Logistics are a nightmare right now. Docks are backed up for days. Parts for trucks aren't available. Incentives for workers are at an all time high because labor is in short supply. Now more than ever, great service makes a big different. Pearl Ausch, COO of First Choice Shipping shares my same enthusiasm for serving clients and we dig into the difficulties of running a business right now.

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Michael Maher  00:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Longer Game podcast where we talk about retail, we talk about etail. I don't think anybody's calling it that. But eCommerce, we talk about Amazon, we talk about all different kinds of retail. And one of the biggest aspects of retail is how your products get from one place to another. And I have a really special guest with me. I say that about everybody. I probably shouldn't have told her that. But her name is Pearl Ausch, and she is the head of or the founder of First Choice Shipping. Is that correct?

Pearl Ausch  00:35

So I'm actually the Chief Operating Officer. Same thing. So yeah, very close to the head. Very close.

Michael Maher  00:43

I did that with someone on the last episode. I was like, I think you're the CEO. I didn't look that up. Alright. I didn't know the name of his business. It was it was piss poor. 

Pearl Ausch  00:51

Oh, okay. 

Michael Maher  00:55

That's about tell us about First Choice, a little bit more about yourself and what you do.

Pearl Ausch  01:00

Sure. So basically, we're Amazon global expansion specialists, so sellers that are successfully selling in one market with Amazon, typically in the US market. And they're looking for another way of growing their business except, you know, aside from just getting another product launched, and you know, we're expanding our portfolio or going into a different category, they're able to take their existing portfolio, existing categories, existing product, and they can expand their business by going to other locations, and Amazon has a presence. Actually, Amazon has 18 Different marketplaces throughout the world, which I think, you know, a lot of a lot of people don't know about. And what we specialize in, is to help you with everything needed to logistically be able to ship your product to those marketplaces, that Amazon offers the FBA model as well. So the same exact way or the way you're selling in the US, let's say, where you ship into Amazon's FBA locations, and then they fulfill it from there. Amazon has the exact same model with the UK market, Canadian market, you know, mentioning these marketplaces that are English marketplaces, just in terms of like, you know, showing the feasibility and you know, the ease of actually making it happen. But,

Michael Maher  02:18

there are a lot of marketplaces that are opening up constantly. Turkey, that opened recently. 

Pearl Ausch  02:23

Oh a Singapore. These are, these are some opportunities that people don't know about. So basically, what we do is we, we help you from A to Z to be able to ship into those locations, which includes us like product approvals, the proper labeling the licensing, the proper registrations and tax registrations, things.

Michael Maher  02:40

There's a lot of stuff if you want to expand internationally.

Pearl Ausch  02:44

Oh, you bet. And that's the reason why people don't want to do it, they're afraid. So, yeah, so we basically sort of, you know, take overall red tape, and sort of hold your hand and tell you, you know, this is actually possible. And, therefore, Amazon's number one recommended provider for this service, where if a seller wants to expand globally, they would introduce them to First Choice Shipping, and then we would take over from there and actually make it happen.

Michael Maher  03:09

How did you get to that place where and it probably was just a lot of small steps in the right direction. But how did you get to the place where Amazon was like, Hey, if you want to expand internationally, go to First Choice Shipping?

