Building Logistics Partnerships Through Flexible Warehousing With Dave Gutierrez

Dave Gutierrez is the Vice President of Sales and Business Development at OLIMP Warehousing, a digital marketplace connecting businesses with flexible, on-demand warehousing services and logistics support. He leads sales strategy, develops customer and warehouse-partner relationships, and helps freight brokers, carriers, and shippers solve urgent storage, cross-docking, rework, and distressed-freight challenges. Dave brings nearly 25 years of logistics experience spanning freight brokerage, shipper operations, labor management, and supply chain leadership.

Here's a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [6:28] How Dave Gutierrez moved from radio advertising to freight brokerage, management, and shipper-side logistics

• [11:07] Why strong relationships are more important than offering the lowest possible rate

• [13:09] What OLIMP’s on-demand warehousing platform solves for freight brokers

• [21:47] Advice for turning small projects into long-term opportunities

• [26:59] Managing scope changes when customers omit critical details

• [29:53] How duplicate warehouse bids create price competition 

• [34:59] Dave talks about using trade shows to build trust and expand OLIMP’s reach

• [45:47] Dave’s leadership philosophy, mentorship focus, and creative outlet through film essays

In this episode…

Warehouse disruptions often begin with an urgent need: a rejected load, damaged pallets, temporary overflow, or a missed delivery appointment. At the same time, nearby facilities may have unused space, equipment, and labor ready to help. How can logistics teams quickly and reliably connect available capacity with the right freight problem?

Logistics sales and warehousing expert Dave Gutierrez suggests combining an efficient digital marketplace with knowledgeable account support and trusted provider relationships. Faster sourcing starts with collecting accurate project details, maintaining complete warehouse profiles, and matching each job to facilities equipped for its specific requirements. Dave recommends that warehouse operators clearly document their capabilities, certifications, rates, and preferred services, and consistently deliver on smaller projects to earn consideration for larger programs. For shippers and brokers, choosing the right operational partner — not just the lowest bid — can reduce delays, unexpected costs, and scope-related disputes. These practices create a more responsive and dependable approach to flexible warehousing.

In this episode of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, Mark Hiddleson talks with Dave Gutierrez, Vice President of Sales and Business Development at OLIMP Warehousing, about how flexible, on-demand warehousing helps solve urgent logistics challenges. Dave explains how the platform speeds up warehouse sourcing, why complete provider profiles matter, and how strong relationships turn small jobs into larger opportunities. He also touches on leadership, networking, and creative writing.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc.

• Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc. contact phone: 707-732-3892 

• Mark Hiddleson on LinkedIn

• Mark Hiddleson's email: markhiddleson@aol.com  

• Dave Gutierrez: LinkedIn | Email

• Dave Gutierrez’s articles in the Midwest Film Journal

• Manifest

• G&P Construction

• Mike Gorey on LinkedIn

• Nick Gorey on LinkedIn

• Bobby Walker on LinkedIn

• Supply Chain Social Club

• The Supply Chaney Podcast

• “The Power of Intentional Networking in Supply Chain and Logistics With Katie Date” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast 

• Tell Me Everything

• “Carrier Vetting Best Practices: How To Protect Your Freight From Fraud With Danielle Spinelli” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast 

• “Building Connections and Community in the Supply Chain Space With Nathan Chaney” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast 

• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't by Jim Collins

Quotable Moments:

• “You can charge a fair rate for your service if you’re adding value when you…deliver it.”

• “You got to lean on that relationship and say, you know, we’re going to figure it out together.”

• “You should get paid for the time and effort you put into having that food grade facility.”

• “You make relationships for the sake of the relationship, not to try to get business.”

• “But when you get to know people and get to make real meaningful relationships, the benefits come naturally.”

Action Steps:

1. Complete your warehouse profile: Adding current rates, certifications, operating hours, and service capabilities improves your chances of receiving well-matched opportunities.

2. Build relationships through smaller jobs: Delivering reliably and following up with account and operations teams can lead to consideration for larger programs.

3. Confirm the full scope before quoting: Asking detailed questions early reduces unexpected costs and helps prevent disruptive changes after work begins.

4. Compete on value instead of price alone: Matching each project with the right operational partner produces stronger outcomes than automatically choosing the cheapest bid.

5. Network with genuine curiosity: Learning about people and their businesses creates lasting relationships that can naturally develop into referrals and opportunities.

Sponsor for this episode:

This episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions Inc.

Listen...

I have been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades. I know I don’t look that old, but it's true.

We provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide.

So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs Rack, Shelving, Carts, Conveyors, or Mezzanines, we help with....design engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs to help clients optimize their logistics operations.

Sometimes people don’t even realize that we can actually help with permit acquisition services.

We take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually improving your operation.

To learn more, visit specialracks.com or give us a call at (707) 732-3892. One of the best ways to learn more about our products and services is to follow us on Instagram. And there’s a link on our website to do that.

I will even give you my personal email address for podcast listeners, so email me at markhiddleson@aol.com if you’re ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level.

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Episode Transcript:

Intro  0:01  

Welcome to The Tao of Pizza, where we feature top logistics leaders, entrepreneurs, and supply chain innovators, and share their inspiring stories with a holistic twist.

