Innovating in a Traditional Industry: Hampton Thomas’ PFP Logistics Story

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (07:16.731)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Hampton Thomas owner and president of PFP logistics, a third party logistics company with a focus in warehouse staffing that specializes in services such as loading and unloading, freight handling and more.

They offer experience in handling a complete range of types of freight, including temperature controlled, fragile, labor intensive, and high value. They use a pay for performance model for their customers so that the customer is only paying for work being completed. This approach helps customers accurately project labor costs. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency.

where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency .com. Now back to our guest today, the owner and president of PFP Logistics,

Hampton, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Hampton (08:41.676)
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (08:43.273)
So Hampton, I can see looking at your LinkedIn page that before starting PFP Logistics in 2017, that you worked for another logistics company for several years. Is that where the idea for PFP was hatched?

Hampton (08:57.484)
So that was actually we converted that was port watch logistics into PFP logistics. It was a family business. My father owned a transportation, a warehouse company and a staffing group. He needed some support managing the staffing group when we were able to leave South Carolina. had sold out previously and had a non -compete keeping him in South Carolina. And so I was working.

I don’t think it’s listed on there, but for a very brief time, another logistics company right after college wasn’t too thrilled there. needed somebody to support him and go. So the next Monday I was on a flight to Theodore, Alabama at my first startup in a cold storage environment. And after, I think it was four or five years working that I had moved and met a bunch of people, but I decided I wanted to become an owner of the business and work to buy him out.

So we separated that labor piece out or the staffing piece out from the other two and created PFB Logistics.

Anthony Codispoti (09:59.217)
And PFP, pay for performance. This is part of the name and it’s also a core part of the business model. Can you explain that to us? How does this approach work?

Hampton (10:01.142)
That’s right.

Hampton (10:10.668)
Sure. So we started on the port of Charleston, South Carolina and containers come in on the big boats that you see that are on the highway. A lot of that product is manufactured and to maximize shipping capacity, the product is just pushed in there on the floor, not organized, very messy, and there’s no pallets or any kind of equipment that can pull it off. So you have to use your hands and stack it onto pallets. And then if you’re those pallets around the warehouse, you got to wrap it.

And then a forklift will come take it away. So we took the concept of just instead of paying us by the hour for however long and however many people it takes, just give us a pay us by the job. so we quoted what it should take two hours, five hours, whatever it is, depending on the freight. And we’re just going to charge you for that container to be unloaded. And then we turned around and began to pay the associates a piece of that too. So the faster or more efficient.

could make a lot more money. The customer was pleased because their freight was moved a lot faster, which reduced their operating time, reduced headcount in the facility, and overall, you know, saved everybody money and got the job done faster.

Anthony Codispoti (11:25.981)
I’m going to say that the model on the surface anyway, sounds really attractive. It aligns everybody’s goals, right? Like the employees aren’t going to drag things out and, slowly move things around. No, they want to hustle. They want to get it done. So, you know, they’re getting paid more and the customer then, you know, they know what it’s going to cost them upfront. Right. And so that really helps with planning. I’m going to guess this is an attractive model from, for everybody, for you as the company, for the contract workers, as well as for your clients.

Hampton (11:55.894)
Yeah, we believe so. Once we get the pricing right and everybody’s aligned, it works really well.

Anthony Codispoti (12:03.667)
So something you said there is key though, once we get the pricing right. And so how do you do that? I mean, every job is different. If you’re unloading the same size and weight widget into the same environment every time, okay, that’s great. You did a time study once and now you know, but I mean, every client is different, every shipment’s gonna be different. How do you approach that?

Hampton (12:25.334)
Right. So we start with the time study method on whatever variety of product that we may have available after some education through missing that or the customer not necessarily misrepresenting themselves, but the product they described was not what we got. You know, they might say a thousand pieces and single skew, which just means one kind of product on that.

There’s no sorting or anything involved. And then the first container we might open could be 3000 and five SKUs. it’s mixed in the whole way. So after a number of years of learning that, we’ll quote them what they described to us, but then we’ll put tiers and surcharges on top of that. And, you know, we’re very transparent of, know, if we get something different, it’s the process changes. And so the cost goes up and it would go up if you were using an hour.

associate anyways, because the time goes up. So it’s all based on time. Getting that approved and agreed on beforehand has been really good in our ability to be successful and have a smooth transition into a partnership. Going into it and accusing a client of potentially misrepresenting themselves or the product not being what they said is usually not helpful when you’re trying to start a relationship with somebody.

Of course, if it’s one or two every once in a while, we usually just pay the associates more and don’t go back for more money. But if it’s a trend or consistency, consistent over time, then yeah, we do have to readjust that.

Anthony Codispoti (14:01.523)
Do you see it, is it a consistent issue with some folks?

Hampton (14:05.994)
No, I would say most know what they’re doing and getting into if they’re receiving consistent product. They’re not trying to mislead me, but I get a lot of coastal customers that are receiving freight. They’ll get a quote request from somebody coming into their facility that they’ve not seen before. And their customer may or may not know with accuracy what’s in that container.

So they describe it to the best of their knowledge. And then when we open it up, of course it isn’t or can be different. And seasons change. We do a lot of big box retailers. you you’re a low cost suppliers where maybe it’s Valentine’s Day. And then when we’re heading into the fall, you might have patio furniture and then the Valentine’s days with just chocolates or it was glasses or it was cards or stuffed animals.

The patio furniture is very different. It’s far less freight, but it’s upwards of 100 to 200 pounds per piece. So it can get interesting and we have very long standing relationships with clients. So we learned over time that this product can be different and we go back and forth with them to make sure. Because it is a partnership. They’re using us as an extension of their HR department. We’re a permanent fixture in their building, or at least we hope to be.

Most of our contracts are a year to three years with an auto renew. And so it’s in everybody’s best interest that we’re mutually all successful.

Anthony Codispoti (15:40.295)
And so you’re helping to supplement their existing staff or are you like completely taking over sort of the, I don’t know what the right term would be, the heavy lifting, the sort of physical labor.

