An interview with Transportation Impact's Keith Byrd

An interview with Transportation Impact's

Keith Byrd

www.terrapinn.com/ebhomedelivery

To get involved in Home Delivery World 2013, contact Caitlin O’Donnell at +1 646 619 1801 or [email protected].

Laura Lupo Marketing Manager Home Delivery World 2013 +1 646 619 1790 [email protected]

“Just about every CEO we sit down with starts out thinking his or her company has a good carrier agreement...” -Keith Byrd, Transportation Impact

In the organizing of this year’s Home Delivery World, we’ve been lucky to get in contact with Transportation Impact. As an event exhibitor, as well as a leader in the transportation and logistics industry, TI has shared with us their industry expertise and company history, as well as some more recent news. Keep reading to find out what Co-Founder and Principal Partner Keith Byrd has to say about transportation, retail, and his surf shop. If you come up with any questions or comments while reading the eBook, just let me know! We hope to see you in Las Vegas in a few weeks.

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Transportation Impact comes from humble beginnings. In 2008, Keith Byrd and Travis Burt, both then senior-level managers at UPS, left the world’s largest shipping company after nearly two decades, respectively. Their goal was to launch a startup focused on the mission of providing clients with the most competitive small package contracts in the country. Then, the company’s original headquarters was nothing more than a table and chairs in the 10x20 storage closet of an Emerald Isle, N.C., surf shop Byrd co-owned. The founding partners leveraged their experience to grow the company door-to-door and, eventually, the word began to spread about the spend management firm based in a coastal vacation town along the southernmost part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. As the company grew, its team expanded to include other former senior managers from various carriers, all of whom brought their own experience from a variety of parcel shipping backgrounds. Through their extensive carrier experience and the development of an effective negotiation process, Transportation Impact has achieved sustained growth by driving measurable results to its clients’ bottom-lines. Today, the company employs a team of 26, with more than 150 years of combined carrier experience, leveraging its industry savvy to drive down clients’ net annual parcel spends by an average of nearly 20 percent. Transportation Impact is a leading provider of parcel audit and small package negotiation services for companies that annually spend a net minimum of $200,000 on FedEx and/or UPS parcel shipping services. You can find out more about how they can help your company reduce its parcel shipping costs by visiting them at booth No. 2.


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About Transportation Impact



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Keith Byrd Co-Founder and Principal

Partner Transportation Impact

Byrd began his 25-year career in the parcel industry with UPS, where he held a variety of positions. Before leaving UPS in 2008, he served as a senior sales manager, covering North and South Carolina. Having earned numerous accolades while with the world’s largest shipping company, Keith envisioned starting a company that could leverage his industry experience to help companies minimize operating costs. The company has developed strategic partnerships throughout the United States in an effort to help clients find additional avenues in which they can reduce their respective supply chain costs. Transportation Impact was recognized as a Top Company by PARCEL Magazine in 2010 and Byrd was named to the list of “Movers & Shakers” by Business Leader Magazine in 2011. Byrd holds a bachelor of science in business from La Salle University. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1981-1984 before becoming a member of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol from 1986-1987.



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Keith Byrd, Co-Founder and Principal Partner, Transportation Impact

What made you decide to get into the transportation business? I was fortunate to be given an opportunity to join UPS, a company I have, and will always have, a lot of respect for. I started out as a driver in 1988, was promoted into a management position within operations. Three and a half years later, I was appointed to a sales-management position, where I spent the rest of my career. What I learned from UPS with regard to professionalism, company culture and the importance of giving back to the community are all things that I have tried to instill in my employees now that I’m a business owner. I think a lot of people in the industry might have a preconceived notion that the major carriers are our enemies and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Both carriers are model corporate citizens and I consider myself fortunate to have gotten a start there.



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I hear you own a surf shop? Yes, a business partner and I founded South Swell Surf Shop in 2007. I have two sons that are avid surfers, and Emerald Isle, N.C., where Transportation Impact is headquartered, is a coastal community along the Outer Banks, so there are lots of surfers here. Interestingly, the storage closet of that surf shop is where we initially put the Transportation Impact plan into motion. Our resources where scarce and our tools were pretty primitive, but we’re happy to say that we made it to where we are today nonetheless. It’s very humbling to think back to where it all started.



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Which retail company do you think excels in the home delivery world? The beauty of the internet is that it has allowed a plethora of retailers to excel. Of course, you have all of your household names, from Amazon to Zappos and everywhere in between, but I think the real unsung heroes of the retail industry are those who recognized the opportunity to take a localized retailer and open it up to a national or global market via the internet. Many of our e-retail clients got started in much the same way we did, which was with a great idea and a commitment to turn their entrepreneurial ideas into multi-million-dollar businesses.



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Keith Byrd, Co-Founder and Principal Partner, Transportation Impact What has been the biggest technological innovation for Transportation Impact since its beginning?

