Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Mastering Niche Markets: How SMB Freight Brokers Can Thrive in 2026 with Will Jenkins

Transcript

Mastering Niche Markets: How SMB Freight Brokers Can Thrive in 2026 with Will Jenkins · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Foreign.
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  Fulfillment back at Manifest with another special guest, Will Jenkins.
• 0:11
  What's going on, man?
• 0:12
  Good to see you.
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  Hey, you too, Will.
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  So, Will, you are the, the CEO and the founder of Journey.
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  And you are.
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  Is it your third full year?
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  It is going into year three, so about two and a half years in November will be the, the third full year.
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  Okay.
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  All right, cool.
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  We'll get into all the cool things that Journey is doing, but first, let's talk about manifest.
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  So 2026, what would you say is the vibe of the show?
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  It seems more optimistic than last year.
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  I don't know that there are a bunch of indicators that are pointing to the market ticking up and whatnot, but there seems to be a little bit more buzz about there being better sentiment than previous.
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  So that's pretty cool.
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  You can feel the energy.
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  Absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  You can feel the energy.
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  Everyone's excited, everyone's got big plans, and you've got obviously a ton of freight experience.
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  Maybe for people that don't know, you were part of a founding team that scaled a brokerage to a billion dollars in revenue and then had a very successful nine figure exit.
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  That's before you start a journey.
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  So you know a thing or two about what it takes to scale freight.
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  So seeing all this freight tech.
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  Right.
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  There's so much of it on the floor.
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  What, what's, what's your impression about what, where that industry is heading.
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  So I haven't spent enough time checking out everything, so still got to do my rounds today.
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  Last day on the floor.
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  But it's interesting because there are a lot of really cool new organizations building great tech.
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  It's helping Burbages be more efficient.
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  They're like really, really cool things entering the space.
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  And then like anything, there's a lot of noise.
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  Right.
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  There's a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of shiny stuff.
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  So we'll see as the years go on which ones are the right players that are able to benefit customers and grow and whatnot, but it's an exciting time and I still have a lot to see on the floor,
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  so there's a lot I got to go check out.
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  Okay.
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  All right.
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  And then, you know, let's talk about Journeys.
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  So you've got kind of like a three pronged approach where you do the recruiting, you do the consulting, and then you do training for sales people, but, you know, mainly in the freight brokerage area.
• 2:09
  Yep.
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  So, I mean, from a sales perspective, in 2026, right, when there's so much noise, there's so much AI involved with everything, what do you see as what's most important for salespeople to set themselves apart?
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  I think it starts at the organizational level.
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  So understanding who your ICP is, who do we serve?
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  If we're speaking specifically about brokerage, what services do we offer, what do we do very well?
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  How do I target the right people so I can be talking to the customers in my icp, but if I'm selling to Dave and he's not a decision maker or doesn't have enough power to onboard me as a
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  provider, it doesn't really matter.
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  Right.
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  So I need to know my icp, I need to understand what we do well.
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  I need to target the right people.
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  Then I need my messaging to be bespoke and specific to the person.
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  You can nail those things you'll do well in most markets.
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  Very, very important today because it's incredibly challenging, it's very competitive.
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  So if you don't nail those things, it just.
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  You spin your wheels.
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  Yeah.
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  And I mean from what you see too and being so, so knee deep in this industry, how, how many companies are really doing that well at a high level?
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  Small amount.
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  If I were to take just 10 organizations in general, I'd say like two, one to two are very good at that.
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  The rest are more shoe from the head, which is like challenging because you don't know how to be very focused with what you go after.
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  So not many do it very well.
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  Okay.
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  All right.
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  And then in terms of all the AI out there, right.
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  Such a big topic not only at this show, but really Everywhere today in 2026, what do you see as the, like the way that people are truly winning with AI today.
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  So I think a lot of organizations are taking a step back and looking at processes that, that aren't the best use of time for their strong revenue generating performers and saying okay, how do we streamline that?
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  How do we plug in either?
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  Maybe it's about tms, maybe it's a third party provider that bolts into the tms, whatever it might be.
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  But they're setting up their tech stack to take out a lot of non revenue generating activities and allow people to be more efficient customer relationships.
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  Finding better orgs for them to do business with, growing current, finding that new, all that stuff.
