing
36:27
manuscript, organizing the the book.
36:30
A lot of times people's memories aren't really accurate.
36:32
So you're trying to you're trying to make it the most
36:35
accurate Bible of what's actually happened to this point,
36:38
because to this point we had never written down a lot of the
36:41
stuff. So very interesting journey.
36:45
The most fun part is they've saved all the articles.
36:49
They've been in all kinds of memorabilia, old hats, old
36:52
signs, old everything. We've got it in a warehouse over
36:56
here on the property at Bennett. And so this mixture of ephemera
37:00
and a really compelling story to get us through for the last 50
37:03
years really became a passion project for myself and the
37:07
granddaughter of the owner. Sounds like a lot of fun.
37:10
And then what happens to this book?
37:12
Is it just sort of distributed internally?
37:13
Do you provide it to customers? Yeah, it became, it's all the
37:17
above. So we wanted to make sure it got
37:19
in the hands of every single person that's either currently
37:21
working here or ever worked here, agents, truck drivers, all
37:24
that stuff. And then we made it available on
37:26
our website through a special 50th anniversary campaign.
37:29
People could go to the site and request a book and we would send
37:33
them the the 50th anniversary book.
37:35
We send it to partners, vendors, we still give it out when we are
37:39
trying to attract a new customer.
37:41
And just to just to show that there's a, there's a good swath
37:44
of 20 or 30 customers we've had for, you know, nearly the entire
37:49
span of this company's life. And so when you become a Bennett
37:51
customer, you become one for life.
37:54
Oh, but a powerful way to be able to demonstrate that legacy
37:58
and that customer loyalty that you guys have built up.
38:00
Yeah, I want to hear about Wreaths Across America in
38:07
community based Initiative. How did this project shape your
38:11
perspective on corporate social responsibility?
38:14
Well, I'm glad you. I'm glad you asked Wreaths
38:16
Across America. Their mission is to put a
38:19
holiday wreath on the gravesite of every fallen soldier in the
38:22
world that has sacrificed themselves for their, for their
38:26
country. And they've been doing it for
38:29
about 20 some years. It was started by Morrill
38:31
Worcester, a guy that had a wreath company up in Columbia
38:35
Falls, ME and early on and they, his first goal was to cover
38:40
every gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery.
38:42
And to achieve that, he had to have trucking partners to bring
38:45
the wreaths down from Columbia Falls to Arlington National
38:49
Cemetery. It's truckloads and truckloads
38:51
of, of wreaths. Well over the ensuing, you know,
38:54
20 some years, he's continued to develop partnerships.
38:56
Bennett jumped in in 2017. We only, and, and we moved a
39:01
small, I don't know, 500 wreaths or something down to a cemetery
39:04
in South Georgia, a National Cemetery called Andersonville
39:07
National Cemetery, 500 wreaths on a National Cemetery that has
39:13
20,000 grave sites. Andersonville was a prisoner of
39:19
war camp in the Civil War. And so they buried some 13,000
39:23
soldiers there. But beyond the 13,000, some 7000
39:26
soldiers have been buried there from the, you know, Georgia
39:29
region as a, as a National Cemetery for, you know, honored
39:33
veterans and that sort of stuff. So when we started to move
39:37
wreaths there and we saw the kind of lack of support in the
39:40
community for this initiative, we really leaned in as a
39:42
company, our core value of patriotism.
39:45
We have a ton of veterans on staff, a ton of veterans in our
39:48
truck driving force. Everybody started to understand
39:51
the mission of recognizing these veterans for their service.
39:55
They say that the last time a soldiers name is said is is the
39:58
last time they're remembered. And So what they do is you, you
40:01
place a wreath on the gravesite and you say the soldiers name
40:04
and thank them for their service and that, you know, kind of
40:07
brings their memory back to the forefront.
40:09
So it's a very somber and and reverent approach, but.
40:13
Our people love it because it it aligns with our core values.
40:18
We've used it for corporate social responsibility kind of
40:20
marketing. It's sort of a part of our
40:22
culture is how do we go to market that?
40:24
People know that we're really big on wreaths across America.
40:27
We do a huge ceremony every year here at our Home Office.
40:30
We have custom decorated trucks that that that transport the
40:34
wreaths. We do a big ceremony to honor
40:36
all those folks that are part of it.
40:38
So it's a big part of our company.
40:40
Wow, that's what a neat way to celebrate.