Mark Hiddleson  0:14  

Mark Hiddson here, host of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, where I talk with top industry innovators in the warehousing, logistics, and supply chain business with a holistic twist. Now, before I introduce today's guests, this episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions. Now, I've spent decades building warehouse systems that actually work, and after several conversations with clients and peers at Manifest in Las Vegas, one thing is clear: innovation only matters when it shows up on the warehouse floor. At Specialized Storage Solutions, we provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide. So, if you have a facility that needs racking, shelving, carts, conveyors, or mezzanines, we help across the full life cycle: design, engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs. All focused on real throughput, real people, and real constraints. And here's something many folks don't realize: we also offer permit acquisition service. Yeah, we handle the red tape, so you don't have to. We take a holistic view of your entire supply chain ecosystem, blending physical infrastructure with modern thinking around automation, flow, and adaptability to help our clients continuously improve, not just install and move on. To learn more, visit our website at specialracks.com or give us a call at 707-732-3892. And just for podcast listeners, I'll even give you my personal email, which is markhiddelson@aol.com. Yes, I still use AOL, and yes, I'm proud of it. So if you're ready to design warehouse systems built for where the industry is going, not where it's been, drop us a line. And one more thing before introducing Dave Gutierrez, I have to give a big thank you to G&P Construction. They enable commercial real estate owners, brokers, and operators to execute complex warehouse DC transitions fast, clean, and with fewer surprises. They're one of our best relationships and strategic partners. They even let me hitch a ride on their jet from San Francisco to Vegas for Manifest, and met Dave at their happy hour. So, shout out to G&P, Mike Gorey, Nick Gorey, and Bobby Walker. So today we're joined by Dave Gutierrez. Dave is the VP of Sales at OLIMP Warehousing, a flexible on-demand warehousing platform. He has an MBA from Loyola in Chicago, and a much less useful BA in creative writing from University of Illinois. He's been in and around logistics for almost 25 years now, including with some of the big brokers and as a shipper, Dave, welcome to The Tao of Pizza.

Dave Gutierrez  2:48  

Thank you, thank you so much for having me, Mark. I like that my bio that I wrote made it sound like you're running down my BA in creative writing. I felt

Mark Hiddleson  2:55  

bad. I trust what I said, and I think that's creative writing. I think it's useful. I think it's very useful, especially nowadays where you know email and written communication is such a big deal.

Dave Gutierrez  3:08  

Yeah, absolutely. I spend a ton of time sending emails and being a good writer has never never hurt me in that process. So absolutely, but yeah, that was funny. I didn't see it that way when I wrote it down. That's a nice one.

Mark Hiddleson  3:26  

Yeah, thanks for throwing me under the bus. But you know, the first time I read it to practice, it sounded fine, but it was just the two of us. But yeah, the issue of retraction. I also want to give a shout out to Mickey and Miriam from the OLM team. I met them at Manifest as well, and at the same happy hour.

Dave Gutierrez  3:45  

That's funny. The last thing Mickey said before I hopped on here was tell Mark hi I was gonna I was gonna do that. So absolutely, Miriam is on spring break, so she's enjoying herself. Ah, but yeah, it was a good, great manifest. It was our first time there. I had a really good time. Got to meet lots of cool people, yourself included. Those social events and networking events were fantastic for making contacts and getting to have a conversation outside of a business setting with people about who you know kind of who we are and what we do.

Mark Hiddleson  4:15  

Yeah, and a lot of the more real conversations happen, and when it's not the breakout session; those are great. I mean, I learned a lot, and I've been, you know, I've been in learning mode my whole career. But it seems like the last few years everything's accelerated quickly. The tagline I think is the future of the supply chain is here. It's like we're no longer talking about what's coming. It's it's here,

Dave Gutierrez  4:41  

absolutely. And I mean I've been doing this long enough. I joke with the younger guys in my office sometimes. Like when I started doing freight brokerage, I was still faxing rate confirmations to drivers at truck stops. Like they would, I'd talk to a guy on the phone. He'd say, Yeah, I can do that. I can do that load for. I'll call you in a half hour when I get to the truck stop. You can fax me a rate confirmation. Like we've, we've really come a long way to now. You know, everybody's got an app, and you just click a button, and yeah, it's cool. It's cool to see. It's been cool to be a part of, and you know I'm happy I've gotten to you know I guess have my career in this time frame when things have changed so much and technology has changed so much. But if you'd told me 25 years ago when I started my career that I'd be working for a digital freight marketplace, helping people place warehousing jobs, I would have none of that would have made sense to me. That nothing about that would have made sense to me. So yeah, it's been really cool to see.

Mark Hiddleson  5:43  

I remember figuring out that the whole contract warehousing, or I call it three PL third party logistics. I think in the industry, third party logistics is more trucking. But you call three PL, and a lot of trucking companies have warehouses. So the word but contract. I've been disciplining myself to say contract warehousing because if you haven't heard of it, it actually makes more sense. What's going on? Is it multiple companies sharing? You know, companies have warehousing as their core competency, and then multiple clients in one building. So before I dive in, I got some. I have a ton of questions I want to ask you about OLIMP and your system and what makes a better three PLs and relationships and all that, but how did you get into this? I'm curious about your background. You're in Chicago, but how did you get into logistics?

Dave Gutierrez  6:28  

Yeah, great question, man. And like so many people who end up in our business, who end up somewhere around the logistics business, I had no idea. I didn't know anything about it. I had sort of come out of college. I had a little bit of aptitude for sales. Like, all right, I'll try to. And I hadn't finished my degree, so I was a little limited in my options. And I was like, I'll go back to school eventually, but let me figure this out. So I went and I sold radio advertising, in which you talk about a dying business. I sold radio advertising for like a year and a half, and then I saw this. I was looking for a new job. I saw this posting for you know anyone with sales experience, no education requirements, no degree required. Like, cool. I'll call and find out what this is about. And it was at C H Robinson. Talked to the recruiter, and from the first conversation I had, like, man, this sounds like a cool job. Then I get to the office. I sat down. I started learning about how the whole business works and how to book trucks, how to talk to carriers, negotiate rates, and man, I loved it. From there, it was sold. So I worked my way up into management eventually, and then went to work for a shipper for a while as a director of logistics directly on the shipper side, which was really cool. That taught me a lot about. I had already had the trucking knowledge, but that taught me a lot about warehousing and labor management, and I was over the whole logistics operation, not just book and freight rates. And I learned a lot there. And then I spent some time with another big broker before I landed here, and so it's been a really cool thing.

