Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada
Who else is trying to figure $hit out?
Welcome to Lets Ride w/ Paul Estrada – the podcast where a dad tackles the big questions of life, career, and everything in between, by talking to interesting people that have the answers!
When I turned 18, I lost sleep at night with questions that Google was not yet sophisticated enough to answer: What career should I pursue? How can I be more than just average? And how do successful people get to where they are (was there a secret handbook I didn't know about)? After 22 years of pondering these existential dilemmas, I’ve finally pieced together some answers – An answer that is sufficient for now, but one always in need of refinement.
Join me each week as my 6 ½ year old son, Adrian, throws out a thought-provoking question or idea, and I invite a guest to help me sufficiently respond to him. From learning about money and investing, to finding a passion in life, and exploring careers that can be meaningful for you, we cover it all with a dose of humor and some soundbites of wisdom.
So, if you’re a parent or a young adult navigating these tricky waters, or if you want confirmation that other people are sometimes just as lost as you, you’ve come to the right place.
Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada
Sales Representative: Grinding to the Top
Have you ever wondered what it takes to thrive in a career that's both financially rewarding and personally fulfilling while maintaining your most important priorities? Mark Maggio's journey offers a masterclass in navigating this delicate balance.
As a self-proclaimed "maniac," Mark built an exceptional 15-year career as a carrier sales representative before advancing to the C-suite of a multimillion-dollar logistics company. What makes his story particularly compelling is how he describes the genuine joy he gets from his work—using words like "adrenaline" to describe the high-stakes environment of freight brokerage where split-second decisions can mean significant financial rewards or missed opportunities.
Mark pulls back the curtain on what it's like to operate in the fast-paced world of logistics, where brokers match shippers with transportation providers against a literal "shot clock." He reveals that the secret to becoming a top 1% performer isn't about talking more—it's about listening deeply and solving problems effectively. For young professionals considering this path, he offers a tantalizing glimpse at the uncapped earning potential and entrepreneurial freedom of creating "your own business within a business."
But the heart of Mark's story lies in his family journey. When his son was diagnosed with autism and later lost his vision, Mark made the difficult decision to leave Chicago—the epicenter of the logistics industry—for Arizona to find better support services and improve his family's quality of life. This pivotal choice illustrates his core philosophy: "You don't live your life to work, you work to live your life."
Throughout our conversation, Mark shares wisdom on balancing professional ambition with family priorities, finding true satisfaction in your work, and supporting children's authentic interests rather than projecting your own definitions of success onto them. His ongoing efforts to trust his team, build effective processes, and be fully present for his family offer valuable insights for anyone struggling with similar challenges.
Whether you're considering a career in logistics, searching for strategies to achieve greater work-life balance, or simply seeking inspiration from someone who's successfully navigated these waters, this episode delivers powerful perspectives that will stay with you long after you've finished listening. Subscribe now to ensure you never miss conversations like these that blend practical career advice with profound life wisdom.
Do you think you're different than other kids at school? Yes, like how.
Speaker 2:Well, skin color.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what else.
Speaker 2:And moms, dads, parents.
Speaker 1:They're different, yeah.
Speaker 2:Families.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And toys.
Speaker 1:Do you think kids learn differently and they have different things that they're good at?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, but maybe someone could be good at math. Good at yeah, of course, but maybe someone could be good at math. But people could still be like, even though they're different, people grow from different, like parents, moms. They come from different families, like far apart they can be really close friends.
Speaker 1:They can both be good at math, yeah or english what if, like you, know somebody that maybe is not so good at math, but maybe they're really good at reading. Or maybe they're not so good at reading or they're, like, really good at math. They're just different. They like different things. Maybe they they like different food. They like foods that taste different.
Speaker 2:A lot of us play baseball.
Speaker 1:Have you ever heard the word disability before? I think, Well, do you know what it means?
Speaker 2:Does disability mean to be good at different things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it could mean that. Yeah, or like you know, maybe if somebody like has a hard time walking or like sometimes people are like missing like an arm or like a leg or they just something like that, I think I actually never heard it.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, like that we're talking about right now. What are we talking about?
Speaker 1:Just differences, people that are different.
Speaker 2:There's like over a million differences between like all the people in the world, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably a billion Billions, yeah right.
Speaker 2:I probably can't even name everyone.
Speaker 1:And do you think you it would?
Speaker 2:take me hours, yeah, like 24-7, 200 times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you see people at school or at baseball that are different than you? But you still can play and get along with them. Well, yep, yeah, well, that's good.
Speaker 2:So is that it for today?
Speaker 1:Hi, let's Ride. Listeners, it's your friend, paul Estrada. If you've gotten any value out of any of the episodes, I'm here to ask you to pause this episode and take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you're a real go-getter, please take a moment to leave a review of the podcast. I'd be indebted to you forever. Thank you for supporting and listening to the show and for going on this journey with us. Pause, subscribe and let's ride.