40:42
And, and sorry if you actually mentioned this, I'm assuming
40:45
that this happens around Christmas time, just the wreath
40:47
being sort of associated with that.
40:49
Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah.
40:50
It's usually like the second week of December is National
40:53
Wreaths Across America Day. It's usually, yeah, that's when
40:55
you place the wreaths and then the wreaths are taken off
40:57
sometime in January. And this is still sort of
40:59
spearheaded by the same company in Maine that manufacturers the
41:03
wreaths. Yeah, the national, Yeah,
41:05
Wreaths Across America is is housed with with the Wreaths
41:09
Company that's up in Columbia Falls.
41:10
Yep. Neat.
41:13
So going back to the significant growth that we were talking
41:16
about early on, I think when you joined you guys were around a
41:19
couple 100 million. Now you're just shy of a
41:22
billion. Aside from the acquisitions that
41:25
you've made, what lever have you guys pulled that has really
41:30
contributed the most to that growth?
41:33
Well, you said aside from, because I would say that's
41:35
tough. I mean we've tried organic
41:37
growth. We've we have started some
41:39
companies. So we did start like I said,
41:41
boss crane and rigging in 2015. And then so things that are
41:45
logically associated to our business.
41:47
So when you a lot of times when you're moving big, heavy and
41:50
ugly, there's also a crane that's needed to move the thing
41:53
on and off of the truck. So that was a very logical
41:55
growth piece for us. So and that was about a 60 or
41:59
$70 million just organic company startup out of Long Longview,
42:04
TX. Apart from that, we invest
42:07
heavily in recruiting for truck drivers and advertising, as
42:10
you've mentioned, for customer growth.
42:12
And you know, every single time you acquire a new agent.
42:15
So we really work on bringing new agents to the company.
42:18
That's sort of recurring revenue.
42:21
They bring their book of business, we service them well,
42:24
they bring their customers on board.
42:25
They need trucks to move. And so we just continually work
42:28
on recruiting new agents to the company, recruiting new trucks
42:31
to the company. That's sort of our organic
42:33
growth model, but the rest of it really is by finding companies
42:36
that have just a something was wasn't quite right with their
42:40
financials or they hit a particular tough spot with
42:42
insurance or there's something wasn't right with how they were
42:45
going to market. So we've acquired, like I said,
42:48
a number of organizations that are just in that part and then
42:51
we do enough to fix their financials, get them, you know,
42:55
stable. And then, you know, our owners
42:57
are pretty smart at buying low and selling high.
42:59
So like when oil and gas was doing poorly, they go and get
43:01
oil and gas and now oil and gas is doing better.
43:04
So that's kind of all mixed together.
43:07
Interesting. And so these companies you
43:12
talked about, you know one of the big things that you guys do
43:14
is spend a lot on recruiting drivers.
43:18
Without drivers you don't have folks to and there's a big
43:21
driver shortage in the country. What is that something that you
43:25
have gotten involved with with the marketing background or is
43:28
that more of like an HR thing and they've got sort of their
43:31
own system for that? No.
43:33
So, no, I've definitely been involved in it because as I
43:35
said, we're mainly owner or operator.
43:37
So actually HR doesn't have very much to do at all.
43:39
We have actually independent driver recruiting portion of our
43:43
company. So it's recruiting and
43:44
qualification to make sure that these independent drivers meet
43:48
our safety standards and our requirements for experience to
43:51
lease on to our company. So the recruiting engine here is
43:55
all about advertising and doing events.
43:58
So we're big on the truck show circuit.
44:00
What we bring experienced owner operators, what we say is you're
44:03
the, this is going to be your second place to to work all the
44:06
way through retirement. And so we go to some of the big
44:09
truck shows, so where they show the big, pretty big rigs and
44:12
these guys take a lot of pride in their equipment.
44:14
And we'll go and and say, hey, could you bring, you know, would
44:17
you be interested in leasing on your equipment to us?
44:20
And so we've affiliated ourselves with Tony Justice, who
44:23
is a country singer truck driver.
44:26
He's been helping U.S. market and we go to 20 some truck shows
44:29
a year. We've got a huge, we, we put on
44:31
our own truck show at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the fall
44:33
called Star Stripes and White Lines, which is where we bring,
44:37
we do a national championship for the, you know, the big,
44:40
beautiful, big rigs that these guys spend millions of dollars
44:44
putting together and then all their buddies come and that's
44:48
where we can hopefully find some new recruits.
