What Most E-Commerce Brands Get Wrong About 3PL Partners Ft. Dave Gulas

Hey, what's up, my friends? Welcome to Vision Pro's Live.

We are diving in deep into what most e-commerce brands get

wrong about 3PL partners.

If you're in warehouse,

seeing fulfillment, transportation,

you're looking to launch products,

this episode is going to put you 5, 10,

maybe even 20 years ahead.

We got Dave in the house,

who's an expert with this stuff, Dave Goulas.

Thank you so much for joining me here on Vision Pro's Live today.

Hey, thank you for having me, Jackson.

I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

this is an area that I almost never get to talk about.

I've done some things in manufacturing.

I've got clients who ship supplements and things like that.

But in reality,

there's so much that I can learn about this process as well.

I want to make sure that we're not just catering

though to people like me who are kind of newer

and on the outside of this.

I want to make sure we're diving deep into the people

who need this most,

those who are right in the heart of figuring out

their 3PL partners and what they can get out of it.

We're going to dive right into that

so that we don't make any noise and lose any opportunity

to uncover what most brands get wrong

when selecting a 3PL partner

and what most e-commerce brands are kind of overlooking

when they're choosing them.

Let's dive right into that, Dave.

What is a 3PL partner for those of us who don't know?

And how do you choose it?

Let's keep the shorter segment on what it is

and move right into what are they overlooking

when they're trying to find the right partner?

Yeah, so what they're overlooking,

the biggest mistake brands make

is just seeing it strictly as a cost center

as an expense and commoditizing it

and thinking that all 3PLs are the same

when the reality couldn't be further from the truth

where the 3PL you choose as an e-commerce brand

literally can make or break your business.

Okay, so what you're telling me is the universal principle

of if I buy cheap, I'm going to get cheap.

It can apply in this reality,

but also like I should be looking at certain standards

what are the standards I should look for

in a great 3PL partner?

Well, yeah, so the people behind the 3PL

are what actually make all the difference

and there's just so the audience knows

there's literally over 10,000 of them in the US alone.

So there's a lot and it's very easy to confuse that

if you're not used to shopping 3PLs,

if you haven't dealt with 3PLs in the past

to really think all that are the same

and then to commoditize it.

But they're literally going to be an extension

of your business.

Literally, they're going to be your warehouse,

especially if you're self-fulfilling right now,

you have a warehouse, you have a staff,

you are used to managing that inventory in-house.

When you outsource that to a 3PL,

they literally become part of your business.

So when you pick the wrong one,

it can literally sink the ship.

Or if you pick the right one,

it can literally allow you to scale

and achieve the objectives you want by outsourcing that.

Shoot down what I say next

if it takes us in the left field

and I don't want to do that.

I had a motorcycle parts company working with me.

They were a client of ours several years ago.

They were doing $20 million per year

and motorcycle parts and their distributor ended up

cutting their rates.

Their cuts that my client would get by 90%,

almost overnight, completely changed the cost structure

on them.

Does that relationship have anything to do with 3PL?

The things like that happen in the 3PL world

or am I off in my field?

90% I've not seen,

there's certainly unexpected things that happen.

We could dive deep down the rabbit hole of horror stories,

of what can happen with a 3PL or with a wrong 3PL.

I hadn't heard specifically a 90% increase,

but like you said,

that's like a business critical blow

that would be tough for anyone to absorb.

Yeah, no, it crushed his survival instincts,

went through the roof.

Next thing everybody was in the chopping block

and it was a very nasty reality in situation.

I guess things like that can happen.

Let's dive in a little bit further on 3PL partners.

What are some of those principles?

You talked about team.

I don't want to overshadow that.

My friends, team is one of the most valuable aspects

that I look for as well

when it comes to website providers

and SaaS providers as well.

The world of websites and SaaS is moving super, super fast.

You can't predict who's going to be ahead next year anymore.

It's like it's moving too fast,

but what I can look at,

who has a great culture, right?

