Candor Expedite’s story is a familiar one in North Texas: a company hightailed it for the region from out-of-state, seeking to take advantage of its central location, business friendliness, and access to quality employees.
While Candor’s timing couldn’t have been less auspicious — the transportation brokerage business relocated to Plano in October 2019, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — it proved to be an opportunity to learn and grow in its new home.
“At first, [the pandemic lockdowns] killed us because everything stopped,” said founder and CEO Nicole Glenn in an interview with The Dallas Express.
“You just never know what direction something could go. You have to always have that plan for a rainy day and what you can do to always keep yourself moving forward,” she added.
The pandemic taught Glenn and the company, which works with a variety of major brands across the automobile, medical, food, and aerospace industries, to “always expect the unexpected.”
While some of the obstacles brought on by the pandemic were difficult to overcome, Glenn said using that time to solidify relationships created new and promising opportunities.
According to Glenn, what helped the company survive was making shipments to hospitals with products like hand sanitizers and breathing machines to support respiratory issues.
Some companies lost their focus during the lockdowns, Glenn said, but she worked to develop a better understanding of her company, clients’ needs, and how to grow the business effectively.
“I like to say it changed everything in a good way because it brought more flexibility to the work plan,” Glenn told The Dallas Express. “It helped us understand how to scale our business during that time and how to be smart.”
Since exiting the pandemic, Candor has doubled its business year after year and continues to grow its services.
Candor’s revenue grew by approximately 250% from 2021 to 2022, according to Glenn. Despite 2023 being one of the “toughest freight years ever,” she said sales for the company are up 20% on the year.
“A lot of companies made a lot of money during that time, and they went, ‘I’m going to go buy a Maserati.’ We’re seeing what’s really happening in the trucking environment is people overspent to try to capitalize — and right now, with those major overhead expenses that they were paying at a premium, it’s crippling them,” she explained.
“That risk concept on what we were doing was definitely balanced and definitely looking toward the future. We utilize that to help us to spring forward when other companies are really struggling this year,” Glenn said.
She believes that the Dallas area will continue to grow and see more firms make the move, just like hers did.
Since relocating to Plano, Candor has doubled its staff, hired Lance Roberts as its new chief operating officer, and launched sales offices in Joliet, Illinois, and Kansas City, Kansas.
With Candor’s hiring of Roberts as COO in May, Glenn said the company now has an additional layer of needed support. Running the business started to become “a lot,” Glenn shared.
“You have a lot of people and you keep expanding. They want to hear your voice, they want to see you, and they want to feel heard and understood,” she said. “By bringing this person in, we’ve been able to do that alongside empowering our leaders to do that.”
“I see this as one of the main growth spots in the country, and it’s exciting to be a part of this side of things,” Glenn said.
She’s also been struck by the difference in the vibrancy of North Texas.
“I know this is going to sound so funny too, but when I’m up in Chicago, you look at the strip malls and a lot of them are vacant, closed. Here, I drive around and I’m like, ‘How do all of these businesses, big and small, survive and thrive in this place?’”
Glenn strives to differentiate her company from the competition with two main pillars: truth and transparency.
With a trusted carrier network and more than two decades of experience working in the industry, Glenn’s mission is to ensure Candor’s customers are “heroes” by delivering “creative, fast, effective, and sustainable solutions” for white glove shipments.
Glenn is a certified Women’s Business Enterprise National Council member, The Expedite Association of North America, Women in Trucking, and the Transportation Intermediaries Association. She is also one of the founders of the Ladies Leadership Coalition, a new podcast hosted by female business leaders to profile successful businesswomen.