I would consider the development of our company’s proprietary software to be our biggest technological innovation. When my partner and I started the company, we knew we had to illustrate to our customers the various areas where our services were directly impacting their bottom lines. And after starting out, as I mentioned before, with a very raw set of tools, we quickly learned that we needed to develop technology that would allow us to perform this task en masse, or we risked running into problems relative to the amount of growth we could sustain heading forward. Today, our software identifies savings opportunities and then measures the integrity of the money we helped our customers save during the negotiation process. We applied many of those same principles to the development of the automated audit service we now provide to more than 300 clients. The visibility they gain through our online dashboard is instantaneous, making it obvious to a decision-maker from the beginning that our capabilities can make their lives a lot easier. That is a huge selling point in an industry where decisions need to be made as quickly and easily as possible. We understand that various stakeholders within an organization need access to different information that can all be hidden within the same place, so we have developed our software such that, with minimal effort, a CFO and a marketing director can each glean customized reports relevant to what they are held accountable for.



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Transportation Impact’s greatest challenge? It can be difficult, if not impossible, to simply walk up to prospective clients and expect them to trust our company with to help with something so vital to the future of their businesses. Some think that the results we project are too good to be true, while others may think that they don’t need a team of specialized experts to achieve the types of savings we have demonstrated with current clients. That sort of apprehension is certainly understandable, so our team has to meet the challenge of developing a relationship founded on trust. We must first understand that no one knows our customers’ business as well as they do and then we must demonstrate the value that we bring to the table in a way that is apparent to companies of all shapes and sizes.



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If you were to do it all over again, what would you have done differently? When my partner and I first left UPS to start Transportation Impact, we thought we would be able to bridge the gap between the places where we were well-established and the newfound challenges of starting our own business. We quickly learned that we needed to rely less on the relationships we had at the time and more on getting outside of our comfort zones and developing new relationships by selling the business model. Looking back, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t believe in our services, so I think we could have relied more heavily on the them rather than thinking that we couldn’t be successful without engaging with people we were comfortable with.



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As a company, what are you most proud of? Without question, I am most proud of our people. When we first went into this thing, we thought we would need a staff comprised of people with a lot of carrier experience. While our company does have that, more than 150 years’ of combined experience, actually, our initial thoughts couldn’t be further from the truth. What we have come to find is that hiring young, talented, hard-working employees has actually given our company an advantage. Rather than relying on traditional approaches, they aren’t afraid to share new ideas that have made our business better. I have been amazed by the fresh insights they bring to the table, from a business standpoint, and more amazed by their willingness to take what they have learned and make an impact within the community. Thanks to our people, Transportation Impact has become a leader in its local community in terms of providing time, effort and financial resources through volunteering, sponsorships and donations. I believe that in order to be a good leader, you have to surround yourself with good people and I think we’ve done that.



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What’s next for Transportation Impact? Transportation Impact is committed to its growth. By continuing to listen to our customers we are confident that we can effectively adapt to changes over time. We try to understand what their wishes and expectations of our company are and then utilize that information to make ourselves better. Every single one of our customers is great in its own way or those companies would not be in the position they are in today. We would be doing our company and our clients a disservice if we failed to recognize each one of them as a resource to help us facilitate improvement. By looking at what others are doing, we want to maintain that 1- , 3- , 5-year vision as a company relative to where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.



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Any advice for others looking to get into the parcel spend management market? You have to do what you say you’re going to do. If you tell a potential client you’re going to reduce their cost by a certain percentage, you’ve got to come through. If you fail to do that, you lose credibility. This day in age, everyone has a solution, but in order to prove that your company’s solution is better than the rest, you have to put your money where your mouth is. Your technology has to be on the forefront and serve to demonstrate your capabilities and illustrate your results.



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What are you most looking forward to at Home Delivery World? Interacting with people and continuing to build upon relationships and hopefully having a chance to demonstrate our capabilities to a new audience. The Home Delivery World conference is a meeting place for all types of companies in many different industries with the universal goal of making improvements to their businesses. I am looking forward to engaging with this audience, both from the standpoint of showing them what Transportation Impact can do as well as learning new ways where we can make improvements of our own.



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More about Transportation Impact Transportation Impact Joins Richard Petty Motorsports as Newest Partner Company will be Primary Sponsor of the Famed No. 43 at Pocono in June

Concord, N.C. (May 7, 2012) – Richard Petty Motorsports continues to introduce new partners to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2012. The latest company to unite with the legendary organization is Transportation Impact who will make their NASCAR debut as the primary sponsor of the No. 43 team and driver Aric Almirola during the Pocono 400 at the Pocono Raceway on June 10. The company is a parcel spend management firm headquartered in Emerald Isle, N.C. A fast-growing, small business founded in 2008, Transportation Impact comes into the sport for the first time with Petty to help high-volume parcel shippers reduce cost through innovative audit and negotiation services, helping companies large and small identify and obtain savings they can then use to fund new initiatives, retain employees or hire new ones. The company is co-founded by lifelong NASCAR fans Travis Burt and Keith Byrd. “We always like companies that are in business to help others work a little bit better, smarter,” said co-owner Richard Petty. “These guys are looking to get their name out there and show companies how they can save money in their shipping needs. Even better, they are all about performance. They want to make sure they are delivering the best results for you. That makes them a perfect partner for us.”