Hampton (15:51.95)
We’re typically given the more challenging roles first in a facility until the proof of concept is seen or conditions are right. So usually we’re either taking over what was already done by a service like us, or we’re displacing, a temporary service where they have what’s called permatems. So because the turnover is high, they just are constantly using a temp service. And eventually they’ll…

The temps that stick around for a while might be hired on and moved to a more, more skilled position or trained on equipment moved into, storage or, or pulling orders or things. So, yeah, we are brought in where we’re not displacing, permanent employees. And so we’ll, we’ll take over that and then we’ll partner with their supervisors to make sure.

Really, we take a lot of the responsibility off there. Their internal management needs to worry about inventory levels, dispatch, trucking, shipment times, quality receiving. So when they can just say, okay, I have 10 loads today that need to be unloaded and they give that to us, we’ll come back and say, okay, here they are. They’re on the dock ready for you. And they don’t need to track overtime, healthcare, workers comp. If there’s an injury, training, safety management.

hydration in the summer we have to focus on a lot because most are not temperature.

Anthony Codispoti (17:19.795)
So you’re taking care of all of that. They’re your W -2 employee. You’re taking care of the workers’ comp, the insurance, the payroll, all aspects of it. Are you also training and managing those folks as well once they’re placed?

Hampton (17:29.14)
That’s right.

Hampton (17:33.506)
yeah, we have actually a lot of what I’ve done over the past couple of years is focused on the onboarding, is zero to up to, we say 30 to 90 days. The first seven are the most important and then up to 30, typically that associates gonna be very successful.

That’s, think what set us apart. actually hired someone who was in education for the past eight years and brought her in to be our corporate trainer. So she comes in and analyzes the unloading process or the, the kidding packaging process, whatever that value it was add is we’re doing. And then creates almost like a syllabus that folks are used to seeing from their schools. A lot of our employees have recently gotten out of, you know, high school or, or they’re about to education level.

And so, we put that together and put it in front of them so they understand what they’re getting into. and that has reduced our turnover tremendously, but yeah, we are training them, and not only lifting technique, but trying to make them feel comfortable and welcome as a part of a team is being an outside service in. It’s not PFP logistics on the name of the warehouse. When you pull up, can often feel, less accepted or not like you’re a part of the.

overarching company that’s there. And our partners are very good at including us and bringing us in if there’s social meals or things or giveaways. But we do a lot of that ourselves too and we try to build a pride within the employee to be proud of working for BFP even if that’s not the name on the side of the building.

Anthony Codispoti (19:13.959)
Yeah, I would think it’s kind of hard for you to build a culture for PFP considering that folks are working in so many different locations.

Hampton (19:18.668)
Thank

Hampton (19:22.572)
Sure. Yeah, we’re pretty geographically spread out, you being headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina. We’re primarily, I would say, Midwest to East Coast. I have a facility in Anchorage, Alaska, which was geographically the furthest you could get away, but that one works out fine. we, another big hire that I made two and a half years ago was a, he was director of culture and leadership. He’s now vice president of the business.

But he came from, his past was working for the Naval as a therapist. And so he, we just went out coaching our managers on how to one do conflict resolution, but how to motivate, how to talk to and communicate with people of different backgrounds, education levels, different places in their lives. And that came a long way. And we also, we call it swag, but we give out a lot of hats.

T -shirts, koozies. One of the associates that she worked part -time for while she was in college and then she came on full -time. She wanted to pursue a career in style or fashion. And so rather than losing her to go do something else, actually had her manage all of our swag or corporate merchandise, if you will. And so we’ve got a corporate store that I think is probably some of the coolest stuff in the staffing industry.

I got a one -on -one right here, a water cup that she bedazzled for me. So we don’t give those out. So it’s fun. Then we invite the employees to come up with ideas too for what they want. So from Yeti cups to Carhartts to skater hats, we’ve done it all.

Anthony Codispoti (20:53.435)
Well, look at that. That’s sparkly. I’m have to get me one of those. That would be a much better show on camera than this industrial looking thing.

Hampton (21:19.884)
some fishing shirts that just came out with our logo on it. So that was excited.

Anthony Codispoti (21:25.161)
What’s interesting that I’m hearing you talk about is, what I feel like is a little bit more of, what’s the word I’m looking for? Kind of a gentle hands -on approach. You brought in somebody with a background in education to help with training and you’ve seen that payoff, right? You’ve seen like a decreased turnover, like increased retention. You brought in someone with a background in therapy who’s going around and talking to everybody and, you know, kind of getting,

them in the right place mentally and training them. And then you brought in somebody because you know, your folks love swag and right. So the question of how do we build this culture with, you know, some folks in Anchorage, Alaska, some folks in the Midwest, some folks in the East Coast. So you brought in somebody who can, you know, kind of get all this swag out to your different employees. mean, this is a question I always like to ask and you’ve kind of already provided at least parts of the answer.

You know, in a tight labor market, it’s hard to find good folks. It’s hard to retain good folks. And I’ve already heard you mentioned a few things there that you’re doing and that are working. Anything else that we haven’t already touched on that you think is kind of a special approach PFP takes?

Hampton (22:40.514)
Yeah, I think to your point, is right now very hard to find good folks. The old, when I started in like 2011, so there, was a not great economic climate and the old culture and a lot of the competitors culture was, well, we can just replace people. It’s low skilled. We’ll just bring them in, put another job out, put somebody else in there. Yeah. And it was all about all the…

Anthony Codispoti (23:03.145)
Turn and burn, turn and burn, right?

Hampton (23:07.188)
All the funding went to recruiting and not much in training. And I think a lot of people don’t realize the cost of turnover, even if you can get someone new into backfield rep position the next day. So the biggest priority I’ve put on is, is keeping the people that we have that we want to stay on. But, I would say not thinking that you have to find someone who has done exactly that before. I don’t.

I don’t think any of my managers came from this industry except for the ones that started as unloaders and then through our training have now become supervisors, managers, and directors. And so not finding people that are good at customer service, that get along well with other folks and that are inspired by the…

the goals you have that line up, we can teach them how to stack boxes, how to talk to people. can teach them how to key payroll, how to run the app that we’ve got developed. And so I think finding people that are open to learning is the most important thing and then investing in them and they will invest big time back into you. And now where I can remember my start,

I was doing sales, HR, customer service, payroll. I would stop at a McDonald’s and open my laptop and I’d scan in driver’s licenses and key the e -verify and then send payroll off and do the invoicing and pull off. It just wasn’t sustainable at all. Now I’ve got a bunch of people that are like, we can do it better. We can it a different way, more efficiently.