Pearl Ausch  03:22

Yeah. So wow, that was like, you know, good 5-6 years ago. So it's such a, like, corny sort of story. But basically, we've had a few of our clients were at the CES show in Vegas, you know, like the big electronics. So Amazon has a lot of their, you know, reps that are helping sellers expand globally, or, you know, they tend to reach out to them and say, Look, you doing a great job, but massively let's go international. So Amazon sends a lot of these reps to the CES show, just to have, you know, conversations with I guess, potential clients meet up with these sellers that are doing you know, really well already. And the met some of our existing clients, and they said, you know, we're struggling with some other people to get them onboarded, and you guys are just, you know, doing it. And, you know, what, what is it? What's the secret sauce? And they told them about our company. And you know, we were this tiny little company in Brooklyn that like, literally 12-1300 square feet, like, five of us. And we got an email from these Amazon reps that night. I remember I was still in like zombie land at that time where I was working crazy hours, you know, you at this point, I'm much better with balancing my time. But literally, I got an email right there in Vegas. So three hours earlier, in the East Coast. I'm in New York. I got an email probably like two-three in the morning. And I asked him about email. Let me tell you, we got onto a pool the next day with them and we showed them you know, What our process looks like what our software looks like, and the usability of creating little shipments, and the rest of this say is history. So we started, wow, a team, where they, you know, they literally introduced sellers to us that they're scouting. And then one team from them led to another team and the Canadian team reached out, and then we reached out, you know, from there to the rest of them. And, you know, when it came to, let's say, launching recently in the UAE, in Singapore, we actually work together with Amazon to build a model out on how people will be able to ship into those location. So it's, we went from that tiny little company, still the same culture philosophy, but you know, we really, really, were able to take it to another level, and it's, it's been a crazy ride, it's been amazing.

Michael Maher  05:47

I don't think that's a corny story at all. And a lot of times corny stuff is true. Or like, you know, the anything worth having is, or takes, you know, takes a lot of work, or you can't have your cake and eat it too. I mean, there's a lot of those, like cliche things that just end up being true. And that's a lot of times when people say them, but I think what, you know, a lot of people think, Oh, it was that chance meeting that made it happen. And I would argue that was the last piece of the puzzle, you creating a system and doing your job really well as a service company, or as a SaaS company. That which it seems like it's a combination of both based on my experience with working with you. Now it was doing that job really well. And then someone just happened to take notice that said, Hey, we've got a lot more things to bring your way.

Pearl Ausch  06:40

Wow. Yeah, you're you're so right. I think that they were very pleasantly surprised. Like you said, usually it's either SaaS word service, right? And here, we sort of saw that, like, there's no way it can, it can be only one.

Michael Maher  06:55

True

Pearl Ausch  06:56

the shipping industry is very, it's a very old-fashion industry. And service is typically not something that people are accustomed to, when they bumped into this, where, you know, service for me is literally the number one thing like nothing else really matters. And, and customers know that, you know, the customers really know that about us, like whatever they'll reach out for. They'll, they'll get help, you know, we just have so,

Michael Maher  07:23

My agency reaches out to you all the time. And you, you and your team respond and respond quickly. And you're always super, super helpful. And so I'm like, talking to you know, when someone on my team, it's like, Hey, we're thinking of expanding to Australia, and I'm like, alright, you know, the drill, like, let's reach out to First Choice and see what we need to do in order to get there. 

Pearl Ausch  07:44

That's awesome. Yeah. So yeah, for them there was like, you know, this is like, he can't get better than that. So as we continuously, you know, branch out and try to see what else we could do. It's if it cannot be both, then we won't offer it like we were offering services by sea at one point. And then we saw that technology wasn't developed yet. We just stopped that service. And we say we're just going to offer what we're good at. And then when our technology is ready, we'll put it back in, you know, back into the portfolio. But yeah, I agree with you that we're combination, definitely a combination of both.

Michael Maher  08:22

What the heck is going on with logistics these days? Now, granted, this is a week before Thanksgiving for US listeners, it'll come out later. But what's going on right now? I'm hearing. I mean, I'm being a little facetious. But, you know, what is? There's a lot of stuff in the news, it's talking about supply chain. We have a lot of clients that are having issues, what is this hot mess that you're likely having to step into every single day?

Pearl Ausch  08:55

It's a disaster. So we specialize in shipping by air, right? So it became bonkers right now because people, people are shipping things that they never drunk, they would ship by air like toys, right? Toys is something that's very dimensional. It's it takes up a lot of space. But it became an impossible situation where you really just have no visibility on what's going on. So there's there's a shortage of containers, the prices are astronomically high, which, you know, to be quite honest. And frank, you know, based on insider information, there's a lot of gouging, a lot of price gouging. And really, you know,

Michael Maher  09:39

part of what I was thinking was leading to the increase in costs because of shortages but keep going.