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  Very focused on being able to let your people go and do that less in the weeds.
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  And we see companies do it very well, then we see others that you get distracted because there's so many things to look at.
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  So many different providers are still trying to whittle it down to Figure out which is the right stack for them.
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  Okay.
• 4:36
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• 4:41
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• 4:44
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• 4:52
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• 5:00
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• 5:07
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• 5:14
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• 5:23
  And at an event like this, right, there's so many meetings, there's so many events, Happy hours, the parties, the dinners.
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  Busy.
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  Yeah, I mean, but what, what, what I found too is like the conversations are like that you really have getting to know people at a different level and really getting to speak deeply about business and the type of
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  ideas that come out of conversations.
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  That's been the real goal for me.
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  Same.
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  Okay.
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  And I mean what, what would you say is like the best part about coming to an in person person event like this with the whole industry?
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  It's this, right?
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  Getting to sit down with you.
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  I have met so many great new organizations.
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  I've seen colleagues that I've known the last 12 years and it's like the one time in a year you get to see them, you get to accelerate opportunities, you just foster better relationships.
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  I love face to face stuff.
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  I love conferences.
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  And for us we have at this point, so we're two and a half years in.
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  We have 160 clients.
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  11 of the top 100 do business with us today.
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  Of them are here.
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  So, you know, it's tough to get them all in the same room.
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  You got to get in a flight and go see them.
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  So it's nice to be here and be able to have those conversations face to face.
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  Okay.
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  And as far as the industry in itself, right, like what, what do you see ahead for 2026 specifically within.
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  Within freight?
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  It's an interesting question.
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  At least with the exposure that I have, I'm seeing a lot more organizations, brokerages specifically, be better with setting up their tech stack.
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  So we talked about it a little bit earlier.
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  They're selecting the right TMS provider, they're choosing the right third party plugins or applications to set their team up to be more successful.
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  And they're leaning in to peer efficiency, which I think is Great for most SMB or lower mid market organizations because they're fighting against massive players that way more capital, they have way more reach, they've already figured out their
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  go to market.
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  So these small organizations have to be incredibly efficient just to keep up.
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  So we're seeing people make better decisions setting up their tech stack so they can compete at scale.
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  It's hard enough as is.
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  It's even harder if you don't have the right technology.
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  Okay.
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  All right.
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  And while you recap kind of your growth at Journey, right, in terms of just two and a half years, you've got 100 plus clients, 11 of the top 100, and you continue to scale and grow.
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  And it seems like you've done it in a very methodical way where you're focused on the fundamentals and just doing everything the right way and not necessarily trying to push too fast before you're ready.
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  But I mean, it's great, you know, and again, right, coming out of the type of exit you had previously and then getting right into another company and doing that way, I mean, what for?
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  Because I've met so many new entrepreneurs already at this show that are just launching.
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  They have a startup, they have a new idea, new business, they're excited.
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  What would your advice to new new entrepreneurs within this industry be?
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  The first thing I would say is niche down.
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  Like figure out who you serve.
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  We talked about the ICP earlier.
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  Niche down.
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  Do something very well for a small subset of customers.
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  Prove that out and once you prove that, sell that story over and over and over again to everyone that looks just like them because it's too tough to boil the ocean.
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  There's a lot of cool stuff you can get, I guess, distracted by all the smoke and mirrors.
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  And see, we raised this money and blah, blah.
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  No, do what you do really well, your customers, focus on that, continue to serve them and then over time you'll continue to grow.
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  But when you try to do everything for everyone, doesn't work out well.
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  And I've been there, I've tried to do too much for too many different types of businesses and just not successful.
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  Okay, that's great advice.
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  All right.
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  So Will, if people are here in this and they're in the transportation sector and they want to learn more about what Journey does, the services you offer, what's the best way people can reach out to you online?
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  LinkedIn.
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  My LinkedIn is just Will Jenkins, our LinkedIn Journey.
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  And then our company website is JourneyDelivers.com my email is Will JourneyDelivers.com and then we're very active on social, mostly LinkedIn.
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  So if you want to reach me there.
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  Absolutely.
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  All right.
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  We'll link all that in the show.
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  Notes for everyone.
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  All right.
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  Always great seeing you, Will.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you.