Serial Entrepreneur Megan Smith on Pallets, Poshmark, and Why Warehouse Relocation Is the Next Big 3PL Pain Point | Supply Chain Saga Ep. 020

Mark Taylor : Megan Smith, welcome to the show. Megan Smith : Mark Taylor, thank you for having me. Mark Taylor : Oh, you're very welcome. So we are here in West Palm at the BGSA show.

Both of our first times here. I want to get to how did we get here? So certainly want to hear about all the experiences and you've been a serial entrepreneur for a long, long time. And so I want the listeners to get to hear that story.

But what are your impressions of this event so far? Megan Smith : Well, we're at The Breakers. So West Palm has been beautiful. The weather's been wonderful, but The Breakers is unforgettable.

Mark Taylor : It's a next level hotel. Megan Smith : Yeah. BGSA has been unforgettable. I'm glad that I came.

Been invited for many years and never pulled the trigger, but this year it felt like it was the right time now that I'm in Florida. Just moved to Naples about six months ago. So it's right across the coast and I just drive on over, which was really cool. And I would say that I think the most profound thing about this show has been, for me, meeting people in real life.

COVID hit. I kind of took myself out of the public eye for a while just because I have kids and I'm doing my own thing. And then I came back and it's like I didn't know how people would receive me in the marketplace. And it's been really refreshing to come here and shake hands with people that I've been connected to for maybe 10 years and never met in person.

: And I'd say that the concentration of those people is very high here. It's been really nice. Mark Taylor : Yeah. My two cents is, it's that everything that you said.

And being a smaller operator at this point in time, it's the learnings that you kind of get. It's a no press thing. So I mean, these sessions are not going to show up anywhere else. And so it's like you get to hear some very interesting - Megan Smith : Very candid.

Mark Taylor : Very candid. Yeah. Megan Smith : Educational too. Nobody's holding back.

Nobody's gatekeeping. Everyone's very honest. Which again, you said I'm now in a very small space myself. And it is a room of big people.

And even if we are in small spaces, there's a lot of influence happening down there. And it gives me bigger ideas. Brad Jacobs made a guest appearance yesterday and I think - Mark Taylor : That was huge. Megan Smith : Oh, it was amazing.

And I think first of all, to see him be candid, I just felt, again, I mean, I asked a question like, "Hey, how do you maintain your humility? How do you be so candid?" Because I've tended to hold back or especially being a woman and just in a professional environment, it's like you are always on edge wondering, okay, is this etiquette? Is this appropriate?

Can I say that? Can I do this? And this conference has just really kind of taught me, be yourself, don't hold back and you have nothing to lose. Mark Taylor : So on that, how did we get here?

Megan Smith : Oh man. Well, let's see. It's been about a 20-year journey for me to get to BGSA and to this seat sitting across from you. I cut my teeth in entrepreneurship at an early age.

I was always a babysitter. So I like to say that that was my first foray into just kind of being an entrepreneur and looking at things differently. I liked making my own money. I liked having my freedom to do the things that I wanted to do.

I didn't want to ask people for permission. If I wanted to go buy a Starbucks or get my nails done, I just didn't want to be in that position. So at an early age, I figured, well, if I work, I can make money. And nannying was a great way to make money cash.

I didn't get taxed on it and they paid well. So yeah, they're going to come after my 16-year-old self. : Hey, where's that I-9? No, so it taught me a lot about just kind of doing things differently.

A lot of people are like, "Why are you nannying?" I was an athlete in college, I was playing sports, I was very busy. And it's not like you looked at the surface of, "Oh, you don't need money." No, I like money.

I mean, I like having the freedom to be able to do what I want, whether I'm a teenager or in college or an adult. And so at a young age, I really felt this sense of really, truly being a nanny was kind of an entrepreneurial experience for me to go find the family that I wanted to work with, the kids that I enjoyed. I felt like I was adding a lot of value to any family that I was going to be a nanny for. So yeah, I got paid handsomely and that was great.

: And so it kind of taught me like, "Hey, if you're willing to do things that other people aren't, and if you're very talented, you can get paid for them handsomely." So it was kind of that early onset of like, okay, I like working, I like being busy, very busy, and I like making money. And so yeah, that's kind of what brought me to my career entrepreneurship and just, I would say supply chain in general over the years is this concept of sovereignty and being an independent person.

And that's just kind of carried me through. Mark Taylor : So after babysitting, what was the next? Let's go through some of your, how did you get into logistics? Where'd you take your babysitting career?

Because I think you did some retail stuff too, right? Megan Smith : I did, yeah. So during college, I went to the University of Denver, that's where I graduated from with a management degree. And I did management mostly because I fell into it.

I had an amazing mentor and professor, Professor Lewis. I'm actually having lunch with him in two weeks. I'm so excited. I haven't seen him in 10 years.

But there are people in your life who make an impact and he made an impact on me. He allowed me to kind of write my own curriculum. I did a few study abroads that I created myself. Mark Taylor : Where'd you go?