Pearl Ausch  09:46

Yeah, so so basically what happened was is, you know, just to give you an example of, you know, what I mean by gouging, and again, we don't over shipping by sea, but I have a lot of friends in the industry and I know what's going on in that regard. So

Michael Maher  10:01

you're very connected by the way I would say. 

Pearl Ausch  10:04

I have no problem like saying it because we don't offer it. So I'm not burning any bridges. But this is actually what's going on. So there was there's two different kinds of see options, there's either you could do a guaranteed, or it's like, whatever is going to be available, like you could choose, I forgot the name of offhand, but it has, it has two names. Um, and a few months ago, when the rates started going up crazy high. These Chinese suppliers were saying, you know, to, to their buyers, so you could choose between these two, it's either guaranteed space, or you could see, you know, you could secure a space, but it might work and might not work. And obviously, the guaranteed space option was astronomically high. Realize that everybody's paying for the crazy rates anyway. And without anybody even realizing that option of you know, just securing something that's not guaranteed, sort of like rolled away. And then that's crazy expensive, was the only option and people were still paying for it. So which left no, no choice, but the rates went up like crazy. So if you're going shopping, I know personally, like my groceries right now have gone up considerably. But you know, I'm obviously gonna have to keep buying those yogurts for my kids. I'm not gonna,

Michael Maher  11:24

you know, kids aren't gonna eat the other yogurts. They already know.

Pearl Ausch  11:29

For the next one after she just finished one. You know, I buy like these pull ups like the squeezable. They have like, literally like, I don't even know what's inside, like a few ounces. But they love it. So it's like one of the next one after the next and, but the prices are insane. Like, I don't know what's going to be right now. I don't know, I have no answer, you know, with inflation and all that it's sort of a disaster

Michael Maher  11:54

Well, in changing. Just speaking about kids, at least my daughter notices. What is this? Like? This package is different? What? What's up with this? What is this different color on this package? Like they noticed stuff like that. And it's harder the older they get, I feel like the more they notice it. And so she's like, why does this container look different? She gets very skeptical. It's like, oh, it's the same thing. Just go ahead and eat. But it tastes different to her, you know, quote, unquote, I mean, it could really have a different flavor. But a lot of times it's like, yeah, I don't know about that.

Pearl Ausch  12:30

It's a different, It's a whole different world right now that we have to learn how to navigate. And I don't know what to answer you except for we're hoping that by the summer, things should settle down. And you know, people are becoming a little bit more creative on how they're dealing with how to get these, these shipments out from the port. Like there's, there's a big issue where chassis, there's a shortage and chassis. And you know, for the listeners that are listening in chassis is basically like the bottom of the truck with oils on them. So there's a shortage of that. And that's why a lot of these containers are not getting transferred in and out of the yard. So literally what's happening right now, instead of like taking it off the conventional way, where it stays, and they wait, you know, a few days until people unload things and whatever. They're starting to, like take these forklifts and just lift off these containers, which is totally not the way it should be. Yeah, but that's how these freight forwarders are trying to, you know, improvise. Because now they're saying that for any day that you're not picking your container up, you know, Zims just came out and they're

Michael Maher  13:35

Yeah, $100 right, or something.

Pearl Ausch  13:37

That's just insane. That's just insane. So, and guess what, you know, once they see that people are paying for it. The other ones are going to jump on jump on board as well, because that's basically what happened with the shipping industry right now. You know, if you look at their earnings, the last quarter were insane. And yeah, right. So they're sort of trying to make up for the losses that they had the year before. Sure. And I think they're making up for quite a few years. It's not they're not making up for that year anymore. Let me tell you,

Michael Maher  14:05

they've already made up for COVID. Now they're making for the past like two *inaudible*

Pearl Ausch  14:09

sort of like, yeah, it's it's insane. But, you know, Biden just put in that new 24 hour, you know, limit where they were going to just be open. Yeah. Speaking to the, to the truckers and everybody and, you know, the industry, they're saying that sort of is not going to make any difference.

