Talking to Ryan Schreiber from Metafora

In Episode 5 of Launching Logistics, Jim Becker interviews Ryan Schreiber, Chief Growth Officer at Metafora, for a deep discussion on leadership, innovation, and mindset in the logistics industry. Drawing from his extensive experience in both logistics and technology, Ryan shares how adopting a growth mindset and being open to failure has shaped his career and leadership style.

Throughout the conversation, Ryan opens up about his early days in freight brokerage, his transition to tech, and the lessons he’s learned along the way. He also discusses the critical role of embracing change and empowering teams to solve business problems, whether through innovative technology or human-centered leadership.

Guest Info

Ryan Schreiber

Ryan Schreiber has lived his career at the intersection of transportation and technology. He currently serves as the Chief Growth Officer at Metafora, the leading technology consulting firm in the freight industry. Demonstrating his passion for innovation in transportation and logistics, Ryan’s commentary on the space is award-winning, having been honored with a Jesse H Neal Award in 2023, and is regularly asked to contribute commentary for publications such as FreightWaves and Journal of Commerce. He also serves as an angel investor, advisor, and multi-time founder for logistics tech companies. This is all part of his mission to help drive the freight industry forward.

Check out Ryan on LinkedIn.
Take a look at Metafora.net

Interview Transcript

Jim Becker
Yeah. I mean, you you you and I have known each other for quite some time, and,
Ryan Schreiber
I remember the first time we met. Do you remember the first time we met?
Jim Becker
What? When was the first time we met?
Ryan Schreiber
It was at a Tia conference.
Ryan Schreiber
It was in Orlando. I don’t remember what year was, but it must have been, like 2013.
Ryan Schreiber
And, you know, dat had that, had, like, you know, at the hard Rock one there
Jim Becker
the big party, the the, the most expensive party I’ve ever gone to in my life.
Ryan Schreiber
we stood out there for probably like it was you, me and then one of your guys whose name I don’t remember.
Jim Becker
John was the guy that was with me
Ryan Schreiber
That’s right.
Jim Becker
and,
Ryan Schreiber
And we just hung
Jim Becker
I think your founder was with you. I think
Ryan Schreiber
just me. It was just me back
Jim Becker
it was just you.
Ryan Schreiber
Yeah, it was just
Jim Becker
Okay. There was another. There was another owner out there, too. It was a great night.
Ryan Schreiber
it was a really good night. Yeah, it was a really good night. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Ryan Schreiber
that was the first time we met, and I just. Yeah, I mean, ever since that, I mean, I just, you know, that’s that was whatever. Nine or not, at least nine, ten years ago, like,
Jim Becker
Yeah. Yeah. At least
Ryan Schreiber
guys were pretty. You were still pretty small back then.
Ryan Schreiber
I mean, you certainly haven’t had hadn’t had the success that you’ve had since then, I mean, which is incredible. You know, you’ve had incredible growth and you’ve done an incredible job with that business. So it’s been cool to like, watch it from the outside, you know, and
Jim Becker
Well thanks. Yeah. And to make it make it through you know the deflationary marketplace that we’ve gone through, you know, it’s been trying on all of us. You know, I’d love to say. Yeah, I had no problems. Yeah. Had problems. And we all have problems. And who who were you with back then?
Ryan Schreiber
I had, that was Spartan Logistics that I was, at the time I was doing Spartan Logistics back then. So that was,
Jim Becker
The flood brothers.
Ryan Schreiber
how I was definitely by myself. Yeah. The blood brothers. Yeah. That’s right.
Jim Becker
I’ve had I’ve had my great conversations with him as well.
Ryan Schreiber
it was definitely a great learning experience. You know what’s funny is
Ryan Schreiber
His approach to like giving feedback was really bad. For me personally in terms of like how I react to communication. But subsequently, like in the years since I’ve left, I’ve reflected on on some of the feedback that he really had for me as a, as a leader and as a business, as somebody running the business and, and owning the business.
Ryan Schreiber
He was right about a lot of stuff. He just like and I’ve never told him that. And I was always thought about like, but, you know, like it was how he even if he had approached me better, I wouldn’t have been ready to hear it. It’s funny you said the fixed mindset thing. Like, I’ve had to train myself to have a growth mindset, and because I did not naturally have that or don’t naturally have that.
Ryan Schreiber
And and I’ve reflected on that. It’s like Dave, Dave could have given me that feedback better about how to make some of the choices that I made for the business, but I wasn’t ready to hear it. I had a fixed mindset and I really wasn’t ready to hear it. So they’ve been, yeah, it was an interesting time in my life for sure, but that was, that was Spartan Logistics that I was with then.
Ryan Schreiber
Yeah. But then you’ve subsequently probably met Parker, the co-founder that I was with the time that you were probably thinking of as Parker, who I was with, with, we did Freight Air together after that.
Jim Becker
Right, exactly.
Jim Becker
So but we’re on such a great topic that I really want to talk about.
Jim Becker
It is the fixed mindset.
Ryan Schreiber
Yeah.