Mark Hiddleson  8:03  

Yeah, and share a little bit more about what you mean by shipper because that's one of the things. I had it a few weeks ago. So the manifest, the people I met at Manifest, I've hosted Katie Date, who is executive vice president, and she was Miss Manifest, and I asked her this question: Is what people really want to get an introduction to the shipper? The shippers are kind of there. We're the magic, right? That's the goal. So share a little bit with our audience, so they don't know what they mean by shipper

Dave Gutierrez  8:34  

for sure. And that's me thinking like a freight broker still, right? And that's our customers as a freight broker were shippers, meaning whoever was the, if you want to use legal terms, the beneficial cargo owner. But whoever's arranging that shipment, that truckload that's got to go from point A to point B, is the shipper. So when I say I went to work on the shipper side, I switched from being a freight broker and negotiating with carriers and trying to sell to the you know logistics manager or director supply chain that type to being a director logistics and being responsible for setting that pricing and arranging those actual shipments from I worked in a bakery where they were making and freezing you know hamburger buns that needed to ship out every day, so that yeah for me that that shipper side is is really it's the manufacturer or in some cases, it's a retail store or an importer, but it's the person who's responsible, the company that's responsible for setting up those shipments and actually paying the bills. And yeah, Manifest. I'm sure every broker there is looking to talk to the shippers. Those are the people they come out to see. So yeah, I do miss when I was a shipper at Christmas time, I'd get packages from all my carriers, and it'd be you know bottles of champagne or or expensive scotch. Like was really cool, and now I'm back on the sales side of it, where I'm sending that stuff out to people instead. But yeah, being a shipper is fun at those conferences.

Mark Hiddleson  9:59  

So if. So yeah, because they're the sought after, and then we're. I was thinking like we're a shipper. I go, we're probably shipping. I don't know what it depends on year to year, but I'll bet you we do over four or 500 loads a year. You know, flat bed.

Dave Gutierrez  10:12  

Yeah, and now you're going to have every freight broker who sees this calling you looking for business. No, yeah.

Mark Hiddleson  10:19  

So we use Tammy at B 2b transportation, and I, you know, with that, there's so much value, and I want you to share. We have, you know, over the years in savings, I've developed partnerships, and they're not necessarily the cheapest guy on the streets, but hauling, racking, and everything conveyors, we do used equipment. It's a different business. All businesses are kind of different, but we have a gal called Tammy J, and she is relentless. She is following up. She gets all the information up front. She chases things down. So, what did you learn? There's a difference. It's huge. You know, I am getting calls from people every day on all your stuff. It's going to be tough for me to switch because there's that relationship. So, share a little bit about that, and how you learn what you learned on the shipper side and the broker side. How's that translating into success? Absolutely,

Dave Gutierrez  11:07  

and I mean it's the same skill set in a lot of ways. In my current job, I've got customers, I've got relationships I need to maintain. It's all about being that trustworthy partner. What you're talking about with your friend Tammy is exactly the right approach, right? Learn the business, learn what you need to do to execute successfully. You can charge a fair rate. Everybody knows we're all here trying to make a living. You can charge a fair rate for your service if you're adding value when you deliver it. And a lot of that is about making those real connections with the people, even even in a short conversation, but just being able to understand what it's going to take to get that particular shipment done, and what are the details that I can think of before you have to tell me and explain to me, you know, that this is important. What are the things I can think of and look smart and ask you those questions, that kind of thing. But relationships are the key. I wouldn't do this job if it wasn't for the relationships. And even now, in a slightly different role, now a lot of my customers are freight brokers. So instead of calling on instead of calling directly on shippers, a lot of times I'm calling on the freight brokers, which is a little bit of a change for them. But it's absolutely about that relationship again. And one of the things unique for me in my job is having spent so much time on the freight side of it. I know what I'm selling. I know what we're offering. We haven't gotten into it yet, but what OLIMP does for our customers is a service I needed 20 years ago, sitting on the desk as a freight broker, right? So, if I feel real comfortable talking about that with my freight broker friends, and using that to back up that relationship, say, hey, like you know me, you know how I do business, but here's a thing I can help you with. Here's a way I can help you save some time and money. It's really been a cool experience to leverage that relationship building in a new role in a new business.

Mark Hiddleson  12:59  

So that's helped you with your clients because you know both ends of this the the broker the shipper and then now so share exactly what OLIMP is is doing for clients yeah

Dave Gutierrez  13:10  

absolutely so OLIMP is a digital marketplace for flexible on demand warehousing and what we mean by that is a couple things six years ago our founder started the company with a real basic idea, and that was he had been in trucking. He owned some trucks and trailers, and he had a small warehouse that he used for some consolidation, cross docking type jobs. He's looking at his business and saying, "Okay, I've got two problems. One, half the time I look around my warehouse and I've just got guys holding up brooms, sitting on forklifts, waiting for something to do, and two, I've got trucks out all across the country with problems. You know, a couple of pallets are tipped over here, or we missed a delivery appointment. We need to store some products in a warehouse. He's like, if it was here at my warehouse, no problem. I could restack those pallets. I could store this stuff for a couple of days, but it's not. It's like, but somewhere there's a guy in L.A. who's got the same problem I do. Got guys standing around with nothing to do. Could use a couple 100 extra bucks today. How do I connect those dots? So he built our platform from the start six years ago. Originally, almost more like a straight up like Expedia. Like you swiped your credit card before you chose a warehouse. You chose the warehouse then from the list, and we sent it out, but as we grew, we learned from our customers, and you know, you listen, you take feedback. That a lot of our customers are those freight brokers, right? They're the ones who are dealing with those mistakes, those screwed up loads, right? And they wanted a little bit more explanation with it. They wanted a little bit more of an account manager, somebody to help make sure they had all the details right, so we took the technology and and you know pushed it up the chain a step, right? We still have a really cool technology platform that helps us collect quotes from our warehouses on a job board similar to the load boards that freight brokers use for carriers to bid on on loads, but. Warehouses can bid on jobs. That helps us be faster making those solutions for customers. But on the customer side, you've got a web platform where you can enter your information for what you're looking for and get a quote back, typically in under a half an hour. But more and more as we streamline those relationships and speed things up. Sometimes as little as five minutes. Sometimes, sometimes instantly. We have you know warehouses, some of our preferred partners who have saved rates in our system and say, yeah, if you just need a cross dock in my area within you know if the customer is willing to bring it here, here's my rate. It says you can bid on my behalf. We'll take the job. You have my, you have my hours and I'm open. You go ahead and send me that truck. That means you, as a customer, Mark, could put in a request for warehousing and have a quote like that. You say, hey, I need a 12 pallet cross dock in Chicago, and you've got a quote on your desk as soon as you hit the button. That's really pretty cool for me. Like I said, I needed this when I was a freight broker. It used to be all right. Grab the intern and tell the intern they need to Google and find a warehouse in you know whatever Green Bay, Wisconsin, to cross dock 10 pallets because I don't know what else to do. And they're just calling from the phone book. And then when you finally find a warehouse, you've got to set up an account. You've got to explain who you are.