Who takes great care of their people?

Who abides by the same types of principles and values

that we have?

And that matters tremendously to me.

And I also treat,

I try to treat my SaaS companies like StreamYard here.

StreamYard's a platform.

I could treat like a platform, but no way.

I want to build a relationship with their support system.

I pay a little bit of money every month,

but if I tap into support,

learn from them and see how we can maximize

our relationship with StreamYard,

that can lead to all sorts of opportunities.

I imagine the same type of framework exists

with 3PLs,

or am I getting off of the left field?

No, and it's actually interesting.

You brought that up because I did a lengthy post on this,

maybe a month or so ago,

and it was really about small business

versus big box legacy business

in the start contrast,

but I not only mention 3PL,

but one of the areas I see it with is SaaS providers,

particularly with companies we use,

meaning like a mistake that it's very easy

for people to make is thinking bigger is better,

meaning a big box name, a legacy name,

a big company that's been around for a lot of years

is automatically going to be better.

When in reality, so often that breeds complacency,

there becomes a lot of bureaucracy.

They stop innovating.

There's a culture of people just want to maintain

the status quo versus when you compare that

to small businesses, newer companies, startups,

or scaling the level of service you get,

founder led companies,

the level of service and execution you get

from these teams that are hungry for business,

that want to create a positive customer experience,

that actually care where they don't just have employees

that are literally just punching a clock

that are gonna take weeks to do something

that could be done very quickly.

I mean, I literally have seen that happen,

and so I did oppose just to call that out

and just to say I see a shift happening

where customers no longer care.

They care about the people behind the brand.

They're not just gonna automatically support this legacy brand

if they're not getting the service that they deserve.

Huge, absolutely, and this applies again.

Once again, Sony, how these principles apply

to all of our industries.

My friends, if you want to see a big box company

that has gotten complacent and that's overlooked

and value of their customers,

look no further than Bank of America or Wells Fargo

in all the same exact type of reality happens.

And so I hope that I hit men to come after me

after saying that, but in reality,

there's a lot of smaller banks out there

that we could be working with

that were really eager to have our business.

And sure, are there challenges with that too?

Of course, there's pros and cons in every situation.

We take a risk every time we go outside, all right?

But we can't be scared of the risk.

We've got to really evaluate what are the things

that will help us when moving forward our brand.

So when we come back, we're gonna take a little break.

When we come back, Dave's gonna dive in

to one of his top secret discovery realities

of how you figure out Dave,

which three-pearl partners you want to work with

and then we'll shift gears from there.

We'll see you guys on the other side.

All right, welcome in to Vision Pro's Live.

With Jackson Kalam on your show host,

we'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs

and guest leaders who are building

fantastic visions out there.

Hey, what's up, my friends?

Welcome into another episode of Vision Pro's Live

on your show host, Jackson Kalam.

I'm so excited to have Dave Gullis in the house.

We get to talk about things that we don't typically

talk about in relation to vision,

but behind the scenes infrastructure,

especially for physical products,

we're talking warehousing, fulfillment and transportation.

I'm gonna see if I can get Dave to dig deep into

his catalog of secrets to help us with three-pearl partners

and even systems beyond that.

This again, it's a little bit outside of my scope,

so I'm hoping Dave can continue to reshift my focus

on some of the things that are most important

for those who are working in physical product industries

and beyond.

So before I bring Dave back on,

I also wanna give another series of resources

to each of you.

Nobody pays for these sponsorship opportunities,

by the way, these are just brands that I freaking love

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and this is gonna seem so contradictory,

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like creating agents and AI meaning like computers

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There are bottlenecks that AI can solve like that.

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and it is driving so many companies off a cliff right now.

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that have tried to implement AI too early,

and you're stuck on hold,

or you're trying to chat with somebody,

and you can't get a hold of somebody,

and now you're hating that brand

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If your brand is not investing billions

like those companies are, please don't assume

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You've got to learn the basics of AI

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Right now we have the Founding Members cohort open

for 50 Founding Members, it's either $50 a month,

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So I look forward to seeing you in that.

