What to Look for in a Logistics Partner with Nick Fierle

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Gold Digger Podcast. Today, we'll be breaking down what to look for in a logistics partner. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Nick Fearley into EO Fire Studios. Nick is the Chief Logistics Officer at KPM Logistics Partners, proudly supplying the entire Northeast United States and Canada with their warehousing and logistics expertise. KLP hopes to impact this knowledge to you. And Fire Nation, we will talk about what you need to know when it comes to your partnerships logistically.

0:40Cut-off supply, customer support, growth, warehouse capacity, the management system, and so much more. This is a must listen if you are ever going to work in the world of logistics or your business needs to deal with logistics. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nick and our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by my friend, Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

1:11In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. Want to meet me, JLD, in person? Attend Clay Clark's two-day interactive business workshop and meet me, Tim Tebow, and Clay Clark this June. experience the highest rated business workshop in America and hang out with me in person at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Again, that's thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Learn more and request your tickets at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Nick, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:55What's up Fire Nation? Nick Fairley here with KPM Logistics Partners. Happy to be on today. Family is just as important as your business. Fire Nation, family, business, equally important. And now we're going to talk about what to look for in a logistics partner. So there are a lot of questions, Nick, that we really should be asking our potential logistic partners before committing to a partnership. So I want to go through some of these questions, and then I want you to expound upon the reasons why they are so important. So let's start off with number one, warehouse capacity. Why should we be asking this question?

2:35What exactly does it mean? And what are we looking for in the response? Most entrepreneurs and business owners, they create a product or get a product. And oftentimes, they put that product in front of how are we going to ship it? Where are we going to go with this kind of stuff. So it is extremely important once you have the product, you have an idea, and you go to find that logistics partner that's going to help you reach your goals and ship your product for you. How do you find that right one? It's extremely important to know the capacity and the capabilities of the warehouse. For example, you may be selling small jewelry items, but the fulfillment center that you're talking with or in negotiations with, they specialize in palletized freight.

3:22That is not going to be a win-win for you at all. It's important to know that kind of and be upfront and honest with the warehouse and fulfillment provider and ask that question. It's also in that same breath, just as important to know the available capacity of that warehouse, capacity meaning how much storage space do they have. You may have a product that's going to need 100 pallet spots and that available warehouse that you're talking with only has 30. It obviously won't work for you and it'll only cause you headaches down the road. So get up in front of it and make sure that they understand and you understand that you're both on the same page when it comes down to capacity and capabilities.

4:02Any red flags if they were to say something that you're like, hmm, that's something that we should keep our ears out for? If a warehouse was going to talk to you about saying, well, we have done it in the past or it shouldn't be hard for us to learn in the business. That is a true sign of anybody that just wants to take it on and they're not looking out for the best interest of your business. Let's talk about order cutoff policy. What does it mean? Why should we ask this question? And what are we looking for in the response? Order cutoff policy is extremely important. The last thing you need when you're shipping your product is to have an order and it's sitting there and it's not getting shipped.

4:42And you're wondering why your warehouse hasn't fulfilled it. Now, when you sign on or are starting the negotiations with a warehouse partner, it's important to get that in the service level agreement or SLA. Ask for an overcut off policy. There's some overcut off policies that we've seen out there that are actually within 24 hours. That's not what you want. You want someone that's going to be out there looking out for your business that's saying, okay, any order that comes in prior until 1, 2 o 'clock in the afternoon is going to be shipped out that same day. Not only is it important for you to understand that, but it's also important for your customers to understand that.

5:20So when you're selling your product, you can advertise on your website, advertise on your business page, on social media. Any order that comes in during a specific time period will go out that same day. That provides you and makes you look really great in your customer's eyes, and it keeps coming back for more. Let's talk about customer support. I mean, Obviously, everybody thinks they have good customer support, but how do we really find out how good their customer support is? What are we looking for when we talk about this conversation? Customer support, customer service is sometimes easier said than done.

5:55In the logistics and supply chain business, it's always important to know that if there's an issue, you can reach out to somebody and ask. Whether there's a change in order or there's a shipping address change, how does your warehouse take that information and how do they change and how receptive and responsive are they? You know, for example, when you're meeting up and having negotiations with warehousing and fulfillment centers, do they charge you for a email communication? Believe it or not, as crazy as it sounds, John, we've seen warehouses and customers come to us and say, hey, every single time I send an email over to this current fulfillment provider, they're charging me.

6:36They're charging me. That's not that's not customer service. Right. So it's wild what's out there in terms of customer support. Having a direct connection, one, two, three within an organization, will allow your business to operate way more efficiently and way more effectively, especially when there comes down to change in orders or change in addresses or even cancellations in orders. You don't want to see it, but it is a fact of the business. It does happen. Now, we obviously as a business want to be growing. We want to be expanding. We want to be successful. How do we find out if they're capable of keeping pace with our growth?