Dave Gutierrez  16:19  

And you know, it's one thing when I was at C H Robinson, a big company. But if you're, you know, a relatively small, little known broker, like they're saying, okay, well, I need payment up front. I need to, you know, I have a lot of rules here. I got to follow this stuff. Well, we cut out a lot of that red tape. We save you a lot of that time. It's a really cool platform, a really cool system.

Mark Hiddleson  16:40  

So what are you? So, you've got public warehouses or contract warehouses that are using your system. They're putting, and so you're saying it's a recommendation to be the best use of their system. If you know there's things that are coming up, value adds that you can do, whether it's a cross stock or a repack or reload, and/ There's certain to set up a profile in your system. So, in all of your public warehouses, how many of them are taking advantage of that, and how many could improve by upping their information?

Dave Gutierrez  17:15  

It's a great question, and part of it is that we're constantly rolling out new features. So, even our best partners, we have to go back out with marketing, and that's Miriam's job. We talked about right through our marketing through our warehouse team to go back and explain. Hey, you can do this now. You can save a rate for this service now. So we're we're I put that on us. We're pushing that out to those teams. But yeah, right now we work within our system, we work with around 6000 warehouses, but only I think 700 or so have completed their profile fully, where they have some saved rates and they've got stuff on the system. And that sounds like a lot, but when you think about how big this country is, right? Yeah. You know, one of the big differences between our job board and and like a load board is warehouses don't move. You're you're you want to get all the jobs in Memphis, Tennessee, or or wherever your warehouse is. So you want to get set up with your profile as completely as possible, so that you're getting first shot or you're getting a good look at everything that comes through your area, because you can't just like scan the board and say, "Oh well, there's a although we do have a couple warehouses, but say, 'Oh, there's a job in Las Vegas. Well, I'm in you know Central Ohio, but I'm going to click the button anyway and put in a quote. If that truck wants to go 1200 miles, we can do a cross talk. Not as useful, but yeah, the platform is really cool that way, and I like how we, when I was a freight broker, dealing with carriers was always about squeezing that carrier, right? It was trying to get a little bit more or a little bit less on the rate, just a little bit less on the rate, keep pushing them down, because that capacity moves around the market. But for warehouses, I don't want to do that. There are definitely warehouses with relationships, and there are definitely times we go back and say, "Hey, customers telling me we need to be at this rate to make it work. But that's kind of a shared thing between us. Say, "Hey, if we want the job, this is where we've got to be. But I don't make money by beating up warehouses for their rate. And on our platform, they don't pay to be a part of it. There's no subscription fee. We don't take a cut of their money. We operate in more of a straight brokerage model. You give me a rate for this job. I'm going to add a little bit for my service, and that's what I'm going to quote my customers. So the customer's paying my margin, not the warehouse. And I feel like that's a good outreach to the warehouses because yeah, you're bidding on the job. You're bidding what you want to do the job for. I'm not coming back and saying, "Hey, you said you know this was going to be $5 a pallet, but I need you to be at $3 a pallet. No, you say it's $5 a pallet. Cool. I'm taking your rate and I'm selling it to my customer, and we're all going to make some money on it. So, yeah, it's a it's a it's a it's a good setup the way that it works and. And we're able to again use a lot of that relationship stuff in there to keep those jobs flowing. You know where they need to go. We get between 80 and 100 opportunities a day for jobs. Most of them in that distressed freight.

Dave Gutierrez  20:18  

Like I've got some rework, some restack, some short-term storage type work, but we also see more and more as you talk to these warehouses are trying to get set up and and more involved in the platform. We see more and more big projects. Customers say, "Hey, I need to store 2000 pallets for six months to a year. It's not enough where they're going to go to a contract three PL all on their own and necessarily get what they need, especially if it's, you know, say it's over three cities, right? We can help with that too, and we've found a real niche there. It's good stuff.

Mark Hiddleson  20:54  

That's beautiful because that was what I had because I knew this interview was coming up for a few weeks. I talked to some of my three PL friends, and they're on your platform. So what I hear, I think reaching and being proactive from the contract warehouse side. If you reach out to Miriam, I mean, she could call you, and she will be, but reach out to her, say, "Hey, how's our profile? Maybe talk about some of the projects where you have a specific niche that you can really perform well. You know whether it's shipping to Costco or Walmart or Reworks or Repack and putting your strengths in the system, but also sharing it with Miriam. And then one of the questions I got is, and he started to allude to this. There's two questions. One's a little bit harder than the other one. So how do you get more of them? How can they evolve for more of the bigger programs versus the quick turnaround stuff?

Dave Gutierrez  21:47  

That's one of the most common questions we get right because that's what we all want. It's great to fill a couple hours and get you four or 500 bucks for doing some quick work you know during a day. But everybody's saying okay, but yeah, where's that 2000 pallets? Where's that? Yeah, where's that 50,000 square feet I could take up, right? We want more of that too, and we're we're I've got a sales team now that's focused pretty aggressively on going out after that kind of business. So there's more to come to the platform in that area. But really, the best advice I can give there is what you just said. Form relationships with my team, with my operations team. Make sure when you're doing even those small jobs, you know, pick up the phone or send a quick email just to hey, thank you for the business. Not you got to thank me for the business, but that opens that bridge up to talk to somebody and start a little bit of a conversation because that is what happens. It's a natural result of human relationships, right? If I get a job in a market and I'm looking at our list of warehouses and three of these guys I know really well and three of these guys I've never worked with before, I'm I'm going to reach out first to the three warehouses that I know really well and I've done business with, right? So it's a little bit of a snowball. You got to build on it. Now that said, and this is the hardest part of my job, we don't always win the project. It's not that on some of those big opportunities. It's not that we gave it to another warehouse necessarily. It's that the customer decided to go a different direction, or you know, like all of us in the business, sometimes we sort of feel out for a pricing opportunity, but it's not, it's not real yet. You know, somebody's just testing the water, seeing what's out there, and you know, I've got to treat all those like shots on goal and take them seriously. But it's it's hard, disappointing for me when I have to go back to a warehouse that I worked real closely with to build a program and say, yeah, we've got a solution for this, and then come back and say, "Hey, sorry, they turns out they're not actually going to look at this until spring of 2027. Like, great,