44:51
So I'm somebody who likes specificity and we've talked a
44:54
little bit about how Bennett prides itself on these
44:58
customized solutions, the big, heavy, weird, ugly.
45:02
Can you maybe describe one of the more complex logistical
45:05
challenges that you and your team approached?
45:08
So I'll give you one. We, as I said before, we work
45:12
with, you know some of the top space agencies in the country,
45:15
you would know them by name. It's pretty obvious.
45:18
And they have to move components for these large rockets.
45:23
So whether it's a rocket booster or fuselage or even some of the,
45:29
you know, satellite componentry. And The thing is when they make
45:32
these pieces, wherever they're manufactured, whether it's Texas
45:35
or Florida or Alabama, it's, it's one of one.
45:39
There's no spares. There's no, you know, it's, it
45:43
is what it is. You have to keep it very much
45:46
climate controlled. You have to make sure that it
45:48
doesn't shake, rattle, roll, get out of gauge anything at all.
45:52
It's like, you know, moving something on an egg shells, you
45:55
know. So to do that, you have to be
45:58
very specific with how you load the piece and then how you
46:01
escort and work with it all the way from the point of pickup to
46:05
the point of delivery. And so we put an entire team and
46:09
process around the movement of these high dollar pieces of
46:13
equipment. And it it like we'll send a
46:17
camper full of additional maintenance guys so that the
46:21
truck, if it were to break down, they can immediately get out,
46:24
fix the rig and keep the the load moving.
46:26
There are police escorts. There are they do a pre pre
46:30
route survey to make sure that there's no overhanging lines or
46:34
overhanging trees that are going to get in the way.
46:36
And if there are, they will send a bucket truck before the load.
46:39
They will get the trees cut or the power lines lifted to be
46:43
able to make sure that it moves over.
46:46
Yeah. So yeah, you have to work with
46:48
every minute and, and, and if it's going from state to state,
46:51
the permits in one state are different than another.
46:54
So you might not be able to move during the day in one state.
46:57
You have to hold it overnight in a holding area.
46:59
So you've got to pre predetermine where you're going
47:02
to park overnight. You have to guard the, the, the,
47:05
the freight and you have to make sure it stays climate control.
47:08
So sometimes we'll have to put a, you know, a, an enclosure
47:11
around the piece just to make sure that it doesn't gain
47:14
temperature or lose temperature or anything throughout the, the,
47:18
the transit. So it's it's quite complicated
47:20
going from state to state in the US, believe it or not, with
47:23
oversized and very specialized freight.
47:25
So many things that never would have thought of.
47:27
I figure you just, you know, you get in the truck and you go and
47:31
there's permits. There's sometimes there's wires
47:33
to be moved. You got to park overnight
47:35
because a different state has a different rule before you cross
47:37
the state line. This is wild.
47:39
And it's hazmat, so. So a lot of times there's
47:42
explosives involved. So you've got to be hazmat
47:44
certified, so. OK, and you guys check all these
47:47
boxes. Obviously, this is what you
47:48
specialize in. Is the big, heavy, weird and
47:51
ugly. Yep.
47:53
OK, Chris, I'd like to hear about a serious challenge that
47:56
you've overcome in your life, whether it's personal or
47:59
professional. How'd you get through it and
48:01
what did you learn? Well, Anthony, I wish I had a
48:05
compelling, I mean, some of the most compelling individuals that
48:09
we, we know have some, you know, rags to riches tale or something
48:13
that was that really affected them.
48:14
For me, my journey has been discomfort and I've done it
48:20
twice, which is to move. And, and that's really the, the,
48:23
the most, the biggest challenges that I've created pretty much
48:26
for myself. So I'll say that I started my
48:29
career in my hometown in Rochester, NY, and after getting
48:33
married and realizing that I was sort of bored with my first
48:36
role, I decided to put my resume on monster.com and ship my
48:41
entire family off to Chicago, IL area.
48:45
Within 30 days. We sold our house and we were in
48:48
the new market in 30 days, took an entire house full of stuff,
48:51
put in an apartment. And I started whaling away at a,
48:54
at a startup company in Chicago. And my wife and I, you know, did
48:58
everything we could to just, you know, survive and thrive in a
49:01
new market. And so that's where we had our
49:04
kids. That's where we met.