Speaker 1:Our guest today is a self-proclaimed maniac who grinded out a successful 15-year career as a carrier sales rep before moving into the C-suite of a multimillion-dollar company. He's the first guest on the podcast that has used the word adrenaline to describe his job, and he describes the genuine joy he gets from going to the office every day to do a job that he loves. He gives insights into what it takes to be a top 1% sales rep, which emphasizes listening over speaking. Most powerful is his perspective on balancing professional ambition with family priorities. When his son was diagnosed with autism and later lost his vision, he made the difficult decision to leave Chicago, the epicenter of the logistics industry, for Arizona to find better support and improve his family's quality of life. I'm excited for our guest today, an all-around good guy, mark Maggio.
Speaker 1:So so, uh, you know, as we've been talking, I've been mentioning that a lot of this is about careers, and I think one thing about I really don't get into this is going to be, you know, after I've done 10, 11, 12 episodes, and I rarely get into what I do professionally For those out there that think that I'm a professional podcast host, that's simply not true. This is more of a hobby. I do have a day job and it's been in the transportation and logistics space, and that's where I got to know you. And so I want to start with. I know you went to the University of Iowa and just kind of touch on how you came into the logistics space. How did you find, how did you find it or how did it find you?
Speaker 3:Again, paul, thanks again for having me. I'm, you know, we've known each other for a while and I'm excited to do this. But so, yeah, I went to University of Iowa and my entire career path was sort of at that point was that I was going to go to law school. So I had about two years into school. I decided that I think this is the best path. I'd really always had a logical, analytical way of looking at things. That was always my way of what I thought and most of my family's in construction. So I have two older brothers. My dad had a business that my grandpa started and I'm the youngest. So I was kind of like I'm going to be the lowest on the totem pole. So I figured I needed to get my own seat at the table, so to speak. So I went to University of Iowa, started pivoting towards the law school. My last year I took my LSAT and I got accepted at John Marshall. So that was my plan, right. So I was finishing out school and I needed a year.
Speaker 3:I had graduated in four and a half years. I played baseball my first year and there'd been transfer credits and whatnot, but so I stayed four and a half years, which was nice. But I was able to kind of get a last semester into, take the LSAT and prepare for that next step. Well, I had a year in between, school started and I didn't want to just sit around and I wanted to move the city and then start my life. You know, go in Um, and a friend of mine, um, said hey, you know, if you got a year to kill, you should come work at this startup, uh, afn. And I was like, what's logistics? And he's like, oh, you'll figure it out. So I go take this job. And um fell in love with it.
Speaker 1:I honestly sucked you in for the next 20 years I'm sitting here. Yeah, that's crazy. So what I mean was this a good? This must've been a good friend of yours, because you basically blindly listening to him. What was the appeal was obviously you said you didn't want to sit around for a year, you know, waiting to start school again. But was he already at that time saying it's really cool, there's upward mobility, I'm making a lot of money? Was there some appeal to it other than it's just a job?
Speaker 3:Okay. So the culture I really liked. It was a very young company. The owners, ryan and Mike, were probably in their early 30s. They were trying to create a very competitive, upbeat culture and I remember going in there and seeing people in my age or just a little bit older that were having fun and there was a ton of the talk.
Speaker 3:The big thing at AFN at that time was we want to create what they call a UE. So it was very entrepreneurial, even though we were in a brokerage setting and we had a structure. What Ryan and Mike's biggest position was we want to create you Inc. So the idea behind that was that each internally at AFN, you are creating your own brand, mark Maggio brand and you could create what that was. So I love the idea of being able to kind of have my own business within a business and ultimately, down the road, I look back. I think that was why so many of those individuals not only at AFN, but I kind of feel like that was the mindset of some of those backhaul or spin-offs was you are your own business, you create it, and I think that's why so many of those people have been successful as they've progressed through their career.
Speaker 1:So, before we get too deep into that, let's just quickly touch on what it is you do, because I think it's a massive industry and a type of career path, but I think it's one that the general public maybe doesn't know. So, just in layman's terms, just the very basic. If you're trying to explain this to a high schooler, what is a freight broker?
Speaker 3:So what we do is we work with shipping partners and work to facilitate transportation of their good.
Speaker 1:I'm going to simplify it even more. You're basically I'm going to call you a matchmaker and you're matching basically somebody that is a shipper. They have freight that they need to move, they don't have their own trucks or they've maxed out their truck capacity and so they need somebody like you.
Speaker 1:And I think the other thing people don't realize is because I've actually talked to a long haul truck driver on this podcast before is while there are large trucking companies out there, it's a really fragmented market and what we mean by that is yes, there are trucking companies that have hundreds or thousands of trucks that they have under their umbrella, but the vast majority of the capacity is actually owner operators, which is like Double D for those of you that have been listening to the podcast is a over-the-road owner operator, meaning they own their own truck.