Mark Hiddleson  23:49  

yeah, yeah. Kicking tires. We don't have time to kick tires, but like you said, I treat them all as if they're going to as if you have to because shot on goal. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Gutierrez  24:00  

Well, and it's that relationship piece again. Even you know, with a customer, it's yeah. You helped me when I was looking for a little information, and now I've got something real, and I'm going to go back to you. So, but yeah, that's a it's a good and it's a fair question from our folks, and I can I can tell your tell your warehouse friends you know who are on our platform we are actively working and searching out more and more of those bigger opportunities as they can come up, because that's the stuff that's the most interesting, the most exciting for us too. That you know helps us, it helps us grow, but it helps us connect with a new level of customer too, a different, different type of customer. It was one of the funniest things I learned at Manifest. Actually, I was talking to some of the shippers out there and realizing that there are companies that are big enough that what to them is a throwaway kind of project. Like, oh, I'm stuck with you know 3000 pallets I got to store in three different cities in Texas. They're like, this is a pain in my neck, but. For me, I'm like, that's three warehouses that could get you know six 800 pallets that would be thrilled to help with that kind of thing. Bring those this way. Let us take a look at those kinds of projects for you because yeah, we're flexible. We're on demand warehousing. You don't have to sign a long term contract. You don't have to agree to a minimum. You don't have to go through all the hoops you would jump through to set up that building to do that, you know, for yourself, even for a manufacturer or a shipper customer. There's opportunity there, and we want to bring that to our warehouse partners.

Mark Hiddleson  25:32  

Yeah, that's great, and I can't believe I wanted to mention what you're doing. You're mentioned four or 500 bucks, and I do. I know clients they've said they've done. I can't believe you can do anything for 500 bucks. Like I think, if I've got a problem with my truck, like I'm automatically thinking, oh, this is 2500 bucks because no one's going to get out of bed for less than that amount. So the fact that you can make things happen like that, it shows that it is really streamlined, automated. You're helping people develop. It's their excess capacity, like you said. There's no more, you know, exactly.

Dave Gutierrez  26:00  

I wouldn't expect them to make a living on that all day long, every day. But it's that's it's that stuff where it's like you could do this if you've got people available and you've got a dock door and you've got the time to do it. Like you could do this and have a couple $100 or not. Yeah. And at the end of the day, most of us would say, "Yeah, give me a couple 100 bucks if I had. I'm hell, pull a truck up to my garage. I'll respect a couple of pounds. That's what

Mark Hiddleson  26:22  

I was thinking. If you do 20 a day, if it's 500 a day, it's 20 days. That's 10 grand. That's like that's serious money, right? So

Dave Gutierrez  26:29  

absolutely. And then if you're on the platform and you're seeing all those jobs come through, you know, it's a thing it can add up for you.

Mark Hiddleson  26:36  

I love what you're saying. So let me go. These are the tough, these are the tough journalism questions. So how do you vet the programs? And this is something I hear from a lot of people. Like I put in my own words, a lot of time the program you're pitching it doesn't match when it comes in. How do you guys vet? Is one question, and then, but my question is, how do you deal with that? Knowing that all the vetting in the world, you're still going to have exceptions. So,

Dave Gutierrez  27:00  

Both things are good questions, and we're getting better and better at the intake side of it on the customer side. And what I would tell, what I tell our warehouse partners when I have these conversations about specific projects, is the same thing I'm going to tell you. It's a lot of times with our customers, it's the first time sometimes they're looking for a warehouse solution. Right? This isn't. It's outside of their normal point of view. Now, that's not true for the big shipper. Sometimes they just don't give you all the information up front that you would need because they're treating this like a quick thing, and they just want a quick quote. And it's like, well, yeah, but I need to understand a little more. And we're getting better pushing back on those. But we do one of our most common new customers that come through our marketing platform and arrive in our system. One of the most common types is small new brands, right? It's somebody who's just started a brand of hot sauce or just started a you know a company that's making cabinets, whatever, right? And they're looking for warehousing for the first time in their business life, and that CEO might not, you know. They're also their CEO, their director of logistics, their director of custodial services, and also, you know, that guy who's got to lock the doors at night. It's different. So we have to educate them, and that's where OLIMP has to step in and be the expert and say, okay, well, these are the things I need to know to make this work. But I can tell you, it's happened even with. We'll give specifics, but we even have an order with a huge multinational chemical company, where the scope of work changed abruptly in the middle of the job, product already in the warehouse, and then all of a sudden they say, "Hey, actually, this is hazardous material, and we need to handle in a different way. We're like, that's a huge deal, guys. Like, that's not that's not just a oh, you know, we want the palace loaded chimney block instead of straight in. This is a big change to what we're talking about. We were able to manage through it, but that's one of those cases where they threw us a curveball, and I got to sit down with my warehouse partner and just say, man, I'm sorry. Like me, I didn't know that this was coming. I didn't have a good way to tell you. And we got to work through it together. But again, it'll be the theme of the day. You got to lean on that relationship and say, you know, we're going to figure it out together. I'm not trying to screw you. You're not trying to screw me. The customer's really not trying to screw us, they're just under informed or not sure of the details until it's too late, and we've got to deal with those problems when they come.

Mark Hiddleson  29:28  

Yeah, yeah, that's a great answer. So another question from the industry: I guess a lot of these projects go out to bid, and you started to allude to this before. You don't get every project. What I heard from one client is that a lot of times they'll see the bid from you, multiple other players, and then the actual client themselves. So what? How does that all work?