49:06
You know, we have to you have to be able to meet new people very
49:09
quickly. That means find I I like to find
49:11
a church. Like that's just how we figured
49:13
out how to meet new people. And that will put you through
49:17
about, as, you know, much stress as on a marriage and a family
49:20
because we left our core family back in New York.
49:24
And so, but we did it again. We, we moved back to Rochester,
49:28
you know, after that first stint to Chicago, we brought our kids
49:31
back. I worked from home for eight
49:33
years in Rochester. And, you know, when working from
49:37
home wasn't cool, it wasn't a thing.
49:39
So I had to figure out how to manage a team of of 10 people
49:44
all over the globe with rudimentary technology back in
49:47
those days. And and then I did it again.
49:50
And that's the the story you've already heard of me moving down
49:52
to Atlanta to a market I'm very unfamiliar with.
49:54
I mean, South and the North are like, you know, oil and water.
49:58
It took me about three years to figure out the speed, the
50:01
cadence, the friendships, the life down here.
50:05
And we took our 4th, 4th and 5th grader out of their school up
50:08
there and plunked them down here.
50:10
And and so it's just, it's very jarring to your relationships,
50:14
to your family, to your personal life.
50:16
You learn just how to be adaptive, how to meet new
50:19
people, how to make friends, how to set up a house, move a house,
50:24
you know, but yeah, that's, that's really the, the hardships
50:28
for me. It's probably more self created
50:29
than anything. I have a wonderful family and
50:31
great parents that were always supportive.
50:33
I don't have any, you know, huge health issues.
50:35
I'm very blessed and thankful for that.
50:37
So I I just just kind of self-made angst, I guess.
50:42
Aside from finding a church each time that you move, which sounds
50:46
like that's pretty core to you getting a foundation, you know,
50:49
kind of finding your people, finding, you know, some friends.
50:53
What's another strategy that you learn from moving so many times
50:57
that you know over time if you sort of got to your last move,
51:00
helped to make the move slightly less jarring?
51:06
A great wife I mean, she's, she's out she's, she's been yeah
51:10
she, my wife has moved around a lot when in her background as a
51:15
as a kid, her dad was in the Kmart family of companies.
51:18
So they moved every two years, moving to a different store.
51:20
So she's very adaptive at making new friends and very quickly
51:24
meeting neighbors and, and, and those kinds of things.
51:27
I personally lean into my hobbies.
51:29
I'm a volleyball player so I like to go and immediately find
51:33
a sports league to, to get involved with and make friends
51:35
that way. So it's it's pretty basic on the
51:38
personal side and in the professional side.
51:41
You have to lean into finding advocates in your organization.
51:47
I, I did it twice, especially when I came to Atlanta.
51:49
I found a guy within a week of meeting here.
51:52
I kept meeting all the people at Bennett and my mentor here, he
51:56
said, look, in your first 90 days, you got to make an impact.
51:59
And he he, he embraced me and helped advocate for me inside of
52:04
the organization, making sure that people started to feel
52:06
comfortable with my style and the things that I was trying to
52:08
achieve. So definitely have to find
52:11
advocates at your new professional position.
52:15
How did you help your kids with these boobs?
52:19
Parenting. They, they, you know, they,
52:21
they're resilient. My, my son was in Boy Scouts, my
52:24
daughter was involved in, in drama and, and acting and that
52:29
kind of stuff. And so you just have to get them
52:31
involved very, very quickly. They, they become adaptive and,
52:35
and teach them, you know, to, to be resilient again.
52:38
The, the two times that we, the first time we moved, they were
52:41
babies, so they didn't know. But that second time when we
52:43
moved them as 4th and 5th graders, they still talk to my
52:45
wife and I about the night we told them we were moving.
52:48
They were just distraught because they had great friends
52:51
where they were from. But they've, they built new
52:53
friendships, you know, within six months of, you know, being
52:56
the new kids at the new school. And yeah, that's part of life.
53:00
Like I, I think they, you know, when they went off to college
53:02
and they, they continue to move in their, their lives.
53:05
I think they're thankful that we've done this, that we they
53:07
weren't just always in one place.
53:09
Yeah, they learned to be uncomfortable, much like
53:12
they're. They're dead.
53:13
That's right. You mentioned that oil and water
53:16
from moving from north to South. What?
53:18
What was the big difference that you've noticed?
53:21
The speed, Oh my gosh, I move like this.
53:23
I'm just, I mean, I go, I go 90 miles an hour up north and you
53:28
know, you would walk into a Walmart down here or, or
53:31
whatever and like anytime, anytime you want to be done with
53:35
the, the checkout would be great.