Jim Becker
there’s several different ways you can look at it. And sometimes you just get into a situation where fear, when you’re going that all you can think about. Let’s just use a car analogy. You’re driving along and you slam on the brakes and you’re sliding right, either because you were going too fast, you’re on rain, you’re on ice, you’re sliding.
Jim Becker
Our minds are the same way that we get this fixed way of being that that’s all that we see at the present moment. And then we crash. And a lot of people in business have a fixed way of being or a fixed mindset. And and then we realize, oh, I could have pump the brakes. I could have let go of the brakes, I could have steered the wheel another direction.
Jim Becker
I could have
Ryan Schreiber
Slow down. I gotta just slow
Jim Becker
I could have slowed down.
Ryan Schreiber
I’ve started to have more success in my career. Gym. Like, once I
Ryan Schreiber
learn to admit that, like, I don’t know, things because there’s no better way to build trust than being, like, I don’t know, I’m going to go find out, like, or I’ll do. I’ll put an effort to it.
Ryan Schreiber
But like,
Ryan Schreiber
I think that most of the relationships I have in this industry are the strongest be not because they want to talk to me. You know, most people think being a consultant is telling people what, you know, like,
Ryan Schreiber
Oh, yeah. Nobody wants to talk to me because of what I’ve done in the 15 years of my career before they talked. Yeah, right. They trust that I’m going to tell if I say something with authority, that it comes from a place of, like, it’s well researched, it’s well thought out. It’s not because of me. It’s because of, you know, aggregating feedback from other folks.
Ryan Schreiber
And then if I say that, I don’t, and then they know that if I say that I know this thing or I have this observation that I because I was willing to tell them when I didn’t know I was willing to tell them, hey, I don’t know, but I’ll go ask other people. Like that’s created a,
Ryan Schreiber
Any success that I really had is, is that change of of mindset to saying like,
Ryan Schreiber
I don’t know anything like let me go and, and by the way, like, even if I know something that, that thing that I know could be different tomorrow. So I need to constantly be reviewing. Like, is that still true? Is that still the way that it is?
Ryan Schreiber
You know, I think it’s important.
Jim Becker
Oh, it’s so important. And really, I mean, you and I connect several times a year all over the globe, right? So we’re we meet somewhere, we’re always in the same circles because we’re very similar individuals doing the same thing. Right.
Ryan Schreiber
We go to the same barber.
Jim Becker
yes, it’s definitely same barber. I don’t have a beard like you. And if I did grow it out, it would be a little rut.
Jim Becker
Right?
Jim Becker
so as, as we travel around in the same,
Jim Becker
communities, what I find is all of us are very like minded. And as I talk to other people, I’m. It seems like sometimes I’m talking to myself. And what what you bring up is so important because I’d go one step further and really just allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to really show that side that most people are protecting, that that side that could be wrong, the side that doesn’t have all the right answers, the side that, you know what, I, I get things wrong each and every day.
Jim Becker
Ryan
Jim Becker
and I mess up and I see things that I could be doing so much better.
Ryan Schreiber
I have team members who, like, ask me why I don’t get nervous doing interviews like this, you know, especially like if I do something on, you know, that is live like freightwaves or whatever. And I say it’s because like, I’m willing to be raw, like like I don’t I don’t think being wrong is bad. I’m willing to be wrong.
Ryan Schreiber
And then then I can say like, hey, I was wrong about that. But like, here’s where I was coming from, or here’s why I had that, here’s what changed or what have you like. And I think the willingness to be wrong is the only like if you if you don’t have that, you’re not. That is what stagnates growth.
Ryan Schreiber
And that’s what stagnates business growth. Right. Like it’s it stagnates personal growth. But as it relates to like, you know, the the industry that we’re in, the business that we’re in. Right. We’ve both we are both freight brokers and or you know, I’m not currently a freight broker, but you know, in my heart I’m still a freight broker.
Ryan Schreiber
And you have to be willing to be wrong, which might mean taking a shipment from a customer. And, you know, that’s maybe a little bit outside your comfort zone and then finding a way to deliver for them, it might mean changing or taking a new business strategy and changing the way you’re going to market or trying something else.
Ryan Schreiber
And you don’t have to bet everything on like, I’m not going to go on Freightwaves or I’m not going to come on your podcast or I’m not and say, I bet my life that X, Y, or Z, you know, I’m not going to go. I don’t have to go that far in the same thing in a business context.
Ryan Schreiber
I’d have to bet my whole business on capacity as a service being the future of freight brokerage. But you know, you have to try something and potentially be wrong. And then no matter, as long as you can unring the bell, don’t do anything you can’t undo until you try it out.
Ryan Schreiber
being willing to be wrong also means like you have to go in far enough to actually be wrong in a business context, right? Like you actually have to try something enough to, to to know that it was actually wrong and not sandbagging like people are often from our perspective, you know, like what?
Ryan Schreiber
I see a lot of metaphor when working with, you know, businesses is, or freight brokers, as a consultant. They don’t they’re not willing to make sort of incremental changes around their business to see if a business strategy will work. Right. So they’re like, oh, we’ll try this out. But like, to actually make this work, we’d have to change everyone’s compensation.
