Hey, what's up, my friends? Welcome into Vision
Pros Live. We are diving in deep into what most
e -commerce brands get wrong about 3PL partners.
If you're in warehousing, 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 Pros 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 outsides 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. 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, 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 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 just so the audience
knows, there's literally over 10 ,000 of them
in the U .S. alone. So there's a lot. 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 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 into left field, 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
in motorcycle parts. And their distributor ended
up cutting their rates. 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
left 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 the wrong
3pl i hadn't heard specifically a 90 increase
but uh like you said that's a that that's like
a a business critical blow that would be tough
for anyone to absorb yeah no it it crushed his
his um His survival instincts went through the
roof. And the next thing you know, everybody
was in the chopping block and it was a very nasty
reality and situation. So I guess things like
that can happen. Let's dive in a little bit further
on 3PL Partners. So again, 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
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
my I try to treat my SaaS companies like StreamYard
here. StreamYard is a platform I could treat
like a platform, but no way. Like 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.
So I imagine the same type of framework exists
with 3PLs or am I getting off on 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
and the stark contrast. But I not only mentioned
3PL, but one of the areas I see it with is SaaS
providers, particularly with companies we use.
Like a mistake that is 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 are 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 going to take weeks to do something
that could be done very quickly. I mean, I literally
have seen that happen. And so I did a post 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 going to automatically support this
legacy brand if they're not getting the service
that they deserve. Huge. Absolutely. And this
applies again. So neat 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 the value of their customers
look no further than bank of america or wells
fargo um you know the same exact type of reality
happens and so i hope they don't hire hitman
to come after me after saying that um but in
reality there's a lot of smaller banks out there
that we could be working with that we're really
eager to have our business and sure are there
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 We can't be scared of the risks. We've got
to really evaluate what are the things that will
help us with moving forward our brand. So when
we come back, we're going to take a little break.
When we come back, Dave's going to dive in to
one of his top secret. discovery realities of
how you figure out, Dave, which 3PL 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 Pros Live with
Jackson Callum. I'm 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 to another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Callum, and I'm so
excited to have Dave Goulas 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 going to see if I can
get Dave to dig deep into his catalog of secrets
to help us with 3PL 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. 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 want to 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 and I want you to be aware of. So we're
going to start with AI Mavericks, and this is
going to seem so contradictory, but I'm hoping
that everybody who watches this understands that
there's power in collaboration with competition.
So AI Mavericks is the AI baby of Austin Armstrong
and Scott Simpson. And I have joined this as
a paying member because I want to stay by the
best of the best in the AI world because I can
see the shift is dramatic and everybody's talking
about it still years later. Why? Because it is
changing the game. We want to be ahead of that
change. So I highly recommend joining over there,
what they're doing. And I would recommend in
this reality, don't look at this like I need
one gym membership. No, no, no. We're talking
about the wave and the future of education. So
while I'm in AI Mavericks and building with them
as well, and I love the way they've constructed
this program to help me continue to take things
to the next level. We also recently launched
last week, the AI marketplace. If you go to AI
.firstclassbusiness .io, we also. have another
angle. While AI Mavericks is helping me on some
of the deeper advanced level stuff, like creating
agents in AI, meaning like computers that do
the work beyond just giving you great advice,
we've launched the AI Marketplace to help professionals
and business owners realize that you already
are AI experts. You just don't know how to tap
into your expertise, but you've been using AI
for decades yourself. If you've ever set up email
automations, if you've ever curated a playlist
in Spotify, if you've loved and rated businesses
online, if you've reviewed them or you booked
online reservations, you have AI skills that
need to be on your resume, they need to be on
your LinkedIn profile, and you need to know how
to interview for those in order to protect your
job in the future. And business owners, there
are bottlenecks that AI can solve like that.
For instance, I build websites for my clients.
