Transportation Tasseography
Those that have worked with me know one of the phrases I consistently pull from the well is “reading the tea leaves”. Since marrying my Lebanese/Canadian wife, I’ve learned the parallel practice of reading Turkish coffee grounds. There is an actual name for this process of divination via reading of leaves, coffee grounds or even wine sediments: tasseography. While my job title has to do with “sales” and “transportation management”: the crux of what our team performs parallels this ancient art.
Our client engagement begins by looking at a client’s present environment, as well as their strategic goals/what they’re attempting to improve upon or divine. The art portion of this job comes with the understanding we are performing a SERVICE, not delivering a PRODUCT. If we approached every client with the mindset our solution was a widget and all practices universally applicable, we could maybe sell well enough to come up with a standardized reading/portrait…..but I don’t know how many clients we’d retain or make happy. UsE 0uR Ai Sp0t BiD P0rT4l 4nD SaV3 M0n3Y!…eh, no... Nobody takes pride in or feels special about buying a mass produced tchotchke: we want art, substance, an extension of our personal brand or desires, etc, etc, etc. Compare the value of a fortune cookie vs. a palm reading: one is manufactured in a foreign factory and the other is personalized to you as an individual.
As such, the VALUE we bring is helping clients see their future and the output of their inputs and practices. Oh you want the future? The water matters. The cup matters. The proportions matter. The temperature matters. The time spent steeping matters. Mess any of these up and you divine nothing: you get sludge.
Oh you want Transportation Management? What’s your spend? What’s your carrier mix? What’s the average length of haul for common carrier vs. fleet? What’s your average order size and velocity and how does that affect your number of shipments? What do you send to spot vs. contractual? WE DON’T KNOW HOW WE WILL ADD VALUE. WE KNOW OUR PROCESS TO UNCOVER IT.
Bring your cup. Bring your ingredients. Our job is to run our chanyou, or Japanese tea ceremony, to showcase how our process is universal, but the outcomes are totally unique. As Notorious B.I.G. says “We’ve been in the game for years”. We have a step by step booklet for you to get as it were. An RFP of random quotes doesn’t offer a solution, that’s price. That’s your grounds or cup. What happens when you zoom out to see the value extracted from the whole ceremony? Our job is to be your shaman on the tea journey: how can you come out the other side with a totally new and unique vision of the business? THAT is the job of transportation management.