Ryan Schreiber
So like I’m not willing to do that, but I’m willing to like so you didn’t actually try. You weren’t actually willing to be wrong because you weren’t willing to do the other stuff to make this thing successful.
Ryan Schreiber
that matters for growth. I mean, otherwise you’re going to stagnate.
Ryan Schreiber
And that’s what makes these businesses stagnate. It’s just true.
Jim Becker
absolutely and in our personal lives, we can take our personal lives and things that work conflated with on a daily basis, things that we go to the line but we’re not willing to step over but yet will judge, will point the finger
Jim Becker
Yeah. How many fingers are pointing back at you?
Jim Becker
And I’ve learned to not do that because really, who am I to judge? And when was I last in their position? Maybe, I don’t know, five minutes ago, my last meeting. And as we’re growing, you know, I live each day in its entirety as just today and tomorrow will be today. Also that I will say is fact.
Jim Becker
Tomorrow will now never come. Tomorrow will be today.
Jim Becker
And I don’t go to yesterday
Jim Becker
unless we’re doing some reminiscing and go, yeah, I remember that. And then I get out and then I don’t really go to the future’s too much. And so unless I’m doing a budget or forecast and then I’m saying, all right, we’re on this journey right?
Jim Becker
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey that matters.
Ryan Schreiber
I, you know, I had a publisher in my office at Spartan Logistics
Ryan Schreiber
you know, a pop shot is like a little basketball game. So
Ryan Schreiber
I would play this, and I, I, you know, I would like I beat a bunch of people and, and there was this one guy that we had and he would always I remember one time he’s like, you know, Ryan, the problem is like, I, he’s like, you know, you don’t miss a lot of shots in a row.
Ryan Schreiber
He’s like. Like, my problem is, like, I’ll miss a bunch of shots in a row. And I’m like, here’s the difference between you and me. I was like, here’s the difference. I miss a shot. And it’s not about the last shot, it’s about the next shot. So I only think about the last shot in thinking about what do I need to adjust slightly to make the next one?
Ryan Schreiber
And so even if I miss the next one, I’m just thinking about how do I apply that learning to the next shot. You miss one and you’re nervous that you’re going to miss the next one, and then you miss that one. And now it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and you’re missing more. And so I think that what you’re describing is, is very much in that vein of like, I want to learn.
Ryan Schreiber
I’ve said a bunch of times before on every I probably said this on every podcast I’ve ever been on.
Ryan Schreiber
The only way I know anything is because I’ve just made a bunch of mistakes, and I’ve made those mistakes over and over sometimes, unfortunately, like, I’m a slow learner, but like, I was willing to make the mistake in the first place, which was important.
Ryan Schreiber
And then I’ve learned I’ve I’ve had to learn from it. And that’s the only way to grow. And so if you don’t reflect on it, if you if you look to blame somebody else and point fingers elsewhere, like that’s where you’re going, you’re never going to learn from those things. And that’s true on a personal level again. And it’s also true in a business context.
Ryan Schreiber
Like you. Okay, I tried a business strategy like I, you know, I’m not sure what your operating model is by cell versus cradle to grave, but I think your buy sell. But I’ve certainly had folks, you know, in our business contacts be like, well, we, you know, regionalization and buy sell won’t work for us. You know, hundreds of millions of dollars brokerages.
Ryan Schreiber
Well, you can do whatever business strategy you want, but if it doesn’t work for you, it’s not because the business strategy doesn’t work. It’s it doesn’t work in this context. It’s worth thinking about even if you don’t want to do it. It’s worth thinking about why it didn’t work for you and what you can learn from it. Not working from you to apply to the rest of your business.
Ryan Schreiber
I. I think that’s I think it’s a good observation. Jim.
Jim Becker
Right. And I think from a consultant standpoint, maybe it is the context in which that they’re working from. That is why the business plan isn’t working for them.
Ryan Schreiber
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And but you’ve got to like. But you’re right. I mean, you’ve got to you have to build toward a short memory. Right. You’re describing kind of like in that quarterback context using a sports analogy. Right. Like the best quarterbacks throw a throw an interception. They go back to the sideline. They they watch the iPad. They see what they did wrong.
Ryan Schreiber
They go out and get behind center the next time and they’re ready to sling it again. So you have to have a short memory to that point and be willing to go back out there and do it again and live today, as today. Now with the baggage of yesterday, with the knowledge of yesterday, with the learnings from yesterday, but now with the baggage of yesterday.
Ryan Schreiber
I think that’s really, really important to your point.
Jim Becker
Yeah. And it’s so true. You know when, when you have that pop a shot and I’ve used that so many times. You know I had a great mentor back in 1991 when I first started in logistics, working with paper ponies on LTL. You know, Ron Williamson taught me that success is 99% failure, and the faintest ink is better than the best memory.
Jim Becker
Two great quotes I still use today. He also gave me a third one, which is, it’s amazing how much we learn from those who apparently have nothing to teach, right? And sometimes that person that’s teaching me is my I, who I am, right? And when you look at that, when I take those papa shots, statistically, I’m calibrating myself on what it does take to be successful.