Speaker 1:They're a single operator, they run their truck and that's it. And if you think about somebody like a shipper, they can't go and call thousands or tens of thousands of different trucking companies because we're busy doing other things. We have to call somebody like a Mark Maggio that can basically aggregate all of these different owner operators so that it's way easier for the shipper they make one phone call instead of having to make thousands of phone calls. And then that's kind of you do the dirty work. You then pick up the phone and make all those phone calls Is that the best way to describe it?
Speaker 3:We're vetting the matchmaking pool, right. We're creating that pool of drivers to match correctly with the shipments and sort of a couple with that is. Another thing that people don't realize is that you know, if you, our ability to be flexible is far greater than a true trucking asset business, right. So you know we can sort of work with clients as their needs change and where other people kind of you know, when you have a true asset you can't really do that. So I think the matchmaker thing is ultimately a pretty good comparison.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I think I'm going to use that when I'm telling my kids about it more.
Speaker 1:So let's use that in the context of this right. So you're early on. Let's channel early Mark Maggio, 20-something-year-old. A load comes in to your business and it's Los Angeles to Chicago. What happens? Just very high level. How does that whole thing play out?
Speaker 3:So in terms of how that goes. So the first start of this whole process is there's probably 10 to 12 other people at that time or at some of the larger shops, even more that want that exact ship. It's like get in this right away. So there's a locking mechanism, right. So it's not just seeing it, it's being able to execute on it, and you can't do that sale unless you're truly engaged in it or locked. So you've got your time. Now you're on the clock five minutes, right. So at that point, what you're doing is now you're reaching out to either comp carriers that you've talked to in the past that operate in these lanes, and that's why the organization and understanding of each call and how you actually keep that data somewhere is super important. So I would then go to a spreadsheet that I created, and this spreadsheet ultimately ended up being something that we trained and shared at AFN across, and in that it had a contact name, it had lit carriers that run it, and then you either start dialing or emailing and you are on the clock to get a price, a truck in hand, an ETA, and once you got used to that whole process and that is initially what the adrenaline rush was for me.
Speaker 3:You're on the clock, a shipment comes out of nowhere and you got to go, and when you execute, it's everything. So then you start dialing, you start negotiating the actual price. Okay, you have a truck available. These times work these parameters? And a lot of that process is done early and done incorrectly. People sell loads incorrectly and then eventually shipments cancel. You have to bounce loads in anyway, but it's very high paced. You have to be going and you have to understand a large amount of information in a short period of time and get that out to your carriers and be able to want to stop there, because I think that's huge for what this?
Speaker 1:is right, because a lot of what we're trying to do here is connect people, maybe that are looking for careers, and I think all of us could say, hey, I want an adrenaline rush, right? So you're talking about an adrenaline rush of trying to find a truck within a very specified amount of time, and then the other thing that I heard from you is that it's a hyper-competitive environment, right? Because, like, hey, if you don't get this truck, if you don't get this book, you don't get this truck book. Somebody else is, and they're the ones that are going to make the commission or the money right.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely. So. That's the thing. So you literally in most of the TMSs that exist. So, just for people that don't know, tms is basically our organizational booking system. It's how we track our shipments right. So I don't want to go too much into that, but it's the organization platform that allows us to operate. So most of those at that time literally had a shot clock and there's a behind you in that shot clock and then there's a list of people that are in your brokerage floor that are ready as soon as that hits zero to book that shipment.
Speaker 3:So you are on literally literally yeah, and and I'm telling you, you would hear like oh, when someone like got it within one second and and that is like that old school, you know, like that is why so many of the professionals like talk about that model that we've worked with over you and I know you know a lot of um people that are my peers and colleagues and have had a lot of success. Like that adrenaline rush is is everything, and for as many of those that are successful, there's the. I missed it by one second. I lost the commission to the guy who's chomping at the bit ready to go yeah, because he's had your five minutes to call and now, as soon as he gets into that shit, it's gone. And there was a whole strategy behind that, too, about how do you position yourself in order. It's really an interesting business, paul. What I'm describing to anybody outside of the industry would be like wait, what is going on in these places?
Speaker 1:And it is. Yeah, you kind of touched on it, which was you walk into these what we call like a brokerage floor and there literally could, depending on the size of the brokerage, maybe dozens or hundreds of people, typically young guys and some women that literally could be wearing gym shorts and a backwards hat sitting on a medicine ball.
Speaker 2:That's it right there on a medicine ball.
Speaker 1:that might've been like a D1 college athlete that you're now competing with, not like physically, but you're competing with them like every single day. So it's like to your point, like it's just like a fascinating environment. That's where I go back. For those that have seen the Wolf of Wall Street, just the energy within the room, it's palpable, like that's like which. So I guess, to that point, mark, what I find extra fascinating about your career journey is that is a I'm going to call it a young man's game because of everything you described. Right, it's like you got five minutes, you're on the clock. I mean it's a stressful environment. You can make a lot of money in commissions, but you're grinding right and the other thing people don't know is trucks are gone early.