Megan Smith : Honduras. Mark Taylor : Okay. Both times? Megan Smith : Both times.

Yep. And essentially in order to get credit for it, I wrote a paper. It was very entrepreneurial. I created my own study abroad.

I created my own, and they counted as elective courses, but I had a great mentor and he saw the vision like, yes, I'm going to let you do that. I didn't have to sign up for the course online. I actually made it myself. And so doing that during college also taught me a lot about writing business plans because I was in the management department and that was our capstone course was write a business plan.

So I wrote a business plan called Unity Boutique. And I founded the business while I was in college doing my undergrad. And the impetus of Unity was, again, finding a niche in retail and doing things differently. I love fashion, I love art, and it's always been an expression for me of who I am.

: And what woman doesn't dream of having their own boutique someday? So I found a partner, found a business partner in my class and convinced her to go in with me. And instead of getting my master's degree, I took that money, which actually it would've cost a lot more for me to get a master's degree. I took a very small portion of that and started my business with my friend, Sarah.

And we went into a great partnership. She ended up leaving and I stayed and it was just personal. She was a little bit older than me. She'd gotten married.

She wanted to have kids. I was 22 when I started out. I was also coaching at the same time. So I would wake up at 5:00 AM, go do my coaching job, go to the store, work the store all day, and I nannied as well during that time.

: So I was just hustling. Very busy. Yeah. I was just busy and hustling and trying to find pockets of opportunity and things I loved.

So the store took up a lot of my time, but I had amazing opportunities at that point. We were very focused on eco-friendly and socially conscious fashion. This was before being green was a real thing. Mark Taylor : Around what year was this?

Megan Smith : 2006. Mark Taylor : Okay. So yeah. Megan Smith : And so I quickly kind of made a name for myself in the fashion space just as somebody doing something different.

It's not that I was some big business. People just started to notice, oh, this is a trend. Oh, she's getting attention for it. I was winning awards.

Oh, top green boutique, best eco-friendly clothing in Denver. And it was very exciting. And I was definitely a first mover in that. And being a small business, I realized very quickly that I was going to get eaten up with my good ideas.

So I stopped sharing my good ideas and I went back home and I wrote them all down. And no, really, I just felt that I realized in that moment there's something sacred about this. The ideas are good. They're big.

They mean something. Don't give them away for free. And I'm very generous. I love being generous.

: I'm just a generous person. You know me. My personality's very bubbly. I share a lot.

And so that goes against my grain to kind of be guarded and safeguard things. But it set me up, I would say nicely for my career in supply chain and logistics. In 2011, I was managing two stores in Denver and I got the opportunity to get involved in pallet management. So at the same time, as I had my two stores, I was also living in Jacksonville in Jax Beach and I started dabbling in supply chain and I had a great opportunity to run what they called Total Pallet Management, so TPM sites within bigger distribution centers.

So within, for example, the Publix facility, we had a small Total Pallet Management corner of the warehouse where all the Publix pallets would be pooled and we would take them into the corner and essentially sort them. And then anything that was good, we'd send back into Publix, anything that was bad, we'd send to the distribution center, the main distribution center for CHEP to get refurbished. : So I started a little bit small in that territory. I was doing kind of corner piecework and I was also in a water bottling facility.

So I covered South Georgia and kind of North Florida during that time. And I was also still managing the store. As you can imagine, you've got to deal with inventory. There were a lot of things happening actually during that time in retail, and it was kind of the emergence of e-commerce.

So being as it were and the mission of my store, I carried a lot of up and coming lines. I carried a lot of entrepreneurial brands. And so I fell into some really cool relationships with people from TOMS Shoes, Threads 4 Thought, pretty much anything that you're going to find in Whole Foods now, I carried back in the day. We would do the TOMS Shoes painting parties.

And I mean, it was just so much fun. : We'd have fashion shows and I got to curate all of the art of my life. I left that behind for sure when I entered pallet management. It was a little bit less glamorous, but it paid better.

So you do what you have to do. : As you age, your priorities change. And I just kind of realized the boutique business is not going to take me where I want to go. So I had my first child in 2013, closed the stores briefly after that, and just essentially went all in on supply chain and grew the pallet business from three small little TPMs to a pretty sizable national network of full end-to-end pallet management.

So I went from just sorting pallets to then building new pallets and seeing their life through the entire supply chain. A pallet can live for 20 years. So we were an integral part of keeping the pallets healthy, keeping them fresh, and especially for clients like P&G, Unilever, some of the big players in retail, they live on those pallets. And so we were kind of a subsidiary working with those people as well.

So it was a great way to cut my teeth on the industry. : And yeah, that's how I got my start here. Mark Taylor : And so this is fascinating because what were some of the indicators that you really had to be paying attention to as you were manufacturing pallets? What were the considerations of how did you grade pallets and could they be sent back?

Megan Smith : Of course. Yeah. Well, there are pretty much three types of pallets when you're sorting them, A, B, and C. And A is A-okay.

B is bad. C is cool. That's how I remembered it. But the bad pallets, a B pallet was a bad pallet.