Anthony Codispoti (24:58.249)
I really like what you’re saying there. You’re kind of looking more for a personality fit. Somebody who’s got sort of the soft skills. They can get along well with other people. They understand how to take care of customers. And especially since you guys have invested so much in the training component, you can bring somebody in who’s never stacked boxes before, never keyed payroll, and you can teach them those things. It’s more about a personality fit upfront.

Hampton (25:05.1)
the

Hampton (25:23.043)
Right. Yeah, so much so that we actually bought some exoskeletons about a year and a half ago. For folks that weren’t even physically able to do 100 % of the job, we can strap these around there. It’s like a book bag and then straps around their thighs and it adds the core strength that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to lift that weight. So I haven’t snuck them into the gym yet, but yeah, it is. It really helps. I’ve got one here in the…

Anthony Codispoti (25:43.421)
That sounds pretty space age.

Hampton (25:51.916)
the office just the way around if I’m doing chores and stuff.

Anthony Codispoti (25:55.433)
And so how much of a difference does it make if I can normally pick up a 50 pound box? Now I can pick up a hundred pound box. it like double your

Hampton (26:02.882)
It no it’s not gonna add say strength to you. It’s more longevity. So if you could pick up that 30 pound a hundred times Maybe you could do it a thousand times or you don’t have to break as much so a lot of a lot of the product we have is anywhere from 800 to 2 ,000 boxes or tires or pieces of product in a container and so you’re doing that movement over and over again, and if you’re not

Anthony Codispoti (26:15.784)
Okay.

Hampton (26:29.92)
you’re coming from a sedentary job or you’re not used to moving like this, it’ll allow you to get back and complete a full load or complete a full day. And then over time, the goal is to get you away from using that and you’re relying on your own muscle.

Anthony Codispoti (26:44.541)
What does one of those rigs cost?

Hampton (26:47.463)
I tried on probably eight different versions and anywhere from $800 up to like $4 depending on the practice. And there were some that they had batteries almost like you see in your drill. then as you, it feels you’ve been down and then it is actively pulling against you. with the, amount of movement we do, we went with the lease.

sophisticated. It’s like a bungee cord system or almost like a resistance band. It works well. It was most comfortable, easiest on, easiest off, and we can use them between people. So we were, think they’re around, I want to give away my vendors pricing, but you got a bulk discount. And we bought, I think enough to get 20 or 30 % off and they had just released a new version. So we thought we would use more of them.

So I put 10 in three different warehouses as a trial and we ended up thinking, finding out we only needed probably three or four and we’re able to spread them out over 10 or 15 warehouses.

Anthony Codispoti (27:54.569)
So with you guys being spread out in so many different geographies, do you have a physical location or like a head supervisor or manager in each of those locations that either helps to recruit or manage or train the folks who are local? How does that kind of work with you being in so many different spots?

Hampton (28:12.8)
Yeah. Yeah. So our recruiting and corporate training is remote. That’s online and it supports at the local facility. We’re often required, but we will insist on having a point of contact there that is conducting the in -person interviews, doing the training, depending on the state of the partnership. So if it’s a startup, I will actually move people to that location. We’ll try, we them the travel team.

We’ll either rent Airbnbs or apartments or do some kind of short -term, long -term stay. And until we have that local team up and running in place. I was living in Atlanta for a while because it was easiest to travel from a bigger hub like that. And then I got, I wanted to get back to the coast and closer to family. The easiest way to get corporate folks to those was direct flight. So actually,

Got my pilot’s license and bought a plane. And so we’ll do day trips now where it was either six hours driving or no way to get flown in. It can be an hour we’re in on site. We got three people dropped off. I’m back home and then we’re going to get them a couple of days later. And it’s been fun and some of the customers have enjoyed it. We’ve taken them up to show them their house by the air. And I opened up. Yeah. And some of my full time managers.

Anthony Codispoti (29:27.6)
I love that.

Anthony Codispoti (29:35.645)
That’s a fun little perk.

Hampton (29:40.423)
actually all of them, if they have something they want to use it for personally. We had somebody that couldn’t get home for Labor Day because the commercial flight, there was only one going out and it was canceled. So she took the company plane.

Anthony Codispoti (29:54.535)
And I’m guessing you’re flying into like a smaller airport, not like the major one in the metro area or am I wrong?

Hampton (30:02.87)
For most, we’re not. Most of them, there are smaller ones throughout. I had a conference in Atlanta and it was an exciting time, but I put it down in Hartsfield Jackson in the main. yeah. I mean, hundreds of commercial planes. It is. Yeah, that was a big moment for me. Now coming in, it was easy going out with traffic control because they’ve got your landing directive pretty well set.

Anthony Codispoti (30:13.523)
Did you really? That’s one of the busiest airports in the world.

Hampton (30:31.02)
But when you’re leaving, you’ve got a lot more going on. they, I mean, you really got to pay attention. I brought another pilot with me just to kind of have second year and work the comms while I was, I was fine. I’m fine. So it was fun. yeah, absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (30:43.057)
All right, better safe than sorry on something like that. So Hampton, I’m always curious to hear how businesses find customers. What are you guys doing in terms of marketing and sales?

Hampton (30:55.318)
Yep. We’ve got one full time sales person and his job is to call LinkedIn, email, and then one day a week, he either takes the plane to a new region where we want to begin selling and we’ve got these bags. He knocks on the door to potential clients and gives them a fire. We got golf balls and teas and candles and gives them that to see if there’s any interest or any need.

He’s essentially selling an appointment with me. do still most of the, once we get there, the pricing and as he learns, he just graduated from College of Charleston last year. So he’s, he’s still earning his stripes. Although he worked for us for about eight months as an intern before that. And then we have, you know, we’ve got social media. I don’t see a warehouse manager looking on TikTok and thinking that’s the staffing company I want to go with.