Come and join us, help us build out the future

of what AI looks like.

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The water project is near and dear to my heart, my friends.

This is something that when I saw these kids

celebrating water, like my kid celebrate Christmas day,

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They will email you and show you the results

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and you get to bless generations by committing to that.

Now, if there's another cause that you'd rather see

a support, just drop that cause in the link.

Again, back to collaboration with competition.

There's so many projects that we could help on,

and there's eight billion people in this world

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to give back, please don't ignore this message.

Instead, share it with somebody else

because you may be the catalyst to help somebody

be able to fund one of these projects,

and that would be a huge opportunity

to bless the people's lives.

So without further ado, we're going to dive right back

into helping each one of you with your visions

and with your success, Dave Gulas.

Thank you so much, man, for being here.

Hey, thanks, Jackson.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely.

By the way, Dave, you get an honorary membership

to the AI marketplace.

And so we've got to join us as a leader for being on the show.

And we love that, man, let's enjoy it.

So if that benefits you, fantastic.

If it doesn't, and my friends, I never want anybody

to be busy because it leads to being broke.

If it's productive and it leads to productivity, fantastic.

And so Dave, maybe we'll see there.

Maybe we won't keep crushing it, though.

Let's dive right into one of your top secret sauces.

Well, what would it be, Dave?

Go ahead and put a framework around it

and just let us, I'm going to let you talk

because I'm not educated enough in this space

to really guide you down the path

that you know your customers and prospects need,

but you are.

So it's here.

Yeah, I mean, this might sound like common sense

if people are not like in need deep in this industry.

But you would be surprised.

So just literally take your time and do a full deep dive

when you're vetting out your fulfillment partner.

I mean, you'd be shocked at how many people just want

to email and say, send me your pricing.

And we don't ever just do that, right?

Like we get on a discovery call first and foremost.

And then when I say, hey, you know, let's hop on a call

and even understand if we're even a good fit for each other

before we even get to pricing, they say, no, just send

me your pricing.

And it's like, well, we're not the right fit.

But so to just take your time and understand.

And I know it sounds like so just common sense.

And it kind of is, but my friends,

I'm going to call out every single one of my clients

for the last four years at least.

Not a single one has called references.

Not a single one.

Even if some of the best leaders in the world

aren't even doing it, I bet most of you aren't doing it.

I call my references like every time, I'll go call

if I were wanting to work with Dave,

I would call the three references he gives me.

And then I would go to his testimonials and case studies

and I would assign a team member.

And I would tell the team member, look,

I need you to go and find the contact information

for these, for three to five of these.

Go to AI and ask you what questions you should ask them

in order to not waste their time

in order to get the most out of this.

And ask some of Dave's that you had.

Find out if they're actually having a great experience.

That's literally what I go through

when I want to consider hiring a recruiting somebody.

I don't see it done though.

So to your point, Dave, almost everybody's skipping it

and joining the Get Rich Quick Club.

But if we want to get great results

and get out of the fake Get Rich Quick Club

that doesn't work, we need to take a deep dive.

And find out, that's one thing that I do on the deep dive.

What's one thing you recommend people do on the deep dive

to figure out who they're supposed to work with?

Well, to, again, it's got to be a great fit on both sides

to not only have the discovery call

and then dive deep into every aspect.

And so I'll give you an example too,

because most of the calls I have

are with people that are coming from another 3PL

that they're not happy with.

And probably the number one reason,

I mean, it's either poor customer service,

lack of response or slow response time.

But the other bigger one is the software.

They don't have the right software.

Meaning, and I don't want to get too deep

in the weeds for the audience,

but there's something called a WMS,

which is a warehouse management system.

So it's a critical piece of software

that a 3PL needs to have.

So when we were launching, we hired a consultant beforehand.