Speaker 1:You got to be up at four or five o'clock in the morning booking loads, and so you're starting the day early. You're working 12, 15 hour shifts, and so it's literally a grind, and so what I've seen is that people love it but they get burned out after a couple of years because it's a lot, and I get why they would say that. What's unique about your story is that you grinded this job out for 15 plus years very successfully. So I'm just curious to hear that perspective of just what it was like to grind something like that for so long.
Speaker 3:So again, I feel like the sort of beginning phase of this common theme is this adrenaline rush, right, and you would think that so obviously I always enjoyed the financial benefits of it. But you're right If you. It is incredibly stressful and I mean you know this better than anybody, but just to let people know out there that if you make a mistake in a particular shipment with a certain client, that could literally mean the end of business with them, right? So there is a lot of responsibility behind these transactions, not just the initial book of a shipment, right, the execution of it and everything. So it is very high stress and so, basically, that whole adrenaline and by nature, I've realized through my 17 years that what drives me is creating solutions to problems.
Speaker 3:That's ultimately what I really love about this business and I love about just in general, even in a personal life. It's almost made me a little callous. Unfortunately, when we have a personal issue arise, I immediately get past the emotional phase and I start to think about what's the solution, right? And so just that whole adrenaline and whole like when a client comes to us with an issue and I solve that, that is like the biggest rush for me and that's I always felt so successful and so gratified by it. And then I was like, okay, what's next? Like, what's the next problem? So did I grind the same way that I did? Like, 17 years later, I'd like to think so, but that's just kind of because I'm a maniac, like if you ask anybody that's worked with me.
Speaker 3:They'll probably tell you that you know I got something wrong with me, but I loved it so much and to this day I still love it. I love the operator, I love the transactional part of our business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's maybe where some people and I'm guilty of this myself which is you get into what we call individual contributor role, where it's just you doing the work, but everybody has aspirations. In fact, I interview people and say, hey, what does your five-year plan look like? Oh, I want to be the VP of something, right. And it's like, is that realistic? Probably not, right. You've got to, really. And so it just seems like a lot of people today don't really want to grind things out. And I get it. It's hard work, right, but you've done it, and so I think I just want to dig into that a little bit more.
Speaker 1:And I know you said you're a maniac and I'm sure that describes some of it, but there's a money aspect to this too, which we haven't really talked about. Right, and to the extent that you want to share. But the reality is that and you were talking about this concept of you or being an entrepreneur within your business, which sounds like an awesome company culture to have, but for those again contemplating some career like this, it's like you could technically be a 20-something-year-old and you could make six figures or really really good money doing it all, depending on how much you want to grind. So just curious how much of it was monetarily driven. And you also mentioned you just say I just love solutioning and I'm sure also there's a degree of that too. But for those of us that aren't maniacs, how could we still get up 4.30, 5 o'clock in the morning and want to grind like that?
Speaker 3:What are some of those other components?
Speaker 1:How much did those play into it?
Speaker 3:So obviously I would be foolish to say that there was not. The financial benefit of the whole situation was not a key component to the consistency and wanting to grind. But I think the other thing that starts to happen as your career develops in this is you need to internally. You start booking a shipment, then you book five shipments, then you book 20 shipments a day and then you start scaling this right. So you're like, wow, unless I figure out a process in my day-to-day business, I'm not going to have the bandwidth to keep growing Because-.
Speaker 1:Where for most of these, for those people that are looking for basically uncapped potential. In theory, however hard you want to work, how many shipments, how good you get at this, means you can make as much money as you can make in a day, right.
Speaker 1:And what I've noticed for a lot of people is, again a lot of them maybe do want to be an individual contributor and grind this type of rollout for a while. Then they get burnt out and they move into management or start moving up the ladder in that way. One thing I find fascinating about this is that in a lot of aspects, the managers that are now overseeing these people could be making less money than the people that are grinding it out, because it's just that and I find that really fascinating. But I think that's also very telling to just how much of a grind this can be, but how much upside potential there is. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. In most cases, as you escalate up in the management level mid-level management and even in some points in some markets, even your directors of departments are potentially making less than most of the time are making less money than the highest performers. That's very common and I think that it is very indicative of the stress level of the operational drain of that that goes on to be a high-level operator in this business.
Speaker 1:Right, so we could talk about the grind, but I think everyone gets the point at this business Right so you, we could talk about the grind, but I think everyone gets the point at this point.