53:38
So, but you learn, you learn that, that it's not that there's
53:41
a difference in intelligence or, or even thoughtfulness.
53:45
It's just the, the difference in cadence.
53:47
And so I just had to learn that like people are just as, you
53:50
know, want to move just as fast down here from a business
53:52
standpoint, they just don't want to, they just don't want to talk
53:55
as fast and they don't want it to seem as high strung and
53:58
stressful as I might make it seem.
54:01
Spoken like a true New Yorker, yeah.
54:04
How would you describe your superpower, Chris?
54:08
I, I started at school and it's just throughout my, my career,
54:12
it's, I'm a problem solver more than anything.
54:15
So I have this ability to take in really complex technical
54:20
aspects. I still to this day, I'm, like I
54:22
said, I'm nerding out an AI. I'm, I'm, I'm doing very
54:25
technical implementations on websites and CRM and, and all
54:29
the things. So I have a keen knowledge for
54:32
the technical. I also have the keen knowledge
54:34
for the business. So I've sat in so many C-Suite
54:37
meetings at this point in my career.
54:40
I can kind of listen to the drivers of profit and loss and
54:44
efficiency and, and, and sort of synthesize what's going on and
54:49
come up with very succinct solutions that we're going to
54:52
work on and get it done. So I'm a get it done guy.
54:55
I'm not a talker, I'm a doer. And so I always lean on, OK, we
54:58
get close enough to what we think the right answer is given
55:01
all this information, we're going to start executing and
55:04
then we're going to, we're going to learn from executing.
55:06
We're not going to learn from talking about it.
55:09
I like that. Have you found any conflict with
55:12
that as you've moved into the South or people kind of get on
55:16
board? 100 percent, 100% it's, it's as
55:19
much about, I don't know if it's just, it's a little bit about
55:21
the South and it's a little bit about just people's style,
55:25
learning style and, and execution style.
55:28
Like you said, you'll always get into a room in any leadership
55:31
meeting with people that are much more of an analyzer than a
55:34
doer. I'm a, I'm a disk.
55:35
I'm like ADI kind of a guy. So very dominant and kind of
55:41
want to make sure that things are getting done.
55:43
So it's not really a, it's not really a, a geographic thing for
55:47
sure. Yeah, there's different people
55:50
all over the place. Some people are like, ready, you
55:52
know, fire, and then we'll aim. And then other people are, you
55:55
know, they can actually get paralyzed by too much, you know,
55:58
analyzing. Exactly.
56:00
Sounds like you're definitely the former, yeah.
56:03
How about some daily habits or practices that help to get you
56:07
started in the day, keep you on track as you're going?
56:10
Yeah. So moving into this new role, we
56:14
started to engage a sales training company called Sandler.
56:17
So there's a Sandler model for sales training and we've been
56:20
taking the deep, deep boot camp. And one of those boot camp
56:24
elements is journaling, sales journaling and sort of sitting
56:28
down on a daily basis, reviewing what you did the prior day,
56:32
going through one behavior that you did well.
56:35
How was your attitude towards the, the sale?
56:38
And then some of the specific points that you want to do to
56:41
improve. And over the course of a couple
56:44
of weeks of doing that, you really start to see your, your
56:47
patterns and sales. You know, sales is unlike
56:49
design, design, you can see the results.
56:52
Sales is like it's, it's soft and it's, it's interactions with
56:56
people. So the only way to examine and
56:58
get better at sales is to actually examine what went on.
57:01
So I do feel like journaling has been something that's been
57:03
really helpful. Have you identified a particular
57:08
habit of yours or pattern of yours that maybe you've wanted
57:13
to correct, or work have worked on correcting?
57:16
I would say the opposite. I've kind of been surprised.
57:20
The surprise for me was that setting an upfront contract with
57:24
somebody, one of the Sandler elements is you spend a lot of
57:27
time on the front end outlining what the discussion's going to
57:31
be, what the agenda's going to be, what the specific outcomes
57:33
are going to be. And look, if you and I don't get
57:36
along in this discussion or it doesn't seem to make sense,
57:38
we're just going to agree to to part ways and and we're going to
57:41
here's the quality next steps. I've gone through that.
57:44
Most people don't set up that agreement with individuals
57:49
before speaking with them. And I've done it and I've
57:51
actually been thanked for that. I'm like, wow, like people don't
57:55
people don't, you know, pre screen what they're going to do
57:58
in the sales discussion. But the answer is no.
