Kalei Poteat

Kalei Poteat 👑 I build AI revenue systems for founders.
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More AI on a broken revenue motion doesn't fix the mess.It makes the mess move faster.This is why so many founders are q...
07/24/2026

More AI on a broken revenue motion doesn't fix the mess.

It makes the mess move faster.

This is why so many founders are quietly disappointed with their AI spend. Not because the tools are bad. Because they got layered onto a process that was never governed in the first place.

More output to review. More drafts to approve. More things running that somebody still has to watch.

The tools worked. The business just got busier.

Here's the part nobody says out loud.

AI without judgment isn't leverage. It's risk with good posture. It will send ten thousand messages without once asking whether it should, and the damage lands on your domain and your name.

The rule that changes it is simple.

AI suggests. Humans decide.

Research, drafting, classification, routing, next-step recommendations. Let it carry all of that. But approval, tone, timing, and anything touching a relationship stays with a person.

Speed without judgment isn't scale. It's just faster damage.

What's the worst thing you've seen an automated system do on autopilot?

07/08/2026

Generic Logistics Content Doesn't Win Customers

Stock photos.
Corporate jargon.
"We're committed to excellence."

Nobody remembers that.

Tell stories.
Show your team solving problems.
Share what actually happens behind the scenes.

People buy from people they trust.

The tool didn't fit. You bent.That's the part nobody names when we argue off-the-shelf vs custom.We tell ourselves we're...
06/18/2026

The tool didn't fit. You bent.

That's the part nobody names when we argue off-the-shelf vs custom.

We tell ourselves we're "configuring." Adopting best practices. Learning the platform. Six months in, our hiring pipeline looks suspiciously like the CRM's default stages. Our follow-up cadence runs on whatever the automation suggested. Our reporting shows what the dashboard wanted to show, not what we actually needed to see.

We didn't customize the software.

The software customized us.

The real question was never which to buy. It's whose logic governs the business.

Off-the-shelf isn't bad. It's fast, tested, supported, and often the right call. But it imports someone else's assumptions into your company. Their definition of a lead. Their model of what a "stage" means. Their idea of what should be tracked, escalated, ignored.

If those assumptions match yours, you bought leverage.

If they don't, you didn't buy software. You bought a slow rewrite of how your business thinks.

Custom isn't automatically the answer either. Custom built on confused logic just scales the confusion. You end up with an expensive monument to your current bottleneck.

So before the buy-vs-build debate, ask three things:

→ Do we know our operating logic clearly enough to tell whether the tool encodes it or replaces it?
→ When the tool's defaults disagree with our judgment, who wins?
→ If we ripped this tool out tomorrow, would the process survive, or would the company forget how it operates?

That last one is the test.

If the company would forget, we don't own a tool. The tool owns a piece of how we run.

Build the logic first. Then decide what deserves to be bought and what deserves to be built.

What's one workflow in your business that exists purely because the software said so? Curious where this one lands. 👇

I went from moving loads to designing systems. Same skill.People hear "CDL to control layer" and assume it's a career ch...
06/18/2026

I went from moving loads to designing systems. Same skill.

People hear "CDL to control layer" and assume it's a career change story. A glow-up. The blue-collar kid who found tech.

It's not that.

When you drive commercial, you're not really steering. You're calculating where the weight sits, what shifts when you brake, and what gets destroyed if the load comes loose at 65 on a downgrade.

Every decision is a load question.

→ Where does the weight live.
→ What happens when it moves.
→ Who owns the consequence when something breaks.

I do the same job now. The truck is a business. The load is the founder's judgment. The road is whatever Tuesday throws at the team when nobody has time to think.

A bad operator hopes nothing shifts. A good one builds the load so shifting doesn't matter.

Infrastructure works the same way. Most founders are quietly hoping their team doesn't drop something heavy. The actual work is making sure that even when someone does, the truck stays on the road and nobody dies.

The hands changed. The thinking didn't.

So here's what I'm curious about... what was the skill from an earlier chapter of your life that turned out to be the real job all along? Drop it in the comments if you've ever had that moment where you realized you weren't switching careers, you were finally naming the thing you'd been doing the whole time.

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05/29/2026

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05/27/2026

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Rail Traffic Down 7% – Here’s What That MeansThe last full week of 2025 came in soft for U.S. rail.According to the AAR,...
12/30/2025

Rail Traffic Down 7% – Here’s What That Means

The last full week of 2025 came in soft for U.S. rail.

According to the AAR, total volume hit 487,138 carloads and intermodal units. That’s a 7% drop compared to the same time last year.

Let’s break it down:

Carloads: Down 10.5%

Intermodal: Down 4.3%

Coal: Down 15.7%

Chemicals & Forest Products: Also down hard

Grain: One of the few bright spots, up 5.9%

Year-to-date still shows modest growth — rail is up around 1.5% overall. But week-by-week, momentum is slowing.

If you're in logistics or freight brokerage, this isn't just another stat drop. It's a signal.

Rail slowing down means more pressure on OTR, ports, and last-mile. Capacity shifts. Margin pressure increases. And planning becomes everything.

Key takeaway:
If rail volume's getting cut, your margin for error is, too.

Plan accordingly. Diversify your routing. And stop assuming next week will look like last week.

– Kalei

P.S. The fastest way to lose control is to rely on a system you don’t track. Want visibility, systems, and automation that adapts in real time? You know where to find us.

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