Jim Becker
All right, that probability. I’m building a probability, a statistical analysis, if you will, on myself on. Where’s the pressure in my right arm. Where is the pressure on this? What’s the arc of my angle? All of this information is coming in just like in golf or football or basketball, whatever game I’m playing, business or even a conversation, I’m constantly listening.
Jim Becker
And really, when when you have something so unique, like we’re having a great conversation, I can look at what we’re doing. I can also look at the knowledge that we have the knowledge base, but who are we being? See, you’re being your authentic self and I’m being my authentic self the same as if you saw us at a convention, or if we just ran into each other at a customer site where you were an intermediary for that customer on the technology side, and maybe I was the transportation provider and or consultant, we’re all now talking like, oh, we’re going to have fun now.
Ryan Schreiber
That’s what I’ve actually always loved about this industry by the way speaking about like kind of how you show up is
Ryan Schreiber
I love the Tia and the T has done a ton for me in my in my career because like you go there and it’s, it’s definitely co-opted mission. Right. Like everybody like it’s a very open arms space.
Ryan Schreiber
And the people who aren’t don’t have that ethos have that like arm’s length, keep everybody at arm’s length. There are those people and some of them have been very successful, but in general, right. Like all of us are really I may not tell you who my shipper, the shippers I’m working with, or I may not tell you what carriers I’m using on which lane.
Ryan Schreiber
I may not tell you what the rates I’m charging are. You know, I’m not going to tell you those things, but everything else I’m an open book about, and I’ve always really appreciated that about this industry, is that folks, when I meet them and when I have met them, they’re always willing to they’re willing to share a lot of their failures.
Ryan Schreiber
And I wonder, I do wonder from time to time where that breaks down because then, you know, a lot of these businesses also hold themselves back by admitting their failure. Like admitting that, hey, we’ve made this mistake or that mistake, but not necessarily being willing to to do anything about it or to change, maybe like to say like I need to try something or, you know, it’s one thing to say, I need to try something different.
Ryan Schreiber
It’s another thing to try something different. Right? Like, and,
Ryan Schreiber
I always I’ve always wondered that. Yeah. I’m like I love your take on that, on that observation because I agree with you. Like we do show up as our extended self like you’ve and and and most a lot of folks in this industry do.
Ryan Schreiber
I’m curious where they think that breaks down and people just being like, yeah, but I what I’m doing is I know it’s not working. What I’m doing is fine. My customers are still paying me, I still get frayed, blah, blah, blah.
Jim Becker
Yeah. I’ll go into that a little bit further, what I really want, because this is a great opportunity to just
Jim Becker
transverse into this next you’re just reflecting it back onto yourself.
Jim Becker
You know, you shared on your journey
Jim Becker
and becoming this chief growth officer at metaphor. And now how did your career evolve from the, you know, from the freight industry to now into the tech industry and all that with a law degree? You got a beautiful story right there, my friend.
Ryan Schreiber
you know, you play the cards you’re dealt. That’s the story. And then you make the best, you know, you kind of like, make the best decisions you can along the way. I’ve been incredibly lucky that, like, I’ve made some bad choices, and they’ve just kind of worked out from time to time.
Ryan Schreiber
But, you know, I went to law school and I graduated during the Great Recession, and nobody would give me the time of day in the legal profession. And so I had to do something like, I wasn’t going to be I wasn’t going to live on the street if I could help it. Right. So I had to do something.
Ryan Schreiber
So I had an opportunity to get into logistics, sales and I did it. And then I just I wouldn’t say I made the best of it. I was pretty miserable most of the time, but, you know, but I just I hustled and I, I, I tried to take chances, I took chances, some of them worked out, some of them didn’t.
Ryan Schreiber
I always learned when they didn’t work out right. You win or you it’s, you know, the phrase like you win or you learn like you never lose, you win or you learn. That’s true of me. But I also was always, you know, because I, I saw this industry is very broken. Fundamentally, though, this is the transition to technology.
Ryan Schreiber
I always I always saw this business is very fundamentally broken and I always thought it could be better, you know, I think the things that bothered me about being a freight broker and, and a transportation provider, they were always, you know, at first. At first I looked outside. It’s funny. You so funny how some of the things that you said tie back, right, like pointing the finger at other people.
Ryan Schreiber
Like I would get upset and things I would get upset about carriers, this shippers that, you know, blah, blah, blah. I can’t control any of those things. Like, what can I control? And I started, you know, I started thinking about incentives. Well, why are they acting that way? Why is the carrier doing that or why is the shipper doing this?
Ryan Schreiber
And, and then how can I control that or effect that? And so I think that I always, I always looked at the space as like fundamentally broken and then thought about like, how are better ways to solve those problems. And, and so I always looked inside the four walls of my business and thought about training, how can I I have limited it’s also a business of limited resources, right.