And essentially that meant that it was missing a board. We had to make a major repair or it was dead. And you essentially would identify certain aspects of the pallet. So the inspector would take the pallet, lift it up, look underneath it.

Does it have all the lead boards? Does it have the bottom boards? Does it have the top boards? A lot of times lead boards are the ones to go first just because it's the first thing the forklift hits.

So that was kind of our most common repair. But then you've got : nails. And so are the nails there? Are there exposed nails?

Exposed nails also meant bad for retail. If you catch a nail on something, it doesn't turn out well. So we were looking for nails that were exposed, nails that were missing, pieces of wood that were broken. And then essentially the sorter would then send it down the line, "Hey, this one's A-okay, this one's cool."

A cool pallet meant it might need something, but it wasn't dead. A bad pallet was a bad pallet. So the sorter sorts it, sends down the line, and then the inspector's there to essentially identify visually how this pallet looks. Now, of course, I would love to lay some of the technology we've seen in the Shark Tank yesterday, there was a specific technology that I was like, "Man, that was my idea about 15 years ago."

But it's happening. : People are finally integrating technology into pallet management for sure. Mark Taylor : Well, so the interesting thing is what's at stake. I mean, I'm not asking what's at stake, but when you think about what's at stake with retail compliance and pallet chargebacks and stuff like that, it's like these are such - it's easy to overlook a pallet as being such an insignificant thing, but it's like you can't move goods without them.

And then it can be the subject of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars worth of chargebacks in some cases. If you don't get a good pallet. So it's like what you're actually doing is this mitigation, it's a cost mitigation thing and that's why what you were doing was really so important. Megan Smith : Yeah.

It's interesting, kind of the minutia that nobody notices. I mean, it's so important - Mark Taylor : Unless you're paying the bills. Megan Smith : Unless you're paying the bills, right? Or unless you're P&G or one of their clients like Driscoll's or they're concerned about the quality of their pallet.

For example, most of the new pallets that I manufactured in South Haven, they were for P&G and they required new pallets every time. That's a lot of pallets. It's a lot of pallets. That's a lot of new pallets.

So yeah, I would say it's very interesting, again, finding the niche in life and finding that kind of minutia that nobody else is thinking of. And I think that's one thing that's been exposed through just COVID in general and a lot of the disruptions that we've seen in the supply chain is that there is money in minutia, there is importance in minutia. And without, for example, taking care of the foundation like a pallet, our supply chains aren't going to thrive. : And so when you're talking about chargebacks, when you're talking about near misses, a lot of that stuff, that's the minutia that costs.

And people forget about that very easily. Being a 3PL, you know, retail chargebacks are something that so many new brands don't know anything about. Mark Taylor : They don't think about. Megan Smith : They don't think about it.

And maybe they've never been in retail, right? Maybe they started online - Mark Taylor : Until you get an all caps email that says, "Why am I getting charged $275 or $200 for this chargeback?" Megan Smith : Yep. Did you read the fine print?

Do you know the retail compliance? And I mean, again, that's a great vertical for any 3PL is to charge for retail compliance. Mark Taylor : Right. Megan Smith : So yeah, one of the other things that I do just love about pallets, and I would - it's funny because we listened to Jett McCandless from project44 and he said something that made me laugh because I used to say this all the time.

People would - again, back in the mid-2000s, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, people really didn't know what supply chain was. And so the way that I would describe what I did is I would say, "Do you see the pen that you're using?" Well, that pen came to you on a pallet and I make the pallets. Mark Taylor : Whether or not you know it.

Megan Smith : Whether or not you know it. And it's funny because then I started telling the story and then people started noticing and getting text messages, "Hey, I saw a blue pallet in somebody's backyard. Want me to go get it?" So then you start asset tracking and people are taking care of you behind your back.

But no, it's interesting because the pallets live everywhere. They touch pretty much everything, whether you're talking about the just standard block or a custom pallet like creating, all these things are very important and it lives in that minutia. It lives in that territory of, "Well, I didn't think about how I got it, just got here." Mark Taylor : Yep.

And it becomes a function where it's like, I think the way to describe it is what you were doing was you were doing a lot to cost mitigate and reduce friction. And because people want to say, "Oh, this brand is just trying to make money off of - " They're not making money elsewhere, so it's like they got to charge us $200. Well, I mean, if a pallet shows up and it's splintered and it gets all over their forklifts and their pallet jacks can't move it and it causes this and that.

Megan Smith : There's a lot of upstream. Mark Taylor : It eats up your forklift tires, which adds cost to your - I mean, it's like these customers and supply - well, these channels, because people doing chargebacks are usually the channel, they get the goods to the person, these channels are operating off of cents, I mean, like single percentage point margins, and every little thing that they can do is like, it's very well thought out. And it's like they're going to use that forklift as many hours as they possibly can, and they want that wheel to get as much as possible.

And if it's got to go over pallet chips, it's going to - Megan Smith : Yeah. And I think that that's something just as kind of a society we're learning, we all now know what Just-in-Time is, thanks to COVID. It's been a theory and a philosophy that's existed since the 1950s probably. I think that's around when it came out, but just Lean Management in general and Just-in-Time manufacturing, a lot of these things go back to that time period.

And it's interesting because out of necessity, you breed genius. And I think that we are kind of in that tipping point as a nation and a society, humans, as a species, because of AI and everything, we're just sort of at that tipping point where we can either take off and launch or not. And I think it's similar to that time when Lean Management came out and people are realizing like, wow, there are really efficient ways that we could be doing things and people are doing it better internationally.

: We're not the best a lot of times at what we do here. And it's because we have very fragmented industries and markets and it's very entrepreneurial, but that does mean that there's a lot of room for opportunity in the minutia because we don't think about it as much. Mark Taylor : Well, there's a yes and there too where it's like if you - one of the examples, and I mean, you and I knew this before, but I mean, it was brought up again yesterday, is our ports. They're some of the least efficient in the world.

And when you look at some of the bullet points of the collective bargaining, it's like, "Oh, you can't deploy automation." Like, what? Megan Smith : Right. How not?

Mark Taylor : Right. And I mean, and look, not to - it doesn't need total - Megan Smith : Well, again, we know that it goes back to that kind of - there are a lot of opportunities. There are pennies on the floor everywhere, and we're all trying to pick them all up at this point. People are realizing, oh man, we've been sloppy.

We've been doing things because we've been spoiled and we've had a lot of growth in our country and great things. And now we're at a place where we're like, oh dear, necessity's going to breed genius. I see a lot of craftsmen coming back. I see a lot of people getting back to work.

Mark Taylor : I think to your point, I mean, people are getting smarter about even these micro supply chains. And a great one is I stayed with some friends when we were at CSCMP in the DC area and my buddy's wife was like, "Oh yeah, I got this fire pit off of Buy Nothing." And I was like, "What's Buy Nothing?" And it's this Facebook group and it's geo - it's basically, it's located to, they pick an epicenter or it's like they geolocate you, you put in your address and they put you in a thing where it's like, you can only communicate with people that are a two mile radius from you.

Megan Smith : That's so cool. So you don't have to pay for anything? It's kind of like a barter or - Mark Taylor : Yeah. Well, it's not even barter.

It's just literally, just give it away. So in the case of the fire pit, it was like brand new $400 or whatever it was, had the nice little rocks in it. Anyway, we're sitting around this fire pit and she's like, "Yeah, I was on Buy Nothing and somebody said, 'Hey, fire pit, brand new, used it twice, no propane bottle. Whoever wants it, come pick it up.'"

And because it's not a heavy lift because it's only two miles away or less than - Megan Smith : Yeah, you don't need a Sprinter van to go get it. Mark Taylor : Yeah, exactly. And so figuring out these, I mean, and this wasn't - Megan Smith : Didn't exist. Mark Taylor : This didn't exist a long time ago and it's actually one of the positive uses of social media to kind of redistribute assets.

So it's like you're not having to take it to - firstly, the person who bought it doesn't have to do anything but get it to their front lawn and then somebody's going to come pick it up for free and then the thing actually gets used. Megan Smith : Yeah. And that goes back to we're breeding these genius environments because people are looking for solutions, right? They're like, "I don't want to go to a yard sale anymore."

Mark Taylor : I want fire in my backyard, but I don't want to pay $400 for a brand new one. Megan Smith : Yeah. And it's interesting because those opportunities exist now and a lot of it I really do think goes back to supply chain, goes back to COVID, goes back to scarcity. : We now know what it feels like to not be able to have everything when we want it.

And so people are becoming more conscious of, "Hey, wait, I don't necessarily need to go buy something new. I could restore the thing that I have." And again, we kind of chatted about this, but restoration is something that I'm realizing recently is just a very big part of my story. And I never intentionally tried to be somebody who's into restoration, but throughout my life I've found that I've been restoring things a lot.

And I think that that's kind of where we are as a nation too, is just in a point of restoration. We have so many amazing assets, so many beautiful homes that are uninhabited, great land that's not being used, natural resources that we've never tapped into. And maybe we won't have to, who knows? But there's a lot on the table here and the supply chains have proven to us that there's value in it.

: And I think that that's, for me, one of the most profound things that's come out of the last five years. Obviously we watched e-commerce and all these balloons happen, the residential real estate market took off and now it's like there's this massive contraction. So yeah, I think out of that, that necessity is breeding localized supply chains in and of itself. And we heard this also, but the supply chains are becoming more local and it is a function of people want to work together and it's easier.

Mark Taylor : And more diverse. Because I mean, the sites used to be eBay, but now you've got Poshmark and The RealReal and some of these sites where it's like, oh man, that pair of pants that it's like I love and they don't make them anymore. And you look at them and it could have been a $200 pair of pants and somebody's selling it for 35 bucks. Megan Smith : That's funny that you brought up Poshmark.

I don't know if you know that I have a Poshmark boutique, but it came out of - Mark Taylor : Not surprised. Megan Smith : Yeah, it came out of my boutique. So I had leftover inventory. I didn't end up selling the business.

I just kind of closed it up and I wasn't in a space like I just had a baby and I was like, I'm not - my dad's like, "Aren't you going to sell that? Aren't you going to do something with it?" I'm like, "I'm just going to store this stuff for now. I'm too busy and I'm too overwhelmed to think about it."

: And so when Poshmark came out, I was like, "Oh, I've got all this inventory." I had all kinds of stuff that never sold. So that's actually how I founded my Poshmark boutique and I have 150,000 followers. I don't even get on.

It's not even open right now. I'm not selling on it, but I just keep getting more followers. And it's funny, going back to that whole restoration thing, : and back to just the ethos of who I am, I try to be very intentional and I try to get the maximum life out of the things that I do buy. And again, I try to be intentional.

And so it's interesting because I started the Poshmark boutique just to get rid of the inventory and I ended up finding a great resource for vintage and gently loved clothing that was already a part of my style. That's already what I did. My original business plan was actually called Re, R-E, and it was supposed to be a resale clothing boutique and I could change the name whenever I want - refurbish, restoration. So the whole idea was Re, and then we would just change it up and recycle, whatever.

I mean, everyone's using it now. I see it on the front of a lot of businesses, but - Mark Taylor : You're so much more polished than I am, I mean, which is not surprising, of course, but your whole, what you just said, "gently loved" and I'm like, "used." It's just used. Megan Smith : Well, I'm a reseller, so I can't say used.

It's gently loved. And NWOT, New Without Tags. No, but it's interesting. I just keep finding these little pockets of random success in doing things genuinely, I guess.

And that's kind of what that took me to your comments about Poshmark. It's something I don't advertise. I've never tried. It's just, I have a very large following on there and it's kind of fun to watch take place because it's like, wow, we live in a world where automation, robotics, all of these things are becoming standardized.

But what I find is that I'm very successful when I'm not standard. I'm very successful when I take the standardization out of things and people can genuinely then get to know me as a person. And I think that that's what I found on Poshmark is that people love my style, and so that's why they're following me. : They're not following me because I'm slanging goods for $5 a piece.

They're following me because they care. Mark Taylor : I just had a really kind of an interesting - well - Megan Smith : Full circle. Mark Taylor : I mean, it was my idea. So of course I think it was interesting, but no, I just had this kind of epiphany where it's like, as we're at this conference and there are all these AI solutions, AI, it's going to drive customer this and customer that.

There's a whole other side of the AI thing where it's all geared towards making the consumer's life better or mine and yours as an individual life better. And I just had this thought where I was like, wait a minute, there's going to be somebody who figures out they're going to tie it into their Amazon purchases, their Target, their Nordstrom, whatever it is, and that AI is going to collect everything that you did and you can rate your clothing or whatever it is, and then it's going to alert you when the used stuff comes out.

And so all of this is basically - Megan Smith : I mean, it kind of already is. Yes. If you go on Poshmark, they are already embedded with AI. And so it used to be that I would have to take all the pictures, it would take me forever.

And I didn't post a lot of stuff because it was just cumbersome, but now I take a picture and it's all there. Mark Taylor : But think of it also from the perspective of the buyer though, Nordstrom does not want the buyer to know that that blouse they love is coming up for sale, that kind of a thing. But that's going to be where it's like you're just going to see costs come out and people are - I don't mind somebody got a pair of jeans and they don't fit right, but they fit me perfect.

Oh yeah, I can wash them. Megan Smith : And again, I think people are becoming more - I mean, our perspectives are changing. I think just culturally, there's such a huge shift generationally. We're totally different than we were before.

And it goes back to that, I mean, I just think egos are a little bit less big than they used to be. I think just the idea that, "Oh my gosh, I'm wearing something used." This top that I'm wearing is vintage from the 1980s and I got it on Poshmark. So I think people are genuinely more intrigued with unique creativity and they're finding it places like, "Oh, you didn't want that?

I'll take it." Whereas before it was kind of looked down on, you're wearing something that's used, that's disgusting. Mark Taylor : Well, I've never thought of it quite like that. Megan Smith : Oh, I get that all the time.

Mark Taylor : It does not surprise me. If you look at Gen Z - there are two big things I've noticed. One is alcohol consumption. And that's permeated up the chain to older generations too.

I mean, I know so few of my friends that drink even 10% what they used to. And now it's only special occasions and it's one glass of wine maybe. Megan Smith : You see that trickling down into the younger generation too. Less of them drink at all.

Mark Taylor : I feel like they're leading that trend. Megan Smith : Yeah, for sure. Mark Taylor : Yeah, I think. And then the second thing - it went from being so excited to get a Louis Vuitton bag or some kind of designer when you're, I guess it's in high school, it's like, oh, it's a Michael Kors bag.

Whatever it was. There was this desire for people in my peer group to get nice designer things. And now in Gen Z, they celebrate dupes, like duplicates. They celebrate which one looks the exact same, but I paid $11 for it.

Megan Smith : Yeah. No, it's interesting. I mean, I think we're also just seeing that in the supply chain too, the amount of change and demand and whether we're talking about obviously the explosion of e-commerce and all these things, but it also has - and globalization. It has opened us up to more products than we've ever seen, different types.

I mean, it's changing because of the tariffs, right? We're seeing a big contraction in terms of somebody at the conference said, "Oh, my wife went to the store and she didn't want anything." Mark Taylor : Or his mom. His mom did an annual trip to Target to buy Christmas gifts from Ireland.

Megan Smith : Yes. Mark Taylor : And she came this year and was like, "There's nothing on the shelf that's interesting." Megan Smith : Yeah, this is all boring. And yeah, I mean, I think it goes to that sort of like we're changing as a species.

I think, again, I was talking about this with somebody yesterday. I remember when you could smoke cigarettes at the bar in college and I would go home and smell horrible afterwards. Mark Taylor : I remember that too. Megan Smith : And now you're like, if I smell somebody smoking, I kind of get that - where is that?

Who's doing that? And before it was like, who's not? You're not. You're weird.

And so it's kind of like we're seeing that change culturally. You were talking about alcohol consumption and it's like, so we got rid of the cigarettes, less people smoking cigarettes, maybe vaping now, but then we're on to the booze is the next thing. But I think people, I mean, longevity is so important now and people are realizing that there's opportunity in longevity. Mark Taylor : Societally, yeah, we are definitely shifting our focus.

So I'm enjoying this immensely, but I do want - there are a couple things that I really think are interesting and that unfortunately it takes us back a little bit back from creativity, but back into minutia. So after the pallet business, you started purchasing some companies and you've got some interesting perspectives and one of those perspectives has to do with - tell me about your most recent purchase and then I'm most excited, especially for listeners to conceptualize kind of what you're working on.

Megan Smith : Sure. Well, thank you for asking. Again, I don't tend to focus on selling anything. I try to be just very genuine, so I forget that I'm actually doing something new.

And yes, I am doing something new. So thank you for reminding me. Yeah. For about 15 years, I was heavily involved in the third-party logistics space, most importantly, warehousing and distribution.

And so outside of my pallet work, I turned a company from just being a basic kind of retail distributor to omnichannel. And that's a very exciting story and time. Mark Taylor : And a heavy lift. Megan Smith : And a heavy lift.

Yeah, it was, especially during COVID. We had the pallet plants and we were standing up this omnichannel operation as well. And so essentially in order to grow that side of the business, we grew through acquisition. We made a string of acquisitions across the country and we grew our network that way.

: So I learned a lot through those acquisitions, met my business partner in one of those acquisitions, and I just knew that at some point I needed to do something else entrepreneurial for myself. Mark Taylor : Got the itch. Megan Smith : Yeah, I got the itch. I don't know what they call it, the seven-year itch.

It was about that time where I was like, "Okay, I think I need to try something new." And again, go back to sovereignty. I've always tried to be my own person. And so whether that is my career or my family, I felt at this point, okay, I have three kids, it's time for me to go do something for us.

And I knew that I wanted to be in supply chain. I went to Michigan State, have my master's in supply chain. It's what I spent most of my career doing and I love it. I'm really good at it.

I'm a great operator and I'm good at finding opportunities in minutia and fixing things. So it's like, well, what am I going to do? I'm not going to do warehousing. I can't get into the 3PL space.

: I'm not going to do pallets. So I started looking at the moving and storage industry and I found a lot of opportunity, low-hanging fruit, not a lot of technology, antiquated processes, antiquated programs, a lot of antiquated brands. Many of them have gone bankrupt. So it's not exactly something that people are like, "Oh wow, that's an emerging market."

But I see that it's a market where you could do things a lot better. And so I, in September of 2024, acquired a company in Naples, Florida. So I founded Packgistics. Pack is the next gen of what I'm doing - Mark Taylor : And - by the way, you are the queen of figuring out URLs and - Megan Smith : Thank you.

Mark Taylor : You told me a half dozen of them and I'm like, all right, she has business ideas and then you go, "Oh, that'd be a great website." Megan Smith : Yes, it's true. I do have a ridiculous amount of URLs that I own and it's become a hobby. And I actually lost one of them recently and then I went back to buy it and it was purchased by someone.

I was very angry about that. But in either case, it's like you win some, you lose some. And in this case, I had bought the Packgistics website about 10 years ago and I just had the idea. I was like, "Okay, pack, packing, pack."

I'm running it through my head and then looking for available URLs. And I was like, "Pack and then just drop the 'lo' from logistics, just make gistics." So it is a bit of a tongue tie. I see people like, "Pack - what is this?

Giftics?" So if you're not in the industry, I see that you don't understand what it means. Mark Taylor : Fair enough. Megan Smith : But if you are, then it rolls right off the tongue.

And ultimately, I would like to go by Pack, not really Packgistics. But I took that company and bought a 45-year moving and storage business called Ray the Mover and everyone also loves that name. I immediately thought I was going to change it to Pack and they're like, "We like Ray." Mark Taylor : I still like Meg the Mover.

Megan Smith : Oh, right? Well, I told you I could just change my name to Ray and then just - why change the business when I could just change my name? But no, it's a 45-year moving and storage business. Really nice foundation.

We're an agent of North American Van Lines and CRST, so we're heavily focused on household goods moves, high end. Again, we're in Naples. So learned pretty quickly that I could also stand up a commercial side of the business. And so that's where the real action is right now.

And that's where I'm really out just trying to figure my next move. And it's been a little bit - I appreciate that. It seems like I have all my shit together, but sometimes I don't. And I've been learning as I've been going with this one for sure.

Mark Taylor : Anybody who's done entrepreneurship knows. It's evolving. Megan Smith : Yeah. So it's always evolving.

So we've kind of figured out that one of the pain points in my last role was warehouse moves and most importantly, inventory moves. And how do you find the confluence of that without downtime, especially when you're moving and 3PLs move a lot. You flex, you grow, you contract. And so I've learned the hard way that it can be very disruptive to move a warehouse and especially for the clients.

And ultimately that's the only thing that matters is what does the client need? What's the client want? And so I've realized through this whole process that I can use the same equipment, the same people to do warehouse decommissioning, warehouse commissioning, corporate relocation, and what we call FF&E - furniture, fixtures, and equipment - and then installations. So I'll give you an example.

Recently, I moved to Naples in July, and I met a friend who runs the Naples Tech Meetup. : His name's Sebastian. He's awesome. So at the Naples Tech Meetup, I met a guy named Patrick.

Patrick was telling me all about his business. There's a lot of entrepreneurs at this meetup. And so he was telling me about his business and it's storage boxes, but they're smart boxes. I'm like, okay.

And then he says, oh, you lived in Colorado. All of my boxes are out at the resorts. It's just like a storage box that if you go to any kind of event, you can put your bag in, but these are smart. They've got technology inside of them.

So they're more expensive. And essentially the hardship that he's facing is that the boxes are not cheap. He has to get them in from overseas. When they land in Miami, they're perfect.

They're beautiful. But as he starts to ship them across the country, they get beat up everywhere. : And so he's telling me the story and I'm thinking to myself, well, I have padded vans and I've got movers and I think this is a really nice use case. Let's do this.

Here's my card. And I didn't really think much of it, but sure enough, we were in Hard Rock Stadium two days ago decommissioning their boxes. So I see the need. I see that there's a need for it.

Mark Taylor : Well, that's an individual brand too. Megan Smith : Yep. Mark Taylor : Yeah. But back to your 3PL point, I mean, it's like the thing you want to talk about logistics, it's like logistics squared because you're figuring out, as we were talking about the other day, you're figuring out, okay, how do I switch a customer over that has maybe a thousand orders a day and not disrupt them and maintain all of my service level agreements?

Megan Smith : Yep. Yeah. And that's the goal. And it's nearly impossible, especially for a regular moving company.

Mark Taylor : And oh, by the way, all the extra labor that you're about to have to incur to split the inventory between locations and make sure it's like you do it, da da da da da. The customer's not going to pay for it. Megan Smith : Right. Yeah, they're not.

They really shouldn't have to if you're moving. Of course not. Yeah, I totally get that on both sides. And that's also the thing, the customer shouldn't have to pay for it and they shouldn't feel the burn.

If the 3PL's moving, that's not their fault. And so that's kind of where we, again, saw that opportunity. Mark Taylor : And I think it's such a huge opportunity because it is my job to move goods, not move myself. Megan Smith : Exactly.

Mark Taylor : Yeah. Megan Smith : And so that's kind of where, again, because of the experience that my partners and I have, because they both came from 3PL as well, we know the pain. We know we've been beat up for it. We've gone to war with people over these things before, internally, externally.

It's tough. It's never an easy move. And that's where we really were like, okay, we speak this language, we know TMS, we know WMS, we know YMS. We know all of these things.

We understand how it's all connected. We can make this a real service offering that truly, I mean, the end-to-end piece of it, I don't see it existing, not just tearing things down and putting them back up. I'm talking asset management, inventory tracking, order fulfillment while you're moving. Mark Taylor : Yep.

And I think I like it because you have such a clear metric of did we do our job or not? It's like, well, the only thing that the customer should feel - they shouldn't feel anything. They shouldn't feel any pain. The only reason they know that you moved is because you send them a notice of address change to start shipping their new product into the new facility.

Megan Smith : Yeah, exactly. Mark Taylor : And then it's just normal. Megan Smith : And I think that would be the goal, right? The customer doesn't feel anything.

The customer is not, "Oh, that was so painful. I never want to do that again." The customer's saying to themselves, "Oh, you moved?" Good to know.

They're not having to really - and right now in the current state, at least in my experience, it's very disruptive. It's, "Hey, we're moving. There might be some downtime." You're trying to sell it as if there's not going to be any disruption to the supply chain and everybody knows there's going to be.

So yeah, I mean, also just talking about clients and partners and the importance of having the right partners and having the right brands in your warehouse and being able to have those conversations is really important. And I see that also just in the space in general. It's becoming more transparent out of necessity, but also just because people are more honest these days. Mark Taylor : So it's a very nice, put a bow on top of it.

I love that. I love the way you just closed that up. I do want to ask, before we break, I know you've got a very - Megan Smith : I'm going to play tennis with Yvonne Lindell. Mark Taylor : Whoa.

Going to be a fun time. Megan Smith : Wish you were coming. Mark Taylor : So I have - Megan Smith : You're dressed for it. Let's go.

Mark Taylor : No, no, no. I have patella instability, and so it means my kneecaps dislocate. Megan Smith : Oh my gosh. Mark Taylor : And this childhood thing - Megan Smith : Only slightly terrifying.

So that's why you're in the gym all the time, just lifting? Mark Taylor : And a little painful. And I don't do cutting sports. Megan Smith : Yeah.

I can imagine. Mark Taylor : Quick directional changes are not preferred by my knees. Megan Smith : Yeah, no, I get that. It sounds like you should swim.

Mark Taylor : I love swimming. I like cycling. I like swimming. I like lifting weights.

Megan Smith : And mountain biking? How is mountain biking good for your knees? Mark Taylor : Oh, I mean, you're still just moving your legs on a single plane. Megan Smith : True.

But then if you fall - Mark Taylor : It's fine. I got enough meat on the bones. It's like padding. Megan Smith : Just toss it back in.

Mark Taylor : But last kind of question to wrap it up. You had such a zeal for entrepreneurship your entire life. You've got multiple, multiple examples of it. What do you think's been the biggest change since that little girl was like, "I like making money.

I like sovereignty and that's why I'm going to do this" to now? Megan Smith : Wow, that's a very profound question. And I wish I had Googled it before I got here now. Yeah.

I mean, a lot has changed, right? I became a mother. That changes everything. Your priorities just completely shift.

And now everything I do is for my kids. Everything I do is to give them the things that I didn't have, not necessarily financially, but to be there for them. I'm very, very dedicated and committed to them. So that's changed my entire life.

Whether it's we really don't have babysitters, we're pretty involved. My kids don't have smartphones, so they're always around. I'm always entertaining. But it's changed me in a great way that I'm not selfish anymore.

I'm not doing this for myself. I'm selfless and everything I'm doing is for them. And not just to teach them something, but because I love them. And so I would say the biggest thing that has changed has been my focus on family and not myself.

: And that's been hard. When you're an entrepreneur and I was a successful athlete, I was a singer, I was very accomplished as a child, and I was used to thinking about only myself. And it has taken me a shift to definitely - and not necessarily like it was unnatural for me to be a mom and, oh yeah. But I mean a shift of how do I do things?

: How do I manage my time? How do I run my business? And so I would say that the biggest thing really is that having kids and being completely humbled by that experience, it teaches you something that you don't learn from anywhere else in life. And I feel very, very blessed to have had the opportunity.

Mark Taylor : That's awesome. Thank you. Well, last, I mean, I'll forget this and I don't do it now. How do people keep in touch with you?

How do people keep track with what you're doing? Megan Smith : Please follow me. You can follow me on LinkedIn. I don't post a lot of personal stuff anywhere.

Again, go to my Poshmark. It's Where Is Smith and you'll find Where Is Smith all over the internet because I bought the domain, but it doesn't mean anything. I never built a brand off of it, but that's kind of my personal brand. Mark Taylor : Is it W-E-A-R?

Megan Smith : No, that would've been cute though. Mark Taylor : Oh, those are so good. Megan Smith : I just bought Thrift Me Down. I bought the website Thrift Me Down.

That one's cool too. But no, it's where? Where are you? Where Is Smith?

Because I used to travel so much and people would always say, "Where are you?" And also I didn't want people to know I was a woman. So this is an interesting tidbit about my whole life is that I don't like to be gendered right away. And Megan is a very feminine name, but Smith, now that could be a first name and it tends to be a man's first name if it is a first name.

So my email address is smith@packgistics.com. And it is a byproduct of I didn't want anyone to know what my next move was, but now we're here and I've already told everyone about it. So - Mark Taylor : P-A-C-K or P-A-K?

P-A-C-K. Okay. Packgistics.com.

Megan Smith : You can also find me at megan@raythemover.com. Mark Taylor : Love that. And then - LinkedIn.

Megan Smith : LinkedIn. Yeah. Mark Taylor : Well, thank you for sitting down with me. This was a lot of fun.

Megan Smith : Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. Mark Taylor : The funny thing is I think we've got another hour worth of conversation. Megan Smith : I know. I feel bad that we're cutting it now.

I was like, oh man, we could have kept talking, but thank you for having me seriously. And it's been wonderful spending time with you at The Breakers. Mark Taylor : Likewise. All right.

Everybody, thank you.