Talking to Holly LaBoda from Luminaries Consulting

Jim
So you’re still coaching? Yes.

Holly
Yeah. Yeah, I’m still doing Luminaries. So we do, like sales, talent development, coaching, consulting, sales strategy, all that.

Jim
Okay, well, tell me a little bit about Luminaries.

Holly
Yeah. So that, we are a sales strategy and talent development company that focuses mostly on the logistics space. It’s myself and my business partner who both came from logistics and work with all different kinds of logistics companies, helping them to get better sales results.

Jim
Well, that’s awesome. And now, how long have you been doing that now?

Jim
Being a sales coach.

Holly
We have been doing that for just about eight years. Actually, I just had to do some mental math, but yeah, it’s been it’s been a lot of fun. I can’t believe it’s been that long already.

Jim
And then. TMSA, how long have you been actually associated with that association?

Holly
We joined TMSA in 2019. So five years or so, I guess, and then I pretty quickly, I think, started volunteering with them on the education committee and then maybe a year or so later, then joined the board.

Jim
Awesome.

Jim
So. So you’re only are you only on the education committee or are you on other committees also?

Holly
I co-chair the education committee, and then I, also on like, a couple of task force, like the sales strategy, task force and things like that. But it’s mostly the education committee and the board that I commit time to.

Jim
Well that’s great. So when, when you’re dealing with, you know, helping companies, are you mostly helping companies on the asset side, on the brokerage side or outside of that? That field?

Holly
We have a blend, but we do a lot of the brokerage companies because that’s what we know. And sales is just different on a brokerage side than it is with the asset side. So there’s a lot of brokerage companies in our portfolio. We also have several asset based organizations, and interesting like surprising niche, I guess, although it shouldn’t be surprising, is we work with several companies that with the like logistics division of an asset based company because then all of their kind of internal structure and support is focused on the asset side, and the logistics is totally different and they need some help.

Jim
Well that’s awesome. So I would you say that it’s a it’s an equal mix of

Jim
from outside of logistics, 33% asset base, 33% brokerage or is it something different?

Jim
I don’t know, I mean, I would say

Holly
like in terms of number of customers, we’re probably like 80% logistics versus others. And then within that, maybe it’s, you know,

Holly
60, 70%, brokerage versus asset. But I’m, I’m totally like just guessing at

Jim
And while you’re guessing is pretty accurate for you because your guessing is closer than I would predict, right? Yeah. So and it’s really helpful because,

Jim
it just gives us a little bit of a better view into what you are doing.

Jim
And you’ve been doing for eight years. And, and I’ve talked to you several times over the years, and your core and your passion is really in coaching.

Jim
So in that, are you mostly putting together seminars where you’re doing like a one day, a four hour or maybe a full week, a weekend of sales coaching? Are you doing more one on one coaching?

Jim
Are you doing more of like really?

Jim
Here’s our learning management system. And go on in there. And you can go ahead and learn through that those trainings. And then I’ll help you out after that. Like give us an idea of what that looks like. Seeing that 80% or thereabouts, 80% of your business comes from the brokerage world.

Jim
If a broker calls you up and says, hey, I need some help on my sales training. What is it? And how does it look like?

Holly
Yeah. Well, it looks different for every customer. Kind of depending on what they need, what their goals are, what kind of support and kind of ingrained they want to get with us. But my favorite, and usually what we recommend is when we kind of, we join in a little bit of a partnership with an organization, we have kind of this process that we go through of kind of analyzing their current growth capabilities, helping them figure out kind of a short term acceleration plan, and then figuring out kind of longer term optimization strategies.

Holly
So it looks different kind of depending on their current state, but it’s usually a blend of all of those things that you just said. So we have some internal things. We have some things that we’ve developed to they’re kind of in our I’ll use the term LMS. It’s a lite LMS. It’s our online learning platform. We do a lot of custom stuff for organizations.

Holly
And then there’s a there’s a lot of like leader work. So kind of working with that sales leader, working with the sales manager, whatever that looks like to figure out kind of what are those strategies, how can you help your team move further down that line, and then some one on one stuff with the team too or group stuff.

Holly
So all of the above is the answer.

Jim
Awesome. Have you guys developed your own like selling system, or do you use one of the other ones that are out there? And if so, which one?