Ryan Schreiber
Most freight brokers operate on operating ratios between 90 and 98%. So they’re spending, you know, they have $0.02 of every dollar that they made in revenue available for growth initiatives. Right? I mean, if unless you’re making $100 million as a company, you don’t have a lot of money to invest in growth. So technology can be a shortcut for those things if done in the right way with the right, with the right, strategies behind them.
Ryan Schreiber
And so I was always just looking for a better way to do these things and being willing to try out, because what did I have to lose at some point? Like what did I have to lose right. At some level. But I didn’t get there overnight. Right? I got there by being really stuck for a while, being really frustrated for a while, and then asking myself like, okay, why did I make those decisions that were wrong?
Ryan Schreiber
Why did I make what you know, what decisions that I make were wrong? And then how can I do this differently? Like I once ran a I wonder, I ran a $30 million run rate brake road freight brokerage off of Google Sheets. Like technology doesn’t solve every single problem, but Google Sheets was everything that I use or that we used.
Ryan Schreiber
It it was painful. And it was, I guess also QuickBooks, but like, it was expensive. It was painful. It was challenging, but like we did it, so it doesn’t solve all the problems. But I think for me, it really came down to what how do I make this easier for people to sleep at night. Right. Like so the so that we don’t have some of these problems?
Ryan Schreiber
That’s my thought.
Jim Becker
yeah, I totally get it. And I love how you just really got in there and whatever it takes to make it happen. It’s like any of us, any one that’s out there right now that’s struggling with something just because whatever you’re dealing with is in front of you, that you just failed or you feel like you failed, it doesn’t mean it’s over with.
Jim Becker
We have this humanistic ability to transcend any problem. And what you did there was you use QuickBooks, you use Google Sheets, even though it was a $30 million top line revenue business. You utilized that. You know, I did the same thing in 1991 when I got an understanding of key point there. There are times and these green screens and I, I’ve been doing, Lotus one, two, three since, what, 19 I want to say 1983 when they first came out.
Jim Becker
And I’ve been building macros, I just created all my own macros within the department, and I just ran this whole thing that said, probability is these five carriers call these five carriers, they’ll book it. And I built this whole database outside of that using KPIx, right, to really get the data and then utilized it in 1991 to 1993.
Jim Becker
And then I started moving 67 loads a day
Ryan Schreiber
But it didn’t start with the technology. Like, I think what’s important about what you just described that I want to highlight for anybody who’s listening is it didn’t start with the technology. It started with the business problem. You were trying to solve. Like I you’re sitting there saying like, okay,
Ryan Schreiber
I need to move more freight with less effort.
Ryan Schreiber
I want like one of the first real for me, kind of like moments where I had
Ryan Schreiber
like a, a real,
Ryan Schreiber
shift in how I thought about,
Ryan Schreiber
technology and, and data and how it can impact, and how it can impact my decision making was it was probably 20.
Ryan Schreiber
We had a great recession in 2014, I think. Right. And maybe it’s 2015 somewhere around 2014, 2015. And, and I thought my career reps at the time were just like I was like, I think that I don’t I don’t think that they’re negotiating well with carriers,
Ryan Schreiber
and so before I tried to solve this problem with technology, before I like went and yelled at a bunch of people, I’m like, well, what what’s the data?
Ryan Schreiber
Tell me? And that’s not a very
Ryan Schreiber
how where would that show up in the data? Right. Like I, you know, and so
Ryan Schreiber
you know, if I, if I understand how these parties act and interact and what their incentives are, right. Driver carrier’s incentive is to get as much money as possible, carrier reps, incentives to get commission, whatever you it’s also the book the freight.
Ryan Schreiber
It’s not necessarily to maximize profit and minimize loss. If if you know, if you’re thinking purely commission, blah, blah, blah. So I was like, all right, well, let me look at the data in the data. What like what data do I need to find that out? Well,
Ryan Schreiber
I need to know what
Ryan Schreiber
the starting max bid was and I need to know what the ending price was.
Ryan Schreiber
And from there, I know how these parties interact with each other. So I expect that I’m going to see a lot of clustering around this number and some that look like this and some that look like that. And sure enough, that’s what the data told me. 76% of our, you know, if you’ve got a carrier on the phone and they and you offer them a rate that they’re okay with, what are they going to do?
Ryan Schreiber
They’re going to ask for 50 more dollars. Right? Because worst thing that says is no. And they say I take the load. Anyway, 76% of my freight was booked at max by or plus $50. 14% was booked more than $50.
Ryan Schreiber
And so I went to my carrier reps and I and then I didn’t. Again, I didn’t apply technology to the solution yet.
Ryan Schreiber
I went to them and I gave them training. All of these are business strategies. First and all, I gave them training. Hey guys, here’s what’s happening. Here’s what I see is happening
Ryan Schreiber
here. Let me get do some training on negotiation by the way. Let them let me incentivize you to do the things that I want to do. So I put up spiff up anyway long story.
Ryan Schreiber
Slightly less long.
Ryan Schreiber
Immediately, immediately we started booking freight under max by
Ryan Schreiber
and we started making more money. We made, I think, $20,000 more a week in gross profit just from that change. And, you know, in that that was a meaningful outcome. And then it was also a meaningful outcome for my team members.