Anthony Codispoti (31:49.96)
Hahaha

Hampton (31:52.566)
We don’t have a TikTok thread, we have Instagram and Facebook. I think just having a presence out there and then the LinkedIn is good. And then we’ve recently got into like SEO and some Google ads where we’re starting to target our ads in the areas that our salesperson will be traveling the following week. And that’s building some familiarity with the brand, some rapport.

start generating some inbound leads. But the biggest growth I’ve seen are once you get in the door, it’s expanding your relationship with the current partner. So do a good job and you will get referred out or you’ll get more business from them. Most of our clients have more than one facility with demand for a service like ours. so we’re even though 13 years old, I’d still say very much a startup in our

Anthony Codispoti (32:32.028)
Thank

Hampton (32:51.222)
thought process and there’s countless customers that could use us. So trying to demonstrate value and set ourselves apart from other customers. And then there’s either an RFP or they have conferences all the time and somebody will raise their hand and Hey, I’m really struggling with this kind of staffing. typically our name gets brought up that we provided a solution they liked and I’ll get a call to come check out that warehouse.

Anthony Codispoti (33:17.101)
That’s tremendous. When most of your leads are coming from word of mouth, that says a lot about the quality of your service and the longevity of those relationships that you’re building. Have you found that some of these other things that sound like they’re newer to you are maybe starting to look like they’ll bear some fruit, like the LinkedIn outreach and the handing out the swag bags in person? Or is it too early to tell?

Hampton (33:24.758)
Yeah.

Hampton (33:39.874)
It’s only been a few months. I struggle with patience on results. But I have seen, yeah, the calls, the outreach, just putting our name out there because it’s hard. We went over this SEO thing and like what are our keywords that we want to pop up and based on where we were on

We didn’t know what people would search to find us first. And that took a lot of time to identify. There’s not a real, it’s not like you could type in temp service. We’re not going to pop up there because that’s not what we do. So yes, I am seeing more appointments. are, our growth has gone up with new vendors or new partners. And in the past couple of months, we’ve got more startups this year than we had probably ever, which is exciting, but then also.

Hey, we got to make sure we can continue to provide that same level of service. So we got to grow the operation too. So I think all of it’s important. I shut down outbound sales two years ago, three years ago with COVID. had such a demand because there was such a scarcity of staff. It was all we could do to service the clients we had. And that became our main focus. And we were rewarded by it because we were able to

to provide the staff we needed rather than taking on new business. But that kind of, I’d say it slowed a little bit. There are more people applying for jobs. The wages are not skyrocketing like they used to. So we’ve had to get a little more creative in finding new business to keep our growth trajectory going.

Anthony Codispoti (35:31.059)
So whereas maybe a couple years ago, the big challenge was finding the contract workers to provide the service, sounds like the labor market has softened a little bit for you guys. And now the challenge is, OK, we’ve got lots of folks who want to work. Now we need to find clients for them to work at. Kind of shifting your focus now. And I’m starting to hear more of that from a number of the businesses I’m talking to. Not everybody, but I’m hearing more and more. The labor market’s softening a little bit.

Hampton (35:36.93)
Okay.

Hampton (35:49.474)
Sure. That’s right. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (36:00.945)
It’s getting more applicants.

Hampton (36:01.482)
Yeah. yeah, not only some of the consumption, I think in the U S has dropped off considerably. lot of what we do is, to service what’s being bought at big box retail stores and those stores, because people are buying less, there’s not the supply chain backup that you heard about two years ago. now they have over inventory and so they just, they aren’t buying as much, to come into the U S. So even our

clients that we have now, we’re producing less for them, or the demand is less.

Anthony Codispoti (36:36.463)
Do you think it will be more challenging to find new customers now that the labor market is softening a little bit? Like I’m guessing part of the attraction to using PFP is they’re having a hard time finding workers. You guys have workers. You’ve got them well trained and you take care of all the admin back office stuff for them. But do you think like maybe now it’s easier for them to find their own folks?

Hampton (36:59.668)
I think that’s one objection that we see more often now. I think the value of our service is far more than just providing staff. The focus and training and management that we do for those individuals and taking care of that service where we have a full -time person focused on that. Typically that attention is split in a middle management role in the distribution center. And so we’re able to

to do a much better job than they could otherwise.

Hampton (37:35.552)
But yeah, I think if they have the roles filled, they don’t know how much better it could be. So the pain might not be there to consider a switch if all the roles are filled. Oftentimes we’re brought in because like, just don’t have anybody to do the job. So I’ll try anything to do it. Temp services, know, paying more and looking at a third party like us. We’re really selling the efficiency piece now and the value add that we bring rather than just.

Anthony Codispoti (38:03.613)
That makes a lot of sense. Getting away from sort of looking at a warm body is almost like a commodity. And it’s, you know, they’re coming with additional training and the infrastructure that you guys have built to set that person up for success so that for the client, you can take a lot of the worries and the headaches and the management that may be split between, you know, some roles and have it laser focused on the team that you’re providing.

Hampton (38:05.142)
Yeah, film and rolls.

Hampton (38:10.465)
Right.

Hampton (38:14.924)
Okay.

Hampton (38:33.344)
Right. And they get the benefit of having someone who, a team of people who have experienced many different distribution centers. You know, we see from cold storage to grocery to tire to major retail chains. And so we’re able to actually, sales calls on Tuesday, their problem was hourly costs between loads. They love the concept that we presented, but they’re not brought, it’s not like

They have 15 or 20 or a hundred lined up for us to move one to the next. And so they’re paying a lot of just, we call it wait time or, you know, unproductive labor time between those waiting for the next one to come in. it simple as just saying, why don’t we just stagger and we’ll start two hours later so you can accumulate some work. We’ll bring in a smaller staff. And so where most people are thinking, I have to have a nine to five, bring everybody in a

That’s just one example of, this is what we’ve done in the past to solve that problem. You can do it yourself or you can bring us in and you get all the other benefit and we’ll continue to provide this value.

Anthony Codispoti (39:44.809)
I think that’s a great point and something that I wasn’t even thinking about is aside from what we just talked about, like a body is not a body, like it’s not a commodity, but also the experience that you bring from having worked in, I’m going to, I’m just going to throw out a made up number, dozens of different warehouse facilities, probably much more than that. And so you’ve seen lots of different ideas, tried different things, seen things that have worked in certain environments and

Hampton (40:02.014)
Sure.

Anthony Codispoti (40:13.277)
You know, so you’ve got just fresh ideas and concepts to bring to the table. Like, Hey, we did something like this over here in Columbus, Ohio, and it worked really well. was a similar environment. I suggest we try that here.