Speaker 1:But I just wanted to emphasize that because I, like I said, it's a very interesting career in that you could be very young, depending on how ambitious you are. I think that's where a lot of people today, young people, get frustrated and that's why they see upward mobility only in terms of promotions. I'm only going to get a raise or I'm only going to make more money if I get promoted. That's how I. Certainly my career path could not be any more different than yours. I was on a salary for most of coming up my early years. There's no variable component to my compensation. It's just hey, man, this is your salary, this is what you get, and maybe you get promoted every two, three years and that's it right, and I've been able to do well over a long period of time taking that approach. But for those that are looking for something different or really want to maybe double down on themselves and maybe some added risk, there are other avenues to do that, and this is one of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so as I've transitioned into executive leadership, it's been eye-opening. In the first because, again, I had operated at a high level as a direct operator and we had a lot of input in the overall business as we grew, both at AFN and with Global Trans. My input was important in a lot of decisions that we made across the department and so that's why things like titles were never really important to me. And then, as I've learned is going into the executive thing.
Speaker 3:I know title is a very important person. That is in 99% of the businesses out there, right, if you're an executive, vice president, if you're a senior. But you know these titles are important, like you said, are what most industries, people's goal are. Right. It's like how do I target to come to EVP, then SVP? It's a lot different than this. It doesn't mean that you're any less valuable in our business just because of your title and doesn't mean that you're any less valuable in our business just because of your title, and that's definitely something that's a lot different and I think should hopefully attract good talent in our business, into our industry, because it's one of those things where you can have a big impact in a business and more strive about volume transaction sales as opposed to title. It's a different path.
Speaker 1:Well, I think what I often tell people, especially young people that I'm mentoring there's three things that people can look at in a career. One is compensation, or your salary. That's obviously a very important piece. The other is title, like you mentioned. The third component is scope of what you're doing. How much are you learning? How much upward mobility is there for you? Are you gaining new skills in the role that you're in?
Speaker 1:I personally tend to put less weight on title, but I feel like a lot of people put a ton of weight on title, and the reason why I say that is because I could be at, let's say, a small company. Let's say maybe they do $10 million, $100 million, and I'm a vice president level there. Conversely, I could be at a multi-billion dollar company and I could be a senior manager or manager or director there and our salaries could be the same. Why? Because the amount of things that you're managing are different. So I feel like a lot of people get fixated on titles.
Speaker 1:I've always told people yeah, titles, they can be important at some point and they definitely have weight. I'm not saying that it's zero, I'm just saying that sometimes titles can be made. People can make whatever like. There's what we call title inflation, right, where it's just like, okay, I have that title, but does that person actually have the skill of that level? I don't know Right. So I just I tell people, especially early on in their career, don't be so much fixated on titles. Be fixated that you're being compensated fairly for what you bring to the table. And then, two, that you are in a position within your organization that you feel like you're growing, that you're getting new skills, because that can all be leveraged later to get the titles and things that you want. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3:I totally agree. So I think that the organizational size doesn't matter, right. The skill set that you are exposed to and then obtain and grow with is more right. So, technically, in my position as a carrier sales rep, I could just have sat there and been like I know every trucking company in the country and that's it and I'll just call them all. But what I was able to do was sit in meetings with our executives that are in the operational side the client facing side, rfp facing side and absorb and listen, to get those skill sets so that as I sat in a seat, 12, 15 years into being a carrier sales rep, you could ask me about any aspects of those business, because I was fortunate enough to not only sit in those meetings, absorb and understand. Then I could do multiple things and I think that is true. So it's potentially believed that just because you come from a bigger company, because you're exposed to more skill sets and higher level skill sets, you might be a better vice president than the vice president at the 10 millioncom.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:But that's not always the case, right? I think that leadership and exposure and that's why I think it's always so good. Again, I think the mentorship programs are great, right? I think if you believe somebody in your organization, whether they're just a base level performer or whether you believe they're going to be a high performer, whatever if you believe they have talent, expose them to situations that require a skill set that's outside of their base. Let them be on the phone calls, let them sit in the meetings, let them participate.
Speaker 3:At first everyone's going to be a little timid, but being in those meetings and listening to executives and listening to client feedback and absorbing that is so key in your transformation as an overall professional. And I think that was one of those things that, while I was in that same role for 15 years, I was fortunate enough by my employer you know who I've those were. I loved AFN, I mean it's but being exposed to those things allowed my skill set to grow, where they would say Majo, you can just go to this meeting, I know it's taken care of and we would execute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's the last big piece I want to touch on. With regards to work, and you touched on it at the very beginning and then we kind of got, we went down this rabbit hole. It's been an awesome conversation, but one thing people need to understand too, I think, is the type of company that you go to, especially if you're in the first I'm going to say 10, 15 years of your career, finding the right company for you. It can make all the difference, and I don't know that a lot of people, how much they take that into consideration, which is okay. Well, let me look at this culture. What are they about? How do they treat their people? What type of organization are they? What type of upward mobility do they offer? What type of trainings do they offer? What type of mentorship do they offer?