Michael Maher  14:32

I was wondering how that was even possible to say it's going to be 24 hours, because if there's if there's also a labor shortage, right, it would be very difficult to say, you know, then we got people I mean, some people like overtime, some people want to do that. But that's not everybody.

Pearl Ausch  14:48

Right now. I just wanted I just want to point out another thing that people don't realize, but a lot of the truckers are in the older bracket older. Yes, right. A lot of truckers are in the 50s or something 60s, and they are not going to work, you know, 24 hours a day? And I don't even know if it's humanly possible for anybody to do that. And, and have a mind because there was a shortage. They're getting inflated salaries right now. So all these incentives before this mandate was put in was already implemented. So there's nothing, you know, when people heard this announcement, they sort of were like, you know, very funny. Are you gonna just like create new people? Like, well, what's the plan? You know, have robots? Yeah, like, so they're saying is sort of a little bit too late for this idea. But, you know, it will help eventually, but not in time for Season. That's, that's the unfortunate, unfortunate situation that they're in right now.

Michael Maher  15:51

When some people so some people have supply chain issues in that they are there's a certain maybe ingredient shortage. And I don't know if that was because the pandemic changed a lot of things. But it's hard to, for me, it's hard to say, Okay, you have an ingredient shortage because people bought a lot of this product. And then there was an increase in demand. And now, we aren't able to keep up with the demand. Like I'm a, I'm a big bourbon fan. And companies like Buffalo Trace didn't expect, because bourbon in the 70s 80s. Even 90s was like, oh, that's grandpa's drink. And it's become more popular now. And so they, you know, a lot of their products, they age 8-10 years, or their stuff that used to be on the shelves, no problem. Well, now it's, it's flown off the shelves so much, that states have to allocate certain bourbons and say, Hey, you're going to get two of these, or you're going to get three of these, they'll hold them behind the counter. And people will say, Hey, do you have any E.H. Taylor, hey, do you have any Eagle rare? All these, you know, all these different kinds of bourbons, and they'll get them but they, you know, there's only so much, you can't really accelerate the aging process the way that they're doing it. So something's aging there for eight years. And you're on a supply in four years. What do you do? I mean, there are options, but it's not gonna be the exact same thing.

Pearl Ausch  17:11

Yeah, exactly. It's an issue. How about the cars? I mean, the car industry right now. They're, they're not able to produce cars, because a small little chip shortage like the computer, the car, it's crazy. Like,

Michael Maher  17:25

Why some? So let's break something like that down. Do you have? Like, do you know why that ship is short right now? Or why there's short supply of those chips.

Pearl Ausch  17:34

So I heard reports where they thought because of COVID, there's going to be less of a demand. So there weren't producing fast enough. So yeah, so basically, it caught up with them where, you know, it sort of became like a mad dash of people buying things. You know, eCommerce, you know, for example, right. A lot of people are at home and you know, they're renovating, redecorating their houses, and people were just like board and buying things versus taking a step back, which I think I think they just did not project properly. And yeah, now there is labor shortages. Now there is all that backlog that a lot of factories are just saying they're going to be closed for like another few months. Like there's nothing they could do about it. So,