It takes me about five to 10 minutes to generate
an incredible website beyond what they already
have. And it takes me a couple of hours to pull
it all together and to get it implemented these
days. You no longer have to spend $5 ,000, $10
,000, $15 ,000 on setting up your marketing the
right way when you are taught how to do it. correctly
and when you were working with strategists our
ai platform is about teaching leadership skills
communication skills because the better we can
communicate emotional intelligence and and our
what do you call, IQ, our regular intelligence,
with AI systems, the better your outputs are
going to be. And it is driving so many companies
off a cliff right now. There's so much bad reputation
out there now. Again, look at these big box companies
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 because they've
done a poor job of implementing AI. If your brand
is not investing billions like those companies
are, Please don't assume you're going to have
better results in there. You've got to learn
the basics of AI and how to make sure to create
productive and profitable AI systems. Right now,
we have the founding members cohort open for
50 founding members. It's either $50 a month
or $500 for lifetime access. You heard me right.
$500 for lifetime access, not just one year.
And beyond that, after the first 50, we'll raise
the price to $100 a month. So I look forward
to seeing you in that. Come and join us. Help
us build out the future of what AI looks like.
And then there's the Water Project. 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 kids celebrate christmas
day i just couldn't ignore it and we've got millions
of people on this planet who don't have access
to clean drinking water we can do something about
it simply by giving 10 to 20 dollars if you do
that what's neat is you get to pick the project
that you want to support you get to see that
project come to fruition they will email you
and show you the results that they were able
to drive for that community and you get to bless
generations by 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 8
billion people in this world that we can help.
And as long as I'm going to rock the mic for
my profession, I'm going to do everything I can
to try to inspire others to give back to these
underprivileged communities. And so if you aren't
in a financial position 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 other 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 um join us as
a as a leader for being on the show um and yeah
man let's let's enjoy it so um 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 you there. Maybe we won't keep crushing
it though. Let's dive right into one of your,
one of your top secret sauces. 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.
Yeah, I mean, this might sound like common sense
if people are not knee -deep in this industry,
but you would be surprised. I mean, 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. Just
take your time and understand. I know it sounds
like such 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 can, 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 it what questions you should ask them in
order to not waste their time in order to get
the most out of this. And ask them if Dave's
legit. Find out if they're actually having a
great experience. That's literally what I go
through when I want to consider hiring or 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. So 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, 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. 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,
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 dive deep on that, Dave.
My audience that's not in this, like that doesn't
get this space, it's okay. I hope you can see
the universal parallels. I can't. 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 thing my team my
team doesn't even want to get involved in something
that's going to be uh with a bunch of manual
work and it's not the right fit the right workflow
so it's 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
there's numerous other things to discuss before
you even get the price but it's it's starting
with with that having a call and really going
deep on what the business is what the workflow
is what the 3pl is how what tools do they have
how does it 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 replace
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, EZDC3PL is your
brand. Tell me about the vision for EZDC3PL 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're 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're 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
warehousing 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 dropped, the standards dropped. They
were just used to all this business falling in
their lap. And we're seeing the fallout from
that with numerous e -commerce brands. 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 shipped today.
Windows are as late as 6 p .m. which is late
in that world. You're always kind of in touch.
You're going to 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
going to 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 customers.
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. 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, I wanted to tag along
with a great visionary. And, and in fact, I just
wanted a job at Google. And so I ended up getting
into a company that was a startup. 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 with 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 room management
softwares. I didn't know what a deuce was. I
didn't know 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 masters here in Augusta, all seven
restaurants on hospitality. And we're training
Kiwi on Golf Resort 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 that
are visionaries or maybe on the integrator side.
Get involved and use your integrity. Dive into
values, virtues, diligence, determination, working
hard, understanding that the types of people
that you work with, the types of people 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. 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, it's an industry term
that refers to the last carrier touch, the last
transportation touch before the product reaches
the customer. 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 I mean, 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, right. Every e -commerce brand, right,
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. They
want to place an order and they want to know
that it's shipping, you know. We have a same
-day cutoff, 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. It's
one of the best books on 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, 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 that that's part of having
a quality experience. So let's dive a little
bit deeper, Dave, into things that maybe we didn't
plan out for this agenda. So if you were sitting
in front of a room, of a hundred people who were,
let's call them, you know, ideal client profiles,
people you could serve really, really well, what
would they want to know about that that's in
your head, in your hands, in your strategy? Well,
yeah. So if. 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 a fit for and who we're not
a fit for. So, for instance, we're located in
central Kentucky. We can reach 80 percent of
the company within two days ground. So very fast
delivery. We are a young company. 80 percent
of the company or 80 percent 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
an outstanding customer experience, and that's
our mission, and the team has 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. Not a specific company, sorry.