And he said, listen, you can't even open up your doors

without a credible WMS in place.

So that's what we did.

When we get out, let's not keep on that, Dave.

My audience is not in this, like, that doesn't get this space.

It's okay.

I hope you can see the universal parallels I can.

I want to go dive as deep as you can.

Okay, so we get a WMS.

And that's a whole, we actually got the wrong one

in the beginning.

And so we went through a couple to find the right one.

But my point being too is,

when I talk to these other brands that are shopping 3PLs,

I'm floored by how many 3PLs out there don't have a WMS.

They're still tracking inventory on spreadsheets.

Or they have one that's archaic and old and doesn't,

like, it doesn't even connect to Shopify.

Like, I don't even understand how you can be serving

e-commerce brands when Shopify is the premier player out there.

When you don't even have a direct connection to Shopify.

So, I mean, I hear that time and time again.

So I guess my point being too is,

if you're going to select someone

to outsource your fulfillment to,

like, that's table stakes.

It's making sure they have the right software

that it aligns with your business.

Because again, we get on calls.

And if they're in a different niche,

or they're in a, they have a workflow

that we don't support.

And it's just not the right fit.

We say it's not the right fit.

My team, my team doesn't even want to get involved

in something that's going to be with a bunch of manual work.

And it's not the right fit, the right workflow.

So it's having that open and honest conversation on the front end.

Like, is there even alignment here?

Is there even a good potential partnership

before we even get down to price?

And there's numerous other things to discuss

before you even get the price.

But it's starting with that, having a call

and really going deep on what the business is,

what the workflow is, what the 3PL is,

what tools do they have, how does it all fit together?

And is it even a match?

I love that.

And guys, what you just heard Dave talk about

from a WMS standpoint applies to every single one

of your visions related to CRMs.

Everything that he said just replaced the word,

the acronym WMS, with CRM, you're in the same boat.

You need the exact same types of solutions

and strategy going into it.

So let's dive even deeper, Dave.

So Dave, easy DC 3PL is your brand.

Tell me about the vision for easy DC 3PL

and your vision for your clients moving forward.

So when we started the company,

I was coming from pharmaceutical.

My partner and I were coming from pharmaceutical industry.

And we were looking for another vertical to get into.

He had just bought a warehouse

and didn't know what he was going to do with it.

So that was the, we were trying to figure out a company

to start with that.

And we knew several e-commerce brands

that were having problems with their 3PL, meaning orders weren't

going, they were getting poor service.

And it was coming off the tail end of COVID,

which I think there's a big reason for that,

meaning when the supply and demand for e-commerce warehouse

and got completely imbalanced,

I think that accelerated a lot of complacency

to where there was so much business falling

from the sky for those brands,

for those 3PLs rather, so many of them got complacent.

And next thing, you know, the service drop,

the standard drop, they were just used

to all this business falling in their lap.

And we were seeing the fallout

from that with numerous e-commerce brands.

And our experience from the pharmaceutical industry

where we were at, it was on the secondary market

dealing with independent pharmacies.

And what that means is, you know,

they're competing against the Walgreens

and the CVSs of the world.

So they're just fighting every day

for their life to stay in business.

Everything goes overnight, everything is urgent

and things go wrong all the time.

So as a provider to those companies,

it's just automatic that you're used

to solving problems on the fly.

You respond fast, you know, stuff,

ship to day windows are as late as 6 p.m.,

which is late in that world.

You're always kind of in touch.

You're gonna have problems to solve over text.

And you always need to make sure stuff's moving.

I mean, that's just kind of automatic.

If you're gonna survive in that world,

you have to be able to provide customer service in that way.

So for us, we're just so used to that.

And then when we saw the type of complacency

we saw within e-commerce 3PL,

we said, you know, we'd be great for this

because we know how to service customer.

We know what small businesses want.

We're willing to do the work.

We understand kind of the people on the other end

why not just start a 3PL.