Michael Maher  18:23

I mean, I've seen produce restaurants saying, Hey, we're discontinuing our lunch service. Because our we're not we don't have enough people. So we're gonna focus on dinner service, or it was the other way around. I've also seen, we, my wife and I had at our house, we wanted to get a screened porch. And a couple years ago, we got it quoted. And I think it was like 15-20 grand, we're like, Okay, well, like that's, I guess, somewhat reasonable. But we don't, you don't want to really want to spend that money right now. We went and got it requoted at like the end of last year, and I kid you not. It was like 50 grand, was the same exact stuff. And that part of that's because there's some lumber shortages. But that's also because demand is higher, so they can charge more. I don't know how true this is. But I heard that, you know, some people last year during the pandemic, or ordering pools because they're like, we're at home, like you said, they're just at home, they're spending they're like, we want to do everything we can to make our home the best place because we're here all the time right now not thinking long term. And so being able to put in a pool was not possible until like, the summer of 2021. But I'm like, I feel like people would eventually say I'm going to get off the waiting list because I don't want to pay this much or it's not as big of a deal, but it seems to still be a problem for some items.

Pearl Ausch  19:45

It's crazy. If there was everything, everything has a shortage. Amazon came out with a report saying that they're going to have everything and they're fully stocked. So let's see. Let's see what happens. I mean, I didn't order any Hanukkah present early this year was like whatever happens, happens. And yeah, but you go into the malls, like I was just in a mall on Sunday, the lines are insane, like we just walked out. And like, we're not going to wait. So it does seem like there are a lot of early shoppers this year just because of the hype that went all around it. Okay, which I get people I get it, you know, it's it's the time of the year people want to celebrate and be happy and they're finally able to get out. So but you know, you started off saying about retail. In the beginning, it definitely seems like retail is is booming. I'm curious to see what numbers will come out after Q4.

Michael Maher  20:38

I don't I always one of the things that I appreciate about the pandemic is I had worked retail at some point. And there seemed to be this increasing focus on starting Black Friday sales early, earlier and earlier at midnight. Now at 6pm. On Thanksgiving, now we're open all Thanksgiving Day. Well, that means somebody has to come in and work Thanksgiving Day. And they don't potentially get to be with their family. And it's and it's one day, I knew a couple days out of the year, your employees are going to be happier if they don't have to worry about working those. But big big companies were starting to say let's be open all the time. This is a great idea. We're going to earn so much more revenue. And I think the shift towards eCommerce and some stuff of the pandemic said, Hey, we're staying closed on Thanksgiving this year. We're staying closed on this day. I don't know. I haven't seen a lot of commercials for stores right now. But that was one of the things I appreciate it was because there was a lack of demand. They actually said okay, let's not require people to come in. Because, you know, it was I don't know if it was a they did it because they were trying to be great employers. It just was a cost savings. Like we're not gonna make enough to *inaudible*.

Pearl Ausch  22:06

They were not being good employers. Yeah, well, yeah.

Michael Maher  22:08

A lot of people. Yeah, well, and now a lot of people didn't think that working remotely was gonna work. My agency started in 2016, remotely, and everyone on my team is across the world. So that was not an issue for us when COVID hit. And all of our brands, we did have to pivot a little bit. But pretty much every single one of them grew, the only ones that didn't grow, just ran out of money, or they didn't want to keep moving forward with the brand. Every single one of them grew and some of them grew, you know, incredibly well, because of that huge increase. And I've seen a lot of brands say, Well, I haven't seen a lot of brands say this, but I've seen the brand saying you know, we want it we want to get on Amazon, we want to get on Amazon. And one of them that was a CPG food brand that was really, really in-store focus said COVID was a wake up call that we were not visible on Amazon which, which when we think about Amazon, I you could say eCommerce as well. Amazon just happens to dominate the eCommerce sector taking up 40% of of all eCommerce sales. And so they get a lot of the focus when we talk about visibility, and people use it as a product search engine, yada, yada, yada. But more people were like, Hey, we we can't solely rely upon brick and mortar locations to drive sales because we don't, not that or expecting another pandemic. But each channel has volatility sellers that we work with that are only on Amazon, we say you need to have your own Shopify store. Let's see what other channels we can get you into because there are volatilities with Amazon

Pearl Ausch  23:52

100%, see my grandmother, I have a seventy year old grandmother and that was her go to place throughout the pandemic, she figured out how to order on Amazon. And that's where everything came from. And her local grocery developers app, she started ordering from there. And guess what, she's still doing it now. You know? Yeah. So that, you know, it's easy. It's great. And you know, they deliver she struggled in the beginning for a little bit and I guided her through it. And you know, she's doing great.