Holly
We have, we have kind of a blend of a way that we do things. So we don’t have, like our system that we subscribe to necessarily, because it just really depends on who your customers are. Where you go to market strategy is. If I, if I personally I think if I subscribe to the same selling system to like a very transactional kind of high churn brokerage company as I would to somebody who’s asset based and consultative, like I probably wouldn’t be doing my job very well.

Holly
So we we take a different approach, kind of depending on those two factors. But I pull from a lot of the greats in terms of different things that we use and that kind of stuff. So.

Jim
Well, that’s great. Holly. You know,

Jim
So what’s one of the one things that really, really makes you be happy? Like just lights up your day when it happens throughout the day.

Jim
Like professional or for one of each.

Jim
Well,

Jim
it’s probably it, but I have to. I have little kids, so three four year old, five year old. And with they are like surprisingly like kind to each other or something like that. It’s just, it’s such like, I love what I, you just get to kind of step back and watch them do something like really wonderful or really hard or really nice individually or with each other.

Jim
And you’re like, you weren’t even involved in that. You’re just watching this whole person, like, come to fruition. Like, that’s that’s my favorite. And actually it’s kind of the same professionally. When I think about the folks that I work with, like, we, we work somewhat differently potentially than some other consultants. Like my goal is that I have a 20 year consulting relationship with an organization.

Jim
Like I want to get in. I want to help them build their capabilities, like album them story. Right? And then step out or move on to a different area of focus with them. So I like you. You start with something and you help them build the capabilities. And then they’re just kind of like off and running. Like that’s kind of this big moment when you step back, you’re like, hey, look what you did.

Jim
One job. So has the same, actually.

Jim
Absolutely. Isn’t it great how even though it’s personal and work, we both see that it brings us right to our true north, whatever that is. You know, like

Jim
when I’m with someone, everything else around me stops.

Jim
And I’m just with you. Yeah.

Jim
Right. Where when things happen, I make sure that I plan my time accordingly. And when I’m. When I’m late, I’m late and that’s it. There’s no story. There might be something I’m dealing with or like this morning, you know, there’s this bad car accident. And accidents always happen when that sun’s either coming up in the morning or when the sun’s going down.

Jim
And it happens almost any time when I’m out, when that sun is right on the horizon. And I just always see a car accident somewhere, and it’s just something to be mindful of. But the main thing on this is being present to that. A lot of people see that horizon and they’re not present the same thing when they’re in front of someone like, I’m with you, Holly.

Jim
I’m fully present, fully engaged to whatever’s going on over there. And so that’s where, you know, everything else blanks out for me. Where before, I was always on guard. I was always wondering what’s going on or who’s the next person I need to talk to. I only need to be here,

Holly
That is definitely a goal of mine. To get a little bit better at that. I feel like it’s definitely like a season of my life where I’m drawn in multiple different directions at every given moment, but it’s part of it’s just, you know, self self control a little bit to stay kind of just keep your head where your feet are I think is the expression that people use.

Jim
use. Yeah. That’s awesome. You know what I, I’m really curious about Holly is I’d love for you to share a little bit about your journey into consulting

Jim
and how Luminaries Consulting was was actually born.

Jim
I’d love to hear that. Like what really inspired you? What what got you on to that journey where you’re like, this is me. This is what me and my partner are going to be doing.

Holly
Yeah. Yeah. I’d be happy to share. Thanks for asking. It was a it’s been a long journey. Like it’s been it’s been a long time coming. So I’m so happy to be kind of, like, truly living my dream right now. My luminaries came to be or kind of the conceptually was born, like, many, many years ago.

Holly
I was in my 20s. I was kind of starting my career and, really like, even in college. And then as I started working in the workforce, I’m like, this is the type of work that I like to do, right? And it’s all kind of actually surrounding what I said. Those like, happiest, most fulfilling moments in my life is I love, seeing other people do things well.

Holly
And if I am part of that journey, that’s awesome. And what I, what I called it when I was, you know, at the, at the foundation of luminaries is like helping people realize their potential, like realizing it in two ways, understanding what they’re capable of, and then actually being able to kind of see that come to fruition. And that is what I considered really kind of my life’s purpose.