Speaker 1:You mentioned a couple of things, one of which I love, which was like, hey, I'm an individual contributor, but they saw something in you and they said you know what your scope and your job is, this, but we're going to start to expose you to this meeting with this customer and this with that, and so you're still doing your job, but you maybe are getting this satisfaction because you're also gaining new skills because your company is affording you the opportunity to do so. And so I think a lot of people, again, they may look at those three things that I meant, those three factors that I mentioned and people are chasing compensation, those three things that I meant, those three factors that I mentioned and people are chasing compensation, which, again, I get it is an important aspect of it, but also needing to consider is it okay for me to give up a little bit of compensation to go to the right company for me right now? I know everybody's family circumstances and things are different, but if you can, I would just strongly encourage people to say, hey, go find the place that's going to invest in you, that's going to lay the foundation. If you're a go-getter, if you're in the right company, the money will come. It will come.
Speaker 1:I tell people that all the time. If you're that person, don't worry about that, it will come.
Speaker 3:I learned more when I was young on headphones, with a call with a trucking company or a customer and taking in how everybody around me was talking and really taking in that and learning and listening. I think there was a lot of my colleagues that used to get so mad and they'd be like Maja, would you stop listening to my phone calls?
Speaker 2:And I was like no, I'm not going to stop doing that.
Speaker 3:And they'd be like because I'm like I hear you canceling a load, I'm going to book that load as soon as you cancel it.
Speaker 3:Like and then but, but it's just. But that's what allowed me to understand. And there's, you know, there's definitely a number of people I worked with in my first couple of years that use different things, like I'm telling you now different tricks, different, you know just ways like, hey, you know, make sure you're always observant of what's going on, listen to things. That's the one skill, too, paul, that I feel like is so in any position, but especially in sales, listening is way more important than talking. Oh yeah, people just want to talk, people don't get it, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't they don't get it.
Speaker 3:It is so clear, as I've gone through my stages in business, that you can have a conversation and you could go in the conversation and be like, okay, hey, we're going to do this, this and this, and if the client goes down this path, you've got to go to that path with them. You've got to pivot yeah.
Speaker 3:Try to get back. Yeah, and there's so many times and I can even pinpoint it too and I'm like, and we'll do this some, do this, some exercises, stuff like that, and I'll be like, hey, you know what? I know that like in that point in the meeting you were just thinking about what you were going to say instead of listening to what the client was saying.
Speaker 1:Because that is really huge. Yeah, this is gold. Guys, take some notes right now. Absolutely, you're absolutely right, man. I mean it's so true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely 100%, because like you know, that's what's important. Like, like you know, everybody is selling something and again, that's the biggest thing. It's right. It's like you know, if you have a problem, what's the problem? Let me try to fix it. Like you know, I don't want to go down some like uh, tony robbins sales type deal, but the truth of the matter is that we get so caught up in the sales thing of, like one.
Speaker 3:We're talking to people. Everybody's a person, right, you know they may have a title, they. They may be a director, you may be an executive, whatever it is. Or you're talking to people, right, so connect with them. Right, you got to go out of your way to connect with them. And two, be respectful. Listen to what they say, like it's not just your show, it's a two-person conversation, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Love it All right.
Speaker 1:Free advice from Mark Maggio so all right, I want to circle back on something because you mentioned it and I agree with you Work is more like a team than a family, but I also did when we were talking beforehand. I wanted to touch on your family. That's what we do a lot here is we do talk about careers and giving people some nuggets as far as maybe those that are unsure of what they want to do or maybe want to make career change, but we always talk about family on here. And, specifically, I wanted to talk to you because you, within the last couple years and if you guys are listening by now, I think that that is a Chicago accent, right, you might be trying to get me, that's what that is right.
Speaker 1:You're now living in the Phoenix, scottsdale that area and was somewhat driven by work. I know you had kind of made a move to a different office over there, but it was driven by something else. So if you don't mind sharing like what kind of caused you to move halfway across the country and what was that about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, like Paul said, we're all working, but the most important thing is obviously family, and I've been married to my wife, alexis, for 15 years this year. So we met in Chicago and we were married two years later. We have two children my son Nicholas, who's 13, and my daughter, ava will be 11 in May, but around 18 months my son was between 18 months and two years my we started noticing some development lacking with my son and he was diagnosed with autism. And you know we really, I mean I was with autism and you know we really, I mean I was 20, I was 30 at the time, my wife was 28. She was pregnant with my daughter and it was, you know, we were rocked, paul, like we had no any sort of family history with any special needs or anything like that. We didn't know what we, what was ahead, right. Like we really didn't have any idea about what that actually meant, right. So another thing that was great and I'll get back to my dad but AFN could not have been more supportive at that time. The owners were like whatever you need, mark, in terms of doctor's appointments, take time, any sort of support, anything you need. So again to them the amount of gratitude I have for Ryan and Mike is I can't even there's no quantification, but my family and my wife and myself forever are grateful.