Ryan Schreiber
And so I think that, you know, what you describe that’s important, Jim, is like it starts with it has to start with what are the what am I trying to solve in my business? What do I need to make my business successful? How am I empowering my people? I get a I certainly get a wrap online of like being this technology guy.
Ryan Schreiber
It all starts with empowering people. I want people to be successful. I just want them to do things that people need to do. Let’s let technology, when something’s working, let’s let technology handle the part of its that’s working. And then when it’s not working, let’s have people do the part that people need to do to make it work.
Ryan Schreiber
And that’s that’s how I and I think you did what you described very much fits in that.
Jim Becker
And well, thanks. And I love how you just took one of the biggest
Jim Becker
technological roadblocks that someone would see and be able to transform the business around it. And that’s exactly what you did. And there you now you’re able to make another $20,000 per week in a business that’s really going to help, you know, and incentives and taking care of customer service.
Jim Becker
If it is being on time more often, deliveries better, less roll loads. And as you go through this whole process, it just takes one person and all the listeners out there. It’s not just you and I, Ryan, you know, and yes, everybody looked at you as this tech, that technological guru, if you will, and they look to you.
Jim Becker
But we all have that. We don’t have to have a C plus or a COBOL programing background to understand what a syntax error is, right. Or a go to right. We all can do that, right? It does help having the basics of knowing how to program in Basic, but us being human beings is basic language. And what you’re seeing is you’re seeing a problem and then you’re creating a solution for it.
Jim Becker
Every single employee that’s out there employed, it doesn’t matter if it’s transportation or not. We all have a voice, we all have a brain, and we all have this opportunity to stand up and like we were talking earlier, is being vulnerable enough to say, question, isn’t there a better way?
Ryan Schreiber
And you know what? A lot of it also starts with, like, what are you actually trying to accomplish? And and to your point about mindset, like, one of the things I’ve always said to my to to to team members is like, you know, my favorite thing about brokerage is that the cheapest carrier is actually typically the best carrier if you’re doing it the right way.
Ryan Schreiber
Right?
Ryan Schreiber
like there are irregular route over-the-road carriers. I like load board carriers. And
Ryan Schreiber
they have a business to run, and their business is they they need to they need to make money and they want to make as much money as possible. But backhaul carriers, right. They have a business to run and they need to make as much money as possible.
Ryan Schreiber
But your you know, the fit for your business is about creating, creating a, a, match that’s more powerful than the rate per mile that you’re paying them. And if you really understand again, if you understand like, hey, what am I here to accomplish? Am I just here to close? Am I here to clear the load board? Yes.
Ryan Schreiber
Okay. But then what’s the knock on effect of that thing? Okay, I made this shot. I’m also thinking about how could I have done that better. And so. All right, I made the shot. I booked the load. If I booked it with a carrier, that is, you know, they’re inexpensive and they’re going to provide the best service. That just multiplies my power as an individual to get ahead and in it.
Ryan Schreiber
And, I try to get ahead today or am I trying to get ahead
Ryan Schreiber
long term in my career and really getting specific on that stuff and having the mindset and the the ability to to pass? Why am I taking the actions that I’m taking? Why am I doing this job the way that I’m doing it? I think for me, it came from I was so miserable to be a freight broker because it felt like failure from day one, like it did.
Ryan Schreiber
Right? I mean, I, I had a law degree and I’m sitting here with a bunch of 23 year old kids who came straight out of school, and I’m three years older than they are. Right. And,
Ryan Schreiber
and I’ve got this law degree and I passed the bar and whatever and had the same job as them making the same money, whatever.
Ryan Schreiber
and it came from like, okay, well,
Ryan Schreiber
because I’m so unhappy, I’m, I’m thinking about all of the reasons in which this is broken. And I really want to know, why am I doing this? And I was always thinking about why am I doing this? And there’s other, more healthy ways to come to that point or that realization.
Ryan Schreiber
But that ties back to the why am I taking these actions? What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And it doesn’t have to be technology grounded at all. Great. When it’s working. Think about how you can apply technology to it, right? To your point. But but it starts with why am I doing this? What am I trying to accomplish at enough detail to really understand the root problem, to be able to affect it for yourself.
Ryan Schreiber
And that might be finding customers that, you know, working with customers who truly value the service that you provide as an intermediary. Like if you’re just hustling freight or chasing freight. And it’s easy for us to say because we’re much further along in our careers and we’ve had, you know, the opportunity to make money is and and, and, and we are making money and you know, what have you but but ultimately like right.
Ryan Schreiber
I mean, when you’re when you’re sitting there, you need to what am I building toward and how am I building toward it? And how is what I’m doing right now affect that positively or negatively?
Ryan Schreiber
what positive success signals am I getting that are actually red herrings? Which negative success signals am I having that are actually red herrings?
Ryan Schreiber
Right. You could go get a pallet shipper like that, you know. But like that doesn’t mean that doesn’t mean that you’re that you’re, that is good customer. It’s terrible customer. But like, great. I signed a credit app. I have a customer.