Dave Gutierrez  29:51  

We have made some steps to try to limit that from our side, right? But we can't, we can't keep them. Customer from bidding it to whoever they want, but what tends to happen, and again, this is sometimes a customer who's looking for warehousing outside of their normal flow of work, even a you know logistics person or somebody who's in the industry, but they they'll reach out to their broker friends, their freight brokers, their people that they have relationships with, and then those people are-they're good salespeople and they're good creative thinkers. And they go, "Oh, I don't have a solution for this. But instead of telling my customer I don't have a solution for this, I'm going to tell them I can figure it out, and I'm going to go to OLEP and ask them to quote it, because there are sometimes we get those jobs from two or three different sources also, and then we have to tell everybody, "Hey, we've already seen this scope. Here's how we're quoting it. It's the same for everybody. Here's what it is. I mean, it's the same problem. When I was a freight broker, you would look at certain lanes on a bid, and you go, "Okay, I've bid this lane for the restaurant chain whose bid I'm looking at right now. But I also bid it for the food service company. I also bid it for the manufacturer of that stuff, and I also bid it for a four PL that manages over the top. Is like I've bid this thing four different times, four different ways, and so as everybody else who's seen this bid in a business like ours, it tends to be so price focused because I I know from having sat in that seat when you're on the shipper side or the manufacturer side, your boss is screaming constantly about cost. You're a cost center. They want your cost to be lower. I remember telling my boss years ago, like I can't move the freight for zero. That's at some point we'll stop going down. Yeah, that's that. And that's what happens. They put those bids out and they go to everybody. We're trying again. My job as the vice president of sales here is to lead my sales team and get us in front of those to where we're getting them first and exclusively, right? When a project like that comes in, I can say you don't have to bid it out to everyone you know. I will bid it out to everyone you know. I'll make sure to manage all of those, and that'll help me. I can help you choose exactly the right solution, not just the cheapest solution, because that's part of what happens on those jobs where the scope changes. A lot of times, it's about the cost. It's like, oh, you don't. They don't realize that some of those details have additional cost, or worst case scenario, they do realize that some of those details would carry additional costs, but once you've committed to the job, it's really easy to to you know push those next things out. So we're trying to get ahead of that and solve for it. And my hope is in you know another five years, OLIMP is the place that people go to for this stuff. As we build our brand and we've grown significantly every year we've been in business. We had a great year last year. Eventually, we're going to become sort of synonymous with this flexible on-demand warehousing space, and hopefully, our warehouse partners won't have to worry about seeing the bid from five different people. They're just going to see it from us because they're going to know that we're the place to go for that kind of business.

Mark Hiddleson  32:59  

Yeah, and I think this is a smaller new brand. I wrote it down because I think that's huge. That's the way to get the bigger projects. I mean, that helps answer the question: How do we go from these smaller one-offs to the bigger programs? It starts with somebody small that needs certain certifications. I know a lot of one of my good friends, Chris Murphy, here at Pacific Warehouse Group. They've got BRP. I forget what they're all called, but they've got them all AIB, and they have all these certifications.

Dave Gutierrez  33:27  

That's huge. Well, and that's another, like best practice is on our platform. Get those certifications in. We have a place to put what your certifications are, because yeah, I worked for a food manufacturer, and I had to be in an SQF or AIB certified facility, so even if I needed cross docking or just a couple of days storage, my QA person was saying, "No, it has to be in a certified warehouse because that's part of what we sell our customers. Is that we're always in these certified food safe facilities? Like, cool, but yeah, make sure we know about it so that we can again correctly target you with the right kinds of work. Make use of those. Those are your value adds as a warehouse provider, as a three PL. Like that's where you're adding value for everybody. Capture that because we'll help you charge for that. You should get paid for the time and effort you put into having that food grade facility. Let's find stuff that fits that and make it work.

Mark Hiddleson  34:24  

Yeah, this is awesome. So I want to change gears a little bit. But when you guys went to Manifest, you had a booth. It was really cool. Actually, I got a trucker hat. I was looking forward to getting two really cool trucker hats at Manifest. One says Manifest 26, and it's got like a sign, like a highway sign, and I love manifest as multiple meanings, right? Because like a shipping manifest, then it's manifest as the creation in the future. But the all-imp one was cool too, trucker hat. But what was your goal when you went there? You know, what did you want to get out of of the investment of the time the

Dave Gutierrez  34:59  

people? All about it's all about brand building, right? We know that we targeted that show specifically, and we've targeted a couple others this year. I know I'm going to draw a blank on which ones, but where we saw a good confluence of shippers, but also our freight broker customers. Like I got to visit with some of our best customers there because they had their senior leadership there to meet their customers, which was great. Get everybody in one place, but also just to build visibility. Right, the other big group that was at that show was our warehouse partners. I got to talk to I don't know where else I can go and talk in-person with maybe 20 or 25 different warehouses than there are platforms. Get feedback about the platform. Get feedback like these questions you're asking me. Like I, it's just a really unique opportunity to be in one place and have all those people able to find you. But yeah, we found some really cool new customer possibilities there too, where people are walking around and they stop at the booth. What's flexible on demand warehousing? What do you mean? And you know, I end up talking to a guy who's starting a business importing coffee. He's like, you know, I'm having trouble finding a three PL home because I've only got one container a month. Like, well, I can handle one container a month.

Mark Hiddleson  36:15  

Is that I have? I

Dave Gutierrez  36:16  

have a guy who will do that for you. Like, let's set that up. What that Natan,

Mark Hiddleson  36:19  

right? His name was Natan.

Dave Gutierrez  36:23  

Yes, we talked to Natan. Yeah, there's like, there's, there's a good opportunity out there for us if we can get our name and what we do out there. And that's the biggest thing is I, there's not a whole lot of there's not a whole lot of competition in our space right now in this flexible space, and what there is is you know a few years behind us in the development cycle. We need to get out and run with it. So trying to get in front of more, get the name and the concept out there in front of more people is really the goal of any of those things. And you know talking to somebody like you is a perfect example, right? We don't have an exact synergy. I'm not going to be able to buy racks from you. I don't. I don't have my own buildings. I don't have my own warehouses. But I know a lot of people in that business now, right? And you may not have, you know, you're shipping flatbed loads. You certainly don't need me to help you find warehouse friends, but you might have connections. You might have somebody who comes to you and says, "Hey, I need this, and you're going to go. Oh, yeah, that's right. I talked to Dave about this. This is something OLIP warehousing could help with, and that's how we build a brand. That's how we get name recognition and use that network and those networking opportunities to really build business and build business relationships. Because, I mean, I tell my salespeople all the time, like having a friend in the business is never going to be a bad thing.