So that was really the genesis of the company.

And we just jumped in and did it.

And then we began the process of figuring out

everything we didn't know.

Right.

All the things we needed to learn.

And yeah, we just kept doing the work

and kept getting better every day.

And yeah, here we are three and a half years later.

I love that.

And my friends, this is not something that I would say

requires a degree.

I don't have a degree for those of you who don't know.

I started as an integrator more than a visionary.

I didn't even know what that was.

But basically, I wasn't ready to launch my own brand.

And I just wanted to tag along with a great visionary.

And in fact, I just wanted to job at Google.

And so I ended up getting into a company that was to start up.

And I learned about websites and SEO

way back in 2010.

And so the reason why I'm bringing this up,

I then went to Restaurant Connect.

After we ended up raising $10 million of that company,

then I went to Restaurant Connect.

I had never worked in a fancy restaurant.

We were servicing fine dining restaurants

with their dining management software.

Because I didn't know what a dues was and what an expo was.

I don't drink alcohol.

So I didn't know anything about the restaurant industry.

And here I was learning that.

And next thing, you know, within two to three years,

I'm training the master, Sharon Maghasta,

all seven restaurants on hospitality.

And we're training Kewaii and Goffersor

and integrating the hotel software

with the restaurant software so they

can see their reservations and streamline bookings

and all that.

And my point for all of you, the visionaries

or maybe on the integrator side, get involved

and use your integrity, dive into values, virtues, diligence,

determination, working hard, understanding

the types of people that you work with,

the types of people that you want to belong with long term.

All of those can help propel you.

You can learn the realities within an industry.

And we're going to do that right now.

I saw a blog post you had on that website.

David said, it talked about final mile delivery.

And I was like, oh, that sounds like a KPI.

Or that sounds like something that's

easy to overlook when you're first launching.

What's final mile delivery?

And how do you make sure that you crush it?

Yeah, so final mile just, it's an industry term

that refers to the last carrier touch,

the last transportation touch before the product

reaches the customer.

So meaning like from our 3PL, everything

is going final mile because we're shipping out UPS, USPS,

other carriers.

And it's all going directly to the customer, in most cases,

to the end, 3PL consumer.

And then there's also a freight component.

But that's the real thing that we do with the final mile.

And as far as crushing it, it's kind

of a culmination of everything else we talked about.

But so often it's having the right workflow, the right people,

the right systems in place to where you can get a lot of order.

And again, every e-commerce brand wants their customers

to be happy.

And what do customers want in this day and age?

They want their stuff quick, right?

So they want it to place an order,

and they want to know that it's shipping.

We have a same day cut off, but if it doesn't go

same day, it goes the next day.

So they want their stuff quick.

And we want to deliver that.

And then of course, having the right systems in place

for everything to have a smooth final mile delivery,

that's what we want.

And even with all that, things can go wrong.

UPS can make a mistake, of course.

But we want to do everything possible

to deliver the right experience with everything we can control.

I love that.

It goes hand in hand, my friends with the book,

Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard, is one of the best books

in the planet for helping you understand

how the customer journey works out.

And so this last milestone, we have

to think about that in terms of all of our brands.

How do we make sure that the touch points,

anybody who has to touch our product or service,

our billing, whatever it is that we're doing?

How do we make that process as smooth as possible

so that it's fast?

And I would say reliable as well, those two factors,

they apply to every single industry.

And if it's not going to be fast, then simply,

my friends, I got the trick for you.

Just set clear expectations.

If it's going to take three weeks, let them know.

It can take three to six weeks.

Don't put yourself in a bind where you're

over promising and under delivering.

Most people are willing to wait if they understand it.

That's part of having a quality experience.

So let's have a little bit deeper, Dave, into things

that maybe we didn't plan out for this agenda.

So if you were seeing in front of a room of 100 people

who were, let's call them, ideal client profiles,

people you could serve really, really well,

what would they want to know about that's

in your head, in your hands, in your strategy?