Michael Maher  24:20

So I was looking for statistics on because I felt the same thing, that we were seeing an increase in sales and eCommerce, not just because people couldn't go out. But there was greater adoption across all kinds of, you know, age groups of people, and I couldn't find information on that. But I'm just going to say that this anecdotal information that you share with me proves that the thing I was saying is right about everybody, even though I don't really

Pearl Ausch  24:45

Exactly. A report from the community over here in Brooklyn.

Michael Maher  24:51

Okay. As verified my findings that yeah, all age groups are utilizing it but when people are full forced into doing something because they can't go out because of safety? Well, okay, I guess I'll give this a try. Oh, wow, who knew ordering online could actually be this easy? And it's not as complicated because a lot of times people say, Oh, I don't know about any of that online stuff. And you think technology has made it so much easier for people to purchase Amazon released in their letter to shareholders in 2020, that 28% of people are making a purchase decision in three minutes or less. Wow, 28% and 50% are making a decision in 15 minutes or less, that's changed how we look at how we're trying to monetize brands or generate revenue for brands on Amazon. Are we telling the story quick enough? are we engaging people quick enough? All that stuff makes a big, big difference.

Pearl Ausch  25:53

Yes, I just heard somebody. I forgot his name. But he was putting down the way digital marketing was, you know, 20 years ago with just an example of a Coca-Cola ad, you know, so the ad from a Coca-Cola, you know, from a Coca-Cola advertisement was slow slides. And you know, you, you look here, and then you look there, and you look straight. And then he said that the science and the data that was coming back is that as the generations continue, we are just super hyper, like, we're not focused, right? We have to be super, super fast. Like, I go on WhatsApp now. And they have this new feature where you can listen to two times speed. And it's like, my mother's in the other room listening. She just can't stop laughing like is that really how you're listening to things but our generation everything is super fast. So these Coca-Cola ads is, you know, they literally studied how fast things need to be. And if you watch an ad now, it's like, you're looking here and there and you're just like, you can't even like, like, focus, but that's the way we are right now. And while you're getting over that report of like, how quick we purchase on Amazon, it's, it's insane, because you're going to see how you know, our kids are going to be ordering and just like two seconds, probably, you know, I use now the shortcut where you could just like, you know, either get added to your cart, you could just buy now, right? I just do that and guess what, I can even be ordering multiple items. And I'm not going Add to Cart. Just Buy now buy now, it's insanity. 

Michael Maher  27:30

I still like to add up my cart and look at stuff. I've got a list of like 200 things save two in my not in my actual cart, but it's not my wish list, but it's it's in my save for later

Pearl Ausch  27:43

Right

Michael Maher  27:44

section. And then I'll you know, check out for for certain things. But I've heard stories of parents getting like, oh my gosh, what how did this red wagon get delivered to our house? I didn't order this and their eight year olds like I ordered it. Oh, okay. That's how easy it is that your kid can just get on and click Buy now and add to cart. So parents out there, make sure you either really trust your kids or put a code on that phone or face ID or something because they could I don't even think maliciously. They're just like, oh, wow, I can buy this. I don't know how money works. But wow, it shows up. That's incredible.

Pearl Ausch  28:22

Yeah. So we get like these retail catalogs like a local toy stores. That are getting delivered now before the holidays. Yeah, it will come over to me. So mommy, could you buy me this? And could you buy me that? And could you get me that? Yeah, we'll see. We'll talk about and we'll talk about what they don't get for sure enough. But they want everything of course.

Michael Maher  28:41

Oh, of course. Did you know that Amazon has a gift catalog that they're sending out now?