7:16This is where it really comes down to you as a business, understanding and setting goals for yourselves and making sure that, you know, obviously we want the business to grow as big as we possibly can. That's the beauty about being an entrepreneur, right? It's also important to have realistic expectations. so you know i'll kind of go back to the capacity point you know let's just say you have 100 pals today but you know you're going to introduce new skews or you're going to introduce new sales channels you're going to get into b2b or you're going to go to b2c for e-commerce either or it's important to know the direction of your business and have kind of a we'll call it a one to three year plan that plan needs to be communicated with the current 3pl let's just say right now you're doing 30 orders a day in your warehouse that you signed on a contract with, they say, yep, not a problem.

8:11Well, that 30 orders turns into 60 orders. That 60 orders turns into 1 ,000 orders. How does that warehouse expect or how do they plan to grow with you? It's extremely important to be on the same page and work with the warehouse as an extension of your business. Fire Nation, I really like this mentality of, is this going to be the right partner? Are they going to be working not just for you, but with you? Because that's the goal of what we're doing. We're building, we're growing, we're expanding. We want to be profitable. We have a lot more to talk about around these topics when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

8:49Personalized support has quickly become an expectation from customers everywhere. They want help and they want it now, but many businesses aren't equipped with the right tools to help them deliver. And that means unhappy customers and frustrated service reps. So why Why not get a customer service solution that can help your reps excel and give your customers the best experience possible? The new AI-powered Service Hub from HubSpot is a better way to do service and success. Service Hub helps you fly through the service queues and lighten the load on your reps with AI-powered self-service chat and knowledge-based articles.

9:20It also helps you grow your customer base with tools that helps reps anticipate customer needs before they ever become issues. with HubSpot Service Hub. Reps are resolving tickets 13 times faster, helping them close 42 % more tickets per day. And that means increasing retention by more than 80%. Scale support and drive retention and revenue all in one place with HubSpot's all new service hub. Visit hubspot.com slash service to learn how this all new solution can help you deliver for your customers. Want to meet me, JLD, in person and grow your businesses here? this is your chance to meet Tim Tebow, myself, and Clay Clark while learning the proven success systems that have been used to create thousands of millionaire success stories.

10:02Go to thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire to see thousands of Clay Clark's real clients who he has really helped to grow their real businesses. Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Visit thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire to request your tickets to attend the highest rated business growth conference on earth because Clay only takes on 160 clients and allows only 300 attendees to each business conference. You will interact directly with Clay Clark to implement a proven plan, see thousands of real success stories, and get your tickets to meet me, JLD, Tim Tebow, and Clay Clark at the June Business Growth Conference today at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire.

10:41Remember, knowledge will only attract money when it is organized and directed through implementing practical plans of action. Become the next success story and request tickets to join Tim Tebow, myself, and Clay Clark at the June Business Conference today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire. Nick, we're back. And one thing I think a lot of my audience, because I know I'm in this boat, is not very familiar with, are the different management systems that warehouses have. So can you talk about what that looks like from the very basics all the way to the more advanced ones and what we should be looking for?

11:16A warehouse management system is basically, think about it as the brain of a warehouse. That controls and basically retains all the information from your business that makes your life easier. Not only the warehouse life's easier, but also the customer's life easier. So from a basic approach, this warehouse management system should be able to provide you and your business with inventory tracking. How often you're going to want to be able to follow when an order comes in or a new inventory comes into the warehouse, how much you have on stock at all times. It's extremely important. You're not going to want to lose any inventory, and you want to make sure that your warehouse is not losing any inventory either.

12:05Not only from an inventory standpoint, but how about reporting, sales? Let's say you're in manufacturing and you want to be able to forecast ahead and you've been working with this warehouse and they can come back and tell you, you know, John, last March you sold a thousand of these. Your growth is 5%. Here's the stats. Pull up the information. That's how you're going to forecast to your manufacturer. That warehouse management system is extremely important if they have, if it's a web-based system where you can actually log on and track shipments for yourselves or even track the update or the status of an order.

12:45Extremely important information, especially in the negotiation phases. I will always walk potential customers during a Zoom call or whatever it may be through our warehouse management system to show them exactly how it works and the tools and resources that it can provide your business. One thing that customers hate, let's just be honest, it's getting the wrong thing. It's ordering something, getting excited about it. Maybe it's even for like a gift, a birthday, Halloween, Christmas, fill in the blank. And it arrives and it's the wrong thing. Or maybe even it's broken or just wasn't packaged correctly or all these different things.