Mark Hiddleson  37:43  

Yeah,

Dave Gutierrez  37:44  

and you have to be genuine about those relationships. You make relationships for the sake of the relationship, not to try to get business. Everybody can see through it. If somebody's just kind of you know kicked up trying to be a you know just wait for their turn to talk and to pitch you on their product, nobody wants that guy at the party, right? That's no fun. But when you get to know people and get to make real meaningful relationships, the benefits come naturally.

Mark Hiddleson  38:11  

Yes.

Dave Gutierrez  38:13  

But you also get the benefit of getting to meet cool people and have cool conversations and feel like a decent person when you go to bed at night. Like I'm just I'm out here getting to know folks and and talking about what I do and finding out about what they do. Like that's the important thing. Like let's not I don't know let's not focus so much on how to get your hand in that guy's pocket. But

Mark Hiddleson  38:32  

yeah,

Dave Gutierrez  38:32  

just what are they about? What are they? What's their business like? What's their life like? That I don't know.

Mark Hiddleson  38:38  

Yeah, one of my mentors was always famous for always giving out his business card. He was always asking for people for business, and I'm like, if you know me long enough, you get to know me. You know the kind of person I'm. You're gonna know what I do, and then hopefully you're gonna want to give us referral businesses. And then and then sometimes the other thing is the pitch, pitch, pitch. In our business, a lot of times I'll talk to somebody for five or 10 minutes, I still have no idea. I've heard the pitch. I know it's B2B, the B2C with the layer of the tech stack, the A B C, and I'm like, okay, what does that mean? What's your ideal product? You know,

Dave Gutierrez  39:15  

Why does that matter to me? Yeah, like when who are you? Like what? Right. What are we? What are we even talking about?

Mark Hiddleson  39:21  

And the word algorithm is in there sometimes too, and brands. You just put all those words. It's the

Dave Gutierrez  39:29  

I love to hate things with LinkedIn because LinkedIn's a great platform for business networking. It's harder than social media like Facebook or Instagram. Like I don't want to be, I don't want to be friends with clients on Instagram. That's your personal space. That's your own life, like, but the love hate part of it is like, yeah, like especially now in a vice president position for the first time in my life. I was a director before. I was promoted to vice president when I got here. It's weird how many people see that title and reach out to me to sell me stuff, and like they're they're. Selling me shit I don't need or want or care about, and then I send some of the worst ones to my sales team and say, "Hey, don't ever be this guy. Don't ever be this girl. Don't ever be this person who's sending in a you know an email this long that doesn't even address what I would use this product for. Shows no knowledge of what my business is like. It's just terrible slop spam all the time. Yeah, but you can cut through that. There are good relations. I've got friends on LinkedIn. I think you may have met Jen Morris from Ship Happens. She's got a newsletter. Does some video stuff. A lot of sort of reporting. I'll introduce you on LinkedIn if you haven't. She was at the show. We've been friends for God 15 years, and way back to our C H Robinson days. Perfect example. She's just a cool person to talk to. We have had the opportunity to introduce each other to people that were good business contacts for other reasons, but we don't have any actual business together. She's in the media side of things. I'm in the warehouse side of things. But I would never pass up an opportunity to hang out and you know grab a beer and and catch up on what's been going on with her business because it's this way of being a good person. That's what's important.

Mark Hiddleson  41:18  

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. That's what the podcast started with, I had no, I didn't even listen to podcasts five or six years ago. But I started listening to them because I was getting coached by people. Say, hey, if you want to learn about X, watch a podcast. Or somebody who's an expert, you can hear them for 20 minutes. You can learn what might take you weeks to learn, and then somebody suggested I do it myself to make a contribution to the people who've made a contribution to my career, my clients, my strategic partners, my suppliers, and it's a lot of fun getting to know. I was a doubter, but you know, I have a coach. It's like, well, you're paying this coach whatever amount. You better do what they're suggesting. But it turned out they were right, you know. And there's and then at Manifest, I started. There's kind of a group like Nathan Chaney. Do you know the Nathan Supply Chain podcast? I met Danielle Spinelli. I've had her. She's the Tell Me Everything podcast. She's the Frog Girl from. She's with a Day Card now. She's with Gen Logs. But anyways, it's a lot of excitement for people that, like you said, they're the other thing. They're passionate. The people who want to come on the podcast, the people who are hosting podcasts, they're not just like, okay, this is a job. I get paid to show up and then do the best I can. They're like, no, I'm on fire, you know, for this. So, what are some of the other ways you're connecting? I just did a Supply Chain Social Club. I would have never thought Zoom was a great idea either. But I'm amazed. So yeah, I did the Supply Chain Social Club with Nathan. What are some of the other ways you're connecting to networks besides LinkedIn?

Dave Gutierrez  42:59  

That's a great question. So mostly these trade show events and focusing. So when I was younger, and I would get sent to trade shows for like brokerage stuff, it was always like I'm going to go stand at the booth, hope nobody talks to me, and then get up to my hotel room and relax and not have to do any more of this, right? My approach as a you know more seasoned person, like I what do I have to lose? Like I'm going to go to every happy hour, I'm going to go to every event I get invited to, every trade show that we can afford to, or you know, get into the budget and make sense for us to attend. Let's just get out there and talk with people. I'm also on the advisory council for. You mentioned I went to Loyola for my MBA. I'm on the advisory council for their EMBA program, which is a really cool way for me to give back to that program, which I really appreciate. But also a really cool opportunity to just meet people and network with people from that school who are in all kinds of business. Like you said, it's really cool to sit and talk to somebody and learn about what they do, even if it's got nothing to do with my business. If I can spend 10 minutes learning something new about I don't know advertising or or chemical you know chemical engineering I don't know whatever like it's it's cool stuff so I do a lot that way yeah that's pretty much it I'm I'm a shake hands kind of person I do a lot I do. I spend a decent amount of time on LinkedIn, just trying to interact with people and build relationships that way.