Holly
So luminaries was born from that. Like, I wanted to help more people do that more often. And luminaries is like conceptually all about how do you let people, teams, individuals be their best selves, be their best. Like as a group, like shine their light, I guess, and like the cliche way of like thinking about a luminary but kind of stand out from a crowd, be be the best.

Holly
So that’s that’s where the name came from. But it’s really the consulting role that that job that I wanted to do was all about, how do I help more people succeed in whatever that looks like for them. So we might spent more time in the corporate world after that. Like I said, I started this about eight years ago, but once I got to that point where like, okay, now I’ve had enough of doing this internally at organizations, I want to do this for more people and kind of expand the impact.

Holly
That was the goal. As luminaries.

Jim
That’s awesome. So the the origin of the name, there’s a lot of different ways I can go with luminaries. Right. And I have a plethora of luminaries. Right. Are you getting it from the source of light to a loom?

Jim
Is that where you’ve gotten that, or is it something else?

Holly
Yeah, that’s where it came from. So it was really about how do I, you know, think about you, Jim. I think you’re a luminary in a lot of ways. Like, how do we make more people who are doing so well that they are literally, like, shining, like other people are noticing how fulfilled that they are in their job, how well they’re doing, how happy they are, how they’re helping other people and lighting the way for them.

Holly
So that was that was the idea, like, how do we create more luminaries in the world, more people that stand out, more people that light the way for others, more people that show people how wonderful it can be.

Jim
That’s awesome. That’s just great. And, you know, there’s also luminaries that that usually wait for the chosen one who is worthy to teach their knowledge to.

Jim
So there’s another piece of luminaries as well, just some archaic knowledge that I have somewhere in my my head somewhere,

Jim
you know, with me, I started doing a network promise and I just created it back in 2019. I think it was May of 2019 where I decided every day in May I was just going to go ahead and do a walk around my office and talk, and it stuck so well.

Jim
And I had so many people call me and say, thank you so much for all the information that you illumined on me. That that light reflected on and on and on and still going today. And I never stopped. I did it for, you know, the whole month of May, even on weekends. And then still today, I’m still doing those those recordings and putting that information out there really just to edify and educate people, to bring them to another level, if that, if that’s what they want.

Jim
Right?

Holly
People that I worked with were having, like, this kind of hoarding talent kind of thing. Like, you build a great team and you don’t want it to leave you kind of thing.

Holly
So people were kind of protecting some of the most talented people, and we were I was working with a couple of leaders on a mindset shift there. So what if your success as a leader was not about the talented team that you hold within your arms, but the leaders that you create and the kind of like tree that you’re building, all these leaders that you’re kind of growing up and sending on and watching them bloom.

Holly
And that is a different shift for people. There are definitely people that already think that way, and there are people that you have to kind of work there. But that’s that’s kind of what I’m hearing you say. Jim is like part of your success is seeing how you can inspire other people and help them grow. And that’s, I think, I think why we why we connect because I feel the same way.

Jim
Yeah. I really needed to have you on my podcast because you’re just you’re an amazing leader, amazing human being that is a leader that exercises your leadership. It’s part of your natural self-expression. I just love that about you.

Holly
Yeah, I try, so thank you.

Jim
Absolutely. I love to hear one of your success stories where you had a client that really came out stronger and better than ever before, after your consulting.

Holly
Well. Let’s see. I hope that all of my clients fit that that that, those parameters, we we work with a lot of folks in different ways. I think the and they’re all at different points of the journey, so it’s hard to pick like one favorites. But I do have a customer that we’ve worked with for a number of years.

Holly
And we’re kind of we’re actually at a really interesting point in our journey that, some, some people, some consultants might be scared of this point. I’m really excited about this point is like, we’ve this is maybe like the fourth year of our relationship, and we’ve been working on kind of getting them from very operationally focused to more kind of account growth focused, like, how do we figure out how to grow this current business instead of just executing this business?

Holly
That is a very common thing that we come in and help some folks with. But they were, you know, at this certain point in their journey, we’ve been working over a couple of years, and they’re at a point where we’re like, okay, you’ve made this leap. Now we’re ready for a different kind of leap. So we are hopefully going to start working with them differently, and we might stop doing some of the things that we’ve done before.

