Woody Richardson | Transportation Procurement Mistakes

Freightvine

This week’s guest is Woody Richardson, former executive at Schneider. Woody was in the trucking industry for 40 years - all at Schneider. Before retiring in 2021, he had held multiple leadership roles including Revenue Management/Pricing, Sales, Logistics Transportation Procurement, and many others. He recently published his book, Roads Rarely Traveled: Avoiding the Biggest Mistakes in Truckload Purchasing. Based on his decades of work with literally hundreds of shippers, the book outlines the 13 biggest mistakes that a transportation procurer can make. In our conversation, we'll discuss just three of these mistakes: #5 Thinking size has an advantage, #6 Thinking that a commitment of carrier capacity is a guarantee, and my favorite, #8 Being enamored with ‘paper savings’. We could have talked for an hour more on related topics - but these three give you an idea of Woody’s perspective on transportation procurement. Unsurprisingly, we do not disagree too much on this topic! I encourage any professional working in this space - whether as a carrier, a shipper, or a broker, to consider buying this book - it has incredible insights.