Hampton (40:26.847)
Yep. Yeah. We had a client, this was years ago now, but I saw them videotaping our employees, the stacking methods and everything else. I approached them and said, you know, what are you doing? Can I help you with, but these guys might not want to be on camera. And they said, well, yeah, we’re trying to learn the technique. We were considering bringing it back in houses. Absolutely. Come over. We’ll train you on how to do this. And then I, this was a major coffee importer. And so there’s these hooks and.

hooks are not easy to find. There’s like one retailer in the country that makes them. I gave them the contact for that. They bought their own hooks. They wanted to save the 10 to 20 % what they thought we were making and didn’t see the value. A month later, I got a call asking, could you please come back and manage this for us? And we did. We came back and we had, you know, I think a three year relationship with that group.

Anthony Codispoti (41:22.963)
So I want to dig into this a little bit because this is interesting because a lot of people would feel threatened in that situation. Hey, you know, we’re recording this because we want to learn the technique and then they’re straight up with you. We’re thinking about replacing you and bringing this back in house. Not only did you not feel threatened by it, but you’re like, OK, yeah, let me teach you. And then here’s the place where you can buy the equipment that’s needed. What was the thought process there? Is it just, hey, customer always comes first, whatever they need, I’m going to be helpful here.

Hampton (41:25.089)
Hmm.

Hampton (41:43.541)
Mm

Hampton (41:50.786)
Sure. I think one, it’s a little bit of an education piece. If they didn’t see the value I was bringing, then I can’t tell them that they probably have to learn it themselves. I knew the challenge of recruiting and training and how much we’ve invested in that. And so I think, you know, we can show you or you can try it yourself. And so I don’t want to continue to work in a place where our value isn’t seen.

we’ll go focus our energy on people that do appreciate it. We get a lot of times a new manager that’s not used to the concept of production staffing and they’ll see just making up numbers here. But let’s say it’s $25 an hour and you have four people working on that load. My two associates may do it in an hour. So two people.

They do it in an hour. I’m charging you $100 for that. Two people divided by two is $50 an hour. So that’s double what you would be paying if it was hourly for $25 an hour. So we’ll have a manager come in and say, well, I’m paying double what I should be. This is silly. You know, we can save money. Let’s call a temp service or let’s hire an hourly person. And then they, they do that. And very quickly that one hour job turns into two or even three hours and you’re paying considerably more.

The time studies are very different when you incentivize somebody and stuff. I explained that going into it. Keep us around while you do your trial of hourly and if they start beating us and you’re saving money, by all means, we’ll continue to move out. We’ll even let you hire these folks on if they want to stay around for that. the folks that work for us typically don’t want to go on the clock. They like getting the production paid because they either make considerably more dollars in a day.

or they’re making about the same, they’re only working four to six hours in a day and they can either go spend a little time with their families, pick up a second job, know, pursue a startup of their own, you name it.

Anthony Codispoti (43:57.607)
And so in this case with this, this client was moving a lot of coffee. How long were they gone before or I guess, how long were you out of the picture before they came back? And they were like, we’re in over our heads here. Please help.

Hampton (44:11.17)
It was about a month. They, so they were a third party that had a coffee customer and they were ramping up production. So they brought us in for the ramp up and then once volume sustained itself, they’re okay. We don’t need this third party anymore. We’re just higher on internally and yeah, it didn’t take, it didn’t take very long.

Anthony Codispoti (44:31.241)
I have say that’s pretty fast. I mean, a month to realize that this isn’t working.

Hampton (44:35.894)
Oops. And I think it probably wasn’t working a lot sooner to make the decision to say, okay, we give up again. You know, we got to get them back in here. They probably missed some, some loads. mean, there’s major charges associated with not unloading a container. So these containers come from the port. You have usually a two or three day window to get it unloaded and returned to the port or it’s.

Anthony Codispoti (44:40.796)
even sooner.

Anthony Codispoti (44:44.819)
Yeah.

Hampton (45:01.73)
I think it’s like $150 a first day and then it builds up to like four or $500 a day to unload it where, you know, if I’m less than $100 or $200 to unload it, you know, it makes a lot of sense.

Anthony Codispoti (45:15.773)
Have you built any of these into case studies yet? You take out the client’s name, but I mean, what you just explained to me right there with this one coffee related client, that’s worth its in gold in terms of being able to tell that story.

Hampton (45:31.594)
No, I think that’s, I like to just talk and tell stories. So if I’m still involved in the sales process, I think as we grow and move more and get more established, that would be something I’d bring in somebody and kind of have them write it all up and provide some marketing materials to make it easier for my sales team.

Anthony Codispoti (45:36.915)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (45:53.939)
Case studies and testimonials, they speak volumes for folks, I love that. I wanna shift gears, actually before I do that, there was something I wanted to go back to that you mentioned earlier, just kind of in passing, you guys developed an app, what’s the purpose of this? What’s its function?

Hampton (45:56.485)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hampton (46:06.903)
Mm

so that is to track who’s doing what. If you can imagine, let’s just say 20 different locations, a hundred different locations. And then there’s, there’s stickering, building kits, unloading all of its different rates, all of its different costs to the client. And then all of its different pay to the associates. When we were small, it was fine. We write it on the back of a napkin or on a clipboard and then fax it in.

And then somebody had a rate sheet up and they’d key it in either to Excel or whatever document and then send the invoices and pay the people. When you get into hundreds of associates doing probably hundreds of different tasks, that can be pretty demanding. And so my end solution was to, there wasn’t anything on the shelves that I could find. we ended up, you know, took about a year to build. And that may be something we, right now we’ve got, I think a pretty good advantage.

competitive advantage using it, but I think it’s marketable to other industries like construction, painting jobs, anything where you can get a quote and then you’re getting paid by the job and then paying associates by the job. And it does hourly too. We don’t 100 % do production. We also do some temp to perm and hourly jobs that you can’t put an engineered standard on.

Anthony Codispoti (47:31.473)
Is there any way to quantify the efficiencies that this has brought to you?

Hampton (47:36.578)
I can sleep through the night now. Yeah, this was one of my biggest challenges I would say in my career was the frustration of not being able to manage that effectively. Yeah, it was my biggest pain for a lot of years.