Well, yeah, so if I'm talking to a group like that,

I just want to let them know who we are, what we do,

who we're fit for and who we're not a fit for.

So for instance, we're located in Central Kentucky.

We can reach 80% of the company within two days ground.

So very fast delivery.

We are a young company.

80% of the company are 80% of the country.

Country, country, did I say company?

Yeah, 80% of the country, we got it.

Yeah, 80% of the country within two days ground.

We are a young company.

We're three and a half years old.

We're continually growing, but we have a solid team in place.

We specialize in direct to consumer shopify sellers,

typically that are shipping between 1,000 and 10,000 orders

a month, that's our sweet spot.

We work in industries like beauty, nutritional supplements,

home goods, books, that sort of thing.

Smaller type items that can go within a parcel.

And yeah, we care about delivering

and outstanding customer experience.

And that's our mission and the team is bought into that.

And that's what we focus on every single day.

Okay, very good.

And what are some of the companies that wouldn't be a good fit?

You want me to, well, I mean.

I'm not a specific company, sorry.

What are the sizes or like, you know,

I'm a princess in my case for marketing.

You know, like I won't, I wouldn't probably be the best hire

for any blue chip stock, Apple, Google,

etc., like I don't know how to run billion dollar budgets.

That's not my specialty.

Oh, you know, I play a lot smaller than that

in the $1.5 million to $10 million range.

That would be my max.

I would have to be very out of my league

if I went beyond that.

Okay, yeah.

So for instance, anyone shipping products

that are big and bulky and heavy,

that's not something that we're good at

nor do we want to get involved in.

Anyone that's exclusively or heavily big box retail.

I mean, we do a little bit of that

and we've done some of that in the past,

but it's certainly not our sweet spot.

As you get into bigger brands,

they all tend to have a B2B component.

So sometimes you kind of have to do that

if you're going to service all of the brands business,

but in general, like we've had people come to me,

come to us and say, listen,

all my businesses between these 10 retailers

and there's no direct consumer business

and right there, it's just a non-starter,

like that we're not the right fit for that.

Cause then you're 10 different routing guides,

you're all sorts of all, you know,

those companies that specialize in that,

but that's not us.

So we focus on the direct consumer stuff.

Let's bless and release that audience real quick,

if you don't mind.

For big and bulky, you may not be able to give it an exact,

like, oh my gosh, you should go with these guys,

but who would you recommend, explain?

I mean, again, you can put that in AI

and find that out there.

There's companies that specialize in big and bulky

and they'll tell you right up front.

So I mean, it's not hard to figure that out

and then you can get a short list of people

you want to talk to depending on your area.

You're short list.

Dave, I gotta find that out.

Cause I can do the same thing with AI for marketing.

And here's guys, here's why I'm challenging that.

AI will drive you off a cliff real fast.

And so having AI, but also having an expert to kind of vet,

I'll give an example.

If you could work with anybody in the world right now,

besides first class business and what you do,

I would say get into Virgin startups with Richard Branson,

100%.

I mean, I haven't worked with him,

but like the guy is on point,

how you couldn't get better guidance

than probably what he's up to.

But if you don't qualify that, come and talk to us.

Like you just kind of first class business.

I wouldn't go anywhere else.

You might try to x.co.

You might try that, they might be great.

You might try Gary Vaynerchuk's VaynerMedia.

I don't have any problem talking about that

because of the scale that we have,

but I do want people to know that if you go to AI,

you might end up with some really, really awkward results

just because people who may have gamified that system.

So feel free to bounce those off of me and Dave as well,

if you come up with some results.

But Dave, who would you recommend?

On the Big and Moky site?

Yeah, okay.

So there's a company called Growth Catalyst Group, G-C-G.

So they've got, and I've referred business to them.

They've taken care of some leads we've had.

And yeah, they've got millions of square feet

and they've got something like 20 plus warehouses nationwide.

