Have you ever wondered what it takes to go from being a corporate cubicle to a full-service freight boss?

In this Greatest Hits episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Seretha Willingham, CEO of SJW Logistics, for a raw, strategic, and inspiring conversation about the business of freight. Seretha shares the lessons she picked up from Coca-Cola, the military, and her project management days at XPO, and how she applied them to launch a successful logistics company in 2020. Together, they explore the six pro tips that helped her grow SJW Logistics during one of the toughest market seasons in the industry: make a plan, pivot off bad ideas, leverage data, do your homework, invest in long-term relationships, and follow the process.

Seretha is a seasoned Project Management Executive with extensive experience in financial data analysis, information systems technology, and strategic planning and execution. From a career start at The Coca-Cola Company to then Project Management at XPO Logistics before founding SJW Logistics in 2020, a third-party logistics company providing best-in-class solutions, Seretha has spent a lot of time in logistics, building up extensive knowledge of the sector.

Episode Highlights:

[09:37]Drawing from her time at Coca-Cola and XPO, Seretha reflects on how studying major freight companies like JB Hunt inspired her to build a plan and why every entrepreneur should start the same way. They all had similar stories: they started slowly and then grew everything. This research was her first step towards founding SJW Logistics. Having seen companies succeed through this approach, Seretha followed the same methods, doing what she knew best and creating a project plan. She advises always planning your work before you complete it, especially in entrepreneurial pursuits.

[15:40] Often, small business owners get so caught up in the passion of running a business and the small successes that they hold onto everything they are doing, even when it’s not working. This then means that when things don’t work out, they can feel like a failure. From her work in corporate America, Seretha learned that if things don’t work out, you need to move on and not waste money. There are so many other opportunities that you need to try until you find something that works. 

[22:05] SJW Logistics recently had some issues around double brokering in the marketplace. They did their due diligence in setting the carrier up, and it seemed to be checking all the boxes, but the company they were working with was a scam. This experience has taught them to be cautious of people who want quick pay or other slightly weird things from their loads. Now, they always do their homework before working with someone else; you cannot be overly cautious in checking that everything adds up.

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