Anthony Codispoti (47:38.665)
It’s hard to put a number on that,

Anthony Codispoti (48:00.851)
So if nothing else, peace of mind, I’m sure that it’s brought loads of efficiency, but hard to put numbers on something like that.

Hampton (48:03.67)
Peace of mind.

Yeah. Well, yeah. So the back office time, can probably eliminate two headcount or we were able to move headcount to other things that weren’t checking, rechecking. The management submitting payroll is not, we’re waiting on however many emails on Monday, downloading those, checking it, uploading those, sending emails back out. It’s all live uploaded. Our customers can log in and see the progress throughout the day, throughout the week.

Our employees can see their pay as it builds out. We’re not generating errors anymore. used to, because it was all hard key, was handwritten, typed into Excel was our latest version before we switched to the app and then copied out, pasted. I remember I paid the entire company with the wrong week’s data one week. so mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars going out.

and finding out. We don’t know how wrong it is, but it’s wrong. so people are getting deposit, some are really happy because they made more the week before, but some are really not happy. And like these people, you know, are not making, they’re not millionaires or not. They’re still dependent on that check and it comes Thursday or Friday and it’s the weekend now. I got however many warehouses, hundreds of folks that I got to get paid because I’m not going to let them go into the weekend where

Anthony Codispoti (49:14.205)
You

Hampton (49:33.814)
with a mistake that we made. so that was a big one. then clients too, if you copy and paste and send the wrong invoice, it’s annoying. You don’t go to the grocery store and expect your eggs to ring up for a bottle of Windex or whatever it is. we were not a lot, but we’d send the wrong price or send the wrong thing. We’d fat key five instead of one load. And this app has all those checks and balances and it’s…

I could probably do a whole podcast on the app and the efficiency.

Anthony Codispoti (50:04.967)
I was going to say I would actually love that. you bring it up on screen and kind of take us through it. That’d be really

Hampton (50:10.496)
Yeah, I’d have to bring Toria and she really developed, ran the offshore team and then we brought it back domestically. It actually took me nine months before I looked at it. We were over hundred thousand dollars in in spend and I was in her office and kind of looked over shoulder and was like, what is that you’re playing with there? like, this is your app that you bought. I just didn’t want to be a part of it because I knew I would have my biases from early in my career that.

You when I lost sleepover, I can remember being on a phone call with somebody in Douglas, Georgia. And he’s trying, cause you didn’t have screen share back then. So he’s like, I’m on cell page C 59 and I’m trying to pull it up on my end. And the, the equations aren’t working. So, man.

Anthony Codispoti (50:58.173)
The good old days. Well, kudos to you for being able to delegate so much of that really big project to somebody that you trusted on your team. I know that’s not easy to realize that you would have just gotten in the way. takes some awareness. Shifting gears on you, Hampton. I mean, you’re running a successful business. You guys are growing. You figured a lot out. You built this app.

Hampton (51:15.285)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (51:26.537)
pilot, you own a plane, you fly your employees around, you know, a guy who’s successful and continuing to grow. People look at you and probably don’t realize that you’ve gone through some struggles to get to where you are. I’d love to maybe hear about a particular challenge, either personally or professionally, that you’ve gone through and some lessons that you’ve learned coming out the other side.

Hampton (51:48.706)
Sure. I was going to talk about the software. thought, yeah, that’d probably be it. But since we’ve already touched on that, I think the challenge when I started, it was everyday 80, 90 hours a week, nonstop calls and figuring solutions out like that for the app. Something I focused on pretty heavily about four or five years ago when

when I would say the company really turned a corner, started having some considered consistent cash flows and profitability was what to do with my time that and finding purpose beyond just getting this company. I always knew I wanted sustainable income. I wanted to work for myself and I wanted to provide efficient staff and to be the best in the industry at this. And,

When I finally got to a threshold or a level that I was there and I had a great team and backing that could continue to grow this thing and do better than me. Personally, I really struggled with the free time and the income and the, the ego a little bit. Cause you, people look from outside and say, well, if you have these things and this car and you can fly a plane, you must be happy. and you must.

And I probably was one of the most miserable times of my life that first year or so learning that it’s not all about just the income and just what you’re driving and the company that you’ve got that you represent or the title that you have on your check. So, I started doing some real searching into like what’s important to me, what’s and what my values were. I think that

is something I continue to do daily. Why am I spending my time doing this? Is it adding value to me or helping somebody else? And if not, I need to pivot. so I was always into sports and athletics. So actually my health started to deteriorate a little bit, well, a lot because of that. So like 25, I was about to have to get on blood pressure meds and cholesterol stuff. And I wasn’t, I would say,

Hampton (54:14.282)
super unfit, the eating, the drinking, the consumption lifestyle and not taking care of myself, both mentally and physically, really drained on that. So first thing was I got to get back in shape. I got to try to not just medicate. So I just read an article that you’re more likely to stick with a routine or a gym membership if it’s geographically close to your either home or office.

And at the time, the office I was, happened to be a CrossFit gym about a quarter mile away from where I was working.

Hampton (54:54.142)
I was pretty intimidated by that name. had never done it before, so I wouldn’t observe the class. The next day I was like, okay, well, there’s regular people doing this. It’s not just what you see on TV on the ESPN or whatever. So I joined that gym and within six to nine months, was in much all my numbers were back in line where they needed to be, but still wasn’t super thrilled. mean, there was a lot missing, I think.

still consuming heavily and I ended up joining a group of other business owners that met on a pretty consistent basis. There’s probably 15 of us, maybe eight or nine could come together monthly. Before that, I had a mentor and my father who had done it before, but I wasn’t probably going to share all the things I wanted to with them because

All they had done it in both were successful business owners before. I looked at it as I was 20 years ago. You’re not really seeing what today’s climate’s like or dealing with it today. Your memory may not be, you might not remember it how you actually dealt with it. So that was the biggest solution was finding that peer group and then really being willing to be vulnerable with them. When I hit kind of a rock bottom moment or like really eye opening event that

I gotta share this with them because I am really struggling here. And they were able to give, not just like, we’ll focus on spirituality, do some meditation. And all that’s great and part of my routine, but practically like, here’s, I was there, I did it before, and here’s what I gained. I volunteered at this place and they truly, because I was vulnerable with them, they were willing to invest that time with me. And a few of them were,

nonprofit leaders in a space that I go and support and volunteer now. So finding purposeful ways to spend my time is important because either I’m going to sit here at the office and micromanage these folks and they can do the job better than me. they don’t want that. then consuming and just being out is not productive either or sustainable. that’s where I did the CrossFit thing. I still do that today.