So they're a big, big, they're a big company

in terms of size, but they operate.

They don't operate like a complacence big box competitor

like we were talking about earlier.

So yeah, I would say give them a call.

Cool, man.

Thank you for that.

And let's talk about scaling brands.

And what brands that are scaling need to understand

before outsourcing fulfillment?

Yeah, so again, it's, if you're picking a 3PL, right?

And you're at the point where you want to outsource.

I mean, I guess have a longer term vision

and talk about all the points, not only the software,

the team, their capacity, their ability to scale,

where they're going, references like you mentioned.

Funny, funny you mentioned that too,

because we've had not percentage wise,

probably it's probably less than 10% of the customers

that we've brought on have actually wanted references

and checked references.

But the ones that have it ended up being the best customers.

So meaning they take their time,

they're serious about this, you know,

you really can't ask enough questions

and you really can't, you know, I mean, obviously it's a,

and our typical sales cycle is several months.

So it's not like a, it's not a, you know,

like a quick decision in most cases,

but just the ability to actually talk to someone

that's, and, you know, to know that they called

and followed up, and I always, you know,

if they're even asking me, they're going to talk to them.

And I usually get feedback that they have talked to them

and that they had a, you know, a good call

and that type of thing.

So, you know, all those things,

and just having a long term vision about it

and really understanding that the person you choose

is going to be your partner in your business.

So, and it truly is a partnership.

So, and again, you talked about setting expectations

too earlier, like we want to set expectations on both sides.

So, not only what they expect from us

and what we're going to deliver and what we're committed to,

but on the other side too, we want people

that are going to understand their business,

provide us with the right information,

follow our routing guide, you know,

and hear to the terms of the agreement,

both sides are going to do that.

But all those things are so important,

and to truly see it is as a partnership

that you strategically decide,

and not just a cost center where you're trying to beat someone up

or just choosing strictly based on price.

This is huge.

And this is so applicable visionaries

to every single component industry and vision.

As always, this goes down to marriage as well,

in your own personal lives.

Now, these are all pieces of due diligence

that are super helpful for setting healthy boundaries

and ensuring that you get the best results possible.

I'm going to speak to that through a few couple,

a couple of different truths.

One, it reminds me of when I was working with restaurant

and we were working with Fondes and Miguel in Austin, Texas.

And there were top 50 restaurant in the world,

30 years running.

And we were also working with Uchi restaurants,

which at the time was 2010.

They were nominated for top 10 most important restaurants

in America.

And so here we were working with two restaurants

that could easily see themselves as competitors,

and they kind of knew it.

And they were in the same region within a two mile drive

of each other, maybe three mile drive.

And I took Ben Kachila from Uchi at his request

after calling Danny, who was the manager of Fondes and Miguel

said, hey, can I bring Uchi by?

They'd like to see what you're doing with the system

and how you're using it and how you guys are operating

and exchanging some ideas with you.

Would you be cool with that?

And Danny from Fondes said, absolutely.

So Ben and I go to his competitor in person.

And we start talking with them about their operations

and how they're using systems and what they could get out

of et cetera.

And Ben does the coolest thing.

We're getting ready to leave.

He says, hey, Danny, here's a $50 gift card

to come to Uchi any time.

Bring your friends a family.

And I will take good care of you.

And that classy move of realizing that,

again, we're competitors or collaborators.

We can still get along.

We can still help each other out.

This applies to any industry.

So not as it only do in your reference checks,

but it's also making sure that you're creating opportunities

at any point in time.

Danny and it's been, what, 16 years?

Maybe Danny and Ben decide to launch their own restaurant

because of that experience collaborating together back then.

My friends, it's about moving on from a scarcity mindset

where we're scared people are going to take things from us

and moving into an abundant mindset.

If I want to find people who are going to help uplift me

and moving along this path, they've

you've been a really, really great example of that.

As we've talked from last time to this time,

I've seen that old true.