Holly
That’s the part that some people, I think would be kind of scared about working yourself out of a job. I love working myself out of a job with clients, so we helped them get to that transition. They’re ready to take some of that on on their own, and we will help them with something else. And that’s just so satisfying.

Holly
And there’s there’s a lot of wonderful, like results that have come out of that work, but just kind of seeing them become so ingrained in a like a culture shift difference and then ready to take that step on their own, and then I can help them with something else that’s that’s very satisfying.

Jim
Yeah. You hit something really important right there, Holly. And that’s in order to add something, to start doing something, one must stop doing something to open up that space. I always say there’s 168 hours in a week, and a lot of people keep adding and adding and adding and adding and adding and adding and adding, and then they get burnt out or their accountabilities or responsibilities start falling apart right at the same, and then they just crash and burn.

Jim
And what you just said was so important there to stop something and give up that business and start a new, which is a new genesis, a new creation. Yeah,

Holly
right. Yeah, absolutely. And I’m, Lucky, I guess. Fortunate that I, that I get I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like doing the same thing over and over and over again, which is why consulting is nice for me. But I that’s that’s even more satisfying for me. And I’m like, great. We’ve done this for a while.

Holly
It worked. Let’s let’s move on and let’s tackle a new challenge with you. That’s what I get really excited about. So yeah.

Jim
Speaking about, I say I love it because you seem I can just feel it, like as if you were right here with me right now. The excitement is so, alluring, if you will.

Jim
What’s one of the things from last week that really gets you excited? What got you so excited last week? That day? That’s. That’s the money shot right there. I want that, and I want that every day when I’m working or in my personal life. What is it for you?

Holly
Well, last week was an interesting one. I have a, five year old that started kindergarten last week, so it’s a big week personally. So that was really exciting. Going helping her through all of that. But, work wise, let’s see. I mean, there was I just started with a brand new customer that was starting this, this journey that I described.

Holly
That’s like my favorite kind of way, working with folks that kind of helping them analyze their growth, kind of a short term acceleration plan and then a long term optimization plan. So they’re doing that right now. And so kind of just had a chance to really dig in to what is working and where there’s some opportunities for improvement within their organization.

Holly
And that’s that’s so fun. It’s like something brand new. It’s there’s some things that a lot of organizations struggle in similar areas based on where they are in kind of their growth cycle. But there’s always some unique things in every organization. And I love to kind of dig in and learn about those and give them some, some ideas, even small things that make really big impact for things they can start doing differently to not change the the things that are working, but just kind of accelerate.

Holly
Beyond some of that.

Jim
Yeah.

Jim
That’s awesome. And we all run into roadblocks, even for ourselves, being able to tell the truth to ourselves. So what trends are you seeing in companies where you come across someone on a team that really isn’t willing to change your budget all from the past, and they want to keep doing it the way they’ve always done it, because it’s always worked.

Jim
And then here comes Holly and say, no, no, no, no, we’re going to change things up. I know you’re used to putting your makeup on that way, or doing your hair that way, or your processes at work and your business has been flat for the last three, four years. How do you handle those people when you come across them as a client?

Holly
Right. I mean, most organizations have some of those people, right? Business would be a lot easier if it didn’t involve people. But. But most people, whether they say it or not, most people don’t love change because it shakes things up. You kind of get used to your process. You get used to your routine of showing up at the gym at 545.

Holly
You don’t want to change it. So we expect that number one, like we expect there to be some resistance and plan for it. But that is also why we typically try to engage the full team and kind of the current state and then creating the plan. People are more likely to want to execute a plan if they’re involved in the creation of it.

Holly
It’s it’s how we create the buy in. So when we’re doing this, this customer that I was just talking about with last week, when we’re in this, this growth analyzer phase is what we call it. We I talk with all of them like we have individual conversations or if it’s a big team, talk with some of them, individual conversations to figure out what is working well for them, where they see opportunities at for the whole company, what personal wins would look like for them, like what change would help them do their job better so they have a stake in it, and then they are also kind of weighing and then, surveying the priorities.

Holly
And then we get together in kind of this workshop to say, great, here’s what you all told me. What do we want to do about it? So they’re making that choice too. You’re still going to have some naysayers, but if we involve them in the upfront, we find it creates a lot more buy in.

Jim
Yeah.