Ryan Schreiber
But that’s not helping you.
Jim Becker
point out a really good point. And that’s when we’re looking at what is that. What is that tree that we’re looking at. Do we see the tree. Because a tree has roots. Those root problems are down below the surface in the soil.
Jim Becker
Are we just not even that paying attention to the tree? Are we just walking by and and we know there’s a problem there and we just don’t care. Are we not listening? Are we not even aware that there’s a problem yet alone? The root cause? Some people, and it sounds like you and I are congenial in this, that we’re not only seeing the trees that that are there, we’re looking for the root cause.
Jim Becker
Then we’re getting in there, identifying it and building a structure to support it for the future. That leads us all the way into like a leadership search scenario where I exercise leadership effectively as if it was my natural self-expression. And that’s what I’m hearing from you two in this call. Here is what are your leadership principles that really guide you in your everyday life right.
Ryan Schreiber
that’s a great question. I think that it starts with knowing. Or for me, it definitely starts with with knowing myself and understanding my own limitations.
Ryan Schreiber
I often say do things that other people aren’t willing to do. Right? And so, like, zig zag when other people are zagging, you know, you see on LinkedIn, a lot like cold calling is dead.
Ryan Schreiber
And to me that’s like, great, start cold calling again. Then, you know, like do the thing that people aren’t willing to do. And sometimes that means also like investing in yourself, like a lot of people aren’t willing to take care of themselves in the way that that that you need to to continue to maintain. And I’m I’m guilty of that myself.
Ryan Schreiber
Often. But for me, leadership principles really understand start with understanding myself and how I show up and and so that like, I understand how I’m showing up in ways that are not helpful to my team members, like, you know, I’m a very passionate, emotional person and that’s good. That drives me often. But it also it can get in the way.
Ryan Schreiber
It can get in the way, in the ways in which I react and in the way in ways in which I show up and and whether I’m being helpful or not. And so it’s it definitely starts with looking inside. And you’re right, you talked about pointing fingers. It’s funny that it’s coming back to that. Like and that was totally unintentional.
Ryan Schreiber
But it does. It starts there. It starts with looking at myself and understanding myself and how I show up for my team. It’s also okay to say that, that I’m not going to be a totally different person tomorrow or like ever. And there are certainly like core values and core things that I need from team members coming back to me for me to be successful.
Ryan Schreiber
And I think but it understands, you know, and so I can know how to ask for that.
Ryan Schreiber
or I am learning. Let me rephrase that. I’m learning how to ask for those things and how to and how to suss out whether I’m getting those things or not, and how to solve some of the limitations that I have.
Ryan Schreiber
Because I’m only one person and I can’t do everything, and I won’t do everything, and I don’t want to do everything. And I think that’s another thing that we see in this industry, a lot of people seeming to think that they have to solve all the world’s problems and they don’t. What you need to do is the most successful people and the most successful companies,
Ryan Schreiber
the folks that have built the most successful companies in this industry, they weren’t one person.
Ryan Schreiber
They may, you know, they may be known for one person. Jim Becker is known for Becker Logistics. You know, Jeff Silvers, known for coyote, Kevin Nolan’s known for Nolan Transportation Group. But when you know those people, you know that they what they were really great at was,
Ryan Schreiber
building great teams around themselves. They could do the things that they were not great at.
Ryan Schreiber
Kevin Nolan’s awesome. I love Kevin Nolan. He had a great team around him. They could do some of the things that he wasn’t great at, like coaching people on a day to day basis, etc. so I think that it starts with knowing yourself. In my opinion.
Jim Becker
yeah, absolutely. And and you’re so right about knowing yourself. There’s a really in-depth
Jim Becker
reflection that I did with myself, just really getting to know who this guy is. We talked about something, you know, meeting each other the first time we met was like ten years ago. And I’m not the same guy as I was back then.
Jim Becker
I’m completely different. So are you. Yeah, right. And so every single day I’m identifying that, wow, this is a different person immediately from getting up at 5:00 in the morning after getting eight hours of sleep so that my body’s fully recharged like a Tesla would be right. I wouldn’t leave my house for a 500 mile journey on 20% battery on my Tesla.
Jim Becker
My body needs to be charged up 100%. I could probably get by with 90, maybe even 80, but eight hours of sleep is my full charge. Then I go work out for an hour and I stretch for a half hour. Then I meditate for a half hour. Right? That’s getting me ready for the day out in front of me, so that I can be out there and serve.
Jim Becker
You know, as I do, that it just makes me available to serve out there in the world, wherever it is. If it’s a business owner calling me and saying, hey, Jim, I need some help. If it’s one of my employees or one of my managers or executives saying, hey, what do we do here? My question to you is, what’s your personal philosophy on really innovating the logistics industry in business in general, especially through, you know, your current company?
Ryan Schreiber
my philosophy is,
Ryan Schreiber
do things that other people aren’t willing to do or won’t do or can’t do, but start by solving the problems that you control?
Ryan Schreiber
It’s so funny how much we’re just talking about, like, looking inside ourselves or whatever. Looking inside the four walls of your business.