Mark Hiddleson  44:28  

Yeah, I've been doing more of it. I would just be the last. We kind of started in 2020 when I wasn't able to go out and visit with people and meet you know of big meetings to use LinkedIn and the podcast as more of a venue, you know, to reach out, and I like it. It is you who gets the pitches, and I want to write a post to everyone who wants to pitch me. It's like I've got 80 episodes of the podcast, but you look at any one, or just look at the list of them. You could kind of know what business we're in or who we're interested in, and then if you are going to pitch me, at least. There's enough content out there that you could figure out if it's a good fit or not, you know. And then, and I had some good pitches on LinkedIn, and actually there's one I met G and P. Well, I actually met Mike Dory at LinkedIn. You know, I was following him on LinkedIn. He posts a lot about value. He's not posting about racking and so on. Mine's kind of the same way. But it's like these are my values. I'm a father first, you know, and and like people, I'm like I like this guy, and I mean he's kind of in a business that's a little bit of a competitor, but somebody I want to know, get to know, you know, and maybe and then as it turns out, there were projects we could work together on the West Coast. I needed him for a project; they needed us for something else. So, but it started out as just like, hey, this is an interesting guy that I think his values are in the right place.

Dave Gutierrez  45:47  

Yeah, and that's really cool. And it goes back like my favorite thing about my work has always been the leadership aspect of it. Like I like selling, I like logistics, I like all those things. But some of the most rewarding relationships I've had, some of the most rewarding professional moments I've had have been around mentorship and management and like leading people and helping people develop and I just like I get that same vibe on LinkedIn. Like I don't want to necessarily hear your pitch. I want to hear who you are and what you're, what you're doing and how are you managing your growth, how are you managing your personal you know career path? That kind of stuff. All that said, I can't bring myself to read a business book. Like I got an MBA, and I still like that I just can't do it. Every time I get you know 10 pages into I don't know good to great or whatever, and I'm rolling my eyes and falling asleep like I just I can't send

Mark Hiddleson  46:42  

I'll send you a copy of mine that is not a business book. It's perfect. It's the same as the podcast, but it's more fun to take. It is kind of my take on personal growth, and I call it spiritual growth because it's creating what's possible. You know, say the word spiritual, and then everyone runs for the dark. Yeah, sorry, Mark. I'm losing you. Tech problems. I'm out. Yeah, I had a friend of mine that I've interviewed on the podcast. He's a second generation IBM executive, and I asked him for feedback on my book, and he said his final thoughts were. He goes, he goes, Mark. It's a love offering. I was like, wow, because he's a super high tech, you know, IBM. But he was on the human side, and I was up singing. I go, you know, it is, it is love. But the audio version is coming out. It's me reading it, and there's going to be a little AI.

Dave Gutierrez  47:38  

Nice.

Mark Hiddleson  47:38  

There's an audio version. I'll send you the audio version when that comes out. I won't since you don't like to read. I love

Dave Gutierrez  47:45  

I love to read. I just can't read business books, but yours sounds. If you send it to me, I will absolutely read it. I read all the time. Like I still write some. I am writing to a couple of friends of mine. I was a film minor back in my college days 100 years ago. A couple of friends of mine are professional movie critics, and they have a website they use, and they let me write essays from time to time. So I've got like 20 essays on their site about different movies. They do right now. They're doing a theme month on Kurt Russell for his 78th birthday or whatever, and I wrote an essay about Tombstone. Like so, I still love to express myself that way. So I'm full of admiration for the fact you got you sat down and did it and wrote a whole book and got it published and all that. I would absolutely read that if you tell me where to find a copy.

Mark Hiddleson  48:36  

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. I'll get your address and then what's the name of the What's the name of the movie the website? We want to be able. It's it's

Dave Gutierrez  48:44  

called Midwest Film Journal. MidwestFilm journal.com is where you can find my take. I should warn anybody who happens to listen to this. The thing I've done there that was the most popular was a back and forth argument with one of the other writers in essay form. I don't particularly like Tom Hanks. I'm not a big Tom Hanks fan, so we did a back and forth about why I don't like Tom Hanks and why he does. So, but it's the thing people always come after me about when I talk about these things. What What is your problem with Tom

Mark Hiddleson  49:15  

Hanks? What

Dave Gutierrez  49:17  

Can I say? I wrote 2500 words about it. You go read them. Ah, yeah, it's

Mark Hiddleson  49:23  

well, I love that information

Dave Gutierrez  49:24  

for anybody who gets out there and and just puts something down, like because we're not just we're not just working, right? Like this is your whole life, and if you're going to spend eight hours a day, five days a week on something, and then treat it like it's just a drag on your existence the whole time. Well, you still got to pay the bills, so you may as well enjoy it. You may as well try to make the most of it. And you know, even the job I have now. When I interviewed here, the first thing I said to our CEO at the end of my interview was, "Man, this is such a good idea. It's." Such a good idea! This business, like me, I can't believe it didn't exist or didn't really exist before this. And I would love to be a part of trying to get this out there and sell it because, like, man, it's just it created something really kind of new in the marketplace that didn't exist before. How many times in your life do you get to do that? Like, yeah, that's pretty cool. So yeah,

Mark Hiddleson  50:25  

yeah, the flexible on demand aspect of it, and the fact that you guys are able to to couple people up, and that is the hardest thing in this business to get the right partners working together to do the right project. So, I love what you're doing. I love your creative writing. I would do a full retraction on the useless creative writing, especially now. But you got me on that one. You know what? I read those ahead of time for a reason. But Dave, I can't believe we're running out of time. Where's the best way you want people to mention? We'll have it in the show notes. I've got the MidwestFilmjournal.com. We'll make sure we have a link to that in our show notes. But what's the best way to get in touch with you or learn more about your work at OLIMP?

Dave Gutierrez  51:07  

So olimpwarehousing.com to put in request for any quotes that you need, and then please feel free to email me. It's dave.gutierrez@olimpwarehousing.com. You can reach out to me directly, customer or warehouse. Anybody who wants to talk about our business, learn more about what we're doing, I can certainly help you or connect you to the right person on my team to help you out. And yeah, Mark, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk. You're just this has been a blast. I also didn't realize we were coming up on an hour already, but great time talking to you, and really appreciate the opportunity. So hopefully, we get a chance to connect more. If nothing else, we'll see you manifest next year. 

Mark Hiddleson  51:47  

Awesome, thank you, Dave. I'll see you around.

Dave Gutierrez  51:51  

All right, have a good one.

Outro 51:53  

Thanks for listening to The Tao of Pizza Podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.