Jim
I mean, anyone listening to this right now, I mean, Holly just working with her through my selling system, you can see Holly, how I brought you through this as we’re we’re talking just to really have this whole podcast. You know, and it really gives me an opportunity to ask you about shipping companies and brokerage companies as you’re dealing with all of us, what’s different from all of us to 80% versus consulting a perspective?

Holly
You know, logistics is it’s a different, unique industry that we live in. Like, it’s so market driven. Not all industries are that, it’s so dynamic. The people that make it up are different. The folks that, like work that you’re selling to on your buyers are different than other industries. So just that in, in the nature of itself is different than our work that we do in other industries, like we have manufacturing customers.

Holly
They’re dealing with very different things than we are. So that just makes it kind of challenging and unique. But in general, like the, the ability to be successful regardless of what is happening in the market, is a unique intricacy of logistics that we spend a lot of time on. I think so many people feel like, like slaves are victims of what’s going on in the market.

Holly
Like it’s really fun to ride the roller coaster when it’s high and like, you have all the power right? But you still have to be successful and not just, like, wait for it to come back when it’s down. And there are ways to do that, or at least not be quite as impacted by it would would be a first step there.

Holly
So that’s, that’s what’s a little bit different about working with logistics versus other companies.

Jim
Well that’s awesome. One thing I wanted to touch base, you know, both you and I are pretty similar in a lot of ways. You know, I started 3PLMAS.com some time ago and probably ten years ago, I’m going to guess. But what inspired you to create Logistics Sales Academy?

Jim
How does it serve professionals in the logistics field?

Holly
Two big reasons that we wanted to start it. We we did eventually start it, like, right when Covid started because we knew we needed something like this. We just hadn’t prioritized it. And then we’re like, okay, now everyone needs this and we’re not traveling right now. So let’s just like, do this because all our customers around it, just like everybody.

Holly
But that was the kind of the timing and the catalyst of it. But the reasons that we wanted to start it beforehand were two things is that we we work with a lot of like mid-market at some larger companies, but a lot of the smaller companies that were talking to us before we started this, the the solutions that we had in place, especially for skill development, just didn’t make sense.

Holly
It didn’t make sense for them to take their entire team off the desk for two days, to fly us there, to do skill development. There had to be a different way to do it, so smaller teams was one part of it. But then the other part of it is that kind of time away, like time spent on learning.

Holly
And we actually have seen so much success and people kind of taking more like a, a bite sized learning approach. So let’s focus on a particular skill. Let’s learn one small thing at a time and let’s apply it to your business before we just like go on and do something else, we see a lot more ROI and kind of breaking things up that way versus, you know, sitting in a training room for a week and then like being so overwhelmed when you go back that you have no time to apply anything, you know, so it’s so two big reasons the time off the desk and making it work for smaller teams and geographically dispersed teams.

Jim
That’s awesome. Plus, I’ll add one more in there. Holly, sometimes you don’t want to do the same thing over and over again because you’ve taught it for eight years straight, right?

Jim
Right, right. That’s that’s the selfish part for me. Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Jim
And I think we’re all kind of like that. We’re all kind of wanting to create newly.

Jim
Because what was yesterday is not today, right? I mean, things changed. Just I’ve been in this since 1991. I’ve been in the brokerage world and asset world. And today, in 2024, things have evolved. I want to say there’s probably 4 to 5 different transformations along the way, the last four years being the biggest one that I’ve ever seen, which has been quite interesting in itself.

Jim
So, you know, moving forward, is there anything else you’d like to share? I’d love to hear how people can get Ahold of you as well. As we bring this to an end.

Holly
Sure. Yes. I’m always. I’m always ready to have a conversation with folks. So, if people want to talk about kind of what’s going on in their business and have somebody listen and maybe get some free advice, you can find me on LinkedIn, our website, Luminariesconsulting.com or the logistics Sales Academy, all of those have all the meeting links and all the stuff.

Holly
If you want to set up a conversation, or just shoot me an email. Holly at Luminaries Consulting and we can talk.

Jim
Awesome. Thank you so much, Holly. I really enjoyed being with you today, and, you’re just amazing. Keep doing what you’re doing. I can’t wait to see you again soon. And God bless you, my friend,

Holly
Yeah. Thank you Jim, it was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.