58:01
Some most times people just come guns a blazing with their pitch
58:05
or their services or their products, and they don't listen
58:08
to what you need. They're trying to, you know,
58:10
make a sale, but not a line. And, you know, 90% of the time
58:14
we're not going to do business together.
58:15
And you need to acknowledge that.
58:17
So yeah, that was the that was the habit that I want to keep
58:20
doing. I want to keep reinforcing that.
58:22
I'm trying to learn that setting of expectations with the other
58:25
party and and having that that patience because we all don't
58:29
love being sold to. And so part of this was it.
58:34
Sandler was the name of it. Sandler.
58:36
Sandler, the Sandler sales process is kind of setting those
58:40
expectations up front and kind of outlining sort of the out for
58:46
the other person. Like, hey, you know, if we may
58:49
get to a point where it seems like this is not a fit and we'll
58:51
just agree that, you know, we'll go back to what we were doing
58:55
and we don't have to bother each other anymore.
58:57
You should be a Sandler trainer, absolutely.
59:00
I sum that up well. Yeah.
59:02
So, yeah, Chris, as I look back and and I've got the the
59:07
opportunity to talk to a lot of business leaders and they've
59:09
seen the same thing. There's this this pattern of
59:12
sometimes, you know, in the moment we make what we think is
59:15
a big mistake and we feel bad about it.
59:18
We beat ourselves up over it. And then as we get further away
59:22
from it, look in the rearview mirror, we see, wow, that
59:26
mistake quote, UN quote was actually a big turning point for
59:31
me or a lever for change that actually I'm really grateful
59:35
for. Can you think of an event like
59:38
that in your past? Yeah.
59:40
So I'm sure you can tell from talking to me, I get really
59:44
passionate about what I do. Very like I said, I'm very
59:48
technical, I'm very precise oriented.
59:51
And so I would early on in my career, in my prior role, I was
59:57
building a website. I had a very prescribed.
1:00:00
Method for the content and got very technically involved got
1:00:05
into a meeting with fellow marketing people and some of the
1:00:08
other folks that weren't as experienced and online.
1:00:10
They were just general marketers.
1:00:12
I just wasn't thrilled with how they were executing the project
1:00:16
and I I got into a discussion with them and ultimately I'll
1:00:20
just let it go and talk to my boss.
1:00:22
You know, a week and a half later my boss said, hey, you
1:00:25
know you got into this discussion so passionately that
1:00:29
you know your teammates started to cry in front of me.
1:00:33
I'm like, not me, but in front of the boss.
1:00:35
I said really like they actually cried.
1:00:37
They're like, yeah, you were they really didn't feel very
1:00:40
good about that interaction. And I started and I'm like, Oh
1:00:43
my gosh, I had no idea And and I've I've I've still bump into
1:00:47
that once in a while like just the way that I I'm very
1:00:51
outwardly facing. I wear my feelings on my
1:00:53
shoulders and I and on my sleeve and I I definitely have a a
1:00:57
point of view when I'm in a discussion and that that moment
1:01:00
though of of hearing that I had made I had made my teammates cry
1:01:04
well, throughout the rest of my journey here, it's like I'm very
1:01:07
sensitive to how my words and how my presentation.
1:01:11
And how I bring my points across, affect the listener and
1:01:14
affect the person that's receiving those things.
1:01:16
And not everybody is as into my delivery style as I think I am.
1:01:20
So it's definitely just taught me as I've gone through
1:01:24
leadership, like, dude, you better be really aware of how
1:01:26
you're delivering the message and be very increase your
1:01:30
emotional EQ, right? I've done a lot of addition, all
1:01:32
my learnings and books and things is like, how do you keep
1:01:35
working on your EQ, your emotional quotient there to to
1:01:39
make sure that people aren't, you know, getting negatively
1:01:42
affected by how I deliver. And and So what did that look
1:01:44
like in a practical sense? You sort of just scaled back the
1:01:47
intensity of the delivery or are you doing a better job of sort
1:01:51
of like checking in with people, ask them questions, kind of see
1:01:54
how they're receiving it? Yeah, I think it's both.