As we get ready to wrap up, any final thoughts

that you'd like to share, any final words of wisdom

for all visionaries out there, any truths

that we just didn't discuss that are burning on your chest

and you're like, man, I want to say this.

Well, you mentioned the collaboration

that's so interesting, too, because in the pharmaceutical

industry, where I came from, everything was so cutthroat

and competitors were just, everything, you know,

there was a lot of scarcity mindset within there.

It did despite the fact that it's, I don't know,

what how many billion dollars of an industry it is.

But when I came over to logistics,

one of the things that was so refreshing

is it's such a collaborative industry

and I'll go to these industry conferences

and some of my best friends are literally competitors,

but yet the best conversations I often have

are with other 3PL owners,

where we literally talk about our challenges,

what we're dealing with, how we did this or that.

And I couldn't agree with that point more about collaboration

and of course, how you tie that into an abundance mindset.

Oh, I love that.

I'll give one more example, my friends,

because this exists in any industry

and maybe you still don't see how to plight yourself,

but I was working with nautical dental in San Antonio.

They're one of the best instances in that city now.

Well, they were, they just need some marketing built for it.

But we got to a point where I could no longer provide

the value that I had told them that I could provide.

And so we were in the off-boarding processes

and they still had a lot to do with growth,

but I said, look, here's what I recommend you do.

Call the best performing dentists in Florida, New York

and over in California and ask them

if they will form a mastermind with you.

Because you're not gonna compete with each other anyway.

And so just tell them, we wanna share our ideas

of what we've done.

We'd like to know what systems you're doing.

You will uncover more systems, more processes,

more things that you could do without my presence.

And if I were to try to do everything myself,

so go ahead and do that.

And so they were like, yeah, I'd never thought about that idea.

And they did it.

And naturally it has helped them flourish.

When we learn to collaborate like that guys,

it allows us to explore formulas

and realize frameworks and opportunities

that we may not have ever come across before.

And so always look at the opportunity to collaborate

with others.

Dave, I will say that if I end up in this space

where I'm like, man, we've got, I don't know,

physical products coming out.

We've got clients who are, well, if we've got clients

who need that's easy.

I've already got a couple that I wanna connect you with.

But if I'm looking at the idea of,

hey, I might wanna crack into this industry

and see if there's an opportunity, you're the guy I'm calling.

You're the guy I'm gonna be like, Dave,

can, I would like for you to be the leader on this.

You know, help me see what I don't see.

And let's get ready to West Lives.

But my friends, you don't have to start from scratch.

You don't have to be the pioneer who figures it out.

In this case, Dave is the guy who's cracked the 3PL code.

He's the guy that's understanding

how to help a manufacturing.

If you're, as he talked about in the space of smaller products

and 1,000 to 10,000 per month, Dave's one of the first people

I would go and interview and say,

hey, can you help us with our growth?

So you can go to easydc3PL.com

and you can find out more about what it is.

You can connect with them on LinkedIn as well.

And my friends, if you wanna come share your vision

on Vision Pro's Live and the top right corner

is a button that says be our guest.

You don't have to be the king of 3PL to come on the show.

You might be starting your vision out from scratch.

But Dave, final words of wisdom or final invitation

and we'll wrap up from there.

Yeah, like you said, connect on LinkedIn, happy to talk.

And if you're looking for 3PL, wanna know more.

Even if it's not us, I can always point you

in the right direction depending on your situation.

And man, Jackson, I just wanna say, love your energy,

love what you're doing with the show.

And yeah, for everyone, all the visionaries out there,

keep believing in yourself and keep making it happen.

Thanks, brother.

We'll see you all in the next episode.

Take care, visionaries.

Thank you for being here today.

I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pro's Live.

I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions

as these episodes continue to move forward.

This is gonna get more and more fun.

We'll have more and more engagement as well

when bike people to participate in the show.

And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

Have an excellent time building out your vision

and becoming a vision pro yourself.