Hampton (57:20.254)
I started training for ironmans and I did one last year. I’ve got a smaller triathlon coming up in a few weeks that I’ve been training for. I got the pilot’s license. You know, that was a couple hours a week where I could spend my time. And then I got into giving back and volunteering. So, what is valuable to me is seeing folks outperform where they should be or what they thought they could be based on society’s constraints for them.

actually took a test in that group. do a lot of personality tests and things. And it basically said I was delusional in where I thought my success could be based on my intelligence and everything else. I think you can out hustle and you can outwork whatever. It might be harder for you, but you’ll get there eventually. And so I’ve done some things that I thought I never would if you asked 10 or 11 year old me.

what my life would look like in my mid thirties. I think I’d blow them away. So that was important. So now that’s why we spend time with training and career progression with the employees that we have. But then I go and I work with a group. It’s a nonprofit of recently incarcerated individuals that, the average age is 42 and most of them have never held a real job before. they got caught up.

or didn’t have the opportunity, but the way to make money was not a legal one. And then they were arrested and probably out and then usually arrested again. So these are high risk individuals of going back to prison, that have no real job skills. and so that group, is a great nonprofit where it’s a t -shirt print shop where they’ll print t -shirts for community events. And they’re now spread throughout South Carolina and I think plan on growing. they,

They have to show up on time. learn to work. But then there’s an hour and a half education piece every morning where we’re taught about the same thing. was, I didn’t know about it until after I had hired the therapist to come work in my group, but very similar. Just, this is why you have to keep a calm, collected head while you’re talking to somebody, whether it’s customer manager, coworker, this is why you have to be on time. Even though you don’t understand why you can’t have your phone and listen to music while you’re in that.

Hampton (59:44.896)
containing like these are the rules and this is what insurance is and this is how to deescalate situations. And so I participated in that class sit in and then I taught a few and then I took on a few of those individuals as one -on -one mentor, mentee relationship. Some of them have graduated that program and in the facilities that were allowed to hire second chance individuals, we had actually hired them on and seen them take full time and leadership roles.

And then on the other side, I try to get in front of that. So like that’s too late. They’ve already been incarcerated. They’re back out. We’re trying to help them now. But I work in some youth programs where these individuals, the school system today, the public school systems that I’ve seen do not have the budgets or support or resources to provide for these children.

that kind of education or just environment to see them be successful. And so I go once a week and I, I’m supposed to only have one lunch buddy, where we’ll sit, talk about their week, talk about what’s going on with them. And then if they behave themselves in class that week, we’ll go play basketball for 10 or 15 minutes and they get out of class. last year, actually after this, I’m going to be, my, my lunch buddy, for the first time this year, cause school’s just back in.

session. I had three or four of them that would come consistently because there’s just not enough mentors. There’s not enough teachers. And so I’d love to do more than what I’m doing, but it’s also hard to establish relationships. So getting involved in the give back program, while it can be challenging because these individuals still continue to make the mistake. They don’t pick it up on the first time, which is human.

has given me some focus and to get away from just thinking like, what can I do for me? How can I continue to impress other people or, or what have you? So, that was the most valuable thing was finding some volunteer, place that I resonated with me, that is still somewhat tied to, you know, work and everything else.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:05.801)
Wow, Hampton, I’m so glad that we covered the app conversation before so that we could dive into this. It says great stuff here because it’s the kind of stuff that doesn’t get talked about a lot. I think, you know, folks who maybe haven’t been through this undervalue the importance of identity and purpose, right? And so for so long, your identity was tied up in 80 to 90 hour weeks.

Hampton (01:02:10.54)
You

Hampton (01:02:28.278)
Eh.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:33.277)
so that you could build this thing that you had envisioned in your mind. And then at some point, things really started to click and you had a great team in place. The systems that you’d been working on for years were really starting to pay off and you weren’t as needed on a day -to -day basis. And in some cases, you’re actually getting in the way a little bit. You got a little bit of extra pocket money. You can do some of the things that you wanted to do, but it’s like, okay, now what?

And for a lot of people who haven’t been in a similar position, they’re like, yeah, I feel really bad for you, man. That’s awful. Sorry for all your success, but it’s really disorienting is the word I’m looking for. It’s really disorienting to have your identity sort of tied to something for so long. And now it’s like, okay, now what? Who am I? How do I fit in? What’s my purpose? What’s my mission? Like, where do I go from here?

Hampton (01:02:58.625)
you

Hampton (01:03:07.98)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:25.061)
So I appreciate you opening up about those struggles and then talking about some of the things that you’ve tried and have worked. And the peer group that you mentioned, is it just like a sort of a local collection or is it like a local chapter of a national organization?

Hampton (01:03:41.42)
Both. we, did, I was in one where I would fly to Chicago once a quarter. And that was when I first started my career, that was like best practices and they were teaching you how to take a small company, it and make it into a bigger one. The one that first started five years ago was a local branch of a, think an international group. And there was it’s personal discussions, professional.

You name it. And then we lost our leader probably two years ago.

He was retiring or moving on to something else. And rather than us wait for another one, we just hired a sports psychologist to come in and run the group that we had. and it, that became just a local group of folks from the other other group. I, I really enjoyed that and I benefited tremendously from it. So I took a, didn’t have leaders in the group, but I took a major responsibility in there. became like the recruiting chair and then,

began to create the marketing materials and just spend more time. And then I’d even go, I tried to volunteer at other companies that were in that group just to get to know them and have a broader education on it. I feel like they me sit in on some of their meetings, but I didn’t want to be an distraction either.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:04.317)
Yeah. So the peer group was obviously a big help for you in kind of opening your eyes and giving you some ideas on other ways to direct your energies. And then from there, you found a couple of great nonprofit causes to be able to get involved with and to find purpose outside of yourself, which I think is fantastic. Do you have kids? Are you married? What’s the family life? OK.

