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CONNECTIONS 2CONTRACTS

WBE2WBE Collaboration Leads to Home Depot Contract

by Julie Lilliston

top, Sue Watkins below, Amanda Dyer

“I never would have met Amanda and get this opporutinity with Home Depot if I had not attended the Meet Her in the Marketplace virtual event.

At the onset of the pandemic, Sue Watkins, CEO and President, Telecom Transport Services based in Birmingham, Alabama, had expanded its commercial warehouse from 7,000 to 20,000 square feet. The company provides specialized transportation and commercial storage solutions across the Southeast for AT&T, Battery Solutions, General Electric, VanKirk Electric, KGPCo and Motion Industries, among others. Telecom Transport needed to find ways to get the word out to clients and prospects about their increased capacity as the world was heading towards lockdown. “We like to say in trucking, when the world shut down, we kept moving,” says Watkins. “And that’s what WBEC South did during the pandemic and I’m grateful for that.” During that time, Watkins attended the “Meet Her in the Marketplace” virtual event hosted by WBEC South and connected with another certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE), Amanda Dyer, President and Creative Director, Landslide Creative in Nashville. Landslide provides website design and development for missiondriven organizations. Watkins says, “We began with a consultation and meeting her team. Then they came up with a marketing strategy for SEO. I look at this partnership as an investment in my business to create more opportunities.” Watkins likes partnering with another woman-owned business, as a “woman in trucking,” she’s usually on an island.

Watkins began her trucking career nearly 30 years ago, succeeding her late father at the helm of a trucking line founded by her grandfather. She accelerated the growth of Telecom Transport by applying the same business principles as her predecessors in recognizing agility, innovation and adaptation are critical tools in the rapidly evolving transportation marketplace. As Landslide Creative and Telecom Transport began to build the brand online, Watkins learned how important it is to be at the top of the page in search results. The Landslide team did an initial audit and identified opportunities for improvement. The two companies collaborated over the course of several months to continually refine SEO for Telecom Transport, making steady progress. They adjusted key words on the website to influence their ranking in search options. Dyer says, “Telecom Transport is a great partner! Sue provides insight about her business and goals and trusts our team’s expertise and recommendations.” Watkins’ investment proved to be profitable when in the Fall of 2021, she was unexpectedly contacted by the Home Depot Regional Operational Manager, Trey Thomason. Home Depot is a national corporate partner with WBENC. Thomason reached out to learn more about the company after a Google search for a partner in the Birmingham region yielded WBENC certified Telecom Transport. Thomason reviewed their capabilities, toured the warehouse, and Telecom Transport earned a contract to store pre-construction materials through a partnership with CDS Logistics. They receive new pre-fab construction materials, inspect products, create daily inventory and auditing reports, and build custom racking systems for products to be pulled, protected and loaded. Telecom Transport started delivering to construction sites and their opportunity with Home Depot has expanded. “We couldn’t be more pleased. Being certified is a wonderful investment. Building a team behind me to do all that we’ve been able to achieve with Amanda’s team would have cost tens of thousands of dollars.”

Watkins shares the following advice with WBEs, “I tell women business owners to get involved with their RPO. I never would have met Amanda and get this opportunity with Home Depot if I had not attended the Meet Her in the Marketplace virtual event.” WE