The addition of Transportation Impact to the family of partners on the No. 43 Ford Fusion proves that Almirola and the No. 43 team continue to bring value on and off the track “I really enjoy working with and meeting different partners of our race team,” Almirola said. “This is just another chance for us to do that. The people from Transportation Impact are true race fans, but also have a passion for helping people out. That makes it even better to represent them on the track.” Co-owners Burt and Byrd are also anxious to work with the team. “When people see the Richard Petty brand, the first things that come to mind are being the best and doing so with integrity,” said Burt. “As a business owner, I always want my company to be the best, but only as long as success doesn’t interfere with doing the right thing.” “Having grown up in the heart of North Carolina, it’s a dream come true to partner with a team like Richard Petty Motorsports,” said Byrd. “This partnership will benefit Transportation Impact not only from the standpoint of The King’s success on the race track, but most importantly because of the association people make between Richard Petty and the virtues of character, sincerity and candor.” The Petty name has three wins at Pocono Raceway with Richard taking the checkered flag twice and Kyle winning at the track in June of 1993. The race will air nationally on June 10 at 12 p.m. ET on TNT.



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More about Transportation Impact TRANSPORTATION IMPACT TO DONATE $3,000 TO LOCAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN HONOR OF CO-FOUNDER, AMERICAN HEART MONTH

Emerald Isle, N.C. (February 4, 2013) – When Transportation Impact’s Co-Founder, Travis Burt, said he didn’t feel well late last month, his employees attributed it to the probability of a winter “bug” and wished him well. Days later, however, the group learned he had suffered a mild heart attack and that there was additional cause for concern. A scheduled procedure to place a stint in one of the arteries leading to his heart uncovered blockage in three of his arteries, which led to the triple bypass procedure that Burt successfully underwent last Thursday. Though the procedure went well and Burt is expected to make a full recovery, it was an eye-opening experience, not only for the 49-year-old Emerald Isle businessman and his family, but for the entire spend-management firm he co-founded in 2008 with partner Keith Byrd. “Travis is one of the pillars of our organization,” Byrd said. “Without him, we would not be where we are today. That said, we tend to get caught up in our work; sometimes more than we realize. While Travis’s diagnosis was startling, it was somewhat of a blessing for all of us, especially now that we know he’s going to be OK. “Travis was the first person to educate our staff on his condition and to use his own situation to illustrate the importance of taking time to take care of yourself, and that’s something we will put an increased focus on heading forward.” It just so happened that the timing of Burt’s illness coincided with February, the American Heart Association’s official American Heart Month. As such, students from White Oak Elementary School in Cape Carteret will be participating in Jump Rope For Heart, an annual AHA fundraiser to spread awareness about heart health. In conjunction with the event, representatives of Transportation Impact will be on hand Tuesday, February 5, to present WOES principal Roxann Everett with a $3,000 donation in honor of Burt, and again on Thursday, February 7, to volunteer and participate in the fundraising event. “There is a school full of kids right here in our community, and other kids all over the country, putting forth their best efforts to do the right thing,” Byrd said. “We believe it’s our civic duty to support them. “It just goes to show that you don’t have to be a grown up to set a good example for others to follow.”


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We’re hosting Home Delivery World this April in Las Vegas and would love to see you there. The leading heads of warehousing, transportation, eCommerce, supply chains, and fulfillment will be there to: • Find out how eBay is updating its supply chain to keep up with customers’ changing needs • Learn how Office Depot manages store replenishment and eCommerce fulfillment • Globalize supply chains with tips from experts • Hear how Gemvara, Dell, and Nutrisystem are integrating customer experience with supply chain management • Discover how to implement a scalable warehouse management system • Incorporate flexible fulfillment techniques like drop-shipping, in-store pick up, and store shipping • Make new contacts with 1-2-1 partnering services, the in-person networking manager, and the online networking tool • Uncover the latest technologies and fulfillment strategies in the free seminars and expo

Speakers include home delivery experts from: eBay, Office Depot, Nutrisystem, Gemvara, Bonobos, and many more! Want to speak to someone about the event? Contact Caitlin O’Donnell at +1 646 619 1801 or [email protected].


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An interview with Transportation Impact's Keith Byrd

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Transcript of An interview with Transportation Impact's Keith Byrd