Every brand goes through it. Most handle it wrong. The ones that come out ahead aren’t the ones who fought hardest — they’re the ones who stayed objective.
They let frustration drive strategy. They threaten. They withhold payments. They call lawyers. They issue ultimatums. They make it personal. Every one of these moves costs money, burns relationships, and almost never produces the outcome they wanted.
They get objective fast. They separate the emotion from the problem. They bring in someone who has seen both sides of the relationship and can tell them honestly what’s reasonable, what isn’t, and what actually needs to change.
Here’s the problem with the word “terrible.” It’s one adjective trying to summarize dozens of managers, hundreds of workers, millions of decisions. That’s not analysis — that’s frustration. And frustration makes terrible strategy.
I’ve been on both sides of this table for 30 years. I’ve seen brands blow up relationships that were actually fixable. I’ve seen 3PLs lose clients they could have kept. The fights that escalate almost always do so because nobody brought in an outside perspective early enough.
Litigation is expensive, slow, and distracting. While you’re fighting in court, your business still needs to ship. Your customers don’t care about your lawsuit. The only people who benefit from a 3PL lawsuit are the lawyers.
Even if you win, you’ve spent months or years of leadership attention and legal fees on a fight that did nothing to grow your business. There is almost always a better path. The goal is to find it before someone files anything.
If you want to fix a problem, you have to describe it accurately. These words point to actual solutions.
Your 3PL is not what makes or breaks your business. Sales make or break your business. A brand with strong sales can survive a mediocre 3PL. Leaving costs real money — transition fees, duplicated overhead, and the inevitable downtime that comes from doing it wrong.
If you can fix the relationship instead of ending it, that is almost always the better outcome. My job is to help you figure out which one is actually true in your situation — and then execute on it.
Most 3PL disputes aren’t negligence or bad faith. They’re misalignment — between what’s being done, what’s being charged, and what’s being measured.
Kitting, stickering, gift wrapping all at a catch-all rate. Nobody knows what they’re paying per service. Nobody has incentive to be efficient.
Over-charging for low-effort services, under-charging for hard ones. The bill feels wrong because it is wrong — even if the total is defensible.
If you’re not measuring the right things, you won’t see improvement when it’s happening. Most brands have no SLA baseline at all.
Vague, unpriced returns create a black hole of cost and confusion. One of the most common sources of brand-3PL tension — and almost always preventable.
When brands stop investing in the relationship, performance slips. The 3PL feels it. Tensions rise. Both sides lose.
Both sides think they’re right. Both have evidence. Without someone who understands both sides objectively, it just escalates.
I come in without a side. I assess both parties objectively and tell both what’s reasonable. The goal isn’t excellence — it’s measurable improvement, week over week.
A free 30-minute call. Tell me what’s going on. I’ll tell you honestly what I think is happening — and whether it’s fixable.
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