What are the sizes or like, you know, for instance,
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, et cetera. I
don't know how to run billion dollar budgets.
That's not my specialty. I play a lot smaller
than that in the $1 .5 million to $10 million
range. That would be my max. I would feel 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 the all
of the brand's business but in general like we've
had people come to me come to us and say listen
all my business is between these 10 retailers
and there's no direct to 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 guys. You're all
sorts of all, you know, there's companies that
specialize in that, but that's not us. So we,
we, we focus on the direct to 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 an exact like, Oh my gosh,
you should go with these guys, but who would
you recommend exploring? I mean, again, you can
put that in AI and find that out. 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. Dave, I got to find that out because
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. Um, real
fast. Um, and so having the AI, but also having
an expert to kind of vet, I'll give an example.
If I, 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 should kind of
first class business. I wouldn't go anywhere
else. You might try 2x .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 bulky side? Uh, yeah.
Okay. So there's a company called, uh, growth
catalyst group, GCG. So they've got, uh, and
I, you know, I've referred business to them.
They've taken care of, uh, you know, some, some,
uh, leads we've had and yeah, they, they've got
millions of square feet and they've got something
like 20, 20 plus warehouses nationwide. So they're,
they're a big, big, they're a big company in
terms of size, but they operate, uh, they don't
operate like a complacence big box. competitor
like we were talking about earlier so uh yeah
i would say give them a call cool man thank you
for that um and uh let's talk about scaling brands
um and and what 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 you want to
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 are they going, references like you mentioned.
Funny you mentioned that too because we've had
not percentage -wise, it's probably less than
10%. of the customers that we brought on have
actually wanted references and check references,
but the ones that have ended up being the best
customers. So mean, 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, 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, yeah, 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 um And again, you talked about
setting expectations too earlier. 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, adhere 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.
every single component, industry, and vision.
As always, this goes down to marriage as well,
your own personal lives. 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 couple of different truths.
One, it reminds me of when I was working with
Restaurant Connect and we were working with Fonda
San Miguel in Austin, Texas. And they were a
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 is the manager of Fauna Semi. I 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 exchange
some ideas with you. Would you be cool with that?
And Danny from Bonnet 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 is we're getting ready to leave. He says,
Hey, Danny, here's a $50 gift card to come to
Uchi anytime. Bring your friends and family and
we'll take good care of you. And that classy
move of realizing that, again, we're competitors.
but we're collaborators. We can still get along.
We can still help each other out. This applies
to any industry. So not as an only doing 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 of, I want to find people
who are going to help uplift me and move me along
this path. Dave, you've been a really, really
great example of that. As we've talked from last
time to this time, I've seen that hold 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.
There's a lot of scarcity mindset within there,
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. 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 apply it to yourself. But I was working
with Nautical Dental in San Antonio. They're
one of the best dentists in that city now. Well,
they were. They just needed 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
dentist in Florida, New York, and over in California
and ask them if they will form a mastermind with
you. Because you're not going to compete with
each other anyway. And so just tell them we want
to share 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 than if I were
to try to do everything myself. So go ahead and
do that. And so they were like, 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.
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,
that's easy. I already got a couple that I want
to connect you with. But if I'm looking at the
idea of, hey, I might want to crack into this
industry and see if there's an opportunity. You're
the guy I'm calling. You're the guy I'm going
to be like, Dave, I would like for you to be
the leader on this. Help me see what I don't
see and let's get ready to bless 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 in 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 he does. You can connect
with him on LinkedIn as well. And my friends,
if you want to come share your vision on Vision
Pros Live, in the top right corner, there's 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, want to 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 want to 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 Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite 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.