Part 2 with Shawn McLeod

**Shawn McLeod** (0:00)
I don't feel like I have any heroes from the past, other than my mom probably being the biggest one for me. I never thought about the things that I've touched on in life, and how that probably made me better.
But now that we talk about it and look back on it, I'm like, man, I can pinpoint instances in my life that probably do make me the person that I am today.

**Paul Sponsia** (0:28)
Welcome to the Made Right Here podcast. This is Paul Sponsia with the IT Company, and I am your host. Today we've got episode two with Shawn McLeod, president of Axle Logistics, and we're gonna hear about moving to Axle, actually questioning that move, if it was the right move a year in, and really having to trust himself and earn the trust of others.
And then just moving here in general, and taking a chance, leaving his family in Virginia for a short period of time. And in general, you're just gonna really hear the heart of Shawn, for his family, for the business, for what he's learned, the humility he's gained as he's built this business, and just what that has meant to him, and what it means to his team. So have a listen. Episode two with Shawn McLeod from Axle Logistics.

**Shawn McLeod** (1:18)
So for the next two years of Axle, I worked hand in hand with them to understand the culture, and they gave me feedback on those things. And I knew that I just had to run with it then. I could do whatever I wanted. There was no red tape.
They had some investors that helped them start the company. They bought them out in 2017 because they, that's old mindset. They ran an asset, Axle's a brokerage, asset players can't run brokerages. It's even today, you can see it.
So, you know, those gentlemen were out of the picture pretty early on.

**Paul Sponsia** (1:50)
When you say asset, meaning like a Schneider, you own trucks.
You're not a broker who's brokering hundreds of companies. You're just LTL.

**Shawn McLeod** (2:00)
They have equipment and full truckload trailers, and they did dedicated business for a couple of different customers.

**Paul Sponsia** (2:08)
And those businesses are very different.

**Shawn McLeod** (2:09)
And you, a brokerage, you have to run sometimes at smaller margins or lose money on shipments. And you really don't know your operating ratios because you don't have assets that you know the cost per mile and the cost for a driver and stuff. They didn't see eye to eye. And so they were fortunate to be able to buy them out. And we just took it to the next level, but it wasn't without some headache. Now though, I think John told me a few years ago, I remember a year in, they weren't sure that I was the right person.
And I wasn't sure I was the right person because we had only grown 10 million in the first year. And I wanted a heck of a lot more, and obviously they did too, but I had a lot of struggles. You know, I'm the new guy.
I'm number 23 There's a, they had employees that probably wanted that role I was in.
So then it was hard for me to get to understand this team as an outsider. And I just had to prove myself. Whether it was brokering a shipment cheaper than they've been brokering it to show that, hey, you listen to me, I'll make more money this way. If you just do these things, you had to earn their respect. So for the first year, it was all about earning their respect. And then in year two, the first year we grew a little, by the end of that year, things were going well for the most part. But going into year two, it was in order to keep the culture the way you want and really grow, we've got to make some changes from a personnel perspective. And they didn't like it, but they knew it as well.

**Paul Sponsia** (3:43)
This is what you mentioned here in 17, having to make some...

**Shawn McLeod** (3:46)
Yeah, you had to make some changes.
Internally, you got to make some changes to keep the culture because there was some negativity there and negativity never works in a fast growing business. So they agreed and with their help, we made these changes. And then I hit the road. I just started seeing every customer that we had. For those next two years, I traveled nonstop. And for me, it came back to the OCD thing again, right? I hear what you're saying about the relationship, but I want to hear it from the customer. And so outside of one specific customer that Drew had a great relationship with and I wasn't going to interfere there, they were blowing up and the account manager and the salesperson at the time is fully cradle to grave. So if you sell it, you develop it and you run it, you operate it. He's a badass and he still works for this today. And he's over our business development group.