Ryan Schreiber
You can influence how other people do things, right? Obviously, but you can’t force them to do things. And to the extent that you can force them to do things,
Ryan Schreiber
they still have their own incentives, etc., and they’re and they’re looking for ways to give you what you need or what you’re making them do, but nothing more.
Ryan Schreiber
And, and and so like it always for me it’s always started with inside the four walls of our business. So, you know, my last company, fraid I who we were talking about a minute ago. Right. We and it’s a lot easier to talk about this now because people know what natural language processing is and generative AI. But our approach was, was, was applying natural language processing and generative AI to problems and side of freight brokerage because channel preference meaning how you engage phone, email, text, what have you is a very real thing
Ryan Schreiber
and I can drive, I can try and drive you toward an app on your phone, but you may or may
Ryan Schreiber
not want to do that. And even to the extent that you do, when that falls down, I still need to meet you and your channel that you want to engage in, because that’s because I can solve some of the four walls change management stuff inside my business, but I can’t make it’s harder for me to make you do something.
Ryan Schreiber
And so I’ve always really taken that approach or that philosophy. And then
Ryan Schreiber
do things whole last not half hour. So like I’m going to invest in training like AI training is a big part of what I talk about or think about. And so like if I’m going to do something, I’m going to invest in teaching people how to do it.
Ryan Schreiber
I and I have and I do. And so and there’s an it like that, you have to slow down. You have to be willing to invest in that. And then you have to be willing to say this is working or not working. Like to your commentary around like what you need to do to show up with 100% full battery.
Ryan Schreiber
I’m sure there’s going to be people who listen to this and say, well, that’s easy for Jim and Ryan to say because they don’t have a sales manager beating down their door to make 100 cold calls today. And that’s true. I don’t have that. Thank God I don’t have that.
Ryan Schreiber
But I know that that’s not something that I could work with even if I did.
Ryan Schreiber
And so I’m not saying that you can change the way your sales manager works, but you control your own outcomes and you control your own agency. Right. And so you can say, I know what it takes for me to be successful. This is not it. I need to go do something else or find something else. And so my approach toward technology is the same as my approach toward, you know, personal development and growth, which is control, where you can control, focus on deploying solutions that you can control and then understand what and then and then be a good steward of, of your place.
Ryan Schreiber
And so invest in outcomes for your customers, invest in outcomes for your capacity providers, that actually solve their problems, not that shift your burdens to them,
Ryan Schreiber
but to solve problems for them in ways that make sense for their business and their Incentivization actually try and learn who they are and what they need and what they want. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to business leaders, both inside my companies and outside of my company STAT that I had to say, well, that’s a you like the customer doesn’t care about that.
Ryan Schreiber
That’s a you problem. Yes. If they did that, that would be better for you. But there’s a reason they’re not doing it. It’d be better for all of us if every shipper and receiver was first come, first serve. There’s a reason that they don’t do that. Why? What other problems are they solving with appointments? And then how do you work with them to develop or deploy solutions?
Ryan Schreiber
Technical and non-technical, that help them affect their outcomes and help you affect your outcomes? That’s a little bit of how I think about it.
Jim Becker
Yeah, I love that. I love how you put all that together. And that’s just really great advice for anyone really aspiring
Ryan Schreiber
I mean, I think so. I’m glad you think so too,
Jim Becker
Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure our listeners think so too. It’s great advice, to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to actually either to grow or expand or even do what they’re doing better or even to enter this space that we’re currently in. You know, this is where, you know, speaking with, you know, I would say, like, we’re both consultants in this in this industry, as we’re consult ING, a lot of people have everything that you and I have.
Jim Becker
We’re all equal. We’re all given the same. It’s the same body. We’re we’re given bones. We’re given blood. We’re given that the ability to breathe in this kingdom and then to exhale it. And as we do that, we all have it. What’s stopping us? What’s our roadblocks from moving forward? And I love the really put people into touch with metaphor.
Jim Becker
And what how do they get a hold of you and how do they get to, you know, really see what your services are and how they could actually utilize your services.
Ryan Schreiber
Sure. Well, the best way to reach me is definitely on LinkedIn. Ryan B Schreiber, our website. Metafora. Spelled with an F Metafora.net. It’s actually Greek for transportation. So if you happen to speak Greek, feel free to add me and tell me that that’s not good. But that’s that’s what that’s what we think.
Ryan Schreiber
Metaphor a dot net, is a good place to to learn a little bit more about about what we do and which is, which is primarily supporting this industry through technology consulting. So we help people figure out what to do with their technology, and then we help them implement those strategies and that’s capacity providers. It’s shippers, it’s technology companies, it’s private equity group.
Ryan Schreiber
And so I have the best job and it’s a lot of fun. So, that’s how you find us.
Jim Becker
Well listen, I want to thank you so much, Ryan, for really joining us today. And I hope the listeners got really a whole bunch of information that will just take them to the next level, whatever level that is that they choose. Thanks again. Ryan.
Ryan Schreiber
Yeah. I appreciate you having me on, man. Thank you very much.