1:01:57
Yeah, for sure. Like, have you even seen it in
1:02:00
my son, as I watch him in his career, it's like we're both
1:02:03
built very intensely. So when you think that, you
1:02:08
know, it's all about the technical piece and it's all
1:02:10
about executing perfectly and it's all about that it's, it's
1:02:13
really not like the person's just trying to get their job
1:02:16
done. They're just trying to, they're
1:02:17
just trying to succeed. So it is about the content and
1:02:20
the the volume and just what you're saying.
1:02:23
And it also is very much about listening and being a better
1:02:27
listener of the other person's point of view, what they're
1:02:29
bringing to the table, what their what their excellence
1:02:33
brings into the team setting. Like it's not all about me and
1:02:36
what I'm bringing. It's more about what the team is
1:02:38
bringing to the table and the collective unit is helping to
1:02:41
shape the project. So yeah.
1:02:43
But being a better listener, more empathetic with my speech
1:02:46
style, more empathetic with my writing style, so that it
1:02:49
doesn't come off quite so harshly.
1:02:52
Chris, I've just got one more question for you, but before I
1:02:54
ask it, I want to do 2 things. First, I'm going to invite all
1:02:56
the listeners to go ahead and hit the follow button on their
1:02:58
favorite podcast app. We've had a great conversation
1:03:01
today with Chris Zukowski from the Bennett family of companies,
1:03:05
and I want you to continue to get more great stories like
1:03:07
this. Chris, I also want to let people
1:03:09
know the best way to get in touch with you.
1:03:10
What would that be? Yeah, I'd just say follow me on
1:03:14
LinkedIn. So Chris Zepkowski, Kris
1:03:17
Zepkowski, RZEPKOWSKI, look me up on LinkedIn, give me a
1:03:23
follow. I post a lot of content all the
1:03:25
time and that's where I like to engage with people, so.
1:03:28
Great. And we'll since especially since
1:03:30
your last name is a little tricky to spell, we'll make sure
1:03:33
we include a link to that in the show notes for folks who didn't
1:03:35
pick it up that were listening. So last question I have for you,
1:03:38
Chris, you and I reconnect in a year and you're very excited
1:03:41
because you're celebrating something that's just happened.
1:03:44
What's that thing? So my big project here stepping
1:03:48
into this new role is to implement a company wide CRM.
1:03:53
We, this Bennett family of companies has never had a true
1:03:56
enterprise customer relationship management system.
1:03:59
So we've chosen HubSpot. I lead that project.
1:04:02
I'm in weekly calls here since probably 6 months ago trying to
1:04:07
onboard people that have really never dealt with putting sales
1:04:11
contacts and sales interactions into a system.
1:04:14
So I'm hopeful a year from now we're celebrating not only that
1:04:17
most people at least know how to use it and are on it and, and,
1:04:20
and having, you know, good success with it, but that there
1:04:23
was some real value that we got out of having ACRM, That we
1:04:25
learned some more things about our customers, that we gained
1:04:28
some more sales opportunities and that we as a company
1:04:32
function more coherently, I guess across all of our
1:04:37
different business units. So not only you introducing a
1:04:40
new CRM, but it sounds like for some folks it's maybe their
1:04:43
first opportunity to use ACRM. Yeah, this as you said earlier,
1:04:49
this industry is is behind by value about 10 years.
1:04:52
So yeah, the good majority of our individuals at Bennett have
1:04:55
never even been exposed to ACRM system.
1:04:58
So teaching them the value of it, you know, how to put
1:05:02
information into it, how to leverage what's in there to
1:05:06
advance their sales activities is all brand new content.
1:05:10
And doing this across 12 different companies, some with
1:05:13
a, you know, their own very distinct identity. 100%.
1:05:17
Big challenge for you, I imagine for sure.
1:05:20
What's the hardest part about it that we haven't already touched
1:05:22
on? Oh, it's CRMS have come a long
1:05:26
way. HubSpot is very user friendly
1:05:29
compared to other ones that I've used before.
1:05:31
So the biggest challenge is just getting people logged in, just
1:05:35
getting them integrated with their Outlook so that they can
1:05:38
use their e-mail to e-mail contacts directly from their
1:05:42
system and have it documented. All that is just mind blowing
1:05:46
for people. So the biggest challenge is real
1:05:48
basic right now. Yeah, Well, Christop Kowski from
1:05:52
the Bennett family of companies, I want to be the first to thank
1:05:54
you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:05:57
I really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun.
1:05:59
I really appreciate the opportunity.
1:06:00
Thank you. Yeah, folks, that's a wrap on
1:06:03
another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:06:05
Thanks for learning with us today.