13:24What are the best things and ways that we can really dive into the order accuracy of these companies? Order accuracy should be of the utmost importance for any business, right? The last thing you want is a customer to grab the wrong thing or receive the wrong thing. It costs you double the money. And it really is a bad look for you and your business. From a warehouse standpoint, there's a lot of different tools that the warehouse can go through that will help with the order accuracy. Now, a lot of it is procedural based, right? So a properly run warehouse will have a lot of scan gun technology or at least scan gun technology that can track by UPC code or SKU number.

14:10You know, for example, if a warehouse worker is going out to pick a couple orders, they should be scanning the product to make sure that they're picking the right items and the right quantities at all times. Not only on the picking side, but on the packing side is extremely important, too. So let's just say that the bins get mixed up or the order picker himself makes a mistake. Well, the packer should also be scanning it to make sure that when they're packing it in the box that it's actually the right items. matching it up with a packing slip and matching it up with a shipping label to make sure that right customer is getting the right product 100 % of the time.

14:45Now, listen, we live in an international world. I mean, that's just the reality. I mean, there's people that are going to be listening to this podcast in over 95 countries right now. So, I mean, we're on TikTok, we're on Instagram, we're looking at different things on Facebook, we're getting served ads all over the place, watching TV, I mean, fill in the blank. Like, so there are some companies that I feel like probably do international shipping really well because there's some intricacies within that. And there are possibly some that just don't do it well for various reasons. So can you talk about international shipping?

15:18What do we need to know? What are we getting ourselves into? That's a great point. Being that business is conducted from a global scale now, it's extremely important to know does the warehouse ship internationally? There's a depending on where the product goes, there's a lot of different rules and regulations in place, whether that's, you know, commercial invoices, whether, you know, that basically outlines what's in the product and the value of the product. Does the shipment need a customs broker to clear it? What is the length of time to get it from point A to point B? You know, with Canada being so close to to the United States, it's extremely important, especially up in the northeast in our neck of the woods.

15:57Right. Canada. even though it's an international country, it still seems like we're neighbors. There's a whole other rules and regulations, including taxes that need to be thought of. And not everybody has a capability to international ship. Now, if your business is staying domestic in the United States, that's not something to worry about. If you have a couple shipments that are going international, let's make sure that the warehouse has the capabilities to do so and to make sure that the shipment's not going to get lost or it has all the appropriate paperwork to go along with it. And now the bigger that you grow, maybe it's even worth getting one, two, three, four different warehouses in the appropriate country that you're shipping out of.

16:39It's always great to start small, but always remember that as you go on, more and more shipments can be going international and make sure that the warehouse understands and you understand that you're doing the right thing all the time. So I want to take a step back, Nick, because you are the chief logistics officer of KPM Logistics Partner. I mean, you literally supply the entire Northeast United States and Canada with your warehousing and logistics expertise. And as hoped, you are imparting and impacting this knowledge upon us here today. What is it you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our conversation today all around what to look for in a logistics partner?

17:22because we talked a lot about specifics and detailed things, but this is kind of more of an overall bigger picture. Your turn to take the mic and really take us home. Not every warehouse is equal, just as not every business is the same. It's important to have a couple different conversations with potential providers that could benefit your business. Now, when we developed KPM Logistics Partners, it was important for us to put partners in the name because it's true. We are partners in your business and we cannot succeed without your success. So it goes hand in hand. And to find a company that's going to, let's call it, take the bull by the horns and do the right thing for your business 100 % of the time, that's what you need to look for.

18:06And that's what KPM Logistics Partners prides itself on, is for us to be that extension of your business and help you guys grow. Fire Nation, help you grow. That's what you are looking for in a partner, somebody that you are getting together with in the business world. So, Nick, if you could just say one thing that you want to make sure our audience gets, understands, and knows about logistics, what is that one thing? Never be afraid to ask a question. I'm always available. There's professionals out there that are always available. It's an easy but difficult task, and there's always, especially myself out here, to help you guys out as much as we possibly can.

18:45On that note, if Fire Nation wanted to connect with you, learn more about you and your business, what is your call to action for our listeners today? Absolutely. So we have a website. You can go to kpmlogisticspartners.com. You can find out a little bit more about our business and what makes us who we are today. Or you can give me a shout directly. I'd be happy to walk you through any kind of questions that you might have. I can be reached at 973-598-3832. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with NF and JLD today, so keep up the heat.

19:20For links to everything that we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Nick, N-I-C-K, in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. Nick, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute your brother, and we'll catch you on the flip side. Take care. Thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation. A huge thank you to our sponsors and Nick for sponsoring today's episode and to Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment.

19:53I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams, visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I will catch you there or on the flip side. Success Story, hosted by my friend Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

20:30In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. Want to meet me, JLD, in person? Attend Clay Clark's two-day interactive business workshop and meet me, Tim Tebow, and Clay Clark this June. Experience the highest-rated business workshop in America and hang out with me in person at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire. Again, that's thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire. Learn more and request your tickets at thrivetimeshow.com.