Speaker 3:So as our son begins to develop, there's obviously some delays and we get to school and so right around kindergarten and he had gone to a private school. But private schools, for you to know, they really don't have the means necessary to support special needs programs for the most they're mainly raising money to keep there, so you have to rely on the public school. And anyway, we ran into some problems in Illinois. We are very committed to not just potentially quote unquote healing my son, but really doing everything we can to give him the best life he can. And we went down to Panama and we actually got him stem cells. While we were in Panama we met a family that had very much the same issues that we had in terms of schooling being blocked and this and that. So they ended up moving to Arizona and they discussed this program in the Scottsdale Unified District and it just clicked Me and my wife had been battling and having so many issues with getting our son with the school district and all that and we're like we got to do this.
Speaker 1:This is it, and so anyway- so one thing I just want people to know sorry, as you're telling, this is-.
Speaker 3:No, go ahead.
Speaker 1:This is a big thing. So a lot of people consider we've been talking about freight brokerage for the better part of this podcast. I would consider or not just me, but I think the industry would consider the central hub of all this work, chicago, illinois, which is where you're from that area, and so you're basically saying you're going to leave the epicenter of the industry that has all of the career opportunities for you, all the upward mobility, endless possibilities, and you're going to put your family first and move what they call Scottsdale Chicago West for a reason right, a lot of people vacation over there and stuff, but it's not Chicago right so effectively what you're doing is and stuff, but it's not Chicago, right, it's not so effectively.
Speaker 1:what you're doing is you're saying look, I'm putting my family first. We're going to make this move Not for a lot of people make it for career reasons, and you know good for them if they can do that. But you are making a big move and you're uprooting your family to go to.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that was the biggest thing. We have no family within 350 miles. We have nobody, and that was also a whole getting to know everything. Me and my wife didn't really know anybody that lived in Scottsdale. We had a couple of friends that said, hey, you should try to connect with some, but we had no even acquaintances and but yeah, you know, I think that ultimately, as we've, as I've, matured and figured things out like the most important thing is family, and you know you only have such a finite amount of time, right, so we made the move in July of 2018.
Speaker 3:It seems like yesterday that was seven years, right, and so it goes too fast to really not prioritize your family, and especially with my son, right, he has a lot of challenges, but he's such a sweet boy, he's so happy.
Speaker 3:It's been so amazing to watch how my daughter has developed, and I can tell you this, paul, my son's best friend is my daughter, and that makes sense, right, he's obviously very comfortable with her, but my daughter's best friend is my son, and I think that is one thing that you know. She has other friends and she's active in dance and she's very active and very social, but to her core, her best friend is my son and she is always looking out for her brother and it's really tough thing. But it's also like parenting a special needs child. Parenting any child is a very tough job, but seeing some of these small things are so fulfilling. There's no financial, there's no any value that can take. When you see your children loving each other or going out of their way for each other or doing an act for another person, those are the most important things in life and it makes you feel like you've really made an impact on them and that they're going to be really, really productive adults and people in this world. So those are the most important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can't relate to you per se, but I think we all want the best for our kids. If you're a parent, most of us do. Right I recently came up with I'm going to say it anyways, but it's going to sound ridiculous compared to what you're dealing with and that is, my younger son was testing to get into kindergarten at a school that my older son is at and he's not going to be able to get in. They said he's not ready and I took that personally kind of right. What do you mean? He's not ready, he's the age and that's the appropriate grade for him.
Speaker 1:And I was furious for the debate. I still kind of am, actually, because it just happened recently. But as I settled down and just think, okay, people know what they're talking about and you're going to listen to the experts and things like that Obviously get other opinions. But yeah, it was just a good reminder for me that man, I desperately want the best things for my kids and when they don't go their way it's frustrating, but at the same time it's like, yeah, guess what? Everything's not going to go their way and get used to it at the same time, right.
Speaker 1:And then on top of that, this is kind of like I said. I use the word frivolous because it kind of is, in a way, when I think about somebody like you that your son's got a lifelong challenge in front of him and as a family, so to put that in perspective too, it's like, okay, well, what I'm dealing with is kind of, yeah, it's not a big deal compared to what you guys are going through, challenges that you guys face, and maybe how you now are balancing, still trying to be you know, really you're a great executive and still moving up the ladder professionally, but just balancing that with you know, maybe some of the extra things that you have to manage with your family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know, one of the real things that I feel like happened as I've gotten more mature as you know, a professional, but also as a father is that I think it's our nature, like you just talked about, as a parent, to want happiness for our kids and the best things and the best outcomes that we believe.
Speaker 3:But what I've learned, especially with my son, is that my happiness when I was growing up was playing sports and doing that kind of stuff, and but we really need to be as parents, we need to be providing the best opportunity for our kids to be happy.