Pearl Ausch  28:47

Yes. You know, one of our clients. He sells like a game, a really cool game. And my team was just showing me how he was featured in the catalog. 

Michael Maher  28:57

Oh, that's awesome. 

Pearl Ausch  28:59

They were so excited. Yeah. So I sold that that's, that's really cool.

Michael Maher  29:04

My daughter went through and said, I want this. My daughter, there was like two years ago. And it was right before Christmas. And she was like, I want this. Daddy, I want you to help me write a list of the things that I want. And I got to this to the like the top of the back of the page. Because we'd already done the whole front. I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. This is just about products. And you're not even going to get all this stuff. So I'm done. If you want to say out loud what you want, you can but like you're going to get whatever it is that you're going to get.

Pearl Ausch  29:36

Oh my goodness. That's hilarious.

Michael Maher  29:38

So you mentioned something to me about. Before we go. You didn't say that. I'm saying before we go you mentioned me about running EOS at your business. And we are a lot of people that come on this podcast are entrepreneurs themselves. So, you know, tell us quickly about what EOS is and how it's helped you in your business.

Pearl Ausch  30:00

Sure, so it stands for Entrepreneurial Operating System. And basically, you know, we were struggling where, you know, firstly, the hierarchy, you know, who is doing what? And do you have the capacity, we call it, the GWC, where you get it, you want it and you have a capacity for it. Oh, you know, all boil down to where we need an account better accountability, because either somebody had way too much responsibilities, or somebody thought they had too many responsibilities, but they weren't managing their time properly. So we found we found that the EOS system is something that would really, really work with us, for us rather. And basically, the whole method around it is having every single every single, you know, task in your position, according to the hierarchy, right? There's, they have the setup where there's a visionary, which is usually the CEO, then there's Raider, which was the Chief Operating Officer, which is myself, which, you know, does the implementing, which I personally love, I love implementing, figuring out a system and then, you know, connecting all the dots and figuring out how to delegate that properly. And making sure that actually works based on right, so we each of us have our KPIs, which we call scorecards in the EOS system. And we have every single week, which is cool, what a meeting that's called the level 10 meeting, it's an hour and a half, where our C level sits all together. And there is an agenda, right, we start off where there's a segway where everybody shares something, a good thing that happened to them personally, and in the business. And then we move into, you know, we're review our scorecards, where literally everybody has their KPIs, there's a goal, and they're going to either meet their goal, or they won't meet their goals. So it's either going to be on track or off track. And then there's going to be something called rocks. So other companies will pull it projects and the system they call it rocks, were all together as a company, we this, we decide what rocks are we going to work on on the quarter, and then we divided over the, you know, 12 week period. And we then review that week, you know, is it on track as an off-track? And then if it's off track, is it an issue, and then we get to the part of the meeting, where will the ideas identify, discover itself. So we have 60 minutes, where we sit together, and we go through all the issues, we all vote to see which issues should be discussed based on what everybody thinks is the highest priority. And then the beauty of that is that you have the financials, you know, brain, you have somebody that's a great implementer, you have someone from the customer service team, that side, Business Development CEO, he read together, everybody's bring together and you're like, Okay, let's figure out solutions. And then you really get creative, and then we help each other out. And the best part that came out of is of course, accountability. But also so much of you know, the unity of the teamwork.

Michael Maher  33:02

We're working together across different teams,

Pearl Ausch  33:05

and cheering each other on so well. Another part of the agenda is headlines, where we will share something great that we accomplished, you know, somebody either had a baby, or you know, we just had a great call with Walmart and Walmart wants to work on a new program with us. And it's super exciting. And, you know, talk about them and you know, cheer each other on. And the problem what happens with executives a lot of the time is we get so caught up and busy with meetings. These are sort of purposeless, how many times you sit in a meeting, and you walk out and you're like, what did we just talk about

Michael Maher  33:37

that had been an email, could someone have just yelled that out the door,

Pearl Ausch  33:41

so much waste of time. And here you have a very clear agenda. And we actually just discovered a tool that I don't even know how I didn't hear about it was we're doing the system for almost two years now.