Hampton (01:05:28.254)
No, no children, not married. I spent early mid 20s just focused on this traveling all the time weekends. Was married, I’d say wonderful person, but not probably the right reasons. In the Southeast we have a, we’re famous for like you get out of college and then next is marriage and children and what have you. so.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:37.277)
Mm

Hampton (01:05:56.098)
We went to 17 weddings and everybody’s throwing the bouquet at that person. And I can’t imagine how many garters I caught. And so I like, I guess we’re next. Meanwhile, we were far too young and didn’t know each other well enough to make that decision. So ended up as peaceful as you can, deciding that we would move on our separate ways, but have kept in contact and still lives in town. Yeah, but we got a big, if you look at our website.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:19.109)
that’s terrific. That wasn’t a bad breakup then.

Hampton (01:06:24.7)
Italian master if it’s just he and I and a couple of bachelors

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:29.18)
It’s on your website.

Hampton (01:06:31.074)
Yeah, he’s our mascot. He’s about 133 pounds. Typically I bring him into the office, but around 11 o ‘clock he can get pretty whiny wanting to go out on his second walk for the day. I didn’t want him to interrupt the podcast. I took him on a longer walk this morning and left him at home. That’s Duke. Yep.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:48.183)
he’s on the Meet the Team page. Yeah, for folks who are listening, pfplogistics .com. And if you go to the Meet the Team page, Duke Thomas, he’s the PFP mascot. That’s great that he gets a shout out there. Let’s do a fun fact, Hampton, that most people wouldn’t know about you, something interesting.

Hampton (01:07:02.315)
Yeah, he’s got a

Hampton (01:07:12.997)
Well, I’ll say in college I was a turning member, but also a cheerleader. And so not a lot of people knew that. I wanted to stay close to athletics. I played football in high school. After a couple knee injuries, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. But wanted to keep using the athletic weight room and have a team environment. so I ended up doing that. I actually became captain of the team, I think, my junior year.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:38.771)
What school did you go to?

Hampton (01:07:40.687)
Elon University in North Carolina. It’s a smaller kind of liberal arts.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:45.071)
I’ve heard of it. Any particular mentors, books or experiences you want to give a shout out to that have been helpful in your trajectory?

Hampton (01:07:49.975)
Thank

Hampton (01:07:55.232)
Yeah, sure. So my father, first mentor watching him do the entrepreneurial thing. My former business partner, he and I worked together for about eight years. He helped me package this business and kind of taught me to just continue to get to the next hill with this thing. We will continue to have problems and that’s part of the journey. One of the favorite books I would say,

of like self -help development would be the greatest salesman in the world. And that talks about just being true to yourself and persevering. It’s a very short book, but there’s seven chapters. And I would read one chapter a morning every morning for years. Just kind of start my day with that thought message. They were only a couple of pages long. And then I…

after basically memorizing that book. I do the daily stoic now, which is kind of a page a day again. All my coffee’s brewing. I read that and it’s a good thought experiment. I really got into sci -fi and there’s a book series called The Red Rising about overcoming adversity and rising up achieving more than you otherwise would. I think QBQ, question behind the question.

is what a lot of people miss in customer service.

And it talks about not just, told me they wanted this, but kind of looking beyond, I was like, why did they want that? Or they said this, but their body language might’ve said something different. And where I can learn from them and dig in. And so that was a great book.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:48.413)
Those are some good ones, ones I haven’t heard of before. I put them on my list. Hampton, I just got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. If you’re listening today and you love today’s content, please hit the like, subscribe or share button on your favorite podcast app. Hampton, I also want to tell people the best way to get in touch with you for whatever reason. They love what your business is doing. They want to know more about that. They like what they’re hearing on sort of the personal development side of things and what you’ve been through. What’s the best way for folks to connect?

Hampton (01:10:19.104)
Yeah, it’s probably our website, pflogistics .com or our Instagram or Facebook pages. Both are PFP Logistics. If you do a contact us on the website, I actually get the email and then I’ve got other people that filter through and will respond to them faster than I will. But if you direct it to me, it will absolutely get to me. And then the social media, I don’t monitor, but it would eventually get to me if you wanted my attention.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:48.071)
All right, last question for you, Hampton. I’m curious how you see your industry evolving in the next five years. What do you think the big changes are that are coming?

Hampton (01:10:57.346)
I think AI and robotics will play a big role in that. go to conferences every year to, let’s say, scope out my competition of what robotics are coming. And then I’m working to try to work with a group because the robotics aren’t there yet in our industry where they can handle, it might be like 5%.

of what we’re doing and there’s not a real efficiency gain and it’s still really expensive, but it will, as we know, the exponential learning rate of technology, I think get there. so partnering with a group like that and then finding a use for the folks that, so they can get away from just being the stacking positions. I think, yeah, robots have come a long way and they will continue to.

unload containers, you see them more and more on the floor, sorting and segregating things. I walk in warehouses now where there’s no lights on in some of them because robots don’t need lights. And it’s kind of eerie because you hear the equipment going back and forth. And then as you approach the motion sensors will know that the humans walking through and it turns the lights on, but it’s going to shake things up for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (01:12:02.387)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (01:12:15.975)
You see, you have developed a partnership with somebody in this space.

Hampton (01:12:19.906)
Nothing signed with the others. There’s a group that I’ve met over the past couple of years going to these conferences and we’ve stayed in touch there. They were in development. Now they have a physical presence and are doing some freight. They have capacity issues. We talked about SKUs and case counts and weights of product handled. The robot can’t handle 100 % of it. And so we’re working with them to say, all right, well, and you also need some someone there if the box comes in smashed or it’s not.

how it’s supposed to look like as you know happens a lot. So they can do what the robot can do and then also support the robot when something’s not right and then we’ll take the other business that the robot may not have the capacity to unload today. So again, it’s not a combative thing. I look at a lot of people in the industry where they’re threatened by the technology and robots and you know ultimately I don’t.

want to sell something I don’t believe in. so I don’t think that’s a sustainable thing either. Probably a pretty bad job trying to sell something that doesn’t work. So if I can help them and they can help me and we can eventually just solve the, provide the best solution together for the end user, that’s kind of my goal.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:37.181)
Well, it’s a fascinating space, the AI and robotics coming together. It’ll be very interesting to keep an eye on. Hampton, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Hampton (01:13:41.748)
you

Hampton (01:13:49.826)
Sure. Yeah. Thank you, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:51.923)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.