Speaker 3:Their happiness may not necessarily be what we believe are, you know. So I think that's one of the biggest thing where my son you know he's really into like photography and he's very so. He's very much into making some movies and that was one of the things that he does on his iPad and does with some of the other things. And you know that is that was never an interest of mine, but you know, when I tried to engage him in sports at the beginning, I was like he just wasn't feeling it and he obviously had some different focus issues in that. But he loves that. So we're going to facilitate what makes them, you know, the most happy, and I feel like that was one of the major things that me and my wife really learned is like you know, we have our beliefs or what we want our kids to be happy, but sometimes that's different than their true happiness and I think you learned that, paul.
Speaker 3:you know like we had a situation like you're speaking of with my daughter potentially getting into a school and now we're on a wait list and I'm saying she's amazing.
Speaker 2:How would they not want her? Like? What are you talking about?
Speaker 3:like, what is this? And uh, you know it's it. And then you just realize, you know, I went there, we went and talked to her, we sat her down. This is funny because we sat her down yesterday and we're like hey, you know, we got put on this wait list, but you know, we'll see what happens and she's like okay, whatever, I'm going to school like it's not like she could have cared less, like, and we're like god, you know so.
Speaker 3:But yeah, you know, I think the biggest thing, realistically, is that you know you have to make sure I try, I I feel like one of the things too and I think I've talked to you about this before is that me and my wife really try to do family things and then we try to do individual activities with each child and one of us.
Speaker 3:So like I'll do some special activities with my daughter while she does stuff with my son, and then there's their time and my time. But because I think that's like kind of like the whole balancing act and we want the relationships that they have, especially with my son. You know, like he is very much comfortable. He stays with the people he's comfortable with and there'll be times where he's really into mommy and there'll be times that he wants to hang out with dad and you know, I think that's I mean there'll be times where he's lately just want to hang out with his sister, which is awesome. But you know, I think that is one of the things really too, is that ultimately, when it comes to your employment or your job or your business, you've got to have the ability to flip the switch and focus on your family. Otherwise, you're missing out on too many of the important things, and I'm really learning that now in my career more than ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's a tough balance. And again, knowing about you, you're working at a company. You are now in the C-suite of a company that's growing and that's your trajectory. Now You're firmly implanted as an executive, so you've got a whole lot of new responsibilities, like your responsibility for the profitability of a company. I mean massive responsibilities. But what I'm hearing from you is that you still kind of know when to turn that off and know, hey look, this is dad's time to sit down and grind, and then this is dad's time to sit down and be present for his family. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think too, paul, that was the hardest thing. That was one of the biggest transformations that I had to make, and I still revert back to the grinding and I just now I'm just starting to it becomes a place of comfort. I know that sounds crazy, but like the routine and the repetition, Well, cause you know you're really good at it, right?
Speaker 1:You know if you're doing that, you're going to do really well, right? So it's easy to revert back to something that you're very good at. Sorry to cut you off.
Speaker 3:No, no, it's so right on that. It's easy to go back, to go, you know, grind and work and to take that time and not to be looking at my phone or not be worried about emails or any of that is one of the biggest changes that I've had to really focus and just say you know what it's going to be. All right, right, like, we train our team correctly. We've put that, we've given everybody the right tools. You got to trust that they're going to use it.
Speaker 3:And that has honestly been one of the biggest turning points and changes that I've had to make personally, because you know my wife's like listen, you can't solve every problem. Like you just can't. I know that's how you are and I know that's how you think. But you need to learn how to build the process, teach the people, empower your team and then trust them. And you got to have that trust aspect. And that's that same thing with, like, when we teach our kids to ride their bikes, we teach them. You know there's that whole trust factor and you got to just, you got to do it. And I'm learning every day, you know.
Speaker 1:So, guys, mark, you've got to balance. And, in addition to that, this is a podcast, so you won't be seeing the video, but Mark's biceps are bulging out of his shirt, so he's even finding time to eat right and go to the gym. So, guys, what's your excuse? You got to balance it all, right.
Speaker 3:That's my solace. That's my 60 to 90 minutes away from chaos. Is going to the gym.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, mark, really appreciate the transparency and just really opening up and sharing some really valuable things and really hitting home for me right now, especially, like I said, given just something my family is up against as recently as this week and just knowing that other families are facing similar things and just kind of putting everything in perspective. So really really enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 3:I'm glad I could hop on Paul and again, I think the biggest thing is your life's. In stages and things change. I didn't know that seven years ago I'd be in Arizona. Just trust it. And the most important things are the people you love and the people around you, and work is a means to that time. You don't live your life to work, you work, you live your life. So I've learned that it's taken a while, but I feel like I'm slowly getting there.
Speaker 1:Wise words from Mark Maggio. Thanks, man, we'll talk soon.
Speaker 3:Awesome, Paul. Thanks, buddy. The Rockies ain't too far from here if we drive all night.
Speaker 2:The cold. That will do you well in the mountain morning light. So let's ride, let's ride on through the rain. Come on and take me anywhere that you wanna be. Let's ride and let's ride. Let's follow the skyline and when we make it to the other side We'll find all the bluest skies.