Michael Maher  33:51

Wow.

Pearl Ausch  33:52

Chin traction tools. So if anybody's interested in doing this,

Michael Maher  33:55

as the book is called track, the book you initially read is traction, right?

Pearl Ausch  33:59

So we actually have an implementers we have a coach, single week. He's gonna hear from me now why he didn't tell us about this. 

Michael Maher  34:06

Oh, okay. Yeah. 

Pearl Ausch  34:08

Oh, like, come on, like this, this tool is gonna be a game-changer.

Michael Maher  34:12

So from an operating Chief Operating Officer, knowing that there's a tool out there that can help you do something better. 

Pearl Ausch  34:17

Oh, my goodness. I was like a kid in a candy store when I saw that for the first time. So yeah, so really, you know, these meetings, we all walk out? Firstly, when we conclude the meeting, we each have to read it between one through 10. And the goal is not to get a number below eight. And if there is just to discover and you know, figure out why. But everybody walks out with this feeling of like, we had a great week, or I'm getting help from everybody around me on certain things. I wasn't brought up this week. And it's not about like you did a great job. He didn't really do a great job and you know, trying to put somebody down that's the case. It's about how can we help you and your

Michael Maher  34:57

Progress. It's about making progress together. There are so many people are afraid to ask for help. Because even when you say ask for help, because they think they have to know everything. And I've told people on my team, just tell me like we that's what I'm here for. We can work stuff out together. You don't have to do this alone. Yeah, it's that's and that's not fun trying to do that stuff alone either.

Pearl Ausch  35:19

Exactly, exactly. I'm always telling, I'm always telling my team, I don't want you to be perfect. I'm not perfect.

Michael Maher  35:25

Yes, exactly.

Pearl Ausch  35:27

I want you to mess up, because that's how we're going to learn. And that's how we're going to figure out what can we do different? What can we do better?

Michael Maher  35:33

And if you start making the same mistake over and over again, that's a different conversation. That's why are we continue to make the same mistake. But making a mistake in general, is not a bad thing. I think the things that that are tougher lessons for us are much. We learn a lot more from that. Because when something just works, we don't necessarily know why it worked, who just know this thing work. And so I'm going to keep going and this works. And then when it breaks, why did it break? Oh, because here's really where the biggest win was, and I didn't know that. But I ran into it eventually.

Pearl Ausch  36:09

Exactly. And, you know, mentioning that if you look back at our scorecards, right, we every single week, each raid ourselves, we could then go back and backtrack and see, you know, this week was that pinnacle of growth, this is when things started going. Or this is when things started going down because that happened. So it you know really helps track progress when you look back or even you know, when you're going forward to start learning from the past.

Michael Maher  36:34

So if people want to find you, where can they find you? Are you going to be in one of those last shipping containers? Are you going to be working on the docks? Because now they're open 24/7 if someone wanted to find out more about you, or First Choice Shipping, where should they? Where should they look?

Pearl Ausch  36:50

So they go, you know, hit me up on LinkedIn. Or they could just email me my email is pearl@firstchoiceship.com or you know, again, on LinkedIn. Um, yeah, I'm pretty active over there. Love LinkedIn, it's great, get a lot of business. That's how I got to know you. It's a great platform. But yeah, either by email or by, you know, LinkedIn and you know, happy to help or answer any questions, or direct you further to someone that can help you. That's what we're here for ultimately. Right?

Michael Maher  37:22

Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you for coming on people if you need help, spanning internationally, to Amazon, specifically, and it sounds like potentially other opportunities in the future. But reach out to Perla her team at First Choice Shipping. This is the end of the show. And that's when we stop things. So I'll talk to you guys later.

Pearl Ausch  37:42

Thank you for having me.

Michael Maher  37:43

Yep. Thanks for coming on Pearl.