Location: 3540 N. 126th St., Brookfield
Website: www.efreightcourier.com
Year Founded: 2006
Product or Service offered: Transportation company, same day expedited delivery. Courier/messenger service picking up and delivering anything, anywhere, anytime.
Projected 2010 Revenue: $1.5 million
President and CEO: Patrick Engeleiter
Other key leadership members: Mike Wood, vice president, Camina Kopp, office manager, Nick Gruzynski, general manager of the north office, Jack Hornak, senior vice president; Paul Horn, shift manager; Rich Mcnillis, shift manager; Mike Labinski, shift manager; Sheila Rodenberg, accounting manager
Target Clientele: Medical industry, hospitals and clinics; banking industry, law firms, manufacturing, distribution, printing companies, supply companies, any company that needs to have product picked up or delivered.
Business Organization Memberships: MMAC, West Bend Chamber of Commerce, WI Association of Blood Banks, ECA-Express Courier Association, MCAA-Courier Association of America, Fox Valley Traffic Club.
What has fueled your company’s growth?
“Proactive communication; we focus on proactive communication rather than reactive. Solid communication with our customers and employees has been invaluable. Everyone wants to be informed, informed customers and employee’s increases productivity and satisfaction with our customers. Referrals from current customers. We strongly believe in first impressions, customers and prospective customers form an impression on you and your organization in the first four seconds of meeting. My drivers know how important that first delivery and that first encounter is with new customers. We stress the importance of that first meeting and first delivery. By taking good care of our current customer base we have been able to increase our business naturally through delivering to companies currently not using us. Every time we do a delivery to a company they become a potential customer, our focus is on impressing them and leaving them with a good feeling after they sign for their package.”
What has been the biggest obstacle to your company’s growth?
“The economy in general. A lot of companies have slowed down production. When the economy is slow we all feel it. The transportation field is tough and competitive, next time you are on the freeway look at the vehicles around you, many of the vehicles you see are delivery vehicles, vans, and trucks. To be successful in this business you have to separate yourself from your competition and the only way to do that is to be on time every time, have a good pricing scheme, professional drivers, and take care of your customers. One of our company mottos is ‘yes we can,’ we do not know the word no, it is not in the E-Freight vocabulary.”
Do you have any planned changes for your company in the coming months?
“Yes, we recently opened a branch office in Appleton. Opening the Appleton office has created more efficiency in our routes and on-demand business as we now have more vehicles in the northern part of the state. This has also allowed us to develop more economies of scale and in turn reduce the cost for my customers who have shipments going north and my northern WI customers who have deliveries going south to Milwaukee or Illinois. In addition to the new office we have started a green initiative called the E-Freight Eco Friendly Program where we are implementing Hybrid vehicles into our fleet, we have reduced the speed limits in our trucks and vans to 63 mph, we are changing the tires of the entire fleet to new fuel efficient tires that are reducing consumption by 3 to 5 percent. We also maintain a tire pressure program to ensure all tires are properly inflated. We are saving thousands of gallons of gas annually by implementing these new initiatives.”
Who are the business people, locally or nationally, whom you admire? What traits do those people exhibit that make you admire them?
“There are several locally I admire tremendously and try to emulate their business practices. I work closely with Chris Behling of the Milwaukee Blood Center and Eric Skogg of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin both men work with a high value put on business ethics, always doing the right thing. They are the kind of managers you will see in the warehouse sweeping at 6 a.m., they have taught me the importance of every job in an operation and that you never ask an employee to do a job you would not do yourself. They both exhibit extreme altruism to their employees and customers. The work the Milwaukee Blood Center and Children’s Hospital does in the community is amazing and seeing how hard these guys work every day makes me want to work harder and be a better person. There are two more giants in the community I admire, John Torinus of Serigraph who is one of the founders of Biz Starts Milwaukee, John will meet with any entrepreneur with an idea to start a business and help you with your business plan and unselfishly give his valuable time. Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler is another amazing person who should be an inspiration to all young girls in Wisconsin that with hard work, completing your education, and striving to help your community in any way you can you can become anything you want and make it all the way to the Supreme Court.”
What is the outlook for the business conditions of your industry over the next several months?
“Positive, as the economy climbs out the recession the transportation industry follows along. The expedited delivery market will always be there. E-Freight has a medical specialty that separates us from our competition and shows our potential customers that if we can handle life and death deliveries on a daily basis we can definitely get your package across town or your 10 boxes to Green Bay by noon.”
What has been your company’s key strategy for rising out of the recession?
“To create more efficiency with our deliveries. By opening the new office we have created more density in our vehicles which in turn creates economies of scale which allows me to give my customers better pricing. Our E-Freight Eco friendly green initiative has saved us tremendously in fuel expenses, over the long term as we continue to implement more green initiatives we will cut our fuel cost which keeps our overall expenses down and allows us to give very competitive pricing to our customers. We have not raised our rates in over two years and have no plan to do so in the foreseeable future. Happy customer’s ship, happy employees deliver with a smile, good management and pro-active communication will keep E-Freight Courier in position to become the number one same